The rest of this day passed over Walter like a dream in a fever. Through
a kind of hot mist full of strange reflections, all painful, terrible,
lurid, with confusion and suffering he saw the people and things about
him--his mother questioning him with anxious words, with still more
anxious eyes; his servants looking at him wondering, compassionate; and
heard now and then a phrase which came to his consciousness and
thereafter continued to rise before him from time to time, like a straw
cast into a whirlpool and boiling up as the bubbles went and
came--something about seeing a doctor, something about sending for Mr.
Cameron, with now and then an imploring entreaty, "Oh, my boy! what ails
you? what is wrong?" from Mrs. Methven. These were the words that came
back to his ears in a kind of refrain. He answered, too, somehow, he was
aware, that there was nothing the matter with him, that he wanted no
doctor, no counsellor, in a voice which seemed to come from any point of
the compass rather than from his own lips. It was not because of the
breach which had so rapidly followed the transport of his complete
union with Oona. That, too, had become secondary, a detail scarcely
important in the presence of the vague tempest which was raging within
him, and which he felt must come to some outburst more terrible than
anything he had yet known when he was left to himself. He had come back
to Auchnasheen under the guidance of Hamish, distracted, yet scarcely
unhappy, feeling that at the end, whatever misunderstanding there might
be, he was assured of Oona, her companionship, her help, and, what was
greatest of all, her love. She had not hesitated to let him see that he
had that; and with that must not all obstacles, however miserable,
disappear at the last? But when he landed, the misery that fell upon him
was different from the pain of the temporary misunderstanding. He became
conscious at once that it was the beginning of the last struggle, a
conflict which might end in--he knew not what: death, downfall, flight,
even shame, for aught he knew. The impulse was strong upon him to speed
away to the hillside and deliver himself over to the chances of this
battle, which had a fierce attraction for him on one hand, while on the
other it filled him with a mad terror which reason could not subdue.
So strong was this impulse that he hurried past the gate of Auchnasheen
and took the path that led up to the moors, with a sense of flying from,
yet flying to, his spiritual enemies. He was met there by the
gamekeeper, who began to talk to him about the game, and the expediency
of inviting "twa-three" gentlemen to shoot the coverts down by
Corrieden, an interruption which seemed to his preoccupied soul too
trivial, too miserable, to be borne with. He turned from the astonished
speaker in the midst of his explanations, and rushed back with the
impatience which was part of his character, exaggerated into a sort of
mad intolerance of any interruption. Not there, not there--he began to
remember the wild and mad contest which last year had gone on upon those
hills, and with an instantaneous change of plan retraced his steps to
the house, and burst into his mother's presence, so pale, so wild, with
eyes almost mad in their fire, looking out from the curves of his
eyelids like those of a maniac. Her terror was great. She came up to him
and laid her hands upon him, and cried out, What was it? what was it?
After this the active frenzy that had possessed him seemed to sink into
a maze of feverish confusion which was less violent, less terrible, more
like the operations of nature. He was not aware that he looked at her
piteously, and said, "I want to stay with you, mother"--childlike words,
which penetrated with a misery that was almost sweet to Mrs. Methven's
very heart. She put her arms round him, drawing down his head upon her
bosom, kissing his forehead with trembling lips, holding him fast, as
when he was a child and came to her for consolation. He was scarcely
aware of all this, and yet it soothed him. The excitement of his brain
was calmed. That uneasy haze of fever which confuses everything, the
half-delirium of the senses through which the mind looks as through a
mist, uneasy, yet with visions that are not all miserable, was a sort of
paradise in comparison with the frenzy of a conflict in which every
expedient of torture was exercised upon him. He was grateful for the
relief. That he did not know what he said or what she said, but heard
the answering voices far off, like something musical, was nothing. There
was a kind of safety in that society: the enemy could not show himself
there. He had to stand off baffled and wait--ah, wait! that was certain.
He had not gone away--not Oona, not the mother, could save the victim
altogether. They protected him for the moment, they held the foe at
arm's length: but that could not be always. Sooner or later the last
struggle must come.
Walter remained within-doors all day. It was contrary to all his habits,
and this of itself added to the alarm of all about him; but it was not
inconsistent with the capricious impatient constitution of his mind,
always ready to turn upon itself at a moment's notice, and do that which
no one expected. During every moment of this long day he had to resist
the strong impulse which was upon him--more than an impulse, a tearing
and rending of his spirit, sometimes rising into sudden energy almost
inconceivable--to go out and meet his enemy. But he held his ground so
far with a dumb obstinacy which also was part of his character, and
which was strengthened by the sensation of comparative exemption so long
as he had the protection of others around him, and specially of his
mother's presence. It was with reluctance that he saw her go out of the
room even for a moment; and his eager look of inquiry when she left him,
his attempts to retain her, his strained gaze towards the door till she
returned, gave Mrs. Methven a sort of anguish of pleasure, if those
contradictory words can be put together. To feel that she was something,
much to him, could not but warm her heart; but with that was the misery
of knowing that something must indeed be very far wrong with Walter to
make him thus, after so many years of independence, cling to his mother.
"It is like a fever coming on," she said to Symington, with whom alone
she could take any counsel. "He is ill, very ill, I am sure of it. The
doctor must be sent for. Have you ever seen him like this before?"
"My lady," said old Symington, "them that have the Methvens to deal with
have need of much gumption. Have I seen him like that before? Oh, yes, I
have seen him like that before. It is just their hour and the power o'
darkness. Let him be for two-three days----"
"But in two or three days the fever may have taken sure hold of him. It
may be losing precious time: it may get--fatal force----"
"There is no fears of his life," said old Symington; "there is enough
fear of other things."
"Of what? Oh, for God's sake! tell me; don't leave me in ignorance!" the
mother cried.
"But that's just what I cannot do," Symington said. "By the same taken
that I ken nothing mysel'."
While this conversation was going on, Walter, through his fever, saw
them conspiring, plotting, talking about him as he would have divined
and resented in other moods, but knew vaguely now in his mist of being
that they meant him no harm, but good.
And thus the day went on. He prolonged it as long as he could, keeping
his mother with him till long after the hour when the household was
usually at rest. But, however late, the moment came at last when he
could detain her no longer. She, terrified, ignorant, fearing a
dangerous illness, was still more reluctant to leave him, if possible,
than he was to let her go, and would have sat up all night watching him
had she ventured to make such a proposal. But at last Walter summoned up
all his courage with a desperate effort, an effort of despair which
restored him to himself and made a clear spot amid all the mist and
confusion of the day.
"Mother," he said, as he lighted her candle, "you have been very good to
me to-day! Oh I know you have always been good--and I always ungrateful;
but I am not ungrateful now."
"Oh, Walter! what does that word mean between you and me? If I could but
do anything. It breaks my heart to see you like this."
"Yes, mother," he said, "and it may break my heart. I don't know what
may come of it--if I can stand, or if I must fall. Go and pray for me,
mother."
"Yes, my dearest--yes, my own boy! as I have done every day, almost
every hour, since ever you were born."
"And so will Oona," he said. He made no response of affection to this
brief record of a life devoted to him, which Mrs. Methven uttered with
eyes full of tears and every line of her countenance quivering with
emotion. He was abstracted into a world beyond all such expressions and
responses, on the verge of an ordeal too terrible for him, more terrible
than any he had yet sustained--like a man about to face fearful odds,
and counting up what aids he could depend upon. "And so will Oona," he
repeated to himself, aloud but unawares: and looked up at his mother
with a sad glimmer of a smile and kissed her, and said, "That should
help me." Then, without waiting for her to go first, he walked out of
the room, like a blind man, feeling with his hand before him, and not
seeing where he went.
For already there had begun within him that clanging of the pulses, that
mounting of every faculty of the nerves and blood to his head, the seat
of thought, which throbbed as though it would burst, and to his heart,
which thundered and laboured and filled his ears with billows of sound.
All his fears, half quiescent in the feverish pause of the day, were
suddenly roused to action, ranging themselves to meet the last, the
decisive, the most terrible assault of all. He went into his room and
closed the door upon all mortal succour. The room was large and heavily
furnished in the clumsy fashion of the last generation--heavy curtains,
huge articles of furniture looming dark in the partial light, a gloomy
expanse of space, dim mirrors glimmering here and there, the windows
closely shut up and shrouded, every communication of the fresh air
without, or such succour of light as might linger in the heavens,
excluded. The old castle, with its ruined battlements, seemed a more fit
scene for spiritual conflict than the dull comfort of this gloomy
chamber, shut in from all human communication. But Walter made no
attempt to throw open the closed windows. No help from without could
avail him, and he had no thought or time to spare for any exertion. He
put his candle on the table and sat down to await what should befall.
The night passed like other nights to most men, even to the greater
number of the inhabitants in this house. Mrs. Methven after a while,
worn out, and capable of nothing that could help him, dozed and slept,
half dressed, murmuring familiar prayers in her sleep, ready to start up
at the faintest call. But there came no call. Two or three times in the
night there was a faint stir, and once old Symington, who was also on
the alert, and whose room was near that of his master, saw Lord Erradeen
come out of his chamber with a candle in his hand, the light of which
showed his countenance all ghastly and furrowed as with the action of
years, and go down-stairs. The old man, watching from the gallery above,
saw his master go to the door, which he opened, admitting a blast of
night wind which seemed to bring in the darkness as well as cold.
Symington waited trembling to hear it clang behind the unfortunate
young man. Where was he going to in the middle of the night? But after a
few minutes, the door, instead of clanging, closed softly, and Walter
came back. It might be that this happened more than once while the slow
hours crept on, for the watcher, hearing more than there was to hear,
thought that there were steps about the house, and vague sounds of
voices. But this was all vanity and superstition. No one came in--with
none, save with his own thoughts, did Walter speak. Had his enemy
entered bodily, and even with maddening words maintained a personal
conflict, the sufferer would have been less harshly treated. Once, as
Symington had seen, he was so broken down by the conflict that he was on
the eve of a shameful flight which would have been ruin. When he came
down-stairs with his candle in the dead of the night and opened the
great hall door, he had all but thrown down his arms and consented that
nothing remained for him but to escape while he could, as long as he
could, to break all ties and abandon all succour, and only flee, flee
from the intolerable moment. He had said to himself that he could bear
it no longer, that he must escape anyhow, at any cost, leaving love and
honour, and duty and every higher thought--for what could help
him--nothing--nothing--in earth or heaven.
That which touched him to the quick was not any new menace, it was not
the horror of the struggles through which he had already passed, it was
the maddening derision with which his impulses were represented to him
as the last expedients of the most refined selfishness. When his
tormentor in the morning had bidden him, with a smile, "Be good!" as the
height of policy, it had seemed to Walter that the point of the
intolerable was reached, and that life itself under such an
interpretation became insupportable, a miserable jest, a mockery hateful
to God and man; but there was yet a lower depth, a more hateful derision
still. Love! what was his love? a way of securing help, a means of
obtaining, under pretences of the finest sentiment, some one who would
supremely help him, stand by him always, protect him with the presence
of a nature purer than his own. Nothing was said to the unhappy young
man. It was in the course of his own thoughts that this suggestion arose
like a light of hell illuminating all the dark corners of his being. Had
he ever said to Oona that he loved her? Did he love her? Was it for any
motive but his own safety that he sought her? Katie he had sought for
her wealth, for the increase of importance she could bring, for the
relief from torture she could secure to him. And Oona, Oona whom he
loved! Was it for love he fled to her? Oh, no, but for safety! All was
miserable, all was self, all was for his own interest, to save _him_, to
emancipate him, to make life possible for him. He had started to his
feet when this intolerable consciousness (for was it not true?) took
possession of him. It was true. She was sweet and fair, and good and
lovely, a creature like the angels; but he, miserable, had thought only
that in her company was safety--that she could deliver him. He sent
forth a cry which at the same time sounded like the laughter of despair,
and seemed to shake the house; and took up his candle, and opened his
door and hurried forth to escape, where he did not know, how he did not
know nor care, to escape from the ridicule of this life, the horror of
this travestie and parody of everything good and fair. Heaven and earth!
to seek goodness because it was the most profitable of all things; to
seek love because it was safety; to profane everything dear and sacred
to his own advantage! Can a man know this, and recognise it with all the
masks and pretences torn off, and yet consent to live, and better
himself by that last desecration of all! He went down with hurried steps
through the silence of his house, that silence through which was rising
the prayers of the mother in whose love too he had taken refuge when in
despair, whom he had bidden to go and pray, for his advantage, solely
for him, that he might steal from God a help he did not deserve, by
means of her cries and tears. "And so would Oona," he had said. Oh,
mockery of everything sacred!--all for him, for his self-interest, who
deserved nothing, who made use of all.
He opened the door, and stood bare-headed, solitary, on the edge of the
black and lonely night; behind him life and hope, and torture and
misery--before the void, the blank into which the wretched may escape
and lose--if not themselves, that inalienable heritage of woe, yet
their power to harm those who love them. He loved nobody, it seemed, but
for himself--prized nothing but for himself; held love, honour,
goodness, purity, only as safeguards for his miserable life. Let it go
then, that wretched contemner of all good--disappear into the blackness
of darkness, where God nor man should be disturbed by its exactions
more!
The night was wild with a raving wind that dashed the tree-tops against
the sky, and swept the clouds before it in flying masses; no moon, no
light, gloom impenetrable below, a pale glimpse of heaven above, swept
by black billows of tumultuous clouds; somewhere in the great gloom, the
loch, all invisible, waited for the steps that might stumble upon its
margin; the profound world of darkness closed over every secret that
might be cast into it. He stood on the threshold in a momentary pause,
forlorn, alone, loosing his hold of all that he had clung to, to save
him. Why should he be saved who was unworthy? Why trouble earth or
heaven? The passion and the struggle died out of Walter's soul: a
profound sadness took possession of him; he felt his heart turn
trembling within him, now that he had given up the instinct of
self-preservation which had driven him to her feet--to Oona whom he
loved. God bless her! not for him would be that sweet companionship, and
yet of all things the world contained, was not that the best? Two that
should be one. All that was external died away from him in his despair.
He forgot for the first time since it had been revealed to him, that he
had an enemy, a tyrant waiting for his submission. His heart turned to
the love which he had thought he dishonoured, without even recollecting
that cursed suggestion. It seemed to him now that he was giving it up
for Oona's sake, and that only now all the beauty of it, the sweetness
of it, was clear to him. Oh, the pity! to see all this so lovely, so
fair, and yet have to resign it! What was everything else in comparison
with that? But for her sake, for her dear sake!
How dark it was, impenetrable, closing like a door upon the mortal eyes
which had in themselves no power to penetrate that gloom! He stepped
across the threshold of life, and stood outside, in the dark. He turned
his eyes--for once more, for the last time, in the great calm of
renunciation, his heart in a hush of supreme anguish, without conflict
or struggle--to where she was, separated from him only by silent space
and atmosphere, soon to be separated by more perfect barriers; only to
turn his head that way, not even to see where she was hidden in the
night--so small a satisfaction, so little consolation, yet something
before the reign of nothingness began.
All dark; but no, half way between heaven and earth, what was that,
shining steady through the gloom? Not a star; it was too warm, too
large, too near; the light in Oona's window shining in the middle of the
night when all was asleep around. Then she was not asleep, though
everything else was, but watching--and if watching, then for him. The
little light, which was but a candle in a window, suddenly, brilliantly
lighted up the whole heavens and earth to Walter. Watching, and for him;
praying for him, not because of any appeal of his, but out of her own
heart, and because she so willed it--out of the prodigality, the
generous, unmeasured love which it was her choice to give him--not
forced but freely, because she so pleased. He stood for a moment with
awe in his heart, arrested, not able to make another step, pale with the
revolution, the revelation, the change of all things. His own dark
thoughts died away; he stood astonished, perceiving for the first time
what it was. To have become part of him had brought no joy to Oona, but
it was done, and never could be undone; and to be part of her, what was
that to Walter? He had said it without knowing what it meant, without
any real sense of the great thing he said. Now it fell upon him in a
great wonder, full of awe. He was hers, he was _her_, not himself
henceforward, but a portion of another, and that other portion of him
standing for him at the gates of heaven. His whole being fell into
silence, overawed. He stepped back out of the night and closed softly
the great door, and returned to his room, in which everything was
stilled by a spell before which all evil things fly--the apprehension of
that love which is unmerited, unextorted, unalterable. When he reached
his room, and had closed the door, Walter, with trembling hands undid
the window, and flung it open to the night, which was no more night or
darkness, but part of the everlasting day, so tempered that feeble eyes
might perceive those lights which hide themselves in the sunshine. What
was it he saw? Up in the heavens, where the clouds swept over them,
stars shining, undisturbed, though hidden by moments as the masses of
earthly vapour rolled across the sky; near him stealing out of his
mother's window a slender ray of light that never wavered; further off,
held up as in the very hand of love, the little lamp of Oona. The young
man was silent in a great awe; his heart stirring softly in him, hushed,
like the heart of a child. For him! unworthy! for him who had never
sought the love of God, who had disregarded the love of his mother, who
had profaned the love of woman: down, down on his knees--down to the
dust, hiding his face in gratitude unutterable. He ceased to think of
what it was he had been struggling and contending for; he forgot his
enemy, his danger, himself altogether, and, overawed, sank at the feet
of love, which alone can save.