Four Winds Farm

For there was a bright fire burning in the room, which sent red rays flickering and dancing in all directions, lighting up the faded tints of the ancient curtains and covers, and bringing rich crimson shades out of the shining, old dark mahogany furniture. There were flowers too; a bouquet of autumn leaves – bronze and copper and olive – with two or three fragile "last roses" in the middle, on which Gratian's eyes rested with pleasure for a moment, on their way to the small figure – the most interesting object of all.

He was lying on a little sofa, placed so as to be within reach of the fire's warmth, and yet near enough to the window for him to see out into the garden, to watch the life of the birds and the plants, the clouds and the breezes. The autumn afternoon looked later and darker now to Gratian as he glanced at it from within than when he was himself a part of it out-of-doors, and his eyes returned with pleasure to the nearer warmth and colour, though after the first momentary glimpse of the boy on the sofa a sort of shyness had made him look away.

For the child was extremely pale and thin – he looked much more ill than Gratian had been prepared for, and this gave him a feeling of timidity that nothing else could have caused. But the lady soon put him at his ease.

"Fergus, dear," she said, "here is the little friend you have been hoping for. Come over here near us, my dear boy" – for she had sat down on a low chair beside the couch, evidently her usual place – "and I will help you to get over the first few steps of making friends. To begin with," she said smiling, "do you know we don't know your name? That seems absurd, doesn't it? And you don't know ours."

"Yes – I know his," said Gratian, smiling too, and with a little gesture towards the invalid, so gentle and half-timid that no one could have called it rude; "you have just said it – Fergus. I never heard that name before."

"It is a Scotch name," said the lady. "One can almost fancy oneself in Scotland here. And tell us your name."

"Gratian," he replied, "Gratian Conyfer."

"What a nice name," said Fergus, speaking for the first time, "and what a queer one! I can say the same to you as you said to me, Gratian – I never heard that name before."

"How did you come by it?" asked Fergus's mother.

"I think it was because mother is called Grace, and there were several baby brothers that died, that were called for father," he replied.

"And how old are you?" asked Fergus, raising himself a little on his elbow. "I'm eight and a half. I'm not so very small for my age when I stand up – am I, mother?"

"No, dear," she answered with a little shadow over her bright face. "And you, Gratian?"

"I am nine," he said; "but they say at school I don't look so much. Tony is twelve, but he is much, much bigger."

"Tony – who is Tony?" asked Fergus; "is he your brother?"

"Oh no, I have no brothers. He's the head boy at the school."

"Yes," said Fergus's mother, "I remember about him. He was the boy Mr. Cornelius first thought of sending."

"And why didn't he come?" asked Fergus.

Gratian looked up at the lady.

"Did the master tell you?" he asked. The lady smiled, and nodded her head.

"Yes," she said, "I know the story. You may tell it to Fergus, Gratian; he would like to hear it. Now I am going away, for I have letters to write. In half an hour or so you shall have your tea. Would you like it here or in the library, Fergus?"

"Oh, in the library," he said eagerly. "I haven't been there for two days, mother. And then Gratian can see the pictures – you told me he liked pictures? – and best of all, you can play the organ to us, little mother."

"Then you feel better to-day, my boy?" she said, stooping to kiss the white forehead as she was leaving the room. "Some days I can't get him to like to move about at all," she added to Gratian.

"Yes, I do feel better," he said. "I don't mind it hurting me when I don't feel that horrible way as if I didn't care for anything. Have you ever been ill, Gratian? Do you know how it feels?"

Gratian considered.

"I once had a sore throat," he said, "but I didn't mind very much. It was winter, and I had a fire in my room, and I liked to see the flames going dancing up the chimney."

"Yes," said Fergus, "I know how you mean. I'm sure we must have the same thinkings about things, Gratian. Do you like music too, as much as pictures? Mother says people who like pictures very much, often like music too, and – and – there's something else that those kind of people like too, but I forget what."

"Flowers," suggested Gratian; "flowers and trees, perhaps."

"No," said Fergus, looking a little puzzled, "these would count in with pictures, don't you think? I'll ask mother – she said it so nicely. Don't you like when anybody says a thing so that it seems to fit in with other things?"

"Yes," said Gratian, "I think I do. But I think things to myself, mostly – I've not got anybody much to talk to, except sometimes Jonas. He's got very nice thoughts, only he'd never say them except to Watch and me."

"Who's Watch?" asked Fergus eagerly. "Is he a dog?"

"He's our sheep-dog, and Jonas is the shepherd," replied Gratian. "They're sometimes alone with the sheep for days and days – out on the moors. It's so strange – I've been with them sometimes – it's like another world – to see the moors all round, ever so far, like the sea, I suppose – only I've never seen the sea – and not a creature anywhere, except some wild birds sometimes."

"Stop," said Fergus, closing his eyes; "yes, I can see it now. Go on, Gratian – is the sky gray, or blue with little white clouds?"

"Gray just now," said the boy, "and there's no wind that you can feel blowing. But it's coming – you know it's coming – now and then Watch pricks up his ears, for he can tell it much farther off than we can, and old Jonas pats him a little. Jonas has an old blue round cap – a shepherd's cap – and his face is browny-red, but his hair is nearly white, and his eyes are very blue. Can you see him, Fergus? And the sheep keep on browsing – they make a little scrumping noise when you are quite, quite close to them. And just before the wind really comes a great bird gives a cry – up, very high up – and it swoops down for a moment and then goes up again, till it looks just a little black speck against the sky. And all the time you know the wind is coming. Can you see it all, Fergus?"

"All," said the boy; "it's beautiful. You must tell me pictures often, Gratian, till I can go out again. I never had any one who could make them come so, except mother's music – they come with that. Haven't you noticed that they come with music?"

"I don't know," said Gratian. "I've never seen any real pictures – painted ones in big gold frames."

"There are some here," said Fergus; "not very many, but some. I like a few of them – perhaps you will too. But I like the pictures that come and go in one's fancy best. That's the kind that mother's music brings me."

"Yes," said Gratian, his eyes sparkling, "I understand."

"I was sure you would," said Fergus, with a tiny touch of patronising in his tone, which Gratian was too entirely single-minded to see, or rather perhaps to object to if he did see it. "I knew the minute I saw you, you'd suit me. I'm very glad that other fellow didn't come instead of you. But, by the bye, you haven't told me about that – mother said you'd tell me."

Gratian related the story of his satchel of stones. Fergus was boy enough to laugh a little, though he called it a mean trick; but when Gratian told of having found his books again, he looked puzzled.

"How could you find them?" he asked. "It was nearly dark, didn't you say?"

"I don't quite know," replied Gratian, and he spoke the truth. It was always difficult for him to distinguish between real and fancy, dreaming and waking, in all concerning his four friends, and in some curious way this difficulty increased so much if he ever thought of talking about them, that he felt he was not meant to do so. "I have fancies sometimes – like dreams, perhaps – that I can't explain. And they help me often – when I am in any trouble they help me."

"I don't see how fancies can help you to find things that are lost," said Fergus, who, except in his own particular way, was more practical than Gratian, "unless you mean that you dream things, and your dreams come true."

"It's a little like that," Gratian replied. "I think I had a sort of dream about coming here. I did so want to come – most of all since I heard the lady play in church."

"Yes," said Fergus, "isn't mother's playing beautiful? I've not heard her play in church for ever so long, but I'm so glad there's an organ here. She plays to me every day. I like music best of everything in the world – don't you?"

To which Gratian gave his old answer – "I don't know yet."

Then they began talking of more commonplace things. Each told the other of his daily life and all his childish interests. Fergus was greatly struck by the account of Gratian's home – the old house with the queer name.

"How I should like to see it," he said, "and to feel the wind blow."

"The winds," corrected Gratian, "the four winds."

"The four winds," repeated Fergus. "North, south, east, and west. They don't blow all together, do they?"

"I think they do sometimes. Yes, I know they do – at night I'm sure I've heard them all four together, like tones in music."