Four Winds Farm

Fergus looked delighted.

"Ah, you have to come back to music, you see," he said. "There's nothing tells everything and explains everything as well as music."

"You must have thought about it a great deal," said Gratian admiringly. "I've only just begun to think about things, and I think it's very puzzling, though I'm older than you. I don't know if music would explain things to me."

"Perhaps not as much as to me," said Fergus. "You see it's been my best thing – ever since I was five years old I've been lying like this. At home the others are very kind, but they can't quite understand," he added, shaking his head a little sadly; "they can all run about and jump and play. And when children can do all that, they don't need to think much. Still it is very dull without them – that is why I begged mother to try to get me somebody to play with. But I think you're better than that, Gratian. I think you understand more – how is it? You've never been ill or had to lie still."

"No," said the boy, "but I've had no brothers and sisters to play with me. And perhaps it's with being born at Four Winds – mother says so herself."

"I daresay it is," said Fergus gravely.

"Won't you get better soon?" asked Gratian, looking at Fergus with profound sympathy. For, gentle as he was, the idea of having to lie still, not being able to run about on the moors and feel his dear winds on his face, having even to call to others to help him before he could get to the window and look out on the sunshine – it seemed perhaps more dreadful to Gratian than it would have done to an ordinary, healthy child like Tony Ferris. "Won't you too be able to walk and run about – even if it's only a little?"

"I hope so," Fergus replied. "Mother says I mustn't expect ever to be quite strong. But they say I'm getting better. That's why mother brought me here. Do you know I can eat ever so much more than when I came? If I can get well enough to play – even on a piano – I wouldn't mind so much. I could make up all sorts of things for myself then – I could make pictures even of the moorland and Four Winds Farm, I think, Gratian."

"I'll try to tell you them – I'll try to make some of my fancies into stories and pictures," said Gratian; "then afterwards, when you get well and can play, you can make them into music."

Just then the door opened, and Fergus's mother came in.

"Tea is ready," she said, "and Andrew is going to carry you into the library, Fergus."

She looked at the boy a little anxiously as she spoke, and Gratian saw that a slight shadow of pain or fear crept over Fergus's face.

"Mother," he said, "would it perhaps be better to stay here after all? You could show Gratian the pictures."

The lady looked very disappointed.

"The tea is so nicely set out," she said, "and you know you can't hear the organ well from here. And Andrew doesn't hurt you – he is very careful."

Gratian looked on, anxious too. He understood that it must be good for Fergus to go into another room, otherwise his mother would not wish it. Fergus caught sight of the eagerness on Gratian's face, and it carried the day.

"I will go," he said; "here, Andrew."

A man-servant, with a good-humoured face and a strong pair of arms, came forward and lifted the child carefully.

"You walk beside me, Gratian, and hold my hand. If it hurts much I will pinch you a little, but don't let mother know," he said in a whisper; and thus the little procession moved out of the room right across the hall and down another corridor.

"There must be a window open," said Fergus; "don't you feel the air blowing in? Oh don't shut it, mother," as the lady started forward, "it's such nice soft air – scented as if they were making hay. Oh, it's delicious."

His mother seemed a little surprised.

"There is no window open, dear," she said. "It must be that you feel the change from the warm room to the hall. Perhaps I should have covered you up."

"Oh no, no," repeated Fergus. "I'm not the least cold. It's not a cold wind at all. Gratian, don't you feel it?"

"Yes," said Gratian, holding Fergus's hand firmly. But his eyes had a curious look in them, as if he were smiling inwardly to himself.

"Golden-wings, you darling," he murmured, "I know you're there – thank you so much for blowing away his pain."

In another moment Fergus was settled on a couch in the library – a lofty room with rows and rows of books on every side, nearly up to the ceiling. It would have looked gloomy and dull but for the cheerful fire in one corner and the neat tea-table drawn up before it; as it was, the sort of solemn mystery about it was very pleasing to Gratian.

"Isn't it nice here?" said Fergus. "I'm so glad I came. And do you know it didn't hurt me a bit. The fresh air that came in seemed to blow the pain away."

"I think you really must be getting stronger," said his mother, with a smile of hopefulness on her face, as she busied herself with the tea-table; "you have brought us good luck, Gratian."

"I believe he has," said Fergus. "Mother, do you know what he has been telling me? He was born where the four winds meet – he must be a lucky child, mustn't he, mother?"

"I should say so, certainly," said the lady with a smile. "I wonder if it is as good as being born on a Sunday."

"Oh far better, mother," said Fergus; "there are lots of children born on Sundays, but I never heard of one before that was born at the winds' meeting-place."

"Gratian will be able to tell you stories, I daresay," said his mother – "stories which the winds tell him, perhaps – eh, Gratian?"

Gratian smiled.

"He has been telling me some pictures already," said Fergus; "oh, mother I'm so happy."

"My darling," said his mother. "Now let me see what a good appetite you have. You must be hungry too, Gratian, my boy. You have a long walk home before you."

Gratian was hungry, but he hardly felt as if he could eat – there was so much to look at and to think about. Everything was so dainty and pretty; though he was well accustomed at the Farm to the most perfect cleanliness and neatness, it was new to him to see the sparkling silver, the tea-kettle boiling on the spirit-lamp with a cheerful sound, the pretty china and glass, and the variety of bread and cakes to tempt poor Fergus's appetite. And the lady herself – with her forget-me-not eyes and sweet voice. Gratian felt as if he were in fairyland.

CHAPTER IX

MUSIC AND COUNSEL

"What is this strange new life, this finer sense,
Which lifts me out of self, and bids me
… rise to glorious thought
High hopes, and inarticulate fantasies?"

    "Voices." —Songs of Two Worlds
After tea Fergus's mother turned to the two boys.

"Shall I play to you now?" she said, "or shall we first show Gratian the pictures?"

"Play the last thing, please," said Fergus. "I like to keep it in my mind when I go to bed – it makes me sleep better. We can go into the gallery now and show Gratian the pictures; it would be too dark if we waited."

"It is rather dark already," said the lady, "still Gratian can see some, and the next time he comes he can look at them again."

She rang the bell, and when Andrew came, she told him to wheel Fergus's couch into the picture-gallery, which opened into the library where they were.

Andrew opened a double door at the other end of the room from that by which they had come in, and then he gently wheeled forward the couch on which Fergus was lying, and pushed it through the doorway. The gallery was scarcely large enough to deserve the name, but to Gratian's eyes it looked a very wonderful place. It was long and rather narrow, and the light came from the top, and along the sides and ends were hung a good many pictures. All down one side were portraits – gentlemen with wigs, and ladies with powder, and some in queer, fancy dresses, mostly looking stiff and unnatural, though among them were some beautiful faces, and two or three portraits of children, which caught Gratian's eye.

"What do you think of them?" asked Fergus.

Gratian hesitated.

"I don't think people long ago could have been as pretty as they are now," he said at last, "except that lady in the long black dress – oh, she is very pretty, and so is the red little boy with the dog, and the two girls blowing soap-bubbles. The big one has got eyes like – like the lady's," he added half-timidly.