The Watcher by the Threshold. Buchan John
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banks. But not for him now were such sports. The yellow sunlight clothed the fields as in a cloth of gold, and from the midst great beech trees raised their masses of rich browns and cool greens. There were sheep there and horses, but he did not turn aside, for, like Ulysses, he had learned from misfortune. The place had an enchanting effect upon his spirits. It was like some domain in faëry, the slumbrous forest which girt the sleeping princess, or the wood beyond the world. John Ridd was forgotten, and the Jacobite, forgetful of his special calling, had fled to regions beyond history. He was recalled of a sudden by an unlooked-for barrier to his progress. The stream issued from below a high weir, and unfriendly-looking walls barred its sides.
Without an effort he rose to the occasion. Now was the opportunity for a master-mind, which had never yet met its match among the boys of his restricted acquaintance. He set himself tooth and nail to the wall. Projecting stone and mossy interstices gave him foothold. In a trice he had gained the top and was looking into a sort of refined Elysium, a paradise within a paradise. A broad pond had been formed by the stream, whereon sailed a swan and some brave-liveried ducks, and near whose margin floated water-lilies, yellow and white. Clean-shaven turf fell away from the edge, barred by the shadows of trees and bright in many places with half-opened heather. Beyond the water were little glades of the greenest grass, through which came a glimpse of stone and turret. The Jacobite’s breath went quick and fast. Things were becoming, he felt, altogether too true to nature. He had come straight upon a castle without so much as a mishap. The burden of his good fortune bore heavily on him; and he was strongly tempted to retreat. But in the end romance prevailed; with wavering footsteps he crept along the edge, ready at a glance to flop among the reeds.
But these violent tactics were not needed. Sleep seemed to have fallen upon the race of grooms and gardeners. Nothing stirred save a linnet, which came down to drink, and a moorhen which scuttled across the pool. Grasshoppers were chirping in the silence, and the faraway sound of a bell came clear and thin through the air. In a little he came to where the pond ceased and the stream began once more, not like the stream in the meadows below, but a slow, dark current among trees and steep mossy banks. Once more the adventurer’s heart beat irresolutely; once more his courage prevailed. He scrambled below trailing branches, slipped oftentimes into the shallows, and rolled among red earth till the last vestige of green was gone from his corduroys. But harsh is the decree of fate. Again he came to a barrier – this time a waterfall of great sound and volume.
Joy filled the heart of the Jacobite. This was the water-slide in the Bagworthy wood, and at the top must be the Doone’s valley. So with boldness and skill he addressed himself to the ascent. I have no inkling what the real cascade in Devon is like, but I will take my oath it was not more perilous than this. The black rocks were slippery with ooze, few helping boughs of trees were at hand, and the pool at the bottom yawned horrific and deep. But the Jacobite was skilled in such breakneck ventures. With the ease of a practised climber he swung himself from one foothold to another till he gripped the great rock which stood midway in the stream just at the summit, and, dripping and triumphant, raised himself to the dry land.
And there before him on a fallen trunk, in the most lovely dell that nature ever conceived, sat the Lady.
For a moment the Jacobite, notwithstanding his expectations, was staggered. Then his training asserted itself. He pulled a torn cap from his head, and ‘I thought you would be here,’ said he.
‘Who are you?’ said the Lady, with the curiosity of her sex, ‘and where do you come from?’
The Jacobite reflected. It was only consistent with tradition, he felt, to give some account of himself. So he proceeded compendiously to explain his birth, his antecedents, his calling, and his adventures of the day. He was delighted with the princess now he had found her. She was tall and lithe, with hair like gold, and the most charming eyes. She wore a dress of white, like a true princess, and a great hat, made according to the most correct canons of romance. She had been reading in a little book, which lay face downward at her feet. He thought of all his special heroines, Helen of Troy and Ariadne, Joan of Arc, the Queen of Scots, Rosalind, and Amy Robsart, and that most hapless and beautiful of dames, the wife of the Secretary Murray. He inwardly decided that the Lady was most like the last, which indeed was only fitting, seeing that tradition said that this place was once her home.
‘O, you delightful boy,’ said the Lady. ‘I never met any one like you before. Tell me what you think of me.’
‘You’re all right,’ said the wanderer, ‘only where do you come from? I hope you’re not going to disappear.’
‘No, indeed,’ said she. ‘I come from a place to which you will go some day, a big, stupid town, where the finest and the worst things in the world are to be found. I’m here to escape from it for a little.’
The Jacobite was keenly interested in this account of his prospective dwelling-place.
‘What are the fine things?’ he asked. ‘Ships and palaces and dogs and guns and – oh, you know what I mean?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘these things are there. And the people take very little interest in them. What they chiefly like is money.’
The Jacobite pulled out his halfpenny, and regarded it with critical interest.
‘Yes,’ she went on, ‘and lots of people don’t go to bed much at night, but they put on fine clothes and go to other people’s houses and have dinner and talk, even when they would rather be at home.’
The Jacobite looked philosophically at his clothes. They could not be called fine. He wasn’t given to talking to people whom he didn’t like, and he told the Lady so.
‘And there are others, who rule the country and don’t know anything about it, and are only good for making long speeches.’
‘But,’ said the Jacobite, incredulously, ‘don’t they know how to fight, or how do they rule if they don’t?’
‘They don’t know how to fight,’ said the Lady sadly; ‘and more, they say fighting is wrong, and want to settle everything by talking.’
The Jacobite looked mournfully skyward. If this was true, his future was dismal indeed. He had much skill in fighting, but talk he held in deep contempt.
‘But there must be heaps of knights and cavaliers left; or are they all gone to heaven?’ said he.
The Lady sighed. ‘There are some, but very few, I am afraid. And these mostly go away to foreign lands, where there is still fighting, or they hunt lions and tigers, or they stay at home very sad. And people say there is no such place as heaven, but that all that is left for us when we die is a “period of sensationless, objective existence”. Do you know what that means?’
‘No,’ said the Jacobite, stoutly, ‘and I don’t care. What awful rot!’
‘And they say that there never were such things as fairies, and that all the stories about Hector and Ulysses and William Tell and Arthur are nonsense. But we know better.’
‘Yes,’ said he, ‘we know better. They’re true to us, and it is only to stupids that they’re not true.’
‘Good,’ said the Lady. ‘There was once a man called Horace, who lived long ago, who said the same thing. You will read his book some day.’ And she repeated softly to herself,
Prætulerim scriptor delirus inersque videri,
Dum mea delectent mala me vel denique fallant,
Quam sapere et ringi.
But the Jacobite saw the slanting sun over the treetops, and he knew it was time to go home.
‘I am afraid I must go,’ he said mournfully. ‘When I grow up I will stop all that nonsense. I will hang a lot of them and banish others, and then you will like it, won’t you? Will you have some treacle toffy? It is very good.’
‘Thank you,’ said the Lady, ‘it is good.’
‘Good-bye,’ said he, ‘I will come and see you when I grow up and go to the place you spoke of.’