The Retreat

by Forrest Reid

  Or not exactly that, because he had come to a temporary halt, and for the last five minutes had been sitting on a stone bridge resting. The climb was a long one, and the hill—though the other afternoon when they had driven over in the car it had seemed nothing—this morning had proved to be one of those wearying and deceptive hills whose summits retreat at the same rate as you advance, so that you always have another final stretch in front of you. Tom’s jacket was slung over his left arm, a luncheon basket was on the bridge beside him, and the day, as he reflected, beating off the flies with his handkerchief, was about the hottest day he could have chosen for his excursion.

  Not that he really had chosen it, or for that matter been given any choice. He wouldn’t be here now if he hadn’t received a postcard from Pascoe to announce that Pascoe himself would be arriving to-morrow, and would be staying with Aunt Rhoda till the end of the holidays. That had settled it; it must be to-day or never.

  Yet when he had mentioned his plan, giving the reason why it would have to be carried out at once, it had called forth unfavourable comments from both Daddy and Mother. Also untrue and unjust, for it certainly didn’t imply, as they appeared to think it must, that he wouldn’t be glad to see Pascoe or didn’t want his company. It only meant that on his last visit to Glenagivney he had felt very much attracted by the place, and had decided that he would like to return to it some day by himself. He didn’t know exactly why he wished to do this, though it was partly because it had seemed so secluded and deserted, even with Daddy and Mother there, that he couldn’t help imagining how completely solitary it would be if he were alone. It would be strange; it would be exciting, it would be an adventure; possibly he mightn’t like it as much as he expected, but far more probably he would. . . .

  Yet that was not all—was not even the chief thing. Only the chief thing could hardly be expressed even to himself. It was—wasn’t it?—a feeling, ever so deeply and mysteriously alluring, that there was just the remotest, just the faintest chance that he might meet somebody. This, in a way, perhaps appeared contradictory; but it wasn’t really—not with the kind of meeting, the kind of person, he had in mind. Possibly there was no such person—outside dreamland—but possibly there was, and if there was, then this place was as close to dreamland as solitude and loveliness could make it. Naturally, however, he couldn’t tell Daddy and Mother such things, though he had often thought them and sometimes dreamed them. Anyhow, by coming alone, he didn’t see what harm he would be doing to Pascoe. . . .

  He listened to the stream trickling far down below him, under the road. He began to print his name on the stone, but the point of his pencil broke. He had rested long enough, he must be getting on, and he slid down from the bridge and caught up his jacket and basket.

  The road was thick with dust and so steep that in places horses and donkeys had to draw their carts from side to side in a zig-zag track. Here and there it was actually solid rock, which must make it frightfully slippery in winter, especially for the small feet of the donkeys. Tom’s own feet were big, and so were his hands. He ought to have pointed this out to Mr. Holbrook, for it might be a hopeful sign. . . .

  On either side of the road stretched the heather, purple and brown and dark olive-green, with black patches where the turf had been cut. There were no trees, but only the wide gentle curve of the hill rounded against the sky, very simple, and somehow soothing.

  Now that he had left the bridge and the stream behind him, he wished that he had taken a drink while he still had had the chance. He had been a long while on this road, partly because of donkeys who weren’t working and therefore had time for a little gossip, and partly because of stones in his shoes. Every time he got a stone in his shoe he sat down on the bank, and every time he sat down on the bank he found it hard to get up again. It was so hot, with that cloudless sky and not a vestige of shade, and he very much doubted if carrying his jacket was really a good plan. The grasshoppers made as much din as if they were being broiled on frying-pans. He wished that he hadn’t brought a basket at all, though at the time, when Miss Forbes had suggested it, he had been pleased. Already he had examined the contents. It contained a thermos flask, a bottle of milk, a knife, a spoon, a cup, cake, sandwiches, bread, biscuits, cheese, bananas, sugar, butter, salt—and some of these things were pure luxuries, he could have done quite well without them.

  The sun was almost directly overhead and so fiery that if you looked at it through your fingers it was like a solid ball of white flame. Well, he must be near the top now—and—yes—here it was! And there down below him, though still some distance off, was the sea.

  It looked intensely blue under a glittering haze of light. It looked as if it were absolutely unvisited and unknown. The descent on this side was much shorter and steeper than the hill he had just climbed, and the country was greener, being mostly pasture land. There were two or three white cottages, but he saw no human beings anywhere.

  Near the bottom of the descent, the road, which had been growing narrower, branched off sharply to the left, and became a grassy track, winding between thick fuchsia hedges to the entrance of a rocky gorge, from which rose a low murmurous noise of water. Where the hedges were broken, Tom caught a glimpse of high grey rocks threaded with silver streaks. Under the shadow of the hedge the grass was thick and long, and the golden pollen of the buttercups brushed off on to his shoes. There was a pungent scent of wild vegetation everywhere—quite different from the heavier, sweeter scent of a garden—and some of the fields were so white with daisies that they looked as if they were deep in snow.

  “I’m going to rest here,” Tom made up his mind, “and get cool again.” So he lay down in the grass under the hedge—lay on his back as close to the hedge as a half-hidden ditch would allow—and after the hot glare of the sun it was like being in a green twilight.

  “This would be a good place to camp out,” Tom thought.

  It would be easy enough to do it, too—with Pascoe. Pascoe was what old Pemby called a resourceful boy. He had mended the spring of a clock while Pemby himself had stood watching and beaming through his glasses. Tom also had looked on, and not been resourceful. In that respect he took after Daddy, who, according to William, “had no hands”. “The master has no hands,” William had explained confidentially to Tom; and this after poor Daddy had spent nearly half an hour trying to adjust the lawn mower. “I’m not sure that it’s much better than it was, William. Perhaps you can find out what’s wrong.” William had merely stood silent and supercilious, and the moment Daddy was gone: “The master has no hands,” he had said. “These learned people’s all like that.”

  Pascoe had hands, and if a tent could somewhere be borrowed he would be sure to be able to rig it up and do the other necessary things. Yet in spite of his resourcefulness Pascoe wasn’t the companion Tom imagined as sharing his adventure. He wasn’t like him in any single way: which was indeed easy to see, for at that moment the companion appeared.

  He had scrambled through a gap in the hedge, and when he saw Tom he stopped short as if in half a mind about scrambling back again—a very ragged boy, with bare feet, no jacket, and rents in his shirt and trousers through which his skin showed. He had hair the colour of the bleached ears of wheat and the brightest eyes Tom had ever beheld.

  While he stood hesitating, neither advancing nor retreating, Tom sat up. Then the boy, though still keeping at a distance of two or three yards from him sat down facing him. He had a home-made fishing-rod in his hand, which he laid on the grass beside him, and a basket filled with damp dark watercress. He gazed at Tom in alert stillness.

  There was something in this fixed gaze that Tom found unusual. It was not rude, but it was very much interested, and the interest was of an oddly impersonal kind, just as if he were confronted with an experience entirely new to him. But they couldn’t sit staring at each other for ever, and to break the silence, and because he could think of nothing else to say, Tom pointed to the watercress and asked: “Where did you get it?”


  “Down there,” the boy replied, without removing his gaze from Tom’s face. “There’s plenty in the stream. Fishes, too, if you can catch them.” He lifted off the top layer of watercress and revealed beneath it three speckled trout. “You could cut a willow rod that might do.”

  Tom shook his head. “I haven’t a line, or a hook, or bait.”

  “I’ve a line,” the boy said, “and the bait’s only wor-r-rms.”

  He pronounced the last word slowly, and put so many “r’s” into it that Tom thought he must be Scotch. But the rest of his speech wasn’t Scotch. Besides, dressed as he was, he must be a native, a farm-boy very likely, belonging to one of the thatched cottages Tom had passed a quarter of a mile back, for there were no others between this and the sea. He decided to ask the boy if he lived here, and was very much astonished when he answered “No”.

  After this he began to laugh, and when Tom wanted to know what he was laughing at, he said “At you”, and instantly became grave.

  The strange thing was that Tom didn’t feel a bit offended by this speech, it merely quickened his curiosity. “Why?” he questioned. “Because I asked you where you lived? I don’t see anything funny in that!”

  “No,” the boy agreed, “it wasn’t funny.” Yet he said this, too, in an unusual way, as if he were only accepting Tom’s word for it; and he still kept on looking at him inquiringly. “I don’t know what ‘funny’ is,” he presently added. “I was really laughing for practice.”

  This was a very strange boy, Tom thought. A little astray in his wits probably—only his eyes, his whole face, seemed to deny that. And he just sat there, without speaking again, but watching Tom intently and looking rather lovely. It was queer, but he was lovely—really lovely: his beauty seemed to shine through his rags, and he sat with a most peculiar lightness, like a butterfly poised on a leaf.

  “Where do you live?” Tom tried again, and the boy, without turning, waved his hand.

  “Over there,” he said; but the gesture was vague, and might have included the whole sky and sea. Tom, at any rate, could make nothing of it.

  Neither could he very well go on asking questions; it would be better to mention something about himself; so he did this, and told where he was staying and about his walk that morning, and ended by telling his name.

  “I have a name,” the boy at once replied; and when Tom asked him what it was, he said: “Gamelyn.”

  Tom repeated the syllables to himself. He had never heard the name before, and it might be either a Christian name or a surname. “That’s only one of your names,” he said aloud. “What’s the other?”

  Then the boy answered: “I have no other.”

  Tom said nothing except “Oh!” After that he sat thinking. The bright clear eyes were still fixed upon him, and now he shrank a little from their light. Surely it had increased! Not a word had Tom uttered, nevertheless the boy answered just as if he had spoken: “I was sent to you. I am what you asked for.”

  “I didn’t ask for anything,” Tom denied, but his voice had a quaver in it, and it was with an effort that he went on more firmly: I don’t think I can wait here any longer. I must go down to the sea.”

  Then the boy smiled at him and immediately his uneasiness vanished.

  “Why did you say that?” he asked. “I mean about being sent to me. It wasn’t true, was it? How could you have been sent to me?” Yet it might be true, he reflected; he might have been sent from one of the cottages.

  The boy shook his head. “I was sent because you wanted me. I was told to come. Didn’t you want me?”

  There was a pause before Tom’s reply came, very haltingly: “I don’t know—I don’t know who you are.”

  “I’m an angel,” the boy smiled. “Your angel. You must have imagined me and wanted me. You must have imagined me very strongly, because if you hadn’t I couldn’t have come.”

  A still longer silence followed, and then Tom muttered unhappily: “I imagined a boy.”

  “I’m a boy,” the angel said—“the boy you thought of.”

  “You’re not,” Tom answered. “It was a human boy I thought of.”

  As he spoke the last words it seemed to him that the figure before him quivered and grew less distinct. The voice too was now hardly more than a sighing of the wind. “Once—twice—a third time—and then no more. . . . But Tom could not be sure that he had really heard these words, and now that it was too late he cried out: “Don’t go away. . . . Don’t. . . .”

  There was no boy—no angel—only a vanishing brightness in the air, soon indistinguishable from the sunshine.

  Simultaneously there sounded a music as of the chiming of innumerable tiny bells. It came from the fuchsia flowers above his head, and it was wakening him, though he tried not to awaken. But something else was awakening him also—a touch, a warm breath on his hair. Abruptly he opened his eyes and found himself staring straight into the long narrow face of an inquisitive old goat.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “GO AWAY!” said Tom sharply, and the goat, who had been bending down over him, was momentarily startled, and backed several paces. There she paused to size Tom up. This did not take long, and, the result being reassuring, she approached again.

  She had managed to uproot the peg to which she was tethered and it trailed after her at the end of a rope. Tom distrusted goats. Moreover this particular goat had a sardonic gleam in her eye which boded little good. He would have retreated had it been possible to do so, but it wasn’t, and the goat realized this. It may have been sheer playfulness, but suddenly she rose half sideways on her hind legs in an extraordinary fashion, and Tom, without an instant’s hesitation, rolled backward into the ditch.

  Luckily it was dry, so he got only a few nettle stings. But the goat, surprised by his abrupt disappearance, advanced to the edge of the ditch to see what had happened. Once more they stared at each other face to face. Then—and actually leaning over him to do it—she began to pluck sprays of ivy from the bank on the other side. “This really was the limit!” Tom thought. “Only what could he do?” And she showed no sign of moving on. He was obliged to crawl along the bottom of the ditch on hands and knees, encountering further nettles and brambles, while the goat, quite regardless of the trouble she was causing, continued her meal. Then, to crown all, when he judged it safe to clamber out again, she immediately gave chase, so that he had to take to his heels.

  The pursuit, it is true, was brief, and on the goat’s part not very serious, but it was none the less alarming to Tom. Besides, he had left his basket behind and didn’t see how he was going to retrieve it. The goat, he felt sure, still had her eye on him. Without the least inconvenience she could watch his movements and continue to eat at the same time. It was most annoying. Perhaps if he were in his turn to attack—to advance boldly and with loud shouts—— But he didn’t think so: a peace-offering would be better. Only the rich greenness of the lane seemed to make any additional offerings rather superfluous. Everything she could possibly desire was there already and within easy reach. The lane was a kind of caprine Paradise. All she had to do was to stretch her neck and she seemed jolly good at that. The grass was long and juicy; the hedge was full of honeysuckle, ivy, and convolvulus; there were pollard willows above her, and cow-parsley and wild strawberry plants under her feet. There was also deadly nightshade, Tom perceived, but nothing was deadly to goats. She was now sampling some furze prickles. Still, an offering was his best chance, so he chose vetches as being easiest and quickest to gather, and collecting a large bunch of these, intermixed with willow-tops, and holding the bunch at arm’s length before him, he returned.

  The goat seemed surprised to see him. It was as if they were meeting for the first time. She gave conventional little bleats of astonishment as he approached. What a dear little boy! And so kind! Where had he got all those lovely things? Surely they couldn’t be for her, and really they were far too pretty to eat! She took jolly good care all the same to gobble them up as quickly as possibl
e, and in the process made them sound so crisp and succulent that Tom felt half inclined to try a mouthful himself. He cast the remains of his bouquet at her feet, lifted the basket, and this time walked away with dignity.

  He had come out of that rather cleverly, he thought. A resourceful boy—like Pascoe! Only there was never anybody to see his resourcefulness, or to be impressed by the way he managed things. . . .

  As he proceeded, the sound of the stream grew louder, and another turn brought the whole valley into view. Tom scrambled down to the water’s edge. The stream splashed its way swiftly, the stony channel narrowing in places to form miniature rapids, and again widening out into sandy pools. In several of these pools he found watercress.

  His dream, driven out of mind by the encounter with the goat, was thus brought back to it, though he couldn’t remember the boy’s name. A queer name—beginning with an “L”. But he wasn’t a boy, he was an angel—his angel—which meant, Tom supposed, his guardian angel. The only names of angels he could think of were Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel, and it hadn’t been any of these; nor, he thought, like them. And was it true that he had imagined an angel before he fell asleep? He was sure it wasn’t, though certainly he had been thinking of somebody to camp out with—somebody not like Pascoe. This seemed unkind, but then Pascoe wasn’t his ideal friend, and there was no use pretending he was. On the other hand, an angel wasn’t his ideal friend either, no matter how nice he might look. An angel wasn’t right at all, Tom felt: he couldn’t be a friend; he was at once not enough and too much.

  In the meantime he might as well have his lunch before going any further. Sandwiches usually made you thirsty, and the stream water would be pleasanter to drink than tea out of a thermos flask. So he unpacked his basket, ate a few sandwiches and a banana, and when he had finished took a deep drink. The water was brownish in colour, but clear and cold. Probably it contained iron, in which case he’d better have another cupful, for iron was a tonic, as he knew, having been ordered it after more than one illness by Doctor Macrory.