Читать книгу Aylwin - Theodore Watts-Dunton - Страница 10

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While we were walking along the road a sound fell upon my ears which in my hale days never produced any very unpleasant sensations, but which did now. I mean the cackling of the field people of both sexes returning from their day's work. These people knew me well, and they liked me, and I am sure they had no idea that when they ran past me on the road their looks and nods gave me no pleasure, but pain; and I always tried to avoid them. As they passed us they somewhat modified the noise they were making, but only to cackle, chatter, and bawl and laugh at each other the louder after we were left behind.

'Don't you wish,' said the little girl meditatively, 'that men and women had voices more like the birds?' The idea had never occurred to me before, but I understood in a moment what she meant, and sympathised with her. Nature of course has been unkind to the lords and ladies of creation in this one matter of voice.

'Yes, I do.' I said.

'I'm so glad you do,' said she. 'I've so often thought what a pity it is that God did not let men and women talk and sing as the birds do. I believe He did let 'em talk like that in the Garden of Eden, don't you?'

'I think it very likely,' I said.

'Men's voices are so rough mostly and women's voices are so sharp mostly, that it's sometimes a little hard to love 'em as you love the birds.'

'It is,' I said.

'Don't you think the poor birds must sometimes feel very much distressed at hearing the voices of men and women, especially when they all talk together?'

The idea seemed so original and yet so true that it made me laugh; we both laughed. At that moment there came a still louder, noisier clamour of voices from the villagers.

'The rooks mayn't mind.' said the little girl, pointing upwards to the large rookery close by. whence came a noise marvellously like that made by the field-workers. 'But I'm afraid the blackbirds and thrushes can't like it. I do so wonder what they say about it.'

After we had left the rookery behind us and the noise of the villagers had grown fainter, we stood and listened to the blackbirds and thrushes. She looked so joyous that I could not help saying, 'Little girl, I think you're very happy, ain't you?'

'Not quite,' she said, as though answering a question she had just been putting to herself. 'There's not enough wind.'

'Then do you like wind?' I said in surprise and delight.

'Oh, I love it!' she said rapturously. 'I can't be quite happy without wind, can you? I like to run up the hills in the wind and sing to it. That's when I am happiest. I couldn't live long without the wind.'

Now it had been a deep-rooted conviction of mine that none but the gulls and I really and truly liked the wind. 'Fishermen are muffs,' I used to say; 'they talk about the wind as though it were an enemy, just because it drowns one or two of 'em now and then. Anybody can like sunshine; muffs can like sunshine; it takes a gull or a man to like the wind!'

Such had been my egotism. But here was a girl who liked it! We reached the gate of the garden in front of Tom's cottage, and then we both stopped, looking over the neatly-kept flower-garden and the white thatched cottage behind it, up the walls of which the grape-vine leaves were absorbing the brilliance of the sunlight and softening it. Wynne was a gardener as well as an organist, and had gardens both in the front and at the back of his cottage, which was surrounded by fruit-trees. Drunkard as he was, his two passions, music and gardening, saved him from absolute degradation and ruin. His garden was beautifully kept, and I have seen him deftly pruning his vines when in such a state of drink that it was wonderful how he managed to hold a priming-knife. Winifred opened the gate, and we passed in. Wynne's little terrier, Snap, came barking to meet us.

There was an air of delicious peacefulness about the garden. This also tended to soften that hardness of temper which only cripples who have once rejoiced in their strength can possibly know, I hope.

'I like to see you look so,' said the little girl, as I melted entirely under these sweet influences. 'You looked so cross before that I was nearly afraid of you.'

And she took hold of my hand, not hesitatingly, but frankly. The little fingers clasped mine. I looked at them. They were much more sun-tanned than her face. The little rosy nails were shaped like filbert nuts.

'Why were you not quite afraid of me?' I asked.

'Because,' said she, 'under the crossness I saw that you had great love-eyes like Snap's all the while. I saw it!' she said, and laughed with delight at her great wisdom. Then she said with a sudden gravity, 'You didn't mean to make my father cry, did you, little boy?'

'No,' I said.

'And you love him?' said she.

I hesitated, for I had never told a lie in my life. My business relations with Tom had been of an entirely unsatisfactory character, and the idea of any one's loving the beery scamp presented itself in a ludicrous light. I got out of the difficulty by saying,

'I mean to love Tom very much, if I can.'

The answer did not appear to be entirely satisfactory to the little girl, but it soon seemed to pass from her mind.

That was the most delightful afternoon I had ever spent in my life. We seemed to become old friends in a few minutes, and in an hour or two she was the closest friend I had on earth. Not all the little shoeless friends in Raxton, not all the beautiful sea-gulls I loved, not all the sunshine and wind upon the sands, not all the wild bees in Graylingham Wilderness, could give the companionship this child could give. My flesh tingled with delight. (And yet all the while I was not Hal the conqueror of ragamuffins, but Hal the cripple!)

'Shall we go and get some strawberries?' she said, as we passed to the back of the house. 'They are quite ripe.'

But my countenance fell at this. I was obliged to tell her that I could not stoop.

'Ah! but I can, and I will pluck them and give them to you. I should like to do it. Do let me, there's a good boy.'

I consented, and hobbled by her side to the verge of the strawberry-beds. But when I foolishly tried to follow her, I stuck ignominiously, with my crutches sunk deep in the soft mould of rotten leaves. Here was a trial for the conquering hero of the coast. I looked into her face to see if there was not, at last, a laugh upon it. That cruel human laugh was my only dread. To everything but ridicule I had hardened myself; but against that I felt helpless.

I looked into her face to see if she was laughing at my lameness. No: her brows were merely knit with anxiety as to how she might best relieve me. This surpassingly beautiful child, then, had evidently accepted me—lameness and all—crutches and all—as a subject of peculiar interest.

How I loved her as I put my hand upon her firm little shoulders, while I extricated first one crutch and then another, and at last got upon the hard path again!

When she had landed me safely, she returned to the strawberry-bed, and began busily gathering the fruit, which she brought to me in her sunburnt hands, stained to a bright pink by the ripe fruit. Such a charm did she throw over me, that at last I actually consented to her putting the fruit into my mouth.