“Now will you be giving me a place to sleep, with thick covers to keep my poor blood moving; and in the morning I’ll be off again.” He stopped and his face flexed with pain. “I used to love the winter so.”
Old Robert helped him from the room with a hand under his arm, then came and sat again by the fire. He looked at the boy who lay unmoving on the floor.
“What are you thinking about now, son?” he asked very softly after a time. And Henry drew his gaze back from the land beyond the blaze.
“I’m thinking I’ll be wanting to go soon, father.”
“I know, Henry. The whole of this long year I’ve seen it growing in you like a strong tree—London or Guinea or Jamaica. It comes of being fifteen and strong with the passion for new things on you. Once I saw the valley grow smaller and smaller, too, until finally it smothered me a little, I think. But aren’t you afraid of the knives, son, and the poisons, and the Indians? Do not these things put fear on you?”
“No-o-o,” Henry said slowly.
“Of course not—and how could they? The words have no meaning to you at all. But the sadness of Dafydd, and the hurt of him, and his poor, sick body—aren’t you afraid of those? Do you want to go about the world weighed down with such a heart?”
Young Henry considered long.
“I would not be like that,” he said at last. “I would be coming back very often for my blood’s sake.”
His father went on smiling valiantly.
“When will you be off, Henry? It will be lonely here without you.”
“Why, I’ll go, now, as soon as I may,” said Henry; and it seemed that he was the older and Robert a little boy.
“Henry, will you do two things for me before you go? Will you be thinking tonight of the long sleeplessness I’ll have because of you, and of how lost my days will be. And will you remember the hours your mother will fret about your underclothing and the state of your religion. That’s the first thing, Henry; but second, will you go up to old Merlin on the crag-top tomorrow and tell him of your going and listen to his words? He is wiser than you or I may ever be. There is a kind of magic he practices which may be a help to you. Will you do these two things, son?”
Henry had become very sad.
“I would like to stay, my father, but you know—”
“Yes, boy.” Robert nodded. “It is my sorrow that I do know. I cannot be angry nor forbid your going, because I understand. I wish I might prevent it and whip you, thinking that I helped you. But go to bed, Henry, and think and think when the light is out and the dark in around you.”
Old Robert sat dreaming in his chair after the boy had gone.
“Why do men like me want sons?” he wondered. “It must be because they hope in their poor beaten souls that these new men, who are their blood, will do the things they were not strong enough nor wise enough nor brave enough to do. It is rather like another chance with life; like a new bag of coins at a table of luck after your fortune is gone. Perhaps the boy is doing what I might have done had I been brave enough years past. Yes, the valley has smothered me, I think, and I am glad this boy of mine finds it in his power to vault the mountains and stride about the world. But it will be—so very lonely here without him.”
II
Old Robert came in from his rose garden late the next morning and stood in the room where his wife was sweeping. She eyed the good soil on his hands with disapproval.
“He’ll be wanting to go now, Mother,” Robert said nervously.
“Who will be wanting to go, and where?” She was brusque and busy with her sweeping; the quick, inquisitive broom hounded dust from the corners and floor cracks and drove it in little puffs to the open.
“Why, Henry. He’ll be wanting to go to the Indies now.”
She stopped her work to stare at him. “The Indies! But, Robert! Oh, nonsense!” she finished, and the broom swung more rapidly in her hands.
“I’ve seen it for long and long growing in him,” Robert went on. “Then Dafydd came with his tales. Henry told me last night that he must go.”
“He’s only a little boy,” Mother Morgan snapped. “He can’t be going to the Indies.”
“When Dafydd set out, a little time ago, there was a longing in the child’s eyes that will never be satisfied at all, not even if he does go to the Indies. Haven’t you noticed, Mother, how his eyes look away beyond the mountains at something he wants?”
“But he may not go! He may not!”
“Ah, there is no use in it, Mother. A great gulf lies between my son and me, but none at all between me and my son. If I did not know the lean hunger of him so well I might forbid his venturing, and he would run away with anger in his heart for he cannot understand the hunger that’s in me for his staying. It would come to the same thing, anyway.” Robert gathered conviction.
“There’s a cruel difference between my son and me. I’ve seen it in the years of his growing. For whereas he runs about sticking his finger into pot after pot of cold porridge, grandly confident that each one will prove the pottage of his dreaming, I may not open any kettle, for I believe all porridge to be cold. And so—I imagine great dishes of purple porridge, drenched with dragon’s milk, sugared with a sweetness only to be envisioned. He tests his dreams Mother, and I—God help me!—am afraid to.”
She was becoming impatient with his talking.
“Robert,” she cried almost angrily, “in any time where there’s boding on us, or need, or sorrow, you hide in words. Here is a duty to you! This boy is too young. There are horrible places across the sea, and the winter comes in at us. He would be sure to find his death in a cough that came to him from the winter. You know how the dampness on his feet sets him sick. He must not leave this farm not even to London, I say—if these eyes you talk about starve in his head.
“How could you possibly know what kind of people he would be taking up with, and they telling him nonsense and wickedness. I know the evil that’s in the world. Doesn’t the Curate mention it nearly every Sabbath—‘pitfalls and snares’ he calls them, do you see? And so they are, too. And here you stand, content to talk foolishness about purple porridge when you should be doing something or other. You must forbid it.”
But Robert answered her impatiently.
“To you he is only a little boy who must be made to say his prayers of nights and to wear a coat into the fields You have not felt the polished steel of him as I have. Yes, to you that quick, hard set of his chin is only the passing stubbornness of a headstrong child. But I do know; and I say to you, without pleasure, that this son of ours will be a great man, because—well—because he is not very intelligent. He can see only one desire at a time. I said he tested his dreams; he will murder every dream with the implacable arrows of his will. This boy will win to every goal of his aiming; for he can realize no thought, no reason, but his own. And I am sorry for his coming greatness because of a thing Merlin once spoke of. You must look at the granite jaws of him, Mother, and the trick he has of making his cheek muscles stand out with clenching them.”
“He must not go,” she said firmly, and pinched her lips tightly together.
“You see, Mother,” Robert went on, “you are something like Henry yourself, for you never admit the existence of any idea save your own. But I will not forbid his going, because I must not have him stealing out into the lonely dark with bread and cheese under his coat and a hurt feeling of injustice in his heart. I permit him to go. More, I help him to go if he wishes it. And then, if I have misjudged my son, he will come sneaking back with the fearful hope that no one may mention his cowardice.”
Mother Morgan said, “Nonsense!” and went back to her work. She would dissolve this thing by disbelieving it. Oh, the thousand things she chained to Limbo with her incredulity! For many years she had beaten Robert’s wild thoughts with a heavy phalanx of common sense; her troop simply charged in and overwhelmed him. Always he retired wearily and sat smiling for a time. He was sure to come back to sanity in this case as in others.