The Freedom of John Peabody

E had come straight to Southern Head, hurrying a little at the end and driving down late at night through wind and rain. He knew there was a welcome for him in the lighthouse. The old Scotch keeper and his wife would put him up. Jean's face would give its slow dazzling smile—the look of health and sun, the freshness of the sea....

But Jean had not been in the lighthouse—she was away with friends inshore—and he had waited, talking with Hugh McFarland of storm and shipwreck, and with Elsie McFarland, Jean's mother, of her tiny patch of garden under the sky on the headland .... He had waited three impatient days. Then she had come walking along the cliff .... Just as she was coming off there now. He watched the strong supple figure advancing in the sunlight .... He had been there two weeks, and he had told her this morning: he was going away, and he should not come back again. She had looked at him with quiet young eyes.

“All right, John; you go and make a sketch on the cliff. There's two hours till the boat goes. You make a sketch, and I'll pack your bag.”

So now he was here on the cliff making the last sketch she had told him to. His easel was not unpacked; his paint-box lay unopened on the turf.

How freely she moved along the edge of the cliff; a mis-step would send her to the bottom, four hundred feet straight down! But she did not look. Her head was up. She was smiling, coming toward him—coming to tell him it was time to start .... A woman always nagging with times and seasons!

His eyes drank in her approach and hated her—and hated himself. She stopped beside the gloomy figure, smiling down.

“I knew you were not painting—so I came.”

“You could not know!” It was gruff and defensive. She laughed.

“I watched you through the glass.”

His lips made an impatient exclamation. Then his face cleared .... only two more hours of being watched through a glass. He stretched his arms.

Her eyes rested on him candidly. “I thought I'd come and we'd have a talk and you could go away easier... I didn't wan't [sic] you to fret yourself about me when you are away. You'll be looking back maybe, worrying about how I'm taking it.”

He pulled his hat well down over his eyes. He did not speak.

“You don't mind talking it over?” she asked.

“Go ahead,” he said gruffly.

She was silent a minute. A gull called down and hung on wide wings and drifted over them. Her eyes followed it. “It's a feeling you have, maybe”—her eyes followed the gull—“that you can't be tied to any one—it's not just me.”

“It is just you!” he said harshly. “That's the trouble!” he stopped.

A light danced for a moment in her face like sunlight. “I'm liking to hear you say that; it makes a kind of music to me! But I'm thinking it's something deeper, inside somewhere—something that's got to be.”

He plucked a spear of tough grass, watching her beneath his hat-brim.

“You'll never be content till you go away and know,” she said.

“Know what?” he grunted. Her eyes watching the sea smiled and turned to him.

“Like the tide—and the birds,” she said. The outstretched wings hovered and wheeled. “They are there—they are gone... Mayhap they don't know why—but with the spring I'm watching...”

“The birds will come back without me, Jean.” He set his teeth grimly on the tough spear of grass. His eyes glowered like an animal imprisoned, alert, watchful... “I've never had freedom, I tell you!” It broke from him. “Always somebody nagging at me—mother, school, tutors, summer camp—after my soul! Then last year I came here” He bit his lip.

“And then it was me,” said Jean. He nodded. “And I came back—but I'm going now. I sha'n't come back.”

Her face was content. “It's right for you to go, John. Of course I'd like right well if you were happy and could stay—or take me with you when you go.” She moved a hand to the sea. “But it's different with a man. Mother always says, 'Men are men!' I expect mother knows. She's wise.”

She smiled with the words, and he seemed to see Elsie MacFarland's wise shrewd face looking up from her squash-vines and cabbages.

“You won't be doing your best work till you've gone free. I'd be glad to wait till you come”

“I don't want you to wait!” The words were almost savage.

“I know.” Her voice soothed him. “You want to forget me.”

“I never want to see you again.” He buried his face in his arms. “Never!”

“That's as may be.” Her voice was quiet. “I'd like right well to think you'd come some day. I'd like my bairns to call you father.”

He stirred.... His eyes were on the sea.

“But don't think I'll be looking for smoke from Eastport, wondering if some day you'll come ... I'd waste my life that way. I'd do a wrong to myself and to you ... I'll never love any other man like I love you, John. I want you to be happy—a great man. You will be!” Her voice lifted him to heights. “You're not just ordinary—that's why I've loved you maybe ... I wanted to tell you—so you wouldn't be worrying when you're gone.” She got up. “I'll go and finish packing. You make the sketch—unpack your box and get to work. You'll be glad you did it.”

She stood a minute listening. A bird was singing in a little cedar-grove a distance from the cliff. Her face held the notes of the bird. He watched her from beneath his hat jealously, holding the notes of the bird.

“No, it's not the whitethroats.” She moved a hand. “I was hoping they'd come; they're always here about this time. They nest in the wood over there.” She nodded to the cedars. “You know the song they sing, the whitethroat sparrows?”

“No.” His voice was dull. Her lips smiled, watching the greenness of the wood.

“They sing 'Peabody',” she said. “Folks call them Peabody birds.”

“Peabody-peahody-peabody!” Her lips whistled the plaintive half-human call of the bird—and waited. The bird in the cedar-wood seemed to listen. Then it sang its song. She shook her head. “That's not the whitethroat—but they'll be here soon. I like to hear them when they sing your name.”

She moved away. He lay with his face on his arm. Below him the surf thudded on the rocks.... It must be nearing high tide, and in his nostrils he smelled the pungent scent of the turf where the ants ran to and fro.

He got up and walked toward the wood. The bird was still singing. He would make a sketch of the cedars and send it to her when he got away. It would please her to have a little sketch of the place where the whitethroats sang.

He passed through the outer circle of trees and came to the grove where the trees grew thick, huddled together for protection against the wind. They showed huge trunks stunted and uncouth. Through the bare tracery of the twigs and branches he could look up to a high flat roof of green that seemed to be shutting out a mysterious sky. All about him in the wood the light was cool and brown; not a fleck of sound but the faraway roll of surf.

He put down his easel and box and stood listening, letting the silence drift in.... No one could paint the sustained harmonious quiet of the wood. It was if a hand were laid on his brow. The unrest of the headland left him.... Great pictures—he should paint them. It needed only this mood—removed from life, untouched by the things men strive for.

Peace was in the wood... There was something behind life that he wanted to get at... something that evaded him—a significance in things peeping out at him and withdrawing swiftly. When he glimpsed it for an instant, horizons drew back. When it disappeared, he painted flat surfaces without a thrill... If he could only understand what it was, back there, hiding behind illusion, if he could fairly glimpse it, hold it, paint it for men to see, he would die content.... But it meant a lifetime of devotion; a whole lifetime was none too long.

His eye rested gratefully on the gnarled cedar-trunks that upheld their canopy of green. They had wrestled and overcome ... they knew. He wanted no other companionship than the green roof shutting out the sky and the great gnarled trunks ... He stood in the temple of his genius.

When he was away he would still paint here in the cedar-grove ... And suddenly Jean was in his thought—with tenderness; she no longer threatened him. He must make the sketch for her ... But not here; the grove was sacred. He wanted no thought of Jean to trouble the great mystery with cross desire.

He passed out into the sunlight. Beyond the grove he saw a scant patch of earth and a figure—Elsie MacFarland, Jean's mother, planting her garden against the sky. He moved toward her.

She looked up and put back the lock of hair that the wind blew in her eyes. The storms that grayed the hair had not touched Elsie MacFarland. She had Jean's eyes and smile, with a deepening and steadfast look—the look Jean would bear in forty years.

“We'll be getting a storm,” she said.

“Think so?” He looked back of him—across the sunlit cliff. “It does not look like a storm.”

“It's the feel of the wind; there'll be a blow, I'm thinking. No rain maybe; but I'm getting my seeds in, on the chance. Jean's coming to help me—when she's packed your bag. We're sorry you're going.”

“I must.” He looked stubbornly across the cliff.

“That's right!” she nodded. “Go and have your play.”

His play! He held the thought of the greenwood to him. No woman would understand.

Her shrewd kindliness enfolded him. “You will be a different man when you're coming back,” she said.

“I am not coming back.”

She did not reply. She bent again to her seeds. He watched her for a minute: strong like the earth she handled in her brown fingers, and quiet like the light in the cedar-grove .... He turned away and walked rapidly across the cliff, as if something sought to hold him; he must escape.

He passed along the edge of the cliff and descended a sloping path at the farther end where the cliff dropped down and thrust out in a projection of broken rock to the sea. He had come here every day with Jean. Hardy cliff flowers grew in the crevices—bartsia, pimpernel, speedwell, blue like her eyes ... He scanned the path ahead. It should be a pretty sketch for Jean, something she would like to put on her wall and live with. The curving path rounded a huge boulder, and he looked up. He stood gazing toward the great cliff that rose in sheer lonely height from the sea .... He stood holding his breath. The light on the face of the cliff was changing, and the wall of block-like surfaces took on a look of grandeur. Curved in the ample sweep of some majestic ampitheatre [sic], the sea-carved rocks rose tier on tier, block on block—the stalls of Titans, facing the sea. His breath caught. The cliff stood imperious.

To seize the moment—the light that swept the headland! He looked down. Below him the rocks of the lower headland on which he stood sloped, jagged and broken, to the foot of the cliff. A steady foot would carry him down, and out to that projecting rock that faced the cliff.

His eyes searched the pathless descent; his hand in his pocket was feeling for the strap that fastened easel and box to his back ... With a little laugh he bounded down and remembered the many times Jean had prevented his scrambling down the zigzag rocks to the bottom of the cliff .... Not safe! Sometimes, she had promised him, when wind and tide served, she would row him out to that rock that faced the cliff and he should make his sketch—if he would promise her not to go down by the rocks. He had promised her.

Well, promises were off! He leaped to a rock below. She should have a sketch of the great cliff frowning up from below—that she forbade him to take a risk for! Sliding now, scrambling and slipping down the fissured rock, testing each step of shale with his foot—like a flying figure of a dream he saw himself lose balance and recover, and leap again ..... One more breath!

He landed with a shaken laugh and ran along the seaweed surface, slipping and scrambling—out to the plateau of safety he had watched from above.

He turned and looked up. Above him rose the cliff, challenging. Below him around his rock washed the sea—kelp and seaweed rising with the tide and sucking downward with its withdrawal. He measured the great cliff—three hundred, four hundred feet, straight up from the scant foreground to the edge in the sun .... And the sea lapping its foot—the sea that could crumble but never wear it down .... He studied the towering rock. How catch in color that serene repose—strike off with a touch of his brush a million years?

He set up his easel and canvas .... His fingers tingled; his heart was singing. Freedom! He had cast out the last human call! He stood with the masters of the world before the cliff!

Swift lines, urging breath, incisive strokes—the stark cliff set in that tiny space, caught in a globule of matter, to light the world! He carried the torch ahead .... He would set it where other men must climb!

He stood back from the picture and gazed. He stared at it whistling softly ....

He turned and gasped and looked down. The tide had stolen on him; the lapping water was swirling about his rock. He glanced at the traceless path by which he had descended: a flood shut it off, too deep and swift to swim. Through the narrow channel between him and the foot of the cliff the water was pouring with swift rush. He packed his sketch with flying fingers and strapped the box on his back. The easel—he dared not risk it. He kicked it with his foot, and it fell into the sea; he saw it sucked back and tossed up once—and disappear.

He drew a laughing breath, looking up to the stern face of the cliff. Did it think it could daunt him? He studied the surface with sharp eye and put up a foot and mounted. He tested the next projection. He was cool now. He knew what he had to do—straight up—only a little leeway on one side or the other .... His sinews were iron! He wondered coolly as he went whether any other man had done it—not likely! .... Not many fools in the world—to lose their wits for a little paint! .... Up another pull—sheer perpendicular climbing. An orgy of exultation was in him as he mounted .... Free!

Free as the gulls up there soaring above the cliff! He paused, noting how the great wings hung motionless. The wind must be rising to a gale—they seemed borne on a tide.

He lifted himself steadily; the gulls were nearer now. He could see their breasts glisten; his eye measured the distance up to the edge of the cliff—fifty feet, seventy-five ... He rested his fingers; they were beginning to feel the strain, but he had covered three-quarters of the way .... His eye glanced down over the rock he had scaled.

The whole world was heaving in space ...

Slowly the fingers gripped the rock .... Steady! The space behind him was calling—trumpeting .... Steady—up!

“Two times four are eight,” he said under his breath; “two times five are ten; two times six are twelve; two times seven are ...” The world grew steady and settled on its axis—he saw a boy at his desk in school, the wooden seats and the teacher's kind face—she wore her hair in a braid ....

“Two times eight are sixteen.” Flat sheer surface! He saw himself pressed against it in mid-air. Then it seemed to shake beneath him and he felt it crowding out ... And space off there—calling ... One flying leap—his hurling body would be free!

The irony of the thought wrenched a grunting laugh ... If he could get his fingers off that sucking rock!

Then he knew—sheer terror pinned him to the face of the cliff! Only the suction of his tense nerveless fingers between him and space .... Free!

A cry broke from him—and another. God! Would no one hear?

A voice came—a call that thrilled him, running ... The voice sailed on the wind:

“Cling-ahold, John! Hold fast!”

Cling hold! The nerveless fingers on the tiny projection could not loose their hold if they would ... The cliff was pressing out, pressing against him, pressing him off into space—crowding out, swelling to fling him into the abyss—pushing on spent fingers to let go and drop!

“Hold fast, John!” The cry came again, and the wind caught it ironically and tossed it. It sailed in empty space ... She was running on the cliff above—her voice drifting as she ran.

A coil of rope hung from a great cedar; she caught it and wound it about the trunk. She drew a knot, testing it with set lips ... More than one figure she had seen drawn up the face of the cliff with that rope—strength gone, finger-tips bleeding.

She drew another knot and tested it and ran swiftly to a smaller tree at the edge of the cliff and passed it around the trunk .... Leaning over, she gauged the figure clinging to the face of the wall. The looped end of the rope swirled outward—caught by the wind—borne up ... She dropped to her knees, her eyes on the figure. Her arm flung again with free swing—a twist of the wrist, and the rope dropped on the shoulders—her eyes watched.

“Slip your arm up, John! One arm—and the other! You can do it!” Did she know he could not move a finger—till the last plunge into space! The voice came down—coaxing, commanding.

His lips were dry; he ran his tongue along them. He tested the fingers that clung to the neck ...

“Look up, John!” He glanced above him. Her face, clear and homelike, was bending to the edge of the cliff. She was smiling ... The tense fingers relaxed a breath—and she nodded quickly. “Now!”

He felt the rope give—one arm reached up—the other .... The rope slipped down his body and tightened with a gentle pull. He drew breath.

Above him he could hear her voice:

“The one on the left there—yes! Then the next one and up!”

The voice seemed to laugh and lift him. Fear dropped in the abyss ... With Jean against the sky—with that tiny circle of rope shutting him off from space—he could climb forever! .... Hand over hand. He had only to put one hand over the other—then a foot up and another ... He drew breath and came above the edge of the cliff and leaped ... Danger fell back in space.

She stood before him, the slackened rope in her fingers, her legs well apart, still braced, looking at him with her steady gaze.

“That was a grand and foolhardy risk, my man!” she nodded ... Far in the depths of her brimming eyes he saw the cedar-grove, brown and cool, and beneath the high flat roof of green he heard a bird singing....