CHAPTER XVI
IN WHICH I BEGIN TO APPRECIATE THE VIRTUES OF THE CHASTE GODDESS
Assuredly never were the nostrils of mortal youth saluted with odourmore inspiring and altogether more delectable than that which, wooingme from the drowsy arms of Morpheus, awoke me to growing consciousnessof three several things, namely: light, movement and anextraordinarily poignant hunger.
Being awake, I firstly sniffed of this most appetising aroma, thenlifting my head espied the girl busily combing her long hair beforethat small mirror I have mentioned. Now although the place wasillumined by no more than a farthing dip, yet this was sufficient towake many fugitive gleams and coppery lights in these long, ripplingtresses, so that I lay for some time content to watch as she combedwith smooth-sweeping motions of arm and wrist; but suddenly this armgrew still and I knew that she was viewing me through this silkycurtain as it hung.
"Well?" she demanded suddenly, and putting back the hair from herface, stood looking down at me with her sombre, half-sullen gaze.
"Well?" said I, sitting up. And now, beholding her face framed thus inher glossy tresses, the wide, low brow, the deep eyes, the delicatemodelling of nose and chin, the vivid lips, I realised that she wasbeautiful--beautiful as any fabled goddess or dryad; and what withthis, the rippling splendour of her hair that covered her like agarment, the deep silence of this remote solitude, there rushed uponme a sense of such intimacy that I caught my breath and averted mygaze instinctively, awed by, yet delighting in, this suddenconsciousness of her beauty.
"Well," said she again, "d'ye smell it?"
Starting, I glanced up, to find her busied with the comb again andimmediately recognised that here was neither goddess nor dryad butmerely a well-shaped, comely young woman with extraordinarily longhair; which fact established, my hunger (momentarily forgotten)returned with keener pang than ever.
"Are ye going to sleep again?" she enquired, finding me silent.
"No!"
"Well, don't you smell it?"
"Pray what is it?"
"A duck as I be roasting to our supper."
"Duck!" I repeated, mouth watering. "I have breathed its enticementever since I awoke."
"Wi' plenty o' sage and onion, a new loaf, and cheese!" she added,with a nod of her shapely head at each item, "unless," said she,eyeing me askance, "you're minded to starve--as you said?"
At this I grew very despondent and, sighing, watched her twist herglossy hair into two long braids and tie up the ends with smallribbands which I thought a very quaint and pretty fashion.
She now bade me help her to set up the supper table, which proved tobe a weather-beaten half-door propped upon baskets. This done, shetook the candle and descended below, I following; and here, within anold cauldron pierced with many holes, burned a fire, above which was acovered pot whence emanated that fragrance I have already mentioned,but stronger and more savoury than ever now, so that my hunger waswrought to a passionate yearning, more especially when, having removedthe pot from the fire, she lifted the cover. Ascending to the loft shepronounced supper all ready and bade me sit down and eat. But this Icould not do for my pride's sake as I freely confessed, which seemedto surprise her not a little.
"Well then," said she, perceiving me thus determined, "you may eat ifyou are truly hungry, because none o' the money I prigs pays for thisduck."
So down I sat forthwith and never in all my life enjoyed any mealquite so much, as I told her.
"Well, then, eat it!" said she in her ungracious, half-sullenmanner.
"I mean to," I retorted, "though I must say you are a wonderful cook."At this she merely scowled at me and I did not venture another remarkuntil the sharper pangs of hunger were appeased, then, sighing, Ispoke again. "Yes, I repeat you are a wonderful cook! But theneverything seems so wonderful to me--this place, for instance--sostrange and so solitary!"
"It is!" she answered, leaning her chin on her hands and staring at meacross the table. "That's why I runs away here to hide from the_chals_ or when in any trouble wi' old Azor--yes, 'tis a verylonely place, which do make me wonder if you be afeard o' ghosts?"
"No--that is, I don't think so--if such things do really exist. Butwhy do you ask?"
"A woman was murdered here once an' they say her spirit walks, sothere's few people dare venter here by day an' never a one by night,an' that's why 'tis so lonely an' that's why I loves the place."
"Then you don't believe in ghosts?"
"Well I sees strange things among the Romans; there's the_dukkerin_ and _dukkeripen_, an' the Walkers o' the Heath.They're a strange folk, the Romans--'specially old Azor!"
"But you are not afraid--never have been?"
"No," she answered, shaking her head slowly, "I've never been afeardof anything or any one yet--except old Azor." And beholding her as shesaid this, observing the proud cast of her features, the loftycarriage of her head, her compelling eyes, resolute chin and the noblelines of her form, I knew she spoke truth and began to doubt if shewere no more than a mere comely, well-shaped young female, after all.
"Pray, what is your name?" I enquired.
"Anna."
"Indeed it is a pretty name, though you are more like my conception ofDiana."
"Who's she?"
"She was a young goddess."
"A goddess?" repeated my companion in her deep, soft voice, "thatdon't sound much like me."
"A goddess, very brave and strong, who despised all men and fearednone!"
"That does sound more like me! Though I thought all goddesses werebeautiful?" she added wistfully.
"So they were," I nodded, "but how do you know this?"
"From Jerry Jarvis--"
"What, the Tinker?" I exclaimed. "Do you mean the tinker who callshimself a 'literary cove'--the wonderful tinker who writes excellentpoetry and travels about with a pony named Diogenes?"
"Yes, there be only one Jerry Jarvis," answered my companion. "'TwasJerry taught me to write and lent me books to read. I've known himsince I can remember and he was always kind. Jerry's a good man!"
"And writes real poetry!" I nodded. "At least I think so. I shouldlike to meet him again."
"Well, he'll be Tonbridge way about now. I knows all his rounds an'he's reg'lar as a clock."
"Do you know the way to Tonbridge?"
"Of course!"
"Yes, I'll go to Tonbridge to-morrow; you shall tell me the best wayto get there, if you will."
"'Tis very sure you are better of your beating."
"Yes, thank God!" I answered.
"Though your eyes will be black to-morrow."
"Which will serve me right and properly for my cowardice."
"But you're not afeard o' ghosts!"
"Heaven knows," quoth I bitterly, "I might be if I saw one. And as forsolitude, I don't think I should care to stay here alone night afternight and day after day as you seem to have done."
"Oh, you gets used to it."
"But how do you pass your time in this solitude?"
"Reads mostly, and makes my baskets; there be few can ekal me at rushor willow. And there's good money in baskets!"
"What books have you read?"
"Not so many as I'd like."
"Tell me some of them."
"Well there's the 'Castle of Otranto' and Virgil and 'PeregrinePickle' and the Psalms, and 'Tom Jones' and John Milton's Poems,'Tristram Shandy.' Dryden, Plutarch's lives--oh, and a lot beside--"
"And which do you like best?"
For answer she reached the six volumes from amongst her pots and pansand these I found to be: Shakespeare, 'Tristram Shandy,' the Bible,Anson's Voyages and 'Robinson Crusoe.'
"You have shown most excellent judgment and a most catholic taste!"said I.
"You loves books, too!" she nodded. "I sees that by the way youhandles 'em. And I keeps these six here because I can read them overand over and never tires, though there's a lot I don't understand."
"That," said I, looking upon my companion with new vision, "that isbecause
each of these books shrines some part of undying Truth whichcan never weary and never die. I think," said I, setting the booksback in their accustomed place, "I think I will call you Diana, if Imay?"
"Very well."
"And my name is Peregrine."
"You seemed to like your supper," said she, beginning to clear awaythe platters.
"More than words can express!"
"So did I," she nodded, "and that was worth a little risk."
"What risk, Diana?"
"Well, I tells you the duck was not bought with any of the beast'smoney, didn't I?"
"Yes. Pray, how did you come by it?"
"Prigged it!"
"Great heaven! You mean that you--"
"Yes. I goes to a farmhouse as I knows of to get some milk an' eggs,an' spies four ducks on the kitchen table, trussed an' stuffed allready for the oven, so I brings one away--only one, though I might ha'nabbed two just as easy--"
"But this was burglary!" I gasped.
"But 'twas a dainty supper!"
"This is frightful!" I exclaimed.
"But the duck was very tender--you said so."
"Oh, girl," I cried, "don't you know it is very wicked to steal? Areyou aware you have broken one of God's commandments, contravened thelaw and made yourself liable to arrest and imprisonment--indeed,people have been hanged for less! O Diana, how could you do a thingso shameful, so unworthy your womanhood--how could you--how couldyou?"
But instead of answering or paying the least heed to this so earnestappeal, she continued her business of clearing away supper things andtable, and thereafter begun to make herself a couch of hay in thecorner remotest from mine, and all without so much as a glance in mydirection.
"And now," said she at last, "if you're quite ready, I'll blow out thecandle."
"Whenever you will," I answered, stretching myself upon my hay-pile.Almost as I spoke the light vanished, and in the pitchy gloom myhearing seemed to grow the more acute; I heard her light, assuredtread, the fall of her shoes as she kicked them off, the rustle of thehay that was her bed, a long-drawn, sleepy sigh. These sounds at lastsubsiding, I spoke:
"Have I angered you, Diana?" Here I paused for answer but getting nonecontinued, "Though indeed my strictures were all well-meant, for Icannot bear that you should do anything unworthy--" Here, though sheuttered no word, I distinguished a sudden, petulant rustle of hay asif she had kicked viciously. "And so, Diana," I continued, "I want youto promise that henceforth you will so govern your conduct, so orderyour life that you may become a woman, gentle and sweet and good, inwhose presence no evil thing may exist, one who is herself aninspiration to good and noble things, a woman whose friendship is aprivilege and whose--whose love would be a crowning glory. Do youunderstand, Diana?"
"Hold your tongue!" she cried very suddenly. "Hold y'r tongue an' goto sleep--do!"
In the fervour of my exordium I had assumed a sitting posture but ather coarse rejoinder I fell back, inexpressibly shocked, and laystaring upon the dark, tingling with mortification that I should havewasted myself in such vain appeal and been thus callously repulsed byone who was no more than an ignorant gipsy-wench, prone to coarseexpressions and small larcenies, a creature knowing little differencebetween good and evil and caring less. But now, remembering her roughupbringing and the wild folk who had fostered her, my anger gave placeto commiseration, for how could she, under such circumstances, beother than what she seemed? And yet--was she in herself good or evil?This doubt troubled me so much that I turned to stare towards thatdark corner where she lay; and listening to her gentle and regularbreathing, I judged that she slept already, though more than once Iheard the hay rustle as she stirred, sighing plaintively. But sleepwas not for me, my mind being greatly troubled by this sameunanswerable question: Was she a Diana indeed, dowered with thevirtues of that chaste goddess, or only a poor, small-souled creaturedebased by the circumstances of her lawless origin?
Now as I lay thus wakeful, vainly seeking an answer to this mostdistressing question, I became aware that the place was no longerdark; instead was a soft glow, an ever-increasing radiance, andlifting my eyes to the unglazed window I beheld the moon,--Dian's fairself, throned in splendour, queen of this midsummer night, serene andinfinitely remote, who yet sent down a kindly beam, that, dartingathwart the gloom, fell in a glory upon that other Diana where she layoutstretched in peaceful slumber. And gazing upon this face, softenedand beautified by gentle sleep--the wide, low brow, these tender lips,this firm and resolute chin, I thought to read therein a sweetnobility, purity and strength; and, like the darkness, my doubts andtrouble were quite banished.
Therefore, lifting my gaze once more to Dian's placid loveliness, Ibreathed her a sigh of gratitude, for it seemed that she had shown methe answer to my question. And thus, my mind at rest, I presently fellasleep.
Peregrine's Progress Page 18
