Chapter III: A Friend Unchanged--And a Friend Grown

I

An hour at that pace brought him above Great Letham, clustered below. He paused irresolutely. From among the roofs, as it were, a crawling train emerged. He watched it worm its way along the eastward vale, then abruptly turned his back upon it as upon a thing more fortunate than he--not bound down here, as he was bound. Brooding upon the landscape, he suddenly became aware of a thin wisp of smoke that pointed up like a grey finger from the valley beneath him. It mounted in a steady, wand-like line from the belt of trees that marked Fir-Tree Pool, and its site and its appearance braced him to an alert attention. It had signalled him before. Only one person he had ever known lit a fire down there: only one hand in his experience contrived a flame which gave quite that steady, grey finger. He remembered Japhra showing him how to get the heart of a fire concentrated in a compact centre; he remembered Ima laughing at the sprawling heap, burning in desultory patches, that had come of his first attempt at imitation.

"If only it is Japhra!" he said aloud; and he struck down the Ridge-side for a straight line across country to where the smoke proposed that Japhra might be.

More than a year had passed since last the van had visited the district. Even Stingo, met sometimes over at Mr. Hannaford's, could give him no better news of it than that Japhra had not taken the road with Maddox's these two seasons. The disturbed state of mind that now vexed Percival could be soothed in no other way, he suddenly felt, than by the restful atmosphere that Japhra always communicated to him. Japhra would not laugh at him. Japhra would understand how he felt. Japhra would advise in that quiet way of his that made one see things as altogether different from the appearance they seemed to present. If only it were Japhra!

II

It was Japhra!

As Percival came quickly through the trees that enclosed the water he caught a glimpse of the yellow van. As he emerged he heard Japhra's voice: "Watch where he comes!" and he pulled up short and cried delightedly: "You knew! You were expecting me!"

Clearly they had known! Not surprise, but welcome all ready for him, was in Japhra's keen little eyes that glinted merrily, and on Ima's face, that was flushed beneath its dusky skin, her lips parted expectantly. Even old Pilgrim, the big white horse that drew the van, had its head up from its cropping and looked with stretched neck and seemed to know. Even tiny Toby, that was Dog Toby when the Punch and Judy show was out, was hung forward on his short legs like a pointer at mark, and now came bounding forward in a whirl of noisy joy.

Japhra was astride of a box, a piece of harness between his legs, a cobbler's needle in his right hand, and the short pipe still the same fixture in the corner of his mouth. Ima was on one knee, about to rise from the fire whose smoke had signalled.

"You knew! You were expecting me!" Percival cried again, and went eagerly to them as they rose to greet him, his hands outstretched.

"Father knew thee before I heard thy footsteps," Ima told him. "The fire crackled at my ears or I had known."

She seemed to be excusing herself, as though not to have heard were short of courtesy; and Japhra, who had Percival's hand, gave a twist of his face as if to bid him see fun, and teased her with: "Thou didst doubt, though, Ima, for look how I had to bid thee 'watch where he comes.'"

Percival thought she would toss her head and protest indignantly as when he used to tease her when they had trifled together. Instead, her eyes steadily upon his face, "Nay, for I knew it was he," she replied simply.

He no more than heard her. At a later period he found that the words had gone to the backwaters of his mind, where trifles lie up to float unexpectedly into the main stream. Years after he recalled distinctly her tone, her words, and the look in her eyes when she spoke them.

Now he laughed. "You two can hear the world go round, I believe." He turned to Japhra: "But how on earth you could tell--"

"Footsteps are voices, little master, when a man has lived in the stillness."

Percival laughed again--laughed for pure happiness to hear himself still given that familiar title, and for pure happiness to be again with Japhra's engaging ideas. "You're the same as ever, Japhra--the same ideas that other people don't have."

"Ah, but 'tis true," Japhra answered him. "Footsteps have tongues, and cleaner tongues than ever the mouth holds. Look how a man may oil his voice to mask his purpose--never his feet. Thine called to me, how eagerly they brought thee."

"Eagerly!--I should think they did! You're just the one I want. I've not seen you for a year--more. Eagerly--oh, eagerly!"

Japhra's bright eyes showed his delight. "And we were eager, too. We have spoken often of little master, eh, Ima? Not right to call him that now, though. Scarcely reckoned to see him so grown. Why, thou'rt a full man, little master--there slips the name again!"

He twinkled appreciatively at Percival's protest that to no other name would he answer, and he went on: "A full man. Ten stone in the chair, I would wager to it. What of the boxing?"

"Pretty good, Japhra. The gloves you gave me are worn, I can tell you."

"That's well. Never lose the boxing. It is the man's game. Ay, thou hast the boxer's build, ripe on thee now as I knew would be when I saw it in thee as a boy. The man's game--never lose it."

"I'm keener than ever on it," Percival told him. "I'm glad you think I've grown. I've got a punch in my left hand, I believe." His spirits were run high from his former despondency, and he hit with his left and sparkled to see Japhra nod approvingly and to hear him: "Ay, the look of a punch there."

"Yes, I've grown," he said. "You've not changed, Japhra--not a scrap."

Japhra nodded his head towards the fir trees. "Nor are the old limbs yonder. They stay so till the sap dries, then drop. Nary change. Only the young shoots change. What of Ima?"

She had turned away while they talked. She was back at the fire, and Percival turned towards where she stood, about to lift from its hook the cooking pot that hung from the tripod of iron rods. As he looked, she swung it with an easy action to the grass. The pot was heavy: she stooped from the waist, lifted and swung it to the grass with a graceful action that belonged to her supple form, and, as the steam came pouring up and was taken by a puff of breeze to her face, went back a step and looked down at her cooking from beneath her left forearm, bare to the elbow, raised to shield her eyes.

III

That was Percival's view of her. She had put up her hair, he noticed, since last he saw her. It was dressed low on the nape of her neck; evening's last gleam delighted in its glossy blackness against her olive skin. Beneath the arm across her face he saw the long lashes of her eyelids almost on her cheeks, as she stood looking downwards. Her mouth was long, the lips, blending in a dark red with her brown colouring, lying pleasantly together in the expression that partners the level eye and the comfortable mind. She was full as tall as Percival--very slim in the build and long in the waist that was moulded naturally from her hips to spread and cup her bosom, and therefore taller to the eye. She wore a blouse of dark red cloth; her skirt was of blue, hung short of her ankles, and pressing her thighs disclosed how alert and braced she stood. She wore no shoes nor stockings, and her feet, slender and long, appeared no more than to rest upon the short grass that framed them softly.

"What of Ima?"

"Ima?--Ima has grown, though," Percival said. "Why, she's simply sprung up!"

"Ay, grown," Japhra agreed. "Grown fair," he added, watching her.

Percival said, "Yes, she is pretty." The vision of Dora's high fairness came to his mind, challenged and rebuked his favour of another of her sex, and returned him swiftly to the stress that had brought him down here for comfort and that the first reencounter with Japhra had caused to be overshadowed. His eyes lost their brightness. He remained looking dully at Ima, not seeing her; and presently started and flushed to realise that he was hearing a repeated question from Japhra.

"What ails, master?"

"Ails? I heard you the first time, Japhra. I was thinking. I'm troubled--sick. That's what ails."

His face flushed with the same cloudy redness that the beat of rising tears drives into the faces of children. On the Ridge he had put against his trouble the stiffness that was of the bone of Burdon character. Down here was sympathy--and he was very young; it sapped the stubbornness.

"That's what I'm here for," he said thickly. "To tell you, Japhra."

Japhra had a keen look to meet the misty countenance that was turned to him.

"Food first, then," he said, and gave a twinkle and a sniff at the savour from Ima's cooking that made Percival smile in response. "Naught like a meal to take the edge off trouble. There'd be few quarrels in the world if we all had full bellies always."

"Well, food first, then," Percival agreed, making an effort; and he raised his voice: "What's Ima got for us?"

She turned at the sound of her name and smiled towards him, and the smile caused beauty to alight upon her face as a dove with a flashing of soft wings comes to a bough. He saw it. Her beauty abode in her mild mouth and in her seemly eyes. Her parted lips discovered it to step upon her face; her raised eyes released it, starry as the stars that star the forest pool, to star her countenance.