Four Winds Farm

"Is that you, Gratian? You are very late; if it had not been such a very still, beautiful evening I should really have begun to think you had been blown away coming over the moor."

And Gratian rubbed his eyes as he came blinking into the kitchen. His mother's words puzzled him, though he knew she was only joking. It was a very still night – that was the funny part of it.

"Why, you look for all the world as if you'd been having a nap, my boy," she went on, and Gratian stood rubbing his hands before the fire, wondering if perhaps he had. He was half-inclined to tell his mother of Tony's trick and what had come of it. But she might say he had dreamt it, and then it would seem ill-natured to Tony.

"And I don't want mother and father to think I'm always dreaming and fancying," he thought to himself, for just at that moment the farmer's footsteps were heard as he came in to supper. "Anyway I want them to see I mean to get on better at school than I have done."

He did not speak much at table, but he tried to help his mother by passing to her whatever she wanted, and jumping up to fetch anything missing. And it was a great pleasure when his father once or twice nodded and smiled at him approvingly.

"He's getting to be quite a handy lad – eh, mother?" he said.

As soon as supper was over and cleared away, Gratian set to work at his lessons with a light heart. It was wonderful how much easier and more interesting they seemed now that he really gave his whole attention, and especially since he had tried to understand what the teacher had said about them.

"If only I had tried like this before, how much further on I should be now," he could not help saying to himself with a sigh. "And the queer thing is, that the more I try the more I want to try. My head begins to feel so much tidier."

But with all the goodwill in the world, at nine years old a head cannot do very much at a time. Gratian had finished all the lessons he had to do for the next day and was going back in his books with the wish to learn over again, and more thoroughly, much that he had not before really taken in or understood, when to his distress his poor little head bumped down on to the volume before him, and he found by the start that he was going to sleep! Still it wasn't very late – mother had said nothing yet about bed-time.

"It is that I have got into such a stupid, lazy way of learning, I suppose," he said to himself, getting up from his seat. "Perhaps the air will wake me up a bit," and he went through the little entrance hall and stood in the porch, looking out.

It was a very different night from the last. All was so still and calm that for once the name of the Farm did not seem to suit it.

Gratian leant against the door-post, looking up to the sky, and just then, like the evening before, old Jonas, followed by Watch, came round the corner.

"Good evening, Jonas," said the boy. "How quiet it is to-night! There wasn't much of a storm after all."

"No, Master Gratian," replied the shepherd; "I told you they were only a-knocking about a bit to keep their hands in;" and he too stood still and looked up at the sky.

"I don't like it so still as this," said the boy. "It doesn't seem right. I came out here for a breath of air to wake me up. I've been working hard at my lessons, Jonas; I'm going always to work hard now. But I wish I wasn't sleepy."

"Sign that you've worked enough for to-night, maybe," said Jonas. But as he spoke, Gratian started.

"Jonas," he said, "did you see a sort of light down there – across the grass there in front, a sort of golden-looking flash? ah, there it is again," and just at the same moment a soft, almost warm waft of air seemed to float across his face, and Gratian fancied he heard the words, "good boy, good boy."

"'Tis a breath of south wind getting up," said old Jonas quietly. "I've often thought to myself that there's colours in the winds, Master Gratian, though folk would laugh at me for an old silly if I said so."

"Colours," repeated Gratian, "do you mean many colours? I wasn't saying anything about the wind though, Jonas – did you feel it too? It was over there – look, Jonas – it seemed to come from behind the big bush."

"Due south, due south," said Jonas. "And golden yellow is my fancy for the south."

"And what for the north, and for the – " began Gratian eagerly, but his mother's voice interrupted him.

"Bedtime, Gratian," she called, "come and put away your books. You've done enough lessons for to-night."

Gratian gave himself a little shake of impatience.

"How tiresome," he said. "I am quite awake now. I want you to go on telling me about the winds, Jonas, and I want to do a lot more lessons. I can't go to bed yet," but even while the words were on his lips, he started and shivered. "Jonas, it can't be south wind. It's as cold as anything."

For a sharp keen gust had suddenly come round the corner, rasping the child's unprotected face almost "like a knife" as people sometimes say, and Watch, who had been rubbing his nose against Gratian, gave a snort of disgust.

"You see Watch feels it too," said the boy. But Jonas only turned a little and looked about him calmly.

"I can't say as I felt it, Master Gratian," he said. "But there's no answering for the winds and their freaks here at the Four Winds Farm, and it's but natural you should know more about 'em than most. All the same, I take it as you're feeling cold and chilly-like means as bed is the best place. You're getting sleepy – to say nothing of the Missus calling to ye to go."

And again the mother's voice was heard.

"Gratian, Gratian, my boy. Don't you hear me?"

He moved, but slowly. A little imp of opposition had taken up its abode in the boy. Perhaps he had been feeling too pleased with his own good resolutions and beginnings!

"Too bad," he muttered to himself, "just when I was getting to understand my lessons better. Old Jonas is very stupid."

Again the short, sharp cutting slap of cold air on his face, and in spite of himself the boy moved more quickly.

"Good-night, Jonas," he said rather grumpily, though he would not let himself shiver for fear he should again be told it showed he was sleepy, "I'm going. I'm not at all tired, but I'm going all the same. Only how you can say it's south wind – !"

"I don't say so now. I said it was south – that soft feeling as if one could see the glow of the south in it. Like enough it's east by now; isn't this where all the winds meet? Well, I'm off too. Good-night, master."

"And you'll tell me about all the colours another time, won't you, Jonas?" said Gratian in a mollified tone.

"Or you'll tell me, maybe," said the old man. "Never fear – we'll have some good talks over it. Out on the moor some holiday, with nobody but the sheep and Watch to hear our fancies – that's the best time – isn't it?"

And the old shepherd whistled to the dog and disappeared round the corner of the house.

His mother met Gratian at the kitchen door.

"I was coming out to look for you," she said. "Put away your books now. You'd do no more good at them to-night."

"I wasn't sleepy, mother. I went to the door to wake myself up," he replied. But his tone was no longer fretful or cross.

"Feeling you needed waking up was something very like being sleepy," she answered smiling. "And all the lessons you have to learn are not to be found in your books, Gratian."

He did not at once understand, but he kept the words in his mind to think over.

"Good-night, mother," and he lifted his soft round face for her kiss.

"Good-night, my boy. Father has gone out to the stable to speak to one of the men. I'll say good-night to him for you. Pleasant dreams, and get up as early as you like if you want to work more."

"Mother," said Gratian hesitatingly.

"Well?"

"Is it a good thing to be born where the four winds meet?"

She laughed.

"I can't say," she replied. "It's not done you any harm so far. But don't begin getting your head full of fancies, my boy. Off with you to bed, and get to sleep as fast as you can. Pleasant dreams."

"But, mother," said the child as he went upstairs, "dreams are fancies."