“Understand, this is your sanctuary,” he went on, “prepared against
your coming, and which none, in their turn, will betray. The path to
it is sacred to me. No one will disturb you; you are secure as a bird
in its nest. There is a bed in a corner; rushlight and holder and
tinder-box on a table by. Light, and take possession. I must go and
reassure Portlock.”
I heard him move softly over the floor; a trap opened somewhere,
letting in a momentary weak film of light, and he was gone.
For a time I stood motionless, hearing the murmur of voices somewhere
below; then, suddenly panic-struck, groped for the table and tinder,
and shakily struck fire. The wick caught, flamed up and settled, and I
saw my possession.
It was the tiniest, kindest little room, under a sloping roof, clean
and friendly, with a white bed. I was dazed and weary beyond
speculation. Leaving the light burning, I crept under the coverlet as
I was, and fell into a profound sleep.
XVIII.
I BEGIN ANOTHER FOLLY
I opened my eyes to a sense of utter restfulness and peace. A
feeling of green isolation, of a quiet and guarded security, such as
not all Gogo’s watchfulness could accomplish for me in the tower, came
instantly to comfort the first startled shock of my waking. Little
demure clouds drifted over the skylight; I heard a faint twitter of
birds on the hillside; there were woodland berries and flaming leaves
in my room; pictures, too; and a dozen pretty attentions to reassure
me. Sure he must have made very certain of his capture before he
decorated the cage so handsomely. And for how long, pray, had he held
his hand and aloof, biding his opportunity? He must have kept his
secret well, at least, for I had never known a hint of his presence.
I smiled, and closed my eyes again. It was a most endearing thought,
the thought of that brotherly haunting, while I had been bemoaning my
abandonment by all the world. There was still that in me, then, to
attract admiration, to ensure my affinity with the strong and shapely.
I was sick to death of malformations, mental and bodily. What had
become of him? I had not reached the end of my resentment, but I did
not wish him to think it insurmountable; and I was certainly curious
to learn how far my romantic memory of him was justified.
And, in the meantime, where was I? in what remote eyrie of the green
forest? For all I could see, I might be imprisoned in a well.
I rose, and, after making my toilette, had paused undecided, wondering
what was to come next, when I heard his voice, very mock-humble, at
the trap--
“Little sister, will you come down to breakfast?”
The blood thrilled in my temples, but I hardened my heart, and
answered “Yes,” as frigid as a nun.
He flung up the hatch at once, and for the first time I saw the ladder
going down into candlelight, whence a smell of warm dust and tallow
rose to my nostrils. He descended before me, and I followed, into the
leanest of little cellars, with a rough board on trestles in it and a
stool or two. The rafters were hung with cobwebs; there were a couple
of dismal dips in horn sconces on the walls; a closed door showed
dimly at the farther end, and that was all.
I turned in amazement upon my companion, to find him regarding me with
a curious expression. But it sobered at once before my gaze. It was
not, indeed, now I came to con him, quite the expression of my memory.
The sweet humour of it had fallen, I could have thought, upon more
mocking times. There was a look in his face as if he had got to love
himself the better, the worse he had been depreciated by others; as if
injustice had somewhat crooked the old lines of chivalry. But for the
rest, he was as bronzed and comely as ever, as lithe and muscular; and
the common woodman’s dress (coarse grogram jacket and leggings to the
hips), which, whether for convenience or disguise, he had adopted,
showed off his fine figure to perfection.
“Where is it, the breakfast?” I asked.
“Cooking, by Portlock,” said he. “I’m waiting to pull it through.”
He stood stooping, indeed, and holding a string in his hand, by what
looked like a black gap at the foot of the wall beyond the table.
“To pull it through!” I cried out. “Are we to eat it here?”
He turned his head, as he leaned, to scan me.
“We can take it up under the skylight, if you like,” said he.
“My room!”
A violent retort was on my lips; but something in his face warned me,
and it died unuttered. For all his affected humility, there was a
masterfulness here I had not guessed. I realised on the instant that
I did not know, had never known him. It was not altogether a
disagreeable awakening.
I sat down, silent, on one of the stools; and he addressed me again
quietly from his place--
“Little sister, you have committed yourself to my care--very properly,
I think, and very properly trustful of an elder brother. Do you know
my age? I am thirty-four--just double your seventeen; and at least
worldly-wise enough to direct you.”
“That is all very well,” I said, half stifled; “but why have you
brought me here?”
“Have I not told you?” he answered. “To save you from a wolf, who
would have set his teeth in my little white lamb.”
“No, you have not told me,” I cried; “and I am no more lamb of yours
than his; and anyhow, I had my shepherd already.”
“A poor shepherd,” he said. “Witness his watchfulness!”
I bit my lip, and said no more. For a moment I hated myself and
him--his specious reasonings, which had led me to abandon my honest,
good comrade and saviour. While I sat dumb, a low whistle sounded
through the wall; and instantly he turned to me.
“You do not like your dining-parlour?” he said. “But, believe me, it
has a thousand conveniences of privacy, of which here is not the
least.”
And, with the word, drawing on the string he held in his hand, he
brought a tray into light. It was packed with comestibles--bread, and
honey, and collops of venison that smelt royally; but, when he
transferred these to the table, I had no stomach for them, and pushed
away the plate he offered me.
“What! You won’t eat?” he said.
“I can’t breakfast in a sewer.”
“Very well.”
He fell to himself, without further delay, and with plenty of
appetite. I watched him out of the corners of my eyes, half maddened
already by the abstinence I had imposed on myself. He was dressed like
a forester, I have said; and now I observed that he affected the
manners of a forester, consciously, it would seem, effacing in himself
the more gentle observances. It may have been an effort to him; but,
anyhow, he tore his bread and gnawed his bones with the air of one
bred to the soil--with a set of perfect white teeth, too, it must be
conceded. And, while he despatched, throwing his litter on the board,
he continued talking to me fitfully.
“Yes,” he said, “it is very convenient for such as we, who desire not
only to save our labour, but our lives certainly, and our self-respect
if possible. You don’t ask me where we are?”