TERROR BY NIGHT
Lup was waiting with the boat when Wolf came down to the channel. The
tide was gone, now, but where the old man stood the still-shining sand
sucked heavily at his boots. The son held the boat while his father
climbed in, then pushed off again in silence. They had not spoken
unless forced since the moment of fierce contact in Lancaster’s office.
It is a very strong Northern trait--perhaps the strongest of all--this
absolute refusal to dig up any subject that has once gone deep. In
ungenerous natures it takes the form of a dogged sullenness which even
Time cannot melt or break, but in the Whinnerahs it was something
finer yet even more stubborn, a deadly aloofness, an icy withdrawal.
In neither face was there any trace of evil feeling; but in both there
was stiff-necked pride, iron resolution, unforgiving decision. Where
blood runs thickest and ties hold closest this characteristic is most
fiercely marked.
They parted at the bank, and Wolf’s tired limbs took him slackly
back to the homestead. His wife had tea ready for him, but asked no
questions, and he vouchsafed no information. It was typical of him that
not until close of day did he manage to say what waited to be said.
Lup had gone up to bed. They could hear him walking about the floor of
his room. There was scarcely any light in the kitchen, for in farmland
they go upstairs early and spare the candle. The room was full of
black, shapeless shadows, and in the gray, drear glimmer from the bay
the bent figures showed a little grayer, a little more drear. When
Lup’s step had ceased for the night, Wolf told what had passed at
Pippin Hall.
She took it quietly, so quietly that alarm gripped him, and his voice
roughened as he stumbled in his own fashion of excuse.
“There was a deal o’ talk among the lot o’ them, an’ lile or nowt to
show for it when all was said! I had my own word soon on, but after
that I held my whisht till things was fixed, and then--_then_ I asked
for the Pride. I’d put in for it afore, but he wasn’t for giving it me,
wasn’t Mr. Lancaster. Nay, what any man with owt in him would ha’ done
the same, after Brack calling the old master out of his name an hour or
more! You mustn’t take it amiss, Martha. ’Twas for the old master.”
“And what call had the agent to say you nay at the start?” the thin
voice asked in the dusk.
“Why--why I doubt it was seeing you that put about over the water, yon
day as he give us a look-in, if you’ll think on. He would have it you’d
be best off marsh-ground altogether. It’s the Pride for me, now, come
happen what may, but if you’d likely be better suited with your own
folk over Bortun way--say, for a bit of a spell--ay, or for good----”
He slurred and stopped, for speech was bitter, and there was a pause,
while out on the featureless night the woman’s eyes kept vigil.
“Nay, I reckon I’ll bide till we’re through,” she said at last, in
the same expressionless voice. “Lup gone, it’s not much differ what
comes, one way or another. ’Tisn’t your doing, nor even Lancaster’s.
It’s something back of us all, that drives us as stock is driven to the
butcher. ’Twas the waiting I couldn’t abide. I’ll not fret no more,
now. But all the trusting in the world won’t stop what’s in front, cold
an’ slape an’ rivin’ an’ lowpin’----”
“Whisht, now, whisht!” Wolf begged, raising himself painfully, and
presently the gray figures went wearily over the stone floor, and
melted into the blackness of the stair.
About two in the morning, Lup stirred in his still sleep, and saw
his mother standing at his open casement. The old folk had changed
their room of late to one looking over the moss, but Lup’s faced fair
and square to the bay. It was just on tide-time, too, he remembered
drowsily, and was puzzled.
She had an old Paisley shawl thrown over her nightgown, and in the
glow of the dip she carried she looked strangely young and singularly
unfearful. There was almost a smile on her face turned and lifted
towards the sea.
He could feel that she was waiting, and her tense expectation kept
him still. A sandbank broke away just below with a thud and splash,
weirdly loud in the quiet. A chill snap of wind broke through the
window, flaring the flame and clattering the unfastened pane without.
An advance-battalion of raindrops smote the glass like a challenge, and
died. Stillness again, and the waiting silence; and then out on the
dark came the steady rush of the night-wave.
He raised himself on his elbow, ready to go to her, but she did not
flinch as the sound filled the room, and her face did not change, even
though the after-rain, riding on the wind, spattered through the open
square. There was a hiss in the water to-night, a muttered hint of
hate. The dead hour and the live wave together caught him into a vague
dread, and he stayed where he was, wondering. The night and the water
and his mother’s face; for she was listening, so he felt, not only to
the incoming tide, but to something that had as yet neither voice nor
being. He almost shivered as the pane beat against the wall like a
chained and frightened thing.
So long she stood, in the tossed light dipping and leaping like a
chased elf, so still she stood, her white face strained to that which
was not yet without, she grew into his drifting dream as he dropped
gradually to his pillow. But when the water was well past, brimming the
banks and pressing fast up the bay, he heard her draw in her breath and
let it out in a great sigh.
“_One!_” she said, like a prisoner counting towards release, or a
sufferer looking ahead in unbearable pain; and then, as she had said to
Lancaster, down below: “How long? Oh, how long?”
Lup moved again, and this time she heard him and came to his bed, and
when she looked at him he was not afraid any more, for her eyes, when
they rested on her son, saw nothing beyond.
“Nay, what Mother, you’ll get your death of cold!” he broke out in his
deep voice. “Get back to your bed. You’ll have the old man seeking you.”
She stayed a moment longer, looking at his ruffled head and drowsy
eyes, but she did not speak or stoop to kiss him--only at last
stretched out one of her strange, worn hands and smoothed the sheet
under his throat.
Lying in the dark when the door had closed, he heard her in the
passage. “_One!_” she said again, like the numb stroke of a
passing-bell; and through the silent house he followed the piteous
voice: “How long? How many? How long?”