Then we went to work to cut down the trees. The slim stems were an easy task to a good woodman, and one after another they toppled to the ground. And meantime, as I watched, I became conscious of a strange emotion.
It was as if someone were pleading with me. A gentle voice, not threatening, but pleading--something too fine for the sensual ear, but touching inner chords of the spirit. So tenuous it was and distant that I could think of no personality behind it. Rather it was the viewless, bodiless grace of this delectable vale, some old exquisite divinity of the groves. There was the heart of all sorrow in it, and the soul of all loveliness. It seemed a woman"s voice, some lost lady who had brought nothing but goodness unrepaid to the world. And what the voice told me was that I was destroying her last shelter.
That was the pathos of it--the voice was homeless. As the axes flashed in the sunlight and the wood grew thin, that gentle spirit was pleading with me for mercy and a brief respite. It seemed to be telling of a world for centuries grown coa.r.s.e and pitiless, of long sad wanderings, of hardly-won shelter, and a peace which was the little all she sought from men. There was nothing terrible in it. No thought of wrong-doing. The spell, which to Semitic blood held the mystery of evil, was to me, of the Northern race, only delicate and rare and beautiful. Jobson and the rest did not feel it, I with my finer senses caught nothing but the hopeless sadness of it. That which had stirred the pa.s.sion in Lawson was only wringing my heart. It was almost too pitiful to bear. As the trees crashed down and the men wiped the sweat from their brows, I seemed to myself like the murderer of fair women and innocent children. I remember that the tears were running over my cheeks. More than once I opened my mouth to countermand the work, but the face of Jobson, that grim Tishbite, held me back.
I knew now what gave the Prophets of the Lord their mastery, and I knew also why the people sometimes stoned them.
The last tree fell, and the little tower stood like a ravished shrine, stripped of all defence against the world. I heard Jobson"s voice speaking. "We"d better blast that stane thing now. We"ll trench on four sides and lay the dinnymite. Ye"re no" looking weel, sir. Ye"d better go and sit down on the braeface."
I went up the hillside and lay down. Below me, in the waste of shorn trunks, men were running about, and I saw the mining begin. It all seemed like an aimless dream in which I had no part. The voice of that homeless G.o.ddess was still pleading. It was the innocence of it that tortured me Even so must a merciful Inquisitor have suffered from the plea of some fair girl with the aureole of death on her hair. I knew I was killing rare and unrecoverable beauty. As I sat dazed and heartsick, the whole loveliness of Nature seemed to plead for its divinity. The sun in the heavens, the mellow lines of upland, the blue mystery of the far plains, were all part of that soft voice. I felt bitter scorn for myself. I was guilty of blood; nay, I was guilty of the sin against light which knows no forgiveness. I was murdering innocent gentleness--and there would be no peace on earth for me. Yet I sat helpless. The power of a sterner will constrained me. And all the while the voice was growing fainter and dying away into unutterable sorrow.
Suddenly a great flame sprang to heaven, and a pall of smoke. I heard men crying out, and fragments of stone fell around the ruins of the grove. When the air cleared, the little tower had gone out of sight.
The voice had ceased and there seemed to me to be a bereaved silence in the world. The shock moved me to my feet, and I ran down the slope to where Jobson stood rubbing his eyes.
"That"s done the job. Now we maun get up the tree roots. We"ve no time to howk. We"ll just blast the f.e.c.k o" them."
The work of destruction went on, but I was coming back to my senses. I forced myself to be practical and reasonable. I thought of the night"s experience and Lawson"s haggard eyes, and I screwed myself into a determination to see the thing through. I had done the deed; it was my business to make it complete. A text in Jeremiah came into my head:
"Their children remember their altars and their groves by the green trees upon the high hills."
I would see to it that this grove should be utterly forgotten.
We blasted the tree-roots, and, yolking oxen, dragged the debris into a great heap. Then the men set to work with their spades, and roughly levelled the ground. I was getting back to my old self, and Jobson"s spirit was becoming mine.
"There is one thing more," I told him "Get ready a couple of ploughs.
We will improve upon King Josiah." My brain was a medley of Scripture precedents, and I was determined that no safeguard should be wanting.
We yoked the oxen again and drove the ploughs over the site of the grove. It was rough ploughing, for the place was thick with bits of stone from the tower, but the slow Afrikaner oxen plodded on, and sometime in the afternoon the work was finished. Then I sent down to the farm for bags of rock-salt, such as they use for cattle. Jobson and I took a sack apiece, and walked up and down the furrows, sowing them with salt.
The last act was to set fire to the pile of tree trunks. They burned well, and on the top we flung the bodies of the green doves. The birds of Ashtaroth had an honourable pyre.
Then I dismissed the much-perplexed men, and gravely shook hands with Jobson. Black with dust and smoke I went back to the house, where I bade Travers pack my bags and order the motor. I found Lawson"s servant, and heard from him that his master was sleeping peacefully. I gave him some directions, and then went to wash and change.
Before I left I wrote a line to Lawson. I began by transcribing the verses from the 23rd chapter of 2nd Kings. I told him what I had done, and my reason. "I take the whole responsibility upon myself," I wrote. "No man in the place had anything to do with it but me. I acted as I did for the sake of our old friendship, and you will believe it was no easy task for me. I hope you will understand. Whenever you are able to see me send me word, and I will come back and settle with you. But I think you will realise that I have saved your soul."
The afternoon was merging into twilight as I left the house on the road to Taqui. The great fire, where the Grove had been, was still blazing fiercely, and the smoke made a cloud over the upper glen, and filled all the air with a soft violet haze. I knew that I had done well for my friend, and that he would come to his senses and be grateful. My mind was at ease on that score, and in something like comfort I faced the future. But as the car reached the ridge I looked back to the vale I had outraged. The moon was rising and silvering the smoke, and through the gaps I could see the tongues of fire. Somehow, I know not why, the lake, the stream, the garden-coverts, even the green slopes of hill, wore an air of loneliness and desecration. And then my heartache returned, and I knew that I had driven something lovely and adorable from its last refuge on earth.
WOOD MAGIC
(9TH CENTURY.)
I will walk warily in the wise woods on the fringes of eventide, For the covert is full of noises and the stir of nameless things.
I have seen in the dusk of the beeches the shapes of the lords that ride, And down in the marish hollow I have heard the lady who sings.
And once in an April gleaming I met a maid on the sward, All marble-white and gleaming and tender and wild of eye;-- I, Jehan the hunter, who speak am a grown man, middling hard, But I dreamt a month of the maid, and wept I knew not why.
Down by the edge of the firs, in a coppice of heath and vine, Is an old moss-grown altar, shaded by briar and bloom, Denys, the priest, hath told me "twas the lord Apollo"s shrine In the days ere Christ came down from G.o.d to the Virgin"s womb.
I never go past but I doff my cap and avert my eyes--
(Were Denys to catch me I trow I"d do penance for half a year)-- For once I saw a flame there and the smoke of a sacrifice, And a voice spake out of the thicket that froze my soul with fear.
Wherefore to G.o.d the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Mary the Blessed Mother, and the kindly Saints as well, I will give glory and praise, and them I cherish the most, For they have the keys of Heaven, and save the soul from h.e.l.l.
But likewise I will spare for the Lord Apollo a grace, And a bow for the lady Venus-as a friend but not as a thrall.
"Tis true they are out of Heaven, but some day they may win the place; For G.o.ds are kittle cattle, and a wise man honours them all.
VII
THE RIDING OF NINEMILEBURN
Sim bent over the meal ark and plumbed its contents with his fist. Two feet and more remained: provender--with care--for a month, till he harvested the waterside corn and ground it at Ashkirk mill. He straightened his back better pleased; and, as he moved, the fine dust flew into his throat and set him coughing. He choked back the sound till his face crimsoned.
But the mischief was done. A woman"s voice, thin and weary, came from the ben-end. The long man tiptoed awkwardly to her side. "Canny, la.s.s," he crooned. "It"s me back frae the hill. There"s a mune and a clear sky, and I"ll hae the lave under thack and rape the morn. Syne I"m for Ninemileburn, and the coo "ill be i" the byre by Setterday.
Things micht be waur, and we"ll warstle through yet. There was mair tint at Flodden."
The last rays of October daylight that filtered through the straw lattice showed a woman"s head on the pillow. The face was white and drawn, and the great black eyes--she had been an Oliver out of Megget--were fixed in the long stare of pain. Her voice had the high lilt and the deep undertones of the Forest.
"The bairn "ill be gone ere ye ken, Sim," she said wearily. "He canna live without milk, and I"ve nane to gie him. Get the coo back or lose the son I bore ye. If I were my ordinar" I wad hae"t in the byre, though I had to kindle Ninemileburn ower Wat"s heid."
She turned miserably on her pillow and the babe beside her set up a feeble crying. Sim busied himself with re-lighting the peat fire. He knew too well that he would never see the milk-cow till he took with him the price of his debt or gave a bond on harvested crops. He had had a bad lambing, and the wet summer had soured his shallow lands.
The cess to Branksome was due, and he had had no means to pay it. His father"s cousin of the Ninemileburn was a brawling fellow, who never lacked beast in byre or corn in bin, and to him he had gone for the loan. But Wat was a hard man, and demanded surety; so the one cow had travelled the six moorland miles and would not return till the bond was cancelled. As well might he try to get water from stone as move Wat by any tale of a sick wife and dying child.
The peat smoke got into his throat and brought on a fresh fit of coughing. The wet year had played havoc with his chest and his lean shoulders shook with the paroxysms. An anxious look at the bed told him that Marion was drowsing, so he slipped to the door.
Outside, as he had said, the sky was clear. From the plashy hillside came the rumour of swollen burns. Then he was aware of a man"s voice shouting.
"Sim," it cried, "Sim o" the Cleuch ... Sim." A st.u.r.dy figure came down through the scrog of hazel and revealed itself as his neighbour of the Dodhead. Jamie Telfer lived five miles off in Ettrick, but his was the next house to the Cleuch shieling. Telfer was running, and his round red face shone with sweat.
"Dod, man, Sim, ye"re hard o" hearing. I was routin" like to wake the deid, and ye never turned your neck. It"s the fray I bring ye. Mount and ride to the Carewoodrig. The word"s frae Branksome. I"ve but Ranklehope to raise, and then me and William"s Tam will be on the road to join ye."
"Whatna fray?" Sim asked blankly.
"Ninemileburn. Bewcastle"s marching. They riped the place at c.o.c.kcrow, and took twenty-six kye, five horse and a walth o"
plenishing. They were seen fordin" Teviot at ten afore noon, but they"re gaun round by Ewes Water, for they durstna try the Hermitage Slack. Forbye they move slow, for the b.e.s.t.i.a.l"s heavy wark to drive.
They shut up Wat in the auld peel, and he didna win free till bye midday. Syne he was off to Branksome, and the word frae Branksome is to raise a" Ettrick, Teviotdale, Ale Water, and the Muirs o" Esk. We look to win up wi" the lads long ere they cross Liddel, and that at the speed they gang will be gey an" near sunrise. It"s a braw mune for the job."
Jarnie Telfer lay on his face by the burn and lapped up water like a dog. Then without another word he trotted off across the hillside beyond which lay the Ranklehope.
Sim had a fit of coughing and looked stupidly at the sky. Here was the last straw. He was dog-tired, for he had had little sleep the past week. There was no one to leave with Marion, and Marion was too weak to tend herself. The word was from Branksome, and at another time Branksome was to be obeyed. But now the thing was past reason. What use was there for a miserable careworn man to ride among the sw.a.n.k, well-fed lads in the Bewcastle chase? And then he remembered his cow.
She would be hirpling with the rest of the Ninemileburn beasts on the road to the Border. The case was more desperate than he had thought.
She was gone for ever unless he helped Wat to win her back. And if she went, where was the milk for the child?
He stared hopelessly up at a darkening sky. Then he went to the lean-to where his horse was stalled. The beast was fresh, for it had not been out for two days--a rough Forest shelty with s.h.a.ggy fetlocks and a mane like a thicket. Sim set his old saddle on it, and went back to the house.
His wife was still asleep, breathing painfully. He put water on the fire to boil, and fetched a handful of meal from the ark. With this he made a dish of gruel, and set it by the bedside. He drew a pitcher of water from the well, for she might be thirsty. Then he banked up the fire and steeked the window. When she woke she would find food and drink, and he would be back before the next darkening. He dared not look at the child.