The Place Beyond the Winds | Page 8

and warmth; she wanted to get close to life again and feel, as
she had earlier, the kinship and joy, but the mood had passed.
It was after the dishes of the midday meal were washed that she
bethought her of the old shrine back near the woods. It was many a day
since she had been there--not since the autumn before--and she felt old
and different, but still she had a sudden desire to return to it and try
again the mystic rite she had practised when she was a little girl. It was
like going back to play, to be sure; all the sacredness was gone, but the
interest remained, and her yearning spurred her to her only resource.
At two o'clock Nathaniel was off to a distant field, and Theodora
announced that she must walk to the village for a bit of "erranding."
She wanted Priscilla to join her, thinking it would please the girl, but
Priscilla shook her head and pleaded a weariness that was more mental
than physical. At three o'clock, arrayed in a fresh gown, over which
hung a red cape, Priscilla stole from the house and made her way to the
opening near the woods. As she drew close the power of suggestion
overcame the new sense of age and indifference; the witchery of the
place held her; the old charm reasserted itself; she was being
hypnotized by the Past. Tiptoeing to the niche in the rock she drew
away the sheltering boughs and branches she had placed there one

golden September day. The leaves had been red and yellow then; they
were stiff and brown now. The leering skull confronted her as it had in
the past and changed her at once to the devotee.
Before the dead thing the live, lovely creature bowed gravely. After all,
had not the image, instead of God, answered her first prayer?
Nathaniel's heart had not been softened and school had not been
permitted, but there had been lessons given by the master when she told
him of her new god. How he had laughed, clapping his knees with his
long, thin, white hands! But he had taught her on hillside and woodland
path. No one knew this but themselves and the strange idol!
A rapt look spread over Priscilla's face; the look of the worshipper who
could lose self in a passion. But this was no dread god that demanded
unlovely sacrifice. It was a glad creature that desired laughter, song,
and dance. Priscilla had seen to that. A repetition of her father's creed
would have been unendurable.
"Skib, skib, skibble--de--de--dosh!"
Again the deep and sweeping courtesy and chanting of the weird words.
The final "dosh!" held, in its low, fierce tone, all the significance of
abject adoration. With that "dosh" had the child Priscilla wooed the
favour and recognition of the god. It was a triumph of appeal.
And then the dance began--the wild, fantastic steps full of grace and joy
and the fury and passion of youth. Round and round spun the slight
form, with arms over head or spread wide. The red cape floated, rising
and falling; the uplifted face changed with every moment's flitting
thought. It was a beautiful thing, that dance, grotesque, pagan, and yet
divine, and through it all, panting and pulsing, sounded the strange,
incomprehensible words:
"Skib, skib, skibble--de--de--dosh!"
While the rite was at high tide a young fellow, lying prone under a
clump of trees beyond the open space, looked on, first in amaze
mingled with amusement, and then with delight and admiration. He had

never seen anything at once so heathenish and so exquisite. To one
hampered and restricted as he was in bodily freedom, the absolute
grace was marvellous, but the uncanny words and the girl's apparent
seriousness gave a touch of unreality to the scene. Presently, from sheer
inability to further control himself, the looker-on gave a laugh that rent
the stillness of the afternoon like a cruel shock.
Priscilla, horrified, paused in the midst of a wild whirl and listened, her
eyes dilating, her nostrils twitching. She waited for another burst that
would make her understand.
Having given vent to that one peal of mirth, Richard Travers pulled
himself to a sitting position, and, by so doing, presented his head and
shoulders to the indignant eyes of Priscilla Glenn.
"Oh!" cried she; "how dare you!"
And now Travers got rather painfully upon his feet, and, with fiddle
under one arm and book under the other, came forward into the open
and inclined his uncovered head. He was twenty then, fair and
handsome, and in his gray eyes shone that kindliness that was doomed
later on to bring him so much that was both evil and good.
"I beg your pardon. I did not know I