THOR'S STONE.
Mehetabel ran, neither along the way that led in the direction of
Portsmouth, nor along that to Godalming, but to the Moor.
"The Moor," is the marsh land that lies at the roots of the
sandstone heights that culminate in Hind Head, Leith Hill, and
the Devil's Jumps. As already said, the great mass of Bagshot sand
lies upon a substratum of clay. The sand drinks in every drop of
rain that falls on the surface. This percolates through it till
it reaches the clay, which refuses to absorb it, or let it sink
through to other beds. Thereupon the accumulated water breaks
forth in springs at the base of the hills, and forms a wide tract
of morass, interspersed with lagoons that teem with fish and wild
fowl. This region is locally known as "Moor," in contradistinction
to the commons or downs, which are the dry sandy upland.
"The Moor" is in many places impassable, but the blown sand has
fallen upon it, and has formed slight elevations, has drifted
into undulations, and these strips of rising ground, kept moist
by the water they absorb, have become covered with vegetation. It
is, moreover, possible by their means to penetrate to the heart
of, and even thread, the intricacies, and traverse the entire
region of the Moor.
But it is, at best, a wild and lonesome district, to be explored
with caution, a labyrinth, the way through which is known only to
the natives of the sandhills that dominate the marshy plain.
About thirty years ago a benevolent and beneficent landlord, in a
time of agricultural distress, gave employment to a large number
of men out of work in the construction of a causeway across the
Thursley "Moor."
But the work was of no real utility, and it is now overgrown with
weeds, and only trodden by the sportsman in pursuit of game and
the naturalist in quest of rare insects and water plants.
A considerable lake, Pudmere, or Pug--Puckmere, lies in the
Thursley marsh land, surrounded with dwarf willows and scattered
pines. These latter have sprung from the wind-blown seeds of the
plantations on higher ground. Throughout this part of the country
an autumn gale always results in the upspringing of a forest of
young pines, next year, to leeward of a clump of cone-bearing
trees. In the Moor such self-sown woods come to no ripeness. The
pines are unhealthy and stunted, hung with gray moss, and eaten
out with canker. The excessive moisture and the impenetrable
subsoil, and the shallowness of the congenial sand that encouraged
them to root make the young trees decay in adolescence.
An abundant and varied insect world has its home in the Moor. The
large brown hawkmoth darts about like an arrow. Dragon flies of
metallic blue, or striped yellow and brown, hover above the lanes
of water, lost in admiration of their own gorgeous selves reflected
in the still surface. The great water-beetle booms against the head
of the intruder, and then drops as a stone into the pool at his
feet. Effets, saffron yellow bellied, with striped backs, swim in
the ponds or crawl at their bottom. The natterjack, so rare
elsewhere, differing from a toad in that it has a yellow band down
its back, has here a paradise. It may be seen at eve perched on
a stock of willow herb, or running--it does not hop--round the
sundew, clearing the glutinous stamens of the flies that have been
caught by them, and calling in a tone like the warning note of
the nightingale. Sleeping on the surface the carp lies, and will
not be scared save by a stone thrown into the still water in which
it dreams away its life.
The sandy elevations are golden with tormintilla; a richer gold is
that which lies below, where the marsh glows with bog asphodel.
The flowering rush spreads its pale pink blossoms; a deeper crimson
is the marsh orchis showing its spires among the drooping clusters
of the waxy-pink, cross-leaved heath, and the green or pale and
rosy-tinted bog-mosses.
Near Pudmoor Pool stands a gray block of ironstone, a solitary
portion of the superincumbent bed that has been washed away. It
resembles a gigantic anvil, and it goes by the name of Thor's
Stone. The slopes that dip towards it are the Thor's-lea, and give
their name to the parish that includes it and them.
At one time there was a similar mass of iron at the summit of
Borough Hill, that looks down upon the morasses.
To this many went who were in trouble or necessity, and knocking
on the stone made known their requirements to the Pucksies, and
it was asserted, and generally believed, that such applicants had
not gone away unanswered, nor unrelieved.
It was told of a certain woman who one evening sought to be freed
by this means from the husband who had made her life unendurable,
that that same night--so ran the tale--he was returning from the
tavern, drunk, and stumbling over the edge of a quarry fell and
broke his neck. Thereupon certain high moralists and busybodies
had the mass of stone broken up and carted away to mend the roads,
with the expectation thereby of putting an end to what they were
pleased to term "a degrading superstition."
To some extent the destruction of the Wishing Block did check the
practice. But there continued to be persons in distress, and women
plagued with drunken husbands, and men afflicted with scolding
wives. And when the pilgrimage of such to Borough Hill ceased,
because of the destruction of the stone on it, then was it diverted,
and the current flowed instead to Thor's Stone--a stone that had
long been regarded with awe, and which now became an object of
resort, as it was held to have acquired the merits of the block
so wantonly demolished on Borough Hill.
Nevertheless, the object of the high moralists and busybodies was
partially attained, inasmuch as the difficulties and dangers
attending a visit to Thor's Stone reduced the number of those
seeking superhuman assistance in their difficulties. Courage was
requisite in one who ventured to the Moor at night, and made a
way to the iron-stone block, over tracts of spongy morass, among
lines of stagnant ooze, through coppices of water-loving willows
and straggling brier. This, which was difficult by day, was
dangerous in a threefold degree at night. Moreover, the Moor was
reputed to be haunted by spirits, shadows that ran and leaped,
and peered and jabbered; and Puck wi' the lantern flickered over
the surface of the festering bog.
If, then, the visits to Thor's Stone were not so many as to
the stone on Borough Hill, this was due less to the waning of
superstition than to the difficulties attending an expedition
to the former. Without considering what she was doing, moved by
a blind impulse, Mehetabel ran in the direction of Puck's Moor.
And yet the impulse was explicable. She had often thought over
the tales told of visits to the habitation of the "Good Folk"
on Borough Hill, and the transfer of the pilgrimage to Thor's
Stone. She had, of late, repeatedly asked herself whether, by a
visit thither, she might not gain what lay at her heart--an
innocent desire--none other than that Iver should depart.
Now that he had made open show of his passion, that all concealment
was over between them, every veil and disguise plucked away--now
she felt that her strength was failing her, and it would fail
completely if subjected to further trial.
One idea, like a spark of fire shooting through her brain, alone
possessed her at this moment. Her safety depended on one thing--the
removal of Iver. Let him go! Let him go! then she could bear her
lot. Let her see him no more! then she would be able to bring
her truant heart under discipline. Otherwise her life would be
unendurable, her tortured brain would give way, her overtaxed
heart would break.
She found no stay for her soul in the knowledge where was situated
the country of the Gergesenes, no succor in being well drilled
in the number of chapters in Genesis. She turned desperately, in
her necessity, to Thor's Stone, to the spirits--what they were
she knew not--who aided those in need, and answered petitions
addressed to them.
The night had already set in, but a full golden moon hung in the
sky, and the night was in no way dark and dreadful.
When she reached the Moor, Mehetabel ran among sheets of gold,
leaped ribbons of shining metal, danced among golden filagree--the
reflection of the orb in the patches, channels, frets of water.
She sprang from one dark tuft of rushes to another; she ran
along the ridges of the sand. She skipped where the surface
was treacherous. What mattered it to her if she missed her footing,
sank, and the ooze closed over her? As well end so a life that
could never be other than long drawn agony.
Before leaving the heath, she had stooped and picked up a stone.
It was a piece of hematite iron, such as frequently occurs in the
sand, liver-shaped, and of the color of liver.
She required a hammer, wherewith to knock on Thor's anvil, and
make her necessities known, and this piece of iron would serve
her purpose.
Frogs were croaking, a thousand natterjacks were whirring like
the nightjar. Strange birds screamed and rushed out of the trees
as she sped along. White moths, ghostlike, wavered about her,
mosquitoes piped. Water-rats plunged into the pools.
As a child she had been familiar with Pudmoor, and instinctively
she walked, ran, only where her foot could rest securely.
A special Providence, it is thought, watches over children and
drunkards. It watches also over such as are drunk with trouble,
it holds them up when unable to think for themselves, it holds
them back when they court destruction.
To this morass, Mehetabel had come frequently with Iver, in days
long gone by, to hunt the natterjack and the dragon-fly, to look
for the eggs of water fowl, and to pick marsh flowers.
As she pushed on, a thin mist spread over portions of the "Moor."
It did not lie everywhere, it spared the sand, it lay above the
water, but in so delicate a film as to be all but imperceptible.
It served to diffuse the moonlight, to make a halo of silver
about the face of the orb, when looked up to by one within the
haze, otherwise it was scarcely noticeable.
Mehetabel ran with heart bounding and with fevered brain, and yet
with her mind holding tenaciously to one idea.
After a while, and after deviations from the direct course, rendered
necessary by the nature of the country she traversed, Mehetabel
reached Thor's Stone, that gleamed white in the moonbeam beside a
sheet of water, the Mere of the Pucksies. This mere had the mist
lying on it more dense than elsewhere. The vapor rested on the
surface as a fine gossamer veil, not raised above a couple of feet,
hardly ruffled by a passing sigh of air. A large bird floated over
it on expanded wings, it looked white as a swan in the moonlight,
but cast a shadow black as pitch on the vaporous sheet that covered
the face of the pool.
It was as though, like Dinorah, this bird were dancing to its own
shadow. But unlike Dinorah, it was silent. It uttered no song,
there was even no sound of the rush of air from its broad wings.
When Mehetabel reached the stone she stood for a moment palpitating,
gasping for breath, and her breath passing from her lips in white
puffs of steam.
The haze from the mere seemed to rise and fling its long streamers
about her head and blindfold her eyes, so that she could see neither
the lake nor the trees, not even the anvil-stone. Only was there
about her a general silvery glitter, and a sense of oppression lay
upon her.
Mehetabel had escaped from the inn, as she was, with bare arms, her
skirt looped up.
She stood thus, with the lump of ironstone resting on the block,
the full flood of moonlight upon her, blinding her eyes, but
revealing her against a background of foliage, like a statue of
alabaster. Startled by a rustle in the bulrushes and willow growth
behind her, Mehetabel turned and looked, but her eyes were not
clear enough for her to discern anything, and as the sound ceased,
she recovered from her momentary alarm.
She had heard that a deer was in Pudmoor that was supposed to have
escaped from the park at Peperharow. Possibly the creature was
there. It was harmless. There were no noxious beasts there. It was
too damp for vipers, nothing in Pudmoor was hurtful save the gnats
that there abounded. Then, with her face turned to the north, away
from the dazzling glory of the moon, Mehetabel swung the lump of
kidney iron she had taken as hammer, once from east to west, and
once from west to east. With a third sweep she brought it down upon
Thor's Stone and cried:
"Take him away! Take him away!"