_ BOOK I. THE SILENT PLACES
CHAPTER XVI. IN WHICH I BEGIN TO APPRECIATE THE VIRTUES OF THE CHASTE GODDESS
Assuredly never were the nostrils of mortal youth saluted with odour more inspiring and altogether more delectable than that which, wooing me from the drowsy arms of Morpheus, awoke me to growing consciousness of three several things, namely: light, movement and an extraordinarily poignant hunger.
Being awake, I firstly sniffed of this most appetising aroma, then lifting my head espied the girl busily combing her long hair before that small mirror I have mentioned. Now although the place was illumined by no more than a farthing dip, yet this was sufficient to wake many fugitive gleams and coppery lights in these long, rippling tresses, so that I lay for some time content to watch as she combed with smooth-sweeping motions of arm and wrist; but suddenly this arm grew still and I knew that she was viewing me through this silky curtain as it hung.
"Well?" she demanded suddenly, and putting back the hair from her face, stood looking down at me with her sombre, half-sullen gaze.
"Well?" said I, sitting up. And now, beholding her face framed thus in her glossy tresses, the wide, low brow, the deep eyes, the delicate modelling of nose and chin, the vivid lips, I realised that she was beautiful--beautiful as any fabled goddess or dryad; and what with this, the rippling splendour of her hair that covered her like a garment, the deep silence of this remote solitude, there rushed upon me a sense of such intimacy that I caught my breath and averted my gaze instinctively, awed by, yet delighting in, this sudden consciousness of her beauty.
"Well," said she again, "d'ye smell it?"
Starting, I glanced up, to find her busied with the comb again and immediately recognised that here was neither goddess nor dryad but merely a well-shaped, comely young woman with extraordinarily long hair; which fact established, my hunger (momentarily forgotten) returned with keener pang than ever.
"Are ye going to sleep again?" she enquired, finding me silent.
"No!"
"Well, don't you smell it?"
"Pray what is it?"
"A duck as I be roasting to our supper."
"Duck!" I repeated, mouth watering. "I have breathed its enticement ever since I awoke."
"Wi' plenty o' sage and onion, a new loaf, and cheese!" she added, with a nod of her shapely head at each item, "unless," said she, eyeing me askance, "you're minded to starve--as you said?"
At this I grew very despondent and, sighing, watched her twist her glossy hair into two long braids and tie up the ends with small ribbands which I thought a very quaint and pretty fashion.
She now bade me help her to set up the supper table, which proved to be a weather-beaten half-door propped upon baskets. This done, she took the candle and descended below, I following; and here, within an old cauldron pierced with many holes, burned a fire, above which was a covered pot whence emanated that fragrance I have already mentioned, but stronger and more savoury than ever now, so that my hunger was wrought to a passionate yearning, more especially when, having removed the pot from the fire, she lifted the cover. Ascending to the loft she pronounced supper all ready and bade me sit down and eat. But this I could not do for my pride's sake as I freely confessed, which seemed to surprise her not a little.
"Well then," said she, perceiving me thus determined, "you may eat if you are truly hungry, because none o' the money I prigs pays for this duck."
So down I sat forthwith and never in all my life enjoyed any meal quite so much, as I told her.
"Well, then, eat it!" said she in her ungracious, half-sullen manner.
"I mean to," I retorted, "though I must say you are a wonderful cook." At this she merely scowled at me and I did not venture another remark until the sharper pangs of hunger were appeased, then, sighing, I spoke again. "Yes, I repeat you are a wonderful cook! But then everything seems so wonderful to me--this place, for instance--so strange and so solitary!"
"It is!" she answered, leaning her chin on her hands and staring at me across the table. "That's why I runs away here to hide from the
chals or when in any trouble wi' old Azor--yes, 'tis a very lonely place, which do make me wonder if you be afeard o' ghosts?"
"No--that is, I don't think so--if such things do really exist. But why do you ask?"
"A woman was murdered here once an' they say her spirit walks, so there's few people dare venter here by day an' never a one by night, an' that's why 'tis so lonely an' that's why I loves the place."
"Then you don't believe in ghosts?"
"Well I sees strange things among the Romans; there's the
dukkerin and
dukkeripen, an' the Walkers o' the Heath. They're a strange folk, the Romans--'specially old Azor!"
"But you are not afraid--never have been?"
"No," she answered, shaking her head slowly, "I've never been afeard of anything or any one yet--except old Azor." And beholding her as she said this, observing the proud cast of her features, the lofty carriage of her head, her compelling eyes, resolute chin and the noble lines of her form, I knew she spoke truth and began to doubt if she were no more than a mere comely, well-shaped young female, after all.
"Pray, what is your name?" I enquired.
"Anna."
"Indeed it is a pretty name, though you are more like my conception of Diana."
"Who's she?"
"She was a young goddess."
"A goddess?" repeated my companion in her deep, soft voice, "that don't sound much like me."
"A goddess, very brave and strong, who despised all men and feared none!"
"That does sound more like me! Though I thought all goddesses were beautiful?" she added wistfully.
"So they were," I nodded, "but how do you know this?"
"From Jerry Jarvis--"
"What, the Tinker?" I exclaimed. "Do you mean the tinker who calls himself a 'literary cove'--the wonderful tinker who writes excellent poetry and travels about with a pony named Diogenes?"
"Yes, there be only one Jerry Jarvis," answered my companion. "'Twas Jerry taught me to write and lent me books to read. I've known him since I can remember and he was always kind. Jerry's a good man!"
"And writes real poetry!" I nodded. "At least I think so. I should like to meet him again."
"Well, he'll be Tonbridge way about now. I knows all his rounds an' he's reg'lar as a clock."
"Do you know the way to Tonbridge?"
"Of course!"
"Yes, I'll go to Tonbridge to-morrow; you shall tell me the best way to get there, if you will."
"'Tis very sure you are better of your beating."
"Yes, thank God!" I answered.
"Though your eyes will be black to-morrow."
"Which will serve me right and properly for my cowardice."
"But you're not afeard o' ghosts!"
"Heaven knows," quoth I bitterly, "I might be if I saw one. And as for solitude, I don't think I should care to stay here alone night after night and day after day as you seem to have done."
"Oh, you gets used to it."
"But how do you pass your time in this solitude?"
"Reads mostly, and makes my baskets; there be few can ekal me at rush or willow. And there's good money in baskets!"
"What books have you read?"
"Not so many as I'd like."
"Tell me some of them."
"Well there's the 'Castle of Otranto' and Virgil and 'Peregrine Pickle' and the Psalms, and 'Tom Jones' and John Milton's Poems, 'Tristram Shandy.' Dryden, Plutarch's lives--oh, and a lot beside--"
"And which do you like best?"
For answer she reached the six volumes from amongst her pots and pans and these I found to be: Shakespeare, 'Tristram Shandy,' the Bible, Anson's Voyages and 'Robinson Crusoe.'
"You have shown most excellent judgment and a most catholic taste!" said I.
"You loves books, too!" she nodded. "I sees that by the way you handles 'em. And I keeps these six here because I can read them over and over and never tires, though there's a lot I don't understand."
"That," said I, looking upon my companion with new vision, "that is because each of these books shrines some part of undying Truth which can never weary and never die. I think," said I, setting the books back in their accustomed place, "I think I will call you Diana, if I may?"
"Very well."
"And my name is Peregrine."
"You seemed to like your supper," said she, beginning to clear away the platters.
"More than words can express!"
"So did I," she nodded, "and that was worth a little risk."
"What risk, Diana?"
"Well, I tells you the duck was not bought with any of the beast's money, didn't I?"
"Yes. Pray, how did you come by it?"
"Prigged it!"
"Great heaven! You mean that you--"
"Yes. I goes to a farmhouse as I knows of to get some milk an' eggs, an' spies four ducks on the kitchen table, trussed an' stuffed all ready for the oven, so I brings one away--only one, though I might ha' nabbed two just as easy--"
"But this was burglary!" I gasped.
"But 'twas a dainty supper!"
"This is frightful!" I exclaimed.
"But the duck was very tender--you said so."
"Oh, girl," I cried, "don't you know it is very wicked to steal? Are you aware you have broken one of God's commandments, contravened the law and made yourself liable to arrest and imprisonment--indeed, people have been hanged for less! O Diana, how could you do a thing so shameful, so unworthy your womanhood--how could you--how could you?"
But instead of answering or paying the least heed to this so earnest appeal, she continued her business of clearing away supper things and table, and thereafter begun to make herself a couch of hay in the corner remotest from mine, and all without so much as a glance in my direction.
"And now," said she at last, "if you're quite ready, I'll blow out the candle."
"Whenever you will," I answered, stretching myself upon my hay-pile. Almost as I spoke the light vanished, and in the pitchy gloom my hearing seemed to grow the more acute; I heard her light, assured tread, the fall of her shoes as she kicked them off, the rustle of the hay that was her bed, a long-drawn, sleepy sigh. These sounds at last subsiding, I spoke:
"Have I angered you, Diana?" Here I paused for answer but getting none continued, "Though indeed my strictures were all well-meant, for I cannot bear that you should do anything unworthy--" Here, though she uttered no word, I distinguished a sudden, petulant rustle of hay as if she had kicked viciously. "And so, Diana," I continued, "I want you to promise that henceforth you will so govern your conduct, so order your life that you may become a woman, gentle and sweet and good, in whose presence no evil thing may exist, one who is herself an inspiration to good and noble things, a woman whose friendship is a privilege and whose--whose love would be a crowning glory. Do you understand, Diana?"
"Hold your tongue!" she cried very suddenly. "Hold y'r tongue an' go to sleep--do!"
In the fervour of my exordium I had assumed a sitting posture but at her coarse rejoinder I fell back, inexpressibly shocked, and lay staring upon the dark, tingling with mortification that I should have wasted myself in such vain appeal and been thus callously repulsed by one who was no more than an ignorant gipsy-wench, prone to coarse expressions and small larcenies, a creature knowing little difference between good and evil and caring less. But now, remembering her rough upbringing and the wild folk who had fostered her, my anger gave place to commiseration, for how could she, under such circumstances, be other than what she seemed? And yet--was she in herself good or evil? This doubt troubled me so much that I turned to stare towards that dark corner where she lay; and listening to her gentle and regular breathing, I judged that she slept already, though more than once I heard the hay rustle as she stirred, sighing plaintively. But sleep was not for me, my mind being greatly troubled by this same unanswerable question: Was she a Diana indeed, dowered with the virtues of that chaste goddess, or only a poor, small-souled creature debased by the circumstances of her lawless origin?
Now as I lay thus wakeful, vainly seeking an answer to this most distressing question, I became aware that the place was no longer dark; instead was a soft glow, an ever-increasing radiance, and lifting my eyes to the unglazed window I beheld the moon,--Dian's fair self, throned in splendour, queen of this midsummer night, serene and infinitely remote, who yet sent down a kindly beam, that, darting athwart the gloom, fell in a glory upon that other Diana where she lay outstretched in peaceful slumber. And gazing upon this face, softened and beautified by gentle sleep--the wide, low brow, these tender lips, this firm and resolute chin, I thought to read therein a sweet nobility, purity and strength; and, like the darkness, my doubts and trouble were quite banished.
Therefore, lifting my gaze once more to Dian's placid loveliness, I breathed her a sigh of gratitude, for it seemed that she had shown me the answer to my question. And thus, my mind at rest, I presently fell asleep. _