THE FAIRY WIFE
There is nothing surprising in that story, to my mind, but thereprobation with which Beckwith visits himself. What could he havedone that he did not? How could he have refrained from doing what hedid? Yet there are curious things about it, and one of those is thepartiality of the manifestation. The fairy was visible to him, hischild and his dogs but to no one else. So, in my own experience, hadshe been whom I saw in K---- Park, whom Harkness, my companion, didnot see. My explanation of it does not carry me over all thedifficulties. I say, or will repeat if I have said it before, that thefairy kind are really the spirit, essence, substance (what you will)of certain sensible things, such as trees, flowers, wind, water,hills, woods, marshes and the like, that their normal appearance to usis that of these natural phenomena; but that in certain states ofmind, perhaps in certain conditions of body, there is a relationestablished by which we are able to see them on our own terms, as itwere, or in our own idiom, and they also to treat with us to someextent, to a large extent, on the same plane or standing-ground. Thatthere are limitations to this relationship is plain already; forinstance, Beckwith was not able to get his fairy prisoner to speak,and I myself have never had speech with more than one in my life. Butas to that I shall have a very curious case to report shortly, where aman taught his fairy-wife to speak.
The mentioning of that undoubted marriage brings me to the question ofsex. There is, of course, not the slightest doubt about it. Mrs.Ventris was a fairy wife. Mrs. Ventris was a puzzle to me for a goodmany years--in fact until Despoina explained to me many things. ForMrs. Ventris had a permanent human shape, and spoke as freely as youor I. I thought at one time that she might be the offspring of a mixedmarriage, like Elsie Marks (whose mother, by the way, was another caseof the sort); but in fact Mrs. Ventris and Mrs. Marks were both fairywives, and the wood-girl, Mabilla King, whose case I am going to dealwith was another. But this particular relationship is one which myexplanation of fairy apparitions does not really cover: for marriageimplies a permanent accessibility (to put it so) of two normallyinaccessible natures; and parentage implies very much more. That,indeed, implies what the Christians call Miracle; but it is quitebeyond dispute. I have a great number of cases ready to my hand, andshall deal at large with all of them in the course of this essay, inwhich fairies have had intercourse with mortals. It is by no means thefact that the wife is always of the fairy-kind. My own experience atC---- shall prove that. But I must content myself with mentioning thewell-known case of Mary Wellwood who was wife to a carpenter nearAshby de la Zouche, and was twice taken by a fairy and twicerecovered. She had children in each of her states of being, and on onerecorded occasion her two families met. It appears to be a law thatthe wife takes the nature of the husband, or as much of it as she can,and it is important to remark that _in all cases_ the children are ofthe husband's nature, fairy or mortal as he may happen to be."Nature," Despoina told me, "follows the male." So far as fairies areconcerned it seems certain that union with mortals runs in families orclans, if one may so describe their curious relationships to eachother. There were five sisters of the wood in one of the Westerndepartments of France (Lot-et-Garonne, I think), who all married men:two of them married two brothers. Apart they led the decorous lives ofthe French middle class, but when they were together it was a sight tosee! A curious one, and to us, with our strong associations of ideas,that tremendous hand which memory has upon our heart-strings, apoignant one. For they had lost their powers, but not their impulses.It was a case of _si vieillesse pouvait_. I suppose they may haveappeared to some chance wayfarer, getting a glimpse of them at theirgambols between the poplar stems of the road, or in the vistas of thehazel-brakes, as a company of sprightly matrons on a frolic. To theGreeks foolishness! And be sure that such an observer would shrug themout of mind. My own impression is that these ladies were perfectlyhappy, that they had nothing of that _maggior' dolore_ which wemortals know, and for which our joys have so often to pay. Let us hopeso at any rate, for about a fairy or a growing boy conscious of theprison-shades could Poe have spun his horrors.
"To the Greeks foolishness," I said in my haste; but in very truth itwas far from being so. To the Greeks there was nothing extraordinaryin the parentage of a river or the love of a God for a mortal. Norshould there be to a Christian who accepts the orthodox account of thefoundation of his faith. So far as we know, the generative process ofevery created thing is the same; it is, therefore, an allowableinference that the same process obtains with the created things whichare not sensible to ourselves. If flowers mate and beget as we do, whynot winds and waters, why not gods and nymphs, fauns and fairies? Itis the creative urgency that imports more than the creative matter. Tomy mind, _magna componere parvis_, it is my fixed belief that allcreated nature known to us is the issue of the mighty love of God forhis first-made creature the Earth. I accept the Greek mythology as thenearest account of the truth we are likely to get. I have never hadthe least difficulty in accepting it; and all I have since found outof the relations of men with their fellow-creatures of other generaconfirms me in the belief that the urgency is the paramount necessity.
If I am to deal with a case of a mixed marriage, where the wife was afairy, the spirit of a tree, I shall ask leave to set down first aplain proposition, which is that all Natural Facts (as wind, hills,lakes, trees, animals, rain, rivers, flowers) have an underlying Ideaor Soul whereby they really are what they appear, to which they owethe beauty, majesty, pity, terror, love, which they excite in us; andthat this Idea, or Soul, having a real existence of its own incommunity with its companions of the same nature, can be discerned bymortal men in forms which best explain to human intelligence thepassions which they excite in human breasts. This is how I explain thefact, for instance, that the austerity of a lonely rock at sea willtake the form and semblance, and much more than that, assume theprerogatives of a brooding man, or that the swift freedom of a riverwill pass by, as in a flash, in the coursing limbs of a youth, or thatat dusk, out of a reed-encircled mountain-tarn, silvery under the hushof the grey hour, there will rise, and gleam, and sink again, the paleface, the shoulders and breast of the Spirit of the Pool; that,finally, the grace of a tree, and its panic of fury when lashed bystorm, very capable in either case of inspiring love or horror, willbe revealed rarely in the form of a nymph. There may be a morerational explanation of these curious things, but I don't know of one:
_Fortunatus et ille, Deos qui novit agrestes!_
Happy may one be in the fairies of our own country. Happy, even yet,are they who can find the Oreads of the hill, Dryads of the wood,nymphs of river, marsh, plough-land, pasture, and heath. Now, leavingto Greece the things that are Greek, here for an apologue follows aplain recital of facts within the knowledge of every man of theCheviots.
I
There is in that country, not far from Otterburn--between Otterburnand the Scottish border--a remote hamlet consisting of a few whitecottages, farm buildings and a shingle-spired church. It is calledDryhope, and lies in a close valley, which is watered by a beck orburn, known as the Dryhope Burn. It is deeply buried in the hills.Spurs of the Cheviots as these are, they rise to a considerableelevation, but are pasturable nearly to the top. There, however, wherethe heather begins, peat-hags and morasses make dangerous provision,from which the flocks are carefully guarded. It is the practice of thecountry for the shepherds to be within touch of them all night, lestsome, feeding upward (as sheep always do) should reach the summits andbe lost or mired inextricably. These upland stretches, consequently,are among the most desolate spots to be found in our islands. I havewalked over them myself within recent years and met not a human soul,nor beast of man's taming. Ravens, curlews, peewits, a lagging fox orlimping hare; such, with the unsensed Spirits of the Earth, will beyour company. In particular I traversed (in 1902) the great uplandcalled Limmer Fell, and saw the tarn--Silent Water--and the treescalled The Seven Sisters. They are silver birches of remarkable sizeand beauty. One of them is fallen. Standing there, looki
ng north-west,the Knapp may be seen easily, some five miles away; and the extent ofthe forest with which it is covered can be estimated. A great andsolemn wood that is, which no borderer will ever enter if he can helpit.
There was--and may be still--a family of shepherds living in Dryhopeof the name of King. When these things occurred there were aliveGeorge King, a patriarch of seventy-five years, Miranda King, hisdaughter-in-law, widow of his son, who was supposed to be amiddle-aged woman, and a young man, Andrew King, her only son. Thatwas the family; and there was a girl, Bessie Prawle, daughter of aneighbour, very much in and out of the house, and held by commonreport to be betrothed to Andrew. She used to help the widow indomestic matters, see to the poultry, milk the cow, churn the butter,press the cheeses. The Kings were independent people, like thedalesmen of Cumberland, and stood, as the saying is, upon their ownfoot-soles. Old King had a tenant-right upon the fell, and owed no mananything.
There was said to be a mystery connected with Miranda the widow, whowas a broad-browed, deep-breasted, handsome woman, very dark andsilent. She was not a native of Redesdale, not known to be ofNorthumberland. Her husband, who had been a sailor, had brought herback with him one day, saying that she was his wife and her nameMiranda. He had said no more about her, would say no more, and hadbeen drowned at sea before his son was born. She, for her part, hadbeen as uncommunicative as he. Such reticence breeds wonderment in theminds of such a people as they of Dryhope, and out of wonderment arisewonders. It was told that until Miranda King was brought in sea-birdshad never been seen in Dryhopedale. It was said that they came on thatvery night when George King the younger came home, and she with him,carrying his bundle and her own. It was said that they had never sinceleft the hamlet, and that when Miranda went out of doors, which wasseldom, she was followed by clouds of them whichever way she turned. Ihave no means of testing the truth of these rumours, but, however itmay be, no scandal was ever brought against her. She was respectableand respected. Old King, the grandfather, relied strongly upon herjudgment. She brought up her son in decent living and the fear of God.
In the year when Andrew was nineteen he was a tall, handsome lad, anda shepherd, following the profession, as he was to inherit the estate,of his forebears. One April night in that year he and his grandfather,the pair of them with a collie, lay out on the fell-side together.Lambing is late in Redesdale, the spring comes late; April is often amonth of snow.
They had a fire and their cloaks; the ground was dry, and they layupon it under a clear sky strewn with stars. At midnight George King,the grandfather, was asleep, but Andrew was broad awake. He heard theflock (which he could not see) sweep by him like a storm, thebell-wether leading, and as they went up the hill the wind began toblow, a long, steady, following blast. The collie on his feet, earsset flat on his head, shuddering with excitement, whined for orders.Andrew, after waking with difficulty his grandfather, was told to goup and head them off. He sent the dog one way--off in a flash, henever returned that night--and himself went another. He was not seenagain for two days. To be exact, he set out at midnight on Thursdaythe 12th April, and did not return to Dryhope until eleven o'clock ofthe morning of Saturday the 14th. The sheep, I may say here, came backby themselves on the 13th, the intervening day.
That night of the 12th April is still commemorated in Dryhope as oneof unexampled spring storm, just as a certain October night of thenext year stands yet as the standard of comparison for all equinoctialgales. The April storm, we hear, was very short and had severalpeculiar features. It arose out of a clear sky, blew up a snow-cloudwhich did no more than powder the hills, and then continued to blowfuriously out of a clear sky. It was steady but inconceivably strongwhile it lasted; the force and pressure of the wind did not vary untiljust the end. It came from the south-east, which is the rainy quarterin Northumberland, but without rain. It blew hard from midnight, untilthree o'clock in the morning, and then, for half an hour, a hurricane.The valley and hamlet escaped as by a miracle. Mr. Robson, the vicar,awakened by it, heard the wind like thunder overhead and went out ofdoors to observe it. He went out into a still, mild air coming fromthe north-west, and still heard it roaring like a mad thing high abovehim. Its direction, as he judged by sound, was the precise contrary ofthe ground current. In the morning, wreckage of all kinds, branches oftrees, roots, and whole clumps of heather strewn about the village andmeadows, while showing that a furious battle had been fought out onthe fells, confirmed this suspicion. A limb of a tree, draped in ivy,was recognised as part of an old favourite of his walks. The ash fromwhich it had been torn stood to the south-east of the village. In thecourse of the day (the 13th) news was brought in that one of the SevenSisters was fallen, and that a clean drive could be seen through theforest on the top of Knapp. Coupled with these dreadful testimoniesyou have the disappearance of Andrew King to help you form yourvision of a village in consternation.
Hear now what befell young Andrew King when he swiftly climbed thefell, driven forward by the storm. The facts are that he was agog foradventure, since, all unknown to any but himself, he had ventured tothe summits before, had stood by Silent Water, touched the SevenSisters one by one, and had even entered the dreadful, haunted, forestof Knapp. He had had a fright, had been smitten by that sudden gripeof fear which palsies limbs and freezes blood, which the ancientscalled the Stroke of Pan, and we still call Panic after them. He hadnever forgotten what he had seen, though he had lost the edge of thefear he had. He was older now by some two years, and only waiting theopportunity for renewed experience. He hoped to have it--and he hadit.
The streaming gale drove him forward as a ship at sea. He ran lightly,without fatigue or troubled breath. Dimly above him he presently sawthe seven trees, dipping and louting to the weather; but as he nearedthem they had no meaning for him, did not, indeed, exist. For now hesaw more than they, and otherwise than men see trees.
II
In a mild and steady light, which came from no illumination of moon orstars, but seemed to be interfused with the air, in the strong warmwind which wrapped the fell-top; upon a sward of bent-grass which rantoward the tarn and ended in swept reeds he saw six young womendancing in a ring. Not to any music that he could hear did they move,nor was the rhythm of their movement either ordered or wild. It wasnot formal dancing, and it was not at all a Bacchic rout: rather theyflitted hither and thither on the turf, now touching hands, nowstraining heads to one another, crossing, meeting, parting, windingabout and about with the purposeless and untirable frivolity of moths.They seemed neither happy nor unhappy, they made no sound; it lookedto the lad as if they had been so drifting from the beginning, andwould so drift to the end of things temporal. Their loose hairstreamed out in the wind, their light gossamer gowns streamed the sameway, whipped about their limbs as close as wet muslin. They werebare-footed, bare-armed, and bare-headed. They all had beauty, but itwas not of earthly cast. He saw one with hair like pale silk, and one,ruddy and fierce in the face, with snaky black hair which, he thought,flew out beyond her for a full yard's measure. Another hadhazel-brown hair and a sharp little peering face; another's was colourof ripe corn, and another's like a thunder-cloud, copper-tinged. Aboutand about they went, skimming the tops of the grasses, and AndrewKing, his heart hammering at his ribs, watched them at their play. Soby chance one saw him, and screamed shrilly, and pointed at him.
Then they came about him like a swarm of bees, angry at first, humminga note like that of the telegraph wire on a mountain road, but, as hestood his ground, curiosity prevailed among them and they priedclosely at him. They touched him, felt his arms, his knees, handledhis clothing, peered into his eyes. All this he endured, though he wasin a horrible fright. Then one, the black-haired girl with a bold,proud face, came and stood closely before him and looked him full intohis eyes. He gave her look for look. She put a hand on each shoulderand kissed him. After that there was a tussle among them, for eachmust do what her sister had done. They took a kiss apiece, or maybemore; then, circling round him, they swept him forwar
d on the wind,past Silent Water, over the Edge, out on the fells, on and on and on,and never stopped till they reached Knapp Forest, that dreadful place.
There in the hushed aisles and glades they played with this new-foundcreature, played with him, fought for him, and would have loved him ifhe had been minded for such adventuring. Two in particular he markedas desiring his closer company--the black-haired and bold was one, andthe other was the sharp-faced and slim with eyes of a mouse andhazel-brown hair. He called her the laughing girl and thought her thekindest of them all. But they were all his friends at this time.Andrew King, like young Tamlane, might have sojourned with them forever and a day, but for one thing. He saw by chance a seventhmaiden--a white-faced, woe-begone, horror-struck Seventh Sister,blenched and frozen under a great beech. She may have been therethroughout his commerce with the rest, or she may have been revealedto him in a flash then and there. So as it was he saw her suddenly,and thereafter saw no other at all. She held his eyes waking; he lefthis playmates and went to her where she crouched. He stooped and tookher hand. It was as cold as a dead girl's and very heavy. Amid thescreaming of the others, undeterred by their whirling and battling, helifted up the frozen one. He lifted her bodily and carried her in hisarms. They swept all about him like infuriated birds. The sound oftheir rage was like that of gulls about a fish in the tide-way; butthey laid no hands on him, and said nothing that he could understand,and by this time his awe was gone, and his heart was on fire. Holdingfast to what he had and wanted, he pushed out of Knapp Forest and tookthe lee-side of the Edge on his way to Dryhope. This must have beenabout the time of the gale at its worst. The Seventh Sister by SilentWater may have fallen at this time; for had not Andrew King theSeventh Sister in his arms?
Anxiety as to the fate of Andrew King was spread over the village andthe greatest sympathy felt for the bereaved family. To have lost aflock of sheep, a dog, and an only child at one blow is a terriblemisfortune. Old King, I am told, was prostrated, and the girl, BessiePrawle, violent in her lamentations over her "lad." The only personunmoved was the youth's mother, Miranda King the widow. She, it seems,had no doubts of his safety, and declared that he "would come in histime, like his father before him"--a saying which, instead ofcomforting the mourners, appears to have exasperated them. Probablythey did not at all understand it. Such consolations as Mr. Robson theminister had to offer she received respectfully, but without comment.All she had to say was that she could trust her son; and when he urgedthat she had better by far trust in God, her reply, finally andshortly, was that God was bound by His own laws and had not given usheads and hearts for nothing. I am free to admit that her theologyupon this point seems to me remarkably sound.
In the course of the 13th, anxious day as it promised to be, oldGeorge King, returning from a fruitless quest over the fells, cameupon his sheep within a few hundred yards of his own house, collectedtogether in a flock and under the watch of his dog. They were, infact, as nearly as possible where he had understood them to be beforetheir stampede of the previous night. He was greatly heartened by thediscovery, though unable to account for the facts of it. The dog wasexcessively tired, and ate greedily. Next morning, when the family andsome neighbours were standing together on the fell-side looking up thevalley where the Dryhope burn comes down from the hills, they saw twofigures on the rough road which follows it. Mrs. King, the widow, Ibelieve, had seen them first, but she had said nothing. It was BessiePrawle who raised the first cry that "Andrew was coming, and his wifewith him." All looked in the direction she showed them and recognisedthe young man. Behind him walked the figure of a woman. This is theaccustomed manner of a man and wife to walk in that country. It isalmost a proof of their relationship. Being satisfied of the identityof their child the whole party returned to the homestead to await himand what he was bringing with him. Speculation was rife and volublyexpressed, especially by Bessie Prawle. Miranda King, however, wassilent; but it was noticed that she kept her eyes fixed upon the womanbehind her son, and that her lips moved as if she was muttering toherself.
The facts were as the expectations. Andrew King brought forward ayoung, timid and unknown girl as his wife. By that name he led her upto his grandfather, then to his mother; as such he explained her tohis neighbours, including (though not by name) Bessie Prawle, who hadundoubtedly hoped to occupy that position herself.
Old King, overcome with joy at seeing his boy alive and well, anddazed, probably, by events, put his hands upon the girl's head andblessed her after the patriarchal fashion there persisting. He seemsto have taken canonical marriage for granted, though nobody else did,and though a moment's reflection, had he been capable of so much,would have shown him that that could not be. The neighbours were toowell disposed to the family to raise any doubts or objections; BessiePrawle was sullen and quiet; only Miranda King seems to have beenequal to the occasion. She, as if in complete possession of factswhich satisfied every question, received the girl as an equal. She didnot kiss her or touch her, but looked deeply into her eyes for a longspace of time, and took from her again an equally searching regard;then, turning to her father-in-law and the company at large, she said,"This is begun, and will be done. He is like his father before him."To that oracular utterance old King, catching probably but the lastsentence, replied, "And he couldn't do better, my child." He meant nomore than a testimony to his daughter-in-law. Mrs. King'sobservations, coupled with that, nevertheless, went far to give creditto the alleged marriage.
The girl, so far, had said nothing whatever, though she had beenaddressed with more than one rough but kindly compliment on her youthand good looks. And now Andrew King explained that she was dumb.Consternation took the strange form of jocular approval of hisdiscretion in selecting a wife who could never nag him--but it wasconsternation none the less. The mystery was felt to be deeper; therewas nothing for it now but to call in the aid of the parishpriest--"the minister," as they called him--and this was done. By thetime he had arrived, Miranda King had taken the girl into the cottage,and the young husband and his grandfather had got the neighbours todisperse. Bessie Prawle, breathing threatenings and slaughter, hadwithdrawn herself.
Mr. Robson, a quiet sensible man of nearer sixty than fifty years,sat in the cottage, hearing all that his parishioners could tell himand using his eyes. He saw the centre-piece of all surmise, ashrinking, pale slip of a girl, by the look of her not more thanfifteen or sixteen years old. She was not emaciated by any means,seemed to be well nourished, and was quite as vigorous as any child ofthat age who could have been pitted against her. Her surroundingscowed her, he judged. To Dryhope she was a stranger, a foreigner; toher Dryhope and the Dryhopedale folk were perilous matter. Her generalappearance was that of a child who had never had anything butill-usage; she flinched at every sudden movement, and followed oneabout with her great unintelligent eyes, as if she was trying tocomprehend what they showed her. Her features were regular anddelicate; her brows broad and eyebrows finely arched, her chin full,her neck slim, her hands and feet narrow and full of what fancierscall "breed." Her hair was very long and fine, dark brown with gleamsof gold; her eyes were large, grey in colour, but, as I have said,unintelligent, like an animal's, which to us always seemunintelligent. I should have mentioned, for Mr. Robson noticed it atonce, that her hair was unconfined, and that, so far as he could makeout, she wore but a single garment--a sleeveless frock, confined atthe waist and reaching to her knees. It was of the colour ofunbleached flax and of a coarse web. Her form showed through, and thefaint flush of her skin. She was a finely made girl. Her legs and feetwere bare. Immodest as such an appearance would have been in one ofthe village maids, he did not feel it to be so with her. Her look wasso entirely foreign to his experience that there was no standard ofcomparison. Everything about her seemed to him to be quite what onewould have expected, until one came, so to speak, in touch with hersoul. That, if it lay behind her inscrutable, sightless and dumb eyes,betrayed her. There was no hint of it. Human in form, visibly andtangibly human, no soul sat in her
great eyes that a man coulddiscern. That, however, is not now the point. Rather it is that, toall appearance a modest and beautiful girl, she was remarkablyundressed. It was inconceivable that a modest and beautiful girl couldso present herself, and yet a modest and beautiful girl she was.
Mr. Robson put it to himself this way. There are birds--for instance,jays, kingfishers, goldfinches--which are, taken absolutely, extremelybrilliant in colouring. Yet they do not jar, are not obtrusive. So itwas with her. Her dress was, perhaps, taken absolutely, indecorous.Upon her it looked at once seemly and beautiful. Upon Bessie Prawle itwould have been glaring; but one had to dissect it before one coulddiscover any fault with it upon its wearer. She was very pale, even tothe lips, which were full and parted, as if she must breathe throughher mouth. He noticed immediately the shortness of her breath. It wasvery distressing, and after a little while induced the same thing inhimself. And not in him only, but I can fancy that the whole group ofthem sitting round her where she was crouched against Miranda King'sknees, were panting away like steam-engines before they had done withher. While Mr. Robson was there Miranda never took her arm off hershoulder for a moment; but the girl's eyes were always fixed uponAndrew, who called himself her husband, unless her apprehensions weredirectly called elsewhere. In that case she would look in the requireddirection for the fraction of a second, terrified and ready, as youmay say, to die at a movement, and then, her fears at rest, back toher husband's face.
Mr. Robson's first business was to examine Andrew King, a perfectlyhonest, well-behaved lad, whom he had known from his cradle. He wascandid--up to a point. He had found her on the top of Knapp Fell, hesaid; she had been with others, who ill-treated her. What others?Others of her sort. Fairies, he said, who lived up there. He pressedhim about this. Fairies? Did he really believe in such beings? Likeall country people he spoke about these things with the utmostdifficulty, and when confronted by worldly wisdom, became dogged. Hesaid how could he help it when here was one? Mr. Robson told him thathe was begging the question, but he looked very blank. To the surpriseof the minister, old King--old George King, the grandfather--had noobjections to make to the suggestion of fairies on Knapp Fell. Hecould not say, there was no telling; Knapp was a known place; strangethings were recorded of the forest. Miranda, his daughter-in-law, wasalways a self-contained woman, with an air about her of beingforewarned. He instanced her, and the minister asked her severalquestions. Being pressed, she finally said, "Sir, my son is as likelyright as wrong. We must all make up our own minds." There that matterhad to be left.
Andrew said that he had followed the fairies from the tarn on LammerFell into Knapp Forest. They had run away from him, taking this girlof his, as he supposed, with them. He had followed them because hemeant to have her. They knew that, so had run. Why did he want her? Hesaid that he had seen her before. When? Oh, long ago--when he had beenup there alone. He had seen her face among the trees for a moment.They had been hurting her; she looked at him, she was frightened, butcouldn't cry out--only look and ask. He had never forgotten her; herlooks had called him often, and he had kept his eyes wide open. Now,when he had found her again, he determined to have her. And at last,he said, he had got her. He had had to fight for her, for they hadbeen about him like hell-cats and had jumped at him as if they wouldtear him to pieces, and screamed and hissed like cats. But when he hadgot her in his arms they had all screamed together, once--like ahowling wind--and had flown away.
What next? Here he became obstinate, as if foreseeing what was to be.What next? He had married her. Married her! How could he marry a fairyon the top of Knapp Fell? Was there a church there, by chance? Had alicence been handy? "Let me see her lines, Andrew," Mr. Robson hadsaid somewhat sternly in conclusion. His answer had been to lift upher left hand and show the thin third finger. It carried a ring, madeof plaited rush. "I put that on her," he said, "and said all the wordsover her out of the book." "And you think you have married her,Andrew?" It was put to him _ex cathedra_. He grew very red and wassilent; presently he said, "Well, sir, I do think so. But she's not mywife yet, if that's what you mean." The good gentleman felt very muchrelieved. It was satisfactory to him that he could still trust hisworthy young parishioner.
Entirely under the influence of Miranda King, he found the familyunanimous for a real wedding. To that there were two objections tomake. He could not put up the banns of a person without a name, andwould not marry a person unbaptised. Now, to baptise an adultsomething more than sponsors are requisite; there must be voluntaryassent to the doctrines of religion by the postulant. In this case,how to be obtained? He saw no way, since it was by no means plain tohim that the girl could understand a word that was said. He left thefamily to talk it over among themselves, saying, as he went out of thedoor, that his confidence in their principles was so strong that hewas sure they would sanction no step which would lead the two youngpeople away from the church door.
In the morning Miranda King came to him with a report that matters hadbeen arranged and only needed his sanction. "I can trust my son, andsee him take her with a good conscience," she told him. "She's not oneof his people, but she's one of mine; and what I have done she can do,and is willing to do."
The clergyman was puzzled. "What do you mean by that, Mrs. King?" heasked her. "What are _your people_? How do they differ from mine, oryour husband's?"
She hesitated. "Well, sir, in this way. She hasn't got your tongue,nor my son's tongue."
"She has none at all," said the minister; but Miranda replied, "Shecan talk without her tongue."
"Yes, my dear," he said, "but I cannot."
"But I can," was her answer; "she can talk to me--and will talk toyou; but not yet. She's dumb for a season, she's struck so. My sonwill give her back her tongue--by-and-by."
He was much interested. He asked Miranda to tell him who had struckher dumb. For a long time she would not answer. "We don't namehim--it's not lawful. He that has the power--the Master--I can go nonearer." He urged her to openness, got her at last to mention "TheKing of the Wood." The King of the Wood! There she stuck, and nothinghe could say could move her from that name, The King of the Wood.
He left it so, knowing his people, and having other things to askabout. What tongue or speech had the respectable, the staid MirandaKing in common with the scared waif? To that she answered that shecould not tell him; but that it was certain they could understand eachother. How? "By looks," she said, and added scornfully, "she's notthe kind that has to clatter with her tongue to have speech with herkindred."
Miranda, then, was a kinswoman! He showed his incredulity, and thewoman flushed. "See here, Mr. Robson," she said, "I am of the sea, andshe of the fell, but we are the same nation. We are not of yours, butyou can make us so. Directly I saw her I knew what she was; and so didshe know me. How? By the eyes and understanding. I felt who she was.As she is now so was I once. As I am now so will she be. I'll answerfor her; I'm here to do it. When once I'd followed my man I neverlooked back; no more will she. The woman obeys the man--that's thelaw. If a girl of your people was taken with a man of mine she'd loseher speech and forsake her home and ways. That's the law all the worldover. God Almighty's self, if He were a woman, would do the same. Hecouldn't help it. The law is His; but He made it so sure that notHimself could break it."
"What law do you mean?" she was asked. She said, "The law of life. Thewoman follows the man."
This proposition he was not prepared to deny, and the end of it wasthat Mr. Robson baptised the girl, taking Miranda for godmother.Mabilla they called her by her sponsor's desire, "MabillaBy-the-Wood," and as such she was published and married. You may bedisposed to blame him for lightness of conscience, but I take leave totell you that he had had the cure of souls in Dryhope forfive-and-thirty years. He claimed on that score to know his people.The more he knew of them, the less he was able to question the lore ofsuch an one as Miranda King. And he might remind you that Mabilla Kingis alive to this hour, a wife and mother of children. That is a fact,and it is also a fact
, as I am about to tell you, that she had a hardfight to win such peace.
Married, made a woman, she lost her haunted look and gained somecolour in her cheeks. She lost her mortal chill. Her clothing, theputting up of her hair made some difference, but loving entreaty allthe difference in the world. To a casual glance there was nothing butrefinement to distinguish her from her neighbours, to a closer onethere was more than that. Her eyes, they said, had the far, intent,rapt gaze of a wild animal. They seemed to search minutely, reachingbeyond our power of vision, to find there things beyond our human ken.But whereas the things which she looked at, invisible to us, causedher no dismay, those within our range, the most ordinary andcommonplace, filled her with alarm. Her eyes, you may say, communedwith the unseen, and her soul followed their direction and dweltremote from her body. She was easily startled, not only by what shesaw but by what she heard. Nobody was ever more sensitive to sound.They say that a piano-tuner goes not by sound, but by the vibrationsof the wire, which he is able to test without counting. It was so withher. She seemed to feel the trembling of the circumambient air, and toknow by its greater or less intensity that something--and very oftenwhat thing in particular--was affecting it. All her senses werepreternaturally acute--she could see incredible distances, hear,smell, in a way that only wild nature can. Added to these, she hadanother sense, whereby she could see what was hidden from us andunderstand what we could not even perceive. One could guess as much,on occasions, by the absorbed intensity of her gaze. But when she waswith her husband (which was whenever he would allow it) she had noeyes, ears, senses or thoughts for any other living thing, seen orunseen. She followed him about like a dog, and when that might not beher eyes followed him. Sometimes, when he was afield with his sheep,they saw her come out of the cottage and slink up the hedgerow to thefell's foot. She would climb the brae, search him out, and then crouchdown and sit watching him, never taking her eyes off him. When he wasat home her favourite place was at his feet. She would sit huddledthere for hours, and his hand would fall upon her hair or rest on hershoulder; and you could see the pleasure thrilling her, raying outfrom her--just as you can see, as well as hear, a cat purring by thefire. He used to whisper in her ear as if she was a child: like achild she used to listen and wonder. Whether she understood him or noit was sometimes the only way of soothing her. Her trembling stoppedat the sound of his voice, and her eyes left off staring and showedthe glow of peace. For whole long evenings they sat close together,his hand upon her hair and his low voice murmuring in her ear.
This much the neighbours report and the clergyman confirms, as alsothat all went well with the young couple for the better part of twoyears. The girl grew swiftly towards womanhood, became sleek andwell-liking; had a glow and a promise of ripeness which bid fair to beredeemed. A few omens, however, remained, disquieting when those wholoved her thought of them. One was that she got no human speech,though she understood everything that was said to her; another thatshe showed no signs of motherhood; a third that Bessie Prawle couldnot abide her. She alone of all the little community avoided the Kinghousehold, and scowled whensoever she happened to cross the path ofthis gentle outland girl. Jealousy was presumed the cause; but Ithink there was more in it than that. I think that Bessie Prawlebelieved her to be a witch.
III
To eyes prepared for coming disaster things small in themselves loomout of a clear sky portentous. Such eyes had not young Andrew King thebride-groom, a youth made man by love, secure in his treasure andconfident in his power of keeping what his confidence had won. Sucheyes may or may not have had Mabilla, though hers seemed to be centredin her husband, where he was or where he might be. George King was oldand looked on nothing but his sheep, or the weather as it might affecthis sheep. Miranda King, the self-contained, stoic woman, had schooledher eyes to see her common duties. Whatever else she may have seen shekept within the door of her shut lips. She may have known what wascoming, she must have known that whatever came had to come. BessiePrawle, however, with hatred, bitter fear and jealousy to sharpen her,saw much.
Bessie Prawle was a handsome, red-haired girl, deep in the breast,full-eyed and of great colour. Her strength was remarkable. She couldlift a heifer into a cart, and had once, being dared to it, carriedAndrew King up the brae in her arms. The young man, she supposed,owed her a grudge for that; she believed herself unforgiven, and sawin this sudden marriage of his a long-meditated act of revenge. Bythat in her eyes (and as she thought, in the eyes of all Dryhope) hehad ill-requited her, put her to unthinkable shame. She saw herselfwith her favours of person and power passed over for a nameless,haunted, dumb thing, a stray from some other world into a world ofmen, women, and the children they rear to follow them. She scornedMabilla for flinching so much, she scorned her for not flinching more.That Mabilla could be desirable to Andrew King made her scoff; thatAndrew King should not know her dangerous kept her awake at night.
For the world seemed to her a fearful place since Mabilla had beenbrought into it. There were signs everywhere. That summer it thunderedout of a clear sky. Once in the early morning she had seen a brightlight above the sun--a mock sun which shone more fiercely than a firein daylight. She heard wild voices singing; on still days she saw thetrees in Knapp Forest bent to a furious wind. When Mabilla crept upthe fell on noiseless feet to spy for Andrew King, Bessie Prawle heardthe bents hiss and crackle under her, as if she set them afire.
Next summer, too, there were portents. There was a great drought, sogreat that Dryhope burn ran dry, and water had to be fetched from adistance for the sheep. There were heather fires in many places; smutgot into the oats, and a plague of caterpillars attacked the trees sothat in July they were leafless, and there was no shade. There was nopasture for the kine, which grew lean and languid. Their bones stuckout through their skin; they moaned as they lay on the parched earth,and had not strength enough to swish at the clouds of flies. They hadsores upon them, which festered and spread. If Mabilla, the namelesswife, was not responsible for this, who could be? Perhaps Heaven wasoffended with Dryhope on account of Andrew King's impiety. Bessiebelieved that Mabilla was a witch.
She followed the girl about, spying on everything she did. Once, atleast, she came upon her lying in the heather. She was plaiting rushestogether into a belt, and Bessie thought she was weaving a spell andsprang upon her. The girl cowered, very white, and Bessie Prawle, herheart on fire, gave tongue to all her bitter thoughts. The witch-wife,fairy-wife, child or whatever she was seemed to wither as a flower ina hot wind. Bessie Prawle towered above her in her strength, andgained invective with every fierce breath she took. Her blue eyesburned, her bosom heaved like the sea; her arm bared to the shouldercould have struck a man down. Yet in the midst of her frenzied speech,in full flow, she faltered. Her fists unclenched themselves, her armdropped nerveless, her eyes sought the ground. Andrew King, pale withrage, sterner than she had ever seen him, stood before her.
He looked at her with deadly calm.
"Be out of this," he said; "you degrade yourself. Never let me see youagain." Before she had shrunk away he had stooped to the huddledcreature at his feet, had covered her with his arms and was whisperingurgent comfort in her ear, caressing her with voice and hands. BessiePrawle could not show herself to the neighbours for the rest of thesummer and early autumn. She became a solitary; the neighbours saidthat she was in a decline.
The drought, with all the troubles it entailed of plague, pestilenceand famine, continued through August and September. It did not reallybreak till All-Hallow's, and then, indeed, it did.
The day had been overcast, with a sky of a coppery tinge, andintensely dry heat; a chance puff of wind smote one in the face, hotas the breath of a man in fever. The sheep panted on the ground, theirdry tongues far out of their mouths; the beasts lay as if dead, andflies settled upon them in clouds. All the land was of one glaringbrown, where the bents were dry straw, and the heather first burntand then bleached pallid by the sun. The distance was blurred in areddish lurid haze; Knapp Fell a
nd its forest were hidden.
Mabilla, the dumb girl, had been restless all day, following Andrewabout like a shadow. The heat had made him irritable; more than oncehe had told her to go home and she had obeyed him for the time, buthad always come back. Her looks roamed wide; she seemed alwayslistening; sometimes it was clear that she heard something--for shepanted and moved her lips. There was deep trouble in her eyes too; sheseemed full of fear. At almost any other time her husband would havenoticed it and comforted her. But his nerves, fretted by the longscorching summer, were on this day of fire stretched to the crackingpoint. He saw nothing, and felt nothing, but his own discomfort.
Out on the parched fell-side Bessie Prawle sat like a bird of omen andgloomed at the wrath to come.
Toward dusk a wind came moaning down the valley, raising little spiresof dust. It came now down, now up. Sometimes two currents met eachother and made momentary riot. But farm-work has to get itself donethrough fair or foul. It grew dark, the sheep were folded and fed, thecattle were got in, and the family sat together in the kitchen,silent, preoccupied, the men oppressed and anxious over they knew notwhat. As for those two aliens, Miranda King and Mabilla By-the-Wood,whatever they knew, one of them made no sign at all, and the other,though she was white, though she shivered and peered about, had nomeans of voicing her thought.
They had their tea and settled to their evening tasks. The oldshepherd dozed over his pipe, Miranda knitted fast, Mabilla stared outof the window into the dark, twisting her hands, and Andrew, with oneof his hands upon her shoulder, patted her gently, as if to sootheher. She gave him a grateful look more than once, but did not cease toshiver. Nobody spoke, and suddenly in the silence Mabilla gasped andbegan to tremble. Then the dog growled under the table. All looked upand about them.
A scattering, pattering sound lashed at the window. Andrew thenstarted up. "Rain!" he said; "that's what we're waiting for," and madeto go to the door. Miranda his mother, and Mabilla his young wife,caught him by the frock and held him back. The dog, staring into thewindow-pane, bristling and glaring, continued to growl. They waited insilence, but with beating hearts.
A loud knock sounded suddenly on the door--a dull, heavy blow, as ifone had pounded it with a tree-stump. The dog burst into a panic ofbarking, flew to the door and sniffed at the threshold. He whined andscratched frantically with his forepaws. The wind began to blow,coming quite suddenly down, solid upon the wall of the house, shakingit upon its foundations. George King was now upon his feet. "Good GodAlmighty!" he said, "this is the end of the world!"
The blast was not long-lived. It fell to a murmur. Andrew King, now atthe window, could see nothing of the rain. There were no drops uponthe glass, nor sound upon the sycamores outside. But even while helooked, and his grandfather, all his senses alert, waited for what wasto come, and the two pale women clung together, knowing what was tocome, there grew gradually another sound which, because it wasfamiliar, brought their terrors sharply to a point.
It was the sound of sheep in a flock running. It came from afar andgrew in volume and distinctness; the innumerable small thudding ofsharp hoofs, the rustling of woolly bodies, the volleying of shortbreath, and that indefinable sense of bustle which massed thingsproduce, passing swiftly.
The sheep came on, panic-driven, voiceless in their fear, but speakingaloud in the wildly clanging bells; they swept by the door of thehouse with a sound like the rush of water; they disappeared in thatflash of sound. Old King cried, "Man, 'tis the sheep!" and flew forhis staff and shoes. Miranda followed to fetch them; but Andrew wentto the door as he was, shaking off his clinging wife, unlatched it andlet in a gale of wind. The dog shot out like a flame of fire and wasgone.
It was as if the wind which was driving the sheep was going to scourthe house. It came madly, with indescribable force; it rushed into thehouse, blew the window-curtains toward the middle of the room, drovethe fire outward and set the ashes whirling like snow all about.Andrew King staggered before it a moment, then put his head down andbeat his way out. Mabilla shuddering shrank backward to the fireplaceand crouched there, waiting. Old King came out booted and cloaked, hisstaff in his hand, battled to the door and was swept up the brae uponthe gale. Miranda did not appear; so Mabilla, white and rigid, wasalone in the whirling room.
Creeping to her through the open door, holding to whatever solid thingshe could come by, entered Bessie Prawle. In all that turmoil andchill terror she alone was hot. Her grudge was burning in her. Shecould have killed Mabilla with her eyes.
But she did not, for Mabilla was in the hands of greater and strongerpowers. Before Bessie Prawle's shocked eyes she was seen rigid andawake. She was seen to cower as to some threatening shape, then tostiffen, to mutter with her dry lips, and to grow still, to stare withher wide eyes, and then to see nothing. A glaze swam over her eyes;they were open, but as the eyes of the dead.
Bessie Prawle, horror-struck, stretched out her arms to give hershelter. All her honest humanity was reborn in her in this dreadfulhour. "My poor lass, I'll not harm ye," she was saying; but Mabillahad begun to move. She moved as a sleep-walker, seeing but not seeingher way; she moved as one who must, not as one who would. She wentslowly as if drawn to the open door. Bessie never tried to stop her;she could not though she would. Slowly as if drawn she went to thedoor, staring before her, pale as a cloth, rigid as a frozen thing. Atthe threshold she swayed for a moment in the power of the storm; thenshe was sucked out like a dried leaf and was no more seen. Overhead,all about the eaves of the house the great wind shrilled mockery anddespairing mirth. The fire leapt toward the middle of the room andfell back so much white ash. Bessie Prawle plumped down to her knees,huddled, and prayed.
Andrew King, coming back, found her there at it, alone. His eyes sweptthe room. "Mabilla! Bessie Prawle, where is Mabilla?" The girl huddledand prayed on. He took her by the shoulder and shook her to and fro."You foul wench, you piece, this is your doing." Bessie sobbed herdenials, but he would not hear her. Snatching up a staff, he turned,threw her down in his fury. He left the house and followed the wind.
The wind caught him the moment he was outside, and swept him onwardwhether he would or not. He ran down the bank of the beck which seemedto be racing him for a prize, leaping and thundering level with itsbanks; before he had time to wonder whether the bridge still stood hewas up with it, over it and on the edge of the brae. Up the moorlandroad he went, carried rather than running, and where it loses itselfin the first enclosure, being hard up against the wall, over hevaulted, across the field and over the further wall. Out then upon theopen fell, where the heather makes great cushions, and between all ofthem are bogs or stones, he was swept by the wind. It shrieked abouthim and carried him up and over as if he were a leaf of autumn. Beyondthat was dangerous ground, but there was no stopping; he was caught inthe flood of the gale. He knew very well, however, whither it wascarrying him: to Knapp, that place of dread, whither he was now sureMabilla had been carried, resumed by her own people. There was nodrawing back, there was no time for prayer. All he could do was tokeep his feet.
He was carried down the Dryhope fell, he said, into the next valley,swept somehow over the roaring beck in the bottom, and up the ruggedside of Knapp, where the peat-hags are as high as rocks, and presentlyknew without the help of his eyes that he was nearing the forest. Heheard the swishing of the trees, the cracking of the boughs, the sharpcrack and crash which told of some limb torn off and sent to ruin; andhe knew also by some hush not far off that the wind, great and furiousas it was, was to be quieted within that awful place. It was so. Hestood panting upon the edge of the wood, out of the wind, which roaredaway overhead. He twittered with his foolish lips, not knowing what onearth to do, nor daring to do anything had he known it; but all theprayers he had ever learned were driven clean out of his head.
He could dimly make out the tree-trunks immediately before him, lowbushes, shelves of bracken-fern; he could pierce somewhat into thegloom beyond and see the solemn trees ranked in their order, and abovethem a g
reat soft blackness rent here and there to show the sky. Thevolleying of the storm sounded like the sea heard afar off: it was soremote and steady a noise that lesser sounds were discernible--therustlings, squeakings, and snappings of small creatures moving oversmall undergrowth. Every one of these sent his heart leaping to hismouth; but all his fears were to be swallowed up in amazement, for ashe stood there distracted, without warning, without shock, there stoodone by him, within touching distance, a child, as he judged it, withloose hair and bright eyes, prying into his face, smiling at him andinviting him to come on.
"Who in God's name--?" cried Andrew King; but the child plucked himby the coat and tried to draw him into the wood.
I understand that he did not hesitate. If he had forgotten his gods hehad not forgotten his fairy-wife. I suppose, too, that he knew whereto look for her; he may have supposed that she had been resumed intoher first state. At any rate, he made his way into the forest byguess-work, aided by reminiscence. I believe he was accustomed to averthat he "knew where she was very well," and that he took a straightline to her. I have seen Knapp Forest and doubt it. He did, however,find himself in the dark spaces of the wood and there, sure enough, hedid also see the women with whom his Mabilla had once been co-mate.They came about him, he said, like angry cats, hissing and shootingout their lips. They did not touch him; but if eyes and white hatefulfaces could have killed him, dead he had been then and there.
He called upon God and Christ and made a way through them. His senseshad told him where Mabilla was. He found her pale and trembling in anaisle of the trees. She leaned against a tall tree, perfectly rigid,"as cold as a stone," staring across him with frozen eyes, her mouthopen like a round O. He took her in his arms and holding her closeturned and defied the "witches"--so he called them in his wrath. Hedared them in the name of God to touch him or his wife, and as he didso he says that he felt the chill grow upon him. It took him, he said,in the legs and ran up his body. It stiffened his arms till they feltas if they must snap under the strain; it caught him in the neck andfixed it. He felt his eyes grow stiff and hard; he felt himself sway."Then," he said, "the dark swam over me, the dark and the bitter cold,and I knew nothing more." Questioned as he was by Mr. Robson and hisfriends, he declared that it was at the name of God the cold got himfirst. He saw the women hushed and scared, and at the same time one ofthem looked over her shoulder, as if somebody was coming. Had hecalled in the King of the Wood? That is what he himself thought. Itwas the King of the Wood who had come in quest of Mabilla, had pulledher out of the cottage in Dryhope and frozen her in the forest. It washe, no doubt, said Andrew King, who had come to defy the Christianand his God. I detect here the inspiration of his mother Miranda, thestrange sea-woman who knew Mabilla without mortal knowledge and spoketo her in no mortal speech. But the sequel to the tale is a strangeone.
Andrew King awoke to find himself in Mabilla's arms, to hear for thefirst time in his life Mabilla call him softly by his name. "Andrew,my husband," she called him, and when he opened his eyes in wonder tohear her she said, "Andrew, take me home now. It is all over," orwords to that effect. They went along the forest and up and down thefells together. The wind had dropped, the stars shone. And togetherthey took up their life where they had dropped it, with onesignificant omission in its circumstance. Bessie Prawle haddisappeared from Dryhope. She had followed him up the fell on thenight of the storm, but she came not back. And they say that she neverdid. Nothing was found of her body, though search was made; but a combshe used to wear was picked up, they say, by the tarn on Limmer Fell,an imitation tortoise-shell comb which used to hold up her hair.Miranda King, who knew more than she would ever tell, had a shrewdsuspicion of the truth of the case. But Andrew King knew nothing, andI daresay cared very little. He had his wood-wife, and she had hervoice; and between them, I believe, they had a child within the year.
I ought to add that I have, with these eyes, seen Mabilla By-the-Woodwho became Mabilla King. When I went from Dryhopedale to Knapp Forestshe stood at the farmhouse door with a child in her arms. Two otherswere tumbling about in the croft. She was a pretty, serious girl--forshe looked quite a girl--with a round face and large greyish-blueeyes. She had a pink cotton dress on, and a good figure beneath it.She was pale, but looked healthy and strong. Not a tall girl. I askedher the best way to Knapp Forest and she came out to the gate to pointit to me. She talked simply, with a northern accent, and might havebeen the child of generations of borderers. She pointed me the verytrack by which Andrew King must have brought her home, by which theKing of the Wood swept her out on the wings of his wrath; she namedthe tarn where once she dwelt as the spirit of a tree. All thiswithout a flush, a tremor or a sign in her blue eyes that she had everknown the place. But these people are close, and seldom betray allthat they know or think.
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