OUR FLIGHT
Anyhow, in this unforeseen fashion we now had in full the history of the
ill-fated Dees, to hear which we had started out for Styria. I now
whispered to Langler, "we should be quick"; but he, not perhaps quite
understanding my eagerness to be gone, lingered, trying to get the poor
woman to come with us, it was such a night, and she within sight of what
anon was lit up down on the strip of grass by the river's brink. Langler
offered to adopt the child straightway, but she would not part with it,
nor would she come with us, so we had to leave her, leading the van,
almost running, so that Langler, who was no runner, panted: "well, no
doubt it is as well to make haste." "Yes," I answered, "for I sha'n't be
astonished if some attempt be now made to keep us from leaving the alp.
That man who ran off has by now taken the news to the castle, where it
will be taken for granted that from the Mother Dees we have heard all,
and we may not be allowed to get away with so much knowledge in our
heads. In my opinion we oughtn't to go back to the guest-court for your
trunk, but hurry straight down to the nearest sennhaus, get horses----"
"But I have five or six manuscript poems in the trunk, and the
Theocritus with all my notes," panted Langler, trotting after my haste.
"Well, then, we must get the trunk," said I, "but it is dangerous: I
wish to Heaven that we were safe down at Badsögl...."
At that moment--we were now at the castle-back--I saw the light of a
lantern, and a second later struck against Herr Tschudi. "Well met,
sirs!" he cried at once: "it is just for you that I was going to look,
for I have to talk with you; if not in a hurry, perhaps you would favour
me by stepping into the castle a moment." "I am afraid that we _are_
rather in a hurry," I answered, "for we are wet, and have had nothing to
eat; but if to-morrow morning at eleven will do, we shall then be happy
to call upon you in the castle." "That will do just as well," said he,
"but mayn't you as well step in now?" "Pray excuse us for to-night," I
answered. "Willingly from the heart," said he, "since that is your wish;
but--has not the Mother Dees been telling you about things?" I was about
to say "which things?" when Langler said: "perhaps, sir!" "Oh, she has?"
broke out Tschudi, "but, you see, you two men have gone a step too far
now." "Come, Aubrey!" I cried out, "we can't wait!"--and I ran, dragging
him by the sleeve, while Tschudi sent after us the shout: "yes, fly,
you two! but don't hope to see your birth-places again...."
On reaching the guest-court breathless, I asked Lossow if the horse had
been harnessed for us: he answered that he supposed so, and would see. I
then paced our sitting-room for, say, six minutes, expecting him to
summon us down, Langler being in his bedroom, crowding some knick-knacks
into the trunk. I went in to him, saying that the waggonette must be
waiting. "One moment," said he, and I waited till he locked the trunk.
But when we went to go out the door had been fastened on the outside.
We stared at each other's paleness, then I flew to the window, which was
at the side of the house. The night was so deep that I could not see the
ground, but I knew that it was no light leap. However, it was our only
way out, so Langler slid down by the sheets, which I held for him, below
heaped them for me to leap upon without making a hubbub, and I dropped
upon my feet: the trap laid for us had failed. We ran on tiptoe, meaning
somehow to make our way down the mountain on foot; but when we got to
the back the light of the waggonette appeared just coming from the
stable, and when the boy spoke to us we perceived that he had not yet
been made privy to the plot against us. "We came to meet you, Jan," said
I as I leapt in, "for we are in a hurry." "But the trunk, sirs?" said
he. "We leave the trunk for to-night," said I: "just turn round now,
and drive straight down."
He did so! and we were off down the main road in a flush of escape. I
pitied Langler for his lost papers, but there was no help. "Let us only
hope," said I, "that we sha'n't reach Badsögl too late to send the
telegrams to England to-night."
"Why so particularly to-night?" he asked.
"But is it not certain," I answered, "that the last phase of the plot
against the Church must now be about to show itself in the greatest
haste? Wasn't it because of the might of the Church that Baron Kolár so
feared our meddling in the matter of Dees? And now that he has dared
this massacre of a churchman, how shall he escape the Church's vengeance
if the Church is to remain mighty one month more? He is about to strike
sharply, be sure, for we have forced his hand, and our seconds are
precious."
"But shall we do much good?" asked Langler.
"Well, certainly," said I, with a laugh, "it seems late in the day to
ask that, Aubrey. Assuredly we shall do good. We, too, indeed, shall
have to show that the miracles are none, but, then, we shall also show
that they were no machinery of churchmen. In the case of the miracle up
here six years ago, which made the little model for Kolár's great
scheme, the death of the Church was due to the fact that the miracle
_was_ found out to be the doing of the priest; but if we show that on
the great scale churchmen have been guiltless of guile no shock of
tempest will be let loose, things will decline into their old mood as
before the miracles, and the Church will survive."
"True," said he; "but is that worth all our pains? an obsolete Church
keeping up a look of life...."
"But is it not late in the day, Aubrey," said I, "to trouble our heads
with any such doubts? We decided months ago, before we came, that the
Church was worth saving; hence we came. Let's not disparage our own
work. Personally, I assure you, I am not deeply concerned, for I don't
deem myself called upon to be the saviour of anything: but Emily
despatched me upon this work, and so I do it with conviction. Moreover,
the quicker done the quicker at Swandale."
"Ah, Swandale," sighed Langler. "But I confess, Arthur, that I depart
from the mountain with some regret: that old burg up there is so cradled
in gales, such a spirit-world wears out its winds with well-a-days, and
the tarns, the vapours, the wild swans...."
"My own feeling is rather rapture than regret," I answered; but such was
the elegiac soul of Langler, which still discovered something over which
to sigh and indulge its chaste melancholies. Meantime, our waggonette
was moving at a walk down the benighted mountain-world, our Jan cowering
so still over his nag that he might have been asleep; while we others
chatted constantly--I at least being elated at our escape, at our task
almost over, at home in sight, though I had no hat, the drizzles were
trying, the bosom of the mountains gave out a steam of music, as it were
thousands and ten thousands busy and breeding, and the organ's
sound-board breathing, and our talk was a forlorn droning in a state of
being which was made all of winds and bewitchment; sometimes in a flash
we might descry a crucifix hung on a crag, and our sighs would then
hanker back to that night-whelmed thing on the river-bank away behind
us. Keenly our hearts smote us at this memory of Max Dees. How much harm
had our meddling hurled upon that man! how he must have waited and
hungered for that "one good file" which never found its way to him; and
now he was all in the dark on the river-bank. When I expressed my
surprise that it was Tschudi himself who had sent us to see him there,
Langler said: "I wonder if Tschudi has been acting to-night on his own
initiative? The baron now, at any rate, does not appear to be about the
burg, or the troop should have seen him; still, Tschudi may be in
wireless communication with him. But Tschudi's own private motive in
sending us to the crucifix seems to have been an impulse of mere spite
or rage, and he may have had in his mind that we should never leave the
region after seeing."
"I doubt though that at that time he meant to stop us," said I: "I
think it was only after he knew of our talk with the Mother Dees. Yet it
would be odd, too, that they shouldn't mind our getting away with the
knowledge of Dees' doom, but should be so eager to stop us with the
knowledge of Dees' life-story."
"But of the two the latter is the more important," said Langler; "for,
as to Dees' doom, they perhaps calculated that by the time we could
report it the Church would be impotent to avenge it; but, as to Dees'
life-story, our knowledge of it is knowledge of the Church-plot, and is
of permanent value as proof that churchmen are innocent of fraud in the
present miracles; therefore it was urgent to stop us when we had this
knowledge, since even years hence our evidence may be of use in
restoring churchmen to favour, and in ruining the plot."
"Ah," said I, "years hence little would be left of the Church, I think,
if we had once been locked into that north-west dungeon. However, here
we are, and now for the break-up of the fountains of the great deep.
Poor Dr Burton! I wonder where _he_ will be found in all that upheaval?
I am afraid for him: the spirit that could pitch from such a moral
height to 'well, pretty, do you love me?'----"
"_Beastly mess!_" hissed Langler to himself: "oh, pray, Arthur, I
beg----"
"As for me," I said quickly, "the man upon whom I now rather bet is the
archbishop's red rag, Ambrose Rivers"--and we went on chatting about
the latest news of Rivers which we had from Swandale. We were still, I
remember, discussing Rivers when a jodeling call arose somewhere in our
rear, at which our Jan, it seemed to me, sat up to prick his ears. In a
minute the call was anew heard, lalling nearer now; and now Jan pulled
up short. "Why do you stop?" I cried to him, "don't stop! get on!" "It
is my cousin Isai, sirs," he answered, "who is running to me with a
message, for it is his jodel." "Still, you are to hurry on instantly," I
cried; "every moment is precious!" But he would not budge, and even as I
urged him I heard the panting of a runner near upon us. Our Jan now
jumped down; at the horse's head there was a confab between the cousins,
of which all that I could catch was the pantings of Isai; and I sat in a
stew of the keenest anxiety. It came into my head to rush and seize the
reins and lash the horse; but before I could act the whispering was
over, Jan jumped up afresh, and we moved on--at least it never entered
my mind to doubt that it was Jan who jumped up, though I now suspect
that it was Isai. Anyway, we went on at the old walk, regained some calm
of mind, again began to be talkative, and for perhaps twenty minutes now
nothing happened, till all at once I was aware of the leap of our driver
from the wagon, and a second afterwards the nag broke into galloping. It
is my belief that a knife or something keen had been driven into its
flesh--nothing less could account for its fury, and the clown had chosen
for his deed a piece of the road which was little broader than the
vehicle, with precipice on the right, with cliff on the left above us.
There was no hope for us but in leaping, and "leap, Aubrey!" I cried as
I sprang into the air over the back, with my face to the pace, and fell
on my length. Lying there, I seemed to hear a fearful silence; no sound
of horse and cart; and, understanding that both had bounded down the
steep, I feared to stir, lest I might find that Langler had gone with
them. But presently, from some distance down, he called out upon me. I
ran asking if he was hurt. "A few bruises perhaps," he panted in answer,
"but I seem to have lost my hat." This solicitude about _his hat_ I
understood to be feigned, for I felt him trembling like a leaf. But such
was Langler: he was for ever preoccupied about the soul, and, not calm
by nature, wished always to appear to himself immovably calm.
Well, the hat could not be found, and on foot we went on down the pass.
But it was not long before we were lost in a wilderness of stone and
wood, where no way was. We fell into a state of fear that night both of
us, and it imbued our souls for hours. I had never before in my life
felt quite like that; I hope never to have to undergo such ghouls again.
But there are things which can hardly be put on paper. Perhaps our
experiences of the evening, the nets set for our feet, the steepness of
our leap from the cart, that sight on the river-bank behind us--all
these may have helped to demoralise us. The word "jumpy" somewhat
describes our panic. After a time we ceased to try to hide our chills
from each other. What exactly was the matter I can't quite tell; we had
always endeavoured to be brave men, and no particular peril now menaced;
but that night our spirits caught affrights one from the other; we both
seem to have had the boding that we were about to taste of death; the
grave, being, the mountains, grew too hugely gruesome for us, the womb
of gloom brought forth awe--_some_how we were unhinged. It was Langler
perhaps who openly began it. We were resting together on a rock under
the fragments of a Carthusian monastery when I heard him murmur in a
sort of awed contemplation: "God be merciful...." "Why, what now?" said
I. "God be merciful," he murmured again, "I have seen the wraith of
Emily." This was so unlike him! My blood ran cold. "Where?" I whispered.
For a minute he made no answer, then with the same entranced awe he
murmured: "there--to the left of the arch, between the two trees: do you
see nothing?" The hairs of my head bristled as, peering that way, I
murmured: "yes, it is she." "Our breath is in His hand," sighed Langler,
with a held-up hand.
For me to say now, after so long, that I did, or could, see any such
thing would be too much beyond reason; most likely I saw nothing: there
was little light in the night; I think that there was no lightning at
the time; but we were on that stretch of the spirit when spectres start
up, and are catching: at the moment I could have sworn that I saw. It
may have been the form of the boy Isai, who had perhaps followed us, it
may have been Miss Emily's wraith, or a phantom of our brains; in any
case, we underwent such troubles and shyings of the soul that night as
could not be told, lasting more or less upon us almost till we got to
Badsögl about daybreak, so worn out that we at once dropped upon our
beds, and slept.