A GRIM TURN OF MARCH MADNESS
Day by day, Sir Ralph Westleigh's mental sickness increased. It
strengthened in the dark, like a blight on corn. Very gradually, and day
by day, it grew over the bright surface of his mind and spirit. The
sureness of its advance was a fearful thing to watch.
By the time March was over the wilderness, with a hint of spring in the
morning skies, the baronet's condition was noticeable to even the
dullest inmate of the settlement. The poor gentleman spoke little--and
that little was seldom to the point. It seemed as if he had forgotten
how to smile, or even to make a pretence at mirth. He walked alone for
hours on the frozen river and through the woods. The Beothics of the
camp before the fort stood in awe of him. At times he treated Beatrix
and Bernard Kingswell as strangers; but he always knew Maggie Stone, and
chided her often on the scantiness of his dinners. All day, indoors and
out, he wore a rapier at his side. In the cabin he spent half of the
time inert by the fire, without book, or cards, or chess, and the rest
of it in sword-play with an imaginary antagonist.
It was well for Beatrix that she had found Bernard's love before the
fresh misfortune descended upon her. But even with that comfort and
inspiration, her father's derangement affected her bitterly. They had
been such friends; and now he had blank eyes and deaf ears for all her
actions and words. It was twenty times harder for her than to have seen
him struck down by knife or arrow. Death seemed an honest thing compared
to that coldness and vagueness of spirit that gathered more thickly
about him with the passing of each day. It was as if another life,
another spirit, had taken possession of the familiar body and beloved
features. After two weeks neither her kisses nor her tears had any
potency to break through the awful estrangement. Her prayers, her fond
recollections of their old companionship, brought no gleam to the dull
eye.
By the end of March the busy boat-builders and smiths of the
settlement--and every man save Sir Ralph was either one or the
other--had two new boats all but completed. They were staunch crafts,
of about the capacity and model of the _Pelican_. They were intended for
fishing on the river and the great bays and for exploration cruises.
William Trigget, who was a master shipbuilder as he was a master
mariner, entertained great ideas of fishing and trading more openly than
Sir Ralph had sanctioned in the past. He was for carving out a real home
in the wilderness, and his wife was of the same mind.
"We couldn't bear to leave the boy's grave," he said.
Kingswell promised that, should he win back to Bristol, and find his
affairs in order, he would use his influence in behalf of the settlement
on Gray Goose River. Donnelly, too, was all for holding to the new land.
"It be rough, God knows," he said, "but it be sort o' hopeful, too. If
they danged savages leaves us alone, an' trade's decent, I be for
spendin' the balance o' my days alongside o' Skipper Trigget. There be a
grave yonder the missus an' me wouldn't turn our backs on, not if we
could help it."
Kingswell himself was not building any dreams of fixing his lot in that
desolate place; and neither was old Tom Bent, though he spoke little on
the subject. Ouenwa's ambitions continued to point overseas. Beatrix,
now despondent at her father's trouble, and again happy in her love,
gave little thought to the future of the settlement, or to any plans for
the days to come, save vague dreamings of an English home.
March wore along, and in open spaces the snow shrank inch by inch. Then
rain fell; and after that a time of tingling cold held all the
wilderness in a ringing white imprisonment. A man could run over the
snow-fields and the bed of the river without snow-shoes; for the surface
was tough as wood, white as the shield of that sinless knight, Sir
Galahad, and glistening as a thousand diamonds. The mornings lifted
clear silver and pale gold along the east. The evenings faded out in
crimson and saffron, and the twilights, even when the stars were lit,
made of the dome of heaven a bubble of thinnest green. And back of it
all, despite the frost, hung a suggestion of sap-reddened twigs and
blossoming trees.
The lure of the season touched every one in the fort, and the camp
beside it. It ran in Sir Ralph's blood like some fabled wine--for what
vintage of France or Spain is the stuff of which the poets sing. It
mounted to his head with a high, unregretting recklessness, and doubled
the madness that already lurked there. Something of his old manner
returned, and for a whole evening he sat with Beatrix and Kingswell and
talked rationally and hopefully. Also, that same night, he played a game
of chess. He spoke of the future as one who sees into it clearly and
without fear. He recalled the past without any sign of embarrassment.
But Kingswell, meeting his eyes by chance, caught a light of derision in
them.
Very early in the morning, while the stars still glinted overhead, and
the promise of day was no more than a strip of pearl along the east, Sir
Ralph Westleigh unbarred the door of his cabin and slipped out. He was
warmly and carefully dressed in furs and moccasins. He carried his sword
free under his arm. Very cautiously he scaled the palisade and dropped
to the frozen crust of snow outside. The Beothic encampment lay around
the corner of the fort, so he was safe from detection from that quarter.
He looked about and behind with a cunning smile. Then he ran lightly
into the woods.
Sir Ralph followed his aimless course for miles, and his soft-shod feet
left no mark on the hard surface of the snow. Then the sun slid up and
over, and in the warmth of high noon the frozen crust of the wilderness
thawed a little, and here and there the baronet's feet broke through. At
that he began to feel fatigue and a disconcerting pang of doubt. He
flung himself down in a little thicket of spruces, and called for Maggie
Stone to bring him food and drink. He called again and again. He shouted
other names than that of the old servant. In a sudden agony of fear, he
jumped to his feet and plunged through the evergreens. At every third
step he sank to his knee, or half-way up his thigh. He screamed the name
of his daughter, "Beatrix, Beatrix"--or was it his dead wife he was
calling? He cried for guidance to many great gentlemen of England who
had been his boon companions in the old days, forgetting that death had
taken some of them away from him, and that the rest, to a man, had
turned of their own accord. Presently he ceased his foolish outcry and
plodded along, with no thought of the course, sobbing the while like a
lost child.
The sun began its downward journey, and still the baronet, with his
sheathed sword under his arm, staggered across the voiceless wilderness.
Toward mid-afternoon the thawing crust froze again, and he travelled
with less difficulty. Ever and anon his poor eyes pictured a running
figure in an edge of blue shadow before him. At times it was the figure
of the nobleman he had killed in England, in the dispute at the
gaming-table, and again it was a friend,--Kingswell or Trigget, or
another of the fort,--and yet again it was Pierre d'Antons. But no
matter how he strove to run down the lurker, he lost him every time.
Thirst plagued him, and he ate the clear ice and snow off the fronds of
the spruces. Hunger gnawed him awhile, but passed gradually. The west
took on the flame and glory of sunset. The east darkened. The stars
pricked through the high shell of the sky. Night gathered her cloudless
darkness over the wilderness; and still the demented baronet followed
his aimless quest.
Toward evening of the day following Sir Ralph Westleigh's departure from
Fort Beatrix, Pierre d'Antons and Miwandi were startled by the sudden
and noiseless appearance of a gaunt and wild-eyed person in the doorway
of their lodge. The woman cried out, and ran to the farthest corner of
the wigwam. D'Antons staggered back, and his face turned gray as the
ashes around the fire-stone. The unexpected visitor drew his blade,
flung the sheath behind him on the snow, and advanced upon the fugitive
adventurer. D'Antons sprang back and caught up his own sword from where
it lay on a couch of branches and skins. He swore, more in wonder than
anger.
"Westleigh!" he cried. "What brings you here, you fool--and how many
follow you?"
The baronet halted and glanced quickly over his shoulder. He reeled a
little, but his eyes changed in their light and colour.
"I am alone," he said. "Yes, I am alone." His voice was quiet. He seemed
sorely puzzled. D'Antons' face regained its swarthy tints, and he
laughed harshly.
"So you have hunted me down, old cock," he said, smiling. "You'll find
that the quarry has fangs--in his own den."
The red of madness returned to Sir Ralph's eyes. He advanced his rapier.
In a second the fight was on. For a few minutes the strength of insanity
supported the baronet's starving muscles and reeling brain. Then his
thrusts began to go wide, and his guard to waver. A clean lunge dropped
him in the door of the lodge without a cry. The life-blood of the last
baronet of Beverly and Randon made a vivid circle of red on the snow of
that nameless wilderness.