ANOTHER VISION.
That same night, within an hour, to my unspeakable relief, John came
home--at least he came to me, who he always said was his home. It was
rather late, but we went out to the wilderness, where I had a good cry on
his shoulder; after which I felt better, and hope began to show signs of
life in me. I never asked him how he had got on in London, but told him
all that had happened since he went. It was worse than painful to tell
him about his mother's letter, and what my uncle told me in consequence
of it, also my personal adventure with her so lately; but I felt I must
hide nothing. If a man's mother is a devil, it is well he should know it.
He sat like a sleeping hurricane while I spoke, saying never a word. When
I had ended,--
“Is that all?” he asked.
“It is all, John: is it not enough?” I answered.
“It is enough,” he cried, with an oath that frightened me, and started to
his feet. The hurricane was awake.
I threw my arms round him.
“Where are you going?” I said.
“To _her_” he answered.
“What for?”
“To _kill_ her,” he said--then threw himself on the ground, and lay
motionless at my feet.
I kept silence. I thought with myself he was fighting the nature his
mother had given him.
He lay still for about two minutes, then quietly rose.
“Good night, dearest!” he said; “--no; good-bye! It is not fit the son of
such a mother should marry any honest woman.”
“I beg your pardon, John!” I returned; “I hope _I_ may have a word in the
matter! If I choose to marry you, what right have you to draw back? Let
us leave alone the thing that has to be, and remember that my uncle must
not be denounced as a murderer! Something must be done. That he is beyond
personal danger for the present is something; but is he to be the talk of
the country?”
“No harm shall come to him,” said John. “If I don't throttle the tigress,
I'll muzzle her. I know how to deal with her. She has learned at least,
that what her stupid son says, he does! I shall make her understand that,
on her slightest movement to disgrace your uncle, I will marry you right
off, come what may; and if she goes on, I shall get myself summoned for
the defence, that, if I can say nothing for _him_, I may say something
against _her_. Besides, I will tell her that, when my time comes, if I
find anything amiss with her accounts, I will give her no quarter.--But,
Orbie,” he continued, “as I will not threaten what I may not be able to
perform, you must promise not to prevent me from carrying it out.”
“I promise,” I said, “that, if it be necessary for your truth, I will
marry you at once. I only hope she may not already have taken steps!”
“Her two days are not yet expired. I shall present myself in good
time.--But I wonder you are not afraid to trust yourself alone with the
son of such a mother!”
“To be what I know you, John,” I answered, “and the son of that woman,
shows a good angel was not far off at your birth. But why talk of angels?
Whoever was your mother, God is your father!”
He made no reply beyond a loving pressure of my hand. Then he asked me
whether I could lend him something to ride home upon. I told him there
was an old horse the bailiff rode sometimes; I was very sorry he could
not have Zoe: she had been out all day and was too tired! He said Zoe was
much too precious for a hulking fellow like him to ride, but he would be
glad of the old horse.
I went to the stable with him, and saw him mount. What a determined look
there was on his face! He seemed quite a middle-aged man.
I have now to tell how he fared on the moor as he rode.
It had turned gusty and rather cold, and was still a dark night. The moon
would be up by and by however, and giving light enough, he thought,
before he came to the spot where his way parted company with that to
Dumbleton. The moon, however, did not see fit to rise so soon as John
expected her: he was not at that time quite _up_ in moons, any more than
in the paths across that moor.
Now as he had not an idea where his rider wanted to be carried, and as
John did for a while--he confessed it--fall into a reverie or something
worse, old Sturdy had to choose for himself where to go, and took a path
he had often had to take some years before; nor did John discover that he
was out of the way, until he felt him going steep clown, and thought of
Sleipner bearing Hermod to the realm of Hela. But he let him keep on,
wishing to know, as he said, what the old fellow was up to. Presently, he
came to a dead halt.
John had not the least notion where they were, but I knew the spot the
moment he began to describe it. By the removal of the peat on the side of
a slope, the skeleton of the hill had been a little exposed, and had for
a good many years been blasted for building-stones. Nothing was going on
in the quarry at present. Above, it was rather a dangerous place; there
was a legend of man and horse having fallen into it, and both being
killed. John had never seen or heard of it.
When his horse stopped, he became aware of an indefinite sensation which
inclined him to await the expected moon before attempting either to
advance or return. He thought afterward it might have been some feeling
of the stone about him, but at the time he took the place for an abrupt
natural dip of the surface of the moor, in the bottom of which might be a
pool. Sturdy stood as still as if he had been part of the quarry, stood
as if never of himself would he move again.
The light slowly grew, or rather, the darkness slowly thinned. All at
once John became aware that, some yards away from him, there was
something whitish. A moment, and it began to move like a flitting mist
through the darkness. The same instant Sturdy began to pull his feet from
the ground, and move after the mist, which rose and rose until it came
for a second or two between John and the sky: it was a big white horse,
with my uncle on his back: Death and he, John concluded, were out on one
of their dark wanderings! His impulse, of course, was to follow them.
But, as they went up the steep way, Sturdy came down on his old knees,
and John got off his back to let him recover himself the easier. When
they reached the level, where the moon, showing a blunt horn above the
horizon, made it possible to see a little, the white horse and his rider
had disappeared--in some shadow, or behind some knoll, I fancy; and John,
having not the least notion in what part of the moor he was, or in which
direction he ought to go, threw the reins on the horse's neck. Sturdy
brought him back almost to his stable, before he knew where he was. Then
he turned into the road, for he had had enough of the moor, and took the
long way home.