We met the mist at the line where the parterre borders on the Wilderness, and walked through it knee-deep until the trees grew dense. At that point, however, we separated and moved forwards thenceforth with an interval between us that we might the sooner end our search, and so doing we quickly lost sight of one another. I made directly so far as I could guess for the bushes above which I had seen the smoke of the pistol float, but, being come near to the spot, what with the delusive light and the many shrubs crowding thereabouts, I could by no means determine which was the particular one I sought.
Moreover, since I walked, as I say, knee-deep in mist, it was a very easy and possible thing for me to pass within an inch of the body and be never a jot the wiser unless my foot chanced to knock on it. I walked, therefore, very slowly and in a great agony and desolation of remorse. It seemed to me that his wraith was a presence in the garden, and the garden its most fitting habitation. For now that I had left the open, and was circled about with the boskage, I moved through a world shadowy and fantastic. The shadows of the branches laced the floor of mist in a grotesque pattern, and amongst them my shadow moved and moved alone, swelling and dwindling as I turned this way and that in the moonlight; and now and again invisible beneath the mist a creeping plant would twine of a sudden about my ankle, and I would stop with a cry half-checked upon my lips, fancying for a moment that it was the dead man’s fingers clutching me.
Moreover, as I brushed against the boughs, the raindrops would patter from the leaves with the most melancholy sound that ever a man heard. To me I know they sounded like the pattering feet of little children. I remember that when the thought first struck me I groaned aloud in the anguish of my spirit. The pattering of little children’s feet, and here was the young husband dead through me as surely as though my hand had pulled the trigger and the young wife as surely widowed! And when I rose and continued my search, that sound pursued me. It was as though the children ran after me, with many steps to my one stride. I was like the Dutch piper they tell of in story-books, who led the little children in a long train from Hamlin town; only those children laughed and sang and played as they went, merriment in their voices, rosy expectation in their looks; but those who followed me that night, followed in the saddest silence. The only noise they made was the pattering of their feet, unborn children mutely accusing me for that they would never see the day. Indeed, I drank my fill of punishment that night.
How long it was that I wandered thus I do not know, but all at once a cry rang out through the quiet. It came from some distance upon my right and was the cry of a woman. I hurried in that direction as quickly as the long wet grass allowed, and in a little I came to an open space. Mrs. Herbert was kneeling in the centre with her arms in front of her, buried in the mist I ran towards her, but she did not perceive me until I was within a few yards of her.
“No!” she cried suddenly, and she lifted up her arms and held them towards me to keep me off. “Not you! Not you!” and with that she dipped her arms again into the mist and began to croon over to herself a little tender lullaby such as mothers will sing about a cradle. I noticed that she moved her hands, and I fancied that I understood the significance of the movements. For now they seemed to caress a face, now to repose upon a breast
“Madam,” I said gently, “I know that my help must be the most unwelcome thing to you in all the world. Yet I must offer it and you must accept it. There is no other way;” and I bent down towards the ground.
“No,” she cried, and with all her strength she thrust my arms aside, repulsing me. The moonlight shone in her eyes, and they glared at me wild with hatred.
“No!”—she leaned forwards over the spot protecting it “your touch would stain;” and with a sudden movement she caught hold of a hand, of mine, and peered at it as though she thought to see blood there. “No, you must not——”
“But I must,” I interrupted her, for her wits seemed all distraught, and I could endure this evidence of her suffering no longer. “I must,” I repeated, and in my turn I dipped my hands into the curling mist. She gave a shrill scream, as though I had laid violent hands on her, sprang to her feet, and made in a stumbling run beneath the trees towards the house. I kneeled down where she had kneeled and plunged my hands in the mist as she had done.
What they touched was a fallen tree-trunk.
I started to my feet and ran back to the house. There was no one in the parlour. I hurried into the hall. There was no one there. I ran down the road. At the gates I saw ahead of me in the darkness the flutter of a dress. I raced after it; I heard a cry, which the sound of my running provoked, and Mrs. Herbert began to run from me.
I called to her, but she only quickened her pace, and accordingly I relaxed mine. In a little her run became a walk, and so keeping behind her I followed her to the outskirts of Keswick and then returned to Blackladies.
The house, however, was now lighted up, and the door closed. I knocked, and one of the servants opened it to me. I did not speak to him, but ran through the hall to the garden and resumed the search, I continued it until the sky in the east grew white, and after that when the sun had risen and the birds were singing. The mist cleared from the ground, and at last in the clear daylight I came again to the shrubs whither I had marched at the outset, and I saw something which made the hope spring again in my breast. The grass for some yards was trampled and crushed as though from a struggle. I picked up a shred of lace; it might have been torn in a struggle from a ruffle or cravat. I dropped upon my knees and searched in the grass; in a little I came upon a pistol—it was the pistol which I had noticed in Mr. Herbert’s lodging, and, moreover, it was discharged. It was he, then, who had fired, but—but it was plain he had not fired it at himself. In a feverish haste I crawled on my knees within this trampled circle. If he had been attacked, who attacked him? I needed a clue to answer me that question, and I found the clue. After a long while, it is true, but nevertheless I found it. It was no more than a metal button, but I had seen the like upon the uniforms of King George’s officers.
I held it in my hands, turning it over and over. For, to my thinking, the mines of Golconda held no jewel half so precious. It was a sign to me that Anthony Herbert was not dead. The one pistol which had been discharged was his own. He had been captured, and capture seemed to me so small a thing in the revulsion of my feelings. Of the reason for his capture I did not conjecture at all; I stood with an intense feeling of gratefulness softening at my heart and dimming my eyes. Then I remembered that there was one whose right to share my knowledge and my gratitude I had already too long deferred. I started with all speed for the house; the garden laughed in the sunshine as I ran, and the flowers took on a richer beauty and sprinkled the air with a sweeter perfume.
But as I neared the open space, I saw through an opening of the trees Aron run from the parlour and down the steps in a great haste. I shouted to him, and he lifted his head and seemed to look for the spot whence the shout came. But he did not in any measure slacken his pace. I shouted again, and he caught sight of me and waved his hands. I ran on, and again he waved his hands, but with a more violent gesture. I met him half-way across the open space of meadow.
“Quick, sir,” said he, panting in a great disorder, “back—back to the trees;” and he caught me by the flap of the coat
I tugged the coat away.
“For God’s sake, Master Lawrence, stop!”
But I was already running past him; the which he saw, and putting out a foot tripped me up without ceremony. I sprawled full length on the grass.
“How dare you?” I spluttered out in a rage.
“I would do as much again, sir, and more, were there the same need. Quick, sir, to the trees;” and he stooped to help me to my feet. Then, “It’s too late,” he whispered, and pressing me down by the shoulder dropped at my side.
“Look, Master Lawrence. Look!” and he nodded towards the house.
I saw the flash of a red-coat in the little parlour, then another and another. The room filled with soldiers.
“Keep your head low, sir! God send they do not look this way. If only we had reached the trees!” And he stretched himself flat in the grass and began to wriggle and crawl towards the shelter.
“They come for me?” I whispered, imitating his example.
“Yes! “he returned. “I must needs think so,”
“Why?”
“I saw them marching up the drive, and Mr.”—he paused over the name—“Mr. Ashlock was with them.”
“Ashlock?” I exclaimed with a start, for in the press of trouble which these last twelve hours had brought, I had clean forgotten the man.
“Hush!” replied Aron,
“Oh, why keep up the lie?” I answered savagely. “Call him Jervas Rookley and have done with it. He came with King George’s soldiers, did he? Aron, or Ashlock, I take it, I should call you, when next Mr. Jervas Rookley makes up his accounts for me, he shall make them up with his own hand, I promise you that.”
The old man shook his head very sadly.
“I fear me,” he agreed, “that Mr. Jervas is for something in all this.”
“For more than you know,” I replied, “and indeed for more than I know too as yet.”
Of a sudden I remembered that evening when I had seen Jervas Rookley enter through the parlour window.
“There is a secret way into the garden,” I said, and then a new thought flashed in upon me. “It was doubtless by that way the soldiers came.”
“No, sir,” said Ashlock, “they came by the highroad. Else I should not have seen them.”
“True,” said I, “those soldiers did, but they are not all the soldiers in Cumberland. And this secret—way you know it?”
“I know it,” he answered. “But we must reach the thicket first.”
I looked backwards across my shoulder. The soldiers were spreading over the terrace. I turned my face and strained every muscle to help me forward. Each moment I expected to hear the clink of a sabre against a spur, and a voice cry “Halt,” or to see a shadow fall from behind my shoulder across the grass in front. “I must not be taken,” I said to myself, yet knew full well that I might, “I must not be taken.” It was not so much the thought of my own peril that plagued me, but rather the desire to inform Mrs. Herbert that her husband was not dead. It pressed upon me like a sheer necessity. I must escape.
Ashlock at my side uttered a groan.
“I can go no further, Master Lawrence,” he said, and lay prone in an extremity of exhaustion, his face purple, and the veins pulsing upon it “Were I ten years younger—but I cannot.”
For answer I twined my arm about his body and dragged him forward. Every muscle in his body was a-quiver, the sweat poured from his forehead, and his chest heaved upon my arm as though it would crack; and all the while the screen of grass was close about our eyes and the sun burning upon our backs and heads. At last a shadow fell between the sun and us. I stopped with a groan and let my forehead fall forward on the ground. In a trice I saw myself captured, tried, executed, and meanwhile Mrs. Herbert would sit a-weeping in Keswick for a husband who was not dead.
“Thank God!” said Ashlock. “It is the shadow of the first tree.”
I raised my head, just checking the cry of joy which sprang to my lips. A little to the left of us a great leafy branch stretched out towards us. We crawled forward again, past a tree-trunk, then another, then another, and in a minute I was standing up behind a shrub, and Ashlock was lying at my feet, his breath coming in hoarse gasps from between his parched lips, his eyes closed, and his whole body limp and broken.
I peered round the shrub. The soldiers were scattered over the parterre, and then of a sudden I saw something which doubled my fears. For right across the meadow a furrow was drawn in a wavering line as though by the clumsiest scytheman. And it led straight to this bush. In a very short while the soldiers must see it. I sprang to Ashlock. It was no less than a necessity that Ashlock should escape from that garden without incurring a suspicion. I needed a friend in the house for one thing. For another I needed a messenger who could safely show himself in Keswick.
Accordingly I raised Ashlock to his feet and supported him through the thicket until we came to the labyrinth. The secret entrance to the garden lay in the last square of the labyrinth at the corner against the hillside, and had been constructed by Jervas Rookley during the lifetime of his father. It consisted of no more than a number of iron pegs driven into the interstices of the stone wall and hidden beneath a drapery of ivy. I descended first, and Ashlock followed me closely, so that if by any chance he slipped I might be able to lend him a hand. As soon as we were safely at the bottom, I said—
“Now, Ashlock, your way lies down the valley, mine up the hillside. You will get back into the house unnoticed, make sure of that! And to-day you will ride into Keswick and take this message from me to Mrs. Herbert.”
I tore a page from the note-book which I carried in my pocket, and hurriedly scribbled on it, “He is not dead,” and added thereto my initials. “Now good-bye. Be instant with the message! I doubt me but it is the last order you will ever take from me,” and so I turned from him and began running up the hillside.
Ashlock called out to me—
“Sir,” he cried, “I know not where I can have news of you. It will be well that I should know.”
“You can have news of me,” I replied, “at my Lord Derwentwater’s, but be careful how you come there lest you imperil him;” and of a sudden he snatched up my hand and kissed it.
“Master Lawrence,” he said in a broken voice of apology, “my father served Sir John Rookley’s father.”
“Therefore,” I interrupted, “you must serve Sir John Rookley’s son. It is very right,” and I patted him gently on the shoulder. “It is just for that reason a man serves his King. It is the house one serves, not the man who heads it.”
“But I would you were Sir John Rookley’s son.”
The tenderness with which he spoke cut me like a knife.
“Nay,” said I, “if there were a choice to be made, you would not be right in choosing me.”
I had barely ended the sentence before a cry rang out from the garden. It came, however, faintly to our ears.
“Quick!” I said. “They have come upon our tracks in the grass. Quick! That note must reach Keswick to-day, and your hand must deliver it.”
With that we parted. I mounted the hillside until I came to a large boulder, and threw myself on the ground beneath its shelter. In a fever of impatience I watched Ashlock descend along the wall, and yet the moment he had turned the corner and was clean out of my sight, I wished him back again. I was, in truth, sunk to such a depth of shame and self-contempt as made this old servant’s goodwill an extraordinary consolation. For now that I had had time to grow used to the knowledge that Anthony Herbert was not dead, I began to see more clearly the wickedness of my preceding conduct.
It was, then, with a very lonely feeling that I climbed to the ridge of Green Comb. Beneath me I could see Blackladies and its garden much as on that morning when I first rode thither over Cold-barrow Fell. But I saw it with very different eyes. Then, proud of my entrusted mission, I had looked upon it as an instrument of loyalty, a prop, however fragile, of the cause I served and my father had served before me. Now it was to me a monument of failure. Here I had failed through and through. I had proved false to Mr. Herbert; I had been juggled like the merest fool in my service to the King. I had but to turn, and over against me I could see the very spot where I had forced Jervas Rookley to make his vow of concealment upon his knees, and a little lower down the winding path, where I had come to my knees and Jervas Rookley had sat his horse over me. Well, I had kept faith with him, at all events, and how had he kept faith with me? The red-coats sprinkled in the garden below gave me the answer. Yes, I had kept faith with him. It seemed to me a wonderful and astonishing thing, so deep was my humiliation, but it was true. I had kept faith with him, and I hugged the thought to my very breast. In the wreck of my hopes and pride, it stood erect as you may see a single column standing amidst a pile of ruins; and perhaps, I thought, since that one column stands, if he could but bring perseverance to the work, a man might in time rebuild the whole.
To effect anything of this sort, however, I must needs first of all escape, and to that end I kept all the day along the hilltops, and at the fall of the dark came down Bleaberry Fell, to the great wood that fringes Derwentwater over against Rampsholme Island. About a mile to the east of the wood was a fisherman’s cottage with which I was sufficiently familiar, since the fisherman had ferried me over often enough to Lord’s Island, and many another visitor to my Lord Derwentwater besides, who came in a great hurry when the night was fallen dark. To this cottage I crept, and tapping at the window-pane presently the man came out and joined me.
He asked no questions, being well practised in the habit of secrecy, but put me across to the steps and so pushed off again without a word. I thought it best not to openly knock at the door, but crept round to a room wherein I knew Lord Derwentwater was used to sit of an evening. To my inexpressible relief I saw that the windows were lighted. I knocked on the pane; the sash was thrown up.
“Who is it?” asked Lord Derwentwater.
I set my band on the sill and climbed into the room.