Novelist.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2092, 15 July 1887, Page 1 (Supplement)

Novelist.

WILL O’ THE HILL.

(Concluded.)

“Is that the right thing to do, think you demanded Will. “It is indispensable,’' said the parson. “ Very well,” replied the wooer. Two or three days passedaway with great delight to Will, although a bystander might scarce have found it oat. He continued to take his meals opposite Marjory, and to talk with her in her father’s presence. hut he made no attempt to see her alone, nor in any other way changed his conduct towards her from what it had been since the beginning. Perhaps the girl was a little disappointed, and perhaps not unjustly ; and yet if it had been enough to be always in the thoughts of another person, and so pervade and alter his whole life, she might have been thoroughly contented. For she was never out of Will’s mind for an instant. He sat over the stream and watched the dust of the eddy, and the poised fish, and straining weeds ; he wandered outalone intothe purple even, with all the blackbirds piping round him in the woods ; he rose early in the morning, and saw the sky turn from gray to gold, and the light leap upon the hill-tops; and all the while he kept wondering if he had never seen such things before, or how it was that they should look so different now. The sound of his own mill-wheel, or of the wind among the trees, confounded and charmed his heart. The most enchanting thoughts presented themselves unbidden in his mind. He was so happy that he could not sleep at night, and so restless that he could hardly ait still out of her company. And yet it seemed as if he avoided her rather than sought her out

One day as he was coming home from a ramble, Will found Marjory in the garden picking flowers, and as he came up with her, slackened his pace and continued walking by her side. “ You like flowers V” he said.

“ Indeed, I love them dearly,’’ she replied ; “do you ?” “Why, no,"said he, "not so much. They are a very small affair, when all is done. 1 can fancy people caring for them greatly, but not doing as you are just now.’’

He laughed a loud ho-ho I “One and another,'' thought Will. “The stars tremble and the blind goes up. Why before heaven, what a great magician I must be ! Now if I were only a fool, should not I be in a pretty way?” And he went off to bed, chuckling to himself, “If I were only a fool!’’

The next morning, pretty early, he saw her once more in the garden, and sought her out. “ I have been thinking about getting married,” he began, abruptly, “and after having turned it all over, I have made up my mind it’s not worth while.” She turned upon him for a single moment ; but his radiant, kindly appearance would, under the circumstances, have disconcerted an angel, and she looked down again upon the ground in silence. He could see her tremble.

“ I hope you don't mind,” he went on, a little taken aback. “You ought not. I have thought it all over, and, upon my soul, there is nothing in it. We should never bo one whit nearer than we are just now, and, if I am a wise man, nothing like so happy.” “It is unnecessary to go round about with me,” she said. “ I very well remember that you refused to commit yourself ; and now that I see you were mistaken, and in reality have never cared for me, I can only feel sad that I have been so far misled."

“ I ask your pardon,” said Will, stoutly; •you do not understand ray meaning. As :o whether I have ever loved you or not,

I must leave that to others. But for one thing, my feeling is not changed ; and for another, you may make it your boast that you have made my whole life and character something different from what they were. I mean what I say—no less. 1 do not think getting married is worth while. I would rather you went on living with your father, so that I could walk over and see you once, or maybe twice, a week, as people go to church, and then we should both be all the happier between whiles. That’s my notion. But I’ll marry you if you will,” he added. “Doyou know that you are insulting me ?” she broke out.

“ Not I, Marjory,” said he ; “if there is anything in a clear conscience, not 1. 1 offer all ray heart’s best affection ; you can Take it or want it, though I suspect it’s beyond either your power or mine to change what has been done, and set me fancyfree. I'll marry you if you like; but I tell you, again and again, it’s not worth while, and we had beststay friends. Though I am a quiet man 1 have noticed a heap of things in my life. Trust in me, and take things as I propose ; or, if you don’t like that, say the word, and I’ll marry you out of hand.”

There was a considerable pause, and Will, who began to feel uneasy, began to grow angry in consequence. “ It seems you are too proud to say your mind,’’ he said. “ Believe me, that’s a pity. A clean shrift makes simple living. Can a man be more downright or honorable to a woman than I have been ? I have said ray say, and given you your choice. Do you want me to marry you ?—or will you take my friendship, as I think best ? —or have you had enough of me for good ? Speak out, for the dear God’s sake. You know your father told you a girl should speak her mind in these affairs.” She seemed to recover herself at that, turned without a word, walked rapidly through the garden, and disappeared into the house, leaving Will in some confusion as to the result. He walked up and down the garden, whistling softly to himself. Sometimes he stopped and contemplated the sky and hill-tops ; sometimes he went down to the tail of the weir and sat there, looking foolishly into the water. All this dubiety and perturbation were so foreign

to his nature and the life which he had * chosen for himself, that he began to re- 1 gret Marjory’s arrival. “ After all,” he < thought, “ I was as happy as a man need be. I could come down here and ] watch my fishes all day long, if I wanted ; ' I was settled and contented as my old ( mill." • Marjory came down to dinner, looking ■ very trim and quiet; and no sooner were ' all three at the table than she made her ’ father a speech, with her eyes fixed upon '• her plate, but showing no other sign of i embarrassment or distress. Father," she began, “ Mr. Will and 1 I have been talking things over. We see that we have each made a mistake about our feelings, and he has agreed, at my request, to give up all idea of marriage, and be no more than my very good friend, as in the past. You see, there is no shadow of a quarrel, and, indeed, I hope we shall see a great deal of him in the future, for his visits will always be welcome in our house. Of course, father, you will know best, but, perhaps, we should do better to leave Mr. Will’s house for the present. I believe, after what has passed, we should hardly be agreeable inmates for some days. Will, who had commanded himself with difficulty from the first, broke out upon this into an inarticulate noise, and raised one hand with an appearance of real dismay, as if he were about to interfere and contradict. But she checked him at once, looking up at him with a swift glance and an angry flush upon her face. “You will, perhaps, have the good grace,” she said, “ to let me explain these matters for myself.” Will was put entirely out of countenance by her expression and the ring of her voice. He held his peace, concluding that there was something about the girl beyond hiscomprehension, in which he was exactly right. The poor parson was crestfallen. He tried to prove that this was no more than a true lovers’ tiff, which would pass off before night; and when he was dislodged from that position, he went on to argue that, where there was no quarrel, there could be no call for a separation ; for the good man liked both his entertainment , and his host. It was curious to see how i the girl managed them, saying little all : the time, and that very quietly, and yet i twisting them round her finger, and in- ; sensibly leading them wherever she would by feminine tact and generalship. It , scarcely seemed to have been her doing—i it seemed as if things had so fallen out — 1 that she and her father took their depar--1 ture that same afternoon in a farm-cart, ; and went far down the valley, to wait I until their own house was ready for them, r in another hamlet. But Will had been > observing closely, and was well aware of i her dexterity and resolution. When he i found himself alone he had a great many . curious matters to turn over in his mind, r He was very sad and solitary, to begin ) with. AH the interest had gone out of r his life, and he might look up at the stars t as long as he pleased, be somehow failed . to find support or consolation. And, I then, he was in such a turmoil of spirit , about Marjory. He had been puzzled and

“ How V" she asked, pausing and looking up at him. “ Plucking them,’’ said he. “ They are a deal better off where they are, and look a deal prettier, if you go to that. ” “ I wish to have them for my own,” she answered ; “ to cany them near my heart and keep them in ray room. They tempt me when they grow here ; they seem to say, * Come and do something with us ’; bat once I have cut them and put them by, the charm is laid, and 1 can look at them with quite an easy heart.’ “You wish to possess them,” replied Will, “in order to think no more about them. It's a bit like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. It's a bit like what I wished to do when 1 was a boy. Because I had a fancy for looking out over the plain. I wished to go down there—where I couldn't look out over it. any longer. Was not that fine reasoning ? Dear, dear, if they only thought of it, all the world would do like me ; and you would let your flowers alone, just as I stay up here in the mountains." Suddenly lie broke off sharp. “By the lord !" he cried. And when she asked him what was wrong, he turned the question off, and walked away into the house with rather a humorous expression of face.

He was silent at the table ; and after the night had fallen and the stars had come out overhead, he walked up and down in the courtyard and garden with an uneven pace. There was still a light in the window of Marjory's room—one little oblong patch of orange in a world of dark blue hills and silver starlight. Will’s mind ran a great deal on the window, but his thoughts were not very lover-like. “There she is in her room," he thought, “and there are the stars overhead—a blessing upon both!" Both were good influences in his life; loth soothed and braced him in his profound contentment with the world. And what more should he desire with either ? The fat young ■mi and his counsels were so present to bis mind, that he threw back his head, and, patting his hand before hia mouth, shouted aloud to the populous heavens. Whether from the position of his head or the sudden strain of the exertion, he seemed to see s momentary shock among the stars, and a diffusion of frosty light pass from one to another along the sky. At the same instant a corner of the blind wsa lilted up and lowered again at once.

irritated at her behavior, and yet he could not keep himself from admiring it. He thought he recognized a tine, perverse angel in that still soul which he had never hitherto suspected ; and though he saw it was an influence that would fit but ill with his own life of artificial calm, he could not keep himself from ardently desiring to possess it. Like a man who has lived among shadows and now meeta the son, he was both pained and delighted. As tiie days went forward he passed from one extreme to another ; now pluming himself on the strength of his determination, now despising his timid and silly caution. The former was, perhaps, the true thought of his heart, and represented the regular tenor of the man's reflections ; but the latter burst forth from time to time with an unruly violence, and then he would forget all consideration, and go up and down his house and garden, or walk among the fir-woods like one who is besides himself with remorse. To equable, steady-minded Will this state of matters was intolerable; and he determined, at whatever cost, to bring it to an end. So, one warm summer afternoon he put on his best clothes, took a thorn switch in his hand, and set out down the valley by the river. As soon as he had taken his determination, he had regained at a bound his customary peace of heart, and he enjoyed the bright weather and the variety of the scene without any admixture of alarm or unpleasant eagerness. It was nearly the same to him how the matter turned out. It she accepted him, he would have to marry her this time, which, perhaps, was all for the best. If she refused him, he would have done his utmost, and might follow his own way in the future with an untroubled conscience. He hoped, on the whole, she would refuse him ; and then, again, as he saw the brown roof which sheltered her, peeping through some willows at an angle of the stream, he was half inclined to reverse the wish, and more than half ashamed of himself for his infirmity of purpose. Marjory seemed glad to see him, and gave him her hand without affectation or delay. “ I have been thinking about this marriage,” he began. “So have I,’” she answered] “and I respect you more and more for a wise man. You understood me better than I understood myself; and I am now quite certain that things are all for the best as they are. “ At the same time——,” ventured Will. “ You must be tired,” she interrupted ; “ take a seat and let me fetch you a glass of wine. The afternoon is so warm, and I wish you not to be displeased with your visit. You must come quite often—once a week, if you can spare the time—l am so glad so see my friends.” “ Oh, very well,” thought Will to himself; “it appears I was right, after all.” And he paid a very agreeable visit, walked home again in capital spirits, and gave himself no further concern about the mat-

For nearly three years Will and Marjory continued on these terms, seeing each other once or twice a week, without any word of love between them ; and for all that time I believe Will was nearly as happy as a man could be. He rather stinted himself the pleasure of seeing her; and he would often walk half-way over to the parsonage, and then back again, as if to whet his appetite. Indeed, there was one corner of the road whence he could see the church-spire wedged into a crevice of the valley between sloping fir-woods, with a triangular snatch of plain by-way of background, which he greatly affected as a place to sit and moralize in before returning homeward ; and the peasants got so much in the habit of finding him there in the twilight, that they gave it the name of Will o’ the Mill’s Corner.”

At the end of the three years Marjory played him a sad trick by suddenly marrying somebody else. Will kept his countenance bravely, and remarked that, for as little as he knew of womerf, he had acted very prudently in not marrying her himself three years before. She plainly knew very little of her own mind, and, in spite of a deceptive manner, was as fickle and flighty as the rest of them. He had to congratulate himself on an escape, he said, and would take a higher opinion of his own wisdom in consequence. But at heart he was reasonably displeased, moped a good deal for a month or two, and fell away in flesh, to the astonishment of his serving-lads. It was perhaps a year after this marriage {hat Will was awakened one night by the sound of a horse galloping on the road, followed by a precipitate knocking at the inn door. He opened his window, and saw a farm-servant, mounted and

holding a led horse by the bridle, who told him to make what haste he could and go along with him, for Marjory was dying, and had sent urgently to fetch him to her bedside. Will was no horseman, and made so little speed upon the way that the poor young wife was very near her end before he arrived. But they had some minutes’ talk in private, and he was present and wept very bitterly while she breathed her last.

neighbors, were often enough admired by learned people out of towns and colleges. Indeed, he had a very noble old age, and grew daily better known ; so that his fame was heard of in the cities of the plain; and young men who had been summer travellers spoke together in cafe's of Will o’ the Mill and his rough philosophy. Many and many an invitation,you may be sure, he had ; but nothing could tempt him from his upland valley. He would shake his head and smile over his tobacco pipe, with a deal of meaning. “You come too late,” he would answer, “lama dead man now ; I have lived and died already. Fifty years ago you would have brought my heart into ray mouth, and now you do not oven tempt me. But that is the object of long living—that man should cease to care about life.” And again : “ There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner—that in the dinner the sweets come last.” Or one more : “ When I was a boy, I was a bit puzzled, and hardly knew whether it was myself or the world that was curious and worth looking into. Now I know it is myself, and stick to that.”

He never showed any symptoms of frailty, but kept sta; wart and lirm to the last; but they saw ho grew less talkative towards the end, and would listen to other people by the hour in an amused and sympathetic silence. Only when he did speak it was more to the point and more charged with old experience. He drank a bottle of wine gladly; above all, at sunset on the hill-top or quite late at night under the arbor. The sight of something unattainable seasoned his enjoyment he would say ; and he professed he had lived long enough to admire a candle all the more when he could compare it with a planet. One night, in his seventy-second year, he awoke in bed, in such uneasiness of body and mind that he arose and dressed himself and went out to meditate in the arbor. It was pitch dark, without a star ; the river was swollen, and the wet woods and meadows loaded the air with perfume. It had thundered during the day, and promised more thunder for the morrow. A murky, stifling night for a man of seventy-two ! Whether it was the weather or the wakefulness, or some little touch of fever in his old limbs, Will’s mind was besieged by tumultuous and crying memories. His boyhood, the night with the-fat young man, the death of his adopted parents, the summer days with Marjory, and many of those small circumstances, which seem nothing to another, and are yet the very gist of a man’s own life to himself—things seen, words heard, looks misconstrued—arose from their forgotten corners and usurped his attention. The dead themselves were with him, not merely taking part in this thin show of memory that defiled before his brain, but revisited his bodily senses as they do in profound and vivid dreams. The fat young man leaned his elbows on the table opposite; Marjory came and went with an apronful of flowers between the garden and the arbor ; he could hear the old parson knocking out his pipe or blowing his resonant nose. The tide of his consciousness ebbed and flowed : he was sometimes half-asleep and drownedin his recollections of the past; and sometimes he was broad awake, wondering at himself. But about the middle of the night he was startled by the voice of the dead miller calling to him out of the house as he used to do on the arrival of custom. The hallucination was so perfect that Will sprang from his seat and stood listening for the summons to be repeated ; and as he listened he became conscious of another noise besides the brawling of the river and the ringing in his feverish ears. It was like the stir of horses and the creaking of harness, as though a carriage with an impatient team had been brought up upon the road before the courtyard gate. At such an hour, upon this rough and dangerous pass, the supposition was no better than absurd ; and Will dismissed it from his mind, and resumed his seat upon the arbor chair; and sleep closed over him again like running water. He was once again awakened by the dead miller’s call, thinner and more spectral than before ; and once again he heard the noise of an equipage upon the road. And so, thrice and four times, the same dream, or the same fancy, presented itself to his senses: until at length, smiling to himself as when one humors a nervous child, he proceeded toward the gate to set his uncertainty at rest.

From the arbor to the gate was no great distance, and yet it took Will some time ; it seemed as if the dead thickened around him in the court, and crossed his path at every step. For, first, he was suddenly surprised by an overpowering sweetness of heliotropes ; it was as if his garden had been planted with this flower from end to end, and the hot, damp night had drawn forth all their perfumes in a breath. Now the heliotrope had been Marjory’s favorite flower, and since her death not one of them had been planted in Will’s ground. “I must be going crazy,” he thought. “ Poor Marjory and her heliotropes !” And with that he raised his eyes toward

Year after year went away into nothing, with great explosions and outcries in the cities on the plain—red revolt springingup and being suppressed in blood ; battle swaying hither and thither ; patient astronomers, in observatory towers, picking out and christening new stars; plays being performed in lighted theatres ; people being carried into hospitals on stretchers, and all the usual turmoil and agitation of men’s lives in crowded centres. Up in Will’s valley only the winds and seasons made an epoch ; the fish hung in the swift stream, the birds circled overhead, the pine-tops rustled underneath the stars, the tall hills stood over all; and Will went to and fro, minding his wayside inn, until the snow began to thicken on his head. His heart was young and vigorous ; and if his pulses kept a sober time, they still beat strong and ready in his wrists. He carried a ruddy stain on either cheek, like a ripe apple ; he stooped a little, but his step was still firm ; and his sinewy hands were reached out to all men with a friendly pressure. His face was covered with those wrinkles which are «ot in open air, and which, rightly looked at, are no more than a sort of permanent sunburning ; such wrinkles heighten the stupidity of stupid faces, but to a person like Will, with his clear eyes and smiling mouth, only give another charm by testifying to a simple and easy life. His talk was full of wise sayings. He had a taste for other people, and other people had a taste for him. When the valley was full of tourists, in the season, there were merry nights in Will’s arbor ; and his views, which seemed whimsical to his

the window that had once been hers. It he had been bewildered before, lie was now almost terrified ; for there was a light in the room ; the window was an orange oblong as of yore ; and the corner of the blind was lifted and let fall as on the night when he stood and shouted to the stars in his perplexity. The illusion only endured an instant; but it loft him somewhat unmanned, rubbing his eyes and staring at the outline of the house and the black night behind it. While he thus stood, and it seemed as it he must have stood there quite a long time, there a renewal of the noises on the road ; and he turned in time to meet a stranger, who was advancing to meet him across the court. There was something like the outline of a great carriage discernable on the road behind the stranger, and above that, a few pine tops, like as many plumes. “ Master Will V” asked the new-comer, in brief military fashion. “ That same sir,” answered Will. “ Can I do anything to servo you ?” “ I have heard you much spoken of, Master Will,” returned the other ; “much spoken of, and well. And though 1 have both hands full of business, 1 wish to drink a bottle of wine with you in your arbor. Before Igo I shall introduce myself."

Will led the way to the trellis, and got a lamp lighted and a bottle uncorked. He was not altogether unused to such complimentary interviews, and hoped little enough from this one, being schooled by many disappointments. A sort of cloud had settled on his wits and prevented him from remembering the strangeness of the hour. He moved like a person in his sleep; and it seemed as if the lamp caught tire and the bottle came uncorked with the facility of thought. Still, he

had some curiosity about tho appearance of his visitor, and tried in vain to turn the light into his face ; either he handled the light clumsily, or there was a dimness over his eyes ; but he could make out little more than a shadow at table with him. He stared and stared at this shadow, as he wiped the glasses, and began to feel cold and strange about the heart. The silence weighed upon him, for he could hear nothing now, not even the river, but the drumming of his own arteries in his ears.

“Here’s to you,” said the stranger roughly. “ Here is my service, sir,’’replied Will, sipping his wine, which somewhat tasted oddly. “ I understand you are a very positive fellow,” pursued the stranger. Will made answer with a smile of satisfaction and a little nod.

“ So am 1,” continued the other ; “and it is the delight of ray heart to tramp on people's corns. I will have nobody positive but myself; no one. I have crossed the whims, in ray time, of kings and generals and great artists. And what would you say,” he went on, “if I had come up here oi> purpose to cross you ?’’ Will had it on his tongue to make a sharp rejoinder ; but the politeness of an old inn-keeper prevailed ; and he held his peace, and made answer with a civil gesture of the hand. “ I have,” said the stranger. “ And if I did not hold you in a particular esteem, I should make no words about the matter. It appears you pride yourself on staying where you are. You mean to stick by your inn. Now I mean you shall come for a tarn with me in my barouche ; and before this bottle’s empty, so you shall.” “ That will be an odd thing, to be sure,” replied Will, with a chuckle. “Why, sir I have grown here like an old oak tree ; the devil himself could hardly root me up; and for all I perceive you are a very entertaining old gentleman, I would wager you another bottle you lose your pains with me.”

The dimness of Will’s eyesight had been increasing all this while ; but he was somewhat conscious of a sharp and chilling scrutiny which irritated and yet overmastered him.

“ You need not think,” he broke out suddenly, in an explosive, febrile manner that startled and alarmed himself, “that I am a stay-at-home, because I fear anything under God. God knows lam tired of it all; and when the time comes for a longer journey than ever you dream of, I reckon I shall be prepared.” The stranger emptied his glass and pushed it away from him. He looked down for a little, and then, leaning over the table, tapped Will three times upon the forearm with a single finger. “The time has come! ”he said, solemnly. An ugly thrill spread from the spot he touched. The tones of his voice were dull and startling, and echoed strangely in Will’s heart.

“I beg your pardon - ,” he said, with some discomposure. “ What do you mean ? ”

“Look at me, and you will find your eyesight swim. Raise your hand, it is dead heavy. This is your last bottle of wine, Master Will, and your last night upon the earth.” “ You are a doctor ? ” quavered Will. “The best that ever was,” replied the other ; “for I cure both mind and body with the same prescription. I take away all pain and forgive all sins ; and where my patients have gone wrong in life, I smooth out all complications and set them free upon their feet.” “ I have no need of you,” said Will.

“A time cornea for all men, Master Will," replied the doctor, “when the helm is taken out of their hands. Foryou, because you were prudent and quiet, it has been long of coming, and you have had long to discipline yourself for its reception. You have seen what it is to be seen about your mill”; you have sat close all your days like a hare in its form ; but now that is at an end; and," added the doctor, getting on his feet, “you must arise and come with me.”

“ You are a strange physician," said Will, looking steadfastly upon his guest. “lama natural law,” he replied “ and people call me Death.” “ Why did you not tell me so at first ?” cried Will. “ I have been waiting foryou these many years. Give me your hand and welcome.”

“ Lean upon my arm,’’said the stranger

“for already your strength abates. Lean on me heavily as you need ; for though I am old, lam very strong. It is but three steps to my carriage, and there all your trouble ends. Why, Will,” he added, “ I have been yearning for you as though you were my own son ; and of all the men that ever I came for in my long days, I have come for you most gladly. lam caustic, and sometimes offend people at first sight; but I am a good friend at heart to such as you.” “ Since Marjory was taken,” returned Will, “ I declare before God you were the only friend I had to look for. ” So the pair w r ent arm-in-arm across the courtyard.

One of the servants awoke about this time and heard the noise of the horses pawing before he dropped asleep again ; all down the valley that night there was a rushing as of a smooth and steady wind descending towards the plain ; and when the world rose next morning, sure enough Will o’ the Mill had gone at last upon his travels.