WANDERING LIGHTS.
NO sooner was Mr. Jordan left alone than his face became ghastly, and
his eyes were fixed with terror, as though he saw before him some
object of infinite horror. He put his quivering thin hands on the
elbows of his armchair and let himself slide to his knees, then he
raised his hollow eyes to heaven, and clasped his hands and wrung them;
his lips moved, but no vocal prayers issued from them. He lifted his
hands above his head, uttered a cry and fell forward on his face upon
the oak floor. Near his hand was his stick with which he rapped against
the wall or on the floor when he needed assistance. He laid hold of
this, and tried to raise himself, but faintness came over him, and he
fell again and lost all consciousness.
When he recovered sufficiently to see what and who were about him, he
found that he had been lifted on to his bed by Jasper and Barbara,
and that Jane was in the room. His motion with his hands, his strain
to raise himself, had disturbed the bandages and reopened his wound,
which was again bleeding, and indeed had soaked through his clothes and
stained the floor.
He said nothing, but his eyes watched and followed Jasper with a
mixture of hatred and fear in them.
‘He irritates me,’ he whispered to his daughter; ‘send him out. I
cannot endure to see him.’
Then Barbara made an excuse for dismissing Jasper.
When he was gone, Mr. Jordan’s anxiety instead of being allayed was
increased. He touched his daughter, and drew her ear to him, and
whispered, ‘Where is he now? What is he doing?’
‘I do not know, papa. He is probably in his room.’
‘Go and see.’
‘Papa dear, I cannot do that. Do you want him?’
‘Do _I_ want him? No, Barbara, but I do not choose that he shall
escape. Go and look if there is a light in his window.’
She was about to send Jane, when her father impatiently insisted on her
going herself. Wondering at his caprice she obeyed.
No sooner was the door closed behind her, than the old man signed Jane
Welsh to come near him.
‘Jane,’ he said in a whisper, ‘I want you to do something for me.
No one must know about it. You have a sweetheart, I’ve heard, the
policeman, Joseph Woodman, at Tavistock.’
The girl pulled at the ends of her apron, and looking down, said,
‘Lawk! How folks do talk!’
‘Is it true, Jane?’
‘Well, sir, I won’t deny us have been keeping company, and on Sunday
went to a love-feast together.’
‘That is well,’ said Mr. Jordan earnestly, with his wild eyes gleaming.
‘Quick, before my daughter comes. Stand nearer. No one must hear. Would
you do Joseph a good turn and get him a sergeantry?’
‘O please, sir!’
‘Then run as fast as you can to Tavistock.’
‘Please, sir, I durstn’t. It be night and it’s whisht[2] over the moor.’
‘Then leave it, and I will send someone else, and you will lose your
lover.’
‘What do you want me to do, sir? I wouldn’t have that neither.’
‘Then run to Tavistock, and tell Joseph Woodman to communicate at once
with the warder of the Prince’s Town jail, and bid him bring sufficient
men with him, and come here, and I will deliver into their hands a
runaway convict, a man who broke out of jail not long ago.’
‘Please, sir, where is he? Lawk, sir! What if he were on the moor as I
went over it?’
‘Never mind where he is. I will produce him at the right moment. Above
all—Jane—remember this, not a word of what I have said to Mr. Jasper or
to Miss Barbara. Go secretly, and go at once. Hush! Here she comes.’
Barbara entered. ‘A light is in his window,’ she said. Then her father
laughed, and shut his hands.
‘So,’ he muttered, ‘so I shall snap him.
When her father was composed, and seemed inclined to sleep, Barbara
left his room, and went out of the house. She needed to be by herself.
Her bosom heaved. She had so much to think of, so many troubles had
come upon her, the future was dark, the present uncertain.
If she were in the house she would not be able to enjoy that quiet for
which she craved, in which to compose the tumult of her heart, and
arrange her ideas. There she was sure to be disturbed: a maid would
ask for a duster, or another bunch of candles; the cook would send to
announce that the chimney of the kitchen was out of order, the soot
or mortar was falling down it; the laundrymaid would ask for soap;
Eve would want to be amused. Every other minute she would have some
distracting though trifling matter forced on her. She must be alone.
Her heart yearned for it. She would not go to the Rock, the association
with it was painful. It was other with the moor, Morwell Down, open to
every air, without a tree behind which an imp might lurk and hoot and
make mows.
Accordingly, without saying a word to anyone, Barbara stole along the
lane to the moor.
That was a sweet summer night. The moon was not yet risen, the stars
were in the sky, not many, for the heaven was not dark, but suffused
with lost sunlight. To the east lay the range of Dartmoor mountains,
rugged and grey; to the west, peaked and black against silver, the
Cornish tors. But all these heights on this night were scintillating
with golden moving spots of fire. The time had come for what is locally
called ‘swaling,’ that is, firing the whinbrakes. In places half a
hill side was flaked with red flame, then it flared yellow, then died
away. Clouds of smoke, tinged with fire reflection from below, rolled
away before the wind. When the conflagration reached a dense and tall
tree-like mass of gorse the flame rose in a column, or wavered like a
golden tongue. Then, when the material was exhausted and no contiguous
brake continued the fire, the conflagration ended, and left only a
patch of dull glowing scarlet ember.
Barbara leaned against the last stone hedge which divided moor from
field, and looked at the moving lights without thinking of the beauty
and wildness of the spectacle. She was steeped in her own thoughts, and
was never at any time keenly alive to the beautiful and the fantastic.
She thought of Jasper. She had lost all faith in him. He was false and
deceitful. What could she believe about that meeting on the Raven Rock?
He might have convinced her father that he was not there. He could not
convince her. What was to be done? Would her father betray the man? He
was ill now and could do nothing. Why was Jasper so obstinate as to
refuse to leave? Why? Because he was infatuated with Eve.
On that very down it was that Jasper had been thrown and nearly
killed. If only he had been killed outright. Why had she nursed him so
carefully? Far better to have left him on the moor to die. How dare he
aspire to Eve? The touch of his hand carried a taint. Her brain was
dark, yet, like that landscape, full of wandering sparks of fire. She
could not think clearly. She could not feel composedly. Those moving,
wavering fires, now rushing up in sheaves of flame, now falling into
a sullen glow burnt on the sides of solid mountains, but her fiery
thoughts, that sent a blaze into her cheek and eye, and then died
into a slow heat, moved over tossing billows of emotion. She put her
hand to her head as if by grasping it she could bring her thoughts to
a standstill; she pressed her hands against her bosom, as if by so
doing she could fix her emotions. The stars in the serene sky burned
steadily, ever of one brightness. Below, these wandering fires flared,
glowed, and went out. Was it not a picture of the contrast between life
on earth and life in the settled celestial habitations? Barbara was not
a girl with much fancy, but some such a thought came into her mind,
and might have taken form had not she at the moment seen a dark figure
issue from the lane.
‘Who goes there?’ she called imperiously.
The figure stopped, and after a moment answered: ‘Oh, Miss! you have
a-given me a turn. It be me, Jane.’
‘And pray,’ said Barbara, ‘what brings you here at night? Whither are
you going?’
The girl hesitated, and groped in her mind for an excuse. Then she
said: ‘I want, miss, to go to Tavistock.’
‘To Tavistock! It is too late. Go home to bed.’
‘I must go, Miss Barbara. I’m sure I don’t want to. I’m scared of my
life, but the master have sent me, and what can I do? He’ve a-told me
to go to Joseph Woodman.’
‘It is impossible, at this time. It must not be.’
‘But, Miss, I promised I’d go, and sure enough I don’t half like
it, over those downs at night, and nobody knows what one may meet.
I wouldn’t be caught by the Whish Hounds and Black Copplestone, not
for’—the girl’s imagination was limited, so she concluded, ‘well, Miss,
not for nothing.’
Barbara considered a moment, and then said, ‘I have no fear. I will
accompany you over the Down, till you come to habitations. I am not
afraid of returning alone.’
‘Thank you, Miss Barbara, you be wonderfully good.’
The girl was, indeed, very grateful for her company. She had had her
nerves sorely shaken by the encounter with Watt, and now in the fulness
of her thankfulness she confided to her mistress all that Mr. Jordan
had said, concluding with her opinion that probably ‘It was naught but
a fancy of the Squire; he do have fancies at times. Howsomever, us must
humour ‘m.’
Jasper also had gone forth. In his breast also was trouble, and a sharp
pain, that had come with a spasm when Barbara told him how she hated
him.
But Jasper did not go to Morwell Down. He went towards the Raven Rock
that lay on the farther side of the house. He also desired to be alone
and under the calm sky. He was stifled by the air of a house, depressed
by the ceiling.
The words of Barbara had wounded him rather than stung him. She had not
only told him that she hated him, but had given the best proof of her
sincerity by betraying him. Suspecting him of carrying on an unworthy
intrigue with Eve, she had sacrificed him to save her sister. He could
not blame her, her first duty was towards Eve. One comfort he had that,
though Barbara had betrayed him, she did not seek his punishment, she
sought only his banishment from Morwell.
Once—just once—he had half opened her heart, looked in, and fancied he
had discovered a tender regard for him lurking in its bottom. Since
then Barbara had sought every opportunity of disabusing his mind of
such an idea. And now, this night, she had poured out her heart at his
feet, and shown him hatred, not love.
Jasper’s life had been one of self-denial. There had been little joy in
it. Anxieties had beset him from early childhood; solicitude for his
brother, care not to offend his father. By nature he had a very loving
heart, but he had grown up with none to love save his brother, who had
cruelly abused his love. A joyous manhood never ensues on a joyless
boyhood. Jasper was always sensible of an inner sadness, even when he
was happy. His brightest joys were painted on a sombre background, but
then, how much brighter they seemed by the contrast—alas, only, that
they were so few! The circumstances of his rearing had driven him in
upon himself, so that he lived an inner life, which he shared with no
one, and which was unperceived by all. Now, as he stood on the Rock,
with an ache at his heart, Jasper uncovered his head, and looked into
the softly lighted vault, set with a few faint stars. As he stood thus
with his hands folded over his hat, and looked westward at the clear,
cold, silvery sky behind and over the Cornish moors, an unutterable
yearning strained his heart. He said no word, he thought no thought.
He simply stood uncovered under the summer night sky, and from his
heart his pain exhaled.
Did he surmise that at that same time Barbara was standing on the moor,
also looking away beyond the horizon, also suffering, yearning, without
knowing for what she longed? No, he had no thought of that.
And as both thus stood far removed in body, but one in sincerity,
suffering, fidelity, there shot athwart the vault of heaven a brilliant
dazzling star.
Mr. Coyshe at his window, smoking, said: ‘By Ginger! a meteor!’
But was it not an angel bearing the dazzling chalice of the sangreal
from highest heaven, from the region of the still stars, down to this
world of flickering, fading, wandering fires, to minister therewith
balm to two distressed spirits?