Chapter II: At the Old Windmill

When Barclay Stuart again opened his eyes he found himself lying on a pallet of straw, and kneeling beside him the strange, weird little man whom he had mistaken for a ghost. He was bathing the boy’s brow with cold water.

“Better now, aren’t you, dearie?”

“Ye--es, but where am I?”

“Oh, in the old windmill.”

“And how did I come here?”

“Well, that I just can’t tell, you see. On your legs, I suppose. They are strong and sturdy ones, anyhow.”

“And you’re not really a--a--ghost?”

“Ghost? Never a ghost. You see, lad, one wants to be dead before he adopts the profession of ghost; and I’ve never been dead at all yet, though I’ve been pretty near death’s door more than once. Shake hands. There, that doesn’t feel like a ghost’s hand, does it?”

“No, I was a little fool to be frightened; but I’m better now. Is it dark? I want to get home to mother and Phœbe.”

“So you shall, dearie; and there is a great big, big yellow moon to let you see your way.”

The boy’s face brightened at once. “I’ll have such a romantic story to tell mother and Phœbe when I get home,” he said laughingly.

The queer little man laughed too.

“I think,” he said, “you’re a clever boy. Who is Phœbe?”

“Oh, Phœbe is my sister, you know. And we live high up the hill yonder, in the white little cottage among the green, green trees and the wild flowers.”

“And what does your father do?”

“Oh, I don’t know what he does now.”

“Has he gone away, then?”

“Yes, years and years ago. He went to heaven, you know, and I don’t know what they do there.”

“Poor boy!”

“And we used to be very rich when I was young, and had lots of carriages, and lots of fine things, but now----”

The lad sighed, and a tear glistened in his eye.

“Now,” he added, with all the frankness of boyhood, “I think mother is just pretty poor, though she never says so.”

“Well, now I must let you go. Will you come and see me here to-morrow at twelve?”

“What! do you live here?”

“No, but I’m going to.”

The boy opened his blue eyes very widely indeed, and stared wonderingly at the little man.

“What! live in an old windmill?”

“Yes, lad, yes. I’m a student, you know, and I want quiet, and this old house will just suit me. I’m going to work out some wonderful problems. Then I’m going to make a big, big fortune. And pray, boy, what are you going to be?”

“Well, you know, Dr. Parker wants to take me as an apprentice, but I don’t like nasty physic, and so I’m going to be a sailor.

“‘The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free.’

“You know that verse, sir, I suppose. But it isn’t fresh at all. It’s dreadfully salt, because when I have fallen off a rock I have swallowed big mouthfuls of the water, and oh, it was nasty!

“Yet I love the sea all the same, and the beautiful birds that go skimming and wheeling over it or float on the blue smooth water. Oh, shouldn’t I like to be a sea-bird, just. That is, you know,” he added, after a pause, “if mother and Phœbe could be sea-birds too. Then we would all fly away together and be happy ever after.”

The queer little man laughed.

It wasn’t an ordinary laugh his. It was a kind of weird cachinnation in a piping voice. I have heard just such laughter proceeding from the dark recesses of gloomy forests in Africa. Birds, perhaps. Perhaps apes or baboons. But this little man’s voice seemed to be far, far older than himself.

“And now, dearie,” he said, “do you feel strong enough to go home?”

“Oh yes.”

“Shall I help you up?”

“No, sir, I’m a man. I’m fourteen.” Then he sprang to his feet and prepared to start.

“Good night, dearie.”

“Good night, sir.” And away went Barclay Stuart.

I think he ran home all the way at a kind of swinging trot.

“My dear Barclay,” said his mother, “we were feeling so uneasy about you.”

“Ah! but see what a string of fish I have. And they were all so hungry. And--so am I, mother. Oh, I’ve such a jolly queer adventure to tell you about. But I’m so hungry, I must keep it till after supper.”

Phœbe was a child of ten, with hazel eyes and long flowing locks of beautiful auburn hair.

She had had her supper long ago, but she must needs sit down opposite her brother to talk or prattle to him and see him eat. This little lass had a skin like alabaster, as auburn-haired girls nearly always have. But her cheeks were rosy, and so were her lips.

A most intelligent child, and always cheerful and full of merriness and life.

Phœbe thought there was no one in all the wide, wide world half so clever, so brave and handsome, as her brother Barclay, and the boy fully reciprocated the fondness she bestowed upon him.

Well, as soon as supper was over Barclay got a footstool and sat down by the fireside by his mother’s knees. Phœbe squatted on the hearthrug beside the great honest-faced tabby. Then the lad told them all about his adventure in the old windmill. He told his little story graphically, and embellished it almost theatrically, but he spoke nothing but the truth.

When he finished by saying that he was going to meet the little man next day at twelve, a shade of uneasiness spread over Mrs. Stuart’s face.

“I think, Barc,” she said, “you had better not go. Who can tell what this strange being may be?”

“Oh, he’s not a ghost anyhow, mother. His hand is as hard as yours or mine, and you could run right through a ghost, you know.”

“No, boy, I didn’t mean that he might be a ghost, but he may be some evil man.”

“Oh no, mother. He was so, so kind and gentle, and besides, I promised.”

“Well, dear boy, if you did promise, you must go, and I know you’ll take care of yourself. Now, Priscilla, if you’ll bring the Book we’ll have prayers.”

They were a very simple family this--would there were more like them. Evening prayers are, I fear me, much neglected in England and in Lowland Scotland, though far away in the wild Scottish Highlands and Islands every night you may hear the hymn of praise rising skywards, as rises the blue peat-smoke from the humble cottars’ huts. Heigh-ho! I fear that as a nation we are not so good as we used to be.

After prayers, preparations for retiring were commenced.

But Barclay begged leave to sit up another halfhour beside his mother, who was sewing. Leave was granted, and, of course, auburn-haired Phœbe sat up too. And so did Muffie the big tabby-cat, and the girl’s special favourite.

“Now tell us a story, mother.”

Mother did as she was told.

Mrs. Stuart was in the habit of composing little ditties, music and words, and of these Phœbe was very fond indeed.

Strange, that while the boy always begged for a story in the long forenights of winter and spring, the girl always preferred a song. But this mother had seen much grief in her time, and her songs were sad.

Now I will just give one verse of a song of her own she sang to-night at Phœbe’s request:

THE DYING BOY TO HIS MOTHER

“O mother dear, sit down by me,
And let me hold your hand,
And sing me songs, and tell me tales
Of a far-off happy land.
For when you tell me tales like these,
And sing so sweet and clear,
A seraph’s voice, it seems to me,
Falls on my listening ear.”

* * * * *

It was sweet spring-time, and in no part of Merrie England is spring more delightfully bracing than on the shores of sunny Devon. Perhaps few of the wild birds ever cared to visit Fisherton itself, but the bonnie woods and the bushes of bright orange-blossoming furze all around Wildwood Cottage, Barclay’s home, were alive with the song of birds when the boy awoke early next day. He paused not to listen however, but snatching up his towel he went off at a swinging trot--this boy hardly ever took time to walk--to the rocks.

To undress and plunge head foremost into deep water did not take Barclay long. I believe he startled the lazy but beautiful jelly-fish that kicked and floated about here in dozens. More than once, while having this splendid morning bath, some huge monster had got its tentacles round his ankles. The stinging sensation was terrible, and far worse than nettles, but that did not prevent him from diving again next morning just the same; for Barclay Stuart was one of those boys that are not to be denied.

On this particular morning, after a good long swim straight out seaward and back, he clambered once more on top of weed-covered rock and quickly dressed, then ran home to breakfast.

He could not, however, help pausing now and then to listen to the gurgling notes of the sweetest singer that visits our shores in spring--the nightingale.

I have often wondered who taught that little bird to sing so enchantingly. Who but God?

Barclay knew of several of their nests, but he would not have robbed them on any account. Mind you, Barclay loved Nature, but I would not like to give you the impression that he was what is called a goody-goody boy, because he wasn’t. He was just as plucky in a good cause as any boy need be. I’ll give you an instance.

One day he was wandering in the woods, when he met a boy two years older than himself, and bigger also. He was marching off with some thrush’s eggs from a small spruce-tree. Barclay Stuart confronted him.

“I had that nest before you,” he said, clenching his fists, and holding his arms straight down by his sides.

“And why didn’t you take the eggs then? You are a noodle.”

“Because I didn’t want to. Put back the eggs, or I’ll be obliged to give you a hiding.”

The other boy laughed derisively.

“What!” he cried, “you hide _me_?”

“See,” he added, “I’ll just put down the eggs in the moss till I give you ‘what-for.’”

He did so as he spoke.

“Come a little way down the wood,” said Barclay, “for fear we break the eggs.”

The thrush was crying piteously for her four eggs.

Now off went two little jackets in a trice.

“Are you ready?” said Barclay Stuart, with flashing eyes.

“Ready enough for a thing like you, anyhow.”

He had hardly completed the last word before a blow on the jaw stretched him out on the sward. He rose like a fury, but his very excitement was against him. Barclay got between his guards. The big boy could flail, but he couldn’t fight, and in five minutes’ time he owned “beat,” and putting on his jacket went sullenly away.

“You won’t shake hands, then?”

“No,” growled the bigger boy.

“All right then,” said Barclay, wiping some blood from his cheek, “I’m not ill-willy.”

When Barclay went back to the spot where the eggs had been deposited on the moss, he was surprised to find but three.

When he returned from a scamper through the woods he found that the bird had removed all of them back to her nest, and was once more making the echoes resound from tree to tree with her cheerful song.[2]

I’m not sure that tears of joy did not flood the lad’s eyes as he heard the now happy mavis singing.

Well, on the morning after Barclay’s strange adventure at the windmill, and as soon as breakfast was over, he set out for the vicarage. A droll old rambling place it was, but cosy inside and out. The archway over the gateway was the jaw-bones of an immense whale. This led into a shrubbery, but the whole house was buried in climbers--ivy, wistaria, and many other lovely trailing, flowering trees. Away behind were gardens, lawns, and an orchard, and into these French windows opened from the house. It was indeed an ideal parson’s home. Still too, and quiet as if the house stood in some primeval forest. Only on stormy days the wind roared through the trees, and the dull boom of the breaking waves made a wondrous and solemn accompaniment to the scream and shriek of the wild birds that wheeled and circled in the air.

Barclay was always quiet and subdued in this bonnie vicarage.

The Rev. Peter Grahame was exceedingly kind to him, so was his wife, and little Maud, their only child, was always delighted when Barclay came. She was a modest little maiden of sweet thirteen, and the parson managed in the forenoon to conduct the teaching of both at the same time. After twelve Barclay was free to roam the wild woods, spend an hour or two in the sea, diving and swimming for all the world like a porcupine.

“Lad, lad,” a fisherman would say, “it’s you that’ll kill yerse’f by stoppin’ so long in the water.”

Barclay would give himself a bit of a shake as he commenced to dress, and reply, “I’m not dead yet, Dannie.”

But to-day Barclay told Mr. Grahame all about his strange adventure at the old windmill, and of the interview that would take place at twelve.

“O daddy dear,” said little Maud, “I have seen him. He stays at the Angler’s Arms. Such a droll old creature; not big, but so broad and so brown, with a tuft of hair on his chin just like our nannygoat. I ran to the other side of the street.”

“Why, dear?”

“Oh, because his eyebrows were so big and bushy, and because his eyes shone and sparkled so, I was afraid!”

“I’m not at all afraid now,” said Barclay bravely.

A few minutes after this the boy might have been seen trotting along towards the lonesome bluff on which the windmill stood.