I DREAM OF GREEN EYES
It was long enough before sleep visited me that night. For nearly half
an hour I stood at my open window looking across a moon-bathed slope
to where a tower projected, ghostly, above the fringe of the woods.
The landlord had informed me that it was Friar's Park which could thus
be seen peeping out from the trees, and as I stood watching that
sentinel tower a thousand strange ideas visited me.
The curious air of loneliness of which I had become conscious at the
moment of my arrival, was emphasized now that the residents in the
district had retired to their scattered habitations. No sound of bird
or beast disturbed the silence. From the time that the footsteps of
Martin the landlord had passed my door as he mounted heavily to his
bed-chamber, no sound had reached me but the muffled ticking of a
grandfather's clock upon the landing outside my room. And even this
sound, the only one intruding upon the stillness, I weaved into my
imaginings, so that presently it began to resemble the ticking of the
clock on the mantelpiece in that gruesome room at the Red House.
The view which I commanded was an extensive one and although in the
clear country air I could quite easily discern the upstanding wing of
Friar's Park, actually the house and the park were some two miles
distant. Where the park ended and the woods began it was impossible to
determine, yet such was my curious mood that I lingered there
endeavoring to puzzle out those details which were veiled from me by
distance.
To-morrow, I thought, I should be seeking admittance to that house
among the trees. In fact so great was my anxiety to plumb the depths
of the mystery in the hope of recovering some new fact which should
exculpate Coverly, that nothing but the unseemly lateness of the hour
had deterred me from presenting myself that very evening.
Yet, my night of idleness had not been altogether unfruitful. I had
met the scarred man, and from Hawkins I had heard something of his
singular story. Now as I stood there drinking in, as it were, the
loneliness of the prospect, my thoughts turned for the hundredth time
to the game-keeper's account of what had befallen the two rustic
rake-hells. I admit that the concluding part of Hawkins' story, quite
evidently regarded by him as a detail of no importance, had
re-awakened hope which had been at lowest ebb in the hour of my
arrival.
Although it was possible that the gift of a "sort of cat" to young
Edward Hines might prove on investigation to be not a clew but a
will-o'-the-wisp, I preferred to think that fate or the acute
reasoning of Inspector Gatton had sent me down to this quiet country
for a good purpose; and I built great hopes around the figure of the
"lady down from London." Indeed it appeared to me that there were more
lines of investigation demanding attention than alone I could hope to
deal with in the short time at my disposal. Except that I was
determined to visit Friar's Park early on the following day, I
scarcely knew in which direction next to prosecute my inquiries.
Determining that I should be well-advised to sleep on the problem, I
presently turned in. And when I blew out the candle with which the
chambermaid had provided me, I remember thinking that the moonlight
was so bright that it would have been possible to read moderately
large type without inconvenience.
I slept perhaps for two hours or more, an unrefreshing sleep disturbed
by dreams of a wildly grotesque nature. Figures increasingly horrible
and menacing crowded upon me; but that which proved the culminating
horror and which finally awakened me, bathed in cold perspiration, was
a dream of two huge green eyes regarding me with a fixed stare,
fascinating and hypnotic, against which evil power I fought in my
dream with all the strength of my will.
Vaguely defined as if in smoke I could perceive the body of the
creature to which these incredible eyes belonged. It was slender and
sinuous and sometimes I thought it to be that of a human being and
sometimes that of an animal. For at one moment it possessed all the
lines of a woman's form and in the next, with those terrible eyes
regarding me from low down upon the ground, it had assumed the shape
of a crouching beast of prey. This fearsome apparition seemed to be
creeping towards me--nearer and nearer, and was about to spring, I
thought, when I awakened as I have said and sat suddenly upright.
One thing I immediately perceived which may have accounted for my bad
dreams; I had been sleeping with the moonlight shining directly upon
my face. Another thing I thought I perceived, but endeavored to assure
myself that it represented the aftermath of an unpleasant nightmare.
This was a lithe shape streaking through my open window--a figment of
the imagination, as I concluded at the time, the tail-end of a dream
visibly retreating in the moment of awakening.
So self-assured of this did I become, that I did not get up to
investigate the matter, nor was there any sound from the road below to
suggest that the figure had been otherwise than imaginary, yet I found
it difficult to woo slumber again, and for nearly an hour I lay
tossing from side to side, listening to the ticking of the
grandfather's clock and constantly seeing in my mind's eye that
deserted supper-room at the Red House.
And presently as I lay thus, I became aware of two things: first of
the howling of dogs, and, second, of a sort of muttered conversation
which seemed to be taking place somewhere near me. Listening intently,
I thought I could distinguish the voice of a man and that of a woman.
Possibly I was not the only wakeful inhabitant of the Abbey Inn was my
first and most natural idea; but it presently became apparent to me
that the speakers were not in the inn, but outside in the road.
Curiosity at last overcame inclination. Of the exact time I was not
aware, but I think dawn could not have been far off, and I naturally
wondered who these might be that conversed beneath my window at such
an hour. I rose quietly and crept across the room, endeavoring to
avoid showing my head in the moonlight. By the exercise of a little
ingenuity I obtained a view of the road before the inn doors.
At first I was unable to make out from whence this muttered
conversation arose, until fixing my attention upon a patch of shadow
underlying a tall tree which stood almost immediately opposite the
window, I presently made out two figures there. Somewhere, a dog was
howling mournfully.
For a long time I failed to distinguish any more than indefinite
outlines, nor, throughout the murmured colloquy, did I once detect
even so much as a phrase. The night remained perfect and the moon
possessed a tropical brilliance, casting deep and sharply defined
shadows, and lending to the whole visible landscape a quality of
hardness which for some obscure reason set me thinking of a painting
by Wiertz.
The low-pitched voices continued in what I thought was a dispute.
Something in the voice of the woman, although I could only hear her
occasionally, piqued yet eluded my memory. But it was the voice of a
young woman, whilst that of the man suggested a foreigner of some sort
and one past youth. Subconsciously pursuing the Wiertz idea, I know
not why, I invested the dimly-visible speakers with distinct
personalities. The man became Asmodeus, master of the revels at the
Black Sabbath, and the young woman I cast for that "young witch"
depicted in one of the canvasses of the weird Belgian genius.
Everything in the black and silver scene seemed to fit the picture.
Here was the unholy tryst, and I pictured the distant woods "peopled
with gray things, the branches burdened with winged creatures arisen
from the pit; the darkness a curtain 'broidered with luminous eyes...."
And it was my recollection of that phrase, from a work on sorcery,
which now set every nerve tingling. Closely I peered into the masking
shadow, telling myself that I was the victim of a subjective
hallucination. If this was indeed the case or if what I saw was
actual, I must leave each who reads to determine for himself; and the
episodes which follow and which I must presently relate will doubtless
aid the decision.
But it seemed to me that for one fleeting moment "luminous eyes"
indeed "'broidered the darkness!'" From out of the shade below the big
tree they regarded me greenly--and I saw them no more.
A while longer I watched, but could not detect any evidence of
movement in the shadow patch. The voices, too, had ceased; so that
presently it occurred to me that the speakers must have withdrawn
along a narrow lane which I had observed during the evening and which
communicated with a footpath across the meadows.
I realized that my heart was beating with extraordinary rapidity. So
powerful and so unpleasant was the impression made upon my mind by
this possibly trivial incident and by the extraordinary dream which
had preceded it, that on returning to bed (and despite the warmth of
the night) I closed both lattices and drew the curtains.
Whether as a result of thus excluding the moonlight or because of some
other reason I know not, but I soon fell into a sound sleep from which
I did not awaken until the chambermaid knocked at the door at eight
o'clock. Neither did I experience any return of those terrifying
nightmares which had disturbed my slumbers earlier in the night.
My breakfast despatched, I smoked a pipe on the bench in the porch,
and Mr. Martin, who evidently had few visitors, became almost
communicative. Undesirable patrons, he gave me to understand, had done
his business much harm. By dint of growls and several winks he sought
to enlighten me respecting the identity of these tradekillers. But I
was no wiser on the point at the end of his exposition than I had been
at the beginning.
"Things ain't right in these parts," he concluded, and thereupon
retired within doors.
Certainly, whatever the reason might be, the village even in broad
daylight retained that indefinable aspect of neglect, of loneliness.
Many of the cottages were of very early date--and many were empty. A
deserted mill stood at one end of the village street, having something
very mournful and depressing about it, with its black, motionless
wings outspread against the blue sky like those of a great bat
transfixed.
There were rich-looking meadows no great way from the village, but
these, I learned, formed part of the property of Farmer Hines, and
Farmer Hines was counted an inhabitant of the next parish. It was,
then, this particular country about Upper Crossleys over which the
cloud hung; and I wondered if the district had been one of
those--growing rare nowadays--which had flourished under the
protection of the "big house" and had decayed with the decay of the
latter. It had been a common enough happening in the old days, and I
felt disposed to adopt this explanation.
My brief survey completed, then, I returned to the Abbey Inn for my
stick and camera, and set out forthwith for Friar's Park.
From certain atmospherical indications which I had observed, I had
anticipated a return of the electrical storm which a few days before
had interrupted the extraordinary heat-wave. And now as I left the
village behind and came out on the dusty highroad a faint breeze
greeted me--and afar off I discerned a black cloud low down upon the
distant hills.