Chapter IV: Evening Star

Only fitfully did Jacob Bullstone accept his situation. He was occasionally resigned and spoke with rational appreciation of facts; but often it seemed that his mind still stood at a point in time before his wife had passed. The actual loss he appeared to forget upon days of stress. Such moments, however, occurred less frequently than at first. Auna never resisted his proposals now, or attempted to prevent the long days alone that he was constantly planning. For she found that her father returned the better and the saner from these days. Words that man was powerless to speak, he heard from the solitudes. The hills had not covered, but they had comforted him. As the spring waxed, he increased the number of these expeditions and separated himself for longer intervals from his kind. He watched the lengthened evenings sink to sunsetting and the dawns open cold and sweet before the sun. He declared that Time was a being, and tried to explain to Auna that Time wearied at night-fall, slept by night and woke again invigorated with the dawn.

She humoured his imaginings and was always thankful when any subject outside himself could arrest his thoughts. But that was seldom. He suffered evil days and, when they came, Auna devoted herself to him and let all lesser duties mind themselves.

There came over Bullstone a long period of fruitless rage. Having for a season heaped contumely upon his own head and wondered why the people did not rise up and stone him; having subsequently mourned and become very silent through the passage of four weeks, his unsteady mind broke into a frenzy and his self-restraint failed, so that Auna shook in fear and Peter began to tell the people that his father was mad. But after a calenture, during which he cursed fate, flouted heaven, and uttered many profanities, which terrified Auna and pleased George Middleweek, Jacob grew calmer again and was almost childish for a season. He became more mild and humble, less envenomed against destiny.

People were sorry for Auna and Peter, but there seemed to be few to help them. Adam Winter, however, kept in touch with them, and William Marydrew often came to Red House on one pretext or another. He had declared from the first that Jacob would recover, so far as his brain was concerned. He knew Bullstone best and had the art to calm him quicklier than any other man was able to do. For Jacob felt William to be trustworthy and loyal. He often went to see him, and if any idea suddenly struck into the sufferer's thoughts, he would either convey it to William, or describe it to Auna. At this season his egotism was supreme and only at rare moments was he able to dismiss his projects, or himself, from the substance of speech.

A trivial thought took Jacob one day as he stood among his dogs, and he turned his back upon them, left Red House and, following the river, soon reached Mr. Marydrew's cottage.

"It's borne in on me that there are three sorts of men and only three, William," he said, standing before the ancient and looking down at him, where he sat smoking his pipe in his porch.

"A very simple earth if there was only three sorts of men on it, Jacob."

"Three sorts--those that leave the world better than they found it; those that leave it worse; and those that go through it like shadows and make no more mark than shadows do. And I thought, in my pride, I was the first sort of man, and never guessed to be the second."

He sat down on the bench beside William.

"We most of us leave the world better than we found it by a few kind actions and decent thoughts," declared Billy. "Very few go through life without doing their fellow-creatures a good turn here and there. Certainly you've done a lot of good in your time and many can testify to it. And to say you've done evil also--that's only to say you're a human."

"At best the good balances the evil and leaves us only shadows, with nothing to credit."

"Nonsense," answered Billy. "We know--even us small people--that we're of more account than shadows."

"In my case the great evil swallowed the little good. I wish I had never been born, because then none could point to my grave some day and say, 'There lies the man that killed his wife.' If I could have chose before I was born, I'd have said to God, 'Either let me come into the world for well-doing, or not at all,' and that would have been a decent, self-respecting wish. But how can people believe in God's mercy and love, when the world swarms with bad men He could as easily have made good ones? Take my late wife, for you must firmly grasp now that Margery's dead--that rare woman is dead, William. Take her and ask yourself how an all-seeing, all-loving God could let that innocent, harmless creature love a man who would end by killing her?"

"You waste a lot of time, Jacob," said the other, "and you ax a lot of questions no mortal man can ever answer, because we don't know enough. I've lived to see great changes myself, and you may say, well inside civility, that God's like some of us old men, who were once young. When I was young I was well thought of and held in great respect, and I counted, in my small way, among the rest. And when God was a thought younger--for time will go on and He can't be outside it, Jacob--when He was a thought younger, the people held Him in greater respect than now. He ain't quite so much in the middle of the picture as He was when I was a boy--just as I myself ain't no more in the middle of my own picture. But God's just the same as He always was, and just so determined as ever not to give a plain answer to a plain question. He never have done it and He never will, because it's contrary to His Almighty opinion of what's best for us."

"And how if it's all a mare's-nest and there's no God, William?"

"Then 'tis waste of time to be rude to Him. Civility costs nought anyway. My old father said to me when I was a child, 'Always touch your hat to a pair of hosses, William, for you never know who's behind 'em.'"

"I puzzle a good deal upon the subject, and life often flings it uppermost," answered Bullstone. "In fact so are we built, through education of conscience, that it's impossible to go very far without being brought up against God. How often in my secret times of pain do I catch the Name on my tongue? How often do I say 'My God, my God, what have I done?' I ask Him that question by night and day. A silly question, too, for I know what I've done as well as God can. But I know what I've suffered far better than He can. I went on hoping and hoping, as you bade me, last year. I went hoping, with one eye on God, like a rat that creeps out of his hole with one eye on the dog hard by. But the game had to be played out by inches. He knew that Margery was dying, a few miles away, and He kept it secret from me and didn't let me hear till it was too late. He planned it, so that I should just be there after the very last breath was breathed, should touch her before she was cold, should miss her by seconds. And she longing--longing to come back to me--to save me. What should we call that if a man had done it--eh, William?"

"Come and look at my bees, Jacob. A brave swarm yesterday, and poor Sammy Winter took 'em for me with all the cleverness of a sane man."

"Mysteries everywhere. People pity Samuel. I don't--not now, I did once, because it's the fashion to think anybody's lacking reason is a sad sight. Why? Brains are like money--poison so often as not. My brains have poisoned me--fretted and festered and burnt out my soul like an acid. The more I see of the wild, innocent creatures, the more I feel that reason's not all we think it, William. You can't fetter the soul down to reason. What has reason done for me? The little comfort I get now is outside reason. Reason only goads me into wanting to end it and make away with myself. That would be the reasonable thing. What happened yesterday? Auna found a rhyme book that belonged to my wife. And in that book was a sprig of white heath I picked for her on a wonderful day we had, just after she had promised to marry me. There it was faded to brown--more than twenty years old. And what else did Auna find? Between the pages she found the crumbs of a little sweet biscuit--a sort of a little biscuit, William, that Margery loved. Where's the reason when a crumb of wheat can stab the soul deeper than a sword? And what then? What did Auna say? Nothing in reason, God knows. 'Father,' she said, 'you and me will eat these crumbs--then we'll have shared the biscuit with dear mother.' A holy sacrament--yes, faith--'holy's' not too strong a word. We ate the crumbs, and there was a strange, mad comfort in it; and the child smiled and it made her happier too. You could see it in her face. Why? Why? All darkness--no answer. And the little verse book, with the heather bloom, will be in my breast pocket now till I die--never out of reach of my hand--warmed daily by my warmth. Why? Can reason tell me? No--it's only because I'm gone below reason, William."

"Or it might be above it, my son."

"Such things make your head whirl. If there's to be happiness in heaven, we mustn't be built like we are here. Fear must be left out of us and the power of remembering. We must be suffered to forget earth, William; yet, what would that make of heaven? Nothing. It all tumbles to pieces whichever way you think of it, for reason, whether it is a good or evil thing, makes heaven a wilderness."

"Don't you fret your wits with such stuff, for it won't help you to patience or wisdom."

"No, it won't bring the dead to life, or lift the brand from me. But I thresh it out by night and see great things heave up in my mind. Then, when I jump to put them into words, they fade and I lose them. Reason may be the work of the devil--his master-stroke to turn us from salvation. You can't be damned without it; but you can be saved without it. Or would you say a man can't have a soul to be saved, until he is a reasonable creature, built to separate good from evil and choose the right? No doubt it's well understood by deep men. My mind turns in and feeds on itself, William, because there's nothing left outside to feed on."

"You must come back to your appointed task. You must keep doing good things. You must do more and think less."

"I'm going up to Huntingdon with Auna this afternoon."

"And let her talk to you. Don't think her words are worthless. You've got a nice bit of your wife left in Auna. Always remember that."

"I do. I shall live on for Auna. There's one beautiful thing left for me--beautiful, and yet a living wound, that grows painfuller every day I live. And that's Auna--Auna growing more and more and more like Margery--bringing her back, even to the toss of her head and the twinkle of her eye. She laughs like her mother, William; she cries like her mother; she thinks like her mother. So my only good will be my first grief. The things still left to care about will torture me more than all the hate of the world can torture me. They'll keep memory awake--stinging, burning, till I scream to Auna to get out of my sight presently, and leave me with the foxes and the carrion crows."

Then Bullstone limped away. He soon grew calmer, as he was wont to do when alone with nobody to whet his thoughts upon.

During the later part of this day he ascended the moors with Auna and walked to the empty Warren House. They talked of those who had dwelt there, for that morning a letter had come from Mrs. Veale for Margery, giving her news of the Veale family--Benny and the children.

"You must answer it, Auna, and tell the woman that your mother passed away last winter," said Jacob. "If I was a younger man, I might go out to Canada myself and take you with me; but we'll stop here. You'll like Huntingdon, won't you?"

"Yes, father."

"Your mother's dead," he told her; "but we shan't be without a lot of treasures to remind us of her."

"All the things she specially cared about you'll have round you, father."

"I know them all," he answered, "because, so long as I felt hope that she might come back, I was specially careful for them and set them aside out of harm's way. She had a great liking for little things that she coupled with the thoughts of friends."

He spoke the truth, for many trifles that had sustained some faint fragrance of hope while Margery lived--trifles that her heart had valued and her hands had held--were now subject to a different reverence, set apart and sanctified for ever.

"We might take a few of her favourite flowers too," suggested Auna, "but I doubt they would live up there in winter. You can always come down and see them at the right time, father."

"Everything shall be just as you will, Auna. You'll be mistress and I'll be man."

She laughed and they tramped forward. Jacob could now walk all day without suffering for it, but he was lame and his pace slower than of old.

He brought the key with him and opened the silent house. A week rarely passed without a visit, and Jacob always awoke to animation and interest when he came. The melancholy spot and mean chambers, though they had chilled not a few human hearts in the past, always cheered him. To a dwelling whence others had thankfully departed for the last time, he now looked forward with satisfaction; and Auna, seeing that only here came any peace to her father, welcomed Huntingdon already as her future home. Not a shadow clouded her eyes as she regarded it, and not one regret before the receding vision of Red House and her own life therein. For her father was her world, as he had always been, and when he turned against his home, she echoed him and loved Red House no more. She knew that for Jacob the death of her mother had destroyed Red House; she understood that he desired to begin again and she felt well content to begin again with him. His influence had come between her and normal development in certain directions. She was old for her age, but also young. No instinct of sex had intruded upon her life, and little interest in any being outside her own home circle. Even within it her sister and brothers were nothing compared to her father, and impulses, fears, suspicions that might have chilled a girl's forward glance under the walls of forlorn Huntingdon, never rose in Auna's mind to darken the future. Her father willed there to dwell and her welfare and happiness as yet took no flight beyond him.

They wandered through the stone-paved kitchen and climbed to the little chambers above, while for the twentieth time, Jacob planned how things should be.

"I'll have this room," he said, "because the sun sets upon it; and you will bide here, Auna, because it's fitting the sun shall rise where you wake."

She was happy when he spoke thus tenderly sometimes.

"My sun set, when mother died," continued Jacob. "What's left is twilight; but you'll be the evening star, Auna, as it says in mother's little book. You can read it if you want to. I'll let it touch no other hand but yours. I've read every word many times, because I know her eyes rested on every word once."

"I'm afraid I don't understand about poetry, father."

"You'll come to understand it when you're older, perhaps. She understood it and got pleasure from it."

The desolation of the warren house soothed Jacob, and having wandered through it he sat for a time outside the enclosures before starting to return home. He rolled his melancholy eyes over the great spaces to a free horizon of the hills folding in upon each other.

"Will time speed swifter here, Auna?"

"I hope it will, father," she answered, "but the days will be very like each other."

"Days too like each other drag," he told her. "We must change the pattern of the days. It shan't be all work for you. We'll do no work sometimes, and now and then you'll go for a holiday down to the 'in country,' and I shall be alone till you come back."

"I'm never going to leave you alone," she said. "If you think upon a holiday for me, you've got to come too, or have Peter up here for a bit."

"There's only one other thing beside the moor that's good to me; and that's the sea; and you well love to be on the sea, so we might go to it now and again."

Auna's eyes sparkled.

"I'd like that dearly," she told him.

"To know the sea better may be a wise deed for me," he said. "Some it hurts and cannot comfort--so I've heard. Not that it could ever be a friend to me, like the hills."

"You'd love it better and better, specially if you'd sail out on to it, same as I did with Uncle Lawrence."

Her father nodded and this allusion did not banish his placid mood. The sun rays were growing slant and rich as they set out for home. Auna laughed at their shadows flung hugely before them. Then they descended and she walked silently for a long way with her hand in her father's hand. But she was content despite their silence, for she knew that his mind had passed into a little peace. She often wondered why the desert solitudes cheered him, for they cast her down. She liked to leave it behind her--that great, lonely thing--and descend into the kindly arms of the Red House trees and the welcome of the river. For the river itself, in Auna's ear, sang a different song beside her home, than aloft, in its white nakedness, and loneliness. There it was elfin and cold and silvery, but it did not seem to sing for her; while beneath, at the feet of the pines, under the bridge of logs, in the pools and stickles she knew to the last mossy boulder--there her name river had music for her alone and she understood it. It was a dear friend who would never pass away out of her life, or die and leave her to mourn. A time was coming when she would know it better still, see it aloft nigh its cradle, learn its other voices, that yet were strange to her. In the valley the river was old and wise; perhaps aloft, where it ran nigh Huntingdon, it was not so wise or tender, but younger and more joyous.

"It'll have to be my friend," thought Auna, "for there won't be no others up there but father."

An incident clouded the return journey, and though neither Jacob nor his daughter was sentimental, death confronted them and made them sorry. An old goat, one of the parents of the Red House flock, had disappeared during the previous winter, and they had fancied that he must have fallen into the stream and been swept away in a freshet that happened when he vanished. But now, in a little green hollow rimmed with heath and granite, they found all that was left of the creature--wisps of iron-grey hair, horns attached to his skull, a few scattered bones picked clean by the carrion crows and the hollow skeleton of his ribs with young grasses sprouting through it.

"Oh, father--it's 'Beardy,'" whispered Auna.

"So it is then. And I'm glad we found him. A very dignified thing, the way the creatures, when they know they're going to die, leave their friends and go away all alone. A fine thing in them; and there's many humans would do the same if they had the strength I dare say."

Auna descended among the bones and picked up "Beardy's" horns.

"Peter will like to have them for a decoration," she said. "I hope he didn't suffer much, poor old dear."

"Not much, I expect."

"And I hope the carrion crows didn't dare to touch him till he was gone, father."

"No, no. There's unwritten laws among the wild things. I expect they waited."

"Did his wives miss him, should you think?"

"We don't know. They can't tell us. Perhaps they wondered a bit. More likely they knew he'd gone up to die and wouldn't come back. They know deeper than we think they know among themselves, Auna."

"I've often been sorry for that poor Scape-goat in the Bible, father. I read about him to grandmother long ago, one Sunday, and never forgot him."

"And so have I been sorry for him, too."

They tramped on together and presently Jacob spoke. He was thinking still of her last speech and his mind had turned dark.

"The Scape-goat in the wilderness was a happy beast compared to me," he said suddenly. "He went to his doom a clean thing--a harmless creature, pure as Christ's self under his filthy load of human sins. For a foul burden doesn't make the carrier foul. He'd done no wrong and wondered, perhaps, in his brute mind, why the scarlet thread was tied upon him and he was driven into the unkind desert, far from his bite of green grass and the shadow to guard him against the burning sun. But I'm different. I'm a goat caked and rotted with my own sins. The sins of the world are white and light against mine."

"I won't hear you say things like that, father. I won't live with you if you say things like that."

"Bear with me, bear with me. It comes in great waves, and I'm a drowning man till they roll over and pass. You'll sweeten me presently. Who could live with you and not grow sweeter, you innocent?"

He broke off.

Venus throbbed upon the golden green of the west, and as they descended, the valley was already draped with a thin veil of mist under which the river purred. From the kennels came yapping of the dogs; and when they reached home and entered the yard, half a dozen red terriers leapt round Auna and nosed with excitement at "Beardy's" horns.