by E. Nesbit
XVII
LLANBERIS
LLANBERIS, prim and small, and very, very Welsh, lies in the shadow ofgreat Snowdon, and all about it the lesser and more graciousmountains--the mountains of green and purple and brown--stand with theirheads against the sky, bathing their feet in great lakes of smooth,brown water. The inn has a beautiful and terraced garden; the streamfrom the waterfall under Snowdon runs tumbling and gurgling down itsrocky bed. "The peace that is upon the lonely hills" may be yours at thecost of a little breathless, happy climbing; the deeper peace of valleysand lake may be yours for no more trouble than it takes to walk a coupleof hundred yards from the door of your inn. That the hotel was full didnot seem to matter--the other guests were off early, in breaks andwagonettes, spending the long days in excursions from which theyreturned late and hilarious, breaking the soft night quiet with loudlaughter and snatches of the kind of songs that nowadays delight thegreat heart of the people. Trippers from Manchester and Liverpool camefor the day, but never strayed far from the inn, or, if they did, wentup Snowdon by the tiny railway. Everywhere, save on the way that led toSnowdon, you were sure of quiet or peace, of a world where two could bealone together.
Here the two tried to take up again the life of ordered ease that hadbeen theirs at Caernarvon, the little life they had prized and cherishedtill the governor of Caernarvon prison had thrown a stone into theirmagic pool, shattering all its mirrored beauty. They spent long morningson the hillside, cushioned by the heather; long evenings by thelakeside, always careful to choose their resting-place so that they neednot see the scars where the waste slate is tipped into the lake, slowlyoverlaying the green and graceful margin with which Nature, if you lether alone, frames all water mirrors. And once they went as far as themysterious Round Tower, which stands alone, with no entrance but thedoorway high above your head.
"What a place to keep your enemy in," he said, "or your friend! Supposethe tower had been my stronghold, in the old days. I could have broughtmy princess here, and snapped my fingers at her relations drawn roundthe tower in a ring, shaking their fists at me from their coal-blacksteeds, and vowing vengeance when the tower should yield--which, ofcourse, it never would."
"Your princess would have starved," she said, "and you with her."
"Not at all," he assured her; "you underrate the resources of roundtowers. To say nothing of the goats and sheep which we should drive inand lower to the basement when our scout brought news that your kinsmenwere sending out the fiery cross or the blood eagle, or whatever it wasthat they did send out; and there's an inexhaustible well inside thetower, and of course we should have sacks of meal and casks of mead."
"But the enemy--her relations, I mean--would have all the sheep on themountains and all the flour in the mills. You'd have to give in, in theend."
"You forget the underground passage. When we were tired of mocking youruncles and cousins through the arrow-slits of our tower we'd quietlycreep away to our great castle--it's at Caernarvon, you know--and calltogether all my uncles and cousins and sally out and have a greatbattle, and the sound of our blows on their helmets would be heard onthe far side of Anglesea, and down to the very southernmost marches ofMerioneth."
"But suppose her relations won the battle and shut you up in a dungeonand put her into a convent?"
"Oh, they wouldn't. All our armor would be so perfectly tempered thatnobody would be hurt. It would be like a tournament, and at the end,just as your senior uncle and I had unhorsed each other and were aboutto perish, mutually cloven to the chine, you would rush between us--inwhite, with your hair flowing like a thunder-cloud behind you--and sayto each of us, 'Spare him for my sake.' And of course we should. Andthen there would be a banquet in the great hall at Caernarvon and cleanrushes on the floor, and you and I and all our relations sitting instate on the dais, and you'd be wearing your gown of cloth of gold andyour cloak of vair, and all your jewels--and I should have my furredgown and my great ring, and we should drink out of the big silverdrinking-bowl--mead and strong ale--and feast our guests and theirmen-at-arms and all our own people on roast boars' heads and barons ofbeef, and all live happily ever afterward."
"I don't think she'd wear her ermine mantle. Wouldn't she wear the oneof woven red, with your coat of arms embroidered on it, and the goldbeads you brought her from the East when you went to the wars there?"
"Perhaps you would," he conceded. "I believe I could climb up to thatdoorway. I should like to--just to be sure there's really a wellinside."
"No, don't," said she, "because you might find out that there wasn't; orthat this isn't really the tower that has the underground passageleading to Caernarvon, and then we should know that we're not reallyremembering that other life when you carried her off, but only making itup."
"Of course we remember it. Do you remember whether you were angry withme for carrying you off."
"If she hadn't wanted to be carried off," she said, demurely, "shewouldn't have been. Or if she hadn't been able to help herself she'dhave found a little knife, like the brown bride, or else something toput in your mead-cup, so that the first draught you had from her handwould have been the last. She wasn't the sort of woman to be takenagainst her will. Come away before you spoil the story with any morequestions. I liked it best when we took the tale for granted--"
It was high up among the heather, with Charles safely tethered and thesteep hillside dotted with hundreds and hundreds of sheep, that the talkgrew earnest and dwelt not on dreams of old days, but the desire of newones.
"Do you remember," he said, "what you told me when we were going toWarwick?" He spoke as though this had been a long time ago, as, indeed,by any count but time it was. "You remember about the scattered farms,and the way the little houses call to you to come home."
"Yes," she said.
"All that you said about the life--it was like my other self speaking."
"You mean that when I spoke, your inside self said, 'Yes, yes; that'swhat I mean'?"
"I mean more than that. My inside self said, 'Yes, yes, that's what Ialways meant. That's what I meant and what I wanted before ever I metyou.' Then meeting you obscured everything else, but when you spoke Isaw that what I had always wanted rhymed with what you had alwayswanted. But I want to be quite sure. May I ask questions?"
"Yes."
"Suppose we had been really married--would you have been contented tospend your working life on a farm, to live just that life that you spokeof that day going to Warwick?"
She did not speak for a moment, and for a moment he wished that he hadnot questioned. And when she did speak it was not to give him an answer.
"I didn't believe it was possible," she said. "I thought peoplecouldn't make farming succeed, nowadays, and I don't think I could bearto spend my working life, as you call it, on a thing that is foredoomedto failure."
"Nor could I; and I don't mean to, either. My farm will succeed. If itcosts me every penny I have it shall succeed. I shall go a new way towork. You know I've really got quite a lot of money, and I have a plan."
"Tell me about it."
"It's quite simple, and absolutely opposed to all the accursed teachingsof political economy. Of course I shall get the best machinery and thebest seeds and the best implements. But I shall also get the bestlabor."
"Doesn't every one try to do that?"
"Oh yes, every farmer tries to get the best labor he can, at currentrates. I sha'n't bother about the current rates. I shall get the bestmen that are to be got and I shall pay them wages that will make themglad to come to me rather than to any one else. If I find a man's good Ishall give him a share in the profits of the farm; if I find he isn'tany good I shall sack him."
"I wonder," she said, "whether you'd have the heart to sack any one?"
"I might hesitate to sack a mere fool," he admitted. "I might be temptedto keep him on and find some work for him that even a fool could do.But I'd chuck a slacker at a week's notice and never turn a hair. You'llsee; I shall have failures, many of them, but the
whole thing won't be afailure. Before I've done I shall have the best carters, the bestdairy-women, the best bailiff, and the best plowman and the mostsuccessful farm in the country. You don't know how men can work who areworking for themselves and not just for a master."
"You mean to make it a sort of communal farm?"
"Never," he said. "That's the last thing I mean it to be. But it will bea profit-sharing farm, and I shall run it. It's my own idea, the darlingof my soul, and I won't trust its life to any other man. I'm almostafraid to trust it to you, for fear you should not be kind to it. But ifwhat you said on the way to Warwick meant something that lasts inyou--not just the beautiful thoughts of the moment--tell me, if we werereally married could you endure a life like that?"
"I should know nothing about it; I should be of no use. And we're notmarried--"
"You could learn; we could both learn. Let's pretend for a moment thatwe're really going to spend our lives together, anyhow. Let's leaveMrs. Basingstoke out of it. Would Miss Basingstoke have been able toendure such a life?"
"Miss Basingstoke would have loved it," she said. "Miss Basingstokewould have done her best to learn, and--she isn't really stupid, youknow--I think Miss Basingstoke would have succeeded."
"It would need patience," he said, "patience and bravery andloving-kindness and gentleness and firmness and unselfishness."
"And curiosity," she said. "That quality, at least, Miss Basingstokehas. She would have wanted to know all about everything, and that's oneway of learning. She wants, now, to know ever so much more. Tell hereverything that you've thought of about it, everything you've decided ornot decided."
"You'll be kind to my darling dream, then," he said. "Well, here goes."
And with that he told her, and she listened and questioned, and heanswered again till the shadows had grown heavy in the valley and theywere very late indeed for dinner.
You cannot be long in Llanberis without wanting to "see over" aslate-quarry. It was on their fifth day that the desire came to thesetwo. The mention of Colonel Bertram's name gained for them a personallyconducted tour through the rows of little slate-roofed sheds whereskilled workmen strip and chip and shape the flakes of quarried slatetill they are the size and form needed for roofing cottages and schoolsand Nonconformist chapels. Having seen how the slate is treated in thesheds, they were taken into the quarry itself to see how the slate isgot.
A big slate-quarry is a very impressive sight. You walk across a greatamphitheater whose walls of slate rise high above you, theirgreen-trimmed edges sharply cut against the sky. You pick your way amongpools of water so smooth, so clear, that they reflect like mirrors theblue sky and the high slate walls of the quarry. One such pool--thelargest--lay in the middle of the vast amphitheater, and in it thetowering cliffs of slate were reflected even more clearly than in theothers.
"I never saw such reflections," she was saying, as they skirted the bigpond. "They're almost more real than the real thing. I am glad we camehere; it's all so clear and bright and new-looking. I wonder--"
"I wouldn't walk quite so near the edge, if I was you, sir," said theforeman, who was their guide.
"Why?" Edward asked, gazing at the reflection of high cliffs in the poolat his side, "is the water deep--"
And even as he spoke his eyes were opened; but before he could obeytheir mandate, with a cry that went to his heart and held it she caughthis arm and pulled him back. For in that instant she, too, had seen thatthis pool which reflected so perfectly the tall precipices of the quarrywas not a pool at all, but another deep quarry within the first, andthat what it held was no reflection, but a sheer and dreadful depth ofprecipice going down--she would not look to see how far. And he had beenwalking within six inches of its brink, carelessly and at ease, as onedoes walk by the safely shelving edge of any pond.
She did not let his arm go when she had drawn him away from thatperilous edge; she held it closely pressed against her side, and when helooked at her he saw that her face was white and changed. The greatprecipice above them swayed a little to her eyes--she dared not look atthe precipice below. She held his arm closely and more closely, foldingboth hands on it. The foreman was saying something. Neither of themheard what it was, only both caught the concluding words:
"Perhaps you'd like to see the place, sir."
"Thank you," said Edward, mechanically, "and then I think we must leaveyou. It's been most kind of you to show us all this; we've been mostinterested."
Her heart was beating in so wild an ecstasy of thanksgiving for anunspeakable horror escaped, his heart was beating in so passionate andproud and humble a recognition of what her touch on his arm confessed,that neither of them heard the foreman's words or guessed at the meaningof what he was calmly and coldly telling them. Only afterward the memoryof his words came back, bringing with it understanding. They were ledacross a flat wilderness of splintered slate toward the tall cliff fromwhich now and then came the noise like thunder which blasting-powdermakes when it does its work. They two, hardly conscious of anything butthat they held each other--the one who had been in danger, safe; theother passionately grateful for that other's safety; and the endangeredone, passionately sensible of her passionate gratitude, heard not a wordthat the foreman spoke, though he spoke all the time.
"You are here; I hold you safe; but, oh, if I had lost you!" her heartwas singing to a breathless, syncopated measure.
"You cared; you cared as much as this. If I had fallen over thatperilous edge. . . . Oh, but you care, you care! It is as much as thisto you," his heart sang, keeping time to hers.
It was a trance of mutual meeting emotion such as they had not yetknown. In that one moment, when he walked the narrow edge of thatprecipice and when she had seen the precipice for the horror it was, shelearned more than in all her life before. And he, in the moments thatfollowed, knew, beyond possibility of mistake or misunderstanding, whatit was that she had learned. If only they could have walked straight outof that quarry into the world of stream and mountain, the world whereyou are only two--but the foreman was there, walking and talking, and atlast stopping and saying:
"This is where it happened."
And they came out of their dream to find themselves close to the slatecliff at whose base lay great blocks of slate newly fallen, and to seethe flat slate flakes at their feet, brown and wet.
"Where what happened?" Edward asked, vaguely.
"What I've been telling you about," said the foreman, aggrieved. "Whereone of our workmen was killed just now, blasting; that's his blood whatyou're standing in," said he.
Then, indeed, she clung to his arm. "Take me away," she whispered. "Oh,why does everything turn horrible like this? It's like a horrible dream.Let's get away. Give him something and let's get away."
"It's not my fault," said the foreman, in very injured tones. "She saidshe'd like to see it. I wondered, at the time, but there's no accountingfor females, is there?"
They got away from the place--out of the quarry and into the road. Theyfound the stream that flows from the waterfall under Snowdon, and theflagged path that lies beside the stream. They passed along it, shestill clinging to his arm. Presently a smooth, mossy rock invited them,and before either of them knew it they were seated there, side by side,and she was weeping on his shoulder.
He did not need her whispered words that broke a long silence--"ThankGod, you're safe"--to tell him what he had to think, nor what, from thathour, he had to live for.
"But, oh," she said at last, lifting her face from his coat-sleeve,"what a horrible day! We've struck a streak of horrible things. Let's goback to the south, where things aren't like this."
"We'll go to-night, if you like," he said.
"Yes," she answered, eagerly, "yes. But this isn't the end. I feelthere's something more coming--I felt it at Chester. It wasn't only thatthing I couldn't tell you--something's going to happen to separate us."
"Nothing can--but you," he said, hugging to his heart all that heradmission implied.
"I f
eel that something will," she said.
And he, for all that he laughed at her fears and her predictions, withpride and joy swelling in his heart till they almost broke theresolution of quiescence, of waiting, of submitting his will to herwill, yet felt in those deep caves that lie behind the heart, behind thesoul, behind the mind of man, the winds of coming misfortune blowchilly.
It was no surprise to either of them to find at the hotel a telegram forMrs. Basingstoke:
Aunt Alice much worse. Please come at once.
It was signed with the name of the aunt whose dog-cart had run overCharles, and beneath whose legs Charles had experienced his miraculousresurrection from death.
There was no reason to mistrust this telegram as they had mistrusted theadvertisement. But she said to herself, "There! That's because of what Isaid at Warwick."
They caught the last train to London that night, and through the long,lamp-lit journey Charles no longer lay between them. The white, bullethead lay on her lap--but on her other side was Edward, and her shoulderand his touched all the way, even as, on the journey to Warwick, he haddreamed of their touching. They spoke little; it seemed as thougheverything had been said. Only when her head drooped against hisshoulder and he knew that she had fallen asleep he felt no sense ofdaring, no doubts as to his rights or her resentments when he passed hisarm around her and rested his chin on her soft hair, gazing straightbefore him in the flickering half-light while she slept--oh, dreams cometrue--upon his breast.