Chapter XXII: Mysterious Holes

August 5. Wednesday.

I CANNOT quite understand the condition of things. From Thyrza alone I have steady affection and support. All the rest are in unequivocal opposition.

Even Elfie—my little clinging Elfie—has changed. I do not know why. Though not so poorly as last week, and able to be about again, she seems fractious and peevish, and nervous fancies are regaining their old sway over her. The fusses about what she can and cannot do, will and will not eat, are endless.

Now, too, she distinctly turns from me and turns to Miss Millington. If I say a word about not giving way to fancies, she bursts out crying, and "Millie" ostentatiously comforts her, assisted by Maggie, who has all at once left off remarks anent "coddling."

Miss Millington's influence over the girls is to me more and more extraordinary. There seems absolutely nothing in her, which might account for it. I can only suppose that having, through the force of circumstances, gained a certain power over Maggie's weakness, she controls the younger girls through Maggie, one following in another's wake. With the exception of Thyrza—and, it may be, of Nellie,—the sisters have a droll fashion of running in the same groove.

Last Saturday looks often to me like a dream,—only not a dream, for the pain remains. But I would rather not write about it. We go on much as usual. Sometimes I almost think I must have been mistaken. The one thing about which I can feel no possible doubt is Miss Millington's intense and growing dislike to me.

Maggie has had a long letter from Nellie. But for Thyrza, I should have been kept in complete ignorance of its contents. This is, I suppose, poor Maggie's small revenge on me, for not having shown her Mrs. Romilly's letters,—only it seems almost too small to be credible! "Millie" of course hears everything, and takes care to make me aware of the fact.

From Thyrza I learn that the collision was not a severe one, the only passenger injured being my poor friend. The broken collar-bone seems to be a minor injury. I imagine that the present illness is chiefly one of brain and nerves, consequent upon the shock. When Nellie wrote she could scarcely be called quite out of danger; but undoubtedly there was some improvement.

This is enough for Maggie, who has been in wild spirits ever since the letter arrived. We had rain a great part of yesterday and the day before, and she has taken vehemently to her writing again. The notion of consulting some well-known authoress, as to "the best way of getting into print," has also been revived,—probably by Miss Millington, who boasts some manner of acquaintance with two literary ladies. If Maggie should receive wholesome advice from either, so much the better. Whether they can help her "to get into print,"—that acmé of Maggie's desires,—is another question.

We discuss the matter at meal-times, Maggie being entirely unreserved respecting her own would-be authorship.

August 6. Thursday.—This afternoon several of us went to see the Stockmoors, in the quaint old whitewashed farm-house, where they live, and where Mr. Stockmoor's parents and grandparents lived before him. It stands in a small garden, close to the road, about fifteen minutes' walk up the Dale. The farm seems to include little besides pasture for cows and sheep. Mrs. Stockmoor makes butter, but not on any large scale. Mr. Stockmoor is Churchwarden, and evidently is a man much respected.

A kind welcome was accorded, and they took us over the house, pointing out some old and interesting articles of furniture. The Stockmoors have three or four comfortable rooms, which they let to lodgers in the summer. Nobody is here now: but, to my surprise, I suddenly heard a mention of the name "Denham;" and an inquiry brought out the fact, unknown to me before, that Lady Denham and Sir Keith have twice spent a month in these very lodgings.

We were all together in the quaint good-sized sitting-room. It has big ceiling-beams, two small lattice-windows, huge fireplace, old-fashioned chairs, and whitewashed porch opening on the garden, with a lovely view all up the Dale to the massive terminating mountain heights. Yes,—very beautiful and most attractive, I thought, but somehow I could not quite picture Sir Keith and his mother there, fresh from the stately plenishings of Glynde Park. I tried to imagine Lady Denham rocking herself to and fro in the rocking-chair of indefinite age, just then giving amusement to Popsie and Pet; and I found myself in danger of laughter. Then I heard an exclamation from Maggie:

"Only think! Millie, do you hear? Mrs. Stockmoor says Lady Denham means to come very soon; and she has written to take the rooms."

"Sir Keith too?" somebody asked, and Maggie's cheeks gained a vivid hue. She and "Millie" exchanged glances, whereupon Maggie's eyes drooped.

"Not very likely that Lady Denham would come all this way north without him," Thyrza remarked, with a curt and vexed air, as if she disliked the notion.

Mrs. Stockmoor could not say. She hoped so,—such a very nice gentleman as he was. And if the gentleman that was coming first, perhaps, was to—but there she stopped abruptly, twisting her apron round her fingers. I had caught a warning look telegraphed from one of the daughters to the mother. No one else seemed to have perceived this, and Nona asked—

"Is Sir Keith coming first? What!—And leave Lady Denham to manage the journey all alone?"

Mrs. Stockmoor maintained a discreet silence, till further pressed, when she twisted her apron anew and said, "I cannot not tell!" with an emphatic double-negative, which I had already once or twice heard from her.

Then Mr. Stockmoor advanced to his wife's rescue, volunteering information about the surrounding neighbourhood. Had we been yet to see a certain spot, not three miles off; called Gurglepool? It seems from his description to be an odd and mysterious hole in the earth, and I cannot recall hearing the name before, though the girls have evidently been aware of Its existence.

"There are two holes," Nona said, "one big and one little. Eustace told us about them."

I suggested an excursion to the place to-morrow, and Thyrza seconded me.

Maggie immediately protested. She said that "she and the rest" had settled to drive up the Dale in the waggonette. They wanted to see the road to the station by daylight.

"Very well," I replied. "One day is as good as another for Gurglepool."

I noted a gleam of quiet intelligence in Mr. Stockmoor's eyes, and five minutes later, as we were departing, he offered to bring "t' trap" on the morrow to "t' hoose," that I and one or two others might still carry out my project.

As the waggonette could not contain all our party, and I should, of course, be the one left out, I felt no scruple about accepting the offer, with thanks.

But are the Denhams really proposing to stay near us? And if so, is it on our account or on their own? Thyrza thinks their coming very probable.

"And I don't care, for my part, whether they do or don't," she added. "I get so tired of the talk about Sir Keith's virtues. Only I do wish somebody could keep Maggie from behaving like an utter goose! It is all Millie's fault. If you knew the nonsense she talks to Maggie!"

"Better, perhaps, that I should not know, since I cannot check it," I said gravely. "And, my dear, I don't think you have to judge Maggie."

She looked up at me, with tears in her eyes.

"If only they would not treat you so!" she said. "I shouldn't mind anything else so much."

Her sympathy does comfort me. I cannot help feeling that.

August 8. Saturday.—We had our drive in the dog-cart yesterday, Thyrza and I,—not only to Gurglepool and back, but quite a long round, through the wildest country, all dales and mountains, tea-coloured golden-bedded torrents, trees, grass and rocks, blue sky and sunshine, with nothing to mar the complete enjoyment, except recollections which could not be utterly put aside.

No one but Thyrza would come with me. I think Denham wished it, and had not resolution to stand out against the conclave of sisters.

Elfie looked unhappy all the morning, and shunned me persistently. I hardly like to allow to myself how keenly I am pained by this change of manner. I begged Maggie and Nona to take care that she was not overdone, and this was all that I could do, for they were bent on taking her, and I knew that the waggonette would be full without Thyrza and myself.

The next Dale, running parallel with Beckdale, quite different in character, hardly so lovely, I thought, yet with its own distinctive beauty. The hills are lower, more bare and bleak, and the inevitable river which drains it flows often underground, entirely disappearing for a while beneath the dry and stony bed which marks its course, and later on reappearing. In times of flood, the dry bed is filled with a rushing stream.

Far up the Dale we entered a pretty and picturesque little side-valley, branching off at right angles, and well filled with trees. By-the-bye, when I spoke of Gurglepool as about three miles off, I did not understand that that was only the short-cut walking distance. It is a long drive.

At the entrance of this small valley, Mr. Stockmoor bade us dismount, and gave us full leave to remain as long as we liked. He had to stay in charge of the horse, while we explored; but we were not to be in any haste. If the directions given by himself failed to be sufficient, a woman from a cottage at the upper end would act as our guide.

"Don't let us have a guide. Much better fun to hunt out things for ourselves," Thyrza said, and we plunged into the wooded ravine.

There was a lesser hole, as well as the greater Gurglepool, Mr. Stockmoor said, his description therein agreeing with Nona's. We came upon this lesser hole first,—a mysterious cleft in the earth, slanting downward to unknown black regions, paved with loose stones which doubtless act often as the bed of a watercourse. They looked only damp yesterday. Rocks rose high around the sloping mouth, and shrubs grew thickly thereupon. Thyrza and I climbed to a good position for kneeling on the edge and peering over. The sight was altogether weird. I flung a stone down, and it rattled onward in a slow descent, quite two or three seconds after disappearing from sight. Whether it then reached the bottom, or whether sound merely ceased because deadened by distance, we could not tell.

"Looks like a pathway that might lead to the centre of the earth," Thyrza said. "Or like the entrance to some underground giant castle. Miss Con, haven't you had enough? Come and see if Gurglepool itself is different."

I had not had enough, but Mr. Stockmoor was waiting. So we went on through the wild little valley, presently mounting one of its grassy sides, till we reached Gurglepool.

Neither of us said anything at first. We only stood still near the edge, gazing. Thyrza slipped one arm through mine, and I felt her give a shudder.

Gurglepool is really a circular hole,—of what diameter I do not know, but I should guess it to be about thirty feet across: and I am told that it is sixty or seventy feet in depth, not counting the dark still pool of water at the bottom, usually some twenty-five feet deep. An underground stream flows in and out of that pool, not visibly stirring its surface. So, of all awful places to fall into—! I could not help this thought arising, as I looked.

The sides of the hole are rocky, and precipitously steep, except on one side, where a path descends sharply to the margin of earth beside the pool: not a very inviting path, albeit rendered fairly safe by a rough wooden hand-rail, reaching from above to below.

The woman from the cottage, spoken of by Mr. Stockmoor, came up, and told us more about the strange place. Sheep wandering round have often fallen in and been drowned. She spoke of it with dread for her own children, living so near. There has been talk of putting a wall or fence round the opening. This would, I suppose, somewhat spoil the general appearance, but it would be safer. I thought of Denham and the girls, and wished the precaution had been taken.

In very wet weather the water in the pool rises higher and higher, rushing often round and round, like liquid in a pot stirred by a spoon, and sometimes boiling over, so to speak, upon the surrounding grass. It must be a strange sight then. But when the girls come, I shall come too. That I am determined on.

It is no place for a number of giddy young people, under no authority.

The woman made nothing of going down the path to the water's edge; and after some hesitation, I followed her. Thyrza did not seem inclined to do the same. She said she would wait till another time.

We did not like to keep kind Mr. Stockmoor too long, and soon we were driving homeward, full of new interest in this extraordinary corner of quiet old England.

The waggonette party had not returned when we reached Beckdale House. Too long a trip for Elfie, of course, but how could I help it? Needless struggles must be as far as possible avoided. I have to reserve all my authority for real emergencies.

Thyrza and I sat down in the garden, she with a book, I with my work. Presently I saw her to be deep in thought,—not reading or pretending to read. At first I fancied her to be thinking of Gurglepool,—then of the waterfall across the valley, already much attenuated by two fine days. But no,—something more serious gave the very intent look to her dark eyes. She sat perfectly still, as is her wont at such times, in an upright posture, half-rigid, half-careless, and quite unconscious. I love to study Thyrza's face, when she is trying to unravel some perplexity, or has gained a glimpse of some new idea.

"What is it all about?" I asked, after a while.

She turned to me, with an unwonted quickness of response.

"I am thinking—" she said. "Miss Con, don't you very often wish you could be sure of things?"

Though she gave no clue to the previous train of ideas, I understood enough to answer—"I am quite sure of some things."

"But you know what I mean? People think and explain so differently,—and I suppose it isn't always one's own people that must be in the right."

"Not necessarily, Thyrza. That would bring one into an awkward predicament as to 'the right' in different houses."

"Yes, I mean that, exactly." A pause followed, and she knitted her brows. "Father doesn't always put things exactly as you do, Miss Con. And I know Sir Keith doesn't agree with Mr. Hepburn in a great many of his opinions,—or with father."

"Possibly. But you need not feel sure that the different ways of 'putting' a doctrine or belief must always mean error on the one side or the other."

"Mustn't it?"

"Not always. Very often of course both are wrong and very often perhaps both are right. Mr. Hepburn may be looking only on the silver side of the shield, and Sir Keith only on the golden."

"I should think Sir Keith would look on both sides," she said hastily, as if defending him.

I was amused, remembering her many professions of dislike.

"Yes, to the best of his power: but human powers are limited. If you and I were describing The Fell, we could only describe this side that we have seen. Somebody else, living beyond, might give so different a version of its look, that a listener would not recognise the mountain to be the same. That would be no reason why you and I should declare the other's account to be untrue,—merely because we had not had the same view."

"No. I see," Thyrza answered. "I suppose the right thing would be to get round to the other side, if one could." Then she reverted to her first thought. "Still, it does seem as if one could be sure of so little," she went on. "There are so many questions that no two people think exactly the same about."

"Rather an extreme manner of expressing it, my dear," I said. "You may be sure of much, though not of everything."

She looked at me questioningly.

"For instance,—I am quite sure, at this moment, of the blue sky overhead, of the sunshine, of the mountains, of the singing birds. I am quite sure of the river flowing down below, though I can't see it. But I don't feel sure about the exact height of each separate mountain; and I should not like to declare which particular geological theory, as to the manner of their formation, is most correct. Nor do I know all about the precise nature of sunshine, though science has a good deal to say on that matter. And for some minutes past, I have been puzzling myself about those white spots on the hillside, far up the Dale."

"Those stones?"

"Are they stones? I had just come to the conclusion that they were sheep. Somebody else might take them for clothes hung out to dry. One would be the right explanation, and the others would be wrong. But the question would hardly be worth a quarrel. Better for all three observers to allow the fact of limited eyesight, and to leave it in abeyance. We can all agree about the blue sky and the sunshine."

Thyrza's face was brightening. "Agree about the nature of sunshine!" she asked.

"Yes,—in so far that it is warmth-giving, light-giving, health-giving, and that we could not live without it. Not about all theories as to the nature of light-waves."

She pondered seriously.

"Think of our first drive here from the station," I said. "It was getting dark, and we were in a strange part of the country. I don't know whether you were struck, as I was, by the bewildering uncertainties of the landscape."

She said, "Yes,"—quickly.

"I found myself mistaking mountains for clouds, and clouds for mountains. Trees seemed to rear themselves up like giants, coming to meet us; and a big dog gave me quite a start, he loomed out so suddenly, like a wild beast. Then the white foam of the waterfalls was very weird,—one might have conjured up any amount of imaginations as to threatening dangers. You and I could have argued all the way, if we had chosen, about our differing 'views' of this or that object. Of course we knew that full daylight a few hours later would clear away all perplexities: and we could afford to wait. But we know the same now in things spiritual; yet few of us realise that we can afford to wait."

"To wait in uncertainty!" she said. "Not making up one's mind."

"In uncertainty on many lesser points. There was plenty that we could be quite sure about. For instance,—we were sure of being on the right road, because we were sure of our guide; and we were sure of the home to which we were going."

Thyrza's eyes shone.

"And we are sure now of—?" she said in a questioning tone.

"Of our Father's love. Of Christ, our Crucified and Risen Lord. Of the Holy Spirit, promised to us. Of the Home which Christ is preparing. Of the Guide who leads us. Of the Pathway He points out. Of the Means of Grace provided . . . My dear, think for yourself of all that we do or may know with a certain knowledge. Don't be distressed to find a hundred lesser questions about which we cannot be sure, and about which the best men must differ, because we have not, any of us, full daylight in which to make out all details."

"But if Christ is our Light—" she said.

"He is our Light; but the dawn comes to each one gradually,—sometimes very slowly indeed. I suppose the Light vouchsafed is often so dim because we don't really care to have it more fully. And there is the question too of our own defective eyesight. That has to be cured—gradually."

Thyrza pondered again.

"About the Means of Grace,—" she said. "Can one be sure there? People do think so differently."

"People think very differently about the scientific nature of sunshine," I said, "yet we all agree on the need that man should use it. The make of sunshine is practically a lesser question to us."

She only looked at me, as if waiting for more.

"It is one thing to use any medium of help provided,—and quite another thing to be able to define very exactly its nature," I said. "I do think that if the Means of Grace were more ardently used, and less feverishly discussed, we might make better advance in the spiritual life."

"I was thinking about the highest,—about Holy Communion," she said in a low voice. "People differ so—"

"Yes,—I saw you were. But, my dear, you have not to settle other people's differences. The less of definition the better sometimes. I always think that the Evil One has no more subtle method of fighting, than by setting Christians to wrangle over their definitions of spiritual things."

"Then one need not understand exactly?" she said.

"You must understand that God is offering you, through a certain channel, help, food, sustenance,—that you have to use the channel, and to accept what He gives. But more is not needed. Many a poor man drinks from the river below, without the least idea of what the water is composed of, or how it came there. And a little child doesn't refuse the food his mother gives him, until he shall have analysed its nature, and tested the make of the vessels which hold it. He doesn't think about that at all, but trusts his mother's love and wisdom,—eats and drinks,—is satisfied and thankful."

Thyrza drew a long breath. "Yes,—I see," she said.

"It seems to me so melancholy," I added, "that when God says, 'Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it,' we turn away from Him, to wrangle with one another about the kind of food He means to give, and the way in which He will give it. Better do simply as our Church bids us,—'Take and eat this . . . with thanksgiving!' 'Drink this . . . and be thankful.' And then we may be sure that Christ will do the rest."

Little more passed between us, for the waggonette party returned. But I do hope I may have helped that dear girl just a little. I have a very strong feeling of sympathy for thoughtful girls like her, in this difficult age, when every statement of every truth is subjected alike to careless handling and to microscopic inspection. The microscopic inspection, if honest and impartial, works no harm. The careless handling does do harm,—not to Truth, but to those who indulge in it.