CHAPTER V.

STRONG KNOTS OF LOVE.

Now never did a letter bring more contrary feelings to man or maid than this one of Michael Sunlocks brought to Greeba. It thrilled her with love, it terrified her with fear; it touched her with delight, it chilled her with despair; it made her laugh, it made her weep; she kissed it with quivering lips, she dropped it from trembling fingers. But in the end it swept her heart and soul away with it, as it must have swept away the heart and soul of any maiden who ever loved, and she leaped at the thought that she must go to Sunlocks and to her father at once, without delay--not waiting to write, or for the messenger that was to come.

Yet the cooler moment followed, when she remembered Jason. She was pledged to him; she had given him her promise; and if she broke her word she would break his heart. But Sunlocks--Sunlocks--Sunlocks! She could hear his low, passionate voice in the words of his letter. Jason she had loved for his love of her; but Sunlocks she had loved of her love alone.

What was she to do? Go to Sunlocks, and thereby break her word and the heart of Jason, or abide by Jason, and break her own heart and the hope of Sunlocks? "Oh," she thought, "if the letter had but come a day earlier--one little day--nay, one hour--one little, little hour!" Then, in her tortured mind, she reproached Jason for keeping it back from her by his forgetfulness, and at the next instant she reproached Sunlocks for his tardy despatch, and last of all she reproached herself for not waiting for it. "Oh," she thought, "was ever a girl born to bring such misery to those who love her!"

All the long night thereafter she tossed in restless doubt, never once closing her eyes in sleep; and at daydawn she rose and dressed, and threw open her window, and cool waves of morning air floated down upon her from the mountains, where the bald crown of Barrule was tipped with rosy light from the sun that was rising over the sea. Then, in the stillness of the morning, before the cattle in the meadows had begun to low, or the sheep on the hills to bleat, and there was yet no noise of work in the rickyard or the shippon, and all the moorland below lay asleep under its thin coverlet of mist, there came to her from across the fields the sound of a happy, cheery voice that was singing. She listened, and knew that it was Jason, chanting a song of Iceland after a night spent on the mountains; and she looked and saw that he was coming on towards the house, with his long, swinging stride and leap, over gorse and cushag and hedge and ditch.

It was more than she could bear after such night-long torment, to look upon the happiness she seemed about to wreck, so she turned her head away and covered her ears with her hands. But, recking nothing of this, Jason came on, singing in snatches and whistling by turns, until his firm tread echoed in the paved courtyard in the silence that was broken by nothing beside, except the wakening of the rooks in the elms.

"She must be awake, for she lies there, and her window is open," he thought to himself.

"Whisht!" he cried, tossing up a hand.

And then, without moving from where she stood, with her back resting against the window shutter, she turned her head about and her eyes aslant, and saw him beneath her casement. He looked buoyant and joyous, and full of laughter. A gun was over his shoulder, a fishing rod was in the other hand, at his belt hung a brace of birds, with the blood dripping on to his leggings, and across his back swung a little creel.

"Greeba, whisht!" he called again, in a loud whisper; and a third time he called her.

Then, though her heart smote her sore, she could not but step forward; and perhaps her very shame made her the more beautiful at that moment, for her cheeks were rosy red, and her round neck drooped, and her eyes were shy of the morning light, and very sweet she looked to the lad who loved her there.

"Ah!" he said almost inaudibly, and drew a long breath. Then he made pretence to kiss her, though so far out of reach, and laughed in his throat. After that he laid his gun against the porch, and untied the birds and threw them down at the foot of the closed door.

"I thought I would bring you these," he said. "I've just shot them."

"Then you've not been to bed," said Greeba nervously.

"Oh, that's nothing," he said, laughing. "Nothing for me. Besides, how could I sleep? Sleep? Why I should have been ready to kill myself this morning if I could have slept last night. Greeba!"

"Well!"

"You could never think what a glorious night it has been for me."

"So you've had good sport?" she said, feeling ashamed.

"Sport!" he cried, and laughed again. "Oh, yes, I've had sport enough," he said. "But what a night it was! The happiest night of all my life. Every star that shone seemed to shine for me; every wind that blew seemed to bring me a message; and every bird that sang, as the day was dawning, seemed to sing the song of all my happiness. Oh, it has been a triumphant night, Greeba."

She turned her head away from him, but he did not stop.

"And this morning, coming down from Barrule, everything seemed to speak to me of one thing, and that was the dearest thing in all the world. 'Dear little river,' I said, 'how happily you sing your way to the sea.' And then I remembered that before it got there it would turn the wheel for us at Port-y-Vullin some day, and so I said 'Dear little mill, how merrily you'll go when I listen to your plash and plunge, with her I love beside me."

She did not speak, and after a moment he laughed.

"That's very foolish, isn't it?" he said.

"Oh, no," she said. "Why foolish?"

"Well it sounds so; but, ah, last night the stars around me on the mountain top seemed like a sanctuary, and this morning the birds among the gorse were like a choir, and all sang together, and away to the roof their word rang out--Greeba! Greeba! Greeba!"

He could hear a faint sobbing.

"Greeba!"

"Yes?"

"You are crying."

"Am I? Oh, no! No, Jason, not that."

"I must go. What a fool I am," he muttered, and picked up his gun.

"Oh no; don't say that."

"Greeba!"

"Well, Jason?"

"I'm going now, but----"

"Why?"

"I'm not my own man this morning. I'm talking foolishly."

"Well, and do you think a girl doesn't like foolishness?"

He threw his head back and laughed at the blue sky. "But I'm coming back for you in the evening. I am to get the last of my rafters on to-day, and when a building is raised it's a time to make merry."

He laughed again with a joyous lightness, and turned to go, and she waved her hand to him as he passed out of the gate. Then, one, two, three, four, his strong rhythmic steps went off behind the elms, and then he was gone, and the early sun was gone with him, for its brightness seemed to have died out of the air.

And being alone Greeba knew why she had tried to keep Jason by her side, for while he was with her the temptation was not strong to break in upon his happiness, but when he was no longer there, do what she would, she could not but remember Michael Sunlocks.

"Oh, what have I done that two brave men should love me?" she thought; but none the less for that her heart clamored for Sunlocks. Sunlocks, Sunlocks, always Sunlocks--the Sunlocks of her childhood, her girlhood, her first womanhood--Sunlocks of the bright eyes and the smile like sunshine.

And thinking again of Jason, and his brave ways, and his simple, manly bearing, and his plain speech so strangely lifted out of itself that day into words with wings, she only told herself that she was about to break his heart, and that to see herself do it it would go far to break her own. So she decided that she would write to him, and then slip away as best she could, seeing him no more.

At that resolve she sat and wrote four pages of pleading and prayer and explanation. But having finished her letter, it smote her suddenly, as she folded and sealed it, that it would be a selfish thing to steal away without warning, and leave this poor paper behind her to crush Jason, for though written in pity for him, in truth it was fraught with pity only for herself. As mean of soul as that she could not be, and straightway she threw her letter aside, resolved to tell her story face to face. Then she remembered the night of Stephen Orry's death, and the white lips of Jason as he stood above the dying man--his father whom he had crossed the seas to slay--and, again, by a quick recoil, she recalled his laughter of that morning, and she said within herself, "If I tell him, he will kill me."

But that thought decided her, and she concluded that tell him she must, let happen what would. So partly in the strength of her resolve, and partly out of its womanly weakness, and the fear that she might return to her first plan at last, she took up her own letter to Jason, and locked it in a chest. Then taking from the folds at her breast the letter of Sunlocks to herself, she read it again, and yet again, for it was the only love letter she had ever received, and there was a dear delight in the very touch of it. But the thought of that sensuous joy smote her conscience when she remembered what she had still to do, and thinking that she could never speak to Jason eye to eye, with the letter of Sunlocks lying warm in her bosom, she took it out, and locked it also in the chest.

Jason came back at sundown to fetch her away that they might make some innocent sport together because his mill was roofed. Then with her eyes on her feet she spoke, and he listened in a dull, impassive silence, while all the laughter died off his face and a look of blank pallor came over it. And when she had finished, she waited for the blow of his anger, but it did not come.

"Then all is over between us," he said with an effort.

And looking up, she saw that he was a forlorn man in a moment, and fell to her knees before him with many pitiful prayers for forgiveness. But he only raised her and said gently,

"Mistress Greeba, maybe I haven't loved you enough."

"No, no," she cried.

"I'm only a rough and ignorant fellow, a sort of wild beast, I dare say, not fit to touch the hand of a lady, and maybe a lady could never stoop to me."

"No, no, there's not a lady in all the world would stoop if she were to marry you."

"Then maybe I vexed you by finding my own advantage in your hour of need."

"No, you have behaved bravely with me in my trouble."

"Then, Greeba, tell me what has happened since yesterday."

"Nothing--everything. Jason I have wronged you. It is no fault of yours, but now I know I do not love you."

He turned his face away from her, and when he spoke again his voice broke in his throat.

"You could never think how fast and close my love will grow. Let us wait," he said.

"It would be useless," she answered.

"Stay," he said stiffly, "do you love anyone else?"

But before she had time to speak, he said quickly,

"Wait! I've no right to ask that question, and I will not hear you answer it."

"You are very noble, Jason," she said.

"I was thinking of myself," he said.

"Jason," she cried, "I meant to ask you to release me, but you have put me to shame and now I ask you to choose for me. I have promised myself to you, and if you wish it I will keep my promise."

At that he stood, a sorrowful man, beside her for a moment's space before he answered her, and only the tones of his voice could tell how much his answer cost him.

"No--ah, no," he said; "no, Greeba, to keep your promise to me would be too cruel to you."

"Think of yourself now," she cried.

"There's no need to do that," he said, "for either way I am a broken man. But you shall not also be broken-hearted, and neither shall the man who parts us."

Saying this, a ghastly white hand seemed to sweep across his face, but at the next moment he smiled feebly and said, "God bless you both."

Then he turned to go, but Greeba caught him by both hands.

"Jason," she murmured, "It is true I cannot love you, but if there was another name for love that is not--"

He twisted back to her as she spoke, and his face was unutterably mournful to see. "Don't look at me like that," he said, and drew away.

She felt her face flush deep, for she was ashamed. Love was her pole-star. What was Jason's? Only the blankness of despair.

"Oh, my heart will break," she cried. "Jason," she cried again, and again she grasped his hands, and again their eyes met, and then the brave girl put her quivering lips to his.

"Ah, no," he said, in a husky voice, and he broke from her embrace.