HOLYDAY'S FURTHER ADVENTURES.
"O, when will this same year of night have end?"
--_The Two Angry Women of Abington._
Master Holyday at first thought himself lucky to be left alive, though
naked to his shirt and bound to a tree by hempen cords which were tied
around his wrists behind him, and around his ankles. But he soon began
to doubt the pleasures of existence, and the possibility of its long
continuance, in his situation. There was a smarting pain between his
eyes, his face felt swollen all around those organs, his arms ached
from their enforced position, the chill of the night assailed his naked
skin.
He bemoaned the inconveniences of a stationary condition, and for the
first time in his life realised what it was to be a tree, rooted to one
spot all its days. He no longer deemed it a happy fate that the gods
bestowed on the old couple as a reward for their hospitality, in the
Metamorphoses,--that of being turned, at their death, into oaks. And he
became swiftly of opinion that the damsel who escaped the pursuit of
Apollo by transforming herself into a laurel would have been wiser to
endure the god's embraces. And yet, as an accession of dampness--mist,
if one could have seen it in the blackness of the forest--set his bare
legs trembling and shrinking, he envied the trees their bark; and as
each arm felt its cramped state the more intolerably, he coveted their
freedom of waving their limbs about in the wind. At this, he strained
petulantly to move his wrists apart, and, to his amazement, the cord
yielded a little. He exerted his muscles again, and the hemp eased yet
more. A few further efforts enabled him to slip free his hands. In
their haste his two despoilers had made their knots carelessly. They
had been more thorough in fastening his ankles. But, bending his knees,
and lowering his body, he set to work with his fingers, and after many
a scrape of his skin against the bark, many a protest of discomfort on
the part of his strained legs, he set himself at liberty. Surprised
at having been capable of so much, he stepped forward with the joy of
regained freedom, but struck his toe against a fallen bough, and went
headlong into a brake of brambles.
Cursing the darkness, and his fate, with every one of the hundred
scratches that gave him anguish of limb and body, he backed out of the
thicket, and moved cautiously in the opposite direction, holding his
hands before him, and feeling the earth with his toes before setting
foot in a new place.
"This is what it is to be a blind man," quoth he. Often, despite his
precautions, he hurt his feet with roots and sticks, and cut them upon
sharp-edged stones. He began to think he was doomed to a perpetual
labour of wandering through a pitch-dark forest; it seemed so long
since he had known peace of body and mind that he fancied he should
never again be restored to the knowledge. He knew not, in the darkness,
which way he was going; he moved on mainly from a disinclination to
remain in one place, lest he should experience again the feelings of a
rooted plant.
He began to speculate upon his chances of falling in with dangerous
beasts, and upon the probable outcome of such an encounter. He had
known of a man upon whom a threatened buck had once wrought the
vengeance so vastly overdue from its race to mankind; in his poaching
expeditions with Sir Nicholas the vicar he had often shuddered with a
transient fear of a similar fate. In those expeditions he had always
had company, had been armed and clad; the strange sense of helplessness
that besets an undressed man was a new feeling to him.
At last, to his temporary relief, he came out of the wood, as he knew
by the less degree of darkness, the change of air, and the smooth turf
which was delicious to his torn feet. But presently the turf became
spongy; water oozed out as it gave beneath his feet. He turned to the
left, thinking to avoid the marsh without entering the wood again; but
the ground became still softer; a few more steps brought him into sedgy
pools several inches deep.
"This is worse than the wood," he groaned, and put his face in what
he took to be the direction of the trees. But the farther he went,
the deeper he sank in water. He now knew not which way to go in order
to find the wood, or even the comparatively solid turf on which he
had formerly been. So he stood, railing inwardly against the spiteful
destiny that had selected him for the butt of its mirth. He had a
sensation of being drawn downward; he remembered, with horror, the
stories of people sucked under by the marshes, and he lifted first one
foot and then the other. He kept up this alternate motion, trying each
time to set his foot in a fresh place, and yet fearing to move backward
or forward lest he find himself worse off. The dread of becoming a
fixture in the earth came over him again, as a greater probability than
before, and impelled him to move his legs faster.
"Would I were a morris-dancer now, with practice of this motion," he
thought, as the muscles of his legs became more and more weary; and
he marvelled understandingly at Will Kempe's famous dance to pipe and
tabor from London to Norwich. "Better, after all, to be a tree," he
sighed, "and not have to toil thus all night lest the earth swallow me."
His legs finally rebelling against this monotonous exercise, he
resolved to go forward whatever befall; and just at that moment he saw,
at what distance he could not determine, a faint light. He uttered a
cry of satisfaction, supposing it to be a cottage window, or a lantern
borne by some night-walking countryman. As it moved not at his cry, he
decided it was a cottage window, and he hastened toward it, through the
tall grass, careless how far he sank into the marsh. But, as he drew
near, it started away from him; then he told himself it was a lantern,
and he called out to its bearer not to be afraid, as he was but a poor
scholar lost in the fen. The light fled all the faster. As he increased
his pace, so did it. At last, out of breath, he stopped in despair. The
lantern stopped, also. He started again; it started, too.
"Oh, churl, boor, clodpate, whatever thou art!" he shouted. "To treat
a poor benighted traveller thus, that means thee no harm! These are
country manners, sure enough. Go to the devil, an thou wilt. I'll no
more follow thee."
But as the light now came to a stand, he ran toward it, thinking
the rustic had taken heart. He was almost upon it, when suddenly
it separated into three lights, which leaped in three different
directions. Knowing not which to follow, he stood bewildered. After
a moment, he made for the nearest light; it disappeared entirely. He
turned to watch the others; they had vanished.
"Oh, this is ridiculous!" he said. "This cannot be real. I perceive
what it is. It is a dream I am having; a foolish, bad dream. It has
been a dream ever since--since when? I was writing a puppet play, and
I must have fallen asleep; I wrought my mind into a poetic fever,
and therefore my dream is so troubled and wild. My courtship of that
maid,--but no, that was in bright day, 'tis certain, and 'tis never
bright day in dreams. Well, when I wake, I shall see where I am, and
learn where the dream began; perchance I am still at that horrible
tree. No; alas! these aches and scratches, this wretched marsh, are too
palpable. 'Tis no dream. Would it were. Perhaps those rascals killed me
in the wood, and I am in hell. Well, I will on, then, till I meet the
devil; he may condescend to discourse with a poor scholar; he should
have much to tell worth a man's hearing; no doubt, if he cannot talk in
English, he can in Latin. Ah, what? I am again on _terra firma_: but
_terra incognita_ still. I'll go on till something stops me. Oh!" he
ejaculated, as he bumped against a tree. "Here is another wood. Or is
it the same wood? I know not; but I will on."
A brief uncovering of the moon--the same which revealed to Millicent
the huddled roofs of Marshleigh Grange--gave Holyday a view of his
surroundings. Looking back across the fen, he saw what must be the wood
from which he had come. He stood, therefore, on the border of a second
wood. He knew the wind was from the west; hence, noting the direction
in which the clouds were flying, he perceived that his course had been
southward and from the river. He ought to be on familiar ground now,
which he had often scoured with the parson and their fellow poachers;
but ere he could assure himself, moon and earth were blotted out, and
he was again in a world of the black unknown.
Turning his back to the marsh, he traversed the second wood. A swift,
loud wind raced over the tree-tops, bringing greater dampness. He came
into what might be a glade, or a space of heath, which he proceeded to
cross. As he had been gradually ascending in the past few minutes, he
had no fear of another bog at this place. He was by this time ready to
drop with fatigue. Stumbling over a little mound, he fell upon soft
grass. He lay there for some minutes, resting, till his body seemed to
stiffen with cold. Then he rose, and plunged wearily on in despair.
Suddenly, to the joy of his heart, he heard voices ahead.
"I'll take oath 'tis no deer," said one. "Come on; the keeper is abroad
in this walk; I tell you I spied the candle in's window to light him
home."
"I'll have a shot at it, for all that," said another.
Poachers, thought Holyday; and they were speaking of him. He flung
himself down, just in time to hear the twang of a crossbow where the
voices were, and the whizz of a bolt through the air where his body had
been.
"'Fore God, thou hast laid the thing low," said a third voice.
Recognising it, Holyday leaped up with a cry, and ran forward, calling
out:
"Sir Nicholas! oh, Sir Nick, thou poaching rascal, 'tis I!"
"God save us, 'tis a ghost; a human ghost!" cried the first speaker.
"'Tis a white thing on two legs, sure," answered the vicar, with
trepidation.
"'Tis the devil come for you; he spoke your name," said their
companion, affrightedly; and instantly came the sound of feet running
away like mad.
Holyday pursued, shouting, "'Tis I, Ralph Holyday!" But the poachers,
hearing the name, and thinking it to be the spirit of Holyday come to
announce his own death, were soon quite out of hearing.
Losing their direction, and knowing his wornout legs were no match
for their fresher ones, Holyday sank to the earth, ready to weep with
vexation.
"I see," he wailed. "'Tis a mockery devised to torment me. To lift me
out of the mire of despair into the very arms of my friend, and then
to fling me back deeper! A fine joke, no doubt, on the part of Heaven;
but why one poor scholar should provide all the mirth, I do not clearly
perceive. Was it indeed Sir Nick, or was it but an illusion of mine
ears? 'Tis all the same. Well, I will sit shivering here till daylight;
what else can I do?"
But suddenly came the rain, a wind-driven deluge, showing its full fury
at the outset. In a trice the scholar was drenched; the drops seemed
to beat him down; there was no surcease of them. He ran for cover, and
presently gained that of another part of the wood. But even the trees
could not keep out this downpour. Water streamed from the branches upon
his head and body. He was flung upon, buffeted, half-drowned. Never
had he received such a castigation from man or nature. He thought the
elements were arrayed against him, earth to trip and bruise him, air to
chill him, fire to delude him, water to flog him to death. But on he
went, moved always by a feeling that any spot must be better than that
whereon he was. At last he saw another light.
"Nay, nay," said he; "I am not to be fooled so again. Go to,
Jack-with-the-lantern! I chase no more will-o'-the-wisps."
But he bethought him that such a rain would put out any false fire;
moreover, he was in a wood, on high ground. And then, as he approached,
the light took the form of a candle in a window. He remembered what
the poacher had said. This must be the keeper's lodge; if the candle
was still in the window, the keeper had not yet come home,--the rain
had caught him too. The keeper being still abroad, his door might not
be fastened. With a sense of having reached the limit of endurance of
the rain's pelting,--for his thin shirt was no protection,--he dashed
blindly for the window, which was on the leeward side of the lodge.
He felt his way along the front of the house to the entrance, pushed
the door open, and stepped into a low, comfortable apartment, like the
kitchen and living room of a yeoman's cottage. Out of the rain and wind
at last, his grateful legs bore him across the room to a bench. He sat
down, nestling back to a great deer-skin that hung against the bare
wall of wood and plaster.
At one side of the room was a door to another apartment; at the back
was a ladder-like set of wooden steps leading to a trap-way in the
ceiling. Holyday had scarce observed these details by the candle in
the window, when a coarse female voice, as of one suddenly roused from
sleep, called out from the other room: "Is't thou, Jack? Time thou wert
home!--hear the rain."
Holyday kept silence. Then he heard a bed creak as under the movements
of a heavy body. The woman was coming out to see what had made the
noise. And he, clad only in the briefest of shirts! A double terror
shook him; he sprang across the room and blew out the candle. The door
opened, and a heavy, unshod tread sounded upon the floor.
"Ecod, the light's out!" said the woman. "And the door open." She found
her way in the dark to the door which Holyday had neglected to close
upon entering. "'Twas the wind, I wis. Fool Jack, to leave the door
ill-fastened! Well, he is served right, for the wind hath blown out his
candle. I must make another light, forsooth."
Holyday, standing perfectly still near the window, heard the woman
grumbling about the task of striking a light. He felt himself blushing
terribly in the dark; he was surely undone. But with a timely
inspiration, and glad for once that his feet were bare, he went tiptoe
back to where he had sat, stepped over the bench, and slipped behind
the deer-skin, flattening himself as much as possible against the wall
as he stood.
The woman got the candle aflame, looked around the room, replaced the
light in the window, and went back to the other chamber. Hearing the
bed creak again as it received her weight, Holyday came out from his
hiding-place. What should he do in order to profit for the rest of the
night by the comforts of this abode without discovery? He knew who this
woman was, and who Jack, her husband, was. He had fallen foul of this
keeper before he had left for London, and the keeper was a fellow who
would take revenge when occasion offered. Pondering on the situation,
Holyday was almost of a mind to face the stormy night again rather than
risk capture by the man in such circumstances. Before he could make up
his mind, he heard a gruff voice outside ordering a dog to its kennel.
It was Jack's voice. Master Holyday fled panic-stricken up the narrow
stairs, through the open trap-door.
He was in a place of darkness. He forgot that the height of the
cottage--which served but to house an under-keeper and his wife, and
was not the principal lodge pertaining to this chase--forbade that
the upper story should be more than a mere loft; but of this he was
speedily reminded by a bump of his head against a rafter. The loft was
warm and probably unoccupied, for Jack rarely had a guest. The rain
upon the roof made a din in Holyday's ears. He felt his way to one end
of the place, and lay down, near a small window. He heard Jack entering
below, swearing at the storm, fastening the door, and finally joining
his spouse in the sleeping-chamber. There was some conversation in low
tones, and then the house was still.
Holyday's foot struck against the end of a wooden chest. Crawling to
it, he opened the top, and found what he had hoped for,--soft garments
in which to lie. He tore off his wet shirt, rolled himself up in what
seemed to be a woman's gown,--Jack's wife required dresses of ample
capacity,--and sank away in sweetest comfort to oblivion.
He woke from a dream of delicious warmth and wondrous light, and found
the sunshine in his face. His window was toward the south. The sun had
passed the line of noon. Holyday gathered himself up; surveyed the
garment of russet wool he had slept in; and finally dressed himself
in it in proper manner. It hung loose upon him, but it covered his
nakedness.
A creak of the stairway drew his eyes toward the trap. There rose into
view the frowsy head and fat face of Jack's wife.
"Ecod, I knew I heard somebody!" she cried, staring at Holyday
fiercely. "And dressed in my clothes, too! Oh, thou thief, I'll tear
thy skin from thee!"
She came up the steps as fast as her bulk allowed. But Master Holyday,
with one glance at her great clenched fists, kicked open the casement
behind him, fell upon all fours, and backed out of the window, from
which he dropped as the woman reached it. He alighted on a bank of
flowers, scrambled to his feet, and, holding his skirt above his
knees, trusted all to his bare legs. He heard the woman's furious
threats from the window, but tarried not to answer. Plunging through
the forest with the new strength derived from his long sleep, he was
soon far from the cottage. Easing into a walk, he crossed heath and
fields till he came in sight of a pleasant mansion on a green hill.
Between him and the hill lay a road, which he must needs cross to reach
Sir Nicholas's house. He gained this road, and, seeing nobody about,
walked along it some distance so as to skirt the base of the hill.
Unexpectedly, from a lane he was passing, came a resonant voice:
"Well, God-'a'-mercy! what transformation have we here?"
Holyday turned, and beheld Captain Ravenshaw.