Sick at heart, and utterly overcome by the sudden and awful tragedy to
which he had been an enforced silent witness, David Helmsley had now but
one idea, and that was at once to leave the scene of horror which, like
a ghastly nightmare, scarred his vision and dizzied his brain. Stumbling
feebly along, and seeming to those who by chance noticed him, no more
than a poor old tramp terrified out of his wits by the grief and
confusion which prevailed, he made his way gradually through the crowd
now pressing closely round the dead, and went forth into the village
street. He held the little dog Charlie nestled under his coat, where he
had kept it hidden all the evening,--the tiny creature was shivering
violently with that strange consciousness of the atmosphere of death
which is instinctive to so many animals,--and a vague wish to soothe its
fears helped him for the moment to forget his own feelings. He would not
trust himself to look again at Tom o' the Gleam, stretched lifeless on
the ground with his slaughtered child clasped in his arms; he could not
speak to any one of the terrified people. He heard the constables giving
hurried orders for the removal of the bodies, and he saw two more police
officers arrive and go into the stableyard of the inn, there to take the
number of the motor-car and write down the full deposition of that
potentate of the pictorial press, James Brookfield. And he knew, without
any explanation, that the whole affair would probably be served up the
next day in the cheaper newspapers as a "sensational" crime, so worded
as to lay all the blame on Tom o' the Gleam, and to exonerate the act,
and deplore the violent death of the "lordly" brute who, out of his
selfish and wicked recklessness, had snatched away the life of an only
child from its father without care or compunction. But it was the
fearful swiftness of the catastrophe that affected Helmsley most,--that,
and what seemed to him, the needless cruelty of fate. Only last night he
had seen Tom o' the Gleam for the first time--only last night he had
admired the physical symmetry and grace of the man,--his handsome head,
his rich voice, and the curious refinement, suggestive of some past
culture and education, which gave such a charm to his manner,--only last
night he had experienced that little proof of human sympathy and
kindliness which had shown itself in the gift of the few coins which Tom
had collected and placed on his pillow,--only last night he had been
touched by the herculean fellow's tenderness for his little
"Kiddie,"--and now,--within the space of twenty-four hours, both father
and child had gone out of life at a rush as fierce and relentless as the
speed of the motor-car which had crushed a world of happiness under its
merciless wheels. Was it right--was it just that such things should be?
Could one believe in the goodness of God, in such a world of wanton
wickedness? Moving along in a blind haze of bewilderment, Helmsley's
thoughts were all disordered and his mind in a whirl,--what
consciousness he had left to him was centred in an effort to get
away--away!--far away from the scene of murder and death,--away from the
scent and trail of blood which seemed to infect and poison the very air!
It was a calm and lovely night. The moon rode high, and there was a soft
wind blowing in from the sea. Out over the waste of heaving water, where
the moonbeams turned the small rippling waves to the resemblance of
netted links of silver or steel, the horizon stretched sharply clear and
definite, like a line drawn under the finished chapter of vision. There
was a gentle murmur of the inflowing tide among the loose stones and
pebbles fringing the beach,--but to Helmsley's ears it sounded like the
miserable moaning of a broken heart,--the wail of a sorrowful spirit in
torture. He went on and on, with no very distinct idea of where he was
going,--he simply continued to walk automatically like one in a dream.
He did not know the time, but guessed it must be somewhere about
midnight. The road was quite deserted, and its loneliness was to him, in
his present over-wrought condition, appalling. Desolation seemed to
involve the whole earth in gloom,--the trees stood out in the white
shine of the moon like dark shrouded ghosts waving their cerements to
and fro,--the fields and hills on either side of him were bare and
solitary, and the gleam of the ocean was cold and cheerless as a "Dead
Man's Pool." Slowly he plodded along, with a thousand disjointed
fragments of thought and memory teasing his brain, all part and parcel
of his recent experiences,--he seemed to have lived through a whole
history of strange events since the herb-gatherer, Matt Peke, had
befriended him on the road,--and the most curious impression of all was
that he had somehow lost his own identity for ever. It was impossible
and ridiculous to think of himself as David Helmsley, the
millionaire,--there was, there could be no such person! David
Helmsley,--the real David Helmsley,--was very old, very tired, very
poor,--there was nothing left for him in this world save death. He had
no children, no friends,--no one who cared for him or who wanted to know
what had become of him. He was absolutely alone,--and in the hush of the
summer night he fancied that the very moon looked down upon him with a
chill stare as though wondering why he burdened the earth with his
presence when it was surely time for him to die!
It was not till he found that he was leaving the shore line, and that
one or two gas lamps twinkled faintly ahead of him, that he realized he
was entering the outskirts of a small town. Pausing a moment, he looked
about him. A high-walled castle, majestically enthroned on a steep
wooded height, was the first object that met his view,--every line of
its frowning battlements and turrets was seen clearly against the sky as
though etched out on a dark background with a pencil of light. A
sign-post at the corner of a winding road gave the direction "To Dunster
Castle." Reading this by the glimmer of the moon, Helmsley stood
irresolute for a minute or so, and then resumed his tramp, proceeding
through the streets of what he knew must be Dunster itself. He had no
intention of stopping in the town,--an inward nervousness pushed him on,
on, in spite of fatigue, and Dunster was not far enough away from Blue
Anchor to satisfy him. The scene of Tom o' the Gleam's revenge and death
surrounded him with a horrible environment,--an atmosphere from which he
sought to free himself by sheer distance, and he resolved to walk till
morning rather than remain anywhere near the place which was now
associated in his mind with one of the darkest episodes of human guilt
and suffering that he had ever known. Passing by the old inn known as
"The Luttrell Arms," now fast closed for the night, a policeman on his
beat stopped in his marching to and fro, and spoke to him.
"Hillo! Which way do you come from?"
"From Watchett."
"Oh! We've just had news of a murder up at Blue Anchor. Have you heard
anything of it?"
"Yes." And Helmsley looked his questioner squarely in the face. "It's a
terrible business! But the murderer's caught!"
"Caught is he? Who's got him?"
"Death!" And Helmsley, lifting his cap, stood bareheaded in the
moonlight. "He'll never escape again!"
The constable looked amazed and a little awed.
"Death? Why, I heard it was that wild gypsy, Tom o' the Gleam----"
"So it was,"--said Helmsley, gently,--"and Tom o' the Gleam is dead!"
"No! Don't say that!" ejaculated the constable with real concern.
"There's a lot of good in Tom! I shouldn't like to think he's gone!"
"You'll find it's true," said Helmsley. "And perhaps, when you get all
the details, you'll think it for the best. Good-night!"
"Are you staying in Dunster?" queried the officer with a keen glance.
"No. I'm moving on." And Helmsley smiled wearily as he again
said--"Good-night!"
He walked steadily, though slowly, through the sleeping town, and passed
out of it. Ascending a winding bit of road he found himself once more in
the open country, and presently came to a field where part of the fence
had been broken through by the cattle. Just behind the damaged palings
there was a covered shed, open in front, with a few bundles of straw
packed within it. This place suggested itself as a fairly comfortable
shelter for an hour's rest, and becoming conscious of the intense aching
of his limbs, he took possession of it, setting the small "Charlie" down
to gambol on the grass at pleasure. He was far more tired than he knew,
and remembering the "yerb wine" which Matt Peke had provided him with,
he took a long draught of it, grateful for its reviving warmth and tonic
power. Then, half-dreamily, he watched the little dog whom he had
rescued and befriended, and presently found himself vaguely entertained
by the graceful antics of the tiny creature which, despite its wounded
paw, capered limpingly after its own shadow flung by the moonlight on
the greensward, and attempted in its own playful way to attract the
attention of its new master and wile him away from his mood of utter
misery. Involuntarily he thought of the frenzied cry of Shakespeare's
"Lear" over the dead body of Cordelia:--
"What! Shall a dog, a horse, a rat, have life
And thou no breath at all!"
What curious caprice of destiny was it that saved the life of a dog, yet
robbed a father of his child? Who could explain it? Why should a happy
innocent little lad like Tom o' the Gleam's "Kiddie" have been hurled
out of existence in a moment as it were by the mad speed of a motor's
wheels,--and a fragile "toy" terrier, the mere whim of dog-breeders and
plaything for fanciful women, be plucked from starvation and death as
though the great forces of creation deemed it more worth cherishing than
a human being! For the murder of Lord Wrotham, Helmsley found
excuse,--for the death of Tom there was ample natural cause,--but for
the wanton killing of a little child no reason could justly be assigned.
Propping his elbows on his knees, and resting his aching head on his
hands, he thought and thought,--till Thought became almost as a fire in
his brain. What was the use of life? he asked himself. What definite
plan or object could there possibly be in the perpetuation of the human
race?
"To pace the same dull round
On each recurring day,
For seventy years or more
Till strength and hope decay,--
To trust,--and be deceived,--
And standing,--fear to fall!
To find no resting-place--
_Can this be all?_"
Beginning with hope and eagerness, and having confidence in the good
faith of his fellow-men, had he not himself fought a hard fight in the
world, setting before him a certain goal,--a goal which he had won and
passed,--to what purpose? In youth he had been very poor,--and poverty
had served him as a spur to ambition. In middle life he had become one
of the richest men in the world. He had done all that rich and ambitious
men set themselves out to do. He might have said with the Preacher:
"Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them,--I withheld not my
heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced in all my labour, and this was
my portion of all my labour. Then I looked on all the works that my
hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do, and
behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit
under the sun."
He had loved,--or rather, he had imagined he loved,--he had married, and
his wife had dishonoured him. Sons had been born to him, who, with their
mother's treacherous blood in their veins, had brought him to shame by
their conduct,--and now all the kith and kin he had sought to surround
himself with were dead, and he was alone--as alone as he had ever been
at the very commencement of his career. Had his long life of toil led
him only to this? With a sense of dull disappointment, his mind reverted
to the plan he had half entertained of benefiting Tom o' the Gleam in
some way and making him happy by prospering the fortunes of the child he
loved so well,--though he was fully aware that perhaps he could not have
done much in that direction, as it was more than likely that Tom would
have resented the slightest hint of a rich man's patronage. Death,
however, in its fiercest shape, had now put an abrupt end to any such
benevolent scheme, whether or not it might have been feasible,--and,
absorbed in a kind of lethargic reverie, he again and again asked
himself what use he was in the world?--what could he do with the brief
remaining portion of his life?--and how he could dispose, to his own
satisfaction, of the vast wealth which, like a huge golden mill-stone,
hung round his neck, dragging him down to the grave? Such poor people as
he had met with during his tramp seemed fairly contented with their lot;
he, at any rate, had heard no complaints of poverty from them. On the
contrary, they had shown an independence of thought and freedom of life
which was wholly incompatible with the mere desire of money. He could
put a five-pound note in an envelope and post it anonymously to Matt
Peke at the "Trusty Man" as a slight return for his kindness, but he was
quite sure that though Matt might be pleased enough with the money he
would equally be puzzled, and not entirely satisfied in his mind as to
whether he was doing right to accept and use it. It would probably be
put in a savings bank for a "rainy day."
"It is the hardest thing in the world to do good with money!" he mused,
sorrowfully. "Of course if I were to say this to the unthinking
majority, they would gape upon me and exclaim--'Hard to do good! Why,
there's nothing so easy! There are thousands of poor,--there are the
hospitals--the churches!' True,--but the thousands of _real_ poor are
not so easily found! There are thousands, ay, millions of 'sham' poor.
But the _real_ poor, who never ask for anything,--who would not know how
to write a begging letter, and who would shrink from writing it even if
they did know--who starve patiently, suffer uncomplainingly, and die
resignedly--these are as difficult to meet with as diamonds in a coal
mine. As for hospitals, do I not know how many of them pander to the
barbarous inhumanity of vivisection!--and have I not experienced to the
utmost dregs of bitterness, the melting of cash through the hands of
secretaries and under-secretaries, and general Committee-ism, and Red
Tape-ism, while every hundred thousand pounds bestowed on these
necessary institutions turns out in the end to be a mere drop in the sea
of incessant demand, though the donors may possibly purchase a
knighthood, a baronetcy, or even a peerage, in return for their gifts!
And the churches!--my God!--as Madame Roland said of Liberty, what
crimes are committed in Thy Name!"
He looked up at the sky through the square opening of the shed, and saw
the moon, now changed in appearance and surrounded by a curious luminous
halo like the nimbus with which painters encircle the head of a saint.
It was a delicate aureole of prismatic radiance, and seemed to have
swept suddenly round the silver planet in companionship with a light
mist from the sea,--a mist which was now creeping slowly upwards and
covering the land with a glistening wetness as of dew. A few fleecy
clouds, pale grey and white, were floating aloft in the western half of
the heavens, evoked by some magic touch of the wind.
"It will soon be morning,"--thought Helmsley--"The sun will rise in its
same old glorious way--with as measured and monotonous a circuit as it
has made from the beginning. The Garden of Eden, the Deluge, the
building of the Pyramids, the rise and fall of Rome, the conquests of
Alexander, the death of Socrates, the murder of Cæsar, the crucifixion
of Christ,--the sun has shone on all these things of beauty, triumph or
horror with the same even radiance, always the generator of life and
fruitfulness, itself indifferent as to what becomes of the atoms
germinated under its prolific heat and vitality. The sun takes no heed
whether a man dies or lives--neither does God!"
Yet with this idea came a sudden revulsion. Surely in the history of
human events, there was ample proof that God, or the invisible Power we
call by that name, did care? Crime was, and is, always followed by
punishment, sooner or later. Who ordained,--who ordains that this shall
be? Who is it that distinguishes between Right and Wrong, and adjusts
the balance accordingly? Not Man,--for Man in a barbarous state is often
incapable of understanding moral law, till he is trained to it by the
evolution of his being and the ever-progressive working of the unseen
spiritual forces. And the first process of his evolution is the
awakening of conscience, and the struggle to rise from his mere Self to
a higher ideal of life,--from material needs to intellectual
development. Why is he thus invariably moved towards this higher ideal?
If the instinct were a mistaken one, foredoomed to disappointment, it
would not be allowed to exist. Nature does not endow us with any sense
of which we do not stand in need, or any attribute which is useless to
us in the shaping and unfolding of our destinies. True it is that we see
many a man and woman who appear to have no souls, but we dare not infer
from these exceptions that the soul does not exist. Soulless beings
simply have no need of spirituality, just as the night-owl has no need
of the sun,--they are bodies merely, and as bodies perish. As the angel
said to the prophet Esdras:--"The Most High hath made this world for
many, but the world to come for few. I will tell thee a similitude,
Esdras; As when thou askest the earth, it shall say unto thee that it
giveth much mould whereof earthern vessels are made, but little dust
that gold cometh of, even so is the course of this present world!"
Weary of arguing with himself, Helmsley tried to reflect back on certain
incidents of his youth, which now in his age came out like prominent
pictures in the gallery of his brain. He remembered the pure and simple
piety which distinguished his mother, who lived her life out as sweetly
as a flower blooms,--thanking God every morning and night for His
goodness to her, even at times when she was most sorrowful,--he thought
of his little sister, dead in the springtime of her girlhood, who never
had a doubt of the unfailing goodness and beneficence of her Creator,
and who, when dying, smiled radiantly, and whispered with her last
breath, "I wish you would not cry for me, Davie dear!--the next world is
so beautiful!" Was this "next world" in her imagination, or was it a
fact? Materialists would, of course, say it was imagination. But, in the
light of present-day science and discovery, who can pin one's faith on
Materialism?
"I have missed the talisman that would have made all the darkness of
life clear to me," he said at last, half aloud; "and missing it, I have
missed everything of real value. Pain, loss, old age, and death would
have been nothing to me, if I had only won that magic glory of the
world--Love!"
His eyes again wandered to the sky, and he noticed that the
grey-and-white clouds in the west were rising still higher in fleecy
pyramids, and were spreading with a wool-like thickness gradually over
the whole heavens. The wind, too, had grown stronger, and its sighing
sound had changed to a more strenuous moaning. The little dog, Charlie,
tired of its master's gloomy absorption, jumped on his knee, and
intimated by eloquent looks and wagging tail a readiness to be again
nestled into some cosy corner. The shed was warm and comfortable, and
after some brief consideration, he decided to try and sleep for an hour
or so before again starting on his way. With this object in view, he
arranged the packages of straw which filled one side of the shed into
the form of an extemporary couch, which proved comfortable enough when
he lay down with Charlie curled up beside him. He could not help
thinking of the previous night, when he had seen the tall figure of Tom
o' the Gleam approaching his bedside at the "Trusty Man," with the
little "surprise" gift he had so stealthily laid upon his pillow,--and
it was difficult to realise or to believe that the warm, impulsive heart
had ceased to beat, and that all that splendid manhood was now but
lifeless clay. He tried not to see the horribly haunting vision of the
murdered Wrotham, with that terrible gash in his throat, and the blood
pouring from it,--he strove to forget the pitiful picture of the little
dead "Kiddie" in the arms of its maddened and broken-hearted father--but
the impression was too recent and too ghastly for forgetfulness.
"And yet with it all," he mused, "Tom o' the Gleam had what I have never
possessed--love! And perhaps it is better to die--even in the awful way
he died--in the very strength and frenzy of love--rather than live
loveless!"
Here Charlie heaved a small sigh, and nestled a soft silky head close
against his breast. "I love you!" the little creature seemed to say--"I
am only a dog--but I want to comfort you if I can!" And he
murmured--"Poor Charlie! Poor wee Charlie!" and, patting the flossy coat
of his foundling, was conscious of a certain consolation in the mere
companionship of an animal that trusted to him for protection.
Presently he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. His brain was somewhat
confused, and scraps of old songs and verses he had known in boyhood,
were jumbled together without cause or sequence, varying in their turn
with the events of his business, his financial "deals" and the general
results of his life's work. He remembered quite suddenly and for no
particular reason, a battle he had engaged in with certain directors of
a company who had attempted to "better" him in a particularly important
international trade transaction, and he recalled his own sweeping
victory over them with a curious sense of disgust. What did it
matter--now?--whether he had so many extra millions, or so many more
degrees of power? Certain lines of Tennyson's seemed to contain greater
truths than all the money-markets of the world could supply:--
"O let the solid earth
Not fail beneath my feet,
Before my life has found
What some have found so sweet--
Then let come what come may,
What matter if I go mad,
I shall have had my day!
"Let the sweet heavens endure
Not close and darken above me,
Before I am quite, quite sure
That there is one to love me;
Then let come what come may
To a life that has been so sad,
I shall have had my day!"
He murmured this last verse over and over again till it made mere
monotony in his mind, and till at last exhausted nature had its way and
lulled his senses into a profound slumber. Strange to say, as soon as he
was fast asleep, Charlie woke up. Perking his little ears sharply, he
sat briskly erect on his tiny haunches, his forepaws well placed on his
master's breast, his bright eyes watchfully fixed on the opening of the
shed, and his whole attitude expressing that he considered himself "on
guard." It was evident that had the least human footfall broken the
stillness, he would have made the air ring with as much noise as he was
capable of. He had a vibrating bark of his own, worthy of a much larger
animal, and he appeared to be anxiously waiting for an opportunity to
show off this special accomplishment. No such chance, however, offered
itself; the minutes and hours went by in undisturbed order. Now and then
a rabbit scampered across the field, or an owl flew through the trees
with a plaintive cry,--otherwise, so far as the immediate surroundings
of the visible land were concerned, everything was perfectly calm. But
up in the sky there were signs of gathering trouble. The clouds had
formed into woollier masses,--their grey had changed to black, their
white to grey, and the moon, half hidden, appeared to be hurrying
downward to the west in a flying scud of etheric foam. Some disturbance
was brewing in the higher altitudes of air, and a low snarling murmur
from the sea responded to what was, perchance, the outward gust of a
fire-tempest in the sun. The small Charlie was, no doubt, quite ignorant
of meteorological portents, nevertheless he kept himself wide awake,
sniffing at empty space in a highly suspicious manner, his tiny black
nose moist with aggressive excitement, and his whole miniature being
prepared to make "much ado about nothing" on the smallest provocation.
The morning broke sullenly, in a dull haze, though here and there pale
patches of blue, and flushes of rose-pink, showed how fair the day would
willingly have made itself, had only the elements been propitious.
Helmsley slept well on through the gradual unfolding of the dawn, and it
was fully seven o'clock when he awoke with a start, scarcely knowing
where he was. Charlie hailed his return to consciousness with marked
enthusiasm, and dropping the sentry "Who goes there?" attitude,
gambolled about him delightedly. Presently remembering his environment
and the events which were a part of it, he quickly aroused himself, and
carefully packing up all the bundles of straw in the shed, exactly as he
had found them, he again went forth upon what he was disposed to
consider now a penitential pilgrimage.
"In old times," he said to himself, as he bathed his face and hands in a
little running stream by the roadside--"kings, when they found
themselves miserable and did not know why they were so, went to the
church for consolation, and were told by the priests that they had
sinned--and that it was their sins that made them wretched. And a
journey taken with fasting was prescribed--much in the way that our
fashionable physicians prescribe change of air, a limited diet and
plenty of exercise to the luxurious feeders of our social hive. And the
weary potentates took off their crowns and their royal robes, and
trudged along as they were told--became tramps for the nonce, like me.
But I need no priest to command what I myself ordain!"
He resumed his onward way ploddingly and determinedly, though he was
beginning to be conscious of an increasing weariness and lassitude which
seemed to threaten him with a break-down ere long. But he would not
think of this.
"Other men have no doubt felt just as weak," he thought. "There are many
on the road as old as I am and even older. I ought to be able to do of
my own choice what others do from necessity. And if the worst comes to
the worst, and I am compelled to give up my project, I can always get
back to London in a few hours!"
He was soon at Minehead, and found that quaint little watering-place
fully astir; for so far as it could have a "season," that season was now
on. A considerable number of tourists were about, and coaches and brakes
were getting ready in the streets for those who were inclined to
undertake the twenty miles drive from Minehead to Lynton. Seeing a
baker's shop open he went in and asked the cheery-looking woman behind
the counter if she would make him a cup of coffee, and let him have a
saucer of milk for his little dog. She consented willingly, and showed
him a little inner room, where she spread a clean white cloth on the
table and asked him to sit down. He looked at her in some surprise.
"I'm only 'on the road,'" he said--"Don't put yourself out too much for
me."
She smiled.
"You'll pay for what you've ordered, I suppose?"
"Certainly!"
"Then you'll get just what everybody gets for their money,"--and her
smile broadened kindly--"We don't make any difference between poor and
rich."
She retired, and he dropped into a chair, wearily. "We don't make any
difference between poor and rich!" said this simple woman. How very
simple she was! No difference between poor and rich! Where would
"society" be if this axiom were followed! He almost laughed to think of
it. A girl came in and brought his coffee with a plate of fresh
bread-and-butter, a dish of Devonshire cream, a pot of jam, and a small
round basket full of rosy apples,--also a saucer of milk which she set
down on the floor for Charlie, patting him kindly as she did so, with
many admiring comments on his beauty.
"You've brought me quite a breakfast!" said Helmsley. "How much?"
"Sixpence, please."
"Only sixpence?"
"That's all. It's a shilling with ham and eggs."
Helmsley paid the humble coin demanded, and wondered where the "starving
poor" came in, at any rate in Somersetshire. Any beggar on the road,
making sixpence a day, might consider himself well fed with such a meal.
Just as he drew up his chair to the table, a sudden gust of wind swept
round the house, shaking the whole building, and apparently hurling the
weight of its fury on the roof, for it sounded as if a whole stack of
chimney-pots had fallen.
"It's a squall,"--said the girl--"Father said there was a storm coming.
It often blows pretty hard up this way."
She went out, and left Helmsley to himself. He ate his meal, and fed
Charlie with as much bread and milk as that canine epicure could
consume,--and then sat for a while, listening to the curious hissing of
the wind, which was like a suppressed angry whisper in his ears.
"It will be rough weather,"--he thought--"Now shall I stay in Minehead,
or go on?"
Somehow, his experience of vagabondage had bred in him a certain
restlessness, and he did not care to linger in any one place. An
inexplicable force urged him on. He was conscious that he entertained a
most foolish, most forlorn secret hope,--that of finding some yet
unknown consolation,--of receiving some yet unobtained heavenly
benediction. And he repeated again the lines:--
"Let the sweet heavens endure,
Not close and darken above me,
Before I am quite, quite sure
That there is one to love me!"
Surely a Divine Providence there was who could read his heart's desire,
and who could see how sincerely in earnest he was to find some channel
wherein the current of his accumulated wealth might flow after his own
death, to fruitfulness and blessing for those who truly deserved it.
"Is it so much to ask of destiny--just one honest heart?" he inwardly
demanded--"Is it so large a return to want from the world in which I
have toiled so long--just one unselfish love? People would tell me I am
too old to expect such a thing,--but I am not seeking the love of a
lover,--that I know is impossible. But Love,--that most god-like of all
emotions, has many phases, and a merely sexual attraction is the least
and worst part of the divine passion. There is a higher form,--one far
more lasting and perfect, in which Self has very little part,--and
though I cannot give it a name, I am certain of its existence!"
Another gust of wind, more furious than the last, whistled overhead and
through the crannies of the door. He rose, and tucking Charlie warmly
under his coat as before, he went out, pausing on his way to thank the
mistress of the little bakery for the excellent meal he had enjoyed.
"Well, you won't hurt on it," she said, smilingly; "it's plain, but it's
wholesome. That's all we claim for it. Are you going on far?"
"Yes, I'm bound for a pretty long tramp,"--he replied. "I'm walking to
find friends in Cornwall."
She opened her eyes in unfeigned wonder and compassion.
"Deary me!" she ejaculated--"You've a stiff road before you. And to-day
I'm afraid you'll be in for a storm."
He glanced out through the shop-window.
"It's not raining,"--he said.
"Not yet,--but it's blowing hard,"--she replied--"And it's like to blow
harder."
"Never mind, I must risk it!" And he lifted his cap; "Good-day!"
"Good-day! A safe journey to you!"
"Thank you!"
And, gratefully acknowledging the kindly woman's parting nod and smile,
he stepped out of the shop into the street. There he found the wind had
risen indeed. Showers of blinding dust were circling in the air,
blotting out the view,--the sky was covered with masses of murky cloud
drifting against each other in threatening confusion--and there was a
dashing sound of the sea on the beach which seemed to be steadily
increasing in volume and intensity. He paused for a moment under the
shelter of an arched doorway, to place Charlie more comfortably under
his arm and button his coat more securely, the while he watched the
people in the principal thoroughfare struggling with the capricious
attacks of the blast, which tore their hats off and sent them spinning
across the road, and played mischievous havoc with women's skirts,
blowing them up to the knees, and making a great exhibition of feet, few
of which were worth looking at from any point of beauty or fitness. And
then, all at once, amid the whirling of the gale, he heard a hoarse
stentorian shouting--"Awful Murder! Local Crime! Murder of a Nobleman!
Murder at Blue Anchor! Latest details!" and he started precipitately
forward, walking hurriedly along with as much nervous horror as though
he had been guiltily concerned in the deed with which the town was
ringing. Two or three boys ran past him, with printed placards in their
hands, which they waved in front of them, and on which in thick black
letters could be seen:--"Murder of Lord Wrotham! Death of the Murderer!
Appalling Tragedy at Blue Anchor!" And, for a few seconds, amid the
confusion caused by the wind, and the wild clamour of the news-vendors,
he felt as if every one were reeling pell-mell around him like persons
on a ship at sea,--men with hats blown off,--women and children running
aslant against the gale with hair streaming,--all eager to purchase the
first papers which contained the account of a tragedy, enacted, as it
were, at their very doors. Outside a little glass and china shop at the
top of a rather hilly street a group of workingmen were standing, with
the papers they had just bought in their hands, and Helmsley, as he
trudged by, with stooping figure and bent head set against the wind,
lingered near them a moment to hear them discuss the news.
"Ah, poor Tom!" exclaimed one--"Gone at last! I mind me well how he used
to say he'd die a bad death!"
"What's a bad death?" queried another, gruffly--"And what's the truth
about this here business anyhow? Newspapers is allus full o' lies.
There's a lot about a lord that's killed, but precious little about
Tom!"
"That's so!" said an old farmer, who with spectacles on was leaning his
back against the wall of the shop near which they stood, to shelter
himself a little from the force of the gale, while he read the paper he
held--"See here,--this lord was driving his motor along by Cleeve, and
ran over Tom's child,--why, that's the poor Kiddie we used to see Tom
carrying for miles on his shoulder----"
"Ah, the poor lamb!" And a commiserating groan ran through the little
group of attentive listeners.
"And then,"--continued the farmer--"from what I can make out of this
paper, Tom picked up his baby quite dead. Then he started to run all the
way after the fellow whose motor car had killed it. That's nat'ral
enough!"
"Of course it is!" "I'd a' done it myself!" "Damn them motors!" muttered
the chorus, fiercely.
"If so be the motor 'ad gone on, Tom couldn't never 'ave caught up with
it, even if he'd run till he dropped," went on the farmer--"but as luck
would 'ave it, the thing broke down nigh to Blue Anchor, and Tom got his
chance. Which he took. And--he killed this Lord Wrotham, whoever he
is,--stuck him in the throat with a knife as though he were a pig!"
There was a moment's horrified silence.
"So he wor!" said one man, emphatically--"A right-down reg'lar
road-hog!"
"Then,"--proceeded the farmer, carefully studying the paper again--"Tom,
'avin' done all his best an' worst in this world, gives himself up to
the police, but just 'afore goin' off, asks if he may kiss his dead
baby,----"
A long pause here ensued. Tears stood in many of the men's eyes.
"And," continued the farmer, with a husky and trembling voice--"he takes
the child in his arms, an' all sudden like falls down dead. God rest
him!"
Another pause.
"And what does the paper say about it all?" enquired one of the group.
"It says--wait a minute!--it says--'Society will be plunged into
mourning for Lord Wrotham, who was one of the most promising of our
younger peers, and whose sporting tendencies made him a great favourite
in Court circles.'"
"That's a bit o' bunkum paid for by the fam'ly!" said a great hulking
drayman who had joined the little knot of bystanders, flicking his whip
as he spoke,--"Sassiety plunged into mourning for the death of a
precious raskill, is it? I 'xpect it's often got to mourn that way! Rort
an' rubbish! Tell ye what!--Tom o' the Gleam was worth a dozen o' your
motorin' lords!--an' the hull countryside through Quantocks, ay, an'
even across Exmoor, 'ull 'ave tears for 'im an' 'is pretty little Kiddie
what didn't do no 'arm to anybody more'n a lamb skippin' in the fields.
Tom worn't known in their blessed 'Court circles,'--but, by the
Lord!--he'd got a grip o' the people's heart about here, an' the people
don't forget their friends in a hurry! Who the devil cares for Lord
Wrotham!"
"Who indeed!" murmured the chorus.
"An' who'll say a bad word for Tom o' the Gleam?"
"Nobody!" "He wor a rare fine chap!" "We'll all miss him!" eagerly
answered the chorus.
With a curious gesture, half of grief, half of defiance, the drayman
tore a scrap of black lining from his coat, and tied it to his whip.
"Tom was pretty well known to be a terror to some folk,--specially liars
an' raskills,"--he said--"An' I aint excusin' murder. But all the same
I'm in mourning for Tom an' 'is little Kiddie, an' I don't care who
knows it!"
He went off, and the group dispersed, partly driven asunder by the
increasing fury of the wind, which was now sweeping through the streets
in strong, steady gusts, hurling everything before it. But Helmsley set
his face to the storm and toiled on. He must get out of Minehead. This
he felt to be imperative. He could not stay in a town which now for many
days would talk of nothing else but the tragic death of Tom o' the
Gleam. His nerves were shaken, and he felt himself to be mentally, as
well as physically, distressed by the strange chance which had
associated him against his will with such a grim drama of passion and
revenge. He remembered seeing the fateful motor swing down that
precipitous road near Cleeve,--he recalled its narrow escape from a
complete upset at the end of the declivity when it had swerved round the
corner and rushed on,--how little he had dreamed that a child's life had
just been torn away by its reckless wheels!--and that child the
all-in-the-world to Tom o' the Gleam! Tom must have tracked the motor by
following some side-lane or short cut known only to himself, otherwise
Helmsley thought he would hardly have escaped seeing him. But, in any
case, the slow and trudging movements of an old man must have lagged
far, far behind those of the strong, fleet-footed gypsy to whom the
wildest hills and dales, cliffs and sea caves were all familiar ground.
Like a voice from the grave, the reply Tom had given to Matt Peke at the
"Trusty Man," when Matt asked him where he had come from, rang back upon
his ears--"From the caves of Cornwall! From picking up drift on the
shore and tracking seals to their lair in the hollows of the rocks! All
sport, Matt! I live like a gentleman born, keeping or killing at my
pleasure!"
Shuddering at this recollection, Helmsley pressed on in the teeth of the
blast, and a sudden shower of rain scudded by, stinging him in the face
with the sharpness of needlepoints. The gale was so high, and the blown
dust so thick on all sides, that he could scarcely see where he was
going, but his chief effort was to get out of Minehead and away from all
contact with human beings--for the time. In this he succeeded very soon.
Once well beyond the town, he did not pause to make a choice of roads.
He only sought to avoid the coast line, rightly judging that way to lie
most open and exposed to the storm,--moreover the wind swooped in so
fiercely from the sea, and the rising waves made such a terrific
roaring, that, for the mere sake of greater quietness, he turned aside
and followed a path which appeared to lead invitingly into some deep
hollow of the hills. There seemed a slight chance of the weather
clearing at noon, for though the wind was so high, the clouds were
whitening under passing gleams of sunlight, and the scud of rain had
passed. As he walked further and further he found himself entering a
deep green valley--a cleft between high hills,--and though he had no
idea which way it led him, he was pleased to have reached a
comparatively sheltered spot where the force of the hurricane was not so
fiercely felt, and where the angry argument of the sea was deadened by
distance. There was a lovely perfume everywhere,--the dash of rain on
the herbs and field flowers had brought out their scent, and the
freshness of the stormy atmosphere was bracing and exhilarating. He put
Charlie down on the grass, and was amused to see how obediently the tiny
creature trotted after him, close at his heels, in the manner of a
well-trained, well-taught lady's favourite. There was no danger of
wheeled or motor traffic in this peaceful little glen, which appeared to
be used solely by pedestrians. He rather wondered now and then whither
it led, but was not very greatly concerned on the subject. What pleased
him most was that he did not see a single human being anywhere or a sign
of human habitation.
Presently the path began to ascend, and he followed it upward. The climb
became gradually steep and wearisome, and the track grew smaller, almost
vanishing altogether among masses of loose stones, which had rolled down
from the summits of the hills, and he had again to carry Charlie, who
very strenuously objected to the contact of sharp flints against his
dainty little feet. The boisterous wind now met him full-faced,--but,
struggling against it, he finally reached a wide plateau, commanding a
view of the surrounding country and the sea. Not a house was in
sight;--all around him extended a chain of hills, like a fortress set
against invading ocean,--and straight away before his eyes ocean itself
rose and fell in a chaos of billowy blackness. What a sight it was!
Here, from this point, he could take some measure and form some idea of
the storm, which so far from abating as he had imagined it might, when
passing through the protected seclusion of the valley he had just left,
was evidently gathering itself together for a still fiercer onslaught.
Breathless with his climbing exertions he stood watching the huge walls
of water, built up almost solidly as it seemed, by one force and dashed
down again by another,--it was as though great mountains lifted
themselves over each other to peer at the sky and were driven back again
to shapelessness and destruction. The spectacle was all the more grand
and impressive to him, because where he now was he could not hear the
full clamour of the rolling and retreating billows. The thunder of the
surf was diminished to a sullen moan, which came along with the wind and
clung to it like a concordant note in music, forming one sustained chord
of wrath and desolation. Darkening steadily over the sea and densely
over-spreading the whole sky, there were flying clouds of singular
shape,--clouds tossed up into the momentary similitude of Titanesque
human figures with threatening arms outstretched,--anon, to the filmly
outlines of fabulous birds swooping downwards with jagged wings and
ravenous beaks,--or twisting into columns and pyramids of vapour as
though the showers of foam flung up by the waves had been caught in
mid-air and suddenly frozen. Several sea-gulls were flying inland; two
or three soared right over Helmsley's head with a plaintive cry. He
turned to watch their graceful flight, and saw another phalanx of clouds
coming up behind to meet and cope with those already hurrying in with
the wind from the sea. The darkness of the sky was deepening every
minute, and he began to feel a little uneasy. He realised that he had
lost his way, and he looked on all sides for some glimpse of a main
road, but could see none, and the path he had followed evidently
terminated at the summit where he stood. To return to the valley he had
left seemed futile, as it was only a way back to Minehead, which place
he wished to avoid. There was a small sheep track winding down on the
other side of the hill, and he thought it possible that this might lead
to a farm-road, which again might take him out on some more direct
highway. He therefore started to follow it. He could scarcely walk
against the wind; it blew with such increasing fury. Charlie shivered
away from its fierce breath and snuggled his tiny body more warmly under
his protector's arm, withdrawing himself entirely from view. And now
with a sudden hissing whirl, down came the rain. The two opposing forces
of cloud met with a sudden rush, and emptied their pent-up torrents on
the earth, while a low muttering noise, not of the wind, betokened
thunder. The prolonged heat of the last month had been very great all
over the country, and a suppressed volcano was smouldering in the heart
of the heavens, ready to shoot forth fire. The roaring of the sea grew
more distinct as Helmsley descended from the height and came nearer to
the coast line,--and the mingled scream of the angry surf on the shore
and the sword-like sweep of the rain, rang in his ears deafeningly, with
a kind of monotonous horror. His head began to swim, and his eyes were
half blinded by the sharp showers that whipped his face with blown drops
as hard and cold as hail. On he went, however, more like a struggling
dreamer in a dream, than with actual consciousness,--and darker and
wilder grew the storm. A forked flash of lightning, running suddenly
like melted lava down the sky, flung half a second's lurid blue glare
athwart the deepening blackness,--and in less than two minutes it was
followed by the first decisive peal of thunder rolling in deep
reverberations from sea to land, from land to sea again. The war of the
elements had begun in earnest. Amid their increasing giant wrath,
Helmsley stumbled almost unseeingly along,--keeping his head down and
leaning more heavily than was his usual wont upon the stout ash stick
which was part of the workman's outfit he had purchased for himself in
Bristol, and which now served him as his best support. In the gathering
gloom, with his stooping thin figure, he looked more like a faded leaf
fluttering in the gale than a man, and he was beginning now to realise
with keen disappointment that his strength was not equal to the strain
he had been putting upon it. The weight of his seventy years was
pressing him down,--and a sudden thrill of nervous terror ran through
him lest his whim for wandering should cost him his life.
"And if I were to die of exhaustion out here on the hills, what would be
said of me?" he thought--"They would find my body--perhaps--after some
days;--they would discover the money I carry in my vest lining, and a
letter to Vesey which would declare my actual identity. Then I should be
called a fool or a madman--most probably the latter. No one would
know,--no one would guess--except Vesey--the real object with which I
started on this wild goose chase after the impossible. It is a foolish
quest! Perhaps after all I had better give it up, and return to the old
wearisome life of luxury,--the old ways!--and die in my bed in the usual
'respectable' style of the rich, with expensive doctors, nurses and
medicines set in order round me, and all arrangements getting ready for
a 'first-class funeral'!"
He laughed drearily. Another flash of lightning, followed almost
instantaneously by a terrific crash of thunder, brought him to a pause.
He was now at the bottom of the hill which he had ascended from the
other side, and perceived a distinct and well-trodden path which
appeared to lead in a circuitous direction towards the sea. Here there
seemed some chance of getting out of the labyrinth of hills into which
he had incautiously wandered, and, summoning up his scattered forces, he
pressed on. The path proved to be an interminable winding way,--first
up--then down,--now showing glimpses of the raging ocean, now dipping
over bare and desolate lengths of land,--and presently it turned
abruptly into a deep thicket of trees. Drenched with rain and tired of
fighting against the boisterous wind which almost tore his breath away,
he entered this dark wood with a vague sense of relief,--it offered some
sort of shelter, and if the trees attracted the lightning and he were
struck dead beneath them, what did it matter after all! One way of dying
was as good (or as bad) as another!
The over-arching boughs dripping with wet, closed over him and drew him,
as it were, into their dense shadows,--the wind shrieked after him like
a scolding fury, but its raging tone grew softer as he penetrated more
deeply into the sable-green depths of heavily foliaged solitude. His
weary feet trod gratefully on a thick carpet of pine needles and masses
of the last year's fallen leaves,--and a strong sweet scent of mingled
elderflower and sweetbriar was tossed to him on every gust of rain. Here
the storm turned itself to music and revelled in a glorious symphony of
sound.
"Oh ye Winds of God, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for
ever!
"Oh ye Lightnings and Clouds, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify
Him for ever!"
In full chords of passionate praise the hurricane swept its grand anthem
through the rustling, swaying trees, as though these were the strings of
a giant harp on which some great Archangel played,--and the dash and
roar of the sea came with it, rolling in the track of another mighty
peal of thunder. Helmsley stopped and listened, seized by an
overpowering enchantment and awe.
"This--this is Life!" he said, half aloud--"Our miserable human
vanities--our petty schemes--our poor ambitions--what are they? Motes in
a sunbeam!--gone as soon as realised! But Life,--the deep,
self-contained divine Life of Nature--this is the only life that lives
for ever, the Immortality of which we are a part!"
A fierce gust of wind here snapped asunder a great branch from a tree,
and flung it straight across his path. Had he been a few inches nearer,
it would have probably struck him down with it. Charlie peeped out from
under his arm with a pitiful little whimper, and Helmsley's heart smote
him.
"Poor wee Charlie!" he said, fondling the tiny head; "I know what you
would say to me! You would say that if I want to risk my own life, I
needn't risk yours! Is that it? Well!--I'll try to get you out of this
if I can! I wish I I could see some sign of a house anywhere! I'd make
for it and ask for shelter."
He trudged patiently onwards,--but he was beginning to feel unsteady in
his limbs,--and every now and then he had to stop, overcome by a
sickening sensation of giddiness. The tempest had now fully developed
into a heavy thunderstorm, and the lightning quivered and gleamed
through the trees incessantly, followed by huge claps of thunder which
clashed down without a second's warning, afterwards rolling away in long
thudding detonations echoing for miles and miles. It was difficult to
walk at all in such a storm,--the youngest and strongest pedestrian
might have given way under the combined onslaught of rain, wind, and the
pattering shower of leaves which were literally torn, fresh and green,
from their parent boughs and cast forth to whirl confusedly amid the
troubled spaces of the air. And if the young and strong would have found
it hard to brave such an uproar of the elements, how much harder was it
for an old man, who, deeming himself stronger than he actually was, and
buoyed up by sheer nerve and mental obstinacy, had, of his own choice,
brought himself into this needless plight and danger. For now, in utter
weariness of body and spirit, Helmsley began to reproach himself
bitterly for his rashness. A mere caprice of the imagination,--a fancy
that, perhaps, among the poor and lowly he might find a love or a
friendship he had never met with among the rich and powerful, was all
that had led him forth on this strange journey of which the end could
but be disappointment and failure;--and at the present moment he felt so
thoroughly conscious of his own folly, that he almost resolved on
abandoning his enterprise as soon as he found himself once more on the
main road.
"I will take the first vehicle that comes by,"--he said, "and make for
the nearest railway station. And I'll end my days with a character for
being 'hard as nails!'--that's the only way in which one can win the
respectful consideration of one's fellows as a thoroughly 'sane and
sensible' man!"
Just then, the path he was following started sharply up a steep
acclivity, and there was no other choice left to him but still to
continue in it, as the trees were closing in blindly intricate tangles
about him, and the brushwood was becoming so thick that he could not
have possibly forced a passage through it. His footing grew more
difficult, for now, instead of soft pine-needles and leaves to tread
upon, there were only loose stones, and the rain was blowing in downward
squalls that almost by their very fury threw him backward on the ground.
Up, still up, he went, however, panting painfully as he climbed,--his
breath was short and uneasy--and all his body ached and shivered as with
strong ague. At last,--dizzy and half fainting,--he arrived at the top
of the tedious and troublesome ascent, and uttered an involuntary cry at
the scene of beauty and grandeur stretched in front of him. How far he
had walked he had no idea,--nor did he know how many hours he had taken
in walking,--but he had somehow found his way to the summit of a rocky
wooded height, from which he could survey the whole troubled expanse of
wild sky and wilder sea,--while just below him the hills were split
asunder into a huge cleft, or "coombe," running straight down to the
very lip of ocean, with rampant foliage hanging about it on either side
in lavish garlands of green, and big boulders piled up about it, from
whose smooth surfaces the rain swept off in sleety sheets, leaving them
shining like polished silver. What a wild Paradise was here
disclosed!--what a matchless picture, called into shape and colour with
all the forceful ease and perfection of Nature's handiwork! No glimpse
of human habitation was anywhere visible; man seemed to have found no
dwelling here; there was nothing--nothing, but Earth the Beautiful, and
her Lover the Sea! Over these twain the lightnings leaped, and the
thunder played in the sanctuary of heaven,--this hour of storm was all
their own, and humanity was no more counted in their passionate
intermingling of life than the insects on a leaf, or the grains of sand
on the shore. For a moment or two Helmsley's eyes, straining and dim,
gazed out on the marvellously bewitching landscape thus suddenly
unrolled before him,--then all at once a sharp pain running through his
heart caused him to flinch and tremble. It was a keen stab of anguish,
as though a knife had been plunged into his body.
"My God!" he muttered--"What--what is this?"
Walking feebly to a great stone hard by, he sat down upon it, breathing
with difficulty. The rain beat full upon him, but he did not heed it; he
sought to recover from the shock of that horrible pain,--to overcome the
creeping sick sensation of numbness which seemed to be slowly freezing
him to death. With a violent effort he tried to shake the illness
off;--he looked up at the sky--and was met by a blinding flash which
tore the clouds asunder and revealed a white blaze of palpitating fire
in the centre of the blackness--and at this he made some inarticulate
sound, putting both his hands before his face to hide the angry mass of
flame. In so doing he let the little Charlie escape, who, finding
himself out of his warm shelter and on the wet grass, stood amazed, and
shivering pitifully under the torrents of rain. But Helmsley was not
conscious of his canine friend's distress. Another pang, cruel and
prolonged, convulsed him,--a blood-red mist swam before his eyes, and he
lost all hold on sense and memory. With a dull groan he fell forward,
slipping from the stone on which he had been seated, in a helpless heap
on the ground,--involuntarily he threw up his arms as a drowning man
might do among great waves overwhelming him,--and so went
down--down!--into silence and unconsciousness.