1
I have told this story to many audiences with diverse results, and once
again I take my reputation in my hands and brave the perils. To the
common circle of my friends it was a romance for a winter's fire, and I,
the most prosaic of men, was credited with a fancy. Once I repeated it
to an acquaintance, who, scenting mystery, transcribed it in a
note-book, and, with feigned names, it figured in the publications of a
Learned Society. One man only heard me with true appreciation; but he
was a wandering spirit with an ear open to marvels, and I hesitate to
advance his security. He received it simply, saying that God was great,
and I cannot improve upon his comment.
A chill evening in the early October of the year 189- found me driving
in a dog-cart through the belts of antique woodland which form the
lowland limits of the hilly parish of More. The Highland express, which
brought me from the north, took me no farther than Perth. Thence it had
been a slow journey in a disjointed local train, till I emerged on the
platform at Morefoot, with a bleak prospect of pit-stalks, coal-heaps,
certain sour corn-lands, and far to the west a line of moor where the
sun was setting. A neat groom and a respectable trap took the edge off
my discomfort, and soon I had forgotten my sacrifice and found eyes for
the darkening landscape. We were driving through a land of thick woods,
cut at rare intervals by old long-frequented highways. The More, which
at Morefoot is an open sewer, became a sullen woodland stream, where the
brown leaves of the season drifted. At times we would pass an ancient
lodge, and through a gap in the trees would come a glimpse of a chipped
crow-step gable. The names of such houses, as told me by my companion,
were all famous. This one had been the home of a drunken Jacobite laird,
and a kind of north-country Medmenham. Unholy revels had waked the old
halls, and the Devil had been toasted at many a hell-fire dinner. The
next was the property of a great Scots law family, and there the old
Lord of Session who built the place, in his frowsy wig and carpet
slippers, had laid down the canons of Taste for his day and society. The
whole country had the air of faded and bygone gentility. The mossy
roadside walls had stood for two hundred years, the few wayside houses
were toll-bars or defunct hostelries. The names, too, were great--Scots
baronial with a smack of France--Chatelray and Reiverslaw, Black Holm
and Champertoun. The place had a cunning charm, mystery dwelt in every
cranny, and yet it did not please me. The earth smelt heavy and raw, the
roads were red underfoot, all was old, sorrowful, and uncanny. Compared
with the fresh Highland glen I had left, where wind and sun and flying
showers were never absent, all was chilly and dull and dead. Even when
the sun sent a shiver of crimson over the crests of certain firs, I felt
no delight in the prospect. I admitted shamefacedly to myself that I was
in a very bad temper.
I had been staying at Glenaicill with the Clanroydens, and for a week
had found the proper pleasure in life. You know the house with its old
rooms and gardens, and the miles of heather which defend it from the
world. The shooting had been extraordinary for a wild place far on in
the season, for there are few partridges and the woodcock are
notoriously late. I had done respectably in my stalking, more than
respectably on the river, and creditably on the moors. Moreover, there
were pleasant people in the house--and there were the Clanroydens. I had
had a hard year's work, sustained to the last moment of term, and a
fortnight in Norway had been disastrous. It was therefore with real
comfort that I had settled myself down for another ten days in
Glenaicill, when all my plans were shattered by Sybil's letter. Sybil is
my cousin and my very good friend, and in old days when I was briefless
I had fallen in love with her many times. But she very sensibly chose
otherwise, and married a man Ladlaw--Robert John Ladlaw--who had been at
school with me. He was a cheery, good-humoured fellow, a great
sportsman, a justice of the peace and deputy-lieutenant for his county,
and something of an antiquary in a mild way. He had a box in
Leicestershire to which he went in the hunting season; but from February
till October he lived in his moorland home. The place was called the
House of More, and I had shot there once or twice in recent years. I
remembered its loneliness and its comfort, the charming diffident Sybil
and Ladlaw's genial welcome. And my recollections set me puzzling again
over the letter which that morning had broken into my comfort. "You
promised us a visit this autumn," Sybil had written, "and I wish you
would come as soon as you can." So far common politeness. But she had
gone on to reveal the fact that Ladlaw was ill, she did not know how
exactly, but something, she thought, about his heart. Then she had
signed herself my affectionate cousin, and then had come a short violent
postscript, in which, as it were, the fences of convention had been laid
low. "For Heaven's sake come and see us!" she scrawled below. "Bob is
terribly ill, and I am crazy. Come at once." And then she finished with
an afterthought, "Don't bother about bringing doctors. It is not their
business."
She had assumed that I would come, and dutifully I set out. I could not
regret my decision, but I took leave to upbraid my luck. The thought of
Glenaicill with the woodcock beginning to arrive, and the Clanroydens
imploring me to stay, saddened my journey in the morning, and the murky,
coally midland country of the afternoon completed my depression. The
drive through the woodlands of More failed to raise my spirits. I was
anxious about Sybil and Ladlaw, and the accursed country had always
given me a certain eeriness on my first approaching it. You may call it
silly; but I have no nerves, and am little susceptible to vague
sentiment. It was sheer physical dislike of the rich deep soil, the
woody and antique smells, the melancholy roads and trees, and the
flavour of old mystery. I am aggressively healthy and wholly Philistine.
I love clear outlines and strong colours, and More, with its half-tints
and hazy distances, depressed me miserably. Even when the road crept
uphill and the trees ended, I found nothing to hearten me in the
moorland which succeeded. It was genuine moorland, close on 800 feet
above the sea, and through it ran this old grass-grown coach-road. Low
hills rose to the left, and to the right after some miles of peat flared
the chimneys of pits and oil-works. Straight in front the moor ran out
into the horizon, and there in the centre was the last dying spark of
the sun. The place was as still as the grave save for the crunch of our
wheels on the grassy road; but the flaring lights to the north seemed to
endow it with life. I have rarely felt so keenly the feeling of movement
in the inanimate world. It was an unquiet place, and I shivered
nervously. Little gleams of loch came from the hollows, the burns were
brown with peat, and every now and then there rose in the moor jags of
sickening red stone. I remembered that Ladlaw had talked about the place
as the old Manann, the holy land of the ancient races. I had paid little
attention at the time, but now it struck me that the old peoples had
been wise in their choice. There was something uncanny in this soil and
air. Framed in dank mysterious woods, and a country of coal and
ironstone, no great distance, too, from the capital city, it was a
sullen relic of a lost barbarism. Over the low hills lay a green
pastoral country with bright streams and valleys, but here in this peaty
desert there were few sheep and little cultivation. The House of More
was the only dwelling, and, save for the ragged village, the wilderness
was given over to the wild things of the hills. The shooting was good;
but the best shooting on earth would not persuade me to make my abode in
such a place. Ladlaw was ill; well, I did not wonder. You can have
uplands without air, moors that are not health-giving, and a country
life which is more arduous than a townsman's. I shivered again, for I
seemed to have passed in a few hours from the open noon to a kind of
dank twilight.
We passed the village and entered the lodge-gates. Here there were trees
again, little innocent new-planted firs, which flourished badly. Some
large plane-trees grew near the house, and there were thickets upon
thickets of the ugly elder. Even in the half-darkness I could see that
the lawns were trim and the flower-beds respectable for the season;
doubtless Sybil looked after the gardeners. The oblong whitewashed
house, more like a barrack than ever, opened suddenly on my sight, and I
experienced my first sense of comfort since I left Glenaicill. Here I
should find warmth and company, and, sure enough, the hall-door was wide
open, and in the great flood of light which poured from it Sybil stood
to welcome me.
She ran down the steps as I dismounted, and, with a word to the groom,
caught my arm and drew me into the shadow. "Oh, Henry, it was so good of
you to come. You mustn't let Bob think that you know he is ill. We don't
talk about it. I'll tell you afterwards. I want you to cheer him up. Now
we must go in, for he is in the hall expecting you."
While I stood blinking in the light, Ladlaw came forward with
outstretched hand and his usual cheery greeting. I looked at him and saw
nothing unnatural in his appearance: a little drawn at the lips,
perhaps, and heavy below the eyes, but still fresh-coloured and healthy.
It was Sybil who showed change. She was very pale, her pretty eyes were
deplorably mournful, and in place of her delightful shyness there was
the self-confidence and composure of pain. I was honestly shocked, and
as I dressed my heart was full of hard thoughts about Ladlaw. What could
his illness mean? He seemed well and cheerful, while Sybil was pale, and
yet it was Sybil who had written the postscript. As I warmed myself by
the fire, I resolved that this particular family difficulty was my
proper business.
2
The Ladlaws were waiting for me in the drawing-room. I noticed something
new and strange in Sybil's demeanour. She looked to her husband with a
motherly protective air, while Ladlaw, who had been the extreme of
masculine independence, seemed to cling to his wife with a curious
appealing fidelity. In conversation he did little more than echo her
words. Till dinner was announced he spoke of the weather, the shooting,
and Mabel Clanroyden. Then he did a queer thing, for, when I was about
to offer my arm to Sybil, he forestalled me, and, clutching her right
arm with his left hand, led the way to the dining-room, leaving me to
follow in some bewilderment.
I have rarely taken part in a more dismal meal. The House of More has a
pretty Georgian panelling through most of the rooms; but in the
dining-room the walls are level, and painted a dull stone colour.
Abraham offered up Isaac in a ghastly picture in front of me. Some
photographs of the Quorn hung over the mantelpiece, and five or six drab
ancestors filled up the remaining space. But one thing was new and
startling. A great marble bust, a genuine antique, frowned on me from a
pedestal. The head was in the late Roman style, clearly of some emperor,
and in its commonplace environment the great brows, the massive neck,
and the mysterious, solemn lips had a surprising effect. I nodded
towards the thing, and asked what it represented.
Ladlaw grunted something which I took for "Justinian," but he never
raised his eyes from his plate. By accident I caught Sybil's glance.
She looked towards the bust, and laid a finger on her lips.
The meal grew more doleful as it advanced. Sybil scarcely touched a
dish, but her husband ate ravenously of everything. He was a strong,
thick-set man, with a square, kindly face, burned brown by the sun. Now
he seemed to have suddenly coarsened. He gobbled with undignified haste,
and his eye was extraordinarily vacant. A question made him start, and
he would turn on me a face so strange and inert that I repented the
interruption.
I asked him about the autumn's sport, and he collected his wits with
difficulty. He thought it had been good on the whole, but he had shot
badly. He had not been quite so fit as usual. No, he had had nobody
staying with him--Sybil had wanted to be alone. He was afraid the moor
might have been under-shot, but he would make a big day with keepers and
farmers before the winter.
"Bob has done pretty well," Sybil said. "He hasn't been out often, for
the weather has been very bad here. You can have no idea, Henry, how
horrible this moorland place of ours can be when it tries. It is one
great sponge sometimes, with ugly red burns, and mud to the ankles."
"I don't think it's healthy," said I.
Ladlaw lifted his face. "Nor do I: I think it's intolerable; but I am so
busy, I can't get away."
Once again I caught Sybil's warning eye as I was about to question him
on his business.
Clearly the man's brain had received a shock, and he was beginning to
suffer from hallucinations. This could be the only explanation, for he
had always led a temperate life. The _distrait_ wandering manner was the
only sign of his malady, for otherwise he seemed normal and mediocre as
ever. My heart grieved for Sybil, alone with him in this wilderness.
Then he broke the silence. He lifted his head and looked nervously
around till his eye fell on the Roman bust.
"Do you know that this countryside is the old Manann?" he said.
It was an odd turn to the conversation, but I was glad of a sign of
intelligence. I answered that I had heard so.
"It's a queer name," he said oracularly; "but the thing it stood for was
queerer. Manann, Manaw," he repeated, rolling the words on his tongue.
As he spoke, he glanced sharply, and, as it seemed to me, fearfully, at
his left side.
The movement of his body made his napkin slip from his left knee and
fall on the floor. It leaned against his leg, and he started from its
touch as if he had been stung by a snake. I have never seen a more sheer
and transparent terror on a man's face. He got to his feet, his strong
frame shaking like a rush. Sybil ran round to his side, picked up the
napkin, and flung it on a sideboard. Then she stroked his hair as one
would stroke a frightened horse. She called him by his old boy's name of
Robin, and at her touch and voice he became quiet. But the particular
course then in progress was removed untasted.
In a few minutes he seemed to have forgotten his behaviour, for he took
up the former conversation. For a time he spoke well and briskly.
"You lawyers," he said, "understand only the dry framework of the past.
You cannot conceive the rapture, which only the antiquary can feel, of
constructing in every detail an old culture. Take this Manann. If I
could explore the secret of these moors, I would write the world's
greatest book. I would write of that prehistoric life when man was knit
close to nature. I would describe the people who were brothers of the
red earth and the red rock and the red streams of the hills. Oh, it
would be horrible, but superb, tremendous! It would be more than a piece
of history; it would be a new gospel, a new theory of life. It would
kill materialism once and for all. Why, man, all the poets who have
deified and personified nature would not do an eighth part of my work. I
would show you the unknown, the hideous, shrieking mystery at the back
of this simple nature. Men would see the profundity of the old crude
faiths which they affect to despise. I would make a picture of our
shaggy, sombre-eyed forefather, who heard strange things in the
hill-silences. I would show him brutal and terror-stricken, but wise,
wise, God alone knows how wise! The Romans knew it, and they learned
what they could from him, but he did not tell them much. But we have
some of his blood in us, and we may go deeper. Manann! A queer land
nowadays! I sometimes love it and sometimes hate it, but I always fear
it. It is like that statue, inscrutable."
I would have told him that he was talking mystical nonsense; but I had
looked towards the bust, and my rudeness was checked on my lips. The
moor might be a common piece of ugly waste land, but the statue was
inscrutable--of that there was no doubt. I hate your cruel,
heavy-mouthed Roman busts; to me they have none of the beauty of life,
and little of the interest of art. But my eyes were fastened on this as
they had never before looked on marble. The oppression of the heavy
woodlands, the mystery of the silent moor seemed to be caught and held
in this face. It was the intangible mystery of culture on the verge of
savagery, a cruel, lustful wisdom, and yet a kind of bitter austerity
which laughed at the game of life and stood aloof. There was no weakness
in the heavy-veined brow and slumbrous eyelids. It was the face of one
who had conquered the world and found it dust and ashes, one who had
eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and scorned human
wisdom. And at the same time it was the face of one who knew uncanny
things, a man who was the intimate of the half-world and the dim
background of life. Why on earth I should connect the Roman grandee[3]
with the moorland parish of More, I cannot say; but the fact remains,
that there was that in the face which I knew had haunted me through the
woodlands and bogs of the place, a sleepless, dismal, incoherent
melancholy.
"I bought that at Colenzo's," Ladlaw said, "because it took my fancy. It
matches well with this place."
I thought it matched very ill with his drab walls and Quorn photographs,
but I held my peace.
"Do you know who it is?" he asked. "It is the head of the greatest man
the world has ever seen. You are a lawyer and know your Justinian."
The Pandects are scarcely part of the daily work of a common-law
barrister. I had not looked into them since I left college.
"I know that he married an actress," I said, "and was a sort of
all-round genius. He made law and fought battles and had rows with the
Church. A curious man! And wasn't there some story about his selling his
soul to the Devil and getting law in exchange? Rather a poor bargain!"
I chattered away sillily enough, to dispel the gloom of that
dinner-table. The result of my words was unhappy. Ladlaw gasped, and
caught at his left side as if in pain. Sybil, with tragic eyes, had been
making signs to me to hold my peace. Now she ran round to her husband's
side and comforted him like a child. As she passed me she managed to
whisper in my ear to talk to her only and let her husband alone.
For the rest of dinner I obeyed my orders to the letter. Ladlaw ate his
food in gloomy silence, while I spoke to Sybil of our relatives and
friends, of London, Glenaicill, and any random subject. The poor girl
was dismally forgetful, and her eye would wander to her husband with
wifely anxiety. I remember being suddenly overcome by the comic aspect
of it all. Here were we three fools alone in this dank upland, one of us
sick and nervous, talking out-of-the-way nonsense about Manann and
Justinian, gobbling his food and getting scared at his napkin, another
gravely anxious, and myself at my wits' end for a solution. It was a Mad
Tea-party with a vengeance, Sybil the melancholy little Dormouse, and
Ladlaw the incomprehensible Hatter. I laughed aloud, but checked myself
when I caught my cousin's eye. It was really no case for finding
humour. Ladlaw was very ill, and Sybil's face was getting deplorably
thin.
I welcomed the end of that meal with unmannerly joy, for I wanted to
speak seriously with my host. Sybil told the butler to have the lamps
lit in the library. Then she leaned over to me and spoke low and
rapidly: "I want you to talk with Bob. I'm sure you can do him good.
You'll have to be very patient with him and very gentle. Oh please try
and find out what is wrong with him. He won't tell me, and I can only
guess."
The butler returned with word that the library was ready to receive us,
and Sybil rose to go. Ladlaw half rose, protesting, making the most
curious, feeble clutches at his side. His wife quieted him. "Henry will
look after you, dear," she said. "You are going into the library to
smoke." Then she slipped from the room, and we were left alone.
He caught my arm fiercely with his left hand, and his grip nearly made
me cry out. As we walked down the hall I could feel his arm twitching
from the elbow to the shoulder. Clearly he was in pain, and I set it
down to some form of cardiac affection, which might possibly issue in
paralysis.
I settled him in the biggest arm-chair, and took one of his cigars. The
library is the pleasantest room in the house, and at night, when a
peat-fire burned on the old hearth and the great red curtains were
drawn, it used to be the place for comfort and good talk. Now I noticed
changes. Ladlaw's book-shelves had been filled with the proceedings of
antiquarian societies and many light-hearted works in _belles-lettres_.
But now the Badminton Library had been cleared out of a shelf where it
stood most convenient to the hand, and its place taken by an old Leyden
reprint of Justinian. There were books on Byzantine subjects of which I
never dreamed he had heard the names. There were volumes of history and
speculation, all of a slightly bizarre kind; and to crown everything,
there were several bulky medical works with gaudily coloured plates. The
old atmosphere of sport and travel had gone from the room, with the
medley of rods, whips, and gun-cases which used to cumber the tables.
Now the place was moderately tidy and slightly learned--and I did not
like it.
Ladlaw refused to smoke, and sat for a little while in silence. Then of
his own accord he broke the tension,--
"It was devilish good of you to come, Harry. This is a lonely place for
a man who is a bit seedy."
"I thought you might be alone," I said, "so I looked you up on my way
down from Glenaicill. I'm sorry to find you looking ill."
"Do you notice it?" he asked sharply.
"It's tolerably patent," I said. "Have you seen a doctor?"
He said something uncomplimentary about doctors, and kept looking at me
with his curious dull eyes.
I remarked the strange posture in which he sat--his head screwed round
to his right shoulder, and his whole body a protest against something at
his left hand.
"It looks like your heart," I said. "You seem to have pains in your left
side."
Again a spasm of fear. I went over to him and stood at the back of his
chair.
"Now, for goodness' sake, my dear fellow, tell me what is wrong? You're
scaring Sybil to death. It's lonely work for the poor girl, and I wish
you would let me help you."
He was lying back in his chair now, with his eyes half shut, and
shivering like a frightened colt. The extraordinary change in one who
had been the strongest of the strong kept me from realising its
gravity. I put a hand on his shoulder, but he flung it off.
"For God's sake sit down!" he said hoarsely. "I'm going to tell you; but
I'll never make you understand."