On the morning of the day after the funeral Rusk was seated before the
fire in the Birches’ library, lost in thought. By-and-by he got up, and
crossing the room, looked out at the melancholy, wind-swept garden. It
was not long after breakfast and he was alone. Out of doors it was a
boisterous and dirty day. A high wind drove the clouds in banks and
masses without clearing the sky--drove, too, the rain with a sharp
continuous rattle against the streaming window-panes. Rusk, looking out,
could see the trees bending and dripping, their black boughs creaking
and swaying as they battled with the storm. Nevertheless, in spite of
the weather, he presently put on his boots and went in search of Denis
to persuade him to come for a walk. With their overcoats well buttoned
up round their throats they sallied forth, splashing through the rain
that streamed down the incline of the road. Everything was soaking wet;
once or twice they met some bedraggled pedestrian, beating up like a
battered ship against the wind, with soaked clothes and limp, melancholy
hat that would have flapped away like a bird but for the hand that
retained it yet they trudged on for a couple of hours, during which
period hardly a word passed between them, though at the end of it Rusk,
at least, felt much better for the exercise, and imagined, rightly or
wrongly, that his pupil had benefitted too.
In the afternoon he suggested that they should repeat the experiment. He
had an idea that if the boy were tired out physically he would sleep all
the sounder at night; but Denis preferred staying by the fire with a
book, leaving Rusk and Miss Anna to depart alone. He watched them walk
down the garden path, and as soon as they were out of sight half
regretted that he had not gone with them. For the rain had ceased and a
faint glimmer of watery sunshine now made its appearance. His brighter
mood of the morning had not been wholly the creation of Rusk’s fancy,
and, such as it was, it still persisted, and he even began to hope a
little that he might keep other things at a distance. The fact of the
burial--might not that have made a difference? He grew drowsy as he sat
by the fire: his book slipped from his hand: and by-and-by he dropped
asleep.
He opened his eyes suddenly in the thickening dusk, and it was as if all
the horror of the world had awakened him. It was there!--it was
there!--outside, invisible, but drawing closer: he should never be rid
of it now.
He tried to banish all consciousness from his mind, but from the first
the struggle was hopeless. The thing grew and grew with a curious
intensity till he could feel its presence in the air about him like a
dense cold cloud. _It_ was there outside--there, crouching in the
darkness--drawing nearer. It had followed him from the other house; it
would follow him to the ends of the earth. He tried to reason with
himself. He was here in the library. Outside was the garden, a little
naked in the cold November greyness, and the noise he heard was the
rustling and moaning of the wind--there was nothing more....
The last light faded as he sat there, his head leaning back against the
cushion of his chair, his face white and still, his eyes closed. He
heard the noise of a coal falling into the fender. He opened his eyes
and watched the coming of the darkness. He was afraid, wretchedly,
abjectly afraid; and his fear grew with the passing of every moment. At
last he sank down on his knees with a little moan, and buried his face
in the seat of the chair. He tried to pray; he repeated over and over a
few words, begging that what he dreaded might not be allowed to come.
He had prayed and prayed again, yet he still feared to look up. He
waited on and on, his face buried in his hands, waited while he heard
the clock strike the quarter, and the half-hour. Then at last he lifted
his head, knowing very well what he was going to see. His eyes turned to
the window, gazing out, fixed and dilated, while his hands opened and
shut on the chair before him.
When the thing was gone he turned to leave the room. A look of despair
had come into his face, and though he heard Miss Birch moving about
upstairs he did not attempt to go to her, but went out, bare-headed,
just as he was, and hurried down the garden path. It was not quite dark.
A faint ghostly pallor seemed to fall from the sky, and through this
misty veil the trees and shrubs showed dim and blurred. It would rain
again soon, he felt, with a curious interest in so trifling a thing: the
air was still full of it and the wind had fallen. He walked down the
road and took the path that led into the grounds of his own home. He
walked quickly and surely, as if he were bent on some definite errand,
and paused only when he had reached his old haunt by the hawthorn.