Four Winds Farm

The lady looked pleased.

"You have a quick eye, Gratian," she said. "The pictures you admire are the best here, and that little girl is my great-grandmother. Now, look at the other side. These are pictures of all kinds – not family ones."

Gratian followed her in silence. The pictures were mostly landscapes – some so very old and dark that one could scarcely distinguish what they were. And some of which the colours were brighter, the boy did not care for any better – they were not like any skies or trees he had ever seen or even imagined, and he felt disappointed.

Suddenly he gave a little cry.

"Oh, I like that – I do like that," he said, and he glanced up at the lady for approval.

She smiled again.

"Yes," she said, "it is a wonderful picture. Quite as much a picture of the wind as of the sea."

Gratian gazed at it with delight. The scene was on the coast, on what one might call a playfully stormy day. The waves came dancing in, their crests flashing in the sunshine, pursued and tossed by the wind; and up above, the little clouds were scudding along quite as busy and eager about their business, whatever it was, as the white-sailed fishing-boats below.

"Do you like it so very much?" she asked.

"Yes," the boy replied, "that's like what I fancied pictures were. I've never seen the sea, but I can feel it must be like that."

And after this he did not seem to care to see any others.

Fergus too was getting a little tired of lying alone while his mother and Gratian made the tour of the gallery. So Andrew was called to wheel him back again to the other door of the library, from whence he could best hear the organ. It stood at one side of the large hall, in a recess which had probably been made on purpose. It was dark in the recess even at mid-day, and now the dusk was fast increasing, so the lady lit the candles fixed at each side of the music-desk, and when she sat down to play the light sparkled and glowed on her fair hair, making it look like gold.

Gratian touched Fergus.

"Doesn't it look pretty?" he said, pointing to the little island of light in the gloomy hall.

Fergus nodded.

"I always think mother turns into an angel when she plays," he said. "Now, let's listen, Gratian, and afterwards you can tell me what pictures the music makes to you, and I'll tell you what it makes to me."

The organ was old and rather out of repair, and Andrew was not very well used to blowing. That made it, I think, all the more wonderful that the lady could bring such music out of it. It was not so fine and perfect, doubtless, as what Gratian had heard from her in church on the Sunday afternoon, but still it was beautiful enough for him to think of nothing but his delight in listening. She played several pieces – some sad and plaintive, some joyful and triumphant, and then Gratian begged her to play the last he had heard at church.

"That is a good choice for our good-night one," she said. "It is a favourite of Fergus's too. He calls it his good-night hymn."

Fergus did not speak – he was lying with his eyes shut, in quiet happiness, and as the last notes died away, "Don't speak yet, Gratian," he said, "you don't know what I am seeing – flocks of birds are slowly flying out of sight, the sun has set, and one hears a bell in the distance ringing very faintly; one by one the lights are going out in the cottages that I see at the foot of the hill, and the night is creeping up. That is what I see when mother plays the good-night. What do you see, Gratian?"

"The moor, I think," said the boy, "our own moor, up, far up, behind our house. It must be looking just as I see it now, at this very minute; only the music is coming from some place – a church, I think, very far away. The wind is bringing it – the south wind, not the one from the sea. And you know that when the music is being played in the church there are lots of people all kneeling so that you can't see their faces, and I think some are crying softly."

"Yes," said Fergus, "that isn't so bad. I can see it too. You'll soon get into the way, Gratian," he went on, with his funny little patronising tone, "of making music-pictures if we practice it together. That's the best of music, you see. It makes itself and pictures too. Now pictures never make you music."

"But they give you feelings – like telling you stories – at least that one I like so much does. And I suppose there are many pictures like that – as beautiful as that?" he went on, as if asking the question from the lady, who had left the organ now and was standing by Fergus, listening to what they were saying.

"Yes," she said, "there are many pictures I should like you to see, and many places too. Places which make one wish one could paint them the moment one sees them. Perhaps it is pictures you are going to care most for, little Gratian? If so, they will be music and poetry and everything to you – they will be your voice."

"Poetry," repeated Fergus, "that's the other thing – the thing I couldn't remember the name of, Gratian."

Gratian looked rather puzzled.

"I don't know much about poetry," he said. "But I don't know about anything. I never saw pictures before. There are so many things to know about," he added with a little sigh.

"Don't be discouraged," said the lady smiling. "Everybody has to find out and to learn and to work hard."

"Has everybody a voice?" asked Gratian.

"No, a great many haven't, and some who have don't use it well, which is worse than having none. But don't look so grave; we shall have plenty of time for talking about all these things. I think you must be going home now, otherwise your mother will be wondering what has become of you. And thank her for letting us have you, and say I hope you may come again on Saturday. You don't mind the long walk home – for it is almost dark, you see?"

"Oh no, I don't mind the dark or anything like that," said Gratian with a little smile, which the lady, even though her forget-me-not eyes were so very clear, could not quite understand.

For he was thinking to himself, "How could I be afraid, with my four godmothers to take care of me, wherever I were?"

Then he turned to say good-bye to Fergus, and the little fellow stretched up his two thin arms and clasped them round the moorland child's neck.

"I love you," he said; "kiss me and come again soon, and let us make stories to tell each other."

The lady kissed him too.

"Thank you for being so good to Fergus," she said.

And Gratian, looking up in her face, wished he could tell her how much he had liked all he had seen and heard, but somehow the words would not come. All he could say was, "Thank you, and good-night."

Out-of-doors again, especially when he got as far as the well-known road he passed along every day, it seemed all like a dream. All the way down the avenue of pines he kept glancing back to see the lights in the windows of the Big House – he liked to think of Fergus and his mother in there by the fire, talking of the afternoon and making, perhaps, plans for another.

"I hope his back won't hurt him to-night when they carry him up to bed," he said to himself. "It was very good of Golden-wings to come. But I'm afraid she can't be here much more, now that the winter is so near. Green-wings might perhaps come sometimes, but – "

A sudden puff of wind in his face, and a voice in his ear, interrupted him. The wind felt sharp and cold, and he did not need the tingling of his cheeks to tell him who was at hand.

"But what?" said the cutting tones of Gray-wings. "Ah, I know what you were going to say, Master Gratian. White-wings and I are too sharp and outspoken for your new friends! Much you know about it. On the contrary, nothing would do the lame boy more good than a nice blast from the north, once he is able to be up and about again. It was for the moorland air the doctors, with some sense for once, sent him up here. And I am sure you must know it isn't Golden-wings and Green-wings only who are to be met with on the moors."

"I'm very sorry if I've offended you," said Gratian, "but you needn't be quite so cross about it. I don't mind you being sharp when I deserve it, but I've been quite good to-day, quite good. I'm sure the lady wouldn't like me if I wasn't good."

"Humph!" said Gray-wings. At least she meant it to be "humph," and Gratian understood it so, but to any one else it would have sounded more like "whri – i – zz," and you would have put up your hand to your head at once to be sure that your cap or hat wasn't going to fly off. "Humph! I don't set up to be perfect, though I might boast a little more experience, a few billions of years more, of this queer world of yours than you. And I've been pretty well snubbed in my time and kept in my proper place – to such an extent, indeed, that I don't now even quarrel with having a very much worse name than I deserve. It's good for one's pride, so I make a wry face and swallow it, though of course, all the same, it must be a very pleasant feeling to know that one has been quite, quite good. I wish you'd tell me what it's like."

"You're very horrid and unkind, Gray-wings," said Gratian, feeling almost ready to cry. "Just when I was so happy, to try and spoil it all. Tell me what you think I've not been good about and I'll listen, but you needn't go mocking at me for nothing."

There was no answer, and Gratian thought perhaps Gray-wings was feeling ashamed of herself. But he was much mistaken. She was only reserving her breath for a burst of laughter. Gratian of course knew it was laughter, though I don't suppose either you or I would have known it for that.

"What is it that amuses you so?" asked the boy.

"It's Green-wings – you can't see her unfortunately – she's posting down in such a hurry. She thinks I tease you, and she knows I'm in rather a mischievous mood to-night. But they've caught her – she can't get past the corner over there, where the Wildridge hills are – and she is in such a fuss. The hills never like her to run past without paying them a visit if they can help it, and she's too soft-hearted to go on her way will-ye, nill-ye, as I do. So you'll have to trust to me to take you home after all, my dear godchild."

"Dear Green-wings," said Gratian, "I don't like her to be anxious about me."

"Bless you, she's always in a pathetic humour about some one or something," said Gray-wings.

"I don't mind you taking me home if you won't mock at me," said Gratian. "Are you really displeased with me? Have I done anything naughty without knowing it?"

Gray-wings's tone suddenly changed. Never had her voice sounded so gentle and yet earnest.