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LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY Of
CALIFORNIA
SAN OIEGO
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Madness of Philip
Her Fiance
Memoirs of a Baby
Middle-Aged Love Stories
Whom the Gods Destroyed
Domestic Adventures
The Imp and the Angel
Poems
An Idyll of All Fools' Day
Fables for the Fair
Ten to Seventeen (a Board
ing School Diary)
Smith College Stories
Sister's Vocation
o
n a low st^o!
dtt old woman
In the,
rdcr Pountrv
rosephine • KdsKcmi • Kacon
. G~ls
scne
Doublc.day,
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On a low stool mere- sal an
old woman Irontts
Fac
ispiece.
alciss of- tncu window nas
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Cohere were no liants bul tn
stranqe, roerfies
1C,
28
tfrem moon
Dame, stood hiqn on wooden
clocjs and hummed a ballad . .
Here- They sat^down to tapestry
work, qreen and blue and russei
wcavinas
116
In the Border Country
THE HUT IN THE WOOD
ri^HE woman who told me this, and
••• other strange tales which I may
one day try to put together, had no gift
of writing, but only a pathetic regard for
those who had. I say pathetic, because
to me her extraordinary experiences so
far outvalue the tinkling art of recording
them as to make her simple admiration
for the artist little short of absurd. She
had herself a pretty talent for painting,
of which I knew her to have made much
in the years before we met. It was, indeed,
because I remembered what hopes she
had encouraged in her teachers in this
and older countries, and how eagerly she
had laboured at her craft, finding no trick
of technique too slight, no repetition too
arduous, no sacrifice too great, if only
3
4 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
they might justify their faith in her, that
I asked her one day, when I had come to
know her well, why it was that she had
stopped so suddenly in the work that
many of us had learned to know before
we knew her. For now she paints only
quaint toys for her many lovely children,
or designs beautiful gardens for her hus
band, himself an able artist and her first
teacher, or works at the wonderful robes
in which he paints her, burning in the
autumn woods or mist-like through spring
boughs.
We sat, that morning, I remember, on
the edge of the wood that finishes their
wide estate among the hills, looking down
its green mazy aisles, listening to the
droning of the June air, lapped in the
delicious peace of early summer. "Why
did you?" I asked, "what happened?"
She gave me a long look.
"I have often thought I would tell you,"
she said, "for you can tell the others.
When I hear this warm, droning noise,
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 5
this time of the year, it always reminds
me -
She looked at me, but I knew that she
saw something or someone else. After a
long pause her lips began to form a word,
when suddenly she drew a short, frightened
breath.
''What — do you smell it, too? Am
I going away again — what is that odour ? "
I sniffed the air. A dull, sweet taste
flavoured it, unpleasant, vaguely terrifying.
I looked about carefully and caught sight
of a wide-mouthed bottle lying on its side,
the cork half loosened. A brown moth
fluttered feebly in the bottle.
"It is only chloroform," I assured her,
remembering that the two oldest children
were collecting butterflies, and I tightened
the cork.
"Oh, yes," she said, a deep and un
accountable relief in her voice, "I see.
That odour has the strangest effect on me
ever since— ' she waited a long time.
At last she said she would try to tell me
6 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
something, if I would ask her questions
to make it easier for her, and never discuss
it afterward unless she should invite the
discussion.
I do not, of course, pretend to tell the
story as she told it to me. It was broken
by long pauses and many questions on
my part. Her phrasing, though wonder
fully effective at times, was empty and
inadequate at others, when she simply
could not say what she meant, neither
pen nor tongue being her natural medium
of expression. But if the style that I
have used is not hers, it best trans
lates, at least, the mood into which she
threw me.
The surgeon, who knew her well, took
her hand on the threshold of the operating
room.
"Even now, dear friend," he said, "we
may turn back. You know what I think
of this."
'You promised me!" she cried eagerly.
"I have your word that I should not
risk this."
'You have my word," said he, "that in
your present state of mind and under
the present conditions you should not
risk it. But I am by no means sure that
you could not change both your state of
mind and the conditions. If you say you
cannot, then, indeed, I will not let you
risk it. But if you would only say you
could! Then I would risk anything. Will
you not say it?"
"I cannot say it," she said. "Open the
door!"
"Listen!" said the surgeon; "if when
you are on the table, if even when the ether
is at your lips, you will raise your finger,
I will stop it. Will you remember? For
you, too, you know, run a risk in doing
this."
"I shall remember," she said, "but I
shall not raise my finger." And he opened
the door.
Her mind was so busy with a rush of
8 IX THE BORDER COUNTRY
memories and plans, crowded together at
will to shut out her fear, that she was un
conscious of the little bustle about her.
the blunt, crude details of preparation.
"Breathe deeply, please," someone said
in her ear, "harder, harder still — so!"
''I am breathing deeply, I am! How
can I do this forever.' I tell you I am
breathing deeply!" she screamed to them,
but they paid no attention. The surgeon's
face looked sadly at her and receded,
small and fine, to an infinite distance.
Though she called loudly to them, she
realized that in some way the sound did
not reach them, that it was useless. She
prayed that they might not think her un
conscious, for she had never reasoned
more clearly. Now her ankles were sub
merged, now her knees, now her hips,
now it was at her chest, now her throat.
''It is all over --you can begin now!"
she said deeply, and in order to save herself
from a sickening struggle, she bent her
soul, as one bends one's bodv to dive under
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 9
a combing breaker, and dipped under the
wave that threatened her.
Just as one slips through the breathless
surf she slipped through, and left them.
She heard someone breathing heavily in
the room she had left and hurried away
from the horrid sound, intending to find
her room and change the loose gray gown
and the soft fur-lined boots she had put
on for her journey to the terrible room.
But the hoarse, heavy breathing followed
her and threw her into a panic of fear,
so that she turned into a side corridor and
ran blindly down it. stumbling through a
little narrow door at the end of it. The
door swung to with a long sigh and she
heard the breathing no more.
As she rested in the little room, which
was perfectly empty, a door at the other
side of it opened suddenly and a woman
rushed in. She. too. had on a long gown,
and her dark hair hung in two thick
braids, one over each shoulder.
"Can von tell me the wav out?" she
10 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
said quickly, "I can't stay here — I can't
breathe."
"But you aren't dressed — we must find
our rooms first."
"No, no! There are nurses everywhere.
We shall be seen! Come this way," and
she pointed, shaking, to a long window
that opened on a fire escape. The steps
were broad and easy; a moment and they
were in the street.
"Here is my carriage — I saw it from
the window. Let me take you where
you want to go," said the woman; "home,
directly, James."
The door of the carriage was swinging
wide; they had only to step in. As they
sank on the seat the fat coachman leaned
out and slammed it.
"Drat that door!" he said loudly.
"She'll have to go back to the factory
again." The footman made some remark
and the coachman swore angrily.
"I think I see myself standing here two
hours!" he growled. "The gray's nervous
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 11
as it is. I'm going up through the Park
and let them out a little at the other end."
The carriage started. The woman half
rose in it and tapped imperiously on the
glass.
"James! James!" she cried, but no
one answered her. She pressed the knob
of the door, but it did not turn.
"I can't make him hear?" she com
plained, "what shall I do? What do you
think is the matter — he acts as if there
were nobody in the carriage!"
They looked fearfully at each other.
"He will stop surely — somewhere,"
said the other, but her heart felt chilled.
She could not think — she dared not.
They trotted swiftly on; her companion's
eyes were fixed ahead of her, her lips
moved.
"Hail Mary!" she muttered, and then,
"now and at the hour of our death!"
"Don't say that, don't!" she begged the
woman, but still the mutterings went on.
The door of the carriage swung open; the
12 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
horses dropped to a walk. All around were
trees and grass; great rocks lined the
driveway.
"I could slip behind the bushes and
my gown would not be noticed," she thought
feverishly, " for I cannot bear to hear
her," and as the carriage almost halted
she swung herself easily down from the
low step.
"Now and at the hour of our death!"
she heard as the carriage rolled on, and
shuddered when the coachman slammed
the door upon that pale, crazed creature.
Behind the bushes she was well screened,
and the few people that drove and walked
through the wild, beautiful woodland never
looked in her direction. Once a couple,
intertwined and deep in each other's eyes,
almost ran against her, but though she
drew away, startled and apologizing, they
Walked on with no reply to her excuses.
Her heart sank strangely.
"I wish they had spoken to me," she
whispered to herself. "I wish I could
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 13
think better — I know there is something
wrong. The next person I meet I will
But she walked steadily away from
the great driveway, deeper and deeper into
the wood.
"In a moment I will stop and think this
out — in a moment," she murmured, but
she did not stop; she ran like a hunted
animal, farther and farther.
The wood was utterly quiet. Sometimes
a little furry beast slipped across the narrow
path she ran along, sometimes a large bird
flapped heavily into the air ahead of her;
but no person walked or called.
Soon a great fatigue seized her, and
hunger. She moved languidly; her legs
seemed to walk of themselves.
"I must eat — I must rest," she moaned,
"but why did they not speak to me?"
At last she realized that she could drag
herself no farther, that she was alone and
lost, fearful and worn out, in a dense wood.
"I will get to that little path," she said,
14 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
trembling, "and there I will drop, and if
I must think, I must."
She staggered up the little path, and it
lead to a tiny hut, the colour of the four
great trees that stood about it. Its door
hung wide open, and in the middle of it,
on a low stool, there sat an old woman,
wrapped in a long cloak, looking kindly
at her.
She threw herself across the threshold
and fell upon the earthen floor.
"Oh, will you speak to me? Will you
see me ? Pray, pray answer me!" she cried.
"And why should I not see you, my
child?" said the old woman.
She gasped with joy.
"I don't know — I thought — the coach
man slammed the door — I don't know
what I thought! It was terrible!" she
panted.
"I know, I know," said the old woman;
"but you are here now. You can rest
now. It took you a long time, you are
so strong. Look, I have a bed for you!"
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 15
She looked, and in the corner of the hut
was a couch of pine boughs, odorous and
soft.
'You may lie on my cloak," said the
old woman, and spread it on the springy
couch. She dropped on it.
"Oh, I ache! — every bone in me
aches!" she sobbed, and for the first time
she wept.
"That is right," said the old woman,
and soothed her with her hand, "now
sleep, and I will have something for you
when you wake."
Her body sank, relaxed, upon the soft
boughs, and it was as if a sponge were
wiped across her mind, and she slept.
Time passed over her; she had no way
of knowing if they were minutes or hours
that ran by.
When she awroke, a gentle, steady hum
ming filled the air; a murmurous, musical
sound that calmed every sense. It was
like the turning of a great wheel or the
rocking of an old cradle.
16 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
4 * What is that?" she asked faintly.
"They are my bees, child," said the old
woman. "They have come home."
She was slender, with brown eyes like
brook water, and though she was wrinkled
finely, she was straight and strong, for
she lifted up her guest and half carried
her to the opposite corner of the hut.
"Now wash," she said, "and then you
must eat."
A cold, deep spring welled up in that
corner, and as she plunged her face into
it she opened her hot eyes to let the icy
water cool them - - and gazed at the
white moon far below her and the small
stars.
All space seemed spread before her
and she drew out, frightened, but when
she glanced quickly at the spring from
above, she thought she must have dreamed,
for it was like any other spring, only a
little deeper. Then she washed her hands
till they tingled and warmed. When she
had braided her hair afresh she turned
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 17
and saw that the old woman had set out
a meal for her on the low stool; a brown
loaf, a comb of golden honey and an
earthen jug of milk.
"Eat, my child," she said.
She fell upon the food and it was like
wine and meat to her. The blood ran
swiftly through her veins again and she
forgot the terror and fatigue and the cloud
in her mind.
'You are most kind to me, mother,"
she said, for she had lived in the old
countries where it is easy to speak kindly
to the old; "how do you happen to live
here ? I should have died but for you.
All my courage had gone and it seemed
that some terrible thing must be true,
but I dared not think what it might be.
Now I am strong again and I will thank
you and go on."
"Where will you go, my child?" said
the old woman.
She looked out of the door and saw
that the wood was so dense that only a
18 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
dim light pierced through the boughs far
above her head.
"It is always twilight here," said the
old woman.
"But you can tell me the way, surely
you know the way out?" she begged.
"I know my way," said the old woman,
"but not your way. I come from the
other side."
"And how do you come?" she asked,
almost fearfully, for something about the
old woman began to frighten her.
"I follow my bees," said the old woman.
"But I cannot wait for your bees,"
she cried, vexed and alarmed. "I must
get back — I was mad to have come here.
I have work to do. Everything has gone
wrong with me since — since — oh, I must
go back and get at my work!"
"And what is your work ?" the old woman
asked.
"I am an artist," she said.
"What is that?"
"I paint pictures," she said.
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 19
"Why do you do that?" asked the old
woman.
"Why? Why?" she repeated. "Why
does anyone do his work ? Because I
am told by good workmen that I do it
well, and that I shall every year do it
better. Because I would give up food
and sleep for it. Because I shall, if I live,
some day do some one thing that will be
remembered after I am past all work."
'You will never do that with a picture,"
said the old woman quietly.
She stamped her foot upon the earthen
floor.
"How dare you say so, you?" she cried.
"What do you know of art or the great
world of cities beyond this horrible wood ?
What are you?"
"They call me the Bee- woman, in this
part of the wood," she answered, "but
I have many duties. What are yours?"
"I have told you," she said sullenly,
for under the other's eyes her own fell.
"Not so," said the Bee-woman quickly,
20 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
a hand on her shoulder, "you have told me
only your pleasures. I do not ask you
for what you would sacrifice food and
sleep -- though you seem unable to go
without either for very long — but for
what you should sacrifice them?"
She clasped her hands and faced the
Bee-woman proudly.
"Art is the one thing in this world that
makes these two the same," said she,
"to the artist his art is both his pleasure
and his duty."
'That is the reason that artists are not
women, then," replied the Bee- woman,
"for their duties cannot be their pleasures
very long or very often."
At this she would have run away, but
her knees were still weak, and the thought
of the trackless woods stopped her heart
a moment with fear.
"A Bee-woman may know much of
bees," she said coldly, "but the world
beyond this wood has a wider space to
overlook, and while you have been growing
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 21
old in the wood, mother, the humming
of your charges has stopped your ears
to the voices of the young who fill the
world outside. They would tell you, if
you could understand, that Art is the one
word that is one for men and women."
"My child," said the Bee-woman, "so
long as bees hive and trees root in the
earth there will be no such word. For
the words of the world were made to
match the things of the world, and that is
so in this wood and out of it."
She looked at the Bee-woman and felt
troubled and on the eve of something
great and sad.
'You are no common peasant woman,
I am sure," she said gently, "and indeed,
I have heard wiser and more travelled
persons than you say very much the thing
that I think you mean. But like you,
they were old."
'That is to say, that they had seen
more of the life they speak of, I suppose,"
said the Bee-woman.
22 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
"But the world moves, mother," she said.
"That is to say, that it runs round and
round, I suppose," said the Bee-woman,
"but not that it gets any farther from
the sun."
"But women have learned many new
things since you were young, mother."
"That is to say, that they have all the
more to teach their children, I suppose,"
said the Bee-woman, "and they had more
than a little, before."
"Who spoke of children?" she cried
harshly, "not I! I spoke of work — the
world's work, that I am free to do!"
"So long as bees hive and seeds fly on
the wind," said the Bee-woman, "the world
has one work for you to do, and you are
bound, not free, to do it!"
Then she sank on the floor beside the
old woman and began to beg her, for it
seemed to her, as often it seems in dreams,
that before she could go any farther she
must win over this one who stood between
her and where she would go.
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 23
;'You think me vain," she cried, ''but,
indeed, with me this is no girlish fancy,
mother. Men greater and wiser than I
have told me that mine will be work for
which the world will be the better."
"I think that they have spoken truly,
my child," said the Bee-woman, " and that
is why I was waiting for you."
"Then let me go and work!" she cried,
and rose from her knees.
"Go quickly, indeed," said the Bee-
woman, "but work with flesh and blood,
as does God the Creator, not with paint
and canvas, as does man, the mimic!"
Then this old bee woman grew tall and
terrible to her, and she saw that she had
been led into the wood as into a trap
and that she must fight hard for her
freedom.
"I do not know what you are!" she cried
wildly, "but you talk like an old song
mumbled over the hearthstone, and it is
to the hearthstone that you would chain
me. Was I given eyes that can sweep
24 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
the horizon only to turn them downward
to that narrow hearth?"
"My child," said the old woman, and
her voice was like a bell that tolls across
the ancient fields, "so long as bees hive
and fire burns on the hearths of men
will the daughters of men walk in this
wood and tell me that the hearth is
narrow; and yet it is wider than the
width of the womb whence all men come,
and wider than the width of the grave
whither all men go. And all men know
this."
She put her hand over her heart, as one
who covers a wound, and her hand touched
a folded paper under her gray gown. She
drew it out in triumph and her face grew
bright.
"Not all men, mother, not all men!"
she boasted. "See — I took this with
me when I went in to the trial from which
I escaped. (Though what I have suffered
in this wood is worse than that from
which I ran away.) Read this letter from
my husband, and you will see that not
all men would chain their mates — that
to-day the jailer himself throws away the
key!"
"Read me the letter," said the Bee-
woman. And she read:
"/ love you because you think my
thoughts with me, because our work is the
same and we understand each other. Let
us work on together hand in hand."
"Now dip this letter in the spring,"
said the Bee-woman, "and read it to me
again. For now the paper can show you
only what the pen has written."
Wondering, she dipped it in the spring,
and the writing, which had been black,
turned blood red and was not the same
when she read it:
"J love you because your eyes are blue
and have drowned my heart, because after I
have done my work, which I cannot explain
to you, I lie in your arms and cease to
think. Give me a son with your eyes, for I
shall never understand you"
26 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
She crushed the paper in her hand and
flung it out of the door of the hut.
"Then he lied to me!" she said bitterly,
"fool that I am!"
"If you had been a fool he would not
have needed to lie to you," said Ihe Bee-
woman. "But you are one of those for
whom no price is too great."
"Oh, oh!" she wept, "I am deceived!
God and the world have deceived me!
But I will not be beaten. I will show him
— and you — that I am not the weak
thing you think me. This very moment,
if only I had the colours, I could paint as
never before. I feel it. The very pain
will help me. If only I had the colours!"
"There are always colours," said the
Bee-woman, "if not of one kind, then of
another. But you cannot get them for
nothing."
"I will pay any price," she said.
"Will you take the crimson from the
blood of your cheeks ?" said the Bee-woman.
"Will you take the fresh blue from your
eyes, the ivory white from your teeth, the
ruddy gold from your hair, and the thick
softness of it for brushes ? Will you ? "
She shuddered.
"I know what you mean," she said,
"but oh, it is hard! I — I cannot."
'Then you are a fool," said the Bee-
woman quietly. "There is no man living
who would not give all that and give it
with a smile, for his work. You are not
a great artist."
She wrung her hands.
;'You are right, you are right," she
moaned, "and I am not worthy. If colours
are my weapons to win fame, how should
I grudge them ? I will give them up."
"Then indeed you are a fool," said the
Bee-woman sternly, "for you throw away
your most powerful weapon before the
fight begins. You are not a great woman."
She fell with her face to the earthen
floor and lay quiet, while the bees hummed
outside the hut like the turning of a great
wheel or the rocking of an old cradle.
28 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
'Then all that I have learned," she
muttered at last, "is useless? All that I
have worked and anguished for? All that
I have saved even my suffering for, priz
ing it and never grudging, because it
would help my work? No man could
do more."
'You think so?" said the Bee-woman.
"Get up, my child, and look out of the
latticed window at the back of my cottage.
Do not think what you see there is close
before you, for the glass of that window
has strange properties and the part of
the wood which it shows you is far, far
from here."
She raised herself and walked to the
casement, shading her eyes with her hand,
for a red glow struck the single pane and
blinded her.
"Before you look," said the Bee-woman,
"tell me if you remember that picture of
yours which you think the best?"
"Do I remember it?" she repeated,
"can I ever forget it? A year of my life
T J *4- *—
he glass of— Thai winac
has .stranaa- propc-rtiis
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 29
has gone into it. The year that I was
married."
"Do you think it worth that year?"
said the Bee-woman.
"It could not have been done with less,"
she said.
"Now look," said the Bee-woman, "and
tell me what you see."
She went to the casement, and it seemed
as if the aged trees formed a long, long
aisle out from it, narrow and bright, and
at the end was a sunny glade.
"I see a young man," she said, "laugh
ing and singing to himself in the sun."
"Has he suffered?" asked the Bee-
woman.
"No, he is hardly more than a boy.
His hair curls like a boy's. His face has
never known a care."
"What is he doing?" asked the Bee-
woman.
"He is eating fruit and painting a pic
ture on a white cottage wall. The children
and the old men are watching him."
"Do you watch him, too," said the Bee-
woman, folding her hands in her lap.
Soon she gave a little cry.
"What! what!" she murmured, "how
can he do that — he is but a boy!"
"Is he weeping?" asked the Bee-woman.
"Has he shut out the world?"
"He is smiling," she answered, "and as
he works he talks. Oh! he is painting my
picture, mine! Who is he? Mother, who
is he?"
"Does he paint well? "asked the Bee-
woman.
She did not answTer.
"It is nearly done," she whispered, "and
he smiles as he works. What blue, what
glistening white ! Mother, who is that boy ? "
"Is it as well done as your picture?"
asked the Bee-woman.
"It is better done," she whispered
through her tears, "and he has gone and
left it. He has given it to a village girl
for a kiss! Oh, how could he leave it?"
"Because he can do many more, my
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 31
child," said the Bee-woman, "and life
has not yet touched him."
"Tell me his name," she said, and
turned from the window, pale and sad.
"His name neither the world or this
wood has yet troubled to learn," said the
Bee-woman, "but he will be called a great
painter before long."
"How long?" she asked.
"I forget if you call them days or years,"
said the Bee-woman, "but they will not be
many."
"Who taught him?" she asked.
"Everyone," said the Bee-woman, "the
village girl, for one. But many will learn
from him."
She knelt again upon the earthen floor
and looked the \voman in the eyes.
"I do not know, my child," said the Bee-
woman, "I can only tell you that you must
paint what you have learned, with tears;
he can paint he knows not what, and he
smiles. I ask you, which of you will go
furthest?"
32 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
"Ask me no more, mother," she said
faintly, "but tell me this: why is life so
cruel ? For you know everything and this
wrood is not what I thought."
"Child," said the Bee-woman, "for I
suppose you call it cruel because it does
not please you, why life is as it is, I do not
know; but that it is so no one can doubt
who has tried to make it otherwise and
failed. Now, what will you do?"
She bent her head before the eyes of
the Bee-woman, ashamed, because in her
deep brown eyes she saw reflected her
lost years.
"What shall I do?" she asked meekly.
"Go back, child," said the Bee-woman,
and her voice warmed like summer sun
shine on the wall at noon, "go back
and let men make pictures: do you make
men!"
Then outside the door she saw the little
path and suddenly she seemed to know
where it would lead and how, and she
had no fear at all of the wood.
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 33
"Good-bye, mother, God keep you!"
she said and stepped over the threshold.
"So long as I keep my bees, child, God
will doubtless keep me," said the Bee-
woman, "and that is true in this wood
and out of it. Now hurry back, for you
have stayed almost too long."
She waved her hand and turned from
the hut, threading her way among the
trees.
"I must go back, I must go back!" she
said to herself, and moved more and more
quickly, for something drew her almost
off the ground.
Once she thought she heard a low cry
behind her, and as she looked back she
saw some one running hotly through the
wood across her track.
She called aloud to help the poor crea
ture, for she saw that it was a woman in
deadly terror, wrapped in a long gown,
with two great braids of dark hair, that
hit against her back like whips, who turned
her pale, crazed face — and it was the
34 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
woman in whose carriage she had driven
to the edge of the wood.
"Come back!" she called, "this is the
way! Come back!"
But the runner clasped her shaking hands
upon her heart and leaned hotly forward
in one last burst of speed, and fell fainting
across the threshold of the Bee-woman's hut.
Then a panic terror caught the woman
who had left that hut, a terror to which
her first fright was as nothing.
"In God's name," she screamed, "where
am I ? What am I? Who is that wrinkled
woman with young eyes ? What wood is
this?"
So screaming she whirled about and
missed her footing, and fell heavily over
the root of a great tree, striking her head
in the fall.
A sickening pain washed in great waves
through every nerve, and she struggled,
turning her head feebly from side to side,
closing her eyes against the blinding light
that pierced her brain like knives.
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 35
The tall trees swam and wavered before
her, the boughs tossed and swayed and
receded till they were like a forest seen in
a picture. Then she saw that they were
framed in a window, with empty space
behind them, and that she was staring at
them from a bed in a strange room.
Over her eyes bent two brown eyes,
young and kind.
"Do you see me? Can you speak to
me ?" she heard.
"I do not hear the bees," she mut
tered, "I miss them. And yet you are
the Bee-woman, are you not ? I know your
eyes-
"I am the nurse," said the voice, "there
are no bees here. You hear the rumbling
in the street below. I am glad to see
you open your eyes — we were growing
worried. You remember you are at the
hospital, do you not? Would you like to
see your husband? He is just outside
the door."
She looked long at the nurse. "My
36 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
husband," she murmured. "Oh, yes.
Does he know that I got away ? How
did you bring me back here ? Tell the
doctor that — that I could not bear it
and that he must take me through without
it. He — he will be glad — "
"The operation is over," said the nurse,
"and you have nothing to bear, now.
You are just coming out of the ether.
Do you understand ? Everything is all
right. You have only to lie quiet, now,
and you may see your husband, if you
wish. He wanted to see you as soon as
you were safely out of the wood, he said."
The tears gathered in her eyes, but she
was too weak to wipe them.
* * Out of the wood, ' ' she whispered,
"'out of the wood'! So that is what
they mean! But he will never go into
that wood . . . yes, call him in."
THE FARM BY THE FOREST
IT WAS years afterward, and in October,
the very climax of a late and lingering
autumn, that I sat by my friend one after
noon in the ripe orchard and knew suddenly
that we were going to speak of one of
those strange experiences of hers that, for
me, set her more effectually apart from
others than any of her many and varied
gifts and graces. As before, we fell into
the matter suddenly, with no warning,
and at a light question from me the like
of which I must have asked her many
times with no such answer as I then got.
All about us lay the windfalls, piled
evenly, rich heaps of sunset colour. The
better fruit gleamed through the boughs
like fairy lamps and great ladders leaned
against these on which the men climbed,
picking carefully. Below them the maid
servants, laughing and excited at this
39
pleasant change of labour, handed the
baskets and filled the gaping barrels. And
up the ladders and through the trees and
among the tinted heaps raced and played
the children of the house, sniffing the
heady flavour of the rich fruit, teasing the
maids, cajoling the men, staggering under
the heavy baskets, pelting each other,
even, with the crimson and yellow globes,
bringing each specially large and perfect
one to their mother for congratulation.
She, stopping for the moment her strange,
jewelled embroidery, that alone would have
marked her for an artist of high powers,
would lean over each boy and girl, mur
muring her praise, soothing in the same
breath the unlucky ones who had not
found the most gorgeous fruit, warning
the men not to trouble the yet unready
apples, quieting the maids if they grew too
boisterous, an eye and an ear for everyone
and everything.
As the lowering sun struck full on the
nearest heap of red and gold, and turned
the russet fruit on the bough to bronze
nuggets wrapped in leaves of wonderfully
wrought jade, a sudden thought tempted
me and I spoke quickly, glancing slyly at
her calm, contented face.
"Look at that colour!" I said, "does
it not cry out to you to be painted ? Does
it not make you remember that spring
orchard of yours that everyone praised so,
and from which the great Master predicted
your future ? Would you not like to escape
from all this pleasant, tiny bustle, this
network of ceaseless demands upon your
hands, your heart, your brain, and once
again attack a real work?"
She looked curiously at me.
"A real work?" she repeated.
"I mean an enduring work," I explained,
"a thing from which you can lift your
hand some day and say, 'This is done.
To the best of my power it is finished. Let
it stand, and judge me by it.' '
She nodded her head slowly and I saw
that she was not really looking at me,
42 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
though she seemed to be, but beyond
me, across the splendid orchard piles,
into the stacked gold of the corn far
afield.
"That's it," she murmured, "that's just
what I told her --'an enduring work.'
And what was it she said to me? Oh! I
am going again — I am partly there now !
Don't you see it? I? that the Lower
Orchard? Are those the gray gables of
the Farm?"
Her voice thrilled strangely and her eyes
were staring, vague: it was as if she hung
between sleep and waking. I looked where
she pointed, but it was only an enormous
ledge of gray rock, curiously slanted, and
I said so, softly.
"It is only a rock, broken at the gable
angle, dear."
Then she faced me, herself perfectly.
"Oh, you think so?" she answered me
with a smile.
The words were strange enough in
themselves, but without them her manner
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 43
would have taught me that she was going
to speak of stranger things yet, and I was
not disappointed.
" It was just such a day as this," she began,
"and the smell of the apples always takes
me back, though never as strongly as now.
We were in the orchard . . . ah, my
dear, you will tell it wonderfully well when
I have told you, and many will learn as I
have learned, but you can never make them
see the Dame as I saw her!"
Then she told me the tale of that
adventure.
"What you need," said her friend, the
great physician, "is change. Change and
rest. Wliere can you go and be sure
of absolute quiet?"
"I cannot tell you," she said wearily,
"there is always something that I must
do- -"
or think that you must do," he
interrupted her.
"It is all the same," she said.
44 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
He sighed, and looked at her quietly
for a long time.
"It has taken me fifty years to learn
that, my dear child," said he, "and you
toss it at me in a moment's talk. Since
you have learned it, why are you not well
and happy?"
"Since I have learned it, I can never
be," she told him, and again he looked
long at her.
"What is that that you are trying to
do?" he asked her at last. "Think care
fully and tell me in one sentence."
"I have already thought carefully," she
said, "and I can tell you. I am trying
to live my husband's life, which I ought
not to give up, my children's life, which I
must not give up, and my own life, which
I cannot give up."
He looked even longer than before at
her and the late sun slipped down the
polished fittings of his desk and down the
gilded covers of the book-filled shelves
behind him. Longer than before he looked
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 45
and the lines deepened in his face and his
eyes seemed to grow deeper in his head as
she looked back at him. At last he spoke.
"My child," he said, "if I were a poor
and hungry doctor it is not to be doubted
that I should give you something in a
bottle and tell you to come to me again.
But I am a wealthy physician and I can
afford to tell you truth. I can do nothing
for you. You must cure yourself, or fail
to do it so completely that I shall be
needed to enable you to fail again. When
you have repeated this last process suffi
ciently, I shall no longer be thus enabled
and you will die. That is all."
"Die?" said she; "I shall die?"
''You will die," he said, "with every
thing that the world calls good fortune
in your lap. With no excuse for doing so,
but with every reason to be glad that you
are doing so. Leaving behind you some
one who needed you and more whom you
needed. Now go home and think, and
before you go, drink this."
46 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
Silently he poured out for her a tiny
glassful of some colourless, aromatic
liquid and in silence she drank it and left
the room, where the dying sun glinted
upon the gilded books. It seemed to her
that he touched a bell on the desk with
his hand, and though the cordial had
already begun to affect her head strangely,
she was able to observe that it was in
answer to this bell that his office nurse
appeared at the door as she reached it
and put a steadying arm behind her.
"Come this way," said the nurse, "and
sit a moment; do you feel a little dizzy?"
"A little," she answered, and her voice
seemed to come from far away; "I am
afraid that drink was stronger than it
should have been ... if I could
sit down . . . the doctor . . ."
She knew that the nurse was helping
her to a couch in a tiny room she had
never been in before; she knew that she
sank upon it and that the nurse settled
her upon a bright crimson cushion; she
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 47
heard her soothing murmur and nodded
to show that she was not alarmed, only
vexed at her own weakness, and then she
ceased to struggle with the overwhelming
drowsiness that oppressed her, and slept.
When she woke it was dark in the room.
In the street the electric lights glowed,
and the people passed steadily by the
window; was it midnight, she wondered,
or only early dusk? How strange that
the doctor and the nurse had forgotten
her!
"But, of course he would not have
wished me waked," she said, and rose,
straightened her dress, waited a moment,
and then pulled impatiently at an old-
fashioned bell-rope that hung by the door.
There was no answer. Again she rang,
but the house lay dark and silent. A
little housemaid with brown, startled eyes,
came at last, just as she was beginning to
grow alarmed at the darkness and stillness,
and stared at her.
''Was it you that rang, madam?" asked
48 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
this little housemaid; "the doctor is out:
he will not be back to-night."
"And the nurse?" she inquired, vexed
at this lack of thought of her.
"The nurse has gone long ago, madam,
for the night."
A flood of nervous anger broke over her.
"How disgraceful!" she cried; "how
unkind! To leave me here like this!
What time is it, pray?"
"It is very late, madam; I could not tell
you the hour."
The little housemaid yawned and pressed
her tumbled cap straight.
She bit her lips to keep herself from
angry tears and rushed through the heavy
street door, down the stone steps, out
upon the pavement. Angrily she sped
along, brushing by the people, who, in
turn, stumbled rudely against her. The
jostling crowd brimmed her eyes; she
walked as one in a mist.
"How cruel everyone is to me!" she
whispered to herself and walked faster.
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 49
Suddenly a thought came to her. Where
was she going? Surely she ought not to
attempt to walk all the way to her home,
so late at night ? She must call a carriage.
She fumbled vaguely in the little bag at
her wrrist, but no purse was there; only a
few small coins.
"I must get into a street-car," she thought
dully, and just then a noisy, lighted street
car rushed toward her on a cross-street
and she entered it as it stopped to take
in a group of workmen. They shouldered
by her roughly, and one of them laid his
greasy bundle half upon her lap; she shrunk
into a corner. She held out her coin to
the brisk collector, but he passed her by,
took one from all of the others, and left
her, shaking, haunted by a nameless
dread.
"Here is my fare!" she called to him,
but he, whistling, left her in her corner.
She hid her face in her hands and tried
to control her whirling thoughts, but her
brain raced like a mill stream and her
50 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
legs shook under her trailing skirt. All
too late she remembered that her carriage
was waiting for her at the doctor's: she
ought not to have rushed into the street.
She was giddy and confused, and knew
that her mind was the mind of one in the
grip of fever. On and on the street-car
rumbled; one by one the workmen brushed
by her and got out.
"Have I been here hours or minutes?"
she wondered, but dared not speak.
Now she was alone in the car. She
peered through the window and saw that
it was passing over water; the lights
blurred in the dark, shining mirror below.
"Oh, this is wrong! I should never
have come this way!" she moaned, and
knew that she was lost, lost and alone.
When she dared look through the win
dow again the water was gone, and she
felt the motion of the car to be slower.
Soon it had stopped. Trembling, she rose
from her corner and walked unsteadily
to the door.
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 51
"Will you kindly tell me where we are?
I have made a mistake," she said to the
man who had refused to take her money.
He looked at her and spoke to his com
panion.
"I suppose we're booked for the usual
half-hour wait, Jim," he said; "I don't
see any green light."
She cried aloud and rushed out of it.
"I think I am mad!" she wept. "I
wish I had died with my head on that
crimson cushion! What will happen to
me ? That cruel doctor will have killed
me!"
"What is it, madam? Can I help
you?"
A soft voice spoke close to her and she
grasped the arm of a slender, girlish
creature who turned two brown, startled
eyes up at her. Now it was for joy that
she wept, and clung to the girl, whom
her confused brain took to be the brown-
eyed housemaid who had spoken to her
last.
52 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
"Indeed, indeed, you can help me!"
she cried. "I am lost — I have come
into the country, it seems, a long way,
in a terrible street-car where no one would
speak to me, and I ought to be in the city,
in my home, for I am afraid I am very
ill : I seem to be in a sort of fever. Do
you know where we are ? I have never
been here. When will it be day?'*
"Very soon, madam," said the little
maid, supporting her firmly for all her
slenderness, "and I know well where we
are. Come home with me; Karen and I
plan to be at the Farm by daybreak."
She looked, and there beside them stood
a tiny donkey, saddled with a sort of leather
chair, and almost at the level of his rough,
thin shoulder stood a great sleek-coated
hound.
"Let me help you into the saddle,
madam," the little maid went on, "and you
will find how well you sit there. I am very
strong, and I can walk beside."
As in a dream she let the girl half lift
her into the seat, and the donkey walked
easily along, the hound stepping nobly by
them, his mistress leading the sure-footed
beast.
There were no lights but the great moon
and the kindly little stars, and no streets
but narrow lanes, winding through feathery
maples and stocky oaks that would be
sulphur-yellow and iron-red with the sun
behind them, but were now only their own
whispering ghosts.
"This must be far from the city," she
said softly, and the little maid answered:
"I do not know, madam; I was never
there. We have come far, Karen and I,
but not from the way you were running.
We are going to the Farm to help in the
orchard. The Dame sent for me and
father always wishes to oblige the Dame.
So we came at once."
"And can you send someone back with
me?"
"I do not know, madam. The Dame
will take care of it."
54 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
"I will pay whatever is right — I am not
poor," she muttered, holding to one side of
the saddle.
"The Dame will know, madam," the
little maid repeated, and they went on their
way under a lightening sky, for the dawn
was coming up white, and even now the
moon was paling.
She had no way of telling how long that
journey was, for more than once her head
nodded forward on her breast and she
knew that she fell into a kind of sleep
that was not wholly sleep, for she was
aware of the little donkey's gentle gait,
of the winding, leaf-strewn paths, of the
winking stars. Once they went through
a bit of rolling pasture-land where the
cattle drowrsed, dim, misty bulks on either
hand, and the steaming breath of a curious
horse bathed her startled face. He gal
loped away and his hurrying feet woke her
to the sense that the dawn was upon them.
The light was now a pale rosy glow and
straight from its heart a beaming arrow
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 55
struck upon a long brown gable that she
took for one of the great ledges of massive
rock that time and again had risen beside
them. But the little maid knew better,
and skipped beside the hound.
"See, madam," she cried, "here is the
Farm! And there is my little window
in the roof! And there are the doves
above the long barn."
She looked and saw that all these things
were so, but great weariness filled her and
she could think of nothing but the long
way back, for she knew that they had
come a great way from the city.
"This may all be well for you, child,
but it is not the same to me," she said
sadly.
"And why not, madam? The Dame
is kind to all," the little maid replied, and
urged the donkey on.
"What is your name?" she asked, look
ing for the first time at her guide in the
full light of early day. The girl was
quaintly dressed, she saw, with a black
56 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
bodice laced across her young body, a
shorter skirt than grown girls wear now,
and a scarlet ribbon twisted among the
long, dark braids that hung down her
shoulders. She had travelled much in
older countries than her own and to her
eyes this girl had the air of a winsome
little peasant that knew her simple station
and was happy in it.
"Joan is my name, madam — and I
have been told that the miller's Dyrk
has called the new brown foal for me —
the finest one at the Farm!" she said with
a bubble of laughter.
"Now, madam, we are here at last.
Let me help you down, and we will surprise
the Dame for once, for not often does one
catch her asleep. She will be the first
always — and here she is!"
They were in the very dooryard of a
thriving, deep-eaved farm-house. Asters
glistened with dew about the doorstep, a
straw-filled kennel for the great hound
stood close by, the cocks welcomed in the
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 57
day from behind a trim green hedge,
and slowly across the back-stretching
meadow came home a file of sleek, heavy-
uddered cattle. She stared at them un
seeing, for her head reeled, but Joan mis
took her staring and began to prattle:
''You are surprised, no doubt, madam,
to see the cows come in from the pasture
this early, but here at the Farm the air is
so dry and pure that they leave them in
the fields all night, and the milk tastes
of honey and meadow grass, the miller's
Dyrk does say -
"Child, child, will you never be done
with your chatter? The stranger is sick
- too sick, I see, to mind herself of the
Farm's cows. Help me to take her in!"
'You must be the Dame," she said, and
tried to look steadily at the woman who
came out of the oaken door to lead her in.
She was a strong, sturdy woman, neither
tall nor short, with brown, smooth hair
and a brown, smooth skin with red blood
beneath. Her eyes were like brook water
58 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
in the sun, that runs over clean pebbles,
and she was deep-chested, and stood firm
in her quaintly buckled shoes. She wore
a chintz gown dyed with little red and
yellow flowers that was looped up over
the hips, and at her waist hung a bunch
of heavy, wrought keys.
"Nay, now, never try to talk," she said,
and put a strong arm about her drooping
guest. 'You are past talking, poor
thing ! You have done far too much —
for others, I'll be bound. Rest first, and
then talk after that. Help her up the
stairs, now, Joan, and hush thy chatter."
"But you do not know why I am here,"
she murmured, leaning hard upon the
black oaken rail of the polished stair.
"I know you are here, do I not?" the
Dame answered quietly; "I should not
get you to bed the quicker, whatever I
knew. Softly, Joan; softly!"
One last effort and they stood within
a long, low-beamed chamber, whose leaded
panes shone no more brightly than the
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 59
polished floor below them. In the centre
a great posted bed reared its snowy canopy,
and copper jars of water and piles of linen
and other washing gear reminded her
that she was unworthy of that white bed.
On the deep window-sill bloomed pots of
gay flowers, and the tall chairs with
winged backs were covered with dim prints
pictured with strange birds and lions.
"Now," said the Dame, "undress her
and into the bed!"
"But I am not clean," she said; "I am
dusty from the street."
"Then we will wash you clean," said the
Dame. "Joan, go get warm water, child,
and the great copper, and make haste with
fresh sheets; Lotte will help you."
Deftly she was undressed and her chilled
body was chafed and rubbed till Joan
and another girl came staggering under a
great copper bowl a yard wide. They
filled it with steaming water which, as she
crouched in it, the Dame poured over her
shaking shoulders.
60 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
"How white she is," the girls whispered;
"how soft her skin must be!"
"Run Lotte," cried the Dame, "and
bring me the ruby cordial from the cordial-
room, and you, Joan, get the little copper
pannikin and heat that bit of broth by the
hob and warm the bedgown with the
lace your mother made for me!"
The ruby cordial was poured into the
bath and a sweet and penetrating odour
filled the room. It seemed that her bones
ceased to ache from that moment, and
when, wrapped in the warmed gown,
nestled in fragrant sheets, she sipped at
the hot broth Joan held to her lips while
Lotte braided her long hair, a peace she
had not known fell down upon her, and
pillowing her head gently she fell into a
deep and restful sleep.
She was wakened by the cooing of
many doves and the broad sun of middle-
morning that streamed across her white
bed. Her mind was as clear as the mind
of a child and she laughed a little as she
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 61
sprang from the great deep bed and put
on the clean short petticoat and buckled
shoes that lay beside it, glad that her own
dusty garments were not there. She wound
her long braids about her head and pinned
a blue kerchief over her shoulders, then
she slipped down the stairs and through
the great kitchen with its twinkling pans
and sanded stone floor. A woman, bent
over the wide fireplace, turned her head
in its white cap and spoke to her:
"Dame is in the dairy- -'tis built over
the brook. Perhaps you will take this
with you ? "
She lifted the willow-woven basket in
her hand and went out through the door
across the barnyard, where the doves
preened themselves among the clean straw,
and found the little stone house above
the brook. All about her she heard the
busy noises of the country morning; soft
voices, men's calls, the stamping of farm
horses, the clatter of the household ware,
the splash of cleansing water poured, the
62 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
hissing kettle; but she saw no one. It
seemed to her that eyes were upon her
and that pauses in the cheery bustle
followed her as she walked, but whenever
she stopped and tried to meet these eyes
there was no one. She moved alone
among the unseen workers, and yet she
knew they watched her.
In the cool stone dairy the Dame stood
at work, pressing and patting at the soft
coloured butter. Beaded brown jars of
cream were by her and great, fair pans of
milk, mounds and balls of primrose-tinted
butter, white cheeses wrapped in grape-
leaves, clotted cream that quivered at a
touch, tall pitchers of whey, loppered milk
ready for the spoon and buttermilk in
new-washed churns. Through the moist
freshness of the stone room the brook
ran, chuckling and lapping; great stones
roughly mortared together made the floor
on either side of it; the Dame stood high
on wooden clogs and hummed a ballad
wherein the birds sang in the morning,
*ri
lie, Ciame- stood ^'3^ on woode-n oloqs
and hummad a bdlldd .
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 63
but at night the eggs were broken, and the
wind was high and scattered the fledglings.
Even the freshness of her late rest in
her heart, her eyes filled at the Dame's
song, and often afterward she thought of
it when the wind was rising.
"And did you rest well?" said the
Dame to her when the song was done.
"Never so well since I was a child," she
said. "I have come to thank you for all
your care, and to ask you when you can
send me home, for I have no idea where I
am, and I am sure I have come a long
way."
"A long way, indeed!" said the Dame,
and looked at her strangely, but when
she questioned her this busy Dame only
smiled, and told her that it was good to
hear of her freshening sleep but no surprise,
since all made the same report of the
Farm.
"It seems the air here is so pure that a
few hours of it do more for the body than
days of other parts of the countryside,"
64 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
she said, and when her visitor asked again,
"But where am I ?" she only answered:
"But are you not ready for your break
fast, then?"
"Indeed I am," said she, "but I fear
I have come away from it, to find you."
"Nay," said the Dame, "you have
brought it with you," and pointed to the
basket. She opened it and spread the
wheaten rolls, the jar of honey, the brown,
new-laid egg and the clean, homespun
napkin upon the Dame's table and ate with
wonderful relish, supplying herself with
sweet butter and yellow milk from the
stores about her, and while she ate and the
Dame worked, they talked.
'You must be very busy, Dame, to be
up with the dawn," she said.
"Why, that is so," said the Dame,
"but women must needs be busy, as you
know well, I have no doubt."
She sighed and twisted her idle hands.
"I do not know that I can truly say I
am always busy," she said thoughtfully,
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 65
"but I know that I have much to do -
so much that I cannot do it," and again she
sighed.
"Why, that is odd," said the Dame,
patting her butter; "I have so much to do
that I must do it."
She knit her brows and tried to think
of an answer, but the answers that came
to her mind had a foolish sound as she
tried them over, so she said nothing.
"The Farm lets no one rest," the Dame
went on, "and you must know that every
thing you brought with you this morning,
the willow basket, the napkin, the egg,
the wheaten flour, the honey, all were
made here, and that means much work
for many hands."
Now this put her in mind of something
she had thought of before.
"But surely this is not the usual fashion
in this country," she said curiously, "nor
your quaint-figured gowns, nor much else
about the place, for that matter. All this
labour in flax and willow and dairy-house
66 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
seems like some old picture or some
ancient song — who has devised it, pray?"
"Aye, we keep the old ways," said the
Dame quietly; "there must be some to
do it or they will be lost, I am thinking."
"But so near the city," she said, and
again the Dame looked strangely at her.
"Are we so near, then?" said she.
She knit her brows and it seemed that
her mind, so clear since she woke, was
clouded as to all before that; only the
feeling of some great trouble, some dusty
hurry, some ruinous failure haunted her.
Also for the first time that day she found
herself afraid.
'You have not yet told me the name
of this town," she said, trying to be
calm.
"It is not a town, my dear, it is called
the Farm," said the Dame, putting the
finished rolls of butter in a brown crock;
"there is no town near us."
"But there must be!" she persisted;
"you are teasing me. There are always
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 67
towns, and they are never far from each
other in these parts."
"I do not know them, then," said the
Dame, gathering her keys and leaving
the dairy, "though in truth, my dear, I
am a poor judge of such matters, for beyond
the Farm — and it is large — I do not
go, being too busy always."
"Do you mean," she cried, following
through the barnyard, "that you spend all
the seasons on this Farm? It is not pos
sible!"
"And why is it not possible?" the Dame
asked, looking at her for the first time a
little sternly, and she saw that in spite of
her smooth country skin she was a woman
of middle age; "the seasons are all full.
In the spring there is planting, in the
summer there is picking, in the autumn
there is storing, in the winter there is
spinning."
Now these were simple words and plain
to understand, and yet something about
them troubled her greatly and she felt
68 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
that she must find an answer for them or
know no peace at all.
"That is all very well," she said quickly,
"but you are leaving out something with
out which all the seasons are empty and
the year a dull affair.'*
"And what is that, then?" asked the
Dame.
"Pleasure," she said.
"I find pleasure in them all," the Dame
said, "and so do those about me."
"But they are all work — they are
things that must be done!" she cried,
tugging at the Dame's sleeve as she
crossed the kitchen threshold ;" true pleas
ure is a thing apart - - we must have
both, surely."
The Dame blew a little silver whistle
hanging among her keys and at once
there was a bustle and a running and
some dozen maids came hurrying from
all parts of the rambling farm-house to
hear her orders. But before she busied
herself with these she spoke to her guest.
"My dear," she said, "if you come to
my time of life and have not found your
pleasure in your work, you will never find
it in this world. Sit down and think of
this."
She sat down upon a carven chest by
the open window, where the asters sent out
a spicy odour and the hum of bees was not
too far distant, and dropped her chin into
the cup of her hands and thought.
Meantime, the Dame laid out for each
girl her task, not hurried nor yet slow,
but so that each was started fairly.
'You, Lotte, order the cordial-room so
that there is room for the new bottles and
write them down in the store-book. Re
member to leave no drippings nor spillings,
nor do I look to see my best napkins used
for this. Janet, find Big Hans and make
the apple-cellar ready for the barrels.
Lois, I warn you that I shall go through
all the chambers soon, and if all is as well
there as when last I peeped under the
beds and through the panes and looked
70 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
at my face in the coppers, when the shoe
maker comes, after Michaelmas, there shall
be a pair of trim red shoes for those busy
feet, and no cost to your father. Trude,
the old hen-wife has more of her aches
and pains to-day, and you must feed the
pullets their extra grain and see to the eggs.
Elspeth, the linen is all in to-day and 'tis
for you to count it. Joan, if thy sparrow's
tongue can hold still for an hour, thou
shalt come with me and give out the stores
for the pantry and kitchen. Perhaps a
bit of potted quince will hold thy teeth
together. Hannah, I know, is wise and
trusty, and can busy herself as I would,
with no telling what and where. But I
could not trust you two, Margot and
Mary, and old Greta must keep you by
her with the candle-work. And should
she box your ears, come not into my store
room with your cry ings, but work the
harder for it. You others, help in the
kitchen, and make ready for the men
when they are done with the apples, and
hungry. If Will comes to ask about the
ale, he may see me in the pantry, but I
have no time for Dyrk and his accounts to
day. Nay, now, Sparrow, there is no need
to pull at my skirt! 'Tis strange, indeed,
that the miller's matters must always be
looked into when thou art with me."
They scattered each to her work, and
some sang together in rounds and catches
and some were silent, but all grew quickly
busy. There was but one idle, and she,
ashamed of this and trying to still the
fear that hung behind her thoughts, fol-
fowed the fair-haired Elspeth to the linen-
room and watched her lift the fragrant
white matters from the deep willow crates
and pile them on the deeper shelves among
twists of blue lavender and strewings of
old roses.
"Shall I trouble you by talking?" she
asked her, and Elspeth shook her head
shyly and answered:
"No, madam, except when I must count
the piles, and then I will tell you."
72 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
"Do you always do this work?" she said.
"No, madam," Elspeth answered her,
"the Dame will have each girl learn all
manner of work, so we take it turn about.
Before this I was at the washing, and beat
the linen on the brook-stones — oh, it
was fine to see the fresh air blow through
it and sweeten all so quickly ! Then Margot
and Mary taught me clear-starching. Last
year I tied the herbs and tended the
herb-attic; I grew the rosemary and sweet-
basil in my own garden, and Big Hans
brought us marjoram. There is no thyme
and summer savoury like the Dame's,
though."
"And what does the Dame pay you for
all this?" she asked.
"Each of us has a great piece of the
fine weaving — enough for body-linen,"
said Elspeth, "and some of the coarser
to lay aside for our chests; a gown and
shoes at Christmas; a goose to send home
at Michaelmas (and Dame always adds
a good flitch of bacon — she is so generous,
the Dame!) and a gold piece at Easter.
When little Myrta was married she
had a silk gown and a great bag of fine
flour and pillows and mattress for her
bed. And it is well known that Joan will
have a silver porringer and spoons and
the carved chest with real Damask
napkins."
"And you have no sports — no games?
You slave here the year round for a flitch
of bacon and a bit of linen ? "
"No, indeed, madam; it is not so! We
are always having a treat! Why, think
now: at Christmas, the holidays, the gifts,
the carols and the games, with fiddler and
spiced wine and all manner of cakes; at
harvest, the great dance, the prizes, the
ale; at Easter, the church trimming, the
gold-pieces sent home and the pick of the
lambs for the one that does best at Cate
chism (but that is the little ones); at mid
summer, the fairings -
"And who come to these fairs?" she
asked quickly.
74 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
Elspeth hung her head and coloured,
glancing about as one caught in a trap.
"Enough of this nonsense!" the woman
cried, upsetting the spotless linen angrily.
"Tell me where I am and what game you
play here! I will go myself and soon be
quit of this wonderful Farm of yours and
this masquerading Dame!"
"Elspeth," said the grave voice of the
Dame herself, "you will be always at the
talk, my child, and now you have made
trouble, and you, my dear, if I were to
tell you where you were, how would it
help you to go elsewhere? Listen to me.
Through yonder door you may go at this
moment, but I advise you not to go without
the great hound, for much is on the moors
that is far from safe. And at the end
he will only bring you here, for he knows
no other way, and you would wander
endlessly there."
She looked, and around the edge of
the tilled land she saw mile upon mile
of desolate moor. Rushing to the win-
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 75
dow at the end of the hall, she saw the
pasture-land she had come through and
beyond that a deep forest.
"But I came over water . . ." she
murmured, and the Dame said gravely:
"I know. All who come here come
over water. But they do not go back
over it."
Then her eyes grew wide with terror,
not at the Dame's simple words, but at
something strange that seemed to lie be
hind them, and she gave her hand to the
Dame and walked quietly beside her to
the orchard.
Here among the ripe fruit they sat down,
the Dame busy at knitting, herself with
twisted, idle hands, and she fought away
her fear as she saw the stalwart men and
the merry girls at work upon the clover-
scented piles.
"Why am I afraid? These are simple
people working — they are real ; they talk
and sing!" she said to herself, but her
hands trembled and the high sun seemed
76 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
to her more like the unreal glory of the
coloured windows in some great church
than the sun she knew.
Hardly was the Dame seated when two
fine young boys ran toward her, struggling
with each other to reach her first.
"Oh, mother, I have learned my book!"
cried one, and the other, "Oh, dear
mother, I can do the sum now!"
She kissed them fondly and told them
she would hear them soon.
"And where are your sisters?" she
asked them.
"Alda is among her doves and Grizel
is coming to you for help with the hood
she is knitting," said one, and the other:
"But May Ellen is with Joan down in
the nut-bins, and mother, they are quar
relling about young Dyrk! Each will have
it that he likes her best, the foolish things!"
"Run, then, Roger, and bring them to
me," said the Dame; "they are o'er young
for such quarrels. We will set them at
the apples."
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 77
Now, before the Dame had gone once
around her knitting she was called from
it ten times. Would the Dame have them
bring in the russets first? Would the
Dame look to the new honey, for they
dared not take off the bees alone ? Would
the Dame hear a sum? Would the Dame
say which of two disputants had the
right? Would the Dame see the miller?
Would she take the pay for the gray mare ?
And such like questionings that left her
alone not a moment.
She who sat idle plucked at the Dame's
sleeve and spoke timidly to her.
"One could not work at some great
matter, Dame, with so many calls aside
from it, I think."
"I think so, too, my dear," the Dame
answered her, "and that is why I will be
knitting, which is no great matter from
which to be called aside."
She bit her lip, and thought, and spoke
again.
"Great laws must be made, Dame, and
78 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY)
these who make them must keep away
from these stinging gnats."
"I know that well," said the Dame,
and looked straight at her, "but I, thank
God, need never make great laws, but
only teach my household to obey them."
She sighed, but spoke again.
"It is not only laws, Dame, but beauti
ful things the world over must not be
disturbed in the making. You could not
make a great picture or a great song with
Roger and Grizel pulling you here and
there."
"And that is true, too," the Dame
said, "but I need not make great songs,
thank God, but only teach them to my
children."
"And still there must be great songs,"
she said.
"And still there must be great children,"
said the Dame.
"I know, I know!" she cried, and pressed
her hands to her forehead. "I learned
that once — in a deep wood. And I have
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 79
the children. But I would make great
pictures, too. Not instead of the children,
but with them, Dame, with them!"
'You cannot, nor any other woman,"
said the Dame, and turned to her knitting.
"But if I tried, if I tried . . ." she
pleaded.
"It is not by trying that these things are
done," said the Dame coldly, "Lotte will
not lift the load of russets yonder though
she break her back at it, little fool. See,
now she is so tired that Hans must carry
both them and her."
"She is a country girl," said the pale
woman, eagerly.
"Outside and inside she is made after
the pattern of yourself and all other
women," said the Dame, "and the one
truth is true for us all."
"Good Dame," she said, after a moment,
while the wagons creaked through the
orchard and the girls laughed as the sun
slipped lower, "what if I strove no more
for greatness, but only made me little
80 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
pictures to pleasure a few that love me and
myself?"
"Why, as for that," said the Dame
more kindly— " have a care there, Roger,
you will hurt your sister if you play too
roughly with her! — as for that, I can see
no harm in it. Neither can I see how it
should be worth any woman's while, if
the thing be not great, and she knows it.
It is a child's game."
"That is true," she said bitterly,
"though how you should know it who pass
your days on a petty farm, far from the
great world, I cannot see."
"If you come to my time of life, my
dear, and still think that the world is great
or petty by so much as it is near a farm
or far from it, you will not be having
much content in your old age," said the
Dame. "Now I must put my mind
upon the heel of this stocking."
She wept aloud and saw now that not
for nothing had she come upon this secret
Farm and that in this glowing orchard
she was to learn her hardest lesson. The
Dame spoke again, and finally.
"Listen!" she said, "for this is the way
of it. No woman living will ever do a
great work who could not have borne great
children, and if she can bear great children
she can do no other great work. Else
she would be as God Almighty, who has
made both the poet and the poem, the
painter and his picture. For He made
it before the painter could see it. Now,
go and help them with the apples, for the
sun is setting and there are yet a few to
gather."
She stumbled forward and threw herself
upon the fragrant heaps and toiled till
the breath left her, nor did she talk any
more to Elspeth, who worked beside her,
nor to Joan who picked behind. Her
back ached and her arms wearied with
their load; her legs began again to tremble
and her breath came short. And all the
time her brows were knotted with a teasing
thought and her lips moved ceaselessly.
82 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
Suddenly she rushed toward the placid
Dame and fell on her knees before her.
"Oh, Dame," she cried, "must we always
labour so ? Can we never achieve, but
must we ever do those tasks which the
night will undo again ? These apples will
not stand for the world to see that I picked
them; your dairy work is unwoven like a
dream. Must it be so?"
"My dear," said the Dame, and her
smile was sweeter than the sunlight through
the coloured boughs, "it must be always so.
Even as the day dies every night and is
born with the dawn; even as the orchard
leaves but to blossom and blossoms but to
fruit, and all is to do another year; even as
God makes the harvest for us to spoil,
and smiles and makes another; so must
women weave what the year will wear
and wash what the day will soil. And
man, her greatest work, will one day die
and moulder into roses that other men
shall one day pick. Our men-children
finish their lovely toys and set them on the
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 83
shelf, but our work is too great that we
should ever finish it; it is so great that
it must needs be made of many tiny mat
ters, done now and again like the grow
ing rains and sheltering snows. We can
never be at rest — till God himself rests.
Do you understand what I would be
saying?"
She wept and laid her head in the Dame's
lap and the yellow apples fell about her
knees as she knelt. But she answered:
'Yes, dear Dame, I understand. But,
oh, Dame, why is it so?"
"I do not know, my dear," answered
the Dame, "but I know that we must
learn it or we cannot live in the world.
Now sleep, for you have been almost too
long at the Farm."
She felt the Dame's strong hands upon
her head, she heard the voices of the
maids and the men, crying, "Sing us a
song, dear Dame! Will you not sing us
a song?"
Then the Dame began an old, sad ballad
84 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
of a knight that loved a lady and went
for her sake to fight the Pagans; but the
moon rose cold over her marble tomb
when he came back, and her falcon wailed
beneath his hood. There was much more
of this quaint sorrow and though she
never could remember it she thought of
it always when she walked in orchards.
Then she felt that she was being lifted,
and in her dream she heard the Dame's
deep voice:
"Push her through the wicket — hurry,
Joan, she must be off the Farm soon or
it will be too late, poor child! Is Karen
saddled? Push her! --make haste, make
haste ! I hear the river — make haste,
there! Push!"
"I will not leave the Farm! I will
not!" she muttered and struggled to wake
and fight with Joan. The red sun cut
her opening eyes like a knife, she fought
the arms that held her arms and struggled
awake, staring into Joan's brown eyes.
But was it Joan ? Joan wore no white
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 85
cap, no tight black dress. The red glow
in her eyes, was it the sun or a crimson
cushion beneath her head ? Whose stern,
bearded lips unbent and smiled at her?
"Push, keep pushing!" he said, and
raised and lowered her arms.
"Smell this, dear friend," and a strong,
smarting odour filled her nostrils, so that
she coughed and choked.
'That is better," said someone; "we
were frightened. Why did you not tell
us your heart was weaker than usual?"
The office nurse fanned her; a strong
light was in her face.
' The doctor felt terribly about you -
that cordial was not so very strong, he
thought. You are all right, now?"
"It was Lotte that kept the cordial-
room," she said vaguely, but with speaking
her mind cleared and she came to herself
again.
"Was I — was it for long?" she asked.
"It was longer than we liked," said
the nurse; "of course, you had no idea
86 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
of what was happening to you. We tried
everything."
"I know that a great deal happened/'
she said; "let me see the doctor before
I go."
ibtf
THE CASTLE ON THE DUNES
I SAW much of my friend as the years
hurried by us ; years in which I seemed
to myself to lag shamefully, sometimes,
and win nothing new out of life, but from
which she drew fresh vigour of spirit with
every season.
Many things she taught me, and of them
all I best remember the one she told me last,
when I had known her twenty years. She
was at that time fully sixty, with a fine
crown of silver hair, a tall, full figure and
piercing dark eyes, for as she grew older
her whole regard grew, as it seemed to
me, keener and more commanding, and
not, as with some women, softer and less
powerful.
I had been with her all the white winter
evening, on one of those errands of discern
ing charity that occupied so many of her
hours and thoughts — dangerously many,
89
90 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
as we who loved her would often say, con
sidering that she spent herself unnecessarily
upon much for which others might well have
acted deputy. The sun had set early, for
it was midwinter, and white points of winter
stars were pricking through the frozen sky.
The snow, iced over with a glistening crust,
sent back pale reflections to the bars of
cold green and thin rosy glows that stood
for sunset, and a threatening wind began
to rise, that shook down little icicles from
the window ledge and made the stiff, chill
branches of the oaks and beeches creak
warningly.
I shivered to myself with pleasure and
thanked sincerely the slender girl that
brought hot tea to me and unwrapped my
long furs. It was not my friend's daughter
- the youngest of these was now happily
married, and she would have been alone,
were it not for the girls that she kept with
her, training and guiding them into some of
the wisdom and charm that distinguished
her gracious self - - a sort of unchartered
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 91
school, where less gifted mothers sought
eagerly to install their daughters.
As she accepted the services of two of
these, and dispatched by a messenger some
comforts to be sent to the suffering creature
we had just returned from visiting, I lingered
by the window and saw the first shadowy
flakes of a new storm. The wind rose
quickly to a howl, an icy branch tapped at
the pane; we had narrowly escaped a dan
gerous home-coming. I could not resist
a somewhat pettish complaint.
"Don't you think," I began, "that you
have earned a rest from these expeditions,
these insistent girls of yours, this constant
responsibility? You are magnificently
strong and well --yes; but even your
vitality has its limits and too many people
hang upon you, my dear! Do you shake
us all off for a while and do something for
yourself, your own pleasure and relaxation.
Surely at your age you deserve rest! Your
own have ceased to need you — why invite
others?"
92 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
She looked strangely at me and in the
dusk I saw her face white.
"There!" I went on, "you have harrowed
yourself unnecessarily with that poor
creature's pain and want — surely you could
have sent money ? There are people whose
sole business it is to attend to such cases, and
their nerves are coarser than yours — they
are not so wrung by what is daily work to
them."
At that moment a great fall of snow slid
from one of the sloping roofs, so that the
air was white before us. It swept to the
ground with a dense, rushing crash and
heaped itself into fantastic towers and walls ;
close by a red lantern shone out; the wind
moaned sadly.
"Look! look!" she cried, one hand at her
side, "the Dunes again! Surely you see
that Castle, too ? Or is it the sign — Oh,
I am ready! Believe me, I am ready!"
I caught her hand.
"Those are no dunes, my dear friend,
only black shadows on the snow of your own
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 93
lands," I assured her, "and it is one of
your own men with a lantern going on your
own errand. It is the fallen snow that
takes those strange spire-like shapes — no
castle. This wind wails too much for your
nerves. Look in, at the fire and the warm
hall."
"No, no," she said quietly, "I love to
look out -- I am not afraid. I never know
when I may see the Castle. And what
you said about my rest . . . Well,
it seems to open my lips. It was on just
such a night . . . how cold the stars
were ! And I had nearly lost myself -
hunting for my rest! When the moon rises
I will tell you."
And then I knew that I was to hear one
of those strange experiences of hers. As
always, she spoke quickly, often halting for
long between swift gushes of narrative, now
as one who reads from an old book about a
stranger, now like the adventurer himself.
She did not always or steadily employ the
style into which I have thrown her words,
94 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
but she wrapped me in an atmosphere, and
from that and the remembrance of a rising
winter moon and a still, cold night, I write.
Her old friend the great physician, wTho
now, in the evening of his busy life,
attended only upon jthose whose necessities
baffled the less experienced, pursed his lips
and stared at her out of a grizzle of
white hair.
"And what will you do," he asked
abruptly, "when I have convinced them that
you are unable to keep up these various
relations that have been so many years
a-building? Where will you go for this
great rest ? "
"Somewhere where I can be alone,"
she answered him, firmly, "where I can fold
my hands by some quiet, lonely river, and
think, where I can realize what I am; a
widow, lonely for her best and life-long
friend, a mother whose children need her
no longer, a woman who has tasted life long
enough and paid her debt to the world, and
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 95
would slip out of it quietly. Surely that is
little to ask?"
''I should say that the fact of your living
showed you had not yet paid your debt to
life," he said drily, "and I confess that I
cannot see any great value in realizing these
things you speak of. If they are so, they
are so. Let them be."
"Oh, you are a man!" she cried bitterly.
"And I know, therefore, what a woman
needs," he said, "and you, especially, who
have many gifts denied, mostly, to your sex.
Believe me, there is only one river for you
- it is, literally, the River of Life."
"It is Lethe," she said obstinately, "and
you shall not deny it to me. I tell you I
am weary of my thoughts, and all the busi
ness of this River of yours. I have gained
the bank; it is philosophy. Before I
am driven far Inland — where even you
cannot come and get me — and lose it
altogether, I claim the right to begin the
journey of my own accord. I want you to
give me again that delicious, soothing
treatment, that electric whirring, that takes
away my thoughts — will you?"
He mused a while, seemed to have for
gotten her.
"No, I will not," he said at length. And
it was in vain that she urged him for he
held to the refusal.
"Ours is no time of life to soothe away
thought, dear friend," he said, "you need
no treatment of mine."
While she begged him there came an
urgent call from an inner office and he
left the room quickly, asking her to wait.
And as she sat there, baffled and a little
resentful, the sight of the bright, mysterious
machine so obedient there and always
ready with its delicious oblivion, put a wild
idea into her brain.
"We are old friends," she said to herself,
"I know how he does it — why not? He
will soon be here!"
And she pressed the well-known knob and
Watched the great discs begin to whir
softly around under their glass dome.
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 97
At the familiar sound her hunger for the
coming comfort mounted fiercely, and she
seized the long, supple, silk-wrapped cords
and pressed the bulbs to either temple.
A slight shock ran through her blood and
with the realization of her folly came the
knowledge that she could not take down her
hands. The whirring grew, doubled,
multiplied in volume; the room seemed
to sway and rock; a low rumbling, like
thunder, filled the air. Blind terror seized
her, and shame for what she had done and
could not undo, and as the office door flew
open and a sharp, angry exclamation rose
above the roaring, she summoned all her
strength of will, tore away her hands, and
fled, sick with fear, through a door covered
by a velvet curtain. Through a small
passage she stumbled, and then, as hurrying
feet sounded behind her, and the roaring
and whirring grew momently, she wove her
way among a network of back stairs and
halls and fell upon a small door under some
steps, thinking it must lead to a cellar and
98 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
stupidly remembering the safety of such
spots in explosions and earthquakes — for
now the whole house was quivering with the
throbs of the terrible force she had set in
motion. Down the narrow stair she
plunged and hurried through the dim,
earthy cellar, past bins of coal and great
coiling pipes and drains. The jar seemed
lessened here, but her humiliation and
fright were no less.
"I can never meet his eyes again!" she
murmured. "Will he ever forgive me? I
must find a way out, down here."
But in the dim light and her utter igno
rance of that part of the house, she could
find no way out, though she went steadily
away, during many minutes, from the stair
she had descended. A great rat whisked
across her foot and with a shriek of disgust
she pressed the knob of a low door, forced it
open, and found herself at the head of
another flight of steps, of heavy stone.
This would be a sub-cellar, she reasoned,
and drew back, but the clattering feet of the
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 99
rat behind her scared away all judgment and
she plunged downward; the door closed
heavily behind her.
These steps seemed interminable, twisted
like a tower, and wearied the muscles of
her legs terribly. At last they ended, and
she found herself in a great arched vault like
some ancient catacomb, empty, so far as
she could see, but for cobwebs and dust.
At least it was utterly silent; there was no
more of that throbbing, and her eyes had
by now accustomed themselves to the dim
ness. How broad this cellar might be she
dared not adventure to find out, for a few
paces from the wall the darkness swallowed
everything.
"It must be that all the houses are con
nected at this depth," she thought, her
mind still so confused from the shock she
had sustained and all her hurry and fright,
that she did not perceive the folly of her
wandering farther, "for I have certainly
gone far beyond the length of a city block,
even. Perhaps I am in the heart of a
100 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
great aqueduct system — it is all walled
and ceiled with stone."
At last the dim glow faded and she was
in the utter dark. But she dared not go
back, for she had no clew to the stone stairs
and had lost all her reckoning.
A piercing chill grew in the dead air;
the silence was terrifying. But just as her
brain cleared and fear began to creep into
her blood, such fatigue had laid hold on
her that the fear could not choke her -
she was too far spent.
"To die like a rat in a drain!" she
whimpered. * To stifle underground ! Oh,
I am too old for it! He might have let me
die in my bed!"
Just then she saw ahead of her — she
could not say if it were far or near — an
arch, the outline of a low door, lighted
through the cracks of it, and she drove her
weary feet toward this and bent upon it,
but uselessly, for it was thick stone. With
her last remnant of strength she set her
mouth to the crack and screamed, and it
seemed to her that three loud knocks upon
the other side answered her in some sort.
She screamed again. Again came the three
knocks and close against the crack a voice
whispered.
"In the name of the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Ghost, I adjure you, wandering
soul, be quiet!'*
The voice was shaking with a fear as
great as her own, and this gave her
courage. She put her lips to the crack
and cried:
"I am no wandering soul, but a poor
woman ! I am lost in this great vault —
open, and let me out!"
"Do you swear this by the Holy Trinity,
the Wounds of Christ and — and the Sor
rows of Mary ?"
"I swear it by anything you wish," she
called, "if you wTill open the door and see
how little you have to fear from me! But
I shall soon be as dead as you think me,
unless you make haste, for I am nearly
frozen."
102 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
Now a rusty key grated, and after much
tugging and panting from the other side,
the door opened a little way and the scared
head of a brown friar, such as one sees in
the old countries, hooded and tonsured,
peeped out.
"Mother of us all!" he cried fearfully,
"and what — who art thou, then?"
"Only a woman, father," she said gently,
for he was clearly ready to shut her back into
the dark. "I am here by mistake. I only
ask to be put on my way again, and I will
not trouble your monastery."
For she had travelled much abroad and
though she supposed herself to have entered
through the cellar some church-school
or cathedral establishment, of which there
were not a few in her city, unconsciously she
spoke of a monastery, as if she had met
this holy brother in such a place.
"Monastery!" he repeated, but more
assured now and opening the door wider,
"why do you speak of that, my daughter?
Who looks for a monastery on the Dunes ?"
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 103
So simple and sincere he seemed that she
could not doubt him and stared around her,
to see herself in a rich, if small chapel, of
rough stone, with coloured windows and a
carved altar. The candles were but half
alight ; her cries had stopped this friar
in his pious task, evidently. Holly was
twined about among the carvings, and the
effigy of a knight in full armour, his crossed
feet upon a crouched hound, had candles
on either side and the choicest berries and
glossiest leaves upon his breastplate, but
she did not stop to look at these but rushed
to the only door she saw besides the one she
had entered, the monk watching her
curiously the while.
This door led to a narrow passage, that
in turn to a broader, hung with rich
tapestry, lighted with torches, set alternately
with branching deer horns. This would
never take her out, certainly, and she turned
in confusion to the waiting friar.
"Is there no door to the street ?" she said,
impatiently.
104 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
He stared curiously at her.
"The street? The street," he repeated,
"my daughter, what are you thinking of?
Look through this pane and recollect your
whereabouts."
He pointed to an empty pane among the
coloured pieces of the window through
which, now and then, the wind blew powdery
snow. She put her eyes to it and looked out
upon a great bare moorland, white under a
cold winter moon. Here and there sprang
a fir tree, but for the most part the land
stretched away to the horizon, empty as
death — and as chill. So close to her eye
that she must hold her head back in order
to see it, rose a great square tower with
stretches of tiled roof, mostly snow-covered,
spreading out below it; this chapel was the
end of the building, it was plain.
Now a strange, uncertain doubt fell over
her, and forgetting the terrors of the dark
cellar and the long vaults, she turned to the
little door again.
"Open that," she said, "and I will try
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 105
my luck at getting back. For I have come
farther than 1 knew, it seems."
The friar crossed himself. "Back!" he
cried, "back through those ancient tombs,
Christ knows where ? Never dream of it,
my daughter! Besides," as she rushed to
the door, "it would be impossible. The
old key broke in the lock even as I laboured
over it, and ten men could not stir it now."
"Tombs?" she murmured, fearfully,
"what do you mean by tombs? I came
through a cellar . . .
"My daughter in Christ," said the friar,
advancing firmly toward her and holding
out with shaking hands an ivory crucifix
so that it touched her breast, "if thou art a
mad-woman only, God pity thee, but if
thou art more — and worse — then know
this sign, before Whom all devils tremble,
and vanish! For thou art covered inches
deep with the dust of tombs so old that they
are forgotten utterly of us who tend the ashes
of their descendants, and the cobweb that
drapes thy body like a shawl so that I cannot
106 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
tell for my life the fashion of thy garments,
or if thou art young or old, maid or widow,
has been a-thickening these hundred years
and more!"
At this the moon struck sharply through
the empty pane and she saw herself for what
he had said and swooned with the cold and
her deadly fear.
She came to herself in a soft whisper
ing and rustling of skirts, and knew that
women were moving around her.
"What will happen to her?" said one
voice, "I had not thought such things
possible, hadst thou, Alys?"
"I know that old Ursula who was here
in the old Countess's day told of something
like it, and that the old Countess ordered
a bath made ready, such, she said, as her
grandmother had ordered. It seems they
are always prepared."
"Be still, girls, she is stirring at the eye
lids! How is it with you, madam?"
She opened her eyes and saw three or
four young women in fanciful dresses
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 107
looped up with chains, with jewelled nets
upon their heads, and seed pearls braided
into their hair. Their gowns of brocaded
silk clung closely to the body and left the
neck and shoulders bare.
"This is evidently no monastery," she
said, and then, "where am I ? I am so cold ! "
"Soon you will be warm, madam," said
the tallest of the girls, with two long braids
of dark hair over her shoulders and a wine-
red gown trimmed with black fur; "could
you find it possible to walk between two of
us, think you? Come, Mawdlyn, your
arm!"
*•
But little Mawdlyn shrank back. "I am
in great fear of all that cobweb, cousin
Alys," she whimpered, and no scowls
availed to move her.
"Let me help you, Mistress Alys," said,
very gravely, a young boy, stepping forward
with a plumed cap in his hand and a short
hunting knife at his leather girdle.
The tired woman leaned heavily on his
arm, and it was he that led her gently and
108 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
carefully along the great hall between the
moving tapestries. Before a curtained door
he paused.
"I can go no farther, madam, but if I
may ever serve you, which is my true hope,
call for me. You will see me on the instant,"
he said softly, and Alys led her behind
the curtain.
Upon a dais sat a very beautiful young
woman with deep eyes like brown stars and
two great braids of hair like the inner side
of chestnuts when they fall apart. She was
all in shot-gold silk and on her dark hair
lay a twisted golden coronet with rubies
studded in it. A big ruby hung on a
golden chain around her warm white neck.
Below her lay a great silver bath full to the
brim of steaming water, and as the t\vo
entered, she rose, took a carved ivory box
from an old serving woman beside her, and
sprinkled a handful of what looked to be
white sea sand from it into the bath, which
bubbled and clouded and turned milky
like an opal.
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 109
" Quickly, quickly, Alys ! " she cried, " give
her to me!"
And as the woman tottered and drew
back from the steamy clouds, she of the
coronet hastened toward her, took her in
her young powerful arms as if she had been
an infant, and lifted her over the silver edge.
Now the warmth restored her a little and
she resisted feebly and protested.
"But I am dressed — I am not ready for
a bath — who are you that expect me here
and masquerade so strangely ? Let me
For she perceived that she was being held
so as to prevent her looking into the bath.
"Ah, madam, be guided, be guided!
The Countess would not have you look!"
cried Alys, but she turned in the strong
arms that held her and peered into the
milky waves, that smelt of roses, and her
heart turned in her, for the bath had no
bottom at all, and below the waves were
the rocks of the sea itself, white and ribbed,
stretching out endlessly! Great masts of
ships were there and huge fishes oaring
their way, and as the water touched her she
did not feel it warm, but cold and salt. She
struggled, but it reached her lips and she
felt the Countess thrust her down, down.
"Push her, push her, Alys!" cried this
cruel Countess, "press down her feet!" and
she sank, gasping.
The water drew through her nostrils and
the air was full of deep, tolling bells and at
last a steady hum, as of bees. She knew
nothing more.
At last, as one might waken after death,
she breathed again, and felt herself being
lifted from a warm, sweet bath and held,
naked as a new child, on the knees of one
who dried her softly with a towel of finest
linen that smelt of roses.
"See how clean, my lady! Everything
has gone!" She heard the voice of Alys,
and peeped beneath her lids at where she
had been plunged : it was but a great silver
bath, clear, now, to the bottom, and quite
empty.
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 111
"Where are my clothes ?" she whispered,
feeling strangely light and strong, "I am
not cold any more; I can go on."
"Surely, if you will," said she whom they
called the Countess, " but not till you have
eaten and drunk and had of us new wear
in the stead of that my bath has washed
away."
And so, almost before she knew it, Alys
and the old serving woman had put on her
soft, fine linen and a shot-silver robe, looped
up with a silver chain, and dressed her hair
nobly. Over her neck and shoulders, no
longer smoothly full like her own, this
countess fastened a sort of cape of lace and
silver, and on her feet the old woman
fitted pointed velvet shoes. She watched
them gravely, tingling still from that strange
bath, trying to shape out in her mind what
she would say to lead them to explain to her
the place she had fallen upon, and why they
played this pretty jest, and spoke and dressed
so quaintly.
Now the Countess touched a silver bell
112 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
and the old woman drew a heavy curtain
before the bath and the dais and placed a
carved chair, and when Alys had led her to
it, the same youth appeared with a tray in
his hand, holding fine wheat bread and a
graceful flagon of rosy wine and a fragment
of honeycomb. He knelt before her,
seriously, with eyes never raised above his
silken knees, but his very presence moved
her strangely and she put her hand softly
on his head when he said, "Will you eat,
madam, and refresh yourself?" and hast
ened to taste of all on his tray before he
could be offended.
"And now, Alys, where is your mistress ?"
she said, when her strength was stayed and
her eyes and voice bright again with the
comforting wine, "for I must talk with her."
"Presently, madam, presently," said the
girl, "none may speak with her at the
moment, for she is gone to Mass - - 'tis
the Count's name-day and the night, too,
when God and St. Michael took him,
fighting, and we have been out all day for
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 113
holly for the chapel. We are all to go —
will you come with us?"
"No," she said, thinking to make her
way out when they were all gone and find
out where this wild tract could be, "no, I
will wait here. I am not of your religion,
Alys."
The girl sprang back from her with
frightened eyes and crossed herself.
"Madam!" she cried, "never speak so!
If they thought a Moslem here — and
to-night — hush, there go the men!"
There was a great tramping, and along
the tapestries, before the drawn curtain,
came a company of men-at-arms, clanking
in full armour, with set, hard faces under
the helmets.
She grasped at the arms of her oak chair
wildly; these harsh men sent a chill through
her — was some horrid treachery thus
hinted to her? Then as Alys sped along
behind them she felt her hand kissed softly
and the little page-boy was there.
"There is none to hurt you — if you stay
114 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
quiet here," he said softly, and she knew she
dared not move or spy about.
Now arose a low chanting and then mur
mured prayers, and soon a smell of incense
reached them. Then at last the mystic
bell struck mellow on the night air and she
knew that God was made and that men,
maids, and Countess-widow were bowed
before this mystery. The page bent low
and crossed himself and a strange jealousy
rushed over her that he should be of this
sort, when she was not, for she loved the
boy unreasonably.
"Your mother is a good Catholic, I see,"
she said, when the chant grew louder and
covered her voice.
"I do not know, madam," he said.
"You do not know?" she cried, "and
why not ? "
"Because I do not know my mother,
dear madam," he answered, and flushed
to where his slim neck was hidden by his
long hair.
Then a keen trouble rose in her and grew
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 115
ever stronger, and the boy's eyes frightened
her and yet she must watch him. Steadily
she looked at him and sat as one in a dream
and thought no more of going away, but
when the Countess and her train came back
and the men had vanished and the maids-
in-waiting were whispering around the
great fireplace, she put out her hand and
caught the young widow's silken gown.
"Who — who is his mother?" she asked
eagerly.
" Who should be ?" the Countess answered
strangely, "whom hath he a look of, guest
of mine ?"
The boy lifted his face as she put a shak
ing finger under his round chin and turned
his eyes up to her, and a shiver ran through
her — for they were her own eyes.
"This — this is no boy of mine!" she
gasped, shaking with more than terror.
"He might have been," said the young
Countess with grave gentleness, "but you
would not have him. So that he must come
to us."
116 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
"But that — all that was long ago," she
whispered, thinking that she spoke aloud,
her eyes lost in the boy's.
"Here they grow slowly, being nearly
soulless when they come," said the Countess.
"He would have been your oldest son, had
he stayed with you."
"'Here!' In God's name, where am I?"
she cried. "Am I dead, then, at last ? But
I had not thought — I had hoped for peace.
I had counted on rest."
"Rest?" the Countess echoed her, "and
why should you look for that, my guest?
What, in all the worlds of God, rests ?
You are a strange people, beyond the Dunes.
. . . But you are not dead. No dead
come here."
She took her by the hand, the boy clinging
to the other, and walked with her to the
great fire. Here they sat down to tapestry
work, green and blue and russet weavings,
and the woman folded her hands in her
lap and watched them moodily. At last
she spoke.
n
era, fha-y sal down to tapestry work T
qre.en and Line- otnd russ«-l
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 117
"You will never make a hunstman at that
rate, Alys — one would think him standing
on his horse."
"Help her, then," said the Countess, and
her guest took a piece of charcoal and drew
out a fair pattern for the girl.
"And mine, madam?" "And mine?"
cried the others, and she leaned over the
shoulder of each and made her a true
picture for her work. But her eye was
often on the boy and when the girls were all
busy at last, she spoke softly to him.
"What is your name?" she asked.
"Madam, they call me Gildres," said he.
"And what do you do, Gildres, in this
strange castle?"
"Is it strange ?" said the boy. "I do not
know. I am to be squire to the lord, my
lady's brother, soon, and now I learn
falconry and the care of his armour and
sometimes I serve the Mass. I wait on my
lady herself, too, for I must learn that.
But I like best to colour the missals with
Father Petrus — you should see the phoenix
118 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
I did, madam, and the leopard, last week!
He said it was brave work — all blue
and stars with red pierced hearts in
the border, madam — and that the church
needed me."
She put her hand on his dark head and
sighed.
"If I had kept you with me, you should
have made your leopards, dear," she said
gently, "but now I have no right in you."
"Nay, but you may help him," said the
Countess briskly, "run and get thy phoenix,
boy, and she will show thee where even that
wondrous bird is at fault."
And when they had worked over the
great volume, lettered every letter by a
patient hand and clasped with silver, it
was the hour for bed.
"The Countess is tired," whispered Alys
to their guest, "for she has been twice on
the Dunes; once to tend a poor wood
cutter of a broken leg and again when one
of the shepherd's wives was found to be
a-dying."
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 119
"In the city — which I have just left,
we do these things differently now," said
the woman. "There is so much pain and
sickness that one woman's hands — or
one hundred — would avail little enough
to stem the tide. So it is organized and
attended to by a few who do nothing else,
and thus the others are left free."
"Free for what?" said the Countess,
suddenly; "to seek rest?"
The woman looked coldly at her. "I do
not know who you are," she said, "nor
what you do here, but it is plain to see, at
least, that you are a young woman. I am
not. At your age, believe me, I did not rest.
I have done better work of its kind than your
tapestries. I have done other work, too —
I have borne and reared children and they
have children of their own. I have tended
to his death a good man and laid him in his
grave. My work is done. Now I look for
some quiet room with a window to face
the autumn sunsets, that I may sit by it,
and think, and find out what life may be,
120 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
perhaps, before I leave it. Why do you
goad me on and seem to seek to prevent
me?"
The Countess ran to her and kneeled by
her and seized her hand.
"I goad you because I must, dear guest,"
she said; " believe me, I know — none better
-what you have done. The tapestry
which you drew to-day shall meet eyes you
do not dream on now ; the phcenix that made
pattern for our Gildres here shall teach
more than him. And it is in such that you
must rest. For women were not made to
sit and think what life may be — trust me
for it. We are running streams, that muddy
if we settle. We have to live, and find life
out in living. Did it not seem clearer to
you, what time you leaned so wisely over
my heedless little Mawdlyn ? "
Now the woman breathed hard, as one
who runs a race, and stared at her who spoke.
"Yes, it did — I knew it did!" she cried,
"but who are you that tell me this so young ?
And if you have learned so much, you are
far too wise and necessary to those you teach
to risk your life in this terrible cold, visiting
wood-cutters!"
"If I am young, dear guest, I am yet not
so young that I have not known this," said
she of the coronet, "that I learned what I
know on just such visitings! Mothers of
Sorrow are we all, dear friend, and if we
hold ourselves too far from sorrow, we
are no true mothers of the world we make.
If all did a little, there wrould be no need of
a few who should do all — or so it seems to
us on the Dunes."
"But we think — in my city — that these
unhappy ones, the poor, the sick, the igno
rant, gain more from the few who should
do all," she argued.
"Maybe. But you gain the less who fail
to do them," said the Countess.
"Child," said the woman, sternly, "the
poor were not created for our discipline."
"I do not know how you know that,"
said the Countess.
At this the woman's eyes grew wide,
and she stared at the embroidery frames
and the stags' heads and the arras, and all
the quiet maidens in their looped skirts,
with eyes that saw them not. At last she
sighed and rose from her carved chair
humbly.
"Thank God, I am not too old to learn!"
she said; "I see I have not earned my rest,
while so many of the world lack theirs.
Perhaps in heaven, if I win there, I may
take it. But it is hard. Once in my life,
yes, and twice, I was all for urging on and
doing, and two women, in strange places,
one very old and one of middle age, taught
me sharply that it might not be, and bridled
and haltered my young strength. Now that
I am content to be nothing, you, a young
woman, urge me on. Are you the third,
then? How many more must there be?"
Then the Countess rose and threw herself
on her knees before her and kissed her
trembling hand.
"No more, no more, O mother of six!"
she cried, sobbing, "and be sure that only
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 123
the fine gold must needs be so harried by
the great Smithy! But it could not be that
such as thou shouldst end at a sunset win
dow. Rather die fighting as did my good
lord, and leave the quiet for them that
mourn!"
"I will do so," said the woman, "but how
have you learned such wisdom, being so
young?"
"When my lord died," said the Countess,
"I was as one mad, and set myself toward
the convent, to end there, praying for him.
But a very holy hermit that lives beneath
Merlin Oak, in the very midst and heart of
the Dunes, to whom I brought a relic from
Jerusalem as a pious offering, set me right
and told me I was not made for a religious.
'It may be, my daughter, that in too much
thought on your religion you will lose it,'
he said, 'and end in tears and kissings of
the Feet, for which not many of the saints
have power, for long. Make of thy deep
heart a crystal spring, with continual bub
bling, which is despised of the wise fools of
124 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
this world, but ordained forever from the
Throne.' "
"And yet he learned his wisdom from
meditating in solitude, and freedom from
the cares of every day?" said the woman
softly.
"He was a man," said the Countess, "and
it is permitted to them to go into the desert
and think. Ah, consider only, dear friend,
for how little time had that good man of
yours to do, or your father, with that seed
of life which you and your mother must
bear for days and months of days, till it
should be born indeed! One hour with
him — and he hath given you work for years.
And hath he sleepless nights and breathless
days, then ? Nay, indeed ! He is off to
new dreams by morning, and there is only
you to watch that they shall be no dreams,
but realities. And when that watch is
over, then look for the dawn indeed — but
not this side the Dunes!"
'Then let me go back," said the woman
quietly, "and do for the sake of the doing
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 125
what once I longed to do for the sake of
the world. Though now my powers are
less and I doubt I shall accomplish very
much."
"Have no fear," said the Countess gladly,
"have no fear, my sister. Alys, bring what
you know for my sister," and Alys went out
and returned with a silver coronet on a
cushion, studded with sapphires. The
young Gildres knelt low to offer it, and as
the Countess bade her, she herself put it
upon her own head, and they walked stately
together, lighted by the page and attended
by the maidens, to a great beamed bed
chamber with a crucifix on the wall and a
high carved bed of state raised upon a dais,
and with pillows of silk and curtains of rich
tapestry.
"Now rest, dear sister, and say good-bye
to me," said this Countess, and when they
had laid her, robed and crowned, upon the
bed, she kissed her on the mouth.
"Shall I never see you again?" said the
woman.
126 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
"Ask rather if you never saw me before,"
said she, and then, "look at me!"
The cold moon shone through the leaded
pane and struck her face full, and as the
woman looked it seemed that wrinkles grew
about her eyes and that the moonlight
turned her hair as white as snow.
'You are the Bee-woman!" she cried.
"Look again," said the Countess.
And now her cheeks were like warm
russet apples and her shoulders were broad.
'You are the Dame at the Farm!" said
the woman, "and I thought you young!"
"It may be, dear sister, that when we
meet again I shall be younger still," she said,
and her voice was like the tolling of sweet
bells across the autumn fields, "for then
age will be neither here nor there!"
Now she was again the young Countess
among her maidens, and what had passed
might have been a dream.
Yet as she of the silver coronet passed
slowly into a sweet sleep, where bees
hummed and soft chanting from the chapel
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 127
mourned the dead, she caught the hand
of her who stood by the bed and ques
tioned her.
"Tell me, mother and sister," she whisp
ered, "why in my lessons, I must ever find
the truth under such strange forms ? Why
do you who must teach me wear the gar
ments of another age, another country?"
Now a trouble came over the face of the
Countess and she shivered in the moonlight.
"Ask me not, sister and daughter — and
yet I must answer if thou ask me, who
wearest a crown. I cannot tell why this is
laid upon me — although it is well known
to be so. Nor have any but a wonderful
and holy few learned in any other wise.
I cannot tell . . . sometimes I think
that though the lessons were set in each dish
and coat and friendly hand of everyday -
as Our Lady knows they are, for the matter
of that! — you cannot read them, out there.
They are too plain, perhaps. So all must
be put before the eyes too full for sight in a
manner (as one should call it) quaint.
128 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
Though truly one thing has never been
more quaint than another! But I do not
speak clearly. . . . Good night, my
sister."
Now she heard a sob and knew it was
from young Gildres.
"Shall I never see her again, then, my
lady?" he whispered.
"Why, that is as may be, Gildres," said
the Countess, "but I do think so. It comes
to me that when this my sister sets forth
she shall pass through here, and thou shalt
accompany her farther on. Do then thy
service here the more diligently, as in the
hope of it."
"Madam, I will," said he joyfully, and
she,
"Now soothe her hand, Alys, with me,
for she should be sleeping now."
Then they took each a hand and stroked
it, and she lost herself in sleep, dreamless,
save for the winter moonlight and the chant
ing and the hum of bees.
When she woke her hand was still held,
IN THE BORDER COUNTRY 129
but very firmly, and the humming was seen
to be the revolving of light discs under their
dome of glass.
"Ah! Now we have a steady pulse,"
said the doctor, "and you — too dear a
friend to lose by your own folly! — I shall
not scold you yet. But what a fright to
give me ! A little more and you would have
found your Lethe oversoon, old friend."
She shook her head and smiled. "No
longer, no longer!" she said. "So long as
the current bears me, I am for that River
of Life that you and I must keep at flood."
Now that she has dropped these strange
tales, and gone too far for me to hear her
voice, I find that in picking them up they
have lost much of the force and clearness
her telling gave them. Yet I cannot see
that I have left anything out. It may be
that my dull pen has clouded them. Blame
me, then, and not the tales, for they were
made most wonderfully plain to me.
That things very real occurred to her, no
130 IN THE BORDER COUNTRY
one could doubt who could hear her relate
them. And if they have grown unreal and
feeble in the telling, the fault must be
wholly mine — the imperfect and unsuccess
ful scribe.
THE END
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