The Crock of Gold Read Online Free PDF Page B

neither light nor darkness. But she listened, not with her ears, but with her blood. The fingers of her
soul stretched out to clasp a stranger's hand, and her disquietude was quickened through with an eagerness which was neither physical nor mental, for neither her body nor her mind was definitely
interested. Some dim region between these grew alarmed and watched and waited and did not sleep or grow weary at all.
    One morning she lay among the long, warm grasses. She watched a bird who soared and sang for a little time, and then it sped swiftly away down the steep air and out of sight in the blue
distance. Even when it was gone the song seemed to ring in her ears. It seemed to linger with her as a faint, sweet echo, coming fitfully, with little pauses as though a wind disturbed it, and
careless, distant eddies. After a few moments she knew it was not a bird. No bird's song had that consecutive melody, for their themes are as careless as their wings. She sat up and looked about
her, but there was nothing in sight: the mountains sloped gently above her and away to the clear sky; around her the scattered clumps of heather were drowsing in the sunlight; far below she could
see her father's house, a little, grey patch near some trees—and then the music stopped and left her wondering.
    She could not find her goats anywhere, although for a long time she searched. They came to her at last of their own accord from behind a fold in the hills and they were more wildly excited than
she had ever seen them before. Even the cows forsook their solemnity and broke into awkward gambols around her. As she walked home that evening a strange elation taught her feet to dance. Hither
and thither she flitted in front of the beasts and behind them. Her feet tripped to a wayward measure. There was a tune in her ears and she danced to it, throwing her arms out and above her head
and swaying and bending as she went. The full freedom of her body was hers now: the lightness and poise and certainty of her limbs delighted her, and the strength that did not tire delighted her
also. The evening was full of peace and quietude, the mellow, dusky sunlight made a path for her feet, and everywhere through the wide fields birds were flashing and singing, and she sang with them
a song that had no words and wanted none.
    The following day she heard the music again, faint and thin, wonderfully sweet and as wild as the song of a bird, but it was a melody which no bird would adhere to. A theme was repeated again
and again. In the middle of trills, grace-notes, runs and catches it recurred with a strange, almost holy, solemnity. A hushing, slender melody full of austerity and aloofness. There was something
in it to set her heart beating. She yearned to it with her ears and her lips. Was it joy, menace, carelessness? She did not know, but this she did know, that however terrible it was personal to
her. It was her unborn thought strangely audible and felt rather than understood.
    On that day she did not see anybody either. She drove her charges home in the evening listlessly and the beasts also were very quiet.
    When the music came again she made no effort to discover where it came from. She only listened, and when the tune was ended she saw a figure rise from the fold of a little hill. The sunlight was
gleaming from his arms and shoulders, but the rest of his body was hidden by the bracken, and he did not look at her as he went away playing softly on a double pipe.
    The next day he did look at her. He stood waist-deep in greenery fronting her squarely. She had never seen so strange a face before. Her eyes almost died on him as she gazed, and he returned her
look for a long minute with an intent, expressionless regard. His hair was a cluster of brown curls, his nose was little and straight, and his wide mouth drooped sadly at the corners. His eyes were
wide and most mournful and his forehead was very broad and white. His sad eyes and mouth almost made her