Barbara Lynn Part 22

"You couldn't find him?" she said.

He shook his head sorrowfully.

"Poor old Jan is gone," he replied.

Lucy covered her face with her hands, but the old woman leaned back upon her pillows, a red patch on each cheek.

"Gone!" she said, "gone! Jan Straw gone! The last link with my ain generation." She was silent, seeing the years which he had kept alive for her, fading away. "So Jan's gone, the old, old, creature, but younger than me by twenty winters. Poor Jan."

Then she turned upon Lucy. She must find some vent for the choking emotion of age.

"This o' comes of your fairy-tales," she said. "Six white horses and a coach! You'd better have left him sitting in the cow-house, waiting for the man with the reaping-hook."

"Don't blame me," cried the girl. "I would have saved him if I could."

"You'd have drownded yourself to no purpose. What could a la.s.s like you do when the beck's in spate? It would have twisted you up like a windle-straw."

Lucy turned to Peter with entreaty in her eyes.

He took her hand and stroked it.

"I think you were very brave," he said.

He saw again the water with its tigerish lips, the crunching rocks, the broken body of a sheep tossing among the foam; he looked at the girl, at her tearful eyes, her damp hair hanging in jetty rings round her face; she seemed to be but a child, a forlorn, unhappy child, seeking for sympathy.

Hardly realizing what he did he bent down and kissed her.

"Old Jan was glad to go, Lucy," he said. "You must remember that, and not grieve for him. He had a long life and a lonely one. But he is now walking beside still waters with her o' the white hands."

Night came, the rain ceased, and the moon reaped the stars with a golden sickle. The sky was calm, but the fells and dales were still roaring with the sound of many waters, and streaking the darkness with silver threads. Peter went home, stirred to the depths of his being.

The next afternoon, when the beck had subsided to its normal flow, Jan Straw's body was found in a pool and taken to Greystones. All the village, and shepherds from distant cots among the hills, were bidden to the funeral. Lucy and Barbara had no time for tears. Mistress Lynn would not have it said that she had not shown honour to her old servant, and, two days before the burial, the sisters were busy from dawn to dark baking arval cakes to be given to the guests. These little cakes were made of wheaten meal, and taken piously home, to be eaten in remembrance of the dead.

The ceremony was a solemn one in the mill-house. The old man, Peter's father, ate the arval cake with one hand over his eyes, and his figure bent as though in prayer. Peter's mother wept behind her handkerchief, and nibbled a crumb of it, saying softly:

"In memory o' thee, Jan Straw."

Peter, too, was not unmoved. The simplicity and pathos of the act brought tears to his honest eyes, of which he was not ashamed.

Later on John Fleming sat at one side of the fire smoking, Mistress Fleming at the other side knitting, and Peter lay on the rug between them, telling stories of Oxford, when the old man suddenly took his pipe from his mouth, and said:

"I wish you'd marry, Peter."

"Marry! Good heavens!"

"I want you to settle down. Once I had other views. I thought I'd live till you could read the burial service over me--earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, in sure and certain hope--you know how it goes.

Beautiful words, them! They kind o' sum up the big and the little o'

life. Well, but now----"

He paused, took out of his pocket a large square of linen and wiped his brow.

"I'm sorry to have disappointed you, father."

"I kind o' expected it," replied the miller. "I used to say to your mother, 'the lad's not the right cut for a ca.s.sock. He'd split the skirt o' it with his long legs, rax it down the back with wrestling, and carry puppies and kitlins in the pockets.' But she--she didn't ken you as well as I did. 'Leave him alone,' she said, 'the lad's all right. You can't put an old head on young shoulders.' I wasn't for believing her.

'Zookers!' said I, 'I's an old man, but I's got a young head on my old shoulders. The lad takes after me, that he does!"

"I was hoping," Peter began, but the miller interrupted him.

"Don't be hoping anything, or pluming yourself up that I didn't mind.

I've wished ever since--since--you ken when--that I'd brought you up to be a decent honest miller like myself, and had knocked them eddication notions out o' my head and your's too. They've done nowther on us any good."

"If you'd only consent to my going away--not out of the country--but to London, say, I would do something to take the sting out of your disappointment. You'd be proud of me yet."

His mother laid a gentle hand on his arm.

"Whist, lad," she whispered, "list to thy dadda."

"We're getting old," John Fleming began, then stopped to clear his throat. "We're getting old, thy mother and me, and we've no chick nor child left but you, lad. We want you to stay at home with us till we're called away."

"It won't be for long, Peter," said his mother.

"We'd like you to settle down," continued the old man. "There's money enough--the Lord has blessed me with prosperity. You can take a wife, Peter, and bring up a family. I'd like to see a grandson on my knees before I die, and know that the old mill-house will go down to another John Fleming--a sober, G.o.d-fearing man I hope he'll be, with no book-learning to spoil his appet.i.te for common labour. Not that I'm blaming you, lad. I couldn't have wished for a better son--in that the Lord has blessed me far beyond my deserts."

Peter grasped his father's hand and shook it without a word. The old man laughed, and slapped him on the back, then snorted, as though tears had got into his throat.

"I always have a cough when the winter comes," he said, tapping his chest.

"So you want me to get married," remarked Peter, after a while. "That's a matter for deep reflection."

"I've always wished for a daughter," replied his mother. "I cried when you were born, but thy dadda was pleased."

"There's a nice la.s.s would just do for you, lad," said the miller, winking at his son. "She's a bonny la.s.s with no silly ways about her.

Your mother and me's kind o' fond o' her already. She looks us up whiles, and twists as purty a bow as you could wish to see for your mother's caps and bonnets."

"I guess her name," said Peter.

"It begins with L," replied the old man.

Peter got up and stretched himself.

"I'm going for a walk," he said, "it's a fine moonlight night."

"And you'll think over what I've been saying?" asked the miller.

The young man smiled, kissed his mother, and took his cap down from a nail.

"I'll tell you my decision when it's made," he replied.