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diff --git a/8902-0.txt b/8902-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1b49ca1 --- /dev/null +++ b/8902-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7261 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Flight of the Shadow, by George MacDonald + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Flight of the Shadow + +Author: George MacDonald + + +Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8902] +This file was first posted on August 22, 2003 +Last Updated: March 9, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLIGHT OF THE SHADOW *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Mary Meehan and Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + +THE FLIGHT OF THE SHADOW + +By George MacDonald + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER I. MRS. DAY BEGINS THE STORY + +CHAPTER II. MISS MARTHA MOON + +CHAPTER III. MY UNCLE + +CHAPTER IV. MY UNCLE'S ROOM, AND MY UNCLE IN IT + +CHAPTER V. MY FIRST SECRET + +CHAPTER VI. I LOSE MYSELF + +CHAPTER VII. THE MIRROR + +CHAPTER VIII. THANATOS AND ZOE + +CHAPTER IX. THE GARDEN + +CHAPTER X. ONCE MORE A SECRET + +CHAPTER XI. THE MOLE BURROWS + +CHAPTER XII. A LETTER + +CHAPTER XIII. OLD LOVE AND NEW + +CHAPTER XIV. MOTHER AND UNCLE + +CHAPTER XV. THE TIME BETWEEN + +CHAPTER XVI. FAULT AND NO FAULT + +CHAPTER XVII. THE SUMMONS + +CHAPTER XVIII. JOHN SEES SOMETHING + +CHAPTER XIX. JOHN IS TAKEN ILL + +CHAPTER XX. A STRANGE VISIT + +CHAPTER XXI. A FOILED ATTEMPT + +CHAPTER XXII. JOHN RECALLS AND REMEMBERS + +CHAPTER XXIII. LETTER AND ANSWER + +CHAPTER XXIV. HAND TO HAND + +CHAPTER XXV. A VERY STRANGE THING + +CHAPTER XXVI. THE EVIL DRAWS NIGHER + +CHAPTER XXVII. AN ENCOUNTER + +CHAPTER XXVIII. ANOTHER VISION + +CHAPTER XXIX. MOTHER AND SON + +CHAPTER XXX. ONCE MORE, AND YET AGAIN + +CHAPTER XXXI. MY UNCLE COMES HOME + +CHAPTER XXXII. TWICE TWO IS ONE + +CHAPTER XXXIII. HALF ONE IS ONE + +CHAPTER XXXIV. THE STORY OF MY TWIN UNCLES + +CHAPTER XXXV. UNCLE EDMUND'S APPENDIX + +CHAPTER XXXVI. THE END OF THE FIRST VOLUME + + + + +THE FLIGHT OF THE SHADOW. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +MRS. DAY BEGINS THE STORY. + +I am old, else, I think, I should not have the courage to tell the story +I am going to tell. All those concerned in it about whose feelings I am +careful, are gone where, thank God, there are no secrets! If they know +what I am doing, I know they do not mind. If they were alive to read as I +record, they might perhaps now and again look a little paler and wish the +leaf turned, but to see the things set down would not make them unhappy: +they do not love secrecy. Half the misery in the world comes from trying +to look, instead of trying to be, what one is not. I would that not God +only but all good men and women might see me through and through. They +would not be pleased with everything they saw, but then neither am I, and +I would have no coals of fire in my soul's pockets! But my very nature +would shudder at the thought of letting one person that loved a secret +see into it. Such a one never sees things as they are--would not indeed +see what was there, but something shaped and coloured after his own +likeness. No one who loves and chooses a secret can be of the pure in +heart that shall see God. + +Yet how shall I tell even who I am? Which of us is other than a secret to +all but God! Which of us can tell, with poorest approximation, what he or +she is! Not to touch the mystery of life--that one who is not myself has +made me able to say _I_, how little can any of us tell about even those +ancestors whose names we know, while yet the nature, and still more the +character, of hundreds of them, have shared in determining what _I_ means +every time one of us utters the word! For myself, I remember neither +father nor mother, nor one of their fathers or mothers: how little then +can I say as to what I am! But I will tell as much as most of my readers, +if ever I have any, will care to know. + +I come of a long yeoman-line of the name of Whichcote. In Scotland the +Whichcotes would have been called _lairds_; in England they were not +called _squires_. Repeatedly had younger sons of it risen to rank and +honour, and in several generations would his property have entitled the +head of the family to rank as a squire, but at the time when I began to +be aware of existence, the family possessions had dwindled to one large +farm, on which I found myself. Naturally, while some of the family had +risen, others had sunk in the social scale; and of the latter was Miss +Martha Moon, far more to my life than can appear in my story. I should +imagine there are few families in England covering a larger range of +social difference than ours. But I begin to think the chief difficulty in +writing a book must be to keep out what does not belong to it. + +I may mention, however, my conviction, that I owe many special delights +to the gradual development of my race in certain special relations to the +natural ways of the world. That I was myself brought up in such +relations, appears not enough to account for the intensity of my pleasure +in things belonging to simplest life--in everything of the open air, in +animals of all kinds, in the economy of field and meadow and moor. I can +no more understand my delight in the sweet breath of a cow, than I can +explain the process by which, that day in the garden--but I must not +forestall, and will say rather--than I can account for the tears which, +now I am an old woman, fill my eyes just as they used when I was a child, +at sight of the year's first primrose. A harebell, much as I have always +loved harebells, never moved me that way! Some will say the cause, +whatever it be, lies in my nature, not in my ancestry; that, anyhow, it +must have come first to some one--and why not to me? I answer, Everything +lies in everyone of us, but has to be brought to the surface. It grows a +little in one, more in that one's child, more in that child's child, and +so on and on--with curious breaks as of a river which every now and then +takes to an underground course. One thing I am sure of--that, however any +good thing came, I did not make it; I can only be glad and thankful that +in me it came to the surface, to tell me how beautiful must he be who +thought of it, and made it in me. Then surely one is nearer, if not to +God himself, yet to the things God loves, in the country than amid ugly +houses--things that could not have been invented by God, though he made +the man that made them. It is not the fashionable only that love the +town and not the country; the men and women who live in dirt and +squalor--their counterparts in this and worse things far more than they +think--are afraid of loneliness, and hate God's lovely dark. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +MISS MARTHA MOON. + +Let me look back and see what first things I first remember! + +All about my uncle first; but I keep him to the last. Next, all about +Rover, the dog--though for roving, I hardly remember him away from my +side! Alas, he did not live to come into the story, but I must mention +him here, for I shall not write another book, and, in the briefest +summary of my childhood, to make no allusion to him would be disloyalty. +I almost believe that at one period, had I been set to say who I was, I +should have included Rover as an essential part of myself. His tail was +my tail; his legs were my legs; his tongue was my tongue!--so much more +did I, as we gambolled together, seem conscious of his joy than of my +own! Surely, among other and greater mercies, I shall find him again! The +next person I see busy about the place, now here now there in the house, +and seldom outside it, is Miss Martha Moon. The house is large, built at +a time when the family was one of consequence, and there was always much +to be done in it. The largest room in it is now called the kitchen, but +was doubtless called the hall when first it was built. This was Miss +Martha Moon's headquarters. + +She was my uncle's second cousin, and as he always called her Martha, so +did I, without rebuke: every one else about the place called her Miss +Martha. + +Of much greater worth and much more genuine refinement than tens of +thousands the world calls ladies, she never claimed the distinction. +Indeed she strongly objected to it. If you had said or implied she was +a lady, she would have shrunk as from a covert reflection on the quality +of her work. Had she known certain of such as nowadays call themselves +lady-helps, I could have understood her objection. I think, however, it +came from a stern adherence to the factness--if I may coin the word--of +things. She never called a lie a fib. + +When she was angry, she always held her tongue; she feared being unfair. +She had indeed a rare power of silence. To this day I do not _know_, but +am nevertheless sure that, by an instinct of understanding, she saw into +my uncle's trouble, and descried, more or less plainly, the secret of it, +while yet she never even alluded to the existence of such a trouble. She +had a regard for woman's dignity as profound as silent. She was not of +those that prate or rave about their rights, forget their duties, and +care only for what they count their victories. + +She declared herself dead against marriage. One day, while yet hardly +more than a child, I said to her thoughtfully, + +“I wonder why you hate gentlemen, Martha!” + +“Hate 'em! What on earth makes you say such a wicked thing, Orbie?” she +answered. “Hate 'em, the poor dears! I love 'em! What did you ever see to +make you think I hated your uncle now?” + +“Oh! of course! uncle!” I returned; for my uncle was all the world to me. +“Nobody could hate uncle!” + +“She'd be a bad woman, anyhow, that did!” rejoined Martha. “But did +anybody ever hate the person that couldn't do without her, Orbie?” + +My name--suggested by my uncle because my mother died at my birth--was a +curious one; I believe he made it himself. _Belorba_ it was, and it means +_Fair Orphan_. + +“I don't know, Martha,” I replied. + +“Well, you watch and see!” she returned. “Do you think I would stay here +and work from morning to night if I hadn't some reason for it?--Oh, I +like work!” she went on; “I don't deny that. I should be miserable if I +didn't work. But I'm not bound to this sort of work. I have money of my +own, and I'm no beggar for house-room. But rather than leave your uncle, +poor man! I would do the work of a ploughman for him.” + +“Then why don't you marry him, Martha?” I said, with innocent +impertinence. + +“Marry him! I wouldn't marry him for ten thousand pounds, child!” + +“Why not, if you love him so much? I'm sure he wouldn't mind!” + +“Marry him!” repeated Miss Martha, and stood looking at me as if here at +last was a creature she could _not_ understand; “marry the poor dear man, +and make him miserable! I could love any man better than that! Just you +open your eyes, my dear, and see what goes on about you. Do you see so +many men made happy by their wives? I don't say it's all the wives' +fault, poor things! But the fact's the same: there's the poor husbands +all the time trying hard to bear it! What with the babies, and the +headaches, and the rest of it, that's what it comes to--the husbands are +not happy! No, no! A woman can do better for a man than marry him!” + +“But mayn't it be the husband's fault--sometimes, Martha?” + +“It may; but what better is it for that? What better is the wife for +knowing it, or how much happier the husband for not knowing it? As soon +as you come to weighing who's in fault, and counting how much, it's all +up with the marriage. There's no more comfort in life for either of them! +Women are sent into the world to make men happy. I was sent to your +uncle, and I'm trying to do my duty. It's nothing to me what other women +think; I'm here to serve your uncle. What comes of me, I don't care, so +long as I do my work, and don't keep him waiting that made me for it. You +may think it a small thing to make a man happy! I don't. God thought him +worth making, and he wouldn't be if he was miserable. I've seen one woman +make ten men unhappy! I know my calling, Orbie. Nothing would make me +marry one of them, poor things!” + +“But if they all said as you do, Martha?” + +“No doubt the world would come to an end, but it would go out singing, +not crying. I don't see that would matter. There would be enough to make +each other happy in heaven, and the Lord could make more as they were +wanted.” + +“Uncle says it takes God a long time to make a man!” I ventured to +remark. + +Miss Martha was silent for a moment. She did not see how my remark bore +on the matter in hand, but she had such respect for anything my uncle +said, that when she did not grasp it she held her peace. + +“Anyhow there's no fear of it for the present!” she answered. “You heard +the screed of banns last Sunday!” + +I thought you would have a better idea of Miss Martha Moon from hearing +her talk, than from any talk about her. To hear one talk is better than +to see one. But I would not have you think she often spoke at such +length. She was in truth a woman of few words, never troubled or +troubling with any verbal catarrh. Especially silent she was when any one +she loved was in distress. I have seen her stand moveless for moments, +with a look that was the incarnation of essential motherhood--as if her +eyes were swallowing up sorrow; as if her soul was ready to be the +sacrifice for sin. Then she would turn away with a droop of the eye-lids +that seemed to say she saw what it was, but saw also how little she could +do for it. Oh the depth of the love-trouble in those eyes of hers! + +Martha never set herself to teach me anything, but I could not know +Martha without learning something of the genuine human heart. I gathered +from her by unconscious assimilation. Possibly, a spiritual action +analogous to exosmose and endosmose, takes place between certain souls. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +MY UNCLE. + +Now I must tell you what my uncle was like. + +The first thing that struck you about him would have been, how tall and +thin he was. The next thing would have been, how he stooped; and the +next, how sad he looked. It scarcely seemed that Martha Moon had been +able to do much for him. Yet doubtless she had done, and was doing, more +than either he or she knew. He had rather a small head on the top of his +long body; and when he stood straight up, which was not very often, it +seemed so far away, that some one said he took him for Zacchaeus looking +down from the sycomore. _I_ never thought of analyzing his appearance, +never thought of comparing him with any one else. To me he was the best +and most beautiful of men--the first man in all the world. Nor did I +change my mind about him ever--I only came to want another to think of +him as I did. + +His features were in fine proportion, though perhaps too delicate. +Perhaps they were a little too small to be properly beautiful. When first +I saw a likeness of the poet Shelley, I called out “My uncle!” and +immediately began to see differences. He wore a small but long moustache, +brushed away from his mouth; and over it his eyes looked large. They were +of a clear gray, and very gentle. I know from the testimony of others, +that I was right in imagining him a really learned man. That small head +of his contained more and better than many a larger head of greater note. +He was constantly reading--that is, when not thinking, or giving me the +lessons which make me now thank him for half my conscious soul. + +Reading or writing or thinking, he made me always welcome to share his +room with him; but he seldom took me out walking. He was by no means +regular in his habits--regarded neither times nor seasons--went and came +like a bird. His hour for going out was unknown to himself, was seldom +two days together the same. He would rise up suddenly, even in the middle +of a lesson--he always called it “a lesson together”--and without a word +walk from the room and the house. I had soon observed that in gloomy +weather he went out often, in the sunshine seldom. + +The house had a large garden, of a very old-fashioned sort, such a place +for the charm of both glory and gloom as I have never seen elsewhere. I +have had other eyes opened within me to deeper beauties than I saw in +that garden then; my remembrance of it is none the less of an enchanted +ground. But my uncle never walked in it. When he walked, it was always +out on the moor he went, and what time he would return no one ever knew. +His meals were uninteresting to him--no concern to any one but Martha, +who never uttered a word of impatience, and seldom a word of anxiety. At +whatever hour of the day he went, it was almost always night when he came +home, often late night. In the house he much preferred his own room to +any other. + +This room, not so large as the kitchen-hall, but quite as long, seems to +me, when I look back, my earliest surrounding. It was the centre from +which my roving fancies issued as from their source, and the end of their +journey to which as to their home they returned. It was a curious place. +Were you to see first the inside of the house and then the outside, you +would find yourself at a loss to conjecture where within it could be +situated such a room. It was not, however, contained in what, to a +cursory glance, passed for the habitable house, and a stranger would not +easily have found the entrance to it. + +Both its nature and situation were in keeping with certain peculiarities +of my uncle's mental being. He was given to curious inquiries. He would +set out to solve now one now another historical point as odd as +uninteresting to any but a mind capable of starting such a question. To +determine it, he would search book after book, as if it were a live +thing, in whose memory must remain, darkly stored, thousands of facts, +requiring only to be recollected: amongst them might nestle the thing he +sought, and he would dig for it as in a mine that went branching through +the hardened dust of ages. I fancy he read any old book whatever of +English history with the haunting sense that next moment he might come +upon the trace of certain of his own ancestors of whom he specially +desired to enlarge his knowledge. Whether he started any new thing in +mathematics I cannot tell, but he would sit absorbed, every day and all +day long, for weeks, over his slate, suddenly throw it down, walk out for +the rest of the day, and leave his calculus, or whatever it was, for +months. He read Shakespeare as with a microscope, propounding and +answering the most curious little questions. It seemed to me sometimes, I +confess, that he missed a plain point from his eyes being so sharp that +they looked through it without seeing it, having focused themselves +beyond it. + +A specimen of the kind of question he would ask and answer himself, +occurs to me as I write, for he put it to me once as we read together. + +“Why,” he said, “did Margaret, in _Much ado about Nothing_, try to +persuade Hero to wear her other rabato?” + +And the answer was, + +“Because she feared her mistress would find out that she had been wearing +it--namely, the night before, when she personated her.” + +And here I may put down a remark I heard him make in reference to a +theory which itself must seem nothing less than idiotic to any one who +knows Shakespeare as my uncle knew him. The remark was this--that whoever +sought to enhance the fame of lord St. Alban's--he was careful to use the +real title--by attributing to him the works of Shakespeare, must either +be a man of weak intellect, of great ignorance, or of low moral +perception; for he cast on the memory of a man already more to be pitied +than any, a weight of obloquy such as it were hard to believe anyone +capable of deserving. A being with Shakespeare's love of human nature, +and Bacon's insight into essential truth, guilty of the moral and social +atrocities into which his lordship's eagerness after money for scientific +research betrayed him, would be a monster as grotesque as abominable. + +I record the remark the rather that it shows my uncle could look at +things in a large way as well as hunt with a knife-edge. At the same +time, devoutly as I honour him, I cannot but count him intended for +thinkings of larger scope than such as then seemed characteristic of him. +I imagine his early history had affected his faculties, and influenced +the mode of their working. How indeed could it have been otherwise! + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +MY UNCLE'S ROOM, AND MY UNCLE IN IT. + +At right angles to the long, black and white house, stood a building +behind it, of possibly earlier date, but uncertain intent. It had been +used for many things before my uncle's time--once as part of a small +brewery. My uncle was positive that, whether built for the purpose or +not, it had been used as a chapel, and that the house was originally the +out-lying cell of some convent. The signs on which he founded this +conclusion, I was never able to appreciate: to me, as containing my +uncle's study, the wonder-house of my childhood, it was far more +interesting than any history could have made it. It had very thick walls, +two low stories, and a high roof. Entering it from the court behind the +house, every portion of it would seem to an ordinary beholder quite +accounted for; but it might have suggested itself to a more comprehending +observer, that a considerable space must lie between the roof and the low +ceiling of the first floor, which was taken up with the servants' rooms. +Of the ground floor, part was used as a dairy, part as a woodhouse, part +for certain vegetables, while part stored the turf dug for fuel from the +neighbouring moor. + +Between this building and the house was a smaller and lower erection, a +mere out-house. It also was strongly built, however, and the roof, in +perfect condition, seemed newer than the walls: it had been raised and +strengthened when used by my uncle to contain a passage leading from the +house to the roof of the building just described, in which he was +fashioning for himself the retreat which he rightly called his study, for +few must be the rooms more continuously thought and read in during one +lifetime than this. + +I have now to tell how it was reached from the house. You could hardly +have found the way to it, even had you set yourself seriously to the +task, without having in you a good share of the constructive faculty. The +whole was my uncle's contrivance, but might well have been supposed to +belong to the troubled times when a good hiding-place would have added to +the value of any home. + +There was a large recess in the kitchen, of which the hearth, raised a +foot or so above the flagged floor, had filled the whole--a huge chimney +in fact, built out from the wall. At some later time an oblong space had +been cut out of the hearth to a level with the floor, and in it an iron +grate constructed for the more convenient burning of coal. Hence the +remnant of the raised hearth looked like wide hobs to the grate. The +recess as a chimney-corner was thereby spoiled, for coal makes a very +different kind of smoke from the aromatic product of wood or peat. + +Right and left within the recess, were two common, unpainted doors, with +latches. If you opened either, you found an ordinary shallow cupboard, +that on the right filled with shelves and crockery, that on the left with +brooms and other household implements. + +But if, in the frame of the door to the left, you pressed what looked +like the head of a large nail, not its door only but the whole cupboard +turned inward on unseen hinges, and revealed an ascending stair, which +was the approach to my uncle's room. At the head of the stair you went +through the wall of the house to the passage under the roof of the +out-house, at the end of which a few more steps led up to the door of the +study. By that door you entered the roof of the more ancient building. +Lighted almost entirely from above, there was no indication outside of +the existence of this floor, except one tiny window, with vaguely pointed +arch, almost in the very top of the gable. Here lay my nest; this was the +bower of my bliss. + +Its walls rose but about three feet from the floor ere the slope of the +roof began, so that there was a considerable portion of the room in which +my tall uncle could not stand upright. There was width enough +notwithstanding, in which four as tall as he might have walked abreast up +and down a length of at least five and thirty feet. + +Not merely the low walls, but the slopes of the roof were filled with +books as high as the narrow level portion of the ceiling. On the slopes +the bookshelves had of course to be peculiar. My uncle had contrived, and +partly himself made them, with the assistance of a carpenter he had known +all his life. They were individually fixed to the rafters, each +projecting over that beneath it. To get at the highest, he had to stand +on a few steps; to reach the lowest, he had to stoop at a right angle. +The place was almost a tunnel of books. + +By setting a chair on an ancient chest that stood against the gable, and +a footstool on the chair, I could mount high enough to get into the deep +embrasure of the little window, whence alone to gain a glimpse of the +lower world, while from the floor I could see heaven through six +skylights, deep framed in books. As far back as I can remember, it was my +care to see that the inside of their glass was always bright, so that sun +and moon and stars might look in. + +The books were mostly in old and dingy bindings, but there were a few to +attract the eyes of a child--especially some annuals, in red skil, or +embossed leather, or, most bewitching of all, in paper, protected by a +tight case of the same, from which, with the help of a ribbon, you drew +out the precious little green volume, with its gilt edges and lovely +engravings--one of which in particular I remember--a castle in the +distance, a wood, a ghastly man at the head of a rearing horse, and a +white, mist-like, fleeting ghost, the cause of the consternation. These +books had a large share in the witchery of the chamber. + +At the end of the room, near the gable-window, but under one of the +skylights, was a table of white deal, without cover, at which my uncle +generally sat, sometimes writing, oftener leaning over a book. +Occasionally, however, he would occupy a large old-fashioned easy chair, +under the slope of the roof, in the same end of the room, sitting silent, +neither writing nor reading, his eyes fixed straight before him, but +plainly upon nothing. They looked as if sights were going out of them +rather than coming in at them. When he sat thus, I would sit gazing at +him. Oh how I loved him--loved every line of his gentle, troubled +countenance! I do not remember the time when I did not know that his face +was troubled. It gave the last finishing tenderness to my love for him. +It was from no meddlesome curiosity that I sat watching him, from no +longing to learn what he was thinking about, or what pictures were going +and coming before the eyes of his mind, but from such a longing to +comfort him as amounted to pain. I think it was the desire to be near +him--in spirit, I mean, for I could be near him in the body any time +except when he was out on one of his lonely walks or rides--that made me +attend so closely to my studies. He taught me everything, and I yearned +to please him, but without this other half-conscious yearning I do not +believe I should ever have made the progress he praised. I took indeed a +true delight in learning, but I would not so often have shut the book I +was enjoying to the full and taken up another, but for the sight or the +thought of my uncle's countenance. + +I think he never once sat down in the chair I have mentioned without +sooner or later rising hurriedly, and going out on one of his solitary +rambles. + +When we were having our lessons together, as he phrased it, we sat at the +table side by side, and he taught me as if we were two children finding +out together what it all meant. Those lessons had, I think, the largest +share in the charm of the place; yet when, as not unfrequently, my uncle +would, in the middle of one of them, rise abruptly and leave me without a +word, to go, I knew, far away from the house, I was neither dismayed nor +uneasy: I had got used to the thing before I could wonder what it meant. +I would just go back to the book I had been reading, or to any other that +attracted me: he never required the preparation of any lessons. It was of +no use to climb to the window in the hope of catching sight of him, for +thence was nothing to be seen immediately below but the tops of high +trees and a corner of the yard into which the cow-houses opened, and my +uncle was never there. He neither understood nor cared about farming. His +elder brother, my father, had been bred to carry on the yeoman-line of +the family, and my uncle was trained to the medical profession. My father +dying rather suddenly, my uncle, who was abroad at the time, and had not +begun to practise, returned to take his place, but never paid practical +attention to the farming any more than to his profession. He gave the +land in charge to a bailiff, and at once settled down, Martha told me, +into what we now saw him. She seemed to imply that grief at my father's +death was the cause of his depression, but I soon came to the conclusion +that it lasted too long to be so accounted for. Gradually I grew +aware--so gradually that at length I seemed to have known it from the +first--that the soul of my uncle was harassed with an undying trouble, +that some worm lay among the very roots of his life. What change could +ever dispel such a sadness as I often saw in that chair! Now and then he +would sit there for hours, an open book in his hand perhaps, at which he +cast never a glance, all unaware of the eyes of the small maiden fixed +upon him, with a whole world of sympathy behind them. I suspect, however, +as I believe I have said, that Martha Moon, in her silence, had pierced +the heart of the mystery, though she _knew_ nothing. + +One practical lesson given me now and then in varying form by my uncle, I +at length, one day, suddenly and involuntarily associated with the +darkness that haunted him. In substance it was this: “Never, my little +one, hide anything from those that love you. Never let anything that +makes itself a nest in your heart, grow into a secret, for then at once +it will begin to eat a hole in it.” He would so often say the kind of +thing, that I seemed to know when it was coming. But I had heard it as a +thing of course, never realizing its truth, and listening to it only +because he whom I loved said it. + +I see with my mind's eye the fine small head and large eyes so far above +me, as we sit beside each other at the deal table. He looked down on me +like a bird of prey. His hair--gray, Martha told me, before he was +thirty--was tufted out a little, like ruffled feathers, on each side. But +the eyes were not those of an eagle; they were a dove's eyes. + +“A secret, little one, is a mole that burrows,” said my uncle. + +The moment of insight was come. A voice seemed suddenly to say within me, +“He has a secret; it is biting his heart!” My affection, my devotion, my +sacred concern for him, as suddenly swelled to twice their size. It was +as if a God were in pain, and I could not help him. I had no desire to +learn his secret; I only yearned heart and soul to comfort him. Before +long, I had a secret myself for half a day: ever after, I shared so in +the trouble of his secret, that I seemed myself to possess or rather to +be possessed by one--such a secret that I did not myself know it. + +But in truth I had a secret then; for the moment I knew that he had a +secret, his secret--the outward fact of its existence, I mean--was my +secret. And besides this secret of his, I had then a secret of my own. +For I knew that my uncle had a secret, and he did not know that I knew. +Therewith came, of course, the question--Ought I to tell him? At once, by +the instinct of love, I saw that to tell him would put him in a great +difficulty. He might wish me never to let any one else know of it, and +how could he say so when he had been constantly warning me to let nothing +grow to a secret in my heart? As to telling Martha Moon, much as I loved +her, much as I knew she loved my uncle, and sure as I was that anything +concerning him was as sacred to her as to me, I dared not commit such a +breach of confidence as even to think in her presence that my uncle had a +secret. From that hour I had recurrent fits of a morbid terror at the +very idea of a secret--as if a secret were in itself a treacherous, +poisonous guest, that ate away the life of its host. + +But to return, my half-day-secret came in this wise. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +MY FIRST SECRET. + +I was one morning with my uncle in his room. Lessons were over, and I was +reading a marvellous story in one of my favourite annuals: my uncle had +so taught me from infancy the right handling of books, that he would have +trusted me with the most valuable in his possession. I do not know how +old I was, but that is no matter; man or woman is aged according to the +development of the conscience. Looking up, I saw him stooping over an +open drawer in a cabinet behind the door. I sat on the great chest under +the gable-window, and was away from him the whole length of the room. He +had never told me not to look at him, had never seemed to object to the +presence of my eyes on anything he did, and as a matter of course I sat +observing him, partly because I had never seen any portion of that +cabinet open. He turned towards the sky-light near him, and held up +between him and it a small something, of which I could just see that it +was red, and shone in the light. Then he turned hurriedly, threw it in +the drawer, and went straight out, leaving the drawer open. I knew I had +lost his company for the day. + +The moment he was gone, the phantasm of the pretty thing he had been +looking at so intently, came back to me. Somehow I seemed to understand +that I had no right to know what it was, seeing my uncle had not shown it +me! At the same time I had no law to guide me. He had never said I was +not to look at this or that in the room. If he had, even if the cabinet +had not been mentioned, I do not think I should have offended; but that +does not make the fault less. For which is the more guilty--the man who +knows there is a law against doing a certain thing and does it, or the +man who feels an authority in the depth of his nature forbidding the +thing, and yet does it? Surely the latter is greatly the more guilty. + +I rose, and went to the cabinet. But when the contents of the drawer +began to show themselves as I drew near, “I closed my lids, and kept them +close,” until I had seated myself on the floor, with my back to the +cabinet, and the drawer projecting over my head like the shelf of a +bracket over its supporting figure. I could touch it with the top of my +head by straightening my back. How long I sat there motionless, I cannot +say, but it seems in retrospect at least a week, such a multitude of +thinkings went through my mind. The logical discussion of a thing that +has to be done, a thing awaiting action and not decision--the experiment, +that is, whether the duty or the temptation has the more to say for +itself, is one of the straight roads to the pit. Similarly, there are +multitudes who lose their lives pondering what they ought to believe, +while something lies at their door waiting to be done, and rendering it +impossible for him who makes it wait, ever to know what to believe. Only +a pure heart can understand, and a pure heart is one that sends out ready +hands. I knew perfectly well what I ought to do--namely, to shut that +drawer with the back of my head, then get up and do something, and forget +the shining stone I had seen betwixt my uncle's finger and thumb; yet +there I sat debating whether I was not at liberty to do in my uncle's +room what he had not told me not to do. + +I will not weary my reader with any further description of the evil path +by which I arrived at the evil act. To myself it is pain even now to tell +that I got on my feet, saw a blaze of shining things, banged-to the +drawer, and knew that Eve had eaten the apple. The eyes of my +consciousness were opened to the evil in me, through the evil done by me. +Evil seemed now a part of myself, so that nevermore should I get rid of +it. It may be easy for one regarding it from afar, through the telescope +only of a book, to exclaim, “Such a little thing!” but it was I who did +it, and not another! it was I, and only I, who could know what I had +done, and it was not a little thing! That peep into my uncle's drawer +lies in my soul the type of sin. Never have I done anything wrong with +such a clear assurance that I was doing wrong, as when I did the thing I +had taken most pains to reason out as right. + +Like one stunned by an electric shock, I had neither feeling nor care +left for anything. I walked to the end of the long room, as far as I +could go from the scene of my crime, and sat down on the great chest, +with my coffin, the cabinet, facing me in the distance. The first thing, +I think, that I grew conscious of, was dreariness. There was nothing +interesting anywhere. What should I do? There was nothing to do, nothing +to think about, not a book worth reading. Story was suddenly dried up at +its fountain. Life was a plain without water-brooks. If the sky was not +“a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours,” it was nothing better +than a canopy of gray and blue. By degrees my thought settled on what I +had done, and in a moment I realized it as it was--a vile thing, and I +had lost my life for it! This is the nearest I can come to the expression +of what I felt. I was simply in despair. I had done wrong, and the world +had closed in upon me; the sky had come down and was crushing me! The lid +of my coffin was closed! I should come no more out! + +But deliverance came speedily--and in how lovely a way! Into my thought, +not into the room, came my uncle! Present to my deepest consciousness, he +stood tall, loving, beautiful, sad. I read no rebuke in his countenance, +only sorrow that I had sinned, and sympathy with my suffering because of +my sin. Then first I knew that I had _wronged_ him in looking into his +drawer; then first I saw it was his being that made the thing I had done +an evil thing. If the drawer had been nobody's, there would have been no +wrong in looking into it! And what made it so very bad was that my uncle +was so good to me! + +With the discovery came a rush of gladsome relief. Strange to say, with +the clearer perception of the greatness of the wrong I had done, came the +gladness of redemption. It was almost a pure joy to find that it was +against my uncle, my own uncle, that I had sinned! That joy was the first +gleam through a darkness that had seemed settled on my soul for ever. But +a brighter followed; for thus spake the truth within me: “The thing is in +your uncle's hands; he is the lord of the wrong you have done; it is to +him it makes you a debtor:--he loves you, and will forgive you. Of course +he will! He cannot make undone what is done, but he will comfort you, and +find some way of setting things right. There must be some way! I cannot +be doomed to be a contemptible child to all eternity! It is so easy to go +wrong, and so hard to get right! He must help me!” + +I sat the rest of the day alone in that solitary room, away from Martha +and Rover and everybody. I would that even now in my old age I waited for +God as then I waited for my uncle! If only he would come, that I might +pour out the story of my fall, for I had sinned after the similitude of +Adam's transgression!--only I was worse, for neither serpent nor wife had +tempted me! + +At tea-time Martha came to find me. I would not go with her. She would +bring me my tea, she said. I would not have any tea. With a look like +that she sometimes cast on my uncle, she left me. Dear Martha! she had +the lovely gift of leaving alone. That evening there was no tea in the +house; Martha did not have any. + +With the conceit peculiar to repentance and humiliation, I took a curious +satisfaction in being hard on myself. I could have taken my meal +tolerably well: with the new hope in my uncle as my saviour, came comfort +enough for the natural process of getting hungry, and desiring food; but +with common, indeed vulgar foolishness, my own righteousness in taking +vengeance on my fault was a satisfaction to me. I did not then see the +presumption of the sinner's taking vengeance on her own fault, did not +see that I had no right to do that. For how should a thing defiled +punish? With all my great joy in the discovery that the fault was against +my uncle, I forgot that therefore I was in his jurisdiction, that he only +had to deal with it, he alone could punish, as he alone could forgive it. + +It was the end of August, and the night stole swiftly upon the day. It +began to grow very dusk, but I would not stir. I and the cabinet kept +each other dismal company while the gloom deepened into night. Nor did +the night part us, for I and the cabinet filled all the darkness. Had my +uncle remained the whole night away, I believe I should have sat till he +came. But, happily both for my mental suffering and my bodily endurance, +he returned sooner than many a time. I heard the house-door open. I knew +he would come to the study before going to his bedroom, and my heart gave +a bound of awe-filled eagerness. I knew also that Martha never spoke to +him when he returned from one of his late rambles, and that he would not +know I was there: long before she died Martha knew how grateful he was +for her delicate consideration. Martha Moon was not one of this world's +ladies; but there is a country where the social question is not, “Is she +a lady?” but, “How much of a woman is she?” Martha's name must, I think, +stand well up in the book of life. + +My uncle, then, approached his room without knowing there was a live +kernel to the dark that filled it. I hearkened to every nearer step as he +came up the stair, along the corridor, and up the short final ascent to +the door of the study. I had crept from my place to the middle of the +room, and, without a thought of consequences, stood waiting the arrival +through the dark, of my deliverer from the dark. I did not know that many +a man who would face a battery calmly, will spring a yard aside if a +yelping cur dart at him. + +My uncle opened the door, and closed it behind him. His lamp and matches +stood ready on his table: it was my part to see they were there. With a +sigh, which seemed to seek me in the darkness and find me, he came +forward through it. I caught him round the legs, and clung to him. He +gave a great gasp and a smothered cry, staggered, and nearly fell. + +“My God!” he murmured. + +“Uncle! uncle!” I cried, in greater terror than he; “it's only Orbie! +It's only your little one!” + +“Oh! it's only my little one, is it?” he rejoined, at once recovering his +equanimity, and not for a moment losing the temper so ready, like nervous +cat, to spring from most of us when startled. + +He caught me up in his arms, and held me to his heart. I could feel it +beat against my little person. + +“Uncle! uncle!” I cried again. “Don't! Don't!” + +“Did I hurt you, my little one?” he said, and relaxing his embrace, held +me more gently, but did not set me down. + +“No, no!” I answered. “But I've got a secret, and you mustn't kiss me +till it is gone. I wish there was a swine to send it into!” + +“Give it to me, little one. I will treat it better than a swine would.” + +“But it mustn't be treated, uncle! It might come again!” + +“There is no fear of that, my child! As soon as a secret is told, it is +dead. It is a secret no longer.” + +“Will it be dead, uncle?” I returned. “--But it will be there, all the +same, when it is dead--an ugly thing. It will only put off its cloak, and +show itself!” + +“All secrets are not ugly things when their cloaks are off. The cloak may +be the ugly thing, and nothing else.” + +He stood in the dark, holding me in his arms. But the clouds had cleared +off a little, and though there was no moon, I could see the dim blue of +the sky-lights, and a little shine from the gray of his hair. + +“But mine is an ugly thing,” I said, “and I hate it. Please let me put it +out of my mouth. Perhaps then it will go dead.” + +“Out with it, little one.” + +“Put me down, please,” I returned. + +He walked to the old chest under the gable-window, seated himself on it, +and set me down beside him. I slipped from the chest, and knelt on the +floor at his feet, a little way in front of him. I did not touch him, and +all was again quite dark about us. + +I told him my story from beginning to end, along with a great part of my +meditations while hesitating to do the deed. I felt very choky, but +forced my way through, talking with a throat that did not seem my own, +and sending out a voice I seemed never to have heard before. The moment I +ceased, a sound like a sob came out of the darkness. Was it possible my +big uncle was crying? Then indeed there was no hope for me! He was +horrified at my wickedness, and very sorry to have to give me up! I +howled like a wild beast. + +“Please, uncle, will you kill me!” I cried, through a riot of sobs that +came from me like potatoes from a sack. + +“Yes, yes, I will kill you, my darling!” he answered, “--this way! this +way!” and stretching out his arms he found me in the dark, drew me to +him, and covered my face with kisses. + +“Now,” he resumed, “I've killed you alive again, and the ugly secret is +dead, and will never come to life any more. And I think, besides, we have +killed the hen that lays the egg-secrets!” + +He rose with me in his arms, set me down on the chest, lighted his lamp, +and carried it to the cabinet. Then he returned, and taking me by the +hand, led me to it, opened wide the drawer of offence, lifted me, and +held me so that I could see well into it. The light flashed in a hundred +glories of colour from a multitude of cut but unset stones that lay loose +in it. I soon learned that most of them were of small money-value, but +their beauty was none the less entrancing. There were stones of price +among them, however, and these were the first he taught me, because they +were the most beautiful. My fault had opened a new source of delight: my +stone-lesson was now one of the great pleasures of the week. In after +years I saw in it the richness of God not content with setting right what +is wrong, but making from it a gain: he will not have his children the +worse for the wrong they have done! We shall lose nothing by it: he is +our father! For the hurting sand-grain, he gives his oyster a pearl. + +“There,” said my uncle, “you may look at them as often as you please; +only mind you put every one back as soon as you have satisfied your eyes +with it. You must not put one in your pocket, or carry it about in your +hand.” + +Then he set me down, saying, + +“Now you must go to bed, and dream about the pretty things. I will tell +you a lot of stories about them afterward.” + +We had a way of calling any kind of statement _a story_. + +I never cared to ask how it was that, seeing all the same I had done the +wrong thing, the whole weight of it was gone from me. So utterly was it +gone, that I did not even inquire whether I ought so to let it pass from +me. It was nowhere. In the fire of my uncle's love to me and mine to him, +the thing vanished. It was annihilated. Should I not be a creature +unworthy of life, if, now in my old age, I, who had such an uncle in my +childhood, did not with my very life believe in God? + +I have wondered whether, if my father had lived to bring me up instead of +my uncle, I should have been very different; but the useless speculation +has only driven me to believe that the relations on the surface of life +are but the symbols of far deeper ties, which may exist without those +correspondent external ones. At the same time, now that, being old, I +naturally think of the coming change, I feel that, when I see my father, +I shall have a different feeling for him just because he is my father, +although my uncle did all the fatherly toward me. But we need not trouble +ourselves about our hearts, and all their varying hues and shades of +feeling. Truth is at the root of all existence, therefore everything must +come right if only we are obedient to the truth; and right is the deepest +satisfaction of every creature as well as of God. I wait in confidence. +If things be not as we think, they will both arouse and satisfy a better +_think_, making us glad they are not as we expected. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +I LOSE MYSELF. + +I have one incident more to relate ere my narrative begins to flow from a +quite clear memory. + +I was by no means a small bookworm, neither spent all my time in the +enchanted ground of my uncle's study. It is true I loved the house, and +often felt like a burrowing animal that would rather not leave its hole; +but occasionally even at such times would suddenly wake the passion for +the open air: I must get into it or die! I was well known in the +farmyard, not to the men only, but to the animals also. In the absence of +human playfellows, they did much to keep me from selfishness. But far +beyond it I took no unfrequent flight--always alone. Neither Martha nor +my uncle ever seemed to think I needed looking after; and I am not aware +that I should have gained anything by it. I speak for myself; I have no +theories about the bringing up of children. I went where and when I +pleased, as little challenged as my uncle himself. Like him, I took now +and then a long ramble over the moor, fearing nothing, and knowing +nothing to fear. I went sometimes where it seemed as if human foot could +never have trod before, so wild and waste was the prospect, so unknown it +somehow looked. The house was built on the more sloping side of a high +hollow just within the moor, which stretched wide away from the very edge +of the farm. If you climbed the slope, following a certain rough country +road, at the top of it you saw on the one side the farm, in all the +colours and shades of its outspread, well tilled fields; on the other +side, the heath. If you went another way, through the garden, through the +belt of shrubs and pines that encircled it, and through the wilderness +behind that, you were at once upon the heath. If then you went as far as +the highest point in sight, wading through the heather, among the rocks +and great stones which in childhood I never doubted grew also, you saw +before you nothing but a wide, wild level, whose horizon was here and +there broken by low hills. But the seeming level was far from flat or +smooth, as I found on the day of the adventure I am about to relate. I +wonder I had never lost myself before. I suppose then first my legs were +able to wander beyond the ground with which my eyes were familiar. + +It had rained all the morning and afternoon. When our last lesson was +over, my uncle went out, and I betook myself to the barn, where I amused +myself in the straw. By this time Rover must have gone back to his maker, +for I remember as with me a large, respectable dog of the old-fashioned +mastiff-type, who endured me with a patience that amounted almost to +friendliness, but never followed me about. When I grew hungry, I went +into the house to have my afternoon-meal. It was called tea, but I knew +nothing about tea, while in milk I was a connoisseur. I could tell +perfectly to which of the cows I was indebted for the milk I happened at +any time to be drinking: Miss Martha never allowed the milks of the +different cows to be mingled. + +Just as my meal was over, the sun shone with sudden brilliance into my +very eyes. The storm was breaking up, and vanishing in the west. I threw +down my spoon, and ran, hatless as usual, from the house. The sun was on +the edge of the hollow; I made straight for him. The bracken was so wet +that my legs almost seemed walking through a brook, and my body through a +thick rain. In a moment I was sopping; but to be wet was of no +consequence to me. Not for many years was I able to believe that damp +could hurt. + +When I reached the top, the sun was yet some distance above the horizon, +and I had gone a good way toward him before he went down. As he sank he +sent up a wind, which blew a sense of coming dark. The wind of the sunset +brings me, ever since, a foreboding of tears: it seems to say--“Your day +is done; the hour of your darkness is at hand.” It grew cold, and a +feeling of threat filled the air. All about the grave of the buried sun, +the clouds were angry with dusky yellow and splashes of gold. They +lowered tumulous and menacing. Then, lo! they had lost courage; their +bulk melted off in fierce vapour, gold and gray, and the sharp outcry of +their shape was gone. As I recall the airy scene, that horizon looks like +the void between a cataclysm and the moving afresh of the spirit of God +upon the face of the waters. I went on and on, I do not know why. +Something enticed me, or I was plunged in some meditation, then +absorbing, now forgotten, not necessarily worthless. I am jealous of +moods that can be forgotten, but such may leave traces in the character. +I wandered on. What ups and downs there were! how uneven was the surface +of the moor! The feet learned what the eyes had not seen. + +All at once I woke to the fact that mountains hemmed me in. They looked +mountains, though they were but hills. What had become of home? where was +it? The light lingering in the west might surely have shown me the +direction of it, but I remember no west--nothing but a deep hollow and +dark hills. I was lost! + +I was not exactly frightened at first. I knew no cause of dread. I had +never seen a tramp even; I had no sense of the inimical. I knew nothing +of the danger from cold and exposure. But awe of the fading light and +coming darkness awoke in me. I began to be frightened, and fear is like +other live things: once started, it grows. Then first I thought with +dismay, which became terror, of the slimy bogs and the deep pools in +them. But just as my heart was dying within me, I looked to the +hills--with no hope that from them would come my aid--and there, on the +edge of the sky, lifted against it, in a dip between two of the hills, +was the form of a lady on horseback. I could see the skirt of her habit +flying out against the clouds as she rode. Had she been a few feet lower, +so as to come between me and the side of the hill instead of the sky, I +should not have seen her; neither should I if she had been a few hundred +yards further off. I shrieked at the thought that she did not see me, and +I could not make her hear me. She started, turned, seemed to look whence +the cry could have come, but kept on her way. Then I shrieked in earnest, +and began to run wildly toward her. I think she saw me--that my quicker +change of place detached my shape sufficiently to make it discernible. +She pulled up, and sat like a statue, waiting me. I kept on calling as I +ran, to assure her I was doing my utmost, for I feared she might grow +impatient and leave me. But at last it was slowly indeed I staggered up +to her, spent. My foot caught, and as I fell, I clasped the leg of her +horse: I had no fear of animals more than of human beings. He was +startled, and rearing drew his leg from my arms. But he took care not to +come down on me. I rose to my feet, and stood panting. + +What the lady said, or what I answered, I cannot recall. The next thing I +remember is stumbling along by her side, for she made her horse walk that +I might keep up with her. She talked a little, but I do not remember what +she said. It is all a dream now, a far-off one. It must have been like a +dream at the time, I was so exhausted. I remember a voice descending now +and then, as if from the clouds--a cold musical voice, with something in +it that made me not want to hear it. I remember her saying that we were +near her house, and would soon be there. I think she had found out from +me where I lived. + +All the time I never saw her face: it was too dark. I do not think she +once spoke kindly to me. She said I had no business to be out alone; she +wondered at my father and mother. I think I was too tired to tell her I +had no father or mother. When I did speak, she indicated neither by sound +nor movement that she heard or heeded what I said. She sat up above me in +the dark, unpleasant, and all but unseen--a riddle which the troubled +child stumbling along by her horse's side did not want solved. Had there +been anything to call light, I should have run away from her. Vague +doubts of witches and ogresses crossed my mind, but I said to myself the +stories about them were not true, and kept on as best I could. + +Before we reached the house, we had left the heath, and were moving along +lanes. The horse seemed to walk with more confidence, and it was harder +for me to keep up with him. I was so tired that I could not feel my legs. +I stumbled often, and once the horse trod on my foot. I fell; he went on; +I had to run limping after him. At last we stopped. I could see nothing. +The lady gave a musical cry. A voice and footsteps made answer; and +presently came the sound of a gate on its hinges. A long dark piece of +road followed. I knew we were among trees, for I heard the wind in them +over our heads. Then I saw lights in windows, and presently we stopped at +the door of a great house. I remember nothing more of that night. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +THE MIRROR. + +I woke the next morning in a strange bed, and for a long time could not +think how I came to be there. A maid appeared, and told me it was time to +get up. Greatly to my dislike, she would insist on dressing me. My +clothes looked very miserable, I remember, in consequence of what they +had gone through the night before. She was kind to me, and asked me a +great many questions, but paid no heed to my answers--a treatment to +which I had not been used: I think she must have been the lady's maid. +When I was ready, she took me to the housekeeper's room, where I had +bread and milk for breakfast. Several servants, men and women, came and +went, and I thought they all looked at me strangely. I concluded they had +no little girls in that house. Assuredly there was small favour for +children in it. In some houses the child is as a stranger; in others he +rules: neither such house is in the kingdom of heaven. I must have looked +a forlorn creature as I sat, or perched rather, on the old horsehair-sofa +in that dingy room. Nobody said more than a word or so to me. I wondered +what was going to be done with me, but I had long been able to wait for +what would come. At length, after, as it seemed, hours of weary waiting, +during which my heart grew sick with longing after my uncle, I was, +without a word of explanation, led through long passages into a room +which appeared enormous. There I was again left a long while--this time +alone. It was all white and gold, and had its walls nearly covered with +great mirrors from floor to ceiling, which, while it was indeed of great +size, was the cause of its looking so immeasurably large. But it was some +time before I discovered this, for I was not accustomed to mirrors. +Except the small one on my little dressing-table, and one still less on +Martha's, I had scarcely seen a mirror, and was not prepared for those +sheets of glass in narrow gold frames. + +I went about, looking at one thing and another, but handling nothing: my +late secret had cured me of that. Weary at last, I dropped upon a low +chair, and would probably have soon fallen asleep, had not the door +opened, and some one come in. I could not see the door without turning, +and was too tired and sleepy to move. I sat still, staring, hardly +conscious, into the mirror in front of me. All at once I descried in it +my uncle--but only to see him grow white as death, and turn away, reeling +as if he would fall. The sight so bewildered me that, instead of rushing +to embrace him, I sat frozen. He clapped his hands to his eyes, steadied +himself, stood for a moment rigid, then came straight toward me. But, to +my added astonishment, he gave me no greeting, or showed any sign of joy +at having found me. Never before had he seen me for the first time any +day, without giving me a kiss; never before, it seemed to me, had he +spoken to me without a smile: I had been lost and was found, and he was +not glad! The strange reception fell on me like a numbing spell. I had +nothing to say, no impulse to move, no part in the present world. He +caught me up in his arms, hid his face upon me, knocked his shoulder +heavily against the door-post as he went from the room, walked straight +through the hall, and out of the house. I think no one saw us as we went; +I am sure neither of us saw any one. With long strides he walked down the +avenue, never turning his head. Not until we were on the moor, out of +sight of the house, did he stop. Then he set me down; and then first we +discovered that he had left his hat behind. For all his carrying of me, +and going so fast--and I must have been rather heavy--his face had no +colour in it. + +“Shall I run and get it, uncle?” I said, as I saw him raise his hand to +his head and find no hat there to be taken off. “I should be back in a +minute!” + +It was the first word spoken between us. “No, my little one,” he +answered, wiping his forehead: his voice sounded far away, like that of +one speaking in a dream; “I can't let you out of my sight. I've been +wandering the moor all night looking for you!” + +With that he caught me up again, and pressing his face to mine, walked +with me thus, for a long quarter of a mile, I should think. Oh how safe I +felt!--and how happy!--happy beyond smiling! I loved him before, but I +never knew before what it was to lose him and find him again. + +“Tell me,” he said at length. + +I told him all, and he did not speak a word until my tale was finished. + +“Were you very frightened,” he then asked, “when you found you had lost +your way, and darkness was coming?” + +“I was frightened, or I would not have gone to the lady. But I wish I had +staid on the moor for you to find me. I knew you would soon be out +looking for me. Until she came I comforted myself with thinking that +perhaps even then you were on the moor, and I might see you any moment.” + +“What else did you think of?” + +“I thought that God was out on the moor, and if you were not there, he +would keep me company.” + +“Ah!” said my uncle, as if thinking to himself; “she but needs him the +more when I am with her!” + +“Yes, of course!” I answered; “I need him then for you as well as for +myself.” + +“That is very true, my child!--Shall I tell you one thing I thought of +while looking for you?” + +“Please, uncle.” + +“I thought how Jesus' father and mother must have felt when they were +looking for him.” + +“And they needn't have been so unhappy if they had thought who he +was--need they?” + +“Certainly not. And I needn't have been so unhappy if I had thought who +you were. But I was terribly frightened, and there I was wrong.” + +“Who am I, uncle?” + +“Another little one of the same father as he.” + +“Why were you frightened, uncle?” + +“I was afraid of your being frightened.” + +“I hardly had time to be frightened before the lady came.” + +“Yes; you see I needn't have been so unhappy!” + +My uncle always treated me as if I could understand him perfectly. This +came, I see now, from the essential childlikeness of his nature, and from +no educational theory. + +“Sometimes,” he went on, “I look all around me to see if Jesus is out +anywhere, but I have never seen him yet!” + +“We shall see him one day, shan't we?” I said, craning round to look into +his eyes, which were my earthly paradise. Nor are they a whit less dear +to me, nay, they are dearer, that he has been in God's somewhere, that +is, the heavenly paradise, for many a year. + +“I think so,” he answered, with a sigh that seemed to swell like a +sea-wave against me, as I sat on his arm; “--I hope so. I live but for +that--and for one thing more.” + +There are some, I fancy, who would blame him for not being sure, and +bring text after text to prove that he ought to have been sure. But oh +those text-people! They look to me, not like the clay-sparrows that Jesus +made fly, but like bird-skins in a glass-case, stuffed with texts. The +doubt of a man like my uncle must be a far better thing than their +assurance! + +“Would you have been frightened if you had met him on the moor last +night, little one?” he asked, after a pause. + +“Oh, no, uncle!” I returned. “I should have thought it was you till I +came nearer, and then I should have known who it was! He wouldn't like a +big girl like me to be frightened at him--would he?” + +“Indeed not!'” answered my uncle fervently; but again his words brought +with them a great sigh, and he said no more. + +When we reached home, he gave me up to Martha, and went out again--nor +returned before I was in bed. But he came to my room, and waked me with a +kiss, which sent me faster asleep than before. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +THANATOS AND ZOE + +I think it must have been soon after this that my uncle bought himself a +horse. I know something of horses now--that is, if much riding and much +love suffice to give a knowledge of them--and the horse which was a glory +and a wonder to me then, is a glory and a wonder to me still. He was +large, big-boned, and powerful, with less beauty but more grandeur than a +thoroughbred, and full of a fiery gentleness. He was the very horse for +sir Philip Sidney! + +One day, after he had had him for several months, and had let no one +saddle him but himself, therefore knew him perfectly, and knew that the +horse knew his master, I happened to be in the yard as he mounted. The +moment he was in the saddle, he bent down to me, and held out his hand. + +“Come with me, little one,” he said. + +Almost ere I knew, I was in the saddle before him. I grasped his hand, +instinctively caught with my foot at his, and was astride the pommel. I +will not say I sat very comfortably, but the memory of that day's delight +will never leave me--not “through all the secular to be.” There must be a +God to the world that could give any such delight as fell then to the +share of one little girl! I think my uncle must soon after have got +another saddle, for I have no recollection of any more discomfort; I +remember only the delight of the motion of the horse under me. + +For, after this, I rode with him often, and he taught me to ride as +surely not many have been taught. When he saw me so at home in my seat as +to require no support, he made me change my position, and go behind him. +There I sat sideways on a cloth, like a lady of old time on a pillion. +When I had got used to this, my uncle made me stand on the horse's broad +back, holding on by his shoulders; and it was wonderful how soon, and how +unconsciously, I accommodated myself to every motion of the strength that +bore me, learning to keep my place by pure balance like a rope-dancer. I +had soon quite forgotten to hold by my uncle, and without the least +support rode as comfortably, and with as much confidence, as any rider in +a circus, though with a far less easy pace under me. When my uncle found +me capable of this, he was much pleased, though a little nervous at +times. + +Able now to ride his big horse any way, he brought me one afternoon the +loveliest of Shetland ponies, not very small. With the ordinary human +distrust in good, I could hardly believe she was meant for me. She was a +dappled gray--like the twilight of a morning after rain, my uncle said. +He called her Zoe, which means Life. His own horse he called Thanatos, +which means Death. Such as understood it, thought it a terrible name to +give a horse. For most people are so afraid of Death that they regard his +very name with awe. + +My uncle had a riding-habit made for me, and after a week found I could +give him no more trouble with my horsewomanship. At once I was at home on +my new friend's back, with vistas of delight innumerable opening around +me, and from that day my uncle seldom rode without me. When he went +wandering, it was almost always on foot, and then, as before, he was +always alone. The idea of offering to accompany him on such an occasion, +had never occurred to me. + +But one stormy autumn afternoon--most of my memories seem of the +autumn--my uncle looked worse than usual when he went out, and I felt, I +think for the first time, a vague uneasiness about him. Perhaps I had +been thinking of him more; perhaps I had begun to wonder what the secret +could be that made him so often seem unhappy. Anyhow this evening the +desire awoke to be with him in his trouble whatever it was. There was no +curiosity in the feeling, I think, only the desire to serve him as I had +never served him yet. I had been, as long as I could remember, always at +his beck or lightest call; now I wanted to come when needed without being +called. Was it impossible a girl should do anything for a man in his +trouble? He, a great man, had helped a little girl out of the deepest +despair; could the little girl do nothing for the great man? That the big +people should do everything, did not seem fair! He had told me once that +the world was held together by what every one could do that the others +could not do: there must be something I could do that he could not do! + +The rain was coming down on the roof like the steady tramp of distant +squadrons. I was in the study, therefore near the tiles, and that was how +the rain always sounded upon them. Tramp, tramp, tramp, came the whole +army of things, riding, riding, to befall my uncle and me. Tramp, tramp, +came the troops of the future, to take the citadel of the present! I was +not afraid of them, neither sought to imagine myself afraid! I had no +picture in my mind of any evil that could assail me. A little grove of +black poplars under the gable-window, kept swaying their expostulations, +and moaning their entreaties. The great rushing blasts of the wind +through their rooted resistance, made the music of the band that +accompanied the march of the unknown. I sat and listened, with the vague +conviction that something was being done somewhere. It could not be that +only the wind and the trees and the rain were in all that wailing and +marching! The Powers of life and death must somewhere be at work! Then +rose before me the face of my uncle, as he walked from the room, haloed +in a sorrowful stillness. If only I could be with him! If only I knew +where to seek him! Wishing, wishing, I sat and listened to the rain and +the wind. + +Suddenly I found myself on my feet, making for the door. I would not have +ventured alone upon the moor in such a night, but I should have Zoe with +me, who knew all the ways of it--had doubtless been used to bogs in her +own country, and her mother before her! Like a small elephant, she would +put out her little foot, and tap, and sound, to see if the surface would +bear her--if the questionable spot was what it looked to her mistress, or +what she herself doubted it. When she had once made up her mind in the +negative, no foolish attempt of mine could overpersuade her--could make +her trust our weight on it a hair's-breadth. In a bog the greenest spots +are the most dangerous, and Zoe knew it: the matted roots might be afloat +on a fathomless depth of water. Backed by my uncle, she soon taught me to +be as much afraid of those green spots as she was herself. I had learned +to trust her thoroughly. + +I took my way to the stable, with a hug and a kiss to Martha as I passed +her in the kitchen, I got the cowboy to saddle Zoe, fearing I might not +persuade one of the big men on such a night, and I was not quite able +myself to tighten the girths properly. She had not been out all day, and +when I mounted, she danced at the prospect of a gallop. + +I took with me the little lantern I went about the place with when +there was no moon, and with this alight in my hand, we darted off at a +tight-reined gallop into the wet blowing night. What I was going for I +did not know, beyond being with my uncle. So far was I from any fear, +that, but for my shadowy uneasiness about him, I should have been filled +full of the wild joy of battle with the elements. The first part of the +way, I had to cling to the saddle: not otherwise could I keep my seat +against the wind, which blew so fiercely on me sideways, that it +threatened to blow me out of it. + +I had not gone far before the saddle began to turn round with me; I was +slipping to the ground. I pulled up, dismounted, undid the girths with +difficulty, set the saddle straight, then pulled at every strap with all +my might. It was to no purpose: I could not get another hole out of one +of them. I mounted and set off again; but the moment a stronger blast +came, the saddle began to turn. Then I thought of something to try: +dismounting once more, I got up on the off side. The wind now pushed me +on to the saddle, freeing it from my leverage, while I had, besides, the +use of my legs against the wind, so that we got on bravely, my Zoe and I. +But, alas! my lantern was out, and it was impossible to light it again, +so that I had now no arrow to shoot at random for my uncle's eye. Before +long we reached a tolerable cart-track, which led across the waste to a +village, and the wind being now behind us, I resumed the more comfortable +seat in the saddle. + +We were going at a good speed, and had ridden, as I judged, about three +miles, when there came a great flash of lightning--not like any flash I +had ever seen before. It was neither the reflection of lightning below +the horizon, nor the sudden zigzagged blade, the very idea of force +without weight; it was the burst of a ball-headed torrent of fire from a +dark cloud, like water sudden from a mountain's heart, which went rushing +down a rugged channel, as if the cloud were indeed a mountain, and the +fire one of its cataracts. Its endurance was momentary, but its moments +might have been counted, for it lasted appreciably longer than an +ordinary flash, revealing to my eyes what remains on my mind clear as the +picture of some neighbouring tree on the skin of one slain by lightning. +The torrent tumbled down the cloud and vanished, but left with me the +vision of a man, plainly my uncle, a few hundred yards from me, on a +gigantic gray horse, which reared high with fright. But for its size I +could have testified before a magistrate, that I had not only seen that +horse in the stable as my pony was being saddled, but had stroked and +kissed him on the nose. I conceived at once that his apparent size was an +illusion caused by the suddenness and keenness of the light, and that my +uncle had come home before I had well reached the moor, and had ridden +out after me. With a wild cry of delight, I turned at once to leave the +road and join him. But the thunder that moment burst with a terrific +bellow, and swallowed my cry. The same instant, however, came through it +from the other side the voice of my uncle only a few yards away. + +“Stay, little one,” he shouted; “stay where you are. I will be with you +in a moment.” + +I obeyed, as ever and always without a thought I obeyed the slightest +word of my uncle: Zoe and I stood as if never yet parted from chaos and +the dark, for Zoe too loved his voice. The wind rose suddenly from a lull +to a great roar, emptying a huge cloudful of rain upon us, so that I +heard no sound of my uncle's approach; but presently out of the dark an +arm was around me, and my head was lying on my uncle's bosom. Then the +dark and the rain seemed the natural elements for love and confidence. + +“But, uncle,” I murmured, full of wonder which had had no time to take +shape, “how is it?” + +He answered in a whisper that seemed to dread the ear of the wind, lest +it should hear him-- + +“You saw, did you?” + +“I saw you upon Death away there in the middle of the lightning. I was +going to you. I don't know what to think.” + +My uncle and I often called the horse by his English name. + +“Neither do I,” he returned, with a strange half voice, as if he were +choking. “It must have been--I don't know what. There is a deep bog away +just there. It must be a lake by now!” + +“Yes, uncle; I might have remembered! But how was I to think of that when +I saw you there--on dear old Death too! He's the last of horses to get +into a bog: he knows his own weight too well!” + +“But why did you come out on such a night? What possessed you, little +one--in such a storm? I begin to be afraid what next you may do.” + +“I never do anything--now--that I think you would mind me doing,” I +answered. “But if you will write out a little book of _mays_ and +_maynots_, I will learn it by heart.” + +“No, no,” he returned; “we are not going back to the tables of the law! +You have a better law written in your heart, my child; I will trust to +that.--But tell me why you came out on such a night--and as dark as +pitch.” + +“Just because it was such a night, uncle, and you were out in it,” I +answered. “Ain't I your own little girl? I hope you ain't sorry I came, +uncle! I am glad; and I shouldn't like ever to be glad at what made you +sorry.” + +“What are you glad of?” + +“That I came--because I've found you. I came to look for you.” + +“Why did you come to-night more than any other night?” + +“Because I wanted so much to see you. I thought I might be of use to +you.” + +“You are always of use to me; but why did you think of it just to-night?” + +“I don't know.--I am older than I was last night,” I replied. + +He seemed to understand me, and asked me no more questions. + +All the time, we had been standing still in the storm. He took Zoe's head +and turned it toward home. The dear creature set out with slow leisurely +step, heedless apparently of storm and stable. She knew who was by her +side, and he must set the pace! + +As we went my uncle seemed lost in thought--and no wonder! for how could +the sight we had seen be accounted for! Or what might it indicate? + +Many were the strange tales I had read, and my conviction was that the +vision belonged to the inexplicable. It grew upon me that I had seen my +uncle's double. That he should see his own double would not in itself +have much surprised me--or, indeed, that I should see it; but I had never +read of another person seeing a double at the same time with the person +doubled. During the next few days I sought hard for some possible +explanation of what had occurred, but could find nothing parallel to it +within the scope of my knowledge. I tried _fata morgana, mirage, +parhelion_, and whatever I had learned of recognized illusion, but in +vain sought satisfaction, or anything pointing in the direction of +satisfaction. I was compelled to leave the thing alone. My uncle kept +silence about it, but seemed to brood more than usual. I think he too was +convinced that it must have another explanation than present science +would afford him. Once I ventured to ask if he had come to any +conclusion; with a sad smile, he answered, + +“I am waiting, little one. There is much we have to wait for. Where would +be the good of having your mind made up wrong? It only stands in the way +of getting it made up right!” + +By degrees the thing went into the distance, and I ceased even +speculating upon it. But one little fact I may mention ere I leave +it--that, just as I was reaching a state of quiet mental prorogation, I +suddenly remembered that, the moment after the flash, my Zoe, startled as +she was, gave out a low whinny; I remembered the quiver of it under me: +she too must have seen her master's double! + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +THE GARDEN. + +I remember nothing more to disturb the even flow of my life till I was +nearly seventeen. Many pleasant things had come and gone; many pleasant +things kept coming and going. I had studied tolerably well--at least my +uncle showed himself pleased with the progress I had made and was making. +I know even yet a good deal more than would be required for one of these +modern degrees feminine. I had besides read more of the older literature +of my country than any one I have met except my uncle. I had also this +advantage over most students, that my knowledge was gained without the +slightest prick of the spur of emulation--purely in following the same +delight in myself that shone radiant in the eyes of my uncle as he read +with me. I had this advantage also over many, that, perhaps from +impression of the higher mind, I saw and learned a thing not merely as a +fact whose glory lay in the mystery of its undeveloped harmonics, but as +the harbinger of an unknown advent. For as long as I can remember, my +heart was given to expectation, was tuned to long waiting. I constantly +felt--felt without thinking--that something was coming. I feel it now. +Were I young I dared not say so. How could I, compassed about with so +great a cloud of witnesses to the common-place! Do I not see their +superior smile, as, with voices sweetly acidulous, they quote in reply-- + +“Love is well on the way; +He'll be here to-day, + Or, at latest, the end of the week; +Too soon you will find him, +And the sorrow behind him + You will not go out to seek!” + +Would they not tell me that such expectation was but the shadow of the +cloud called love, hanging no bigger than a man's hand on the far +horizon, but fraught with storm for mind and soul, which, when it +withdrew, would carry with it the glow and the glory and the hope of +life; being at best but the mirage of an unattainable paradise, therefore +direst of deceptions! Little do such suspect that their own behaviour has +withered their faith, and their unbelief dried up their life. They can +now no more believe in what they once felt, than a cloud can believe in +the rainbow it once bore on its bosom. But I am old, therefore dare to +say that I expect more and better and higher and lovelier things than I +have ever had. I am not going home to God to say--“Father, I have +imagined more beautiful things than thou art able to make true! They were +so good that thou thyself art either not good enough to will them, or not +strong enough to make them. Thou couldst but make thy creature dream of +them, because thou canst but dream of them thyself.” Nay, nay! In the +faith of him to whom the Father shows all things he does, I expect +lovelier gifts than I ever have been, ever shall be able to dream of +asleep, or imagine awake. + +I was now approaching the verge of woman-hood. What lay beyond it I could +ill descry, though surely a vague power of undeveloped prophecy dwells in +every created thing--even in the bird ere he chips his shell. + +Should I dare, or could I endure to write of what lies now to my hand, if +I did not believe that not our worst but our best moments, not our low +but our lofty moods, not our times logical and scientific, but our times +instinctive and imaginative, are those in which we perceive the truth! In +them we behold it with a beholding which is one with believing. And, + + “Though nothing can bring back the hour + Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower”, + +could not Wordsworth, and cannot we, call up the vision of that hour? and +has not its memory almost, or even altogether, the potency of its +presence? Is not the very thought of any certain flower enough to make me +believe in that flower--believe it to mean all it ever seemed to mean? +That _these_ eyes may never more rest upon it with the old delight, means +little, and matters nothing. I have other eyes, and shall have yet +others. If I thought, as so many have degraded themselves to think, that +the glory of things in the morning of love was a glamour cast upon the +world, no outshine of indwelling radiance, should I care to breathe one +day more the air of this or of any world? Nay, nay, but there dwells in +everything the Father hath made, the fire of the burning bush, as at home +in his son dwelt the glory that, set free, broke out from him on the +mount of his transfiguration. The happy-making vision of things that +floods the gaze of the youth, when first he lives in the marvel of +loving, and being loved by, a woman, is the true vision--and the more +likely to be the true one, that, when he gives way to selfishness, he +loses faith in the vision, and sinks back into the commonplace unfaith of +the beggarly world--a disappointed, sneering worshipper of power and +money--with this remnant of the light yet in him, that he grumbles at the +gloom its departure has left behind. He confesses by his soreness that +the illusion ought to have been true; he seldom confesses that he loved +himself more than the woman, and so lost her. He lays the blame on God, +on the woman, on the soullessness of the universe--anywhere but on the +one being in which he is interested enough to be sure it exists--his own +precious, greedy, vulgar self. Would I dare to write of love, if I did +not believe it a true, that is, an eternal thing! + +It was a summer of exceptional splendour in which my eyes were opened to +“the glory of the sum of things.” It was not so hot of the sun as summers +I have known, but there were so many gentle and loving winds about, with +never point or knife-edge in them, that it seemed all the housework of +the universe was being done by ladies. Then the way the odours went and +came on those sweet winds! and the way the twilight fell asleep into the +dark! and the way the sun rushed up in the morning, as if he cried, like +a boy, “Here I am! The Father has sent me! Isn't it jolly!” I saw more +sun-rises that year than any year before or since. And the grass was so +thick and soft! There must be grass in heaven! And the roses, both wild +and tame, that grew together in the wilderness!--I think you would like +to hear about the wilderness. + +When I grew to notice, and think, and put things together, I began to +wonder how the wilderness came there. I could understand that the +solemn garden, with its great yew-hedges and alleys, and its oddly cut +box-trees, was a survival of the stately old gardens haunted by ruffs and +farthingales; but the wilderness looked so much younger that I was +perplexed with it, especially as I saw nothing like it anywhere else. I +asked my uncle about it, and he explained that it was indeed after an old +fashion, but that he had himself made the wilderness, mostly with his own +hands, when he was young. This surprised me, for I had never seen him +touch a spade, and hardly ever saw him in the garden: when I did, I +always felt as if something was going to happen. He said he had in it +tried to copy the wilderness laid out by lord St. Alban's in his essays. +I found the volume, and soon came upon the essay, On Gardens. The passage +concerning the wilderness, gave me, and still gives me so much delight, +that I will transplant it like a rose-bush into this wilderness of mine, +hoping it will give like pleasure to my reader. + +“For the heath, which was the third part of our plot, I wish it to be +framed, as much as may be, to a natural wildness. Trees I would have none +in it; but some thickets, made only of sweetbriar, and honnysuckle, and +some wild vine amongst; and the ground set with violets, strawberries, +and primroses. For these are sweet, and prosper in the shade. And these +to be in the heath, here and there not in any order. I like also little +heapes, in the nature of mole-hills (such as are in wild heaths) to be +set, some with wild thyme; some with pincks; some with germander, that +gives a good flower to the eye; some with periwinkle; some with violets; +some with strawberries; some with couslips; some with daisies; some with +red roses; some with lilium convallium; some with sweet-williams red; +some with beares-foot; and the like low flowers, being withall sweet and +sightly. Part of which heapes, to be with standards, of little bushes, +prickt upon their top, and part without. The standards to be roses; +juniper; holly; beareberries (but here and there, because of the smell of +their blossom;) red currans; gooseberries; rosemary; bayes; sweetbriar; +and such like. But these standards, to be kept with cutting, that they +grow not out of course.” + +Just such, in all but the gooseberries and currants, was the wilderness +of our garden: you came on it by a sudden labyrinthine twist at the end +of a narrow alley of yew, and a sudden door in the high wall. My uncle +said he liked well to see roses in the kitchen-garden, but not +gooseberries in the flower-garden, especially a wild flower-garden. +Wherein lies the difference, I never quite made out, but I feel a +difference. My main delight in the wilderness was to see the roses among +the heather--particularly the wild roses. When I was grown up, the +wilderness always affected me like one of Blake's, or one of Beddoes's +yet wilder lyrics. To make it, my uncle had taken in a part of the heath, +which came close up to the garden, leaving plenty of the heather and +ling. The protecting fence enclosed a good bit of the heath just as it +was, so that the wilderness melted away into the heath, and into the wide +moor--the fence, though contrived so as to be difficult to cross, being +so low that one had to look for it. + +Everywhere the inner garden was surrounded with brick walls, and hedges +of yew within them; but immediately behind the house, the wall to the +lane was not very high. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +ONCE MORE A SECRET. + +One day in June I had gone into the garden about one o'clock, whether +with or without object I forget. I had just seen my uncle start for +Wittenage. Hearing a horse's hoofs in the lane that ran along the outside +of the wall, I looked up. The same moment the horse stopped, and the face +of his rider appeared over the wall, between two stems of yew, and two +great flowers of purple lilac, in shape like two perfect bunches of +swarming bees. It was the face of a youth of eighteen, and beautiful with +a right manly beauty. + +The moment I looked on this face, I fell into a sort of trance--that is, +I entered for a moment some condition of existence beyond the ramparts of +what commonly we call life. Love at first sight it was that initiated the +strange experience. But understand me: real as what immediately followed +was to the consciousness, there was no actual fact in it. + +I stood gazing. My eyes seemed drawn, and drawing my person toward the +vision. Isolate over the garden-wall was the face; the rest of the man +and all the horse were hidden behind it. Betwixt the yew stems and the +two great lilac flowers--how heart and brain are yet filled with the old +scent of them!--my face, my mouth, my lips met his. I grew blind as with +all my heart I kissed him. Then came a flash of icy terror, and a shudder +which it frights me even now to recall. Instantly I knew that but a +moment had passed, and that I had not moved an inch from the spot where +first my eyes met his. + +But my eyes yet rested on his; I could not draw them away. I could not +free myself. Helplessness was growing agony. His voice broke the spell. +He lifted his hunting-cap, and begged me to tell him the way to the next +village. My self-possession returned, and the joy of its restoration +drove from me any lingering embarrassment. I went forward, and without a +faltering tone, I believe, gave him detailed directions. He told me +afterwards that, himself in a state of bewildered surprise, he thought me +the coolest young person he had ever had the fortune to meet. Why should +one be pleased to know that she looked quite different from what she +felt? There is something wrong there, surely! I acknowledge the something +wrong, but do not understand it. He lifted his cap again, and rode away. + +I stood still at the foot of the lilac-tree, and, from a vapour, +condensed, not to a stone, but to a world, in which a new Flora was about +to be developed. If no new spiritual sense was awakened in me, at least I +was aware of a new consciousness. I had never been to myself what I was +now. + +Terror again seized me: the face might once more look over the wall, and +find me where it had left me! I turned, and went slowly away from the +house, gravitating to the darkest part of the garden. + +“What has come to me,” I said, “that I seek the darkness? Is this another +secret? Am I in the grasp of a new enemy?” + +And with that came the whirlwind of perplexity. Must I go the first +moment I knew I could find him, and tell my uncle what had happened, and +how I felt? or must I have, and hold, and cherish in silent heart, a +thing so wondrous, so precious, so absorbing? Had I not deliberately +promised--of my own will and at my own instance--never again to have a +secret from him? Was this a secret? Was it not a secret? + +The storm was up, and went on. The wonder is that, in the fire of the +new torment, I did not come to loathe the very thought of the young +man--which would have delivered me, if not from the necessity of +confession, yet from the main difficulty in confessing. + +I said to myself that the old secret was of a wrong done to my uncle; +that what had made me miserable then was a bad secret. The perception of +this difference gave me comfort for a time, but not for long. The fact +remained, that I knew something concerning myself which my best friend +did not know. It was, and I could not prevent it from being, a barrier +between us! + +Yet what was it I was concealing from him? What had I to tell him? How +was I to represent a thing of which I knew neither the name nor the +nature, a thing I could not describe? Could I confess what I did not +understand? The thing might be what, in the tales I had read, was called +love, but I did not know that it was. It might be something new, peculiar +to myself; something for which there was no word in the language! How was +I to tell? I saw plainly that, if I tried to convey my new experience, I +should not get beyond the statement that I had a new experience. It did +not occur to me that the thing might be so well known, that a mere hint +of the feelings concerned, would enable any older person to classify the +consciousness. I said to myself I should merely perplex my uncle. And in +truth I believe that love, in every mind in which it arises, will vary in +colour and form--will always partake of that mind's individual isolation +in difference. This, however, is nothing to the present point. + +Comfort myself as I might, that the impossible was required of no one, +and granted that the thing was impossible, it was none the less a cause +of misery, a present disaster: I was aware, and soon my uncle would be +aware, of an impenetrable something separating us. I felt that we had +already begun to grow strange to each other, and the feeling lay like +death at my heart. + +Our lessons together were still going on; that I was no longer a child +had made only the difference that progress must make; and I had no +thought that they would not thus go on always. They were never for a +moment irksome to me; I might be tired by them, but never of them. We +were regularly at work together by seven, and after half an hour for +breakfast, resumed work; at half-past eleven our lessons were over. But +although the day was then clear of the imperative, much the greater part +of it was in general passed in each other's company. We might not speak a +word, but we would be hours together in the study. We might not speak a +word, but we would be hours together on horseback. + +For this day, then, our lessons were over, and my uncle was from home. +This was an indisputable relief, yet the fact that it was so, pained me +keenly, for I recognized in it the first of the schism. How I got through +the day, I cannot tell. I was in a dream, not all a dream of delight. +Haunted with the face I had seen, and living in the new consciousness it +had waked in me, I spent most of it in the garden, now in the glooms of +the yew-walks, and now in the smiling wilderness. It was odd, however, +that, although I was not _expected_ to be in my uncle's room at any time +but that of lessons, all the morning I had a feeling as if I ought to be +there, while yet glad that my uncle was not there. + +It was late before he returned, and I went to bed. Perhaps I retired so +soon that I might not have to look into his eyes. Usually, I sat now +until he came home. I was long in getting to sleep, and then I dreamed. I +thought I was out in the storm, and the flash came which revealed the +horse and his rider, but they were both different. The horse in the dream +was black as coal, as if carved out of the night itself; and the man +upon him was the beautiful stranger whose horse I had not seen for the +garden-wall. The darkness fell, and the voice of my uncle called to me. I +waited for him in the storm with a troubled heart, for I knew he had not +seen that vision, and I could no more tell him of it, than could +Christabel tell her father what she had seen after she lay down. I woke, +but my waking was no relief. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +THE MOLE BURROWS. + +I slept again after my dream, and do not know whether he came into my +room as he generally did when he had not said good-night to me. Of course +I woke unhappy, and the morning-world had lost something of its natural +glow, its lovely freshness: it was not this time a thing new-born of the +creating word. I dawdled with my dressing. The face kept coming, and +brought me no peace, yet brought me something for which it seemed worth +while even to lose my peace. But I did not know then, and do not yet know +what the loss of peace actually means. I only know that it must be +something far more terrible than anything I have ever known. I remained +so far true to my uncle, however, that not even for what the face seemed +to promise me, would I have consented to cause him trouble. For what I +saw in the face, I would do anything, I thought, except that. + +I went to him at the usual hour, determined that nothing should distract +me from my work--that he should perceive no difference in me. I was not +at the moment awake to the fact that here again were love and deception +hand in hand. But another love than mine was there: my uncle loved me +immeasurably more than I yet loved that heavenly vision. True love is +keen-sighted as the eagle, and my uncle's love was love true, therefore +he saw what I sought to hide. It is only the shadow of love, generally a +grotesque, ugly thing, like so many other shadows, that is blind either +to the troubles or the faults of the shadow it seems to love. The moment +our eyes met, I saw that he saw something in mine that was not there when +last we parted. But he said nothing, and we sat down to our lessons. +Every now and then as they proceeded, however, I felt rather than saw his +eyes rest on me for a moment, questioning. I had never known them rest on +me so before. Plainly he was aware of some change; and could there be +anything different in the relation of two who so long had loved each +other, without something being less well and good than before? Nor was it +indeed wonderful he should see a difference; for, with all the might of +my resolve to do even better than usual, I would now and then find myself +unconscious of what either of us had last been saying. The face had come +yet again, and driven everything from its presence! I grew angry--not +with the youth, but with his face, for appearing so often when I did not +invite it. Once I caught myself on the verge of crying out, “Can't you +wait? I will come presently!” and my uncle looked up as if I had spoken. +Perhaps he had as good as heard the words; he possessed what almost +seemed a supernatural faculty of divining the thought of another--not, I +was sure, by any effort to perceive it, but by involuntary intuition. He +uttered no inquiring word, but a light sigh escaped him, which all but +made me burst into tears. I was on one side of a widening gulf, and he on +the other! + +Our lessons ended, he rose immediately and left the room. Five minutes +passed, and then came the clatter of his horse's feet on the stones of +the yard. A moment more, and I heard him ride away at a quick trot. I +burst into tears where I still sat beside my uncle's empty chair. I was +weary like one in a dream searching in vain for a spot whereupon to set +down her heart-breaking burden. There was no one but my uncle to whom I +could tell any trouble, and the trouble I could not have told him had +hitherto been unimaginable! From this my reader may judge what a trouble +it was that I could not tell him my trouble. I was a traitor to my only +friend! Had I begun to love him less? had I begun to turn away from him? +I dared not believe it. That would have been to give eternity to my +misery. But it might be that at heart I was a bad, treacherous girl! I +had again a secret from him! I was not _with_ him! + +I went into the garden. The day was sultry and oppressive. Coolness or +comfort was nowhere. I sought the shadow of the live yew-walls; there was +shelter in the shadow, but it oppressed the lungs while it comforted the +eyes. Not a breath of wind breathed; the atmosphere seemed to have lost +its life-giving. I went out into the wilderness. There the air was filled +and heaped with the odours of the heavenly plants that crowded its humble +floor, but they gave me no welcome. Between two bushes that flamed out +roses, I lay down, and the heather and the rose-trees closed above me. My +mind was in such a confusion of pain and pleasure--not without a hope of +deliverance somewhere in its clouded sky--that I could think no more, and +fell asleep. + +I imagine that, had I never again seen the young man, I should not have +suffered. I think that, by slow natural degrees, his phantasmal presence +would have ceased to haunt me, and gradually I should have returned to my +former condition. I do not mean I should have forgotten him, but neither +should I have been troubled when I thought of him. I know I should never +have regretted having seen him. In that, I had nothing to blame myself +for, and should have felt--not that a glory had passed away from the +earth, but that I had had a vision of bliss. What it was, I should not +have had the power to recall, but it would have left with me the faith +that I had beheld something too ethereal for my memory to store. I should +have consoled myself both with the dream, and with the conviction that I +should not dream it again. The peaceful sense of recovered nearness to my +uncle would have been far more precious than the dream. The sudden fire +of transfiguration that had for a moment flamed out of the All, and +straightway withdrawn, would have become a memory only; but none the less +would that enlargement of the child way of seeing things have remained +with me. I do not think that would ever have left me: it is the care of +the prudent wise that bleaches the grass, and is as the fumes of sulphur +to the red rose of life. + +Outwearied with inward conflict, I slept a dreamless sleep. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +A LETTER. + +A cool soft breeze went through the curtains of my couch, and I awoke. +The blooms of the peasant-briars and the court-roses were waving together +over my head. The sigh of the wind had breathed itself out over the far +heath, and ere it died in my fairy forest of lowly plants and bushes, had +found and fanned the cheeks that lay down hot and athirst for air. It +gave me new life, and I rose refreshed. Something fluttered to the +ground. I thought it was a leaf from a white rose above me, but I looked. +At my feet lay a piece of paper. I took it up. It had been folded very +hastily, and had no address, but who could have a better right to unfold +it than I! It might be nothing; it might be a letter. Should I open it? +Should I not rather seize the opportunity of setting things right between +my heart and my uncle by taking it to him unopened? Only, if it were +indeed--I dared hardly even in thought complete the supposition--might it +not be a wrong to the youth? Might not the paper contain a confidence? +might it not be the messenger of a heart that trusted me before even it +knew my name? Would I inaugurate our acquaintance with an act of +treachery, or at least distrust? Right or wrong, thus my heart reasoned, +and to its reasoning I gave heed. “It will,” I said, “be time enough to +resolve, when I know concerning what!” This, I now see, was juggling; for +the question was whether I should be open with my uncle or not. “It might +be,” I said to myself, “that, the moment I knew the contents of the +paper, I should reproach myself that I had not read it at once!” I sat +down on a bush of heather, and unfolded it. This is what I found, written +with a pencil:-- + +“I am the man to whom you talked so kindly over your garden wall +yesterday. I fear you may think me presuming and impertinent. Presuming I +may be, but impertinent, surely not! If I were, would not my heart tell +me so, seeing it is all on your side? + +“My name is John Day; I do not yet know yours. I have not dared to +inquire after it, lest I should hear of some impassable gulf between us. +The fear of such a gulf haunts me. I can think of nothing but the face I +saw over the wall through the clusters of lilac: the wall seems to keep +rising and rising, as if it would hide you for ever. + +“Is it wrong to think thus of you without your leave? If one may not love +the loveliest, then is the world but a fly-trap hung in the great heaven, +to catch and ruin souls! + +“If I am writing nonsense--I cannot tell whether I am or not--it is +because my wits wander with my eyes to gaze at you through the leaves of +the wild white rose under which you are asleep. Loveliest of faces, may +no gentlest wind of thought ripple thy perfect calm, until I have said +what I must, and laid it where she will find it! + +“I live at Rising, the manor-house over the heath. I am the son of Lady +Cairnedge by a former marriage. I am twenty years of age, and have just +ended my last term at Oxford. May I come and see you? If you will not see +me, why then did you walk into my quiet house, and turn everything upside +down? I shall come to-night, in the dusk, and wait in the heather, +outside the fence. If you come, thank God! if you do not, I shall believe +you could not, and come again and again and again, till hope is dead. But +I warn you I am a terrible hoper. + +“It would startle, perhaps offend you, to wake and see me; but I cannot +bear to leave you asleep. Something might come too near you. I will write +until you move, and then make haste to go. + +“My heart swells with words too shy to go out. Surely a Will has brought +us together! I believe in fate, never in chance! + +“When we see each other again, will the wall be down between us, or shall +I know it will part us all our mortal lives? Longer than that it cannot. +If you say to me, 'I must not see you, but I will think of you,' not one +shall ever know I have other than a light heart. Even now I begin the +endeavour to be such that, when we meet at last, as meet we must, you +shall not say, 'Is this the man, alas, who dared to love me!' + +“I love you as one might love a woman-angel who, at the merest breath +going to fashion a word unfit, would spread her wings and soar. Do not, I +pray you, fear to let me come! There are things that must be done in +faith, else they never have being: let this be one of them.--You stir.” + +As I came to these last words, hurriedly written, I heard behind me, over +the height, the quick gallop of a horse, and knew the piece of firm turf +he was crossing. The same moment I was there in spirit, and the +imagination was almost vision. I saw him speeding away--“to come again!” + said my heart, solemn with gladness. + +Rising-manor was the house to which the lady took me that dread night +when first I knew what it was to be alone in darkness and silence and +space. Was that lady his mother? Had she rescued me for her son? I was +not willing to believe it, though I had never actually seen her. The way +was mostly dark, and during the latter portion of it, I was much too +weary to look up where she sat on her great horse. I had never to my +knowledge heard who lived at Rising. I was not born inquisitive, and +there were miles between us. + +I sat still, without impulse to move a finger. I lived essentially. Now I +knew what had come to me. It was no merely idiosyncratic experience, for +the youth had the same: it was love! How otherwise could we thus be drawn +together from both sides! Verily it seemed also good enough to be that +wondrous thing ever on the lips of poets and tale-weaving magicians! Was +it not far beyond any notion of it their words had given me? + +But my uncle! There lay bitterness! Was I indeed false to him, that now +the thought of him was a pain? Had I begun a new life apart from him? To +tell him would perhaps check the terrible separation! But how was I to +tell him? For the first time I knew that I had no mother! Would Mr. Day's +mother be my mother too, and help me? But from no woman save my own +mother, hardly even from her, would I ask mediation with the uncle I had +loved and trusted all my life and with my whole heart. I had never known +father or mother, save as he had been father and mother and everybody to +me! What was I to do? Gladly would I have hurried to some desert place, +and there waited for the light I needed. That I was no longer in any +uncertainty as to the word that described my condition, did not, I found, +make it easy to use the word. “Perhaps,” I argued, struggling in the +toils of my new liberty, “my uncle knows nothing of this kind of love, +and would be unable to understand me! Suppose I confessed to him what I +felt toward a man I had spoken to but once, and then only to tell him the +way to Dumbleton, would he not think me out of my mind?” + +At length I bethought me that, so long as I did not know what to do, I +was not required to do anything; I must wait till I did know what to do. +But with the thought came suffering enough to be the wages of any sin +that, so far as I knew, I had ever committed. For the conviction awoke +that already the love that had hitherto been the chief joy of my being, +had begun to pale and fade. Was it possible I was ceasing to love my +uncle? What could any love be worth if mine should fail my uncle! Love +itself must be a mockery, and life but a ceaseless sliding down to the +death of indifference! Even if I never ceased to love him, it was just as +bad to love him less! Had he not been everything to me?--and this man, +what had he ever done for me? Doubtless we are to love even our enemies; +but are we to love them as tenderly as we love our friends? Or are we to +love the friend of yesterday, of whom we know nothing though we may +believe everything, as we love those who have taken all the trouble to +make true men and women of us? “What can be the matter with my soul?” I +said. “Can that soul be right made, in which one love begins to wither +the moment another begins to grow? If I be so made, I cannot help being +worthless!” + +It was then first, I think, that I received a notion--anything like a +true notion, that is, of my need of a God--whence afterward I came to +see the one need of the whole race. Of course, not being able to make +ourselves, it needed a God to make us; but that making were a small thing +indeed, if he left us so unfinished that we could come to nothing +right;--if he left us so that we could think or do or be nothing +right;--if our souls were created so puny, for instance, that there was +not room in them to love as they could not help loving, without ceasing +to love where they were bound by every obligation to love right heartily, +and more and more deeply! But had I not been growing all the time I had +been in the world? There must then be the possibility of growing still! +If there was not room in me, there must be room in God for me to become +larger! The room in God must be made room in me! God had not done making +me, in fact, and I sorely needed him to go on making me; I sorely needed +to be made out! What if this new joy and this new terror had come, had +been sent, in order to make me grow? At least the doors were open; I +could go out and forsake myself! If a living power had caused me--and +certainly I did not cause myself--then that living power knew all about +me, knew every smallness that distressed me! Where should I find him? He +could not be so far that the misery of one of his own children could not +reach him! I turned my face into the grass, and prayed as I had never +prayed before. I had always gone to church, and made the responses +attentively, while I knew that was not praying, and tried to pray better +than that; but now I was really asking from God something I sorely +wanted. “Father in heaven,” I said, “I am so miserable! Please, help me!” + +I rose, went into the house, and up to the study, took a sock I was +knitting for my uncle, and sat down to wait what would come. I could +think no more; I could only wait. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +OLD LOVE AND NEW. + +While I waited, as nearly a log, under the weariness of spiritual unrest, +as a girl could well be, the door opened. Very seldom did that door open +to any one but my uncle or myself: he would let no one but me touch his +books, or even dust the room. I jumped from the chest where I sat. + +It was only Martha Moon. + +“How you startled me, Martha!” I cried. + +“No wonder, child!” she answered. “I come with bad news! Your uncle has +had a fall. He is laid up at Wittenage with a broken right arm.” + +I burst into tears. + +“Oh, Martha!” I cried; “I must go to him!” + +“He has sent for me,” she answered quietly. + +“Dick is putting the horse to the phaeton.” + +“He doesn't want me, then!” I said; but it seemed a voice not my own that +shrieked the words. + +The punishment of my sin was upon me. Never would he have sent for Martha +and not me, I thought, had he not seen that I had gone wrong again, and +was no more to be trusted. + +“My dear,” said Martha, “which of us two ought to be the better nurse? +You never saw your uncle ill; I've nursed him at death's door!” + +“Then you don't think he is angry with me, Martha?” I said, humbled +before myself. + +“Was he ever angry with you, Orbie? What is there to be angry about? I +never saw him even displeased with you!” + +I had not realized that my uncle was suffering--only that he was +disabled; now the fact flashed upon me, and with it the perception that I +had been thinking only of myself: I was fast ceasing to care for him! And +then, horrible to tell! a flash of joy went through me, that he would not +be home that day, and therefore I _could_ not tell him anything! + +The moment Martha left me I threw myself on the floor of the desert room. +I was in utter misery. + +“Gladly would I bear every pang of his pain,” I said to myself; “yet I +have not asked one question about his accident! He must be in danger, or +he would not have sent for Martha instead of me!” + +How had the thing happened, I wondered. Had Death fallen with +him--perhaps on him? He was such a horseman, I could not think he +had been thrown. Besides, Death was a good horse who loved his +master--dearly, I was sure, and would never have thrown him or let him +fall! A great gush of the old love poured from the fountain in my heart: +sympathy with the horse had unsealed it. I sprang from the floor, and ran +down to entreat Martha to take me with her: if my uncle did not want me, +I could return with Dick! But she was gone. Even the sound of her wheels +was gone. I had lain on the floor longer than I knew. + +I went back to the study a little relieved. I understood now that I was +not glad he was disabled; that I was anything but glad he was suffering; +that I had only been glad for an instant that the crisis of my perplexity +was postponed. In the meantime I should see John Day, who would help me +to understand what I ought to do! + +Very strange were my feelings that afternoon in the lonely house. I had +always felt it lonely when Martha, never when my uncle was out. Yet when +my uncle was in, I was mostly with him, and seldom more than a few +minutes at a time with Martha. Our feelings are odd creatures! Now that +both were away, there was neither time nor space in my heart for feeling +the house desolate; while the world outside was rich as a treasure-house +of mighty kings. The moment I was a little more comfortable with myself, +my thoughts went in a flock to the face that looked over the garden-wall, +to the man that watched me while I slept, the man that wrote that lovely +letter. Inside was old Penny with her broom: she took advantage of every +absence to sweep or scour or dust; outside was John Day, and the roses of +the wilderness! He was waiting the hour to come to me, wondering how I +would receive him! + +Slowly went the afternoon. I had fallen in love at first sight, it is +true; not therefore was I eager to meet my lover. I was only more than +willing to see him. It was as sweet, or nearly as sweet, to dream of his +coming, as to have him before me--so long as I knew he was indeed coming. +I was just a little anxious lest I should not find him altogether so +beautiful as I was imagining him. That he was good, I never doubted: +could I otherwise have fallen in love with him? And his letter was so +straightforward--so manly! + +The afternoon was cloudy, and the twilight came the sooner. From the +realms of the dark, where all the birds of night build their nests, +lining them with their own sooty down, the sweet odorous filmy dusk of +the summer, haunted with wings of noiseless bats, began at length to come +flickering earthward, in a snow infinitesimal of fluffiest gray and +black: I crept out into the garden. It was dark as wintry night among +the yews, but I could have gone any time through every alley of them +blind-folded. An owl cried and I started, for my soul was sunk in its own +love-dawn. There came a sudden sense of light as I opened the door into +the wilderness, but light how thin and pale, and how full of expectation! +The earth and the vast air, up to the great vault, seemed to throb and +heave with life--or was it that my spirit lay an open thoroughfare to +the life of the All? With the scent of the roses and the humbler +sweet-odoured inhabitants of the wilderness; with the sound of the brook +that ran through it, flowing from the heath and down the hill; with the +silent starbeams, and the insects that make all the little noises they +can; with the thoughts that went out of me, and returned possessed of the +earth;--with all these, and the sense of thought eternal, the universe +was full as it could hold. I stood in the doorway of the wall, and looked +out on the wild: suddenly, by some strange reaction, it seemed out of +creation's doors, out in the illimitable, given up to the bare, to the +space that had no walls! A shiver ran through me; I turned back among the +yews. It was early; I would wait yet a while! If he were already there, +he too would enjoy the calm of a lovely little wait. + +A small wind came searching about, and found, and caressed me. I turned +to it; it played with my hair, and cooled my face. After a while, I left +the alley, passed out, closed the door behind me, and went straying +through the broken ground of the wilderness, among the low bushes, +meandering, as if with some frolicsome brook for a companion--a brook of +capricious windings--but still coming nearer to the fence that parted the +wilderness from the heath, my eyes bent down, partly to avoid the +hillocks and bushes, and partly from shyness of the moment when first I +should see him who was in my heart and somewhere near. Softly the moon +rose, round and full. There was still so much light in the sky that she +made no sudden change, and for a moment I did not feel her presence or +look up. In front of me, the high ground of the moor sank into a hollow, +deeply indenting the horizon-line: the moon was rising just in the gap, +and when I did look up, the lower edge of her disc was just clear of the +earth, and the head of a man looking over the fence was in the middle of +the great moon. It was like the head of a saint in a missal, girt with a +halo of solid gold. I could not see the face, for the halo hid it, as +such attributions are apt to do, but it must be he; and strengthened by +the heavenly vision, I went toward him. Walking less carefully than +before, however, I caught my foot, stumbled, and fell. There came a rush +through the bushes; he was by my side, lifted me like a child, and held +me in his arms; neither was I more frightened than a child caught up in +the arms of any well-known friend: I had been bred in faith and not +mistrust! But indeed my head had struck the ground with such force, that, +had I been inclined, I could scarcely have resisted--though why should I +have resisted, being where I would be! Does not philosophy tell us that +growth and development, cause and effect, are all, and that the days and +years are of no account? And does not more than philosophy tell us that +truth is everything? + +“My darling! Are you hurt?” murmured the voice whose echoes seemed to +have haunted me for centuries. + +“A little,” I answered. “I shall be all right in a minute.” I did not +add, “Put me down, please;” for I did not want to be put down directly. I +could not have stood if he had put me down. I grew faint. + +Life came back, and I felt myself growing heavy in his arms. + +“I think I can stand now,” I said. “Please put me down.” + +He obeyed immediately. + +“I've nearly broken your arms,” I said, ashamed of having become a burden +to him the moment we met. + +“I could run with you to the top of the hill!” he answered. + +“I don't think you could,” I returned. Perhaps I leaned a little toward +him; I do not know. He put his arm round me. + +“You are not able to stand,” he said. “Shall we sit a moment?” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +MOTHER AND UNCLE. + +I was glad enough to sink on a clump of white clover. He stretched +himself on the heather, a little way from me. Silence followed. He was +giving me time to recover myself. As soon, therefore, as I was able, it +was my part to speak. + +“Where is your horse?” I asked. The first word is generally one hardly +worth saying. + +“I left him at a little farmhouse, about a mile from here. I was afraid +to bring him farther, lest my mother should learn where I had been. She +takes pains to know.” + +“Then will she not find out?” + +“I don't know.” + +“Will she not ask you where you were?” + +“Perhaps. There's no knowing.” + +“You will tell her, of course, if she does?” + +“I think not.” + +“Oughtn't you?” + +“No.” + +“You are sure?” + +“Yes.” + +“You don't mean you will tell her a story?” + +“Certainly not.” + +“What will you do then?” + +“I will tell her that I will not tell her.” + +“Would that be right?” + +Through the dusk I could see the light of his smile as he answered, + +“I think so. I shall not tell her.” + +“But,” I began. + +He interrupted me. + +My heart was sinking within me. Not only had I wanted him to help me to +tell my uncle, but I shuddered at the idea of having with any man a +secret from his mother. + +“It must look strange to you,” he said; “but you do not know my mother!” + +“I think I do know your mother,” I rejoined. “She saved my poor little +life once.--I am not sure it was your mother, but I think it was.” + +“How was that?” he said, much surprised. “When was it?” + +“Many years ago--I cannot tell how many,” I answered. “But I remember all +about it well enough. I cannot have been more than eight, I imagine.” + +“Could she have been at the manor then?” he said, putting the question to +himself, not me. “How was it? Tell me,” he went on, rising to his feet, +and looking at me with almost a frightened expression. + +I told him the incident, and he heard me in absolute silence. When I had +done,-- + +“It _was_ my mother!” he broke out; “I don't know one other woman who +would have let a child walk like that! Any other would have taken you up, +or put you on the horse and walked beside you!” + +“A gentleman would, I know,” I replied. “But it would not be so easy for +a lady!” + +_“She_ could have done either well enough. She's as strong as a horse +herself, and rides like an Amazon. But I am not in the least surprised: +it was just like her! You poor little darling! It nearly makes me cry to +think of the tiny feet going tramp, tramp, all that horrible way, and +she high up on her big horse! She always rides the biggest horse she can +get!--And then never to say a word to you after she brought you home, or +see you the next morning!” + +“Mr. Day,” I returned, “I would not have told you, had I known it would +give you occasion to speak so naughtily of your mother. You make me +unhappy.” + +He was silent. I thought he was ashamed of himself, and was sorry for +him. But my sympathy was wasted. He broke into a murmuring laugh of +merriment. + +“When is a mother not a mother?” he said. “--Do you give it up?--When +she's a north wind. When she's a Roman emperor. When she's an iceberg. +When she's a brass tiger.--There! that'll do. Good-bye, mother, for the +present! I mayn't know much, as she's always telling me, but I do know +that a noun is not a thing, nor a name a person!” + +I would have expostulated. + +“For love's sake, dearest,” he pleaded, “we will not dispute where only +one of us knows! I will tell you all some day--soon, I hope, very soon. I +am angry now!--Poor little tramping child!” + +I saw I had been behaving presumptuously: I had wanted to argue while yet +in absolute ignorance of the thing in hand! Had not my uncle taught me +the folly of reasoning from the ideal where I knew nothing of the actual! +The ideal must be our guide how to treat the actual, but the actual must +be there to treat! One thing more I saw--that there could be no likeness +between his mother and my uncle! + +“Will you tell me something about yourself, then?” I said. + +“That would not be interesting!” he objected. + +“Then why are you here?” I returned. + +“Can any person without a history be interesting?” + +“Yes,” he answered: “a person that was going to have a history might be +interesting.” + +“Could a person with a history that was not worth telling, be +interesting? But I know yours will interest me in the hearing, therefore +it ought to interest you in the telling. + +“I see,” he rejoined, with his merry laugh, “I shall have to be careful! +My lady will at once pounce upon the weak points of my logic!” + +“I am no logician,” I answered; “I only know when I don't know a thing. +My uncle has taught me that wisdom lies in that.” + +“Yours must be a very unusual kind of uncle!” he returned. + +“If God had made many men like my uncle, I think the world wouldn't be +the same place.” + +“I wonder why he didn't!” he said thoughtfully. + +“I have wondered much, and cannot tell,” I replied. + +“What if it wouldn't be good for the world to have many good men in it +before it was ready to treat them properly?” he suggested. + +The words let me know that at least he could think. Hitherto my uncle had +seemed to me the only man that thought. But I had seen very few men. + +“Perhaps that is it,” I answered. “I will think about it.--Were you +brought up at Rising? Have you been there all the time? Were you there +that night? I should surely have known had you been in the house!” + +He looked at me with a grateful smile. + +“I was not brought up there,” he answered. “Rising is mine, however--at +least it will be when I come of age; it was left me some ten years ago by +a great-aunt My father's property will be mine too, of course. My +mother's is in Ireland. She ought to be there, not here; but she likes my +estates better than her own, and makes the most of being my guardian.” + +“You would not have her there if she is happier here?” + +“All who have land, ought to live on it, or else give it to those who +will. What makes it theirs, if their only connection with it is the money +it brings them? If I let my horse run wild over the country, how could I +claim him, and refuse to pay his damages?” + +“I don't quite understand you.” + +“I only mean there is no bond where both ends are not tied. My mother has +no sense of obligation, so far as ever I have been able to see. But do +not be afraid: I would as soon take a wife to the house she was in, as I +would ask her to creep with me into the den of a hyena.” + +It was too dreadful! I rose. He sprang to his feet. + +“You must excuse me, sir!” I said. “With one who can speak so of his +mother, I am where I ought not to be.” + +“You have a right to know what my mother is,” he answered--coldly, I +thought; “and I should not be a true man if I spoke of her otherwise than +truly.” + +He would pretend nothing to please me! I saw that I was again in the +wrong. Was I so ill read as to imagine that a mother must of necessity be +a good woman? Was he to speak of his mother as he did not believe of her, +or be unfit for my company? Would untruth be a bond between us? + +“I beg your pardon,” I said; “I was wrong. But you can hardly wonder I +should be shocked to hear a son speak so of his mother--and to one all +but a stranger!” + +“What!” he returned, with a look of surprise; “do you think of me so? I +feel as if I had known you all my life--and before it!” + +I felt ashamed, and was silent. If he was such a stranger, why was I +there alone with him? + +“You must not think I speak so to any one,” he went on. “Of those who +know my mother, not one has a right to demand of me anything concerning +her. But how could I ask you to see me, and hide from you the truth about +her? Prudence would tell you to have nothing to do with the son of such a +woman: could I be a true man, true to you, and hold my tongue about her? +I should be a liar of the worst sort!” + +He felt far too strongly, it was plain, to heed a world of commonplaces. + +“Forgive me,” I said. “May I sit down again?” + +He held out his hand. I took it, and reseated myself on the +clover-hillock. He laid himself again beside me, and after a little +silence began to relate what occurred to him of his external history, +while all the time I was watching for hints as to how he had come to be +the man he was. It was clear he did not find it easy to talk about +himself. But soon I no longer doubted whether I ought to have met him, +and loved him a great deal more by the time he had done. + +I then told him in return what my life had hitherto been; how I knew +nothing of father or mother; how my uncle had been everything to me; how +he had taught me all I knew, had helped me to love what was good and hate +what was evil, had enabled me to value good books, and turn away from +foolish ones. In short, I made him feel that all his mother had not been +to him, my uncle had been to me; and that it would take a long time to +make me as much indebted to a husband as already I was to my uncle. Then +I put the question: + +“What would you think of me if I had a secret from an uncle like that?” + +“If I had an uncle like that,” he answered, “I would sooner cut my throat +than keep anything from him!” + +“I have not told him,” I said, “what happened to-day--or yesterday.” + +“But you will tell him?” + +“The first moment I can. But I hope you understand it is hard to do. My +love for my uncle makes it hard. It has the look of turning away from him +to love another!” + +With that I burst out crying. I could not help it. He let me cry, and did +not interfere. I was grateful for that. When at length I raised my head, +he spoke. + +“It has that look,” he said; “but I trust it is only a look. Anyhow, he +knows that such things must be; and the more of a good man and a +gentleman he is, the less will he be pained that we should love one +another!” + +“I am sure of that,” I replied. “I am only afraid that he may never have +been in love himself, and does not know how it feels, and may think I +have forsaken him for you.” + +“Are you with him _always?_” + +“No; I am sometimes a good deal alone. I can be alone as much as I like; +he always gives me perfect liberty. But I never before wanted to be alone +when I could be with him.” + +“But he _could_ live without you?” + +“Yes, indeed!” I cried. “He would be a poor creature that could not live +without another!” + +He said nothing, and I added, “He often goes out alone--sometimes in the +darkest nights.” + +“Then be sure he knows what love is.--But, if you would rather, I will +tell him.” + +“I could not have any one, even you, tell my uncle about me.” + +“You are right. When will you tell him?” + +“I cannot be sure. I would go to him to-morrow, but I am afraid they will +not let me until he has got a little over this accident,” I answered--and +told him what had happened. “It is dreadful to think how he must have +suffered,” I said, “and how much more I should have thought about it but +for you! It tears my heart. Why wasn't it made bigger?” + +“Perhaps that is just what is now being done with it!” he answered. + +“I hope it may be!” I returned. “--But it is time I went in.” + +“Shall I not see you again to-morrow evening?” he asked. + +“No,” I answered. “I must not see you again till I have told my uncle +everything.” + +“You do not mean for weeks and weeks--till he is well enough to come +home? How _am_ I to live till then!” + +“As I shall have to live. But I hope it will be but for a few days at +most. Only, then, it will depend on what my uncle thinks of the thing.” + +“Will he decide for you what you are to do?” + +“Yes--I think so. Perhaps if he were--” I was on the point of saying, +“like your mother,” but I stopped in time--or hardly, for I think he saw +what I just saved myself from. It was but the other morning I made the +discovery that, all our life together, John has never once pressed me to +complete a sentence I broke off. + +He looked so sorrowful that I was driven to add something. + +“I don't think there is much good,” I said, “in resolving what you will +or will not do, before the occasion appears, for it may have something in +it you never reckoned on. All I can say is, I will try to do what is +right. I cannot promise anything without knowing what my uncle thinks.” + +We rose; he took me in his arms for just an instant; and we parted with +the understanding that I was to write to him as soon as I had spoken with +my uncle. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +THE TIME BETWEEN. + +I now felt quite able to confess to my uncle both what I had thought and +what I had done. True, I had much more to confess than when my trouble +first awoke; but the growth in the matter of the confession had been such +a growth in definiteness as well, as to make its utterance, though more +weighty, yet much easier. If I might be in doubt about revealing my +thoughts, I could be in none about revealing my actions; and I found it +was much less appalling to make known my feelings, when I had the words +of John Day to confess as well. + +I may here be allowed to remark, how much easier an action is when +demanded, than it seems while in the contingent future--how much +easier when the thing is before you in its reality, and not as a mere +thought-spectre. The thing itself, and the idea of it, are two such +different grounds upon which to come either to a decision or to action! + +One thing more: when a woman wants to do the right--I do not mean, wants +to coax the right to side with her--she will, somehow, be led up to it. + +My uncle was very feverish and troubled the first night, and had a good +deal of delirium, during which his care and anxiety seemed all about me. +Martha had to assure him every other moment that I was well, and in no +danger of any sort: he would be silent for a time, and then again show +himself tormented with forebodings about me. In the morning, however, he +was better; only he looked sadder than usual. She thought he was, for +some cause or other, in reality anxious about me. So much I gathered from +Martha's letter, by no means scholarly, but graphic enough. + +It gave me much pain. My uncle was miserable about me: he had plainly +seen, he knew and felt that something had come between us! Alas, it was +no fancy of his brain-troubled soul! Whether I was in fault or not, there +was that something! It troubled the unity that had hitherto seemed a +thing essential and indivisible! + +Dared I go to him without a summons? I knew Martha would call me the +moment the doctor allowed her: it would not be right to go without that +call. What I had to tell might justify far more anxiety than the sight of +me would counteract. If I said nothing, the keen eye of his love would +assure itself of the something hid in my silence, and he would not see +that I was but waiting his improvement to tell him everything. I resolved +therefore to remain where I was. + +The next two days were perhaps the most uncomfortable ever I spent. A +secret one desires to turn out of doors at the first opportunity, is not +a pleasant companion. I do not say I was unhappy, still less that once I +wished I had not seen John Day, but oh, how I longed to love him openly! +how I longed for my uncle's sanction, without which our love could not be +perfected! Then John's mother was by no means a gladsome thought--except +that he must be a good man indeed, who was good in spite of being unable +to love, respect, or trust his mother! The true notion of heaven, is to +be with everybody one loves: to him the presence of his mother--such as +she was, that is--would destroy any heaven! What a painful but salutary +shock it will be to those whose existence is such a glorifying of +themselves that they imagine their presence necessary to all about them, +when they learn that their disappearance from the world sent a thrill of +relief through the hearts of those nearest them! To learn how little +they were prized, will one day prove a strong medicine for souls +self-absorbed. + +“There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed.” + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +FAULT AND NO FAULT. + +The next day I kept the house till the evening, and then went walking in +the garden in the twilight. Between the dark alleys and the open +wilderness I flitted and wandered, alternating gloom and gleam outside +me, even as they chased one another within me. + +In the wilderness I looked up--and there was John! He stood outside the +fence, just as I had seen him the night before, only now there was no +aureole about his head: the moon had not yet reached the horizon. + +My first feeling was anger: he had broken our agreement! I did not +reflect that there was such a thing as breaking a law, or even a promise, +and being blameless. He leaped the fence, and clearing every bush like a +deer, came straight toward me. It was no use trying to escape him. I +turned my back, and stood. He stopped close behind me, a yard or two +away. + +“Will you not speak to me?” he said. “It is not my fault I am come.” + +“Whose fault then, pray?” I rejoined, with difficulty keeping my +position. “Is it mine?” + +“My mother's,” he answered. + +I turned and looked him in the eyes, through the dusk saw that he was +troubled, ran to him, and put my arms about him. + +“She has been spying,” he said, as soon as he could speak. “She will part +us at any risk, if she can. She is having us watched this very moment, +most likely. She may be watching us herself. She is a terrible woman when +she is for or against anything. Literally, I do not know what she would +not do to get her own way. She lives for her own way. The loss of it +would be to her as the loss of her soul. She will lose it this time +though! She will fail this time--if she never did before!” + +“Well,” I returned, nowise inclined to take her part, “I hope she will +fail! What does she say?” + +“She says she would rather go to her grave than see me your husband.” + +“Why?” + +“Your family seems objectionable to her.” + +“What is there against it?” + +“Nothing that I know.” + +“What is there against my uncle? Is there anything against Martha Moon?” + I was indignant at the idea of a whisper against either. + +“What have _I_ done?” I went on. “We are all of the family I know: what +is it?” + +“I don't think she has had time to invent anything yet; but she pretends +there is something, and says if I don't give you up, if I don't swear +never to look at you again, she will tell it.” + +“What did you answer her?” + +“I said no power on earth should make me give you up. Whatever she knew, +she could know nothing against _you_, and I was as ready to go to my +grave as she was. 'Mother,' I said, 'you may tell my determination by +your own! Whether I marry her or not, you and I part company the day I +come of age; and if you speak word or do deed against one of her family, +my lawyer shall look strictly into your accounts as my guardian.' You see +I knew where to touch her!” + +“It is dreadful you should have to speak like that to your mother!” + +“It is; but you would feel to her just as I do if you knew all--though +you wouldn't speak so roughly, I know.” + +“Can you guess what she has in her mind?” + +“Not in the least. She will pretend anything. It is enough that she is +determined to part us. How, she cares nothing, so she succeed.” + +“But she cannot!” + +“It rests with you.” + +“How with me?” + +“It will be war to the knife between her and me. If she succeed, it must +be with you. I will do anything to foil her except lie.” + +“What if she should make you see it your duty to give me up?” + +“What if there were no difference between right and wrong! We're as good +as married!” + +“Yes, of course; but I cannot quite promise, you know, until I hear what +my uncle will say.” + +“If your uncle is half so good a man as you have made me think him, he +will do what he can on our side. He loves what is fair; and what can be +fairer than that those who love each other should marry?” + +I knew my uncle would not willingly interfere with my happiness, and for +myself, I should never marry another than John Day--that was a thing of +course: had he not kissed me? But the best of lovers had been parted, and +that which had been might be again, though I could not see how! It _was_ +good, nevertheless, to hear John talk! It was the right way for a lover +to talk! Still, he had no supremacy over what was to be! + +“Some would say it cannot be so great a matter to us, when we have known +each other such a little while!” I remarked. + +“The true time is the long time!” he replied. “Would it be a sign that +our love was strong, that it took a great while to come to anything? The +strongest things--” + +There he stopped, and I saw why: strongest things are not generally of +quickest growth! But there was the eucalyptus! And was not St. Paul as +good a Christian as any of them? I said nothing, however: there was +indeed no rule in the matter! + +“You must allow it possible,” I said, “that we may not be married!” + +“I will not,” he answered. “It is true my mother may get me brought in as +incapable of managing my own affairs; but--” + +“What mother would do such a wicked thing!” I cried. + +“_My_ mother,” he answered. + +“Oh!” + +“She _would!_” + +“I can't believe it.” + +“I am sure of it.” + +I held my peace. I could not help a sense of dismay at finding myself so +near such a woman. I knew of bad women, but only in books: it would +appear they were in other places as well! + +“We must be on our guard,” he said. + +“Against what?” + +“I don't know; whatever she may do.” + +“We can't do anything till she begins!” + +“She has begun.” + +“How?” I asked incredulous. + +“Leander is lame,” he answered. + +“I am so sorry!” + +“I am so angry!” + +“Is it possible I understand you?” + +“Quite. _She_ did it.” + +“How do you know?” + +“I can no more prove it than I can doubt it. I cannot inquire into my +mother's proceedings. I leave that sort of thing to her. Let her spy on +me as she will, I am not going to spy on her.” + +“Of course not! But if you have no proof, how can you state the thing as +a fact?” + +“I have what is proof enough for saying it to my own soul.” + +“But you have spoken of it to me!” + +“You are my better soul. If you are not, then I have done wrong in saying +it to you.” + +I hastened to tell him I had only made him say what I hoped he +meant--only I wasn't his _better_ soul. He wanted me then to promise that +I would marry him in spite of any and every thing. I promised that I +would never marry any one but him. I could not say more, I said, not +knowing what my uncle might think, but so much it was only fair to say. +For I had gone so far as to let him know distinctly that I loved him; and +what sort would that love be that could regard it as possible, at any +distance of time, to marry another! Or what sort of woman could she be +that would shrink from such a pledge! The mischief lies in promises made +without forecasting thought. I knew what I was about. I saw forward and +backward and all around me. A solitary education opens eyes that, in the +midst of companions and engagements, are apt to remain shut. Knowledge of +the world is no safeguard to man or woman. In the knowledge and love of +truth, lies our only safety. + +With that promise he had to be, and was content. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +THE SUMMONS. + +Next morning the post brought me the following letter from my uncle. +Whoever of my readers may care to enter into my feelings as I read, must +imagine them for herself: I will not attempt to describe them. The letter +was not easy to read, as it was written in bed, and with his left hand. + +“My little one,--I think I know more than you imagine. I think the secret +flew into your heart of itself; you did not take it up and put it there. +I think you tried to drive it out, and it would not go: the same Fate +that clips the thread of life, had clipped its wings that it could fly no +more! Did my little one think I had not a heart big enough to hold her +secret? I wish it had not been so: it has made her suffer! I pray my +little one to be sure that I am all on her side; that my will is to do +and contrive the best for her that lies in my power. Should I be unable +to do what she would like, she must yet believe me true to her as to my +God, less than whom only I love her:--less, because God is so much +bigger, that so much more love will hang upon him. I love you, dear, more +than any other creature except one, and that one is not in this world. Be +sure that, whatever it may cost me, I will be to you what your own +perfected soul will approve. Not to do my best for you, would be to be +false, not to God only, but to your father as well, whom I loved and love +dearly. Come to me, my child, and tell me all. I know you have done +nothing wrong, nothing to be ashamed of. Some things are so difficult to +tell, that it needs help to make way for them: I will help you. I am +better. Come to me at once, and we will break the creature's shell +together, and see what it is like, the shy thing!--Your uncle.” + +I was so eager to go to him, that it was with difficulty I finished his +letter before starting. Death had been sent home, and was in the stable, +sorely missing his master. I called Dick, and told him to get ready to +ride with me to Wittenage; he must take Thanatos, and be at the door with +Zoe in twenty minutes. + +We started. As we left the gate, I caught sight of John coming from the +other direction, his eyes on the ground, lost in meditation. I stopped. +He looked up, saw me, and was at my side in two moments. + +“I have heard from my uncle,” I said. “He wants me. I am going to him.” + +“If only I had my horse!” he answered. + +“Why shouldn't you take Thanatos?” I rejoined. + +“No,” he answered, after a moment's hesitation. + +“It would be an impertinence. I will walk, and perhaps see you there. +It's only sixteen miles, I think.--What a splendid creature he is!” + +“He's getting into years now,” I replied; “but he has been in the stable +several days, and I am doubtful whether Dick will feel quite at home on +him.” + +“Then your uncle would rather I rode him! He knows I am no tailor!” said +John. + +“How?” I asked. + +“I don't mean he knows who I am, but he saw me a fortnight ago, in one of +our fields, giving Leander, who is but three, a lesson or two. He stopped +and looked on for a good many minutes, and said a kind word about my +handling of the horse. He will remember, I am sure.” + +“How glad I am he knows something of you! If you don't mind being seen +with me, then, there is no reason why you should not give me your +escort.” + +Dick was not sorry to dismount, and we rode away together. + +I was glad of this for one definite reason, as well as many indefinite: I +wanted John to see my letter, and know what cause I had to love my uncle. +I forgot for the moment my resolution not to meet him again before +telling my uncle everything. Somehow he seemed to be going with me to +receive my uncle's approval. + +He read the letter, old Death carrying him all the time as gently as he +carried myself--I often rode him now--and returned it with the tears in +his eyes. For a moment or two he did not speak. Then he said in a very +solemn way, + +“I see! I oughtn't to have a chance if he be against me! I understand now +why I could not get you to promise!--All right! The Lord have mercy upon +me!” + +“That he will! He is always having mercy upon us!” I answered, loving +John and my uncle and God more than ever. I loved John for this +especially, at the moment--that his nature remained uninjured toward +others by his distrust of her who should have had the first claim on his +confidence. I said to myself that, if a man had a bad mother and yet was +a good man, there could be no limit to the goodness he must come to. That +he was a man after my uncle's own heart, I had no longer the least doubt. +Nor was it a small thing to me that he rode beautifully--never seeming to +heed his horse, and yet in constant touch with him. + +We reached the town, and the inn where my uncle was lying. On the road we +had arranged where he would be waiting me to hear what came next. He went +to see the horses put up, and I ran to find Martha. She met me on the +stair, and went straight to my uncle to tell him I was come, returned +almost immediately, and led me to his room. + +I was shocked to see how pale and ill he looked. I feared, and was right +in fearing, that anxiety about myself had not a little to do with his +condition. His face brightened when he saw me, but his eyes gazed into +mine with a searching inquiry. His face brightened yet more when he found +his eager look answered by the smile which my perfect satisfaction +inspired. I knelt by the bedside, afraid to touch him lest I should hurt +his arm. + +Slowly he laid his left hand on my head, and I knew he blessed me +silently. For a minute or two he lay still. + +“Now tell me all about it,” he said at length, turning his patient blue +eyes on mine. I began at once, and if I did not tell him all, I let it be +plain there was more of the sort behind, concerning which he might +question me. When I had ended, + +“Is that everything?” he asked, with a smile so like all he had ever been +to me, that my whole heart seemed to go out to meet it. + +“Yes, uncle,” I answered; “I think I may say so--except that I have not +dwelt upon my feelings. Love, they say, is shy; and I fancy you will +pardon me that portion.” + +“Willingly, my child. More is quite unnecessary.” + +“Then you know all about it, uncle?” I ventured. “I was afraid you might +not understand me. Could any one, do you think, that had not had the same +experience?” + +He made me no answer. I looked up. He was ghastly white; his head had +fallen back against the bed. I started up, hardly smothering a shriek. + +“What is it, uncle?” I gasped. “Shall I fetch Martha?” + +“No, my child,” he answered. “I shall be better in a moment. I am subject +to little attacks of the heart, but they do not mean much. Give me some +of that medicine on the table.” + +In a few minutes his colour began to return, and the smile which was +forced at first, gradually brightened until it was genuine. + +“I will tell you the whole story one day,” he said, “--whether in this +world, I am doubtful. But _when_ is nothing, or _where_, with eternity +before us.” + +“Yes, uncle,” I answered vaguely, as I knelt again by the bedside. + +“A person,” he said, after a while, slowly, and with hesitating effort, +“may look and feel a much better person at one time than at another. +Upon occasion, he is so happy, or perhaps so well pleased with himself, +that the good in him comes all to the surface.” + +“Would he be the better or the worse man if it did not, uncle?” I asked. + +“You must not get me into a metaphysical discussion, little one,” he +answered. “We have something more important on our hands. I want you to +note that, when a person is happy, he may look lovable; whereas, things +going as he does not like, another, and very unfinished phase of his +character may appear.” + +“Surely everybody must know that, uncle!” + +“Then you can hardly expect me to be confident that your new friend would +appear as lovable if he were unhappy!” + +“I have seen you, uncle, look as if nothing would ever make you smile +again; but I knew you loved me all the time.” + +“Did you, my darling? Then you were right. I dare not require of any man +that he should be as good-tempered in trouble as out of it--though he +must come to that at last; but a man must be _just_, whatever mood he is +in.” + +“That is what I always knew you to be, uncle! I never waited for a change +in your looks, to tell you anything I wanted to tell you.--I know you, +uncle!” I added, with a glow of still triumph. + +“Thank you, little one!” he returned, half playfully, yet gravely. “All I +want to say comes to this,” he resumed after a pause, “that when a man is +in love, you see only the best of him, or something better than he really +is. Much good may be in a man, for God made him, and the man yet not be +good, for he has done nothing, since his making, to make himself. Before +you can say you know a man, you must have seen him in a few at least of +his opposite moods. Therefore you cannot wonder that I should desire a +fuller assurance of this young man, than your testimony, founded on an +acquaintance of three or four days, can give me.” + +“Let me tell you, then, something that happened to-day,” I answered. +“When first I asked him to come with me this morning, it was a temptation +to him of course, not knowing when we might see each other again; but he +hadn't his own horse, and said it would be an impertinence to ride +yours.” + +“I hope you did not come alone!” + +“Oh, no. I had set out with Dick, but John came after all.” + +“Then his refusal to ride my horse does not come to much. It is a small +thing to have good impulses, if temptation is too much for them.” + +“But I haven't done telling you, uncle!” + +“I am hasty, little one. I beg your pardon.” + +“I have to tell you what made him give in to riding your horse. I +confessed I was a little anxious lest Death, who had not been exercised +for some days, should be too much for Dick. John said then he thought he +might venture, for you had once spoken very kindly to him of the way he +handled his own horse.” + +“Oh, that's the young fellow, is it!” cried my uncle, in a tone that +could not be taken for other than one of pleasure. “That's the fellow, is +it?” he repeated. “H'm!” + +“I hope you liked the look of him, uncle!” I said. + +“The boy is a gentleman anyhow!” he answered.--“You may think whether I +was pleased!--I never saw man carry himself better horseward!” he added +with a smile. + +“Then you won't object to his riding Death home again?” + +“Not in the least!” he replied. “The man can ride.” + +“And may I go with him?--that is, if you do not want me!--I wish I could +stay with you!” + +“Rather than ride home with him?” + +“Yes, indeed, if it were to be of use to you!” + +“The only way you can be of use to me, is to ride home with Mr. Day, and +not see him again until I have had a little talk with him. Tyranny may be +a sense of duty, you know, little one!” + +“Tyranny, uncle!” I cried, as I laid my cheek to his hand, which was very +cold. “You could not make me think you a tyrant!” + +“I should not like you to think me one, darling! Still less would I like +to deserve it, whether you thought me one or not! But I could not be a +tyrant to you if I would. You may defy me when you please.” + +“That would be to poison my own soul!” I answered. + +“You must understand,” he continued, “that I have no authority over you. +If you were going to marry Mr. Day to-morrow, I should have no right to +interfere. I am but a make-shift father to you, not a legal guardian.” + +“Don't cast me off, uncle!” I cried. “You _know_ I belong to you as much +as if you were my very own father! I am sure my father will say so when +we see him. He will never come between you and me.” + +He gave a great sigh, and his face grew so intense that I felt as if I +had no right to look on it. + +“It is one of the deepest hopes of my existence,” he said, “to give you +back to him the best of daughters. Be good, my darling, be good, even if +you die of sorrow because of it.” + +The intensity had faded to a deep sadness, and there came a silence. + +“Would you like me to go now, uncle?” I asked. + +“I wish I could see Mr. Day at once,” he returned, “but I am so far from +strong, that I fear both weakness and injustice. Tell him I want very +much to see him, and will let him know as soon as I am able.” + +“Thank you, uncle! He will be so glad! Of course he can't feel as I do, +but he does feel that to do anything you did not like, would be just +horrid.” + +“And you will not see him again, little one, after he has taken you home, +till I have had some talk with him?” + +“Of course I will not, uncle.” + +I bade him good-bye, had a few moments' conference with Martha, and found +John at the place appointed. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +JOHN SEES SOMETHING. + +As we rode, I told him everything. It did not seem in the least strange +that I should be so close to one of whom a few days before I had never +heard; it seemed as if all my life I had been waiting for him, and now he +was come, and everything was only as it should be! We were very quiet in +our gladness. Some slight anxiety about my uncle's decision, and the +certain foreboding of trouble on the part of his mother, stilled us both, +sending the delight of having found each other a little deeper and out of +the way of the practical and reasoning. + +We did not urge our horses to their speed, but I felt that, for my +uncle's sake, I must not prolong the journey, forcing the last farthing +of bliss from his generosity, while yet he was uncertain of his duty. The +moon was rising just as we reached my home, and I was glad: John would +have to walk miles to reach his, for he absolutely refused to take Death +on, saying he did not know what might happen to him. As we stopped at the +gate I bethought myself that neither of us had eaten since we left in the +afternoon. I dismounted, and leaving him with the horses, got what I +could find for him, and then roused Dick, who was asleep. John confessed +that, now I had made him think of it, he was hungry enough to eat +anything less than an ox. We parted merrily, but when next we met, each +confessed it had not been without a presentiment of impending danger. For +my part, notwithstanding the position I had presumed to take with John +when first he spoke of his mother, I was now as distrustful as he, and +more afraid of her. + +Much the nearest way between the two houses lay across the heath. John +walked along, eating the supper I had given him, and now and then casting +a glance round the horizon. He had got about half-way, when, looking up, +he thought he saw, dim in the ghosty light of the moon, a speck upon the +track before him. He said to himself it could hardly be any one on the +moor at such a time of the night, and went on with his supper. Looking up +again after an interval, he saw that the object was much larger, but +hardly less vague, because of a light fog which had in the meantime +risen. By and by, however, as they drew nearer to each other, a strange +thrill of recognition went through him: on the way before him, which was +little better than a footpath, and slowly approaching, came what +certainly could be neither the horse that had carried him that day, nor +his double, but what was so like him in colour, size, and bone, while so +unlike him in muscle and bearing, that he might have been he, worn but +for his skin to a skeleton. Straight down upon John he came, spectral +through the fog, as if he were asleep, and saw nothing in his way. John +stepped aside to let him pass, and then first looked in the face of his +rider: with a shock of fear that struck him in the middle of the body, +making him gasp and choke, he saw before him--so plainly that, but +for the impossibility, he could have sworn to him in any court of +justice--the man whom he knew to be at that moment confined to his bed, +twenty miles away, with a broken arm. Sole other human being within sight +or sound in that still moonlight, on that desolate moor, the horseman +never lifted his head, never raised his eyes to look at him. John stood +stunned. He hardly doubted he saw an apparition. When at length he roused +himself, and looked in the direction in which it went, it had all but +vanished in the thickening white mist. + +He found the rest of his way home almost mechanically, and went straight +to bed, but for a long time could not sleep. + +For what might not the apparition portend? Mr. Whichcote lay hurt by a +fall from his horse, and he had met his very image on the back of just +such a horse, only turned to a skeleton! Was he bearing him away to the +tomb? + +Then he remembered that the horse's name was Death. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +JOHN IS TAKEN ILL. + +In the middle of the night he woke with a start, ill enough to feel that +he was going to be worse. His head throbbed; the room seemed turning +round with him, and when it settled, he saw strange shapes in it. A +few rays of the sinking moon had got in between the curtains of one +of the windows, and had waked up everything! The furniture looked +odd--unpleasantly odd. Something unnatural, or at least unearthly, must +be near him! The room was an old-fashioned one, in thorough keeping with +the age of the house--the very haunt for a ghost, but he had heard of no +ghost in that room! He got up to get himself some water, and drew the +curtains aside. He could have been in no thraldom to an apprehensive +imagination; for what man, with a brooding terror couched in him, would, +in the middle of the night, let in the moon? To such a passion, she is +worse than the deepest darkness, especially when going down, as she was +then, with the weary look she gets by the time her work is about over, +and she has long been forsaken of the poor mortals for whom she has so +often to be up and shining all night. He poured himself some water and +drank it, but thought it did not taste nice. Then he turned to the +window, and looked out. + +The house was in a large park. Its few trees served mainly to show how +wide the unbroken spaces of grass. Before the house, motionless as a +statue, stood a great gray horse with hanging neck, his shadow stretched +in mighty grotesque behind him, and on his back the very effigy of my +uncle, motionless too as marble. The horse stood sidewise to the house, +but the face of his rider was turned toward it, as if scanning its +windows in the dying glitter of the moon. John thought he heard a cry +somewhere, and went to his door, but, listening hard, heard nothing. When +he looked again from the window, the apparition seemed fainter, and +farther away, though neither horse nor rider had changed posture. He +rubbed his eyes to see more plainly, could no longer distinguish the +appearance, and went back to bed. In the morning he was in a high +fever--unconscious save of restless discomfort and undefined trouble. + +He learned afterward from the housekeeper, that his mother herself nursed +him, but he would take neither food nor medicine from her hand. No doctor +was sent for. John thought, and I cannot but think, that the water in his +bottle had to do with the sudden illness. His mother may have merely +wished to prevent him from coming to me; but, for the time at least, the +conviction had got possession of him, that she was attempting his life. +He may have argued in semi conscious moments, that she would not scruple +to take again what she was capable of imagining she had given. Her +attentions, however, may have arisen from alarm at seeing him worse than +she had intended to make him, and desire to counteract what she had done. + +For several days he was prostrate with extreme exhaustion. Necessarily, I +knew nothing of this; neither was I, notwithstanding my more than doubt +of his mother, in any immediate dread of what she might do. The cessation +of his visits could, of course, cause me no anxiety, seeing it was +thoroughly understood between us that we were not at liberty to meet. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +A STRANGE VISIT. + +On the fifth night after that on which he left me to walk home, I was +roused, about two o'clock, by a sharp sound as of sudden hail against my +window, ceasing as soon as it began. Wondering what it was, for hail it +could hardly be, I sprang from the bed, pulled aside the curtain, and +looked out. There was light enough in the moon to show me a man looking +up at the window, and love enough in my heart to tell me who he was. How +he knew the window mine, I have always forgotten to ask him. I would have +drawn back, for it vexed me sorely to think him too weak to hold to our +agreement, but the face I looked down upon was so ghastly and deathlike, +that I perceived at once his coming must have its justification. I did +not speak, for I would not have any in the house hear; but, putting on my +shoes and a big cloak, I went softly down the stair, opened the door +noiselessly, and ran to the other side of the house. There stood John, +with his eyes fixed on my window. As I turned the corner I could see, by +their weary flashing, that either something terrible had happened, or he +was very ill. He stood motionless, unaware of my approach. + +“What is it?” I said under my breath, putting a hand on his shoulder. + +He did not turn his head or answer me, but grew yet whiter, gasped, and +seemed ready to fall. I put my arm round him, and his head sank on the +top of mine. + +Whatever might be the matter, the first thing was to get him into +the house, and make him lie down. I moved a little, holding him fast, +and mechanically he followed his support; so that, although with +some difficulty, I soon got him round the house, and into the great +hall-kitchen, our usual sitting-room; there was fire there that would +only want rousing, and, warm as was the night, I felt him very cold. I +let him sink on the wide sofa, covered him with my cloak, and ran to +rouse old Penny. The aged sleep lightly, and she was up in an instant. +I told her that a gentleman I knew had come to the house, either +sleep-walking or delirious, and she must come and help me with him. She +struck a light, and followed me to the kitchen. + +John lay with his eyes closed, in a dead faint. We got him to swallow +some brandy, and presently he came to himself a little. Then we put him +in my warm bed, and covered him with blankets. In a minute or so he was +fast asleep. He had not spoken a word. I left Penny to watch him, and +went and dressed myself, thinking hard. The result was, that, having +enjoined Penny to let no one near him, _whoever_ it might be, I went to +the stable, saddled Zoe, and set off for Wittenage. + +It was sixteen miles of a ride. The moon went down, and the last of my +journey was very dark, for the night was cloudy; but we arrived in +safety, just as the dawn was promising to come as soon as it could. No +one in the town seemed up, or thinking of getting up. I had learned a +lesson from John, however, and I knew Martha's window, which happily +looked on the street. I got off Zoe, who was tired enough to stand still, +for she was getting old and I had not spared her, and proceeded to search +for a stone small enough to throw at the window. The scared face of +Martha showed itself almost immediately. + +“It's me!” I cried, no louder than she could just hear; “it's me, Martha! +Come down and let me in.” + +Without a word of reply, she left the window, and after some fumbling +with the lock, opened the door, and came out to me, looking gray with +scare, but none the less with all her wits to her hand. + +“How is my uncle, Martha?” I said. + +“Much better,” she answered. + +“Then I must see him at once!” + +“He's fast asleep, child! It would be a world's pity to wake him!” + +“It would be a worse pity not!” I returned. + +“Very well: must-be must!” she answered. + +I made Zoe fast to the lamp-post: the night was warm, and hot as she was, +she would take no hurt. Then I followed Martha up the stair. + +But my uncle was awake. He had heard a little of our motions and +whisperings, and lay in expectation of something. + +“I thought I should hear from you soon!” he said. “I wrote to Mr. Day on +Thursday, but have had no reply. What has happened? Nothing serious, I +hope?” + +“I hardly know, uncle. John Day is lying at our house, unable to move or +speak.” + +My uncle started up as if to spring from his bed, but fell back again +with a groan. + +“Don't be alarmed, uncle!” I said. “He is, I hope, safe for the moment, +with Penny to watch him; but I am very anxious Dr. Southwell should see +him.” + +“How did it come about, little one?” + +“There has been no accident that I know of. But I scarcely know more than +you,” I replied--and told him all that had taken place within my ken. + +He lay silent a moment, thinking. + +“I can't say I like his lying there with only Penny to protect him!” he +said. “He must have come seeking refuge! I don't like the thing at all! +He is in some danger we do not know!” + +“I will go back at once, uncle,” I replied, and rose from the bedside, +where I had seated myself a little tired. + +“You must, if we cannot do better. But I think we can. Martha shall go, +and you will stay with me. Run at once and wake Dr. Southwell. Ask him to +come directly.” + +I ran all the way--it was not far--and pulled the doctor's night-bell. He +answered it himself. I gave him my uncle's message, and he was at the inn +a few minutes after me. My uncle told him what had happened, and begged +him to go and see the patient, carrying Martha with him in his gig. + +The doctor said he would start at once. My uncle begged him to give +strictest orders that no one was to see Mr. Day, whoever it might be. +Martha heard, and grew like a colonel of dragoons ordered to charge with +his regiment. + +In less than half an hour they started--at a pace that delighted me. + +When Zoe was put up and attended to, and I was alone with my uncle, I got +him some breakfast to make up for the loss of his sleep. He told me it +was better than sleep to have me near him. + +What I went through that night and the following day, I need not recount. +Whoever has loved one in danger and out of her reach, will know what it +was like. The doctor did not make his appearance until five o'clock, +having seen several patients on his way back. The young man, he reported, +was certainly in for a fever of some kind---he could not yet pronounce +which. He would see him again on the morrow, he said, and by that time it +would have declared itself. Some one in the neighbourhood must watch the +case; it was impossible for him to give it sufficient attention. My uncle +told him he was now quite equal to the task himself, and we would all go +together the next day. My delight at the proposal was almost equalled by +my satisfaction that the doctor made no objection to it. + +For joy I scarcely slept that night: I was going to nurse John! But I was +anxious about my uncle. He assured me, however, that in one day more he +would in any case have insisted on returning. If it had not been for a +little lingering fever, he said, he would have gone much sooner. + +“That was because of me, uncle!” I answered with contrition. + +“Perhaps,” he replied; “but I had a blow on the head, you know!” + +“There is one good thing,” I said: “you will know John the sooner from +seeing him ill! But perhaps you will count that only a mood, uncle, and +not to be trusted!” + +He smiled. I think he was not _very_ anxious about the result of a nearer +acquaintance with John Day. I believe he had some faith in my spiritual +instinct. + +Uncle went with the doctor in his brougham, and I rode Zoe. The back of +the house came first in sight, and I saw the window-blinds of my room +still down. The doctor had pronounced it the fittest for the invalid, and +would not have him moved to the guest-chamber Penny had prepared for him. + +In the only room I had ever occupied as my own, I nursed John for a space +of three weeks. + +From the moment he saw me, he began to improve. My uncle noted this, and +I fancy liked John the better for it. Nor did he fail to note the +gentleness and gratitude of the invalid. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +A FOILED ATTEMPT. + +The morning after my uncle's return, came a messenger from Rising with +his lady's compliments, asking if Mr. Whichcote could tell her anything +of her son: he had left the house unseen, during a feverish attack, and +as she could get no tidings of him, she was in great anxiety. She had +accidentally heard that he had made Mr. Whichcote's acquaintance, and +therefore took the liberty of extending to him the inquiry she had +already made everywhere else among his friends. My uncle wrote in answer, +that her son had come to his house in a high fever; that he had been +under medical care ever since; and that he hoped in a day or two he might +be able to return. If he expressed a desire to see his mother, he would +immediately let her know, but in the meantime it was imperative he should +be kept quiet. + +From this letter, Lady Cairnedge might surmise that her relations +with her son were at least suspected. Within two hours came another +message--that she would send a close carriage to bring him home the next +day. Then indeed were my uncle and I glad that we had come. For though +Martha would certainly have defended the citadel to her utmost, she might +have been sorely put to it if his mother proceeded to carry him away by +force. My uncle, in reply, begged her not to give herself the useless +trouble of sending to fetch him: in the state he was in at present, it +would be tantamount to murder to remove him, and he would not be a party +to it. + +When I yielded my place in the sick-room to Martha and went to bed, my +heart was not only at ease for the night, but I feared nothing for the +next day with my uncle on my side--or rather on John's side. + +We were just rising from our early dinner, for we were old-fashioned +people, when up drove a grand carriage, with two strong footmen behind, +and a servant in plain clothes on the box by the coachman. It pulled up +at the door, and the man on the box got down and rang the bell, while his +fellows behind got down also, and stood together a little way behind him. +My uncle at once went to the hall, but no more than in time, for there +was Penny already on her way to open the door. He opened it himself, and +stood on the threshold. + +“If you please, sir,” said the man, not without arrogance, “we're come to +take Mr. Day home.” + +“Tell your mistress,” returned my uncle, “that Mr. Day has expressed no +desire to return, and is much too unwell to be informed of her ladyship's +wish.” + +“Begging your pardon, sir,” said the man, “we have her ladyship's orders +to bring him. We'll take every possible care of him. The carriage is an +extra-easy one, and I'll sit inside with the young gentleman myself. If +he ain't right in his head, he'll never know nothink till he comes to +himself in his own bed.” + +My uncle had let the man talk, but his anger was fast rising. + +“I cannot let him go. I would not send a beggar to the hospital in the +state he is in.” + +“But, indeed, sir, you must! We have our orders.” + +“If you fancy I will dismiss a guest of mine at the order of any human +being, were it the queen's own majesty,” said my uncle--I heard the +words, and with my mind's eyes saw the blue flash of his as he said +them--“you will find yourself mistaken.” + +“I'm sorry,” said the man quietly, “but I have my orders! Let me pass, +please. It is my business to find the young gentleman, and take him home. +No one can have the right to keep him against his mother's will, +especially when he's not in a fit state to judge for himself.” + +“Happily I am in a fit state to judge for him,” said my uncle, coldly. + +“I dare not go back without him. Let me pass,” he returned, raising his +voice a little, and approaching the door as if he would force his way. + +I ought to have mentioned that, as my uncle went to the door, he took +from a rack in the hall a whip with a bamboo stock, which he generally +carried when he rode. His answer to the man was a smart, though +left-handed blow with the stock across his face: they were too near for +the thong. He staggered back, and stood holding his hand to his face. His +fellow-servants, who, during the colloquy, had looked on with +gentlemanlike imperturbability, made a simultaneous step forward. My +uncle sent the thong with a hiss about their ears. They sprang toward him +in a fury, but halted immediately and recoiled. He had drawn a small +swordlike weapon, which I did not know to be there, from the stock of the +whip. He gave one swift glance behind him. I was in the hall at his back. + +“Shut the door, Orba,” he cried. + +I shut him out, and ran to a window in the little drawing-room, which +commanded the door. Never had I seen him look as now--his pale face pale +no longer, but flushed with anger. Neither, indeed, until that moment had +I ever seen the _natural_ look of anger, the expression of _pure_ anger. +There was nothing mean or ugly in it--not an atom of hate. But how his +eyes blazed! + +“Go back,” he cried, in a voice far more stern than loud. “If one of you +set foot on the lowest step, and I will run him through.” + +The men saw he meant it; they saw the closed door, and my uncle with his +back to it. They turned and spoke to each other. The coachman sat +immovable on his box. They mounted, and he drove away. + +I ran and opened the door. My uncle came in with a smile. He went up the +stair, and I followed him to the room where the invalid lay. We were both +anxious to learn if he had been disturbed. + +He was leaning on his elbow, listening. He looked a good deal more like +himself. + +“I knew you would defend me, sir!” he said, with a respectful confidence +which could not but please my uncle. + +“You did not want to go home--did you?” he asked with a smile. + +“I should have thrown myself out of the carriage!” answered John; “--that +is, if they had got me into it. But, please, tell me, sir,” he went on, +“how it is I find myself in your house? I have been puzzling over it all +the morning. I have no recollection of coming.” + +“You understand, I fancy,” rejoined my uncle, “that one of the family has +a notion she can take better care of you than anybody else! Is not that +enough to account for it?” + +“Hardly, sir. Belorba cannot have gone and rescued me from my mother!” + +“How do you know that? Belorba is a terrible creature when she is roused. +But you have talked enough. Shut your eyes, and don't trouble yourself to +recollect. As you get stronger, it will all come back to you. Then you +will be able to tell us, instead of asking us to tell you.” + +He left us together. I quieted John by reading to him, and absolutely +declining to talk. + +“You are a captive. The castle is enchanted: speak a single word,” I +said, “and you will find yourself in the dungeon of your own room.” + +He looked at me an instant, closed his eyes, and in a few minutes was +fast asleep. He slept for two hours, and when he woke was quite himself. +He was very weak, but the fever was gone, and we had now only to feed him +up, and keep him quiet. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +JOHN RECALLS AND REMEMBERS. + +What a weight was off my heart! It seemed as if nothing more could go +wrong. But, though John was plainly happy, he was not quite comfortable: +he worried himself with trying to remember how he had come to us. The +last thing he could definitely recall before finding himself with us, was +his mother looking at him through a night that seemed made of blackness +so solid that he marvelled she could move in it. She brought him +something to drink, but he fancied it blood, and would not touch it. He +remembered now that there was a red tumbler in his room. He could recall +nothing after, except a cold wind, and a sense of utter weariness but +absolute compulsion: he must keep on and on till he found the gate of +heaven, to which he seemed only for ever coming nearer. His conclusion +was, that he knew what he was about every individual moment, but had no +memory; each thing he did was immediately forgotten, while the knowledge +of what he had to do next remained with him. It was, he thought, a mental +condition analogous with walking, in which every step is a frustrated +fall. I set this down here, because, when I told my uncle what John had +been saying, myself not sure that I perceived what he meant, he declared +the boy a philosopher of the finest grain. But he warned me not to +encourage his talking, and especially not to ask him to explain. There +was nothing, he said, worse for a weak brain, than to set a strong will +to work it. + +I tried to obey him, but it grew harder as the days went on. There were +not many of them, however; he recovered rapidly. When at length my uncle +talked not only to but with him, I regarded it as a virtual withdrawal of +his prohibition, and after that spoke to John of whatever came into his +or my head. + +It was then he told me all he could remember since the moment he left me +with his supper in his hand. A great part of his recollection was the +vision of my uncle on the moor, and afterward in the park. We did not +know what to make of it. I should at once have concluded it caused by +prelusive illness, but for my remembrance of what both my uncle and +myself had seen, so long before, in the thunderstorm; while John, willing +enough to attribute its recurrence to that cause, found it impossible to +concede that he was anything but well when crossing the moor. I thought, +however, that excitement, fatigue, and lack of food, might have something +to do with it, and with his illness too; while, if he was in a state to +see anything phantasmal, what shape more likely to appear than that of my +uncle! + +He would not hear of my mentioning the thing to my uncle. I would for my +own part have gone to him with it immediately; but could not with John's +prayer in my ears. I resolved, however, to gain his consent if I could. + +He had by this time as great a respect for my uncle as I had myself, but +could not feel at home with him as I did. Whether the vision was only a +vision, or indeed my uncle's double, whatever a double may be, the tale +of it could hardly be an agreeable one to him; and naturally John shrank +from the risk of causing him the least annoyance. + +The question of course came up, what he was to do when able to leave us. +He had spoken very plainly to my uncle concerning his relations with his +mother--had told him indeed that he could not help suspecting he owed his +illness to her. + +I was nearly always present when they talked, but remember in especial a +part of what passed on one occasion. + +“I believe I understand my mother,” said John, “--but only after much +thinking. I loved her when a child; and if she had not left me for the +sake of liberty and influence--that at least is how I account for her +doing so--I might at this moment be struggling for personal freedom, +instead of having that over.” + +“There are women,” returned my uncle, “some of them of the most admired, +who are slaves to a demoniacal love of power. The very pleasure of their +consciousness consists in the knowledge that they have power--not power +to do things, but power to make other people do things. It is an +insanity, but a devilishly immoral and hateful insanity.--I do not say +the lady in question is one of such, for I do not know her; I only say I +have known such a one.” + +John replied that certainly the love of power was his mother's special +weakness. She was spoiled when a child, he had been told; had her every +wish regarded, her every whim respected. This ruinous treatment sprang, +he said, from the self-same ambition, in another form, on the part of +her mother--the longing, namely, to secure her child's supreme +affection--with the natural consequence that they came to hate one +another. His father and she had been married but fifteen months, when he +died of a fall, following the hounds. Within six months she was engaged, +but the engagement was broken off, and she went abroad, leaving him +behind her. She married lord Cairnedge in Venice, and returned to England +when John was nearly four, and seemed to have lost all memory of her. His +stepfather was good to him, but died when he was about eight. His mother +was very severe. Her object plainly was to plant her authority so in his +very nature, that he should never think of disputing her will. + +“But,” said John, “she killed my love, and so I grew able to cast off her +yoke.” + +“The world would fare worse, I fancy,” remarked my uncle, “if violent +women bore patient children. The evil would become irremediable. The +children might not be ruined, but they would bring no discipline to the +mother!” + +“Her servants,” continued John, “obey her implicitly, except when they +are sure she will never know. She treats them so imperiously, that they +admire her, and are proud to have such a mistress. But she is convinced +at last, I believe, that she will never get me to do as she pleases; and +therefore hates me so heartily, that she can hardly keep her ladylike +hands off me. I do not think I have been unreasonable; I have not found +it difficult to obey others that were set over me; but when I found +almost her every requirement part of a system for reducing me to a +slavish obedience, I began to lay down lines of my own. I resolved to do +at once whatever she asked me, whether pleasant to me or not, so long as +I saw no reason why it should not be done. Then I was surprised to find +how seldom I had to make a stand against her wishes. At the same time, +the mode in which she conveyed her pleasure, was invariably such as to +make a pretty strong effort of the will necessary for compliance with it. +But the effort to overcome the difficulty caused by her manner, helped to +develop in me the strength to resist where it was not right to yield. By +far the most serious difference we had yet had, arose about six months +ago, when she insisted I should make myself agreeable to a certain lady, +whom I by no means disliked. She had planned our marriage, I believe, as +one of her parallels in the siege of the lady's noble father, then a +widower of a year. I told her I would not lay myself out to please any +lady, except I wanted to marry her. 'And why, pray, should you not marry +her?' she returned. I answered that I did not love her, and would not +marry until I saw the woman I could not be happy without, and she +accepted me. She went into a terrible passion, but I found myself quite +unmoved by it: it is a wonderful heartener to know yourself not merely +standing up for a right, but for the right to do the right thing! 'You +wouldn't surely have me marry a woman I didn't care a straw for!' I said. +'Quench my soul!' she cried--I have often wondered where she learned the +oath--'what would that matter? She wouldn't care a straw for you in a +month!'--'Why should I marry her then?'--'Because your mother wishes it,' +she replied, and turned to march from the room as if that settled the +thing. But I could not leave it so. The sooner she understood the better! +'Mother!' I cried, 'I will not marry the lady. I will not pay her the +least attention that could be mistaken to mean the possibility of it.' +She turned upon me. I have just respect enough left for her, not to say +what her face suggested to me. She was pale as a corpse; her very lips +were colourless; her eyes--but I will not go on. 'Your father all over!' +she snarled--yes, snarled, with an inarticulate cry of fiercest loathing, +and turned again and went. If I do not quite think my mother, _at +present_, would murder me, I do think she would do anything short of +murder to gain her ends with me. But do not be afraid; I am sufficiently +afraid to be on my guard. + +“My father was a rich man, and left my mother more than enough; there was +no occasion for her to marry again, except she loved, and I am sure she +did not love lord Cairnedge. I wish, for my sake, not for his, he were +alive now. But the moment, I am one and twenty, I shall be my own master, +and hope, sir, you will not count me unworthy to be the more Belorba's +servant. One thing I am determined upon: my mother shall not cross my +threshold but at my wife's invitation; and I shall never ask my wife to +invite her. She is too dangerous. + +“We had another altercation about Miss Miles, an hour or two before I +first saw Orba. They were far from worthy feelings that possessed me up +to the moment when I caught sight of her over the wall. It was a leap out +of hell into paradise. The glimpse of such a face, without shadow of +scheme or plan or selfish end, was salvation to me. I thank God!” + +Perhaps I ought not to let those words about myself stand, but he said +them. + +He had talked too long. He fell back in his chair, and the tears began to +gather in his eyes. My uncle rose, put his arm about me, and led me to +the study. + +“Let him rest a bit, little one,” he said as we entered. “It is long +since we had a good talk!” + +He seated himself in his think-chair--a name which, when a child, I had +given it, and I slid to the floor at his feet. + +“I cannot help thinking, little one,” he began, “that you are going to be +a happy woman! I do believe that is a man to be trusted. As for the +mother, there is no occasion to think of her, beyond being on your guard +against her. You will have no trouble with her after you are married.” + +“I cannot help fearing she will do us a mischief, uncle,” I returned. + +“Sir Philip Sidney says--'Since a man is bound no further to himself than +to do wisely, chance is only to trouble them that stand upon chance.' +That is, we are responsible only for our actions, not for their results. +Trust first in God, then in John Day.” + +“I was sure you would like him, uncle!” I cried, with a flutter of loving +triumph. + +“I was nearly as sure myself--such confidence had I in the instinct of my +little one. I think that I, of the two of us, may, in this instance, +claim the greater faith!” + +“You are always before me, uncle!” I said. “I only follow where you lead. +But what do you think the woman will do next?” + +“I don't think. It is no use. We shall hear of her before long. If all +mothers were like her, the world would hardly be saved!” + +“It would not be worth saving, uncle.” + +“Whatever can be saved, must be worth saving, my child.” + +“Yes, uncle; I shouldn't have said that,” I replied. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +LETTER AND ANSWER. + +We did hear of her before long. The next morning a letter was handed to +my uncle as we sat at breakfast. He looked hard at the address, changed +countenance, and frowned very dark, but I could not read the frown. Then +his face cleared a little; he opened, read, and handed the letter to me. + +Lady Cairnedge hoped Mr. Whichcote would excuse one who had so lately +come to the neighbourhood, that, until an hour ago, she knew nothing of +the position and character of the gentleman in whose house her son had, +in a momentary, but, alas! not unusual aberration, sought shelter, and +found generous hospitality. She apologized heartily for the unceremonious +way in which she had sent for him. In her anxiety to have him home, if +possible, before he should realize his awkward position in the house of a +stranger, she had been inconsiderate! She left it to the judgment of his +kind host whether she should herself come to fetch him, or send her +carriage with the medical man who usually attended him. In either case +her servants must accompany the carriage, as he would probably object to +being removed. He might, however, be perfectly manageable, for he was, +when himself, the gentlest creature in the world! + +I was in a rage. I looked up, expecting to see my uncle as indignant with +the diabolical woman as I was myself. But he seemed sunk in reverie, his +body present, his spirit far away. A pang shot through my heart. Could +the wicked device have told already? + +“May I ask, uncle,” I said, and tried hard to keep my voice steady, “how +you mean to answer this vile epistle?” + +He looked up with a wan smile, such as might have broke from Lazarus when +he found himself again in his body. + +“I will take it to the young man,” he answered. + +“Please, let us go at once then, uncle! I cannot sit still.” + +He rose, and we went together to John's room. + +He was much better--sitting up in bed, and eating the breakfast Penny had +carried him. + +“I have just had a letter from your mother, Day,” said my uncle. + +“Indeed!” returned John dryly. + +“Will you read it, and tell me what answer you would like me to return.” + +“Hardly like her usual writing--though there's her own strange S!” + remarked John as he looked at it. + +“Does she always make an S like that?” asked my uncle, with something +peculiar in his tone, I thought. + +“Always--like a snake just going to strike.” + +My uncle's face grew ghastly pale. He almost snatched the letter from +John's hand, looked at it, gave it back to him, and, to our dismay, left +the room. + +“What can be the matter, John?” I said, my heart sinking within me. + +“Go to him,” said John. + +I dared not. I had often seen him _like_ that before walking out into the +night; but there was something in his face now which I had not seen there +before. It looked as if some terrible suspicion were suddenly confirmed. + +“You see what my mother is after!” said John. “You have now to believe +_her_, that I am subject to fits of insanity, or to believe _me_, that +there is nothing she will not do to get her way.” + +“Her object is clear,” I replied. “But if she thinks to fool my uncle, +she will find herself mistaken!” + +“She hopes to fool both you and your uncle,” he rejoined. “The only wise +thing I could do, she will handle so as to convince any expert of my +madness--I mean, my coming to you! My reasons will go for nothing--less +than no-thing--with any one she chooses to bewitch. She will look at me +with an anxious love no doctor could doubt. No one can know _you_ do not +know that I am not mad--or at least subject to attacks of madness!” + +“Oh, John, don't frighten me!” I cried. + +“There! you are not sure about it!” + +It seemed cruel of him to tease me so; but I saw presently why he did it: +he thought his mother's letter had waked a doubt in my uncle; and he +wanted me not to be vexed with my uncle, even if he deserted him and went +over to his mother's side. + +“I love your uncle,” he said. “I know he is a true man! I _will_ not be +angry with him if my mother do mislead him. The time will come when he +will know the truth. It must appear at last! I shall have to fight her +alone, that's all! The worst is, if he thinks with my mother I shall have +to go at once!--If only somebody would sell my horse for me!” + +I guessed that his mother kept him short of money, and remembered with +gladness that I was not quite penniless at the moment. + +“In the meantime, you must keep as quiet as you can, John,” I said. +“Where is the good of planning upon an _if_? To trust is to get ready, +uncle says. Trust is better than foresight.” + +John required little such persuading. And indeed something very different +was in my uncle's mind from what John feared. + +Presently I caught a glimpse of him riding out of the yard. I ran to a +window from which I could see the edge of the moor, and saw him cross it +at an uphill gallop. + +He was gone about four hours, and on his return went straight to his own +room. Not until nine o'clock did I go to him, and then he came with me to +supper. + +He looked worn, but was kind and genial as usual. After supper he sent +for Dick, and told him to ride to Rising, the first thing in the morning, +with a letter he would find on the hall-table. + +The letter he read to us before we parted for the night. It was all we +could have wished. He wrote that he must not have any one in his house +interfered with; so long as a man was his guest, he was his servant. Her +ladyship had, however, a perfect right to see her son, and would be +welcome; only the decision as to his going or remaining must rest with +the young man himself. If he chose to accompany his mother, well and +good! though he should be sorry to lose him. If he declined to return +with her, he and his house continued at his service. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +HAND TO HAND. + +We looked for lady Cairnedge all the next day. John was up by noon, and +ready to receive her in the drawing-room; he would not see her in his +bedroom. But the hours passed, and she did not come. + +In the evening, however, when the twilight was thickening, and already +all was dark in the alleys of the garden, her carriage drove quietly +up--with a startling scramble of arrest at the door. The same servants +were outside, and a very handsome dame within. As she descended, I saw +that she was tall, and, if rather stout, not stouter than suited her age +and style. Her face was pale, but she seemed in perfect health. When I +saw her closer, I found her features the most regular I had ever seen. +Had the soul within it filled the mould of that face, it would have been +beautiful. As it was, it was only handsome--to me repulsive. The moment I +saw it, I knew myself in the presence of a masked battery. + +My uncle had insisted that she should be received where we usually sat, +and had given Penny orders to show her into the hall-kitchen. + +I was alone there, preparing something for John. We were not expecting +her, for it seemed now too late to look for her. My uncle was in the +study, and Martha somewhere about the house. My heart sank as I turned +from the window, and sank yet lower when she appeared in the doorway of +the kitchen. But as I advanced, I caught sight of my uncle, and went +boldly to meet the enemy. He had come down his stair, and had just +stepped into a clear blaze of light, which that moment burst from the +wood I had some time ago laid damp upon the fire. The next instant I saw +the lady's countenance ghastly with terror, looking beyond me. I turned, +but saw nothing, save that my uncle had disappeared. When I faced her +again, only a shadow of her fright remained. I offered her my hand--for +she was John's mother, but she did not take it. She stood scanning me +from head to foot. + +“I am lady Cairnedge,” she said. “Where is my son?” + +I turned yet again. My uncle had not come back. I was not prepared to +take his part. I was bewildered. A dead silence fell. For the first time +in my life, my uncle seemed to have deserted me, and at the moment when +most I needed him! I turned once more to the lady, and said, hardly +knowing what, + +“You wish to see Mr. Day?” + +She answered me with a cold stare. + +“I will go and tell him you are here,” I faltered; and passing her, I +sped along the passage to the drawing-room. + +“John!” I cried, bursting in, “she's come! Do you still mean to see her? +Are you able? Uncle--” + +There I stopped, for his eyes were stern, and not looking at me, but at +something behind me. One moment I thought his fever had returned, but +following his gaze I looked round:--there stood lady Cairnedge! John was +face to face with his mother, and my uncle was not there to defend him! + +“Are you ready?” she said, nor pretended greeting. She seemed slightly +discomposed, and in haste. + +I was by this time well aware of my lover's determination of character, +but I was not prepared for the tone in which he addressed the icy woman +calling herself his mother. + +“I am ready to listen,” he answered. + +“John!” she returned, with mingled severity and sharpness, “let us have +no masquerading! You are perfectly fit to come home, and you must come at +once. The carriage is at the door.” + +“You are quite right, mother,” answered John calmly; “I _am_ fit to go +home with you. But Rising does not quite agree with me. I dread such +another attack, and do not mean to go.” + +The drawing-room had a rectangular bay-window, one of whose three sides +commanded the door. The opposite side looked into a little grove of +larches. Lady Cairnedge had already realized the position of the room. +She darted to the window, and saw her carriage but a few yards away. + +She would have thrown up the sash, but found she could not. She twisted +her handkerchief round her gloved hand, and dashed it through a pane. + +“Men!” she cried, in a loud, commanding voice, “come at once.” + +The moment she went to the window, I sprang to the door, locked it, put +the key in my pocket, and set my back to the door. + +I heard the men thundering at the hall-door. Lady Cairnedge turned as if +she would herself go and open to them, but seeing me, she understood what +I had done, and went back to the window. + +“Come here! Come to me here--to the window!” she cried. + +John had been watching with a calm, determined look. He came and stood +between us. + +“John,” I said, “leave your mother to me.” + +“She will kill you!” he answered. + +“You might kill her!” I replied. + +I darted to the chimney, where a clear fire was burning, caught up the +poker, and thrust it between the bars. + +“That's for you!” I whispered. “They will not touch you with that in your +hand! Never mind me. If your mother move hand or foot to help them, it +will be my turn!” + +He gave me a smile and a nod, and his eyes lightened. I saw that he +trusted me, and I felt fearless as a bull-dog. + +In the meantime, she had spoken to her servants, and was now trying to +open the window, which had a peculiar catch. I saw that John could defend +himself much better at the window than in the room. I went softly behind +his mother, put my hands round her neck, and clasping them in front, +pulled her backward with all my strength. We fell on the floor together, +I under of course, but clutching as if all my soul were in my fingers. +Neither should she meddle with John, nor should he lay hand on her! I did +not mind much what I did to her myself. + +“To the window, John,” I cried, “and break their heads!” + +He snatched the poker from the fire, and the next moment I heard a +crashing of glass, but of course I could not see what was going on. Mine +was no grand way of fighting, but what was dignity where John was in +danger! For the moment I had the advantage, but, while determined to hold +on to the last, I feared she would get the better of me, for she was much +bigger and stronger, and crushed and kicked, and dug her elbows into me, +struggling like a mad woman. + +All at once the tug of her hands on mine ceased. She gave a great shriek, +and I felt a shudder go through her. Then she lay still. I relaxed my +hold cautiously, for I feared a trick. She did not move. Horror seized +me; I thought I had killed her. I writhed from under her to see. As I did +so, I caught sight of the pale face of my uncle, looking in at that part +of the window next the larch-grove. Immediately I remembered lady +Cairnedge's terror in the kitchen, and knew that the cause of it, and of +her present cry, must be the same, to wit, the sight of my uncle. I had +not hurt her! I was not yet on my feet when my uncle left the window, +flew to the other side of it, and fell upon the men with a stick so +furiously that he drove them to the carriage. The horses took fright, and +went prancing about, rearing and jibbing. At the call of the coachman, +two of the men flew to their heads. I saw no more of their assailant. + +John, who had not got a fair blow at one of his besiegers, left the +window, and came to me where I was trying to restore his mother. The +third man, the butler, came back to the window, put his hand through, +undid the catch, and flung the sash wide. John caught up the poker from +the floor, and darted to it. + +“Set foot within the window, Parker,” he cried, “and I will break your +head.” + +The man did not believe he would hurt him, and put foot and head through +the window. + +Now John had honestly threatened, but to perform he found harder than he +had thought: it is one thing to raise a poker, and another to strike a +head with it. The window was narrow, and the whole man was not yet in the +room, when John raised his weapon; but he could not bring the horrid +poker down upon the dumb blind back of the stooping man's head. He threw +it from him, and casting his eyes about, spied a huge family-bible on a +side-table. He sprang to it, and caught it up--just in time. The man had +got one foot firm on the floor, and was slowly drawing in the other, when +down came the bible on his head, with all the force John could add to its +weight. The butler tumbled senseless on the floor. + +“Here, Orbie!” cried John; “help me to bundle him out before he comes to +himself--Take what you would have!” he said, as between us we shoved him +out on the gravel. + +I fetched smelling-salts and brandy, and everything I could think +of--fetched Martha too, and between us we got her on the sofa, but lady +Cairnedge lay motionless. She breathed indeed, but did not open her eyes. +John stood ready to do anything for her, but his countenance revealed +little compassion. Whatever the cause of his mother's swoon--he had never +seen her in one before--he was certain it had to do with some bad passage +in her life. He said so to me that same evening. “But what could the +sight of my uncle have to do with it?” I asked. “Probably he knows +something, or she thinks he does,” he answered. + +“Wouldn't it be better to put her to bed, and send for the doctor, John?” + I suggested at last. + +Perhaps the sound of my voice calling her son by his Christian name, +stung her proud ear, for the same moment she sat up, passed her hands +over her eyes, and cast a scared gaze about the room. + +“Where am I? Is it gone?” she murmured, looking ghastly. + +No one answered her. + +“Call Parker,” she said, feebly, yet imperiously. + +Still no one spoke. + +She kept glancing sideways at the window, where nothing was to be seen +but the gathering night. In a few moments she rose and walked straight +from the room, erect, but white as a corpse. I followed, passed her, and +opened the hall-door. There stood the carriage, waiting, as if nothing +unusual had happened, Parker seated in the rumble, with one of the +footmen beside him. The other man stood by the carriage-door. He opened +it immediately; her ladyship stepped in, and dropped on the seat; the +carriage rolled away. + +I went back to John. + +“I must leave you, darling!” he said. “I cannot subject you to the risk +of such another outrage! I fear sometimes my mother may be what she would +have you think me. I ought to have said, I hope she is. It would be the +only possible excuse for her behaviour. The natural end of loving one's +own way, is to go mad. If you don't get it, you go mad; if you do get it, +you go madder--that's all the difference!--I must go!” + +I tried to expostulate with him, but it was of no use. + +“Where will you go?” I said. “You cannot go home!” + +“I would at once,” he answered, “if I could take the reins in my own +hands. But I will go to London, and see the family-lawyer. He will tell +me what I had better do.” + +“You have no money!” I said. + +“How do you know that?” he returned with a smile. “Have you been +searching my pockets?” + +“John!” I cried. + +He broke into a merry laugh. + +“Your uncle will lend me a five-pound-note,” he said. + +“He will lend you as much as you want; but I don't think he's in the +house,” I answered. “I have two myself, though! I'll run and fetch them.” + +I bounded away to get the notes. It was like having a common purse +already, to lend John ten pounds! But I had no intention of letting him +leave the house the same day he was first out of his room after such an +illness--that was, if I could help it. + +My uncle had given me the use of a drawer in that same cabinet in which +were the precious stones; and there, partly, I think, from the pride of +sharing the cabinet with my uncle, I had long kept everything I counted +precious: I should have kept Zoe there if she had not been alive and too +big! + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +A VERY STRANGE THING. + +The moment I opened the door of the study, I saw my uncle--in his +think-chair, his head against the back of it, his face turned to the +ceiling. I ran to his side and dropped on my knees, thinking he was dead. +He opened his eyes and looked at me, but with such a wan, woe-begone +countenance, that I burst into a passion of tears. + +“What is it, uncle dear?” I gasped and sobbed. + +“Nothing very new, little one,” he answered. + +“It is something terrible, uncle,” I cried, “or you would not look like +that! Did those horrid men hurt you? You did give it them well! You came +down on them like the angel on the Assyrians!” + +“I don't know what you're talking about, little one!” he returned. “What +men?” + +“The men that came with John's mother to carry him off. If it hadn't been +for my beautiful uncle, they would have done it too! How I wondered what +had become of you! I was almost in despair. I thought you had left us to +ourselves--and you only waiting, like God, for the right moment!” + +He sat up, and stared at me, bewildered. + +“I had forgotten all about John!” he said. + +“As to what you think I did, I know nothing about it. I haven't been out +of this room since I saw--that spectre in the kitchen.” + +“John's mother, you mean, uncle?” + +“Ah! she's John's mother, is she? Yes, I thought as much--and it was more +than my poor brain could stand! It was too terrible!--My little one, this +is death to you and me!” + +My heart sank within me. One thought only went through my head--that, +come what might, I would no more give up John, than if I were already +married to him in the church. + +“But why--what is it, uncle?” I said, hardly able to get the words out. + +“I will tell you another time,” he answered, and rising, went to the +door. + +“John is going to London,” I said, following him. + +“Is he?” he returned listlessly. + +“He wants to see his lawyer, and try to get things on a footing of some +sort between his mother and him.” + +“That is very proper,” he replied, with his hand on the lock. + +“But you don't think it would be safe for him to travel to-night--do you, +uncle--so soon after his illness?” I asked. + +“No, I cannot say I do. It would not be safe. He is welcome to stop till +to-morrow.” + +“Will you not tell him so, uncle? He is bent on going!” + +“I would rather not see him! There is no occasion. It will be a great +relief to me when he is able--quite able, I mean--to go home to his +mother--or where it may suit him best.” + +It was indeed like death to hear my uncle talk so differently about John. +What had he done to be treated in this way--taken up and made a friend +of, and then cast off without reason given! My dear uncle was not at all +like himself! To say he forgot our trouble and danger, and never came +near us in our sore peril, when we owed our deliverance to him! and now +to speak like this concerning John! Something was terribly wrong with +him! I dared hardly think what it could be. + +I stood speechless. + +My uncle opened the door, and went down the steps. The sound of his feet +along the corridor and down the stair to the kitchen, died away in my +ears. My life seemed to go ebbing with it. I was stranded on a desert +shore, and he in whom I had trusted was leaving me there! + +I came to myself a little, got the two five-pound-notes, and returned to +John. + +When I reached the door of the room, I found my heart in my throat, and +my brains upside down. What was I to say to him? How could I let him go +away so late? and how could I let him stay where his departure would be a +relief? Even I would have him gone from where he was not wanted! I saw, +however, that my uncle must not have John's death at his door--that I +must persuade him to stay the night. I went in, and gave him the notes, +but begged him, for my love, to go to bed. In the morning, I said, I +would drive him to the station. + +He yielded with difficulty--but with how little suspicion that all the +time I wished him gone! I went to bed only to lie listening for my +uncle's return. It was long past midnight ere he came. + +In the morning I sent Penny to order the phaeton, and then ran to my +uncle's room, in the hope he would want to see John before he left: I was +not sure he had realized that he was going. + +He was neither in his bed-room nor in the study. I went to the stable. +Dick was putting the horse to the phaeton. He told me he had heard his +master, two hours before, saddle Thanatos, and ride away. This made me +yet more anxious about him. He did not often ride out early--seldom +indeed after coming home late! Things seemed to threaten complication! + +John looked so much better, and was so eager after the projected +interview with his lawyer, that I felt comforted concerning him. I did +not tell him what my uncle had said the night before. It would, I felt, +be wrong to mention what my uncle might wish forgotten; and as I did not +know what he meant, it could serve no end. We parted at the station very +much as if we had been married half a century, and I returned home to +brood over the strange things that had happened. But before long I found +myself in a weltering swamp of futile speculation, and turned my thoughts +perforce into other channels, lest I should lose the power of thinking, +and be drowned in reverie: my uncle had taught me that reverie is Phaeton +in the chariot of Apollo. + +The weary hours passed, and my uncle did not come. I had never before +been really uneasy at his longest absence; but now I was far more anxious +about him than about John. Alas, through me fresh trouble had befallen my +uncle as well as John! When the night came, I went to bed, for I was very +tired: I must keep myself strong, for something unfriendly was on its +way, and I must be able to meet it! I knew well I should not sleep until +I heard the sounds of his arrival: those came about one o'clock, and in a +moment I was dreaming. + +In my dream I was still awake, and still watching for my uncle's return. +I heard the sound of Death's hoofs, not on the stones of the yard, but on +the gravel before the house, and coming round the house till under my +window. There he stopped, and I heard my uncle call to me to come down: +he wanted me. In my dream I was a child; I sprang out of bed, ran from +the house on my bare feet, jumped into his down-stretched arms, and was +in a moment seated in front of him. Death gave a great plunge, and went +off like the wind, cleared the gate in a flying stride, and rushed up +the hill to the heath. The wind was blowing behind us furiously: I could +hear it roaring, but did not feel it, for it could not overtake us; we +out-stripped and kept ahead of it; if for a moment we slackened speed, it +fell upon us raging. + +We came at length to the pool near the heart of the heath, and I wondered +that, at the speed we were making, we had been such a time in reaching +it. It was the dismalest spot, with its crumbling peaty banks, and its +water brown as tea. Tradition declared it had no bottom--went down into +nowhere. + +“Here,” said my uncle, bringing his horse to a sudden halt, “we had a +terrible battle once, Death and I, with the worm that lives in this hole. +You know what worm it is, do you not?” + +I had heard of the worm, and any time I happened, in galloping about the +heath, to find myself near the pool, the thought would always come back +with a fresh shudder--what if the legend were a true one, and the worm +was down there biding his time! but anything more about the worm I had +never heard. + +“No, uncle,” I answered; “I don't know what worm it is.” + +“Ah,” he answered, with a sigh, “if you do not take the more care, little +one, you will some day learn, not what the worm is called, but what it +is! The worm that lives there, is the worm that never dies.” + +I gave a shriek; I had never heard of the horrible creature before--so it +seemed in my dream. To think of its being so near us, and never dying, +was too terrible. + +“Don't be frightened, little one,” he said, pressing me closer to his +bosom. “Death and I killed it. Come with me to the other side, and you +will see it lying there, stiff and stark.” + +“But, uncle,” I said, “how can it be dead--how can you have killed it, if +it never dies?” + +“Ah, that is the mystery!” he returned. + +“But come and see. It was a terrible fight. I never had such a fight--or +dear old Death either. But she's dead now! It was worth living for, to +make away with such a monster!” + +We rode round the pool, cautiously because of the crumbling banks, to see +the worm lie dead. On and on we rode. I began to think we must have +ridden many times round the hole. + +“I wonder where it can be, uncle!” I said at length. + +“We shall come to it very soon,” he answered. + +“But,” I said, “mayn't we have ridden past it without seeing it?” + +He laughed a loud and terrible laugh. + +“When once you have seen it, little one,” he replied, “you too will laugh +at the notion of having ridden past it without seeing it. The worm that +never dies is hardly a thing to escape notice!” + +We rode on and on. All at once my uncle threw up his hands, dropping the +reins, and with a fearful cry covered his face. + +“It is gone! I have not killed it! No, I have not! It is here! it is +here!” he cried, pressing his hand to his heart. “It is here, and it was +here all the time I thought it dead! What will become of me! I am lost, +lost!” + +At the word, old Death gave a scream, and laying himself out, flew with +all the might of his swift limbs to get away from the place. But the +wind, which was behind us as we came, now stormed in our faces; and +presently I saw we should never reach home, for, with all Death's fierce +endeavour, we moved but an inch or two in the minute, and that with a +killing struggle. + +“Little one,” said my uncle, “if you don't get down we shall all be lost. +I feel the worm rising. It is your weight that keeps poor Death from +making any progress.” + +I turned my head, leaning past my uncle, so as to see behind him. A long +neck, surmounted by a head of indescribable horror, was slowly rising +straight up out of the middle of the pool. It should not catch them! I +slid down by my uncle's leg. The moment I touched the ground and let go, +away went Death, and in an instant was out of sight. I was not afraid. My +heart was lifted up with the thought that I was going to die for my uncle +and old Death. The red worm was on the bank. It was crawling toward me. I +went to meet it. It sprang from the ground, threw itself upon me, and +twisted itself about me. It was a human embrace, the embrace of some one +unknown that loved me! + +I awoke and left the dream. But the dream never left me. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +THE EVIL DRAWS NIGHER. + +I rose early, and went to my uncle's room. He was awake, but complained +of headache. I took him a cup of tea, and at his request left him. + +About noon Martha brought me a letter where I sat alone in the +drawing-room. I carried it to my uncle. He took it with a trembling hand, +read it, and fell back with his eyes closed. I ran for brandy. + +“Don't be frightened, little one,” he called after me. “I don't want +anything.” + +“Won't you tell me what is the matter, uncle?” I said, returning. “Is it +necessary I should be kept ignorant?” + +“Not at all, my little one.” + +“Don't you think, uncle,” I dared to continue, forgetting in my love all +difference of years, “that, whatever it be that troubles us, it must be +better those who love us should know it? Is there some good in a secret +after all?” + +“None, my darling,” he answered. “The thing that made me talk to you so +against secrets when you were a child, was, that I had one myself--one +that was, and is, eating the heart out of me. But that woman shall not +know and you be ignorant! I will not have a secret with _her!_--Leave me +now, please, little one.” + +I rose at once. + +“May I take the letter with me, uncle?” I asked. + +He rubbed his forehead with a still trembling hand. The trembling of that +beloved hand filled me with such a divine sense of pity, that for the +first time I seemed to know God, causing in me that consciousness! The +whole human mother was roused in me for my uncle. I would die, I would +kill to save him! The worm was welcome to swallow me! My very being was a +well of loving pity, pouring itself out over that trembling hand. + +He took up the letter, gave it to me, and turned his face away with a +groan. I left the room in strange exaltation--the exaltation of merest +love. + +I went to the study, and there read the hateful letter. + +Here it is. Having transcribed it, I shall destroy it. + +“Sir,--For one who persists in coming between a woman and her son, who +will blame the mother if she cast aside forbearance! I would have spared +you as hitherto; I will spare you no longer. You little thought when you +crossed me who I was--the one in the world in whose power you lay! I +would perish ever-lastingly rather than permit one of my blood to marry +one of yours. My words are strong; you are welcome to call them +unladylike; but you shall not doubt what I mean. You know perfectly that, +if I denounce you as a murderer, I can prove what I say; and as to my +silence for so many years, I am able thoroughly to account for it. I +shall give you no further warning. You know where my son is: if he is not +in my house within two days, I shall have you arrested. _I have made up +my mind._ + +“Lucretia Cairnedge. + +“Rising-Manor, July 15, 18--.” + +“Whoever be the father, she's the mother of lies!” I exclaimed.--“My +uncle--the best and gentlest of men, a murderer!” + +I laughed aloud in my indignation and wrath. + +But, though the woman was a liar, she must have something to say with a +show of truth! How else would she dare intimidation with such a man? How +else could her threat have so wrought upon my uncle? What did she know, +or imagine she knew? What could be the something on which she founded her +lie?--That my uncle was going to tell me, nor did I dread hearing his +story. No revelation would lower him in my eyes! Of that I was confident. +But I little thought how long it would be before it came, or what a +terrible tale it would prove. + +I ran down the stair with the vile paper in my hand. + +“The wicked woman!” I cried. “If she _be_ John's mother, I don't care: +she's a devil and a liar!” + +“Hush, hush, little one!” said my uncle, with a smile in which the +sadness seemed to intensify the sweetness; “you do not _know_ anything +against her! You do not _know_ she is a liar!” + +“There are things, uncle, one knows without knowing!” + +“What if I said she told no lie?” + +“I should say she was a liar although she told no lie. My uncle is not +what she threatens to say he is!” + +“But men have repented, and grown so different you would not know them: +how can you tell it has not been so with me? I may have been a bad man +once, and grown better!” + +“I know you are trying to prepare me for what you think will be a shock, +uncle!” I answered; “but I want no preparing. Out with your worst! I defy +you!” + +Ah me, confident! But I had not to repent of my confidence! + +My uncle gave a great sigh. He looked as if there was nothing for him now +but tell all. Evidently he shrank from the task. + +He put his hand over his eyes, and said slowly,-- + +“You belong to a world, little one, of which you know next to nothing. +More than Satan have fallen as lightning from heaven!” + +He lay silent so long that I was constrained to speak again. + +“Well, uncle dear,” I said, “are you not going to tell me?” + +“I cannot,” he answered. + +There was absolute silence for, I should think, about twenty minutes. I +could not and would not urge him to speak. What right had I to rouse a +killing effort! He was not bound to tell _me_ anything! But I mourned the +impossibility of doing my best for him, poor as that best might be. + +“Do not think, my darling,” he said at last, and laid his hand on my head +as I knelt beside him, “that I have the least difficulty in trusting you; +it is only in telling you. I would trust you with my eternal soul. You +can see well enough there is something terrible to tell, for would I not +otherwise laugh to scorn the threat of that bad woman? No one on the +earth has so little right to say what she knows of me. Yet I do share a +secret with her which feels as if it would burst my heart. I wish it +would. That would open the one way out of all my trouble. Believe me, +little one, if any ever needed God, I need him. I need the pardon that +goes hand in hand with righteous judgment, the pardon of him who alone +can make lawful excuse.” + +“May God be your judge, uncle, and neither man nor woman!” + +“I do not think _you_ would altogether condemn me, little one, much as I +loathe myself--terribly as I deserve condemnation.” + +“Condemn you, uncle! I want to know all, just to show you that nothing +can make the least difference. If you were as bad as that bad woman says, +you should find there was one of your own blood who knew what love meant. +But I know you are good, uncle, whatever you may have done.” + +“Little one, you comfort me,” sighed my uncle. “I cannot tell you this +thing, for when I had told it, I should want to kill myself more than +ever. But neither can I bear that you should not know it. I will _not_ +have a secret with that woman! I have always intended to tell you +everything. I have the whole fearful story set down for your eyes--and +those of any you may wish to see it: I cannot speak the words into your +ears. The paper I will give you now; but you will not open it until I +give you leave.” + +“Certainly not, uncle.” + +“If I should die before you have read it, I permit and desire you to read +it. I know your loyalty so well, that I believe you would not look at it +even after my death, if I had not given you permission. There are those +who treat the dead as if they had no more rights of any kind. 'Get away +to Hades,' they say; 'you are nothing now.' But you will not behave so to +your uncle, little one! When the time comes for you to read my story, +remember that I _now_, in preparation for the knowledge that will give +you, ask you to pardon me _then_ for all the pain it will cause you and +your husband--John being that husband. I have tried to do my best for +you, Orbie: how much better I might have done had I had a clear +conscience, God only knows. It may be that I was the tenderer uncle that +I could not be a better one.” + +He hid his face in his hands, and burst into a tempest of weeping. + +It was terrible to see the man to whom I had all my life looked with a +reverence that prepared me for knowing the great father, weeping like a +bitterly repentant and self-abhorrent child. It seemed sacrilege to be +present. I felt as if my eyes, only for seeing him thus, deserved the +ravens to pick them out. + +I could not contain myself. I rose and threw my arms about him, got close +to him as a child to her mother, and, as soon as the passion of my love +would let me, sobbed out, + +“Uncle! darling uncle! I love you more than ever! I did not know before +that I could love so much! I could _kill_ that woman with my own hands! I +wish I had killed her when I pulled her down that day! It is right to +kill poisonous creatures: she is worse than any snake!” + +He smiled a sad little smile, and shook his head. Then first I seemed to +understand a little. A dull flash went through me. + +I stood up, drew back, and gazed at him. My eyes fixed themselves on his. +I stared into them. He had ceased to weep, and lay regarding me with calm +response. + +“You don't mean, uncle,--?” + +“Yes, little one, I do. That woman was the cause of the action for which +she threatens to denounce me as a murderer. I do not say she intended to +bring it about; but none the less was she the consciously wicked and +wilful cause of it.--And you will marry her son, and be her daughter!” he +added, with a groan as of one in unutterable despair. + +I sprang back from him. My very proximity was a pollution to him while he +believed such a thing of me! + +“Never, uncle, never!” I cried. “How can you think so ill of one who +loves you as I do! I will denounce _her!_ She will be hanged, and we +shall be at peace!” + +“And John?” said my uncle. + +“John must look after himself!” I answered fiercely. “Because he chooses +to have such a mother, am I to bring her a hair's-breadth nearer to my +uncle! Not for any man that ever was born! John must discard his mother, +or he and I are as we were! A mother! She is a hyena, a shark, a monster! +Uncle, she is a _devil!_--I don't care! It is true; and what is true is +the right thing to say. I will go to her, and tell her to her face what +she is!” + +I turned and made for the door. My heart felt as big as the biggest +man's. + +“If she kill you, little one,” said my uncle quietly, “I shall be left +with nobody to take care of me!” + +I burst into fresh tears. I saw that I was a fool, and could do nothing. + +“Poor John!--To have such a mother!” I sobbed. Then in a rage of +rebellion I cried, “I don't believe she _is_ his mother! Is it possible +now, uncle--does it stand to reason, that such a pestilence of a woman +should ever have borne such a child as my John? I don't, I can't, I won't +believe it!” + +“I am afraid there are mysteries in the world quite as hard to explain!” + replied my uncle. + +“I confess, if I had known who was his mother, I should have been far +from ready to yield my consent to your engagement.” + +“What does it matter?” I said. “Of course I shall not marry him!” + +“Not marry him, child!” returned my uncle. “What are you thinking of? Is +the poor fellow to suffer for, as well as by the sins of his mother?” + +“If you think, uncle, that I will bring you into any kind of relation +with that horrible woman, if the worst of it were only that you would +have to see her once because she was my husband's mother, you are +mistaken. She to threaten you if you did not send back her son, as if +John were a horse you had stolen! You have been the angel of God about me +all the days of my life, but even to please you, I cannot consent to +despise myself. Besides, you know what she threatens!” + +“She shall not hurt me. I will take care of myself for your sakes. Your +life shall not be clouded by scandal about your uncle.” + +“How are you to prevent it, uncle dear? Fulfil her threat or not, she +would be sure to talk!” + +“When she sees it can serve no purpose, she will hardly risk reprisals.” + +“She will certainly not risk them when she finds we have said good-bye.” + +“But how would that serve me, little one? What! would you heap on your +uncle's conscience, already overburdened, the misery of keeping two +lovely lovers apart? I will tell you what I have resolved upon. I will +have no more secrets from you, Orba. Oh, how I thank you, dearest, for +not casting me off!” + +Again I threw myself on my knees by his bed. + +“Uncle,” I cried, my heart ready to break with the effort to show itself, +“if I did not now love you more than ever, I should deserve to be cast +out, and trodden under foot!--What do you think of doing?” + +“I shall leave the country, not to return while the woman lives.” + +“I'm ready, uncle,” I said, springing to my feet; “--at least I shall be +in a few minutes!” + +“But hear me out, little one,” he rejoined, with a smile of genuine +pleasure; “you don't know half my plan yet. How am I to live abroad, if +my property go to rack and ruin? Listen, and don't say anything till I +have done; I have no time to lose; I must get up at once.--As soon as I +am on board at Dover for Paris, you and John must get yourselves married +the first possible moment, and settle down here--to make the best of the +farm you can, and send me what you can spare. I shall not want much, and +John will have his own soon. I know you will be good to Martha!” + +“John may take the farm if he will. It would be immeasurably better than +living with his mother. For me, I am going with my uncle. Why, uncle, I +should be miserable in John's very arms and you out of the country for +our sakes! Is there to be nobody in the world but husbands, forsooth! I +should love John ever so much more away with you and my duty, than if I +had him with me, and you a wanderer. How happy I shall be, thinking of +John, and taking care of you!” + +He let me run on. When I stopped at length-- + +“In any case,” he said with a smile, “we cannot do much till I am +dressed!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +AN ENCOUNTER. + +I left my uncle's room, and went to my own, to make what preparation I +could for going abroad with him. I got out my biggest box, and put in all +my best things, and all the trifles I thought I could not do without. +Then, as there was room, I put in things I could do without, which yet +would be useful. Still there was room; the content would shake about on +the continent! So I began to put in things I should like to have, but +which were neither necessary nor useful. Before I had got these in, the +box was more than full, and some of them had to be taken out again. In +choosing which were to go and which to be left, I lost time; but I did +not know anything about the trains, and expected to be ready before my +uncle, who would call me when he thought fit. + +My thoughts also hindered my hands. Very likely I should never marry +John; I would not heed that; he would be mine all the same! but to +promise that I would not marry him, because it suited such a mother's +plans to marry him to some one else--that I would not do to save my life! +I would have done it to save my uncle's, but our exile would render it +unnecessary! + +At last I was ready, and went to find my uncle, reproaching myself that I +had been so long away from him. Besides, I ought to have been helping him +to pack, for neither he nor his arm was quite strong yet. With a heartful +of apology, I sought his room. He was not there. Neither was he in the +study. I went all over the house, and then to the stable; but he was +nowhere, neither had anyone seen him. And Death was gone too! + +The truth burst upon me: I was to see him no more while that terrible +woman lived! No one was to know whither he had gone! He had given himself +for my happiness! Vain intention! I should never be happy! To be in +Paradise without him, would not be to be in Heaven! + +John was in London; I could do nothing! I threw myself on my uncle's bed, +and lay lost in despair! Even if John were with me, and we found him, +what could we do? I knew it now as impossible for him to separate us that +he might be unmolested, as it was for us to accept the sacrifice of his +life that we might be happy. I knew that John's way would be to leave +everything and go with me and my uncle, only we could not live upon +nothing--least of all in a strange land! Martha, to be sure, could manage +well enough with the bailiff, but John could not burden my uncle, and +could not lay his hands on his own! In the mean time my uncle was gone we +knew not whither! I was like one lost on the dark mountains.--If only +John would come to take part in my despair! + +With a sudden agony, I reproached myself that I had made no attempt to +overtake my uncle. It was true I did not know, for nobody could tell me, +in what direction he had gone; but Zoe's instinct might have sufficed +where mine was useless! Zoe might have followed and found Thanatos! It +was hopeless now! + +But I could no longer be still. I got Zoe, and fled to the moor. All the +rest of the day I rode hither and thither, nor saw a single soul on its +wide expanse. The very life seemed to have gone out of it. When most we +take comfort in loneliness, it is because there is some one behind it. + +The sun was set and the twilight deepening toward night when I turned to +ride home. I had eaten nothing since breakfast, and though not hungry, +was thoroughly tired. Through the great dark hush, where was no sound of +water, though here and there, like lurking live thing, it lay about me, I +rode slowly back. My fasting and the dusk made everything in turn take a +shape that was not its own. I seemed to be haunted by things unknown. I +have sometimes thought whether the spirits that love solitary places, may +not delight in appropriating, for embodiment momentary and partial, such +a present shape as may happen to fit one of their passing moods; whether +it is always the _mere_ gnarled, crone-like hawthorn, or misshapen rock, +that, between the wanderer and the pale sky, suddenly appals him with the +sense of _another_. The hawthorn, the rock, the dead pine, is indeed +there, but is it alone there? + +Some such thought was, I remember, in my mind, when, about halfway from +home, I grew aware of something a little way in front that rose between +me and a dark part of the sky. It seemed a figure on a huge horse. My +first thought, very naturally, was of my uncle; the next, of the great +gray horse and his rider that John and I had both seen on the moor. I +confess to a little awe at the thought of the latter; but I am somehow +made so as to be capable of awe without terror, and of the latter I felt +nothing. The composite figure drew nearer: it was a woman on horseback. +Immediately I recalled the adventure of my childhood; and then remembered +that John had said his mother always rode the biggest horse she could +find: could that shape, towering in the half-dark before me, be indeed my +deadly enemy--she who, my uncle had warned me, would kill me if she had +the chance? A fear far other than ghostly invaded me, and for a moment I +hesitated whether to ride on, or turn and make for some covert, until she +should have passed from between me and my home. I hope it was something +better than pride that made me hold on my way. If the wicked, I thought, +flee when no man pursueth, it ill becomes the righteous to flee before +the wicked. By this time it was all but dark night, and I had a vague +hope of passing unquestioned: there had been a good deal of rain, and we +were in a very marshy part of the heath, so that I did not care to leave +the track. But, just ere we met, the lady turned her great animal right +across the way, and there made him stand. + +“Ah,” thought I, “what could Zoe do in a race with that terrible horse!” + +He seemed made of the darkness, and rose like the figurehead of a frigate +above a yacht. + +“Show me the way to Rising,” said his rider. + +The hard bell-voice was unmistakable. + +“When you come where the track forks,” I began. + +She interrupted me. + +“How can I distinguish in the dark?” she returned angrily. “Go on before, +and show me the way.” + +Now I had good reason for thinking she knew the way perfectly well; and +still better reason for declining to go on in front of her. + +“You must excuse me,” I said, “for it is time I were at home; but if you +will turn and ride on in front of me, I will show you a better, though +rather longer way to Rising.” + +“Go on, or I will ride you down,” she cried, turning her horse's head +toward me, and making her whip hiss through the air. + +The sound of it so startled Zoe, that she sprang aside, and was off the +road a few yards before I could pull her up. Then I saw the woman urging +her horse to follow. I knew the danger she was in, and, though tempted to +be silent, called to her with a loud warning. + +“Mind what you are doing, Lady Cairnedge!” I cried. “The ground here will +not carry the weight of a horse like yours.” + +But as I spoke he gave in, and sprang across the ditch at the way-side. +There, however, he stood. + +“You think to escape me,” she answered, in a low, yet clear voice, with a +cat-like growl in it. + +“You make a mistake!” + +“Your ladyship will make a worse mistake if you follow me here,” I +replied. + +Her only rejoinder was a cut with her whip to her horse, which had stood +motionless since taking his unwilling jump. I spoke to Zoe; she bounded +off like a fawn. I pulled her up, and looked back. + +Lady Cairnedge continued urging her horse. I heard and saw her whipping +him furiously. She had lost her temper. + +I warned her once more, but she persisted. + +“Then you must take the consequences!” I said; and Zoe and I made for the +road, but at a point nearer home. + +Had she not been in a passion, she would have seen that her better way +was to return to the road, and intercept us; but her anger blinded her +both to that and to the danger of the spot she was in. + +We had not gone far when we heard behind us the soft plunging and sucking +of the big hoofs through the boggy ground. I looked over my shoulder. +There was the huge bulk, like Wordsworth's peak, towering betwixt us and +the stars! + +“Go, Zoe!” I shrieked. + +She bounded away. The next moment, a cry came from the horse behind us, +and I heard the woman say “Good God!” I stopped, and peered through the +dark. I saw something, but it was no higher above the ground than myself. +Terror seized me. I turned and rode back. + +“My stupid animal has bogged himself!” said lady Cairnedge quietly. + +Deep in the dark watery peat, as thick as porridge, her horse gave a +fruitless plunge or two, and sank lower. + +“For God's sake,” I cried, “get off! Your weight is sinking the poor +animal! You will smother him!” + +“It will serve him right,” she said venomously, and gave the helpless +creature a cut across the ears. + +“You will go down with him, if you do not make haste,” I insisted. + +Another moment and she stood erect on the back of the slowly sinking +horse. + +“Come and give me your hand,” she cried. + +“You want to smother me with him! I think I will not,” I answered. “You +can get on the solid well enough. I will ride home and bring help for +your horse, poor fellow! Stay by him, talk to him, and keep him as quiet +as you can. If he go on struggling, nothing will save him.” + +She replied with a contemptuous laugh. + +I got to the road as quickly as possible, and galloped home as fast as +Zoe could touch and lift. Ere I reached the stable-yard, I shouted so as +to bring out all the men. When I told them a lady had her horse fast in +the bog, they bustled and coiled ropes, put collars and chains on four +draught-horses, lighted several lanterns, and set out with me. I knew the +spot perfectly. No moment was lost either in getting ready, or in +reaching the place. + +Neither the lady nor her horse was to be seen. + +A great horror wrapt me round. I felt a murderess. She might have failed +to spring to the bank of the hole for lack of the hand she had asked me +to reach out! Or her habit might have been entangled, so that she fell +short, and went to the bottom--to be found, one day, hardly changed, by +the side of her peat-embalmed steed!--no ill fitting fate for her, but a +ghastly thing to have a hand in! + +She might, however, be on her way to Rising on foot! I told two of the +men to mount a pair of the horses, and go with me on the chance of +rendering her assistance. + +We took the way to Rising, and had gone about two miles, when we saw her, +through the starlight, walking steadily along the track. I rode up to +her, and offered her one of the cart-horses: I would not have trusted my +Zoe with her any more than with an American lion that lives upon horses. +She declined the proffer with quiet scorn. I offered her one or both men +to see her home, but the way in which she refused their service, made +them glad they had not to go with her. We had no choice, therefore turned +and left her to get home as she might. + +Not until we were on the way back, did it occur to me that I had not +asked Martha whether she knew anything about my uncle's departure. She +was never one to volunteer news, and, besides, would naturally think me +in his confidence! + +I found she knew nothing of our expedition, as no one had gone into the +house--had only heard the horses and voices, and wondered. I was able to +tell her what had happened; but the moment I began to question her as to +any knowledge of my uncle's intentions, my strength gave way, and I burst +into tears. + +“Don't be silly, Belorba!” cried Martha, almost severely. “You an engaged +young lady, and tied so to your uncle's apron-strings that you cry the +minute he's out of your sight! You didn't cry when Mr. Day left you!” + +“No,” I answered; “he was going only for a day or two!” + +“And for how many is your uncle gone?” + +“That is what I want to know. He means to be away a long time, I fear.” + +“Then it's nothing but your fancy sets you crying!--But I'll just see!” + she returned. “I shall know by the money he left for the house-keeping! +Only I won't budge till I see you eat.” + +Faint for want of food, I had no appetite. But I began at once to eat, +and she left me to fetch the money he had given her as he went. + +She came back with a pocket-book, opened it, and looked into it. Then she +looked at me. Her expression was of unmistakable dismay. I took the +pocket-book from her hand: it was full of notes! + +I learned afterward, that it was his habit to have money in the house, in +readiness for some possible sudden need of it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +ANOTHER VISION. + +That same night, within an hour, to my unspeakable relief, John came +home--at least he came to me, who he always said was his home. It was +rather late, but we went out to the wilderness, where I had a good cry on +his shoulder; after which I felt better, and hope began to show signs of +life in me. I never asked him how he had got on in London, but told him +all that had happened since he went. It was worse than painful to tell +him about his mother's letter, and what my uncle told me in consequence +of it, also my personal adventure with her so lately; but I felt I must +hide nothing. If a man's mother is a devil, it is well he should know it. + +He sat like a sleeping hurricane while I spoke, saying never a word. When +I had ended,-- + +“Is that all?” he asked. + +“It is all, John: is it not enough?” I answered. + +“It is enough,” he cried, with an oath that frightened me, and started to +his feet. The hurricane was awake. + +I threw my arms round him. + +“Where are you going?” I said. + +“To _her_” he answered. + +“What for?” + +“To _kill_ her,” he said--then threw himself on the ground, and lay +motionless at my feet. + +I kept silence. I thought with myself he was fighting the nature his +mother had given him. + +He lay still for about two minutes, then quietly rose. + +“Good night, dearest!” he said; “--no; good-bye! It is not fit the son of +such a mother should marry any honest woman.” + +“I beg your pardon, John!” I returned; “I hope _I_ may have a word in the +matter! If I choose to marry you, what right have you to draw back? Let +us leave alone the thing that has to be, and remember that my uncle must +not be denounced as a murderer! Something must be done. That he is beyond +personal danger for the present is something; but is he to be the talk of +the country?” + +“No harm shall come to him,” said John. “If I don't throttle the tigress, +I'll muzzle her. I know how to deal with her. She has learned at least, +that what her stupid son says, he does! I shall make her understand that, +on her slightest movement to disgrace your uncle, I will marry you right +off, come what may; and if she goes on, I shall get myself summoned for +the defence, that, if I can say nothing for _him_, I may say something +against _her_. Besides, I will tell her that, when my time comes, if I +find anything amiss with her accounts, I will give her no quarter.--But, +Orbie,” he continued, “as I will not threaten what I may not be able to +perform, you must promise not to prevent me from carrying it out.” + +“I promise,” I said, “that, if it be necessary for your truth, I will +marry you at once. I only hope she may not already have taken steps!” + +“Her two days are not yet expired. I shall present myself in good +time.--But I wonder you are not afraid to trust yourself alone with the +son of such a mother!” + +“To be what I know you, John,” I answered, “and the son of that woman, +shows a good angel was not far off at your birth. But why talk of angels? +Whoever was your mother, God is your father!” + +He made no reply beyond a loving pressure of my hand. Then he asked me +whether I could lend him something to ride home upon. I told him there +was an old horse the bailiff rode sometimes; I was very sorry he could +not have Zoe: she had been out all day and was too tired! He said Zoe was +much too precious for a hulking fellow like him to ride, but he would be +glad of the old horse. + +I went to the stable with him, and saw him mount. What a determined look +there was on his face! He seemed quite a middle-aged man. + +I have now to tell how he fared on the moor as he rode. + +It had turned gusty and rather cold, and was still a dark night. The moon +would be up by and by however, and giving light enough, he thought, +before he came to the spot where his way parted company with that to +Dumbleton. The moon, however, did not see fit to rise so soon as John +expected her: he was not at that time quite _up_ in moons, any more than +in the paths across that moor. + +Now as he had not an idea where his rider wanted to be carried, and as +John did for a while--he confessed it--fall into a reverie or something +worse, old Sturdy had to choose for himself where to go, and took a path +he had often had to take some years before; nor did John discover that he +was out of the way, until he felt him going steep clown, and thought of +Sleipner bearing Hermod to the realm of Hela. But he let him keep on, +wishing to know, as he said, what the old fellow was up to. Presently, he +came to a dead halt. + +John had not the least notion where they were, but I knew the spot the +moment he began to describe it. By the removal of the peat on the side of +a slope, the skeleton of the hill had been a little exposed, and had for +a good many years been blasted for building-stones. Nothing was going on +in the quarry at present. Above, it was rather a dangerous place; there +was a legend of man and horse having fallen into it, and both being +killed. John had never seen or heard of it. + +When his horse stopped, he became aware of an indefinite sensation which +inclined him to await the expected moon before attempting either to +advance or return. He thought afterward it might have been some feeling +of the stone about him, but at the time he took the place for an abrupt +natural dip of the surface of the moor, in the bottom of which might be a +pool. Sturdy stood as still as if he had been part of the quarry, stood +as if never of himself would he move again. + +The light slowly grew, or rather, the darkness slowly thinned. All at +once John became aware that, some yards away from him, there was +something whitish. A moment, and it began to move like a flitting mist +through the darkness. The same instant Sturdy began to pull his feet from +the ground, and move after the mist, which rose and rose until it came +for a second or two between John and the sky: it was a big white horse, +with my uncle on his back: Death and he, John concluded, were out on one +of their dark wanderings! His impulse, of course, was to follow them. +But, as they went up the steep way, Sturdy came down on his old knees, +and John got off his back to let him recover himself the easier. When +they reached the level, where the moon, showing a blunt horn above the +horizon, made it possible to see a little, the white horse and his rider +had disappeared--in some shadow, or behind some knoll, I fancy; and John, +having not the least notion in what part of the moor he was, or in which +direction he ought to go, threw the reins on the horse's neck. Sturdy +brought him back almost to his stable, before he knew where he was. Then +he turned into the road, for he had had enough of the moor, and took the +long way home. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +MOTHER AND SON. + +In the morning he breakfasted alone. A son with a different sort of +mother, might then have sought her in her bedroom; but John had never +within his memory seen his mother in her bedroom, and after what lie had +heard the night before, could hardly be inclined to go there to her now. +Within half an hour, however, a message was brought him, requesting his +presence in her ladyship's dressing-room. + +He went with his teeth set. + +“Whose horse is that in the stable, John?” she said, the moment their +eyes met. + +“Mr. Whichcote's, madam,” answered John: _mother_ he could not say. + +“You intend to keep up your late relations with those persons?” + +“I do.” + +“You mean to marry the hussy?” + +“I mean to marry the lady to whom you give that epithet. There are those +who think it not quite safe for you to call other people names!” + +She rose and came at him as if she would strike him. John stood +motionless. Except a woman had a knife in her hand, he said, he would not +even avoid a blow from her. “A woman can't hurt you much; she can only +break your heart!” he said. “My mother would not know a heart when she +had broken it!” he added. + +He stood and looked at her. + +She turned away, and sat down again. I think she felt the term of her +power at hand. + +“The man told you then, that, if you did not return immediately, I would +get him into trouble?” + +“He has told me nothing. I have not seen him for some days. I have been +to London.” + +“You should have contrived your story better: you contradict yourself.” + +“I am not aware that I do.” + +“You have the man's horse!” + +“His horse is in my stable; he is not himself at home.” + +“Fled from justice! It shall not avail him!” + +“It may avail you though, madam! It is sometimes prudent to let well +alone. May I not suggest that a hostile attempt on your part, might lead +to awkward revelations?” + +“Ah, where could the seed of slander find fitter soil than the heart of a +son with whom the prayer of his mother is powerless!” + +To all appearance she had thoroughly regained her composure, and looked +at him with a quite artistic reproach. + +“The prayer of a mother that never prayed in her life!” returned John; +“--of a woman that never had an anxiety but for herself!--I don't believe +you are my mother. If I was born of you, there must have been some +juggling with my soul in antenatal regions! I disown you!” cried John +with indignation that grew as he gave it issue. + +Her face turned ashy white; but whether it was from conscience or fear, +or only with rage, who could tell! + +She was silent for a moment. Then again recovering herself,-- + +“And what, pray, would you make of me?” she said coolly. “Your slave?” + +“I would have you an honest woman! I would die for that!--Oh, mother! +mother!” he cried bitterly. + +“That being apparently impossible, what else does my dutiful son demand +of his mother?” + +“That she should leave me unmolested in my choice of a wife. It does not +seem to me an unreasonable demand!” + +“Nor does it seem to me an unreasonable reply, that any mother would +object to her son's marrying a girl whose father she could throw into a +felon's-prison with a word!” + +“That the girl does not happen to be the daughter of the gentleman you +mean, signifies nothing: I am very willing she should pass for such. But +take care. He is ready to meet whatever you have to say. He is not gone +for his own sake, but to be out of the way of our happiness--to prevent +you from blasting us with a public scandal. If you proceed in your +purpose, we shall marry at once, and make your scheme futile.” + +“How are you to live, pray?” + +“Madam, that is my business,” answered John. + +“Are you aware of the penalty on your marrying without my consent?” + pursued his mother. + +“I am not. I do not believe there is any such penalty.” + +“You dare me?” + +“I do.” + +“Marry, then, and take the consequences.” + +“If there were any, you would not thus warn me of them.” + +“John Day, you are no gentleman!” + +“I shall not ask your definition of a gentleman, madam.” + +“Your father was a clown!” + +“If my father were present, he would show himself a gentleman by making +you no answer. If you say a word more against him, I will leave the +room.” + +“I tell you your father was a clown and a fool--like yourself!” + +John turned and went to the stable, had old Sturdy saddled, and came to +me. + +On his way over the heath, he spent an hour trying to find the place +where he had been the night before, but without success. I presume that +Sturdy, with his nose in that direction, preferred his stall, and did not +choose to find the quarry. As often as John left him to himself, he went +homeward. When John turned his head in another direction, he would set +out in that direction, but gradually work round for the farm. + +John told me all I have just set down, and then we talked. + +“I have already begun to learn farming,” I said. + +“You are the right sort, Orbie!” returned John. “I shall be glad to teach +you anything I know.” + +“If you will show me how a farmer keeps his books,” I answered, “that I +may understand the bailiff's, I shall be greatly obliged to you. As to +the dairy, and poultry-yard, and that kind of thing, Martha can teach me +as well as any.” + +“I'll do my best,” said John. + +“Come along then, and have a talk with Simmons! I feel as if I could bear +anything after what you saw last night. My uncle is not far off! He is +somewhere about with the rest of the angels!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +ONCE MORE, AND YET AGAIN. + +From that hour I set myself to look after my uncle's affairs. It was the +only way to endure his absence. Working for him, thinking what he would +like, trying to carry it out, referring every perplexity to him and +imagining his answer, he grew so much dearer to me, that his absence was +filled with hope. My heart being in it, I had soon learned enough of the +management to perceive where, in more than one quarter, improvement, +generally in the way of saving, was possible: I do not mean by any +lowering of wages; my uncle would have conned me small thanks for such +improvement as that! Neither was it long before I began to delight in the +feeling that I was in partnership with the powers of life; that I had to +do with the operation and government and preservation of things created; +that I was doing a work to which I was set by the Highest; that I was at +least a floor-sweeper in the house of God, a servant for the good of his +world. Existence had grown fuller and richer; I had come, like a toad out +of a rock, into a larger, therefore truer universe, in which I had work +to do that was wanted. Had I not been thus expanded and strengthened, how +should I have patiently waited while hearing nothing of my uncle! + +It was not many days before John began to press me to let my uncle have +his way: where was the good any longer, he said, in our not being +married? But I could not endure the thought of being married without my +uncle: it would not seem real marriage without his giving me to my +husband. And when John was convinced that I could not be prevailed upon, +I found him think the more of me because of my resolve, and my +persistency in it. For John was always reasonable, and that is more than +can be said of most men. Some, indeed, who are reasonable enough with +men, are often unreasonable with women. If in course of time the +management of affairs be taken from men and given to women--which may God +for our sakes forbid--it will be because men have made it necessary by +their arrogance. But when they have been kept down long enough to learn +that they are not the lords of creation one bit more than the weakest +woman, I hope they will be allowed to take the lead again, lest women +should become what men were, and go strutting in their importance. Only +the true man knows the true woman; only the true woman knows the true +man: the difficulty between men and women comes all from the prevailing +selfishness, that is, untruth, of both. Who, while such is their +character, would be judge or divider between them, save one of their own +kind? When such ceases to be their character, they will call for no +umpire. + +John lived in his own house with his mother, but they did not meet. His +mother managed his affairs, to whose advantage I need hardly say; and +John helped me to manage my uncle's, to the advantage of all concerned. +Every morning he came to see me, and every night rode back to his worse +than dreary home. At my earnest request, he had a strong bolt put on his +bedroom-door, the use of which he promised me never to neglect. At my +suggestion too, he let it be known that he had always a brace of loaded +pistols within his reach, and showed himself well practiced in shooting +with them. I feared much for John. + +After I no longer only believed, but knew the bailiff trustworthy, and +had got some few points in his management bettered, I ceased giving so +much attention to details, and allowed myself more time to read and walk +and ride with John. I laid myself out to make up to him, as much as ever +I could, for the miserable lack of any home-life. At Rising he had not +the least sense of comfort or even security. He could never tell what his +mother might not be plotting against him. He had a very strong close box +made for Leander, and always locked him up in it at night, never allowing +one of the men there to touch him. The horse had all the attention any +master could desire, when, having locked his box behind him, he brought +him over to us in the morning. + +One lovely, cold day, in the month of March, with ice on some of the +pools, and the wind blowing from the north, I mounted Zoe to meet John +midway on the moor, and had gone about two-thirds of the distance, when I +saw him, as I thought, a long way to my right, and concluded he had not +expected me so soon, and had gone exploring. I turned aside therefore to +join him; but had gone only a few yards when, from some shift in a +shadow, or some change in his position with regard to the light, I saw +that the horse was not John's; it was a gray, or rather, a white horse. +Could the rider be my uncle? Even at that distance I almost thought I +recognized him. It must indeed have been he John saw at the quarry! He +was not gone abroad! He had been all this long time lingering about the +place, lest ill should befall us! “Just like him!” said my heart, as I +gave Zoe the rein, and she sprang off at her best speed. But after riding +some distance, I lost sight of the horseman, whoever he was, and then saw +that, if I did not turn at once, I should not keep my appointment with +John. Of course had I _believed_ it was my uncle, I should have followed +and followed; and the incident would not have been worth mentioning, for +gray horses are not so uncommon that there might not be one upon the +heath at any moment, but for something more I saw the same night. + +It was bright moonlight. I had taken down a curtain of my window to mend, +and the moon shone in so that I could not sleep. My thoughts were all +with my uncle--wondering what he was about; whether he was very dull; +whether he wanted me much; whether he was going about Paris, or haunting +the moor that stretched far into the distance from where I lay. Perhaps +at that moment he was out there in the moonlight, would be there alone, +in the cold, wide night, while I slept! The thought made me feel lonely +myself: one is indeed apt to feel lonely when sleepless; and as the moon +was having a night of it, or rather making a day of it, all alone with +herself, why should we not keep each other a little company? I rose, drew +the other curtain of my window aside, and looked out. + +I have said that the house lay on the slope of a hollow: from whichever +window of it you glanced, you saw the line of your private horizon either +close to you, or but a little way off. If you wanted an outlook, you must +climb; and then you were on the moor. + +From my window I could see the more distant edge of the hollow: looking +thitherward, I saw against the sky the shape of a man on horseback. Not +for a moment could I doubt it was my uncle. The figure was plainly his. +My heart seemed to stand still with awe, or was it with intensity of +gladness? Perhaps every night he was thus near me while I slept--a +heavenly sentinel patrolling the house--the visible one of a whole camp +unseen, of horses of fire and chariots of fire. So entrancing was the +notion, that I stood there a little child, a mere incarnate love, the +tears running down my checks for very bliss. + +But presently my mood changed: what had befallen him? When first I saw +him, horse and man were standing still, and I noted nothing strange, +blinded perhaps by the tears of my gladness. But presently they moved on, +keeping so to the horizon-line that it was plain my uncle's object was to +have the house full in view; and as thus they skirted the edge of heaven, +oh, how changed he seemed! His tall figure hung bent over the pommel, his +neck drooped heavily. And the horse was so thin that I seemed to see, +almost to feel his bones. Poor Thanatos! he looked tired to death, and I +fancied his bent knees quivering, each short slow step he took. Ah, how +unlike the happy old horse that had been! I thought of Death returning +home weary from the slaughter of many kings, and cast the thought away. I +thought of Death returning home on the eve of the great dawn, worn with +his age-long work, pleased that at last it was over, and no more need of +him: I kept that thought. Along the sky-line they held their slow way, +toilsome through weakness, the rider with weary swing in the saddle, the +horse with long gray neck hanging low to his hoofs, as if picking his +path with purblind eyes. When his rider should collapse and fall from his +back, not a step further would he take, but stand there till he fell to +pieces! + +Fancy gave way to reality. I woke up, called myself hard names, and +hurried on a few of my clothes. My blessed uncle out in the night and +weary to dissolution, and I at a window, contemplating him like a +picture! I was an evil, heartless brute! + +By the time I had my shoes on, and went again to the window, he had +passed out of its range. I ran to one on the stair that looked at right +angles to mine: he had not yet come within its field. I stood and waited. +Presently he appeared, crawling along, a gray mounted ghost, in the light +that so strangely befits lovers wandering in the May of hope, and the +wasted spectre no less, whose imagination of the past reveals him to the +eyes of men. For an instant I almost wished him dead and at rest; the +next I was out of the house--then up on the moor, looking eagerly this +way and that, poised on the swift feet of love, ready to spring to his +bosom. How I longed to lead him to his own warm bed, and watch by him as +he slept, while the great father kept watch over every heart in his +universe. I gazed and gazed, but nowhere could I see the death-jaded +horseman. + +I bounded down the hill, through the wilderness and the dark alleys, and +hurried to the stable. Trembling with haste I led Zoe out, sprang on her +bare back, and darted off to scout the moor. Not a man or a horse or a +live thing was to be seen in any direction! Once more I all but concluded +I had looked on an apparition. Was my uncle dead? Had he come back thus +to let me know? And was he now gone home indeed? Cold and disappointed, I +returned to bed, full of the conviction that I had seen my uncle, but +whether in the body or out of the body, I could not tell. + +When John came, the notion of my having been out alone on the moor in the +middle of the night, did not please him. He would have me promise not +again, for any vision or apparition whatever, to leave the house without +his company. But he could not persuade me. He asked what I would have +done, if, having overtaken the horseman, I had found neither my uncle nor +Death. I told him I would have given Zoe the use of her heels, when +_that_ horse would soon have seen the last of her. At the same time, he +was inclined to believe with me, that I had seen my uncle. His intended +proximity would account, he said, for his making no arrangement to hear +from me; and if he continued to haunt the moor in such fashion, we could +not fail to encounter him before long. In the meantime he thought it well +to show no sign of suspecting his neighbourhood. + +That I had seen my uncle, John was for a moment convinced when, the very +next day, having gone to Wittenage, he saw Thanatos carrying Dr. +Southwell, my uncle's friend. On the other hand, Thanatos looked very +much alive, and in lovely condition! The doctor would not confess to +knowing anything about my uncle, and expressed wonder that he had not yet +returned, but said he did not mind how long he had the loan of such a +horse. + +Things went on as before for a while. + +John began again to press me to marry him. I think it was mainly, +I am sure it was in part, that I might never again ride the midnight +moor--“like a witch out on her own mischievous hook,” as he had once +said. He knew that, if I caught sight of anything like my uncle anywhere, +John or no John, I would go after it. + +There was another good reason, however, besides the absence of my uncle, +for our not marrying: John was not yet of legal age, and who could tell +what might not lurk in his mother's threat! Who could tell what such a +woman might not have prevailed on her husband to set down in his will! I +was ready enough to marry a poor man, but I was not ready to let my lover +become a poor man by marrying me a few months sooner. Were we not happy +enough, seeing each other everyday, and mostly all day long? No doubt +people talked, but why not let them talk? The mind of the many is not the +mind of God! As to society, John called it an oyster of a divinity. He +argued, however, that probably my uncle was keeping close until he saw us +married. I answered that, if we were married, his mother would only be +the more eager to have her revenge on us all, and my uncle the more +careful of himself for our sakes. Anyhow, I said, I would not consent to +be happier than we were, until we found him. The greater happiness I +would receive only from his hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +MY UNCLE COMES HOME. + +Time went on, and it was now the depth of a cold, miserable winter. I +remember the day to which I have now come so well! It was a black day. +There was such a thickness of snow in the air, that what light got +through had a lost look. It was almost more like a London fog than an +honest darkness of the atmosphere, bred in its own bounds. But while the +light lasted, the snow did not fall. I went about the house doing what I +could find to do, and wondering John did not come. + +His horse had again fallen lame--this time through an accident which made +it necessary for him to stay with the poor animal long after his usual +time of starting to come to me. When he did start, it was on foot, with +the short winter afternoon closing in. But he knew the moor by this time +nearly as well as I did. + +It was quite dark when he drew near the house, which he generally entered +through the wilderness and the garden. The snow had begun at last, and +was coming down in deliberate earnest. It would lie feet deep over the +moor before the morning! He was thinking what a dreary tramp home it +would be by the road--for the wind was threatening to wake, and in a +snow-wind the moor was a place to be avoided--when he struck his foot +against something soft, in the path his own feet had worn to the +wilderness, and fell over it. A groan followed, and John rose with the +miserable feeling of having hurt some creature. Dropping on his knees to +discover what it was, he found a man almost covered with snow, and nearly +insensible. He swept the snow off him, contrived to get him on his back, +and brought him round to the door, for the fence would have been awkward +to cross with him. Just as I began to be really uneasy at his prolonged +absence, there he was, with a man on his back apparently lifeless! + +I did not stop to stare or question, but made haste to help him. His +burden was slipping sideways, so we lowered it on a chair, and then +carried it between us into the kitchen, I holding the legs. The moment a +ray of light fell upon the face, I saw it was my uncle. + +I just saved myself from a scream. My heart stopped, then bumped as if it +would break through. I turned sick and cold. We laid him on the sofa, but +I still held on to the legs; I was half unconscious. Martha set me on a +chair, and in a moment or two I came to myself, and was able to help her. +She said never a word, but was quite collected, looking every now and +then in the face of her cousin with a doglike devotion, but never +stopping an instant to gaze. We got him some brandy first, then some hot +milk, and then some soup. He took a little of everything we offered him. +We did not ask him a single question, but, the moment he revived, carried +him up the stair, and laid him in bed. Once he cast his eyes about, and +gave a sigh as of relief to find himself in his own room, then went off +into a light doze, which, broken with starts and half-wakings, lasted +until next day about noon. Either John or Martha or I was by his bedside +all the time, so that he should not wake without seeing one of us near +him. + +But the sad thing was, that, when he did wake, he did not seem to come to +himself. He never spoke, but just lay and looked out of his eyes, if +indeed it was more than his eyes that looked, if indeed _he_ looked out +of them at all! + +“He has overdone his strength!” we said to each other. “He has not been +taking care of himself!--And then to have lain perhaps hours in the snow! +It's a wonder he's alive!” + +“He's nothing but skin and bone!” said Martha. “It will take weeks to get +him up again!--And just look at his clothes! How ever did he come nigh +such! They're fit only for a beggar! They must have knocked him down and +stripped him!--Look at his poor boots!” she said pitifully, taking up one +of them, and stroking it with her hand. “He'll never recover it!” + +“He will,” I said. “Here are three of us to give him of our life! He'll +soon be himself again, now that we have him!” + +But my heart was like to break at the sad sight. I cannot put in words +what I felt. + +“He would get well much quicker,” said John, “if only we could tell him +we were married!” + +“It will do just as well to invite him to the wedding,” I answered. + +“I do hope he will give you away,” said Martha. + +“He will never give me away,” I returned; “but he will give me to John. +And I will not have the wedding until he is able to do that.” + +“You are right,” said John. “And we mustn't ask him anything, or even +refer to anything, till he wants to hear.” + +Days went and came, and still he did not seem to know quite where he was; +if he did know, he seemed so content with knowing it, that he did not +want to know anything more in heaven or earth. We grew very anxious about +him. He did not heed a word that Dr. Southwell said. His mind seemed as +exhausted as his body. The doctor justified John's resolve, saying he +must not be troubled with questions, or the least attempt to rouse his +memory. + +John was now almost constantly with us. One day I asked him whether his +mother took any notice of his being now so seldom home at night. He +answered she did not; and, but for being up to her ways, he would imagine +she knew nothing at all about his doings. + +“What does she do herself all day long?” I asked. + +“Goes over her books, I imagine,” he answered. “She knows the hour is at +hand when she must render account of her stewardship, and I suppose she +is getting ready to meet it;--how, I would rather not conjecture. She +gives me no trouble now, and I have no wish to trouble her.” + +“Have you no hope of ever being on filial terms with her again?” I said. + +“There can be few things more unlikely,” he replied. + +I was a little troubled, notwithstanding my knowledge of her and my +feeling toward her, that he should regard a complete alienation from his +mother with such indifference. I could not, however, balance the account +between them! If she had a strong claim in the sole fact that she was his +mother, how much had she not injured him simply by not being lovable! +Love unpaid is the worst possible debt; and to make it impossible to pay +it, is the worst of wrongs. + +But, oh, what a heart-oppression it was, that my uncle had returned so +different! We were glad to have him, but how gladly would we not have let +him go again to restore him to himself, even were it never more to rest +our eyes upon him in this world! Dearly as I loved John, it seemed as if +nothing could make me happy while my uncle remained as he was. It was a +kind of cold despair to know him such impassable miles from me. I could +not get near him! I went about all day with a sense--not merely of loss, +but of a loss that gnawed at me with a sickening pain. He never spoke. He +never said _little one_ to me now! he never looked in my eyes as if he +loved me! He was very gentle, never complained, never even frowned, but +lay there with a dead question in his eyes. We feared his mind was +utterly gone. + +By degrees his health returned, but apparently neither his memory, nor +his interest in life. Yet he had a far-away look in his eyes, as if he +remembered something, and started and turned at every opening of the +door, as if he expected something. He took to wandering about the yard +and the stable and the cow-house; would gaze for an hour at some animal +in its stall; would watch the men threshing the corn, or twisting +straw-ropes. When Dr. Southwell sent back his horse, it was in great hope +that the sight of Death would wake him up; that he would recognize his +old companion, jump on his back, and be well again; but my uncle only +looked at him with a faint admiration, went round him and examined him as +if he were a horse he thought of buying, then turned away and left him. +Death was troubled at his treatment of him. He on his part showed him all +the old attention, using every equine blandishment he knew; but having +met with no response, he too turned slowly away, and walked to his +stable, Dr. Southwell would gladly have bought him, but neither John nor +I would hear of parting with him: he was almost a portion of his master! +My uncle might come to himself any moment: how could we look him in the +face if Death was gone from us! Besides, we loved the horse for his own +sake as well as my uncle's, and John would be but too glad to ride him! + +My uncle would wander over the house, up and down, but seemed to prefer +the little drawing-room: I made it my special business to keep a good +fire there. He never went to the study; never opened the door in the +chimney-corner. He very seldom spoke, and seldomer to me than to any +other. It _was_ a dreary time! Our very souls had longed for him back, +and thus he came to us! + +Sorely I wept over the change that had passed upon the good man. He must +have received some terrible shock! It was just as if his mother, John +said, had got hold of him, and put a knife in his heart! It was well, +however, that he was not wandering about the heath, exposed to the +elements! and there was yet time for many a good thing to come! Where one +_must_ wait, one _can_ wait. + +John had to learn this, for, say what he would, the idea of marrying +while my uncle remained in such plight, was to me unendurable. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +TWICE TWO IS ONE. + +The spring came, but brought little change in the condition of my uncle. +In the month of May, Dr. Southwell advised our taking him abroad. When we +proposed it to him, he passed his hand wearily over his forehead, as if +he felt something wrong there, and gave us no reply. We made our +preparations, and when the day arrived, he did not object to go. + +We were an odd party: John and I, bachelor and spinster; my uncle, a +silent, moody man, who did whatever we asked him; and the still, +open-eyed Martha Moon, who, I sometimes think, understood more about it +all than any of us. I could talk a little French, John a good deal of +German. When we got to Paris, we found my uncle considerably at home +there. When he cared to speak, he spoke like a native, and was never at a +loss for word or phrase. + +It was he, indeed, who took us to a quiet little hotel he knew; and when +we were comfortably settled in it, he began to take the lead in all our +plans. By degrees he assumed the care and guidance of the whole party; +and so well did he carry out what he had silently, perhaps almost +unconsciously undertaken, that we conceived the greatest hopes of the +result to himself. A mind might lie quiescent so long as it was +ministered to, and hedged from cares and duties, but wake up when +something was required of it! No one would have thought anything amiss +with my uncle, that heard him giving his orders for the day, or acting +cicerone to the little company--there for his sake, though he did not +know it. How often John and I looked at each other, and how glad were our +hearts! My uncle was fast coming to himself! It was like watching the +dead grow alive. + +One day he proposed taking a carriage and a good pair of horses, and +driving to Versailles to see the palace. We agreed, and all went well. I +had not, in my wildest dreams, imagined a place so grand and beautiful. +We wandered about it for hours, and were just tired enough to begin +thinking with pleasure of the start homeward, when we found ourselves in +a very long, straight corridor. I was walking alone, a little ahead of +the rest; my uncle was coming along next, but a good way behind me; a few +paces behind my uncle, came John with Martha, to whom he was more +scrupulously attentive than to myself. + +In front of me was a door, dividing the corridor in two, apparently +filled with plain plate-glass, to break the draught without obscuring the +effect of the great length of the corridor, which stretched away as far +on the other side as we had come on this. I paused and stood aside, +leaning against the wall to wait for my uncle, and gazing listlessly out +of a window opposite me. But as my uncle came nearer to open the door for +us, I happened to cast my eyes again upon it, and saw, as it seemed, my +uncle coming in the opposite direction; whence I concluded of course, +that I had made a mistake, and that what I had taken for a clear plate of +glass, was a mirror, reflecting the corridor behind me. I looked back at +my uncle with a little anxiety. My reader may remember that, when he came +to fetch me from Rising, the day after I was lost on the moor, +encountering a mirror at unawares, he started and nearly fell: from this +occurrence, and from the absence of mirrors about the house, I had +imagined in his life some painful story connected with a mirror. + +Once again I saw him start, and then stand like stone. Almost immediately +a marvellous light overspread his countenance, and with a cry he bounded +forward. I looked again at the mirror, and there I saw the self-same +light-irradiated countenance coming straight, as was natural, to meet +that of which it was the reflection. Then all at once the solid +foundations of fact seemed to melt into vaporous dream, for as I saw the +two figures come together, the one in the mirror, the other in the world, +and was starting forward to prevent my uncle from shattering the mirror +and wounding himself, the figures fell into each other's arms, and I +heard two voices weeping and sobbing, as the substance and the shadow +embraced. + +Two men had for a moment been deceived like myself: neither glass nor +mirror was there--only the frame from which a swing-door had been +removed. They walked each into the arms of the other, whom they had at +first each taken for himself. + +They paused in their weeping, held each other at arm's-length, and gazed +as in mute appeal for yet better assurance; then, smiling like two suns +from opposing rain-clouds, fell again each on the other's neck, and wept +anew. Neither had killed the other! Neither had lost the other! The world +had been a graveyard; it was a paradise! + +We stood aside in reverence. Martha Moon's eyes glowed, but she +manifested no surprise. John and I stared in utter bewilderment. The two +embraced each other, kissed and hugged and patted each other, wept and +murmured and laughed, then all at once, with one great sigh between them, +grew aware of witnesses. They were too happy to blush, yet indeed they +could not have blushed, so red were they with the fire of heaven's own +delight. Utterly unembarrassed they turned toward us--and then came a +fresh astonishment, an old and new joy together out of the treasure of +the divine house-holder: the uncle of the mirror, radiant with a joy such +as I had never before beheld upon human countenance, came straight to me, +cried; “Ah, little one!” took me in his arms, and embraced me with all +the old tenderness. Then I knew that my own old uncle was the same as +ever I had known him, the same as when I used to go to sleep in his arms. + +The jubilation that followed, it is impossible for me to describe; and my +husband, who approves of all I have yet written, begs me not to attempt +an adumbration of it. + +“It would be a pity,” he says, “to end a won race with a tumble down at +the post!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + +HALF ONE IS ONE. + +I am going to give you the whole story, but not this moment; I want to +talk a little first. I need not say that I had twin uncles. They were but +one man to the world; to themselves only were they a veritable two. The +word _twin_ means one of two that once were one. To _twin_ means to +_divide_, they tell me. The opposite action is, of _twain_ to make one. +To me as well as the world, I believe, but for the close individual +contact of all my life with my uncle Edward, the two would have been but +as one man. I hardly know that I felt any richer at first for having two +uncles; it was long before I should have felt much poorer for the loss of +uncle Edmund. Uncle Edward was to me the substance of which uncle Edmund +was the shadow. But at length I learned to love him dearly through +perceiving how dearly my own uncle loved him. I loved the one because he +was what he was, the other because he was not that one. Creative Love +commonly differentiates that it may unite; in the case of my uncles it +seemed only to have divided that it might unite. I am hardly intelligible +to myself; in my mind at least I have got into a bog of confused +metaphysics, out of which it is time I scrambled. What I would say is +this--that what made the world not care there should be two of them, made +the earth a heaven to those two. By their not being one, they were able +to love, and so were one. Like twin planets they revolved around each +other, and in a common orbit around God their sun. It was a beautiful +thing to see how uncle Edmund revived and expanded in the light of his +brother's presence, until he grew plainly himself. He had suffered more +than my own uncle, and had not had an orphan child to love and be loved +by. + +What a drive home that was! Paris, anywhere seemed home now! I had John +and my uncles; John had me and my uncle; my uncles had each other; and I +suspect, if we could have looked into Martha, we should have seen that +she, through her lovely unselfishness, possessed us all more than any one +of us another. Oh the outbursts of gladness on the way!--the talks!--the +silences! The past fell off like an ugly veil from the true face of +things; the present was sunshine; the future a rosy cloud. + +When we reached our hotel, it was dinner-time, and John ordered +champagne. He and I were hungry as two happy children; the brothers ate +little, and scarcely drank. They were too full of each other to have room +for any animal need. A strange solemnity crowned and dominated their +gladness. Each was to the other a Lazarus given back from the grave. But +to understand the depth of their rapture, you must know their story. That +of Martha and Mary and Lazarus could not have equalled it but for the +presence of the Master, for neither sisters nor brother had done each +other any wrong. They looked to me like men walking in a luminous mist--a +mist of unspeakable suffering radiant with a joy as unspeakable--the very +stuff to fashion into glorious dreams. + +When we drew round the fire, for the evenings were chilly, they laid +their whole history open to us. What a tale it was! and what a telling of +it! My own uncle, Edward, was the principal narrator, but was +occasionally helped out by my newer uncle, Edmund. I had the story +already, my reader will remember, in my uncle's writing, at home: when we +returned I read it--not with the same absorption as if it had come first, +but with as much interest, and certainly with the more thorough +comprehension that I had listened to it before. That same written story I +shall presently give, supplemented by what, necessarily, my uncle Edmund +had to supply, and with some elucidation from the spoken narrative of my +uncle Edward. + +As the story proceeded, overcome with the horror of the revelation I +foresaw, I forgot myself, and cried out-- + +“And that woman is John's mother!” + +“Whose mother?” asked uncle Edmund, with scornful curiosity. + +“John Day's,” I answered. + +“It cannot be!” he cried, blazing up. “Are you sure of it?” + +“I have always been given so to understand,” replied John for me; “but I +am by no means sure of it. I have doubted it a thousand times.” + +“No wonder! Then we may go on! But, indeed, to believe you her son, would +be to doubt you! I _don't_ believe it.” + +“You could not help doubting me!” responded John. “--I might be true, +though, even if I were her son!” he added. + +“Ed,” said Edmund to Edward, “let us lay our heads together!” + +“Ready Ed!” said Edward to Edmund. + +Thereupon they began comparing memories and recollections,--to find, +however, that they had by no means data enough. One thing was clear to +me--that nothing would be too bad for them to believe of her. + +“She would pick out the eye of a corpse if she thought a sovereign lay +behind it!” said uncle Edmund. + +“To have the turning over of his rents,--” said uncle Edward, and checked +himself. + +“Yes--it would be just one of her devil-tricks!” agreed uncle Edmund. + +“I beg your pardon, John,” said uncle Edward, as if it were he that had +used the phrase, and uncle Edmund nodded to John, as if he had himself +made the apology. + +John said nothing. His eyes looked wild with hope. He felt like one who, +having been taught that he is a child of the devil, begins to know that +God is his father--the one discovery worth making by son of man. + +Then, at my request, they went on with their story, which I had +interrupted. + +When it was at length all poured out, and the last drops shaken from the +memory of each, there fell a long silence, which my own uncle broke. + +“When shall we start, Ed?” he said. + +“To-morrow, Ed.” + +“This business of John's must come first, Ed!” + +“It shall, Ed!” + +“You know where you were born, John?” + +“On my father's estate of Rubworth in Gloucestershire, I _believe_” + answered John. + +“You must be prepared for the worst, you know!” + +“I am prepared. As Orba told me once, God is my father, whoever my mother +may be!” + +“That's right. Hold by that!” said my uncles, as with one breath. + +“Do you know the year you were born?” asked uncle Edmund. + +“My _mother_ says I was born in 1820.” + +“You have not seen the entry?” + +“No. One does not naturally doubt such statements.” + +“Assuredly not--until--” He paused. + +How uncle Edmund had regained his wits! And how young the brothers +looked! + +“You mean,” said John, “until he has known my mother!” + +Now for the story of my twin uncles, mainly as written by my uncle +Edward! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + +THE STORY OF MY TWIN UNCLES. + +“My brother and I were marvellously like. Very few of our friends, none +of them with certainty, could name either of us apart--or even together. +Only two persons knew absolutely which either of us was, and those two +were ourselves. Our mother certainly did not--at least without seeing one +or other of our backs. Even we ourselves have each made the blunder +occasionally of calling the other by the wrong name. Our +indistinguishableness was the source of ever-recurring mistake, of +constant amusement, of frequent bewilderment, and sometimes of annoyance +in the family. I once heard my father say to a friend, that God had never +made two things alike, except his twins. We two enjoyed the fun of it so +much, that we did our best to increase the confusions resulting from our +resemblance. We did not lie, but we dodged and pretended, questioned and +looked mysterious, till I verily believe the person concerned, having in +himself so vague an idea of our individuality, not unfrequently forgot +which he had blamed, or which he had wanted, and became hopelessly +muddled. + +“A man might well have started the question what good could lie in the +existence of a duality in which the appearance was, if not exactly, yet +so nearly identical, that no one but my brother or myself could have +pointed out definite differences; but it could have been started only by +an outsider: my brother and I had no doubt concerning the advantage of a +duality in which each was the other's double; the fact was to us a never +ceasing source of delight. Each seemed to the other created such, +expressly that he might love him as a special, individual property of his +own. It was as if the image of Narcissus had risen bodily out of the +watery mirror, to be what it had before but seemed. It was as if we had +been made two, that each might love himself, and yet not be selfish. + +“We were almost always together, but sometimes we got into individual +scrapes, when--which will appear to some incredible--the one accused +always accepted punishment without denial or subterfuge or attempt to +perplex: it was all one which was the culprit, and which should be the +sufferer. Nor did this indistinction work badly: that the other was just +as likely to suffer as the doer of the wrong, wrought rather as a +deterrent. The mode of behaviour may have had its origin in the +instinctive perception of the impossibility of proving innocence; but had +we, loving as we did, been capable of truthfully accusing each other, I +think we should have been capable of lying also. The delight of existence +lay, embodied and objective to each, in the existence of the other. + +“At school we learned the same things, and only long after did any +differences in taste begin to develop themselves. + +“Our brother, elder by five years, who would succeed to the property, had +the education my father thought would best fit him for the management of +land. We twins were trained to be lawyer and doctor--I the doctor. + +“We went to college together, and shared the same rooms. + +“Having finished our separate courses, our father sent us to a German +university: he would not have us insular! + +“There we did not work hard, nor was hard work required of us. We went +out a good deal in the evenings, for the students that lived at home in +the town were hospitable. We seemed to be rather popular, owing probably +to our singular likeness, which we found was regarded as a serious +disadvantage. The reason of this opinion we never could find, flattering +ourselves indeed that what it typified gave us each double the base and +double the strength. + +“We had all our friends in common. Every friend to one of us was a friend +to both. If one met man or woman he was pleased with, he never rested +until the other knew that man or woman also. Our delight in our friends +must have been greater than that of other men, because of the constant +sharing. + +“Our all but identity of form, our inseparability, our unanimity, and our +mutual devotion, were often, although we did not know it, a subject of +talk in the social gatherings of the place. It was more than once or +twice openly mooted--what, in the chances of life, would be likeliest to +strain the bond that united us. Not a few agreed that a terrible +catastrophe might almost be expected from what they considered such an +unnatural relation. + +“I think you must already be able to foresee from what the first +difference between us would arise: discord itself was rooted in the very +unison--for unison it was, not harmony--of our tastes and instincts; and +will now begin to understand why it was so difficult, indeed impossible +for me, not to have a secret from my little one. + +“Among the persons we met in the home-circles of our fellow-students, +appeared by and by an English lady--a young widow, they said, though +little in her dress or carriage suggested widowhood. We met her again and +again. Each thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but +neither was much interested in her at first. Nor do I believe either +would, of himself, ever have been. Our likings and dislikings always +hitherto had gone together, and, left to themselves, would have done so +always, I believe; whence it seems probable that, left to ourselves, we +should also have found, when required, a common strength of abnegation. +But in the present case, our feelings were not left to themselves; the +lady gave the initiative, and the dividing regard was born in the one, +and had time to establish itself, ere the provoking influence was brought +to bear on the other. + +“Within the last few years I have had a visit from an old companion of +the period. I daresay you will remember the German gentleman who amused +you with the funny way in which he pronounced certain words--one of the +truest-hearted and truest-tongued men I have ever known: he gave me much +unexpected insight into the evil affair. He had learned certain things +from a sister, the knowledge of which, old as the story they concerned by +that time was, chiefly moved his coming to England to find me. + +“One evening, he told me, when a number of the ladies we were in the +habit of meeting happened to be together without any gentleman present, +the talk turned, half in a philosophical, half in a gossipy spirit, upon +the consequences that might follow, should two men, bound in such strange +fashion as my brother and I, fall in love with the same woman--a thing +not merely possible, but to be expected. The talk, my friend said, was +full of a certain speculative sort of metaphysics which, in the present +state of human development, is far from healthy, both because of our +incompleteness, and because we are too near to what we seem to know, to +judge it aright. One lady was present--a lady by us more admired and +trusted than any of the rest--who alone declared a conviction that love +of no woman would ever separate us, provided the one fell in love first, +and the other knew the fact before he saw the lady. For, she said, no +jealousy would in that case be roused; and the relation of the brother to +his brother and sister would be so close as to satisfy his heart. In a +few days probably he too would fall in love, and his lady in like manner +be received by his brother, when they would form a square impregnable +to attack. The theory was a good one, and worthy of realization. But, +alas, the Prince of the Power of the Air was already present in force, +in the heart of the English widow! Young in years, but old in pride +and self-confidence, she smiled at the notion of our advocate. She said +that the idea of any such friendship between men was nonsense; that she +knew more about men than some present could be expected to know: their +love was but a matter of custom and use; the moment self took part in +the play, it would burst; it was but a bubble-company! As for love +proper--she meant the love between man and woman--its law was the +opposite to that of friendship; its birth and continuance depended on the +parties _not_ getting accustomed to each other; the less they knew each +other, the more they would love each other. + +“Upon this followed much confused talk, during which the English lady +declared nothing easier than to prove friendship, or the love of +brothers, the kind of thing she had said. + +“Most of the company believed the young widow but talking to show off; +while not a few felt that they desired no nearer acquaintance with one +whose words, whatever might be her thoughts, degraded humanity. The +circle was very speedily broken into two segments, one that liked the +English lady, and one that almost hated her. + +“From that moment, the English widow set before her the devil-victory of +alienating two hearts that loved each other--and she gained it for a +time--until Death proved stronger than the Devil. People said we could +not be parted: _she_ would part us! She began with my brother. To tell +how I know that she began with him, I should have to tell how she began +with me, and that I cannot do; for, little one, I dare not let the tale +of the treacheries of a bad woman toward an unsuspecting youth, enter +your ears. Suffice it to say, such a woman has well studied those regions +of a man's nature into which, being less divine, the devil in her can +easier find entrance. There, she knows him better than he knows himself; +and makes use of her knowledge, not to elevate, but to degrade him. She +fills him with herself, and her animal influences. She gets into his +self-consciousness beside himself, by means of his self-love. Through the +ever open funnel of his self-greed, she pours in flattery. By +depreciation of others, she hints admiration of himself. By the slightest +motion of a finger, of an eyelid, of her person, she will pay him a +homage of which first he cannot, then he will not, then he dares not +doubt the truth. Not such a woman only, but almost any silly woman, may +speedily make the most ordinary, and hitherto modest youth, imagine +himself the peak of creation, the triumph of the Deity. No man alive is +beyond the danger of imagining himself exceptional among men: if such as +think well of themselves were right in so doing, truly the world were ill +worth God's making! He is the wisest who has learned to 'be naught +awhile!' The silly soul becomes so full of his tempter, and of himself in +and through her, that he loses interest in all else, cares for nobody but +her, prizes nothing but her regard, broods upon nothing but her favours, +looks forward to nothing but again her presence and further favours. God +is nowhere; fellow-man in the way like a buzzing fly--else no more to be +regarded than a speck of dust neither upon his person nor his garment. +And this terrible disintegration of life rises out of the most wonderful, +mysterious, beautiful, and profound relation in humanity! Its roots go +down into the very deeps of God, and out of its foliage creeps the old +serpent, and the worm that never dies! Out of it steams the horror of +corruption, wrapt in whose living death a man cries out that God himself +can do nothing for him. It is but the natural result of his making the +loveliest of God's gifts into his God, and worshipping and serving the +creature more than the creator. Oh my child, it is a terrible thing to +be! Except he knows God the saviour, man stands face to face with a +torturing enigma, hopeless of solution! + +“The woman sought and found the enemy, my false self, in the house of my +life. To that she gave herself, as if she gave herself to me. Oh, how she +made me love her!--if that be love which is a deification of self, the +foul worship of one's own paltry being!--and that when most it seems +swallowed up and lost! No, it is not love! Does love make ashamed? The +memories of it may be full of pain, but can the soul ever turn from love +with sick contempt? That which at length is loathed, can never have been +loved! + +“Of my brother she would speak as of a poor creature not for a moment to +be compared with myself. How I could have believed her true when she +spoke thus, knowing that in the mirror I could not have told myself from +my brother, knowing also that our minds, tastes, and faculties bore as +strong a resemblance as our bodies, I cannot tell, but she fooled me to a +fool through the indwelling folly of my self-love. At other times, +wishing to tighten the bonds of my thraldom that she might the better +work her evil end, proving herself a powerful devil, she would rouse my +jealousy by some sign of strong admiration of Edmund. She must have acted +the same way with my brother. I saw him enslaved just as I--knew we were +faring alike--knew the very thoughts as well as feelings in his heart, +and instead of being consumed with sorrow, chuckled at the _knowledge_ +that _I_ was the favoured one! I suspect now that she showed him more +favour than myself, and taught him to put on the look of the hopeless +one. I fancied I caught at times a covert flash in his eye: he knew what +he knew! If so, poor Edmund, thou hadst the worst of it every way! + +“Shall I ever get her kisses off my lips, her poison out of my brain! +From my heart, her image was burned in a moment, as utterly as if by +years of hell! + +“The estrangement between us was sudden; there were degrees only in the +widening of it. First came embarrassment at meeting. Then all commerce of +wish, thought, and speculation, ended. There was no more merrymaking +jugglery with identity; each was himself only, and for himself alone. +Gone was all brother-gladness. We avoided each other more and more. When +we must meet, we made haste to part. Heaven was gone from home. Each yet +felt the same way toward the other, but it was the way of repelling, not +drawing. When we passed in the street, it was with a look that said, or +at least meant--'You are my brother! I don't want you!' We ceased even to +nod to each other. Still in our separation we could not separate. Each +took a room in another part of the town, but under the same pseudonym. +Our common lodging was first deserted, then formally given up by each. +Always what one did, that did the other, though no longer intending to +act in consort with him. He could not help it though he tried, for the +other tried also, and did the same thing. One of us might for months have +played the part of both without detection--especially if it had been +understood that we had parted company; but I think it was never +suspected, although now we were rarely for a moment together, and still +more rarely spoke. A few weeks sufficed to bring us to the verge of +madness. + +“To this day I doubt if the woman, our common disease, knew the one of us +from the other. That in any part of her being there was the least +approach to a genuine womanly interest in either of us, I do not believe. +I am very sure she never cared for me. Preference I cannot think +possible; she could not, it seems to me, have felt anything for one of us +without feeling the same for both; I do not see how, with all she knew of +us, we could have made two impressions upon her moral sensorium. + +“It was at length the height of summer, and every one sought change of +scene and air. It was time for us to go home; but I wrote to my father, +and got longer leave.” + +“I wrote too,” interposed my uncle Edmund at this point of the story, +when my own uncle was telling it that evening in Paris. + +“The day after the date of his answer to my letter, my father died. But +Edmund and I were already on our way, by different routes, to the +mountain-village whither the lady had preceded us; and having, in our +infatuation, left no address, my brother never saw the letter announcing +our loss, and I not for months. + +“A few weeks more, and our elder brother, who had always been delicate, +followed our father. This also remained for a time unknown to me. My +mother had died many years before, and we had now scarce a relation in +the world. Martha Moon is the nearest relative you and I have. Besides +her and you, there were left therefore of the family but myself and your +uncle Edmund--both absorbed in the same worthless woman. + +“At the village there were two hostelries. I thought my brother would go +to the better; he thought I would go to the better; so we met at the +worse! I remember a sort of grin on his face when we saw each other, and +have no doubt the same grin was on mine. We always did the same thing, +just as of old. The next morning we set out, I need hardly say each by +himself, to find the lady. + +“She had rented a small chalet on the banks of a swift mountain-stream, +and thither, for a week or so, we went every day, often encountering. The +efforts we made to avoid each other being similar and simultaneous, they +oftener resulted in our meeting. When one did nothing, the other +generally did nothing also, and when one schemed, the other also schemed, +and similarly. Thus what had been the greatest pleasure of our peculiar +relation, our mental and moral resemblance, namely, became a large factor +in our mutual hate. For with self-loathing shame, and a misery that makes +me curse the day I was born, I confess that for a time I hated the +brother of my heart; and I have but too good ground for believing that he +also hated me!” + +“I did! I did!” cried uncle Edmund, when my own uncle, in his verbal +narrative, mentioned his belief that his brother hated him; whereupon +uncle Edward turned to me, saying-- + +“Is it not terrible, my little one, that out of a passion called by the +same name with that which binds you and John Day, the hellish smoke of +such a hate should arise! God must understand it! that is a comfort: in +vain I seek to sound it. Even then I knew that I dwelt in an evil house. +Amid the highest of such hopes as the woman roused in me, I scented the +vapours of the pit. I was haunted by the dim shape of the coming hour +when I should hate the woman that enthralled me, more than ever I had +loved her. The greater sinner I am, that I yet yielded her dominion over +me. I was the willing slave of a woman who sought nothing but the +consciousness of power; who, to the indulgence of that vilest of +passions, would sacrifice the lives, the loves, the very souls of men! +She lived to separate, where Jesus died to make one! How weak and +unworthy was I to be caught in her snares! how wicked and vile not to +tear myself loose! The woman whose touch would defile the Pharisee, is +pure beside such a woman!” + +I return to his manuscript. + +“The lady must have had plenty of money, and she loved company and show; +I cannot but think, therefore, that she had her design in choosing such a +solitary place: its loveliness would subserve her intent of enthralling +thoroughly heart and soul and brain of the fools she had in her toils. I +doubt, however, if the fools were alive to any beauty but hers, if they +were not dead to the wavings of God's garment about them. Was I ever +truly aware of the presence of those peaks that dwelt alone with their +whiteness in the desert of the sky--awfully alone--of the world, but not +with the world? I think we saw nothing save with our bodily eyes, and +very little with them; for we were blinded by a passion fitter to wander +the halls of Eblis, than the palaces of God. + +“The chalet stood in a little valley, high in the mountains, whose +surface was gently undulating, with here and there the rocks breaking +through its rich-flowering meadows. Down the middle of it ran the deep +swift stream, swift with the weight of its fullness, as well as the steep +slope of its descent. It was not more than seven or eight feet across, +but a great body of water went rushing along its deep course. About a +quarter of a mile from the chalet, it reached the first of a series of +falls of moderate height and slope, after which it divided into a number +of channels, mostly shallow, in a wide pebbly torrent-bed. These, a +little lower down, reunited into a narrower and yet swifter stream--a +small fierce river, which presently, at one reckless bound, shot into the +air, to tumble to a valley a thousand feet below, shattered into spray as +it fell. + +“The chalet stood alone. The village was at no great distance, but not a +house was visible from any of its windows. It had no garden. The meadow, +one blaze of colour, softened by the green of the mingling grass, came up +to its wooden walls, and stretched from them down to the rocky bank of +the river, in many parts to the very water's-edge. The chalet stood like +a yellow rock in a green sea. The meadow was the drawing-room where the +lady generally received us. + +“One lovely evening, I strolled out of the hostelry, and went walking up +the road that led to the village of Auerbach, so named from the stream +and the meadow I have described. The moon was up, and promised the +loveliest night. I was in no haste, for the lady had, in our common +hearing, said, she was going to pass that night with a friend, in a town +some ten miles away. I dawdled along therefore, thinking only to greet +the place, walk with the stream, and lie in the meadow, sacred with the +shadow of her demonian presence. Quit of the restless hope of seeing her, +I found myself taking some little pleasure in the things about me, and +spent two hours on the way, amid the sound of rushing water, now +swelling, now sinking, all the time. + +“It had not crossed me to wonder where my brother might be. I banished +the thought of him as often as it intruded. Not able to help meeting, we +had almost given up avoiding each other; but when we met, our desire was +to part. I do not know that, apart, we had ever yet felt actual hate, +either to the other. + +“The road led through the village. It was asleep. I remember a gleam in +just one of the houses. The moonlight seemed to have drowned all the +lamps of the world. I came to the stream, rushing cold from its far-off +glacier-mother, crossed it, and went down the bank opposite the chalet: I +had taken a fancy to see it from that side. Glittering and glancing under +the moon, the wild little river rushed joyous to its fearful fall. A +short distance away, it was even now falling--falling from off the face +of the world! This moment it was falling from my very feet into the +void--falling, falling, unupheld, down, down, through the moonlight, to +the ghastly rock-foot below! + +“The chalet seemed deserted. With the same woefully desolate look, it +constantly comes back in my dreams. I went farther down the valley. The +full-rushing stream went with me like a dog. It made no murmur, only a +low gurgle as it shot along. It seemed to draw me with it to its last +leap. As I looked at its swiftness, I thought how hard it would be to get +out of. The swiftness of it comes to me yet in my dreams. + +“I came to a familiar rock, which, part of the bank whereon I walked, +rose some six or seven feet above the meadow, just opposite a little +hollow where the lady oftenest sat. Two were on the grass together, one a +lady seated, the other a man, with his head in the lady's lap. I gave a +leap as if a bullet had gone through my heart, then instinctively drew +back behind the rock. There I came to myself, and began to take courage. +She had gone away for the night: it could not be she! I peeped. The man +had raised his head, and was leaning on his elbow. It was Edmund, I was +certain! She stooped and kissed him. I scrambled to the top of the rock, +and sprang across the stream, which ran below me like a flooded millrace. +Would to God I had missed the bank, and been swept to the great fall! I +was careless, and when I lighted, I fell. Her clear mocking laugh rang +through the air, and echoed from the scoop of some still mountain. When I +rose, they were on their feet. + +“'Quite a chamois-spring!' remarked the lady with derision. + +“She saw the last moment was come. Neither of us two spoke. + +“'I told you,' she said, 'neither of you was to trouble me to-night: you +have paid no regard to my wish for quiet! It is time the foolery should +end! I am weary of it. A woman cannot marry a double man--or half a man +either--without at least being able to tell which is which of the two +halves!' + +“She ended with a toneless laugh, in which my brother joined. She turned +upon him with a pitiless mockery which, I see now, must have left in his +mind the conviction that she had been but making game of him; while I +never doubted myself the dupe. Not once had she received me as I now saw +her: though the night was warm, her deshabille was yet a somewhat +prodigal unmasking of her beauty to the moon! The conviction in each of +us was, that she and the other were laughing at him. + +“We locked in a deadly struggle, with what object I cannot tell. I do not +believe either of us had an object. It was a mere blind conflict of +pointless enmity, in which each cared but to overpower the other. Which +first laid hold, which, if either, began to drag, I have not a suspicion. +The next thing I know is, we were in the water, each in the grasp of the +other, now rolling, now sweeping, now tumbling along, in deadly embrace. + +“The shock of the ice-cold water, and the sense of our danger, brought me +to myself. I let my brother go, but he clutched me still. Down we shot +together toward the sheer descent. Already we seemed falling. The terror +of it over-mastered me. It was not the crash I feared, but the stayless +rush through the whistling emptiness. In the agony of my despair, I +pushed him from me with all my strength, striking at him a fierce, wild, +aimless blow--the only blow struck in the wrestle. His hold relaxed. I +remember nothing more.” + +At this point of the verbal narrative, my uncle Edmund again spoke. + +“You never struck me, Ed,” he cried; “or if you did, I was already +senseless. I remember nothing of the water.” + +“When I came to myself,” the manuscript goes on, “I was lying in a pebbly +shoal. The moon was aloft in heaven. I was cold to the heart, cold to the +marrow of my bones. I could move neither hand nor foot, and thought I was +dead. By slow degrees a little power came back, and I managed at length, +after much agonizing effort, to get up on my feet--only to fall again. +After several such failures, I found myself capable of dragging myself +along like a serpent, and so got out of the water, and on the next +endeavour was able to stand. I had forgotten everything; but when my eyes +fell on the darting torrent, I remembered all--not as a fact, but as a +terrible dream from which I thanked heaven I had come awake. + +“But as I tottered along, I came slowly to myself, and a fearful doubt +awoke. If it was a dream, where had I dreamt it? How had I come to wake +where I found myself? How had the dream turned real about me? Where was I +last in my remembrance? Where was my brother? Where was the lady in the +moonlight? No, it was not a dream! If my brother had not got out of the +water, I was his murderer! I had struck him!--Oh, the horror of it! If +only I could stop dreaming it--three times almost every night!” + +Again uncle Edmund interposed--not altogether logically: + +“I tell you, I don't believe you struck me, Ed! And you must remember, +neither of us would have got out if you hadn't!” + +“You might have let me go!” said the other. + +“On the way down the Degenfall, perhaps!” rejoined uncle Edmund. “--I +believe it was that blow brought me to my senses, and made me get out!” + +“Thank you, Ed!” said uncle Edward. + +Once more I write from the manuscript. + +“I said to myself he _must_ have got out! It could not be that I had +drowned my own brother! Such a ghastly thing could not have been +permitted! It was too terrible to be possible! + +“How, then, had we been living the last few months? What brothers had we +been? Had we been loving one another? Had I been a neighbour to my +nearest? Had I been a brother to my twin? Was not murder the natural +outcome of it all? He that loveth not his brother is a murderer! If so, +where the good of saving me from being in deed what I was in nature? I +had cast off my brother for a treacherous woman! My very thought sickened +within me. + +“My soul seemed to grow luminous, and understand everything. I saw my +whole behaviour as it was. The scales fell from my inward eyes, and there +came a sudden, total, and absolute revulsion in my conscious self--like +what takes place, I presume, at the day of judgment, when the God in +every man sits in judgment upon the man. Had the gate of heaven stood +wide open, neither angel with flaming sword, nor Peter with the keys to +dispute my entrance, I would have turned away from it, and sought the +deepest hell. I loathed the woman and myself; in my heart the sealed +fountain of old affection had broken out, and flooded it. + +“All the time this thinking went on, I was crawling slowly up the endless +river toward the chalet, driven by a hope inconsistent with what I knew +of my brother. What I felt, he, if he were alive, must be feeling also: +how then could I say to myself that I should find him with her? It was +the last dying hope that I had not killed him that thus fooled me. 'She +will be warming him in her bosom!' I said. But at the very touch, the +idea turned and presented its opposite pole. 'Good God!' I cried in my +heart, 'how shall I compass his deliverance? Better he lay at the bottom +of the fall, than lived to be devoured by that serpent of hell! I will go +straight to the den of the monster, and demand my brother!'” + +But to see the eyes of uncle Edmund at this point of the story! + +“At last I approached the chalet. All was still. A handkerchief lay on +the grass, white in the moonlight. I went up to it, hoping to find it my +brother's. It was the lady's. I flung it from me like a filthy rag. + +“What was the passion worth which in a moment could die so utterly! + +“I turned to the house. I would tear him from her: he was mine, not hers! + +“My wits were nigh gone. I thought the moonlight was dissolving the +chalet, that the two within might escape me. I held it fast with my eyes. +The moon drew back: she only possessed and filled it! No; the moon was +too pure: she but shone reflected from the windows; she would not go in! +_I_ would go in! I was Justice! The woman was a thief! She had broken +into the house of life, and was stealing! + +“I stood for a moment looking up at her window. There was neither motion +nor sound. Was she gone away, and my brother with her? Could she be in +bed and asleep, after seeing us swept down the river to the Degenfall! +Could he be with her and at rest, believing me dashed to pieces? I must +be resolved! The door was not bolted; I stole up the stair to her +chamber. The door of it was wide open. I entered, and stood. The moon +filled the tiny room with a clear, sharp-edged, pale-yellow light. She +lay asleep, lovely to look at as an angel of God. Her hair, part of it +thrown across the top-rail of the little iron bed, streamed out on each +side over the pillow, and in the midst of it lay her face, a radiant isle +in a dark sea. I stood and gazed. Fascinated by her beauty? God forbid! I +was fascinated by the awful incongruity between that face, pure as the +moonlight, and the charnel-house that lay unseen behind it. She was to +me, henceforth, not a woman, but a live Death. I had no sense of +sacredness, such as always in the chamber even of a little girl. How +should I? It was no chamber; it was a den. She was no woman, but a female +monster. I stood and gazed. + +“My presence was more potent than I knew. She opened her eyes--opened +them straight into mine. All the colour sank away out of her face, and it +stiffened to that of a corpse. With the staring eyes of one strangled, +she lay as motionless as I stood. I moved not an inch, spoke not a word, +drew not a step nearer, retreated not a hair's-breadth. Motion was taken +from me. Was it hate that fixed my eyes on hers, and turned my limbs into +marble? It certainly was not love, but neither was it hate. + +“Agony had been burrowing in me like a mole; the half of what I felt I +have not told you: I came to find my brother, and found only, in a sweet +sleep, the woman who had just killed him. The bewilderment, of it all, +with my long insensibility and wet garments, had taken from me either the +power of motion or of volition, I do not know which: speechless in the +moonlight, I must have looked to the wretched woman both ghostly and +ghastly. + +“Two or three long moments she gazed with those horror-struck eyes; then +a frightful shriek broke from her drawn, death-like lips. She who could +sleep after turning love into hate, life into death, would have fled into +hell to escape the eyes of the dead! Insensibility is not courage. Wake +in the scornfullest mortal the conviction that one of the disembodied +stands before him, and he will shiver like an aspen-leaf. Scream followed +scream. Volition or strength, whichever it was that had left me, +returned. I backed from the room, went noiseless from the house, and +fled, as if she had been the ghost, and I the mortal. Would I had been +the spectre for which she took me!” + +Here uncle Edward again spoke. + +“Small wonder she screamed, the wretch!” he cried: “that was her second +dose of the horrible that night! You found the door unbolted because I +had been there before you. I too entered her room, and saw her asleep as +you describe. I went close to her bedside, and cried out, 'Where is my +brother?' She woke, and fainted, and I left her.” + +“Then,” said I, “when she came to herself, thinking she had had a bad +dream, she rearranged her hair, and went to sleep again!” + +“Just so, I daresay, little one!” answered uncle Edward. + +“I had not yet begun to think what I should do, when I found myself at +our little inn,” the manuscript continues. “No idea of danger to myself +awoke in my mind, nor was there any cause to heed such an idea, had it +come. Nobody there knew the one from the other of us. Not many would know +there were two of us. Any one who saw me twice, might well think he had +seen us both. If my brother's body were found in the valley stream, it +was not likely to be recognized, or to be indeed recognizable. The only +one who could tell what happened at the top of the fall, would hardly +volunteer information. But, while I knew myself my brother's murderer, I +thought no more of these sheltering facts than I did of danger. I made it +no secret that my brother had gone over the fall. I went to the foot of +the cataract, thence to search and inquire all down the stream, but no +one had heard of any dead body being found. They told me that the poor +gentleman must, before morning, have been far on his way to the Danube. + +“Giving up the quest in despair, I resigned myself to a torture which has +hitherto come no nearer expending itself than the consuming fire of God. + +“I dared not carry home the terrible news, which must either involve me +in lying, or elicit such confession as would multiply tenfold my father's +anguish, and was in utter perplexity what to do, when it occurred to me +that I ought to inquire after letters at the lodging where last we had +lived together. Then first I learned that both my father and my elder +brother, your father, little one, were dead. + +“The sense of guilt had not destroyed in me the sense of duty. I did not +care what became of the property, but I did care for my brother's child, +and the interests of her succession. + +“Your father had all his life been delicate, and had suffered not a +little. When your mother died, about a year after their marriage, leaving +us you, it soon grew plain to see that, while he loved you dearly, and +was yet more friendly to all about him than before, his heart had given +up the world. When I knew he was gone, I shed more tears over him than I +had yet shed over my twin: the worm that never dies made my brain too hot +to weep much for Edmund. Then first I saw that my elder brother had been +a brother indeed; and that we twins had never been real to each other. I +saw what nothing but self-loathing would ever have brought me to see, +that my love to Edmund had not been profound: while a man is himself +shallow, how should his love be deep! I saw that we had each loved our +elder brother in a truer and better fashion than we had loved each other. +One of the chief active bonds between us had been fun; another, habit; +and another, constitutional resemblance--not one of them strong. +Underneath were bonds far stronger, but they had never come into +conscious play; no strain had reached them. They were there, I say; for +wherever is the poorest flower of love, it is there in virtue of the +perfect root of love; and love's root must one day blossom into love's +perfect rose. My chief consolation under the burden of my guilt is, that +I love my brother since I killed him, far more than I loved him when we +were all to each other. Had we never quarrelled, and were he alive, I +should not be loving him thus! + +“That we shall meet again, and live in the devotion of a far deeper love, +I feel in the very heart of my soul. That it is my miserable need that +has wrought in me this confidence, is no argument against the confidence. +As misery alone sees miracles, so is there many a truth into which misery +alone can enter. My little one, do not pity your uncle much; I have +learned to lift up my heart to God. I look to him who is the saviour of +men to deliver me from blood-guiltiness--to lead me into my brother's +pardon, and enable me somehow to make up to him for the wrong I did him. + +“Some would think I ought to give myself up to justice. But I felt and +feel that I owe my brother reparation, not my country the opportunity of +retribution. It cannot be demanded of me to pretermit, because of my +crime, the duty more strongly required of me because of the crime. Must I +not use my best endeavour to turn aside its evil consequences from +others? Was I, were it even for the cleansing of my vile soul, to leave +the child of my brother alone with a property exposing her to the +machinations of prowling selfishness! Would it atone for the wrong of +depriving her of one uncle, to take the other from her, and so leave her +defenceless with a burden she could not carry? Must I take so-called +justice on myself at her expense--to the oppression, darkening, and +endangering of her life? Were I accused, I would tell the truth; but I +would not volunteer a phantasmal atonement. What comfort would it be to +my brother that I was hanged? Let the punishment God pleased come upon +me, I said; as far as lay in me, I would live for my brother's child! I +have lived for her. + +“But I am, and have been, and shall, I trust, throughout my earthly time, +and what time thereafter may be needful, always be in Purgatory. I should +tremble at the thought of coming out of it a moment ere it had done its +part. + +“One day, after my return home, as I unpacked a portmanteau, my fingers +slipped into the pocket of a waistcoat, and came upon something which, +when I brought it to the light, proved a large ruby. A pang went to my +heart. I looked at the waistcoat, and found it the one I had worn that +terrible night: the ruby was the stone of the ring Edmund always wore. It +must have been loose, and had got there in our struggle. Every now and +then I am drawn to look at it. At first I saw in it only the blood; now I +see the light also. The moon of hope rises higher as the sun of life +approaches the horizon. + +“I was never questioned about the death of my twin brother. One, of two +so like, must seem enough. Our resemblance, I believe, was a bore, which +the teasing use we made of it aggravated; therefore the fact that there +was no longer a pair of us, could not be regarded as cause for regret, +and things quickly settled down to the state in which you so long knew +them. If there be one with a suspicion of the terrible truth, it is +cousin Martha. + +“You will not be surprised that you should never have heard of your uncle +Edmund. + +“I dare not ask you, my child, not to love me less; for perhaps you ought +to do so. If you do, I have my consolation in the fact that my little one +cannot make me love _her_ less.” + +Thus ended the manuscript, signed with my uncle's name and address in +full, and directed to me at the bottom of the last page. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + +UNCLE EDMUND'S APPENDIX. + +When my uncle Edward had told his story, corresponding, though more +conversational in form, with that I have now transcribed, my uncle Edmund +took up his part of the tale from the moment when he came to himself +after their fearful rush down the river. It was to this effect: + +He lay on the very verge of the hideous void. How it was that he got thus +far and no farther, he never could think. He was out of the central +channel, and the water that ran all about him and poured immediately over +the edge of the precipice, could not have sufficed to roll him there. +Finding himself on his back, and trying to turn on his side in order to +rise, his elbow found no support, and lifting his head a little, he +looked down into a moon-pervaded abyss, where thin silvery vapours were +stealing about. One turn, and he would have been on his way, plumb-down, +to the valley below--say, rather, on his way off the face of the world +into the vast that bosoms the stars and the systems and the cloudy +worlds. His very soul quivered with terror. The pang of it was so keen +that it saved him from the swoon in which he might yet have dropped from +the edge of the world. Not daring to rise, and unable to roll himself up +the slight slope, he shifted himself sideways along the ground, inch by +inch, for a few yards, then rose, and ran staggering away, as from a +monster that might wake and pursue and overtake him. He doubted if he +would ever have recovered the sudden shock of his awful position, of his +one glance into the ghastly depth, but for the worse horror of the +all-but-conviction that his brother had gone down to Hades through that +terrible descent. If only he too had gone, he cried in his misery, they +would now be together, with no wicked woman between their hearts! For his +love too was changed into loathing. He too was at once, and entirely, and +for ever freed from her fascination. The very thought of her was hateful +to him. + +With straight course, but wavering walk, he made his way through the +moonlight to demand his brother. He too picked up the handkerchief, and +dropped it with disgust. + +What followed in the lady's chamber, I have already given in his own +words. + +When he fled from the chalet, it was with self-slaughter in his heart. +But he endured in the comfort of the thought that the door of death was +always open, that he might enter when he would. He sought the foot of the +fall the same night; then, as one possessed of demons to the tombs, fled +to the solitary places of the dark mountains. + +He went through many a sore stress. Ignorant of the death of his father +and his elder brother, the dread misery of encountering them with his +brother's blood on his soul, barred his way home. He could not bear the +thought of reading in their eyes his own horror of himself. His money was +soon spent, and for months he had to endure severe hardships--of simple, +wholesome human sort. He thought afterward that, if he had had no trouble +of that kind, his brain would have yielded. He would have surrendered +himself but for the uselessness of it, and the misery and public stare it +would bring upon his family. + +Knowing German well, and contriving at length to reach Berlin, he found +employment there of various kinds, and for a good many years managed to +live as well as he had any heart for, and spare a little for some worse +off than himself. Having no regard to his health, however, he had at +length a terrible attack of brain-fever, and but partially recovering his +faculties after it, was placed in an asylum. There he dreamed every night +of his home, came awake with the joy of the dream, and could sleep no +more for longing--not to go home--that he dared not think of--but to look +upon the place, if only once again. The longing grew till it became +intolerable. By his talk in his sleep, the good people about him learning +his condition, gave and gathered money to send him home. On his way, he +came to himself quite, but when he reached England, he found he dared not +go near the place of his birth. He remained therefore in London, where he +made the barest livelihood by copying legal documents. In this way he +spent a few miserable years, and then suddenly set out to walk to the +house of his fathers. He had but five shillings in his possession when +the impulse came upon him. + +He reached the moor, and had fallen exhausted, when a solitary gypsy, +rare phenomenon, I presume, with a divine spot awake in his heart, found +him, gave him some gin, and took him to a hut he had in the wildest part +of the heath. He lay helpless for a week, and then began to recover. When +he was sufficiently restored, he helped his host to weave the baskets +which, as soon as he had enough to make a load, he took about the country +in a cart. He soon became so clever at the work as quite to earn his food +and shelter, making more baskets while the gypsy was away selling the +others. At home, the old horse managed to live, or rather not to die, on +the moor, and, all things considered, had not a very hard life of it. On +his back, uncle Edmund, ill able to walk so far--for he was anything but +strong now, would sometimes go wandering in the twilight, or when the +moon shone, to some spot whence he could see his old home. Occasionally +he would even go round and round the house while we slept, like a ghost +dreaming of ancient days. + +“But,” I said, interrupting his narrative, “the horseman I saw that night +in the storm could not have been you, uncle; for the horse was a grand +creature, rearing like the horse with Peter the Great on his back, in the +corner of the map of Russia!” + +“Were _you_ out that terrible night?” he returned. “The lightning was +enough to frighten even an older horse than the gypsy's.--I wonder how my +friend is getting on! He must think me very ungrateful! But I daresay he +imagines me lying fathom-deep in the bog.--You will do something for him, +won't you, Ed?” + +“You shall do for him yourself what you please, Ed,” answered my own +uncle, “and I will help you.” + +“But, uncle Edmund,” I said, “if it was you we saw, the place you were in +was a very boggy one always, and nearly a lake then!” + +“I thought I should never get out!” he replied. “But for the poor horse +and his owner, I should not have minded.” + +“How _did_ you get out of it, uncle?” I persisted. “Lady Cairnedge +smothered a splendid black horse not far from there. Through the darkness +I heard him going down. It makes me shudder every time I think of it.” + +“I cannot tell you, child. I suppose my gray was such a skeleton that the +bog couldn't hold him. I left it all to him, and he got himself and me +too out of it somehow. It was too dark, as you know, to see anything +between the flashes. I remember we were pretty deep sometimes.” + +He went back to London after that, and had come and gone once or twice, +he said. When he came he always lodged with his gypsy friend. He had +learned that his father was dead, but took the Mr. Whichcote he heard +mentioned, for his elder brother, David, my father. + +I asked him how it was he appeared to such purpose, and in the very nick +of time, that afternoon when lady Cairnedge had come with her servants to +carry John away; for of course I knew now that our champion must have +been uncle Edmund. He answered he had that very morning made up his mind +to present himself at the house, and had walked there for the purpose, +resolved to tell his brother all. He got in by the end of the garden, as +John was in the way of doing, and had reached the little grove of firs by +the house, when he saw a carriage at the door, and drew back. Hearing +then the noises of attack and defence, he came to the window and looked +in, heard lady Cairnedge's shriek, saw her on the floor, and the men +attempting to force an entrance at the other side of the window. Hardly +knowing what he did, he rushed at them and beat them off. Then suddenly +turning faint, for his heart was troublesome, he retired into the grove, +and lay there helpless for a time. He recovered only to hear the carriage +drive away, leaving quiet behind it. + +To see that woman in the house of his fathers, was a terrible shock to +him. Could it be that David had married her? He stole from his covert, +and crawled across the moor to the gypsy's hut. There he was consoled by +learning that the mistress of the house was a young girl, whom he rightly +concluded to be the daughter of his brother David. + +In making a second visit with the same intent, he had another attack of +the heart, and now knew that he would have died in the snow had not John +found him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + + +THE END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. + +We returned to England the next day. All the journey through, my uncles +were continually reverting to the matter of John's parentage: the more +they saw of him, the less could they believe lady Cairnedge his mother. +Through questions put to him, and inquiries afterward made, they +discovered that, when he went to London, he had gone to lady Cairnedge's +lawyer, not his father's, of whom he had never heard--which accounted for +his having on that occasion learned nothing of consequence to him. When +we reached London, my uncle Edmund, who, having been bred a lawyer, knew +how to act, went at once to examine the will left by John's father. That +done, he set out for the place where John was born. The rest of us went +home. + +The second day after our arrival there, uncle Edmund came. He had found +perfect proof, not only that lady Cairnedge was John's step-mother, but +that she had no authority over him or his property whatever. + +A long discussion took place in my uncles' study--I have to shift the +apostrophe of possession--as to whether John ought to compel restitution +of what she might have wrongfully spent or otherwise appropriated. She +had been left an income by each of her husbands, upon either of which +incomes she might have lived at ease; but they had a strong suspicion, +soon entirely justified, that while spending John's money, she had been +saving up far more than her own. But in the discussion, John held to it +that, as she had once been the wife of his father, he would spare her so +far--provided she had nowise impoverished either of the estates. He would +insist only upon her immediate departure. + +“Yes, little one,” said my uncle, one summer evening, as he and I talked +together, seated alone in the wilderness, “what we call misfortune is +always the only good fortune. Few will say _yes_ in response, but Truth +is independent of supporters, being justified by her children. + +“Until _misfortune_ found us,” he went on, “my brother and I had indeed +loved one another, but with a love so poor that a wicked woman was able +to send it to sleep. To what she might have brought us, had she had full +scope, God only knows: _now_ all the women in hell could not separate +us!” + +“And all the women in paradise would but bring you closer!” I ventured to +add. + +The day after our marriage, which took place within a month of our return +from Paris, John went to Rising, on a visit to lady Cairnedge of anything +but ceremony, and took his uncles and myself with him. + +“Will you tell her ladyship,” he said to the footman, “that Mr. Day +desires to see her.” + +The man would have shut the door in our faces, with the words, “I will +see if my lady is at home;” but John was prepared for him. He put his +foot between the door and the jamb, and his two hands against the door, +driving it to the wall with the man behind it. There he held him till we +were all in, then closed the door, and said to him, in a tone I had never +heard him use till that moment, + +“Let lady Cairnedge know at once that Mr. Day desires to see her.” + +The man went. We walked into the white drawing-room, the same where I sat +alone among the mirrors the morning after I was lost on the moor. How +well I remembered it! There we waited. The gentlemen stood, but, John +insisting, I sat--my eyes fixed on the door by which we had entered. +In a few minutes, however, a slight sound in another part of the room, +caused me to turn them thitherward. There stood lady Cairnedge, in a +riding-habit, with a whip in her hand, staring, pale as death, at my +uncles. Then, with a scornful laugh, she turned and went through a door +immediately behind her, which closed instantly, and became part of the +wainscot, hardly distinguishable. John darted to it. It was bolted on the +outside. He sought another door, and ran hither and thither through the +house to find the woman. My uncles ran after him, afraid something might +befall him. I remained where I was, far from comfortable. Two or three +minutes passed, and then I heard the thunder of hoofs. I ran to the +window. There she was, tearing across the park at full gallop, on just +such a huge black horse as she had smothered in the bog! I was the only +one of us that saw her, and not one of us ever set eyes upon her again. + +When we went over the house, it soon became plain to us that she had been +in readiness for a sudden retreat, having prepared for it after a fashion +of her own: not a single small article of value was to be discovered in +it. John's great-aunt, who left him the property, died in the house, +possessed of a large number of jewels, many of them of great price both +in themselves and because of their antiquity: not one of them was ever +found. + +A report reached us long after, that lady Cairnedge was found dead in her +bed in a hotel in the Tyrol. + +My uncles lived for many years on the old farm. Uncle Edmund bought a +gray horse, as like uncle Edward's as he could find one, only younger. I +often wondered what Death must think--to know he had his master on his +back, and yet see him mounted by his side. Every day one or the other, +most days both, would ride across the moor to see us. For many years +Martha walked in at the door at least once every week. + +My uncles took no pains, for they had no desire, to be distinguished the +one from the other. Each was always ready to meet any obligation of the +other. If one made an appointment, few could tell which it was, and +nobody which would keep it. No one could tell, except, perhaps, one who +had been present, which of them had signed any document: their two hands +were absolutely indistinguishable, I do not believe either of them, after +a time, always himself knew whether the name was his or his brother's. He +could only be always certain it must have been written by one of them. +But each indifferently was ready to honour the signature, _Ed. +Whichcote_. + +They died within a month of each other. Their bodies lie side by side. On +their one tombstone is the inscription: + +HERE LIE THE DISUSED GARMENTS OF EDWARD AND EDMUND WHICHCOTE, + +BORN FEB. 29, 1804; + +DIED JUNE 30, AND + +JULY 28, 1864. + +THEY ARE NOT HERE; THEY ARE RISEN. + +John and I are waiting. + +Belorba Day. + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Flight of the Shadow, by George MacDonald + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLIGHT OF THE SHADOW *** + +***** This file should be named 8902-0.txt or 8902-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/9/0/8902/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Mary Meehan and Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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