Gentian Hill

by Elizabeth Goudge

  A little later, not knowing how he had come to let go of the yew tree, or the yew tree to let go of him, he limped forward over the grass, wiping his forehead on his tattered sleeve. The world was conventionally colored now, like a child’s picture book, and he could take his bearings easily and see which way he should go to reach the sea. He took one look at Weekaborough Farm down below him, and knew it to be the home that he longed for, and one last look at the beneficent yew tree and the friendly sheep, and then went eastward down the hill. It was no good to linger. The more quickly he went, the more quickly he would be back.

  2

  He struck across country as a dog would have done, climbing over gates and walls, loping across meadows and fording streams, traveling slowly because of his lameness but without pause or hesitation, guiding himself by the sun and by instinct, determined to approach the house, if it existed, from the head of the valley, not from Torquay where he was still afraid to show himself.

  He went so slowly that it was nearly midday before he reached the hamlet of Barton, and paused to drink from the stream that came through a hole in an orchard wall into a trough set to catch it, and then cascaded away down the side of the steep track that led between the cottages to the wooded valley below.

  "Is this the Fleete?" he asked an aged man propped against the doorjamb of a cottage.

  "Ay," said the old man.

  Zachary sat down on a stone beside the trough to rest a little. It was queer how easily he had found his stream, how he had known at once that it was the Fleete. It seemed that in adversity he had developed an extra sense, one that he had not known he possessed in the days of ease. It had begun with his mental vision of the ivy-covered house and his awareness of the dawn that had been the first of the dawns to have a voice for him. And there had been the time in the chapel when all the stones were shouting at him .... But from that memory his mind instantly shied away. He could not, would not, face the implications of it .... And there had been his instant recognition of the importance of Stella, and then this morning when he had stretched up his arms to the beneficent yew tree and the tree had held him and he could have shouted for gladness. It was as though he were learning to reach out beyond the appearances of sun or cloud or stone or tree, beyond those things that he had been accustomed to think of as reality, and to make contact with another reality much more real than they.

  He got up again and went on, following the path downhill between slopes thickly wooded with birch and oak, the young Fleete leaping and singing beside him. The trees thinned and the valley seemed blocked by a small conical hill which shouldered itself up into the sky against the sun so steeply that it was wrapped in shadow as in a purple cloak.

  The Fleete swerved to the right, taking the curve of the hill, passed through a rocky gorge and then swept around again to the other side of the hill, into a small and lovely amphitheater set high in the widening valley looking down over the wooded slopes and the white houses of Torquay half hidden in the trees below. The roar of water sounded in Zachary’s ears, but it was not a waterfall that he found at the other side but a watermill built close in under the purple hill. He followed the path around to the space of green turf in front of it and stood looking.

  The old mill was built of stone below, wood above, had a thatched roof, and was overgrown with moss and ivy. To the right was the miller’s thatched cottage, to the left was the turning wooden wheel with the Water pouring over it and with a pond below set among green ferns. The little garden about the cottage was bright with flowers but was a mass of weeds. The windows of the mill were grimy, the paint was peeling off the doors, and empty bottles bobbed about in the pond. Yet there was no suggestion of poverty in the feel of the place, but rather a light-hearted carelessness. The lower of the two mill doors, set one above the other in the ivy-covered wall, was open, and from inside came the clicking of the hopper and a man’s deep bass voice singing powerfully. The two threads of sound adding themselves to the deep organ tones of the turning wheel and the rush of the falling water made a loud cheerful symphony of sound that delighted Zachary.

  A mill! It was his house all right, but it took him completely by surprise to find it was a mill. He knew nothing about mills, but his musician’s sense thrilled to the music that was bursting all about him. He went forward to the open door and looked inside and was fascinated even further. It was like the inside of a dim warm cave, with a succession of wooden galleries linked by a flight of wooden stairs. The air was pervaded by a rich nutty sort of smell, and the flour drifted in a line dust gilded by the sunbeams slanting through the narrow windows. Peering through the gloom, Zachary could see the turning stones and the corn running down through the hopper in a shower of gold. On this day of golden sunlight it was all brown and gold, warm and rich, and the dimly seen figures of the huge man and the only slightly less huge boy, moving about in the shadows, looked less like a miller and his grinder than Vulcan and his satellite, fashioning a sword for Siegfried out of the flowing gold.

  But it was not the music of Wagner that was being roared forth by the bearded giant, but the old song "Drops of Brandy" that Zachary knew only too well from hearing the sailors singing it at grogtime. He could not hate it today, for the gay old country dance tune went weaving in and out of the music of the wheel, the water, and the hopper, so happily and infectiously that in a moment or two he was singing himself. He had had a fine soprano voice as a boy, and he would be a fine tenor in a few years. At present it was difficult to say what he was, but he had a perfect ear and the sounds he made were clear and true.

  And Johnny shall have a new bonnet

  And Johnny shall go to the fair,

  And Johnny shall have a new ribbon

  To tie up his bonny brown hair.

  And why should I not love Johnny

  And why should not Johnny love me,

  And why should I not love Johnny

  As well as another bodie.

  The hopper clicked to a standstill, the golden stream thinned to a few drops, and the miller strode over to the door.

  "Hey, there, lad! An’ who may ee be, chirping like a cricket on my doorstep without a with-your-leave or by-your-leave. What do ee want, eh?"

  Zachary found that he knew how to behave with this jovial bearded giant of a man. He did not ask humbly for work as he had done at the farms, deprecating, ashamed of his poverty and his rags; he stepped forward in front of the door, feet apart, hands in pockets, head thrown back, dark eyes sparkling. "Well, Sir, it’s plain you need another lad about the place," he said gaily, grinning first at the miller and then at the great lout of a boy peering over the miller’s shoulder. "One’s not enough, it seems." And one of his eyebrows shot up cheekily as he darted a quick glance first at the wild patch of garden and then at the dirty windows of the mill and the doors with the paint peeling off them.

  "Worked at a mill afore, eh?" demanded the miller in a voice like the last trump. "Know the work, do ee?"

  "Not me!" said Zachary cheerfully. "But I’ve worked on the land, in a sign-painter’s establishment and a scrivener’s office." He paused for a moment, and in extenuation of the cheerful lie there rose before his mind’s eye the exquisite small garden of the Bath square where he had lived, the sunny library where he had learned to read and write, and the studio of a distinguished artist where he had once been allowed to play about a bit with canvas and paint.

  “I can weed your garden, paint your doors, sing tenor to your bass, and learn the work of the mill in a jiffy." He paused dramatically, his eyes going from the far-from-intellectual face of the miller to the bovine countenance of the loutish boy. "And I can make out your bills for you in a fair hand, and reckon up the price of fifteen bushels of wheat at whatever it is a bushel, and see you’re not cheated."

  "Who says I’m cheated?" roared the miller in a sudden explosion of fury.

  "An unlettered man is always cheated," replied Zachary equably. "A shilling a week, a bed, and my food?"

  "A shill
ing a week?" roared the miller. "Dammee! A shilling a week, vittles, and bed, for a shameless young dolt still smelling of the jail?"

  Zachary did not contradict the suggestion of jail; he thought it was a useful red herring.

  "A shilling a week and my keep," he said, not cheekily this time, but with quiet determination. Then, his charming smile flashing out over his thin face, he began to sing softly under his breath.

  Greensleeves was all my joy,

  Greensleeves was my delight;

  Greensleeves was my heart of gold,

  And who but Lady Greensleeves.

  "Come on in," said the miller, "an’ have a bite of dinner."

  3

  The deepening dusk of an evening a couple of days later found Zachary lying on a damp and dirty pallet in an attic room of the miller’s cottage. Apart from the pallet and a broken chair, there was no furniture in the room, for it had not been used until he came. The floorboards were moldering away in places, the cob walls were patched with damp, and the thatched roof was visible through the holes in the ceiling. The miller’s wife had died years ago, and he and his son lived here alone, no woman ever coming near them to tidy up. The whole house was dirty, and this room in particular was a horrible little cobwebbed hole, smelling strongly of mice, its one redeeming feature being the small square of broken window which looked out upon the purple hill that had already become to Zachary his best friend at the Fleete mill. It reminded him of Bowerly Hill above Weekaborough Farm, and in so doing seemed likely to keep him sane. It even had a tree on top of it, not a yew, but an oak, and winding up the slope was a path that he could just see from his window. Lying rigidly upon his back on the dirty pallet, covered by a tattered dirty blanket, Zachary stared out of one eye (the other was at present unusable) at the hill, and at the couple of stars that were twinkling above its shoulder, and tried to steady the turmoil of his thoughts against the strength and peace of hill and sky.

  For he had to face the fact that life in the Fleete mill was not going to be much more agreeable than life in the cockpit of the ship that he had left. As far as the outward picture of it went, his queer vision of the mill had been correct, but the peace and beauty were only in the outward seeming. The miller, Jacob Bronescombe, captivated by Zachary’s gift of song and his skill as an accountant and secretary, was his friend, but the miller’s son Sam was not, and Sam’s physical strength was to Zachary’s as that of an ox to a rabbit’s, and his cunning in devising methods of torture very acute. Zachary had already had a couple of lights with Sam behind the mill, and had received such punishment that his face looked like an overripe plum and he ached all over, though the fights compared to Sam’s other cruelties had been light afflictions. Sam was jealous. This newcomer who could sing all the popular songs, talk like a book, add two and five together and know what they came to, write a fair hand, and swill out the kitchen with the skill of a woman, would cut him out with his father, of that he was sure. Sam was not exactly half-witted but he was not very bright at anything except inflicting pain, and he knew it. There was not room in his mind for many ideas. Up till now there had only been one, his doglike adoration of his father; now there was added to it another, hatred of Zachary and determination so to ill treat him that he would withdraw from the Fleete mill at an early date.

  Should he go? Zachary pondered this question as he lay staring out of his one usable eye at those stars twinkling above the strong shoulder of the purple hill. He knew that though the easy-going, not overbright miller liked him and already found him uncommonly useful, he was not going to interfere between him and his son. He was going to leave the two boys to light it out alone. Zachary had asked to come here, and must abide the consequences. Moreover, Jacob had a poor opinion of any lad who could not give a good account of himself in a light. He was himself a famous wrestler, his name known all over a county famed throughout England for its mighty lighters, and Sam was already following very satisfactorily in his footsteps. A man who could not use his fists was no man at all, in his opinion. Zachary must learn, or get out.

  Those were the two alternatives that faced Zachary. His courage was at a low ebb tonight, and the first alternative seemed beyond him. In the navy he’d had about enough of brutality, bruises, and dirt. How could he stay here and endure more of it? He was becoming more and more terrified of pain. He wanted cleanliness, peace, kindness, and security. He stirred restlessly, groaning a little as his bruises hurt him, even sobbing weakly in the desolation and uncertainty of his mind. He sobbed himself into a stupor, then dozed a bit, only to wake again still sobbing. The moon was rising now, and he could dimly see the path twisting up the hill. He looked at it, choking back his sobs in anger at his own childishness, and the effort to regain control seemed to clear his sight a little, so that the path shone out more and more clearly, and suddenly he fancied he saw Stella dancing there, as he knew she must dance up that other hill-a gay little figure, brave and happy though she was all alone there on the hillside. She looked like a fairy’s child, green-gowned, light as thistle down, but there was nothing fairylike about the warm glow of happy courage that came slowly flooding through him as he watched her. Her gift to him was an entirely human fortitude, an outflowing of her own gay courage, dancing all alone there under the moon. When he looked again, she was gone; he had only imagined her in a half-dream. But the fortitude remained.

  No, he wasn’t going to give up, and he knew now how he was going to tackle this problem. He remembered himself in the rigging, lashed there against his will and enduring hell. And he remembered himself in just the same position in the yew tree, only there he had held out his arms willingly, and the tree had upheld him with its strength. Whatever was coming to him at this confounded mill, he would give himself willingly to it and endure it to the natural end. He would not force the pace this time. He would not quit.

  But as the night wore on, and he lay sleepless and feverish from his bruises, he realized that if the natural end was not to be the breaking of every bone in his body within the next few days, he must use his wits. As the hours passed by he thought hard, and when the dawn came he had decided what to do. He got up, almost too battered to move, stumbled down the stairs, and washed himself at the pump beside the cottage door. Then he went indoors, got the fire going, laid the table for breakfast, and by the time the miller and Sam came down had bacon sizzling in the pan. Jacob smacked his lips appreciatively, but Sam glowered, and got in a kick on the shin that made Zachary gasp and all but drop the frying pan.

  "Give ’im back as good as he gives ee, lad!" said Jacob irritably.

  "I’ve a better plan than that, Sir," said Zachary, limping to the table with the bacon. "I can’t give him back as good as he gives at present--and you know that--but I’ve a plan."

  "Eh?" said the miller, drawing in his chair.

  Over the meal Zachary expounded his plan. Let them both teach him how to wrestle; give him lessons in the noble art. Meanwhile let Sam leave him alone. Then at the next public wrestling match-it was in another month, they’d told himlet Sam and himself fight it out together, man to man, decently and according to the rules. And if Sam got the better of him in the fight, then he’d leave the mill. How was that? Meanwhile, let Sam leave him alone to get on with his work in peace.

  Sam’s eyes brightened. In another month, in another year, or two days, it would be all the same; in a fight to the finish in the ring, he’d batter this puling scarecrow to a mush. But the miller, of the like conviction, looked dubious.

  "He’ll likely kill ee, lad," he said.

  “At the end of a month, if afterall your teaching I can’t defend myself, then let him kill me," said Zachary. "Meanwhile, let him leave me alone. Is that a bargain?"

  And the miller and Sam both said, "Ay, it’s a bargain, lad."

  CHAPTER VIII

  1

  Dr. Crane and Aesculapius were jogging wearily homeward on a Saturday afternoon in October, a typical Devon day, warm, muted, and still.

  He
had been summoned to a village far out of his beat to help another doctor with a difficult confinement. He had been there all night and most of today, and had helped to save two lives. He was glad of that, but not so glad as he would be when he had had a hot bath, a meal, and some sleep. Then he would be glad indeed, for the young wife whom he had saved was much beloved. As a doctor he had seen much of love, and always fought like a tiger to save it from the rending of pain and death.

  "Love is the divinity who creates peace among men, and calm upon the sea, the windless silence of storms, repose and sleep in sadness. Love sings to all things which live and are, soothing the troubled minds of gods and men." It seemed fitting to speak those words of Agathon upon this calm and peaceful day, just as it had seemed to him fitting that they should have been written on the scrap of paper in Stella’s locket. For to his mind they fitted the child Stella. She had, if he were not mistaken, a great gift of love, not troubling passion, but love in the sense of the old word charity, a thing most peaceful deep and still. And written as they were in Greek, in a fine scholarly hand, they proved to him what he had already guessed, that Stella was the child of cultured parents. He would give a good deal, he thought, to know who they were, and how the young mother had come to be involved in the tragedy of the Amphion.