THE WOODEN CROSS.
Released in a manner so much beyond his hopes, Jack lost no time in
betaking himself to the house, where he found all quiet and himself
alone in possession. He had every reason to congratulate himself on
the success of his scheme; yet he knew he was not out of the wood.
Child as he was, he saw that the woman, finding herself robbed in that
place, must lay the blame on him; and in his dread of what would
happen when the pair returned, he found it impossible to remain still
a moment, but wandered from front to back, and kitchen to stairs,
expecting yet dreading the first sound of their approach. When it came
he crouched in the chimney corner and held his breath, waiting for the
storm to break.
And there the woman found him when she entered. She had not expected
to see him, and she started violently, for nothing her companion had
urged had availed in the least to shake her belief in the child's dark
powers. His pale face and huddled form and his odd and elfish
position, as she came upon him, in the shadowy corner only served to
confirm and support it. She shrank away without a word, and busied
herself at the back of the house, until the boy finding himself free
from attack took heart of grace, and little by little emerged from his
retreat.
He could not understand how he had escaped suspicion and punishment,
but the fact was enough, and his spirits soon rose. He wanted no
reasons. Assured of his brother's safety, and delighted to think that
he had contributed to it, he could scarcely restrain the impulse that
would have had him hunt Frank out and share his joy with him.
Fortunately, he did restrain it, however; for during the rest of the
day he was the unconscious object of the strictest watchfulness.
Wherever he went and whatever he did, his steps were dogged and his
actions noted, though he did not perceive it himself. The woman, by an
immense effort, hid her fears, while Gridley, balanced between terrors
and fits of rage which became at times ungovernable, had the prudence
to shun the object of his hatred, and leave the task of surveillance
to her.
Accordingly, the child remained in perfect ignorance. He went
about his small and--to the adult mind--incomprehensible employments
in his own small fashion; playing here and there, and presently
rendering the woman's task more easy by the completeness with which he
gave himself up to rehearsing the morrow's plan. Mistress Gridley
found him continually slipping away, and as often stalked him into
corners, where she soon learned that he had something hidden about
him--something which he took out when he was alone, and put away
stealthily on her approach.
The woman's covetous spirit took fire afresh at this discovery, and
for the moment overcame her fears. Her eyes began to burn, her cheek
grew hot. When he sauntered away again, she watched him secretly, and
by-and-by marked him down in a corner of the fold where the wall was
highest. There she saw him sit down with his back to the house and his
face to the wall, and, taking something, which she could not see, from
his clothes, begin to toy with it, stooping over it, and caressing it
with the utmost devotion.
She did not doubt that the thing he fondled in this strange fashion
was the treasure of which he had robbed her by his arts; and in a
transport of anger she slipped out of the house by the back door, and,
making a circuit, stole up to the corner, keeping on the farther side
of the wall. When she reached the place she paused and listened,
crouching low that he might not see her. The child was muttering
softly to himself--muttering some monotonous unintelligible jargon,
which in her ears could be nothing but a charm. The woman shuddered at
the thought, but still she persisted. Cautiously raising her eyes
above the level of the wall, she got a sight of the object he was
crooning over. It was neither gold nor cup nor treasure, but a
strange-looking cross of wood!
Mistress Gridley shrank away, trembling in every limb. The sight
confirmed all her apprehensions. She hurried back to the house. But in
the excitement of the pursuit she had not noticed the change in the
sky, which had grown in the last few moments dark and overcast. The
first peal of the tempest, therefore, surprised her as she retreated.
Startled and affrighted, she looked up and saw the black canopy
impending over her head; with a cry, she crouched still lower, as if
she might in that way escape the wrath she had invoked. Her nerves
were so shaken that she never doubted the child had brought this
sudden storm upon her, and even when it did her no harm, when it
resolved itself into the most ordinary phenomenon and descended in
sheets of rain, while the mountains clothed themselves in mist, and
the moor streamed at a hundred pores--even then, though she had seen
such a storm a hundred times and knew its every aspect, she still
quailed. A terror of great darkness was upon her. She dared no longer
meet the child's eyes, but sat in the farthest corner of the room,
furtively watching him; while the eaves dripped outside, and the cold
light of a wet summer evening stole across the moor.
When he was gone to bed and his eye withdrawn from her, she felt more
at ease. But her discomposure was still so great that Simon and Luke
must have remarked it when they returned, if they had not been
themselves full of an anxiety which occupied their minds to the
exclusion of everything else.
"This rain!" Simon cried, as he shook out his dripping cloak on the
floor and turned to take a last look through the open door. "Who would
have foreseen it? Who would have foreseen it, I say, this morning?
Never did sky look better. Yet if it goes on through the night they
will scarcely get the guns over the hills by this road. The General
will be late."
"It grows more heavy," Luke answered moodily, looking out over the
other's shoulder.
"Ay, and the clouds are low," Simon assented. "I never knew rain more
sudden in my life, nor, surely, more untimely. There is many a man
will be damp tonight and march the slower to-morrow. Heaven grant it
hinders the malignants also!"
"The wind is westerly," Luke answered shrewdly. "I doubt it."
Simon shrugged his shoulders as sharing the doubt, and would have
closed the door. But at that moment his wife, who had already risen
from her seat, laid her hand on his arm. The hand trembled. The
woman's eyes were glittering, her cheeks white. "Simon!" she said,
peering into his face, and speaking in a tone of suppressed
excitement, "what is it--this storm? Whom does it hinder? What does it
matter? What was it you were saying about it?"
"What does it matter, and whom does it hinder?" the man answered
fiercely. "It hinders the Lord's work, woman! It matters to all
Christian men! It hinders guns and horses, men and wagons, that should
be at Preston to-morrow to cut off the malignant Hamilton and his
brood. In twelve hours, if this rain continues, the road to Preston
will be a quagmire, and the Philistines will laugh at us. But we must
rest content. It is the Lord's doing!"
"It is _not_ the Lord's doing!" she answered in a tone of surprising
emotion. "It is not his doing! It is Satan's!"
"Tush!" said her husband, harshly; but he started nevertheless at her
tone. "You rave, woman!"
[Illustration: "It is not the Lord's doing!"--Page 138.]
"I do not rave!" she answered, throwing up her arms wildly. "I tell
you this tempest, that you talk of--I saw it raised! This hindrance--I
saw it begotten! I--I, Simon Gridley! There is one here who can brew
the storm and hush the whirlwind! There is one here beside whom your
General is powerless!"
"Then he must have the devil's aid indeed!" Simon answered, with a
grim chuckle. "But softly, wife, what is this?"
In rapid, hurried words, rendered weighty by the terror and belief
which were in her, the woman detailed what she had seen the boy do,
and how the storm, of which the heavens had given so little warning,
had followed immediately thereon. She could not tell them all the
bases of her belief; she dared not mention the gold vessels, or the
strange scene under the yew-tree. But belief in such things is
infectious. The mystery of the locked door was still a mystery
unsolved and inexplicable. That they all knew; and nothing in the
solitary life these people had led among the fells, nothing in the
harsh, narrow creed they professed, or in their custom of literally
applying the Scriptures to everyday events, was at odds with the
conclusion that the child was possessed by an evil spirit. No one in
that day was so bold as to doubt the existence of the black art. And
if at the first glance this helpless child seemed the most unlikely of
professors, the discovery that his powers were being used against the
cause which they believed to be the cause of heaven, furnished a
probability which enabled them to dispense with the other. The men
looked in each other's faces uneasily. The light was waning, the
corners of the room were full of shadows. Those who felt no terror
felt wrath, which was near akin to it. For the woman, her eyes
flickered with hatred; which was only more intense because it was held
in check by abject fear.
At length Simon, whose bold and hardy spirit alone accepted the idea
with any real reluctance, rose; they had long ago formed themselves
into a council round the table.
"Hush!" he said, raising his hand. "The rain has stopped. What do you
say to that?"
They listened and found that it was so. The eaves no longer dripped.
"If he is a wizard, he is a poor one," Simon continued, with a little
contempt in his tone. "But if you will have it so, see here, we will
watch him. There is a power greater than his, and in the strength of
that I do not fear him."
The woman shuddered, while Luke, who was for immediate action, replied
in a wild rhapsody, quoting the priests of Baal and the witch of
Endor, the order of the law respecting magicians, and the fate of
Magus. But Simon was firm; he was not to be moved, and in the end his
proposal was accepted. The matter was thought so momentous, however,
that it was decided to consult the Edgingtons next day, and bring them
into the affair.
When all was settled Simon rose, and went to the door and threw it
open. He knew that, within a circuit of a few miles from where he
stood, thousands upon thousands of soldiers were at that moment lying
under the bare heavens, without so much as a tree to cover them; and
he had a soldier's feeling for their distresses. He saw with
satisfaction, therefore, that though the clouds still hung low, in one
quarter there was a rift in them, through which the full moon was
shining out of the blue black of heaven. "It looks better," he said,
as he came in again. "It will be fine to-morrow. And there is no great
harm done yet."
But, to all appearance, more rain fell during the night, for when the
household rose at daybreak, the hills were running with water, and
every little streamlet was musical. A fine drizzle filled the air, and
obscured even the nearer surface of the moor, while fog veiled the
mountains and hung like a curtain before the distant prospects. The
boy eating his porridge with the others, unconscious of the strange
glances and suspicious shrinkings of which he was the object, looked
through the window and wondered how he was to manage his counting, and
whether it would be possible to tell horse from foot. From this his
thoughts strayed to Frank. Frank must be suffering horribly in this
weather, with no roof over him, and no cloak, and no sufficient food.
At the thought Jack felt his eyes fill with tears, tears which he
would fain have hidden; but he found Simon's harsh glance upon him,
and whichever way he looked he could not escape it. He grew hot; he
changed color and trembled in his seat, and presently, feeling his
position insufferable--for he longed to think, and could not do so
under eyes which seemed to read his secrets--he rose suddenly, and
sidled from the room. He went, as he supposed, unnoticed, and without
a thought of evil seized his cap and left the house.
Never had the moor looked more desolate; more sad and dreary and
grey-colored. Here and there a stone stood upright, peering boldly
through the rain; and here and there, where the fell rose, a whirl of
mist floated above the surface as the fog thickened and broke before a
puff of wind. The child shivered as he looked about him; and an older
heart might have quailed. But shiver or quail, he held on. He had a
purpose, and he clung to it. He knew the way to the high road, which
passed over the moor half a league from the house, and he pressed on
bravely towards it, thinking of his brother and the King, and the
service he was about to perform, until, despite the rain, his puny
frame glowed all over. The thoughts in his mind were childish enough,
the ideas he entertained of men and things as shadowy and unreal as
the fog about him. But the spirit and self-denial which supported him
were as real as any which animated the greatest man who that day
marched or fought for his cause.
Even the passage of an army with horse and foot and great guns could
not in such a district draw together any large number of spectators;
and the boy, saved from immediate pursuit by the fog, found himself
free to choose his position. Avoiding a group of countryfolk who had
taken possession of a hillock which would otherwise have suited him
well, he made for a second mound that rose a hundred paces farther on,
and seemed also to overlook the road. Climbing to the top of this, he
sat down in the damp bracken to wait for the troops.
A sutler or two passed presently below him, some straggling horsemen,
a few knots of yokels bent on satisfying their curiosity. But the day
was four hours old before the measured tramp of hoofs and the murmur
of many voices, the clang of steel, and hoarse cries of command
thrilled the child with the consciousness that the time was come.
Trembling with excitement, he peered over the edge of the mound. The
rain had ceased for a while. There was some show of clearing in the
air. The sun which had broken through the clouds struck full on the
head of the column, as it came on slowly and majestically, in a frame
of steaming mist; cuirass and helmet, spur and scabbard, flashing and
sparkling in the white glare.
These were the horsemen who had stemmed the pride of Rupert and
shattered the Cavaliers. The boy looked and looked at them, looked
until the last man--a grave sergeant with a book at his belt--had
ridden by him. Then he remembered himself with a sigh, and quickly
drawing out his cross, cut six nicks upon it, for the six troops of
horse which had formed the column.
After these, three regiments of foot passed; stern, war-worn men,
muddy and travel-stained, in buff coats, and with long pikes trailing
behind them. Then more troops of horse, whom he duly nicked, and then
some tumbrils, which at first the boy took for guns, but afterwards
perceived to be laden with ammunition. On all these the sun shone, not
cheerfully but with a stern glare, which seemed confined to that part
of the moor, so that they passed before the boy in a vision as it
were, and he notched them off in a dream. It was strange to stand so
near these thousands of marching men, to hear the murmur of their
multitudinous voices, and the tramp of their feet, and yet to be apart
from them and unheeded by them. For they passed in perfect order, no
man stepping out of the ranks; so that at last the boy took courage
and rose to his feet under their eyes.
When the tumbrils had passed the sun went in, and three regiments of
musketeers came up, marching on one another's heels, with the rain and
storm gathering about them, and the men grumbling at the weather. The
boy notched them off, and watching for the great guns (of which none
had passed), walked from end to end of his little platform, scanning
the road. More than one of the men who plashed along beneath him
noticed the strange figure of the boy moving against the sky.
For the fog, through which he loomed larger than life, distorted his
gestures. He seemed at times to be cursing the men below him, and at
times to be raising his hands to heaven in their behalf. The troopers
who remarked his strange figure perched above them, looked on
indifferently, neither heeding nor understanding. Not so all who had
their eyes at that moment upon him. The watcher was also the watched;
and presently, when the rain had set in steadily once more, and the
mist had grown so thick that he despaired of finishing his count where
he was, and thought of descending into the road, a sudden end was put
to his calculations. Something rose up behind him and dashed him
violently to the ground. Stunned and terrified, the child clung, even
in his fall, to the precious cross; in a moment it was wrenched from
him. He cried out wildly for help, but instantly a cloak was flung
over his head, and blind, and breathless, he felt himself raised from
the ground. Some one tied his hands at the wrists and his feet at the
ankles; then he felt himself carried hastily off. He could scarcely
breathe, he could not struggle, he could not see. He could not even
guess what had happened to him.