That highest hope, long abandoned, should thus suddenly return within his
reach, staggered John Aggett, and went far to upset the man’s mental
equilibrium. Indeed, it had been but a little exaggeration to describe
his mind as, for the time, unhinged. The splendour of his changed
position dazed him. Joy and bewilderment strove for mastery, and from a
medley of poignant sensations was bred the passionate desire of
possession, and a wild hunger to secure for his own what had been
withheld so long.
Sarah Belworthy, for her part, experienced great turbulence of
conflicting fears. Her mind was fixed, yet had something in it of
absolute terror, as she reflected upon the recent interview. She had
offered herself to him as a sudden inspiration; and now, retracing that
fevered scene, John Aggett’s frenzy of demeanour alarmed her much, for it
was a revelation of the man she had not encountered until then.
Presently an answer came to her puzzled mind—a solution of a sort that
made the blood surge hotly to Sarah’s face. Could it be that she had
offered herself where she was wanted no more? Had John’s chivalry alone
been responsible for his ready undertaking to receive her back? She
nearly screamed in the silence of her little chamber at this thought; she
desisted from her labour of preparation and flung herself upon her bed in
secret shame. But reason quickly banished the fear. She remembered the
man’s intoxication of joy, his delirious thanksgiving. She felt her
bosom sore where he had hugged her to himself and praised the God of
Justice. Next she retraced his subsequent display of passion, his
extravagant utterances and threats. She realized very fully that he held
the pending crisis as one of vital magnitude and knew that he was strung
to a pitch far beyond any that previous experience of him had exhibited
or revealed to her. She determined to give him no cause for further
excitement and so returned to her work, wondering the while what this
ingredient of fear might be that had entered into her emotions concerning
him.
Anon her thoughts passed to the other man, and the last struggle began.
For his own salvation she was leaving him, but with natural human
weakness she much desired that he should know of her great sacrifice in
the time to come. That Timothy should pursue his life in ignorance of
the truth after she had departed was a terrible thought to Sarah; but,
since to see him again appeared out of the question, there remained a
possibility that he would deem her faithless and worthless to the end.
She knelt and prayed that the nature of the thing she had done might be
revealed to him in fulness of time; and then her mind grew active in
another direction and she marvelled why she had thrown herself back into
her first lover’s arms and not taken his advice to remain free of both.
Her feelings toward Aggett eluded all possibility of analysis or
understanding. She fled from them to the task of setting her small
possessions in order and packing her basket for the forthcoming
departure.
Sarah could not write, and she was unable therefore to leave any message
for her parents. Their anxiety must endure for the space of a day and
night, but might then be allayed. She pictured herself dictating a
letter to the scrivener at Ashburton, and wondered what she should put in
it.
As the time approached and the day died, the vision of Timothy grew
clearer and more clear. She saw his grief and indignation, his sorrow
and dismay; she knew every line in his face which would contract, every
furrow that would be deepened, at this event; and she speculated drearily
upon his course of action and shivered at the possibility of a meeting
between the men. Her distraction did not obscure the drift of John’s
last words, or blind her to the importance of keeping tryst at the beech,
for he had made it clear that some disaster must overtake them if she
delayed her coming beyond the rising of the moon. It wanted twenty
minutes to eight when Sarah started to meet the partner of her future
life; and as her destination was only a short half-mile distant, she
allowed ample time to reach it.
Meantime Aggett had passed down the hill five minutes sooner. It was a
night of broken clouds. Rapid motion in the direction of the zenith
seemed imparted to the stars, as scattered vapour, driven before a light
northwesterly breeze, passed across them. With ascending movement, the
moon would presently mount a silvery stairway of clouds and pass swimming
upward across one scattered tract of darkness to the next. The nocturnal
world beneath was full of soft light and sweet spring scent. Nature’s
busy fingers moved about those duties men see not in the act. From
umbels of infant chestnut leaves she drew the sheaths, loosed the folds
of primroses and wood anemones, opened the little olive-coloured buds of
the woodbine’s foliage, liberated the chrysoprase spears of the wild
arums from the dry earth. A fern owl whirred and wheeled about a
blackthorn tree that stood alone near Aggett’s cottage door. Green
leaves now clothed it, where a few weeks earlier blossoms had made the
tree snow white. The spring green of field and forest and hedgerow
looked wan under the increasing light of the eastern horizon; valleyward
a mist, born of recent rain, wound sinuously and shimmered opalescent,
while above all loomed a background of night-hidden Moor. Viewed at this
distance the waste returned no spark or twinkle from the sky, but
extended, darkly and gigantically, along the horizon and made the upper
chambers of the air shine out the brighter for its own dimensionless
obscurity.
John Aggett passed from the embrace of the night wind into the denser
atmosphere of the woods beneath. A stream brawled beside him and ran
before the cottage of the Belworthys. Here he dawdled a moment, half in
hope to meet Sarah; but he felt confident that she was in reality before
him and would be waiting ere now at the beech. Proceeding downward, he
passed a young man leaning against a gate. The youth stood quite
motionless, and over his shoulder Aggett observed widespreading
grass-lands. Upon the expanse of dim green, parallel bars of faint light
between equal tracts of gloom indicated that a roller had been passed
regularly over the field to better its promise of future hay.
The man turned, and John, knowing the other for Timothy Chave, guessed
that he awaited a companion. Instant rage set his blood racing; the
veins in his neck and forehead bulged; the muscles of hand and arm
hardened, but he kept in shadow and passed upon the farther side of the
road where the stream ran. Timothy said “good night” in the voice of one
who does not recognise him to whom he speaks; but Aggett returned no
answer and, satisfied that he had not been recognised, soon passed out of
earshot. His mind was now darker than the shadows of the pine trees,
fuller of brooding whispers than their inky tops; but he fought against
foreboding with the full strength of his will, set presentiment of evil
behind him, and lifted his voice and spoke aloud to cheer himself.
“Her’ll be down-along; her’ll surely be down-along, dear heart, waitin’
for me. She knows nought about the chap standin’ theer. It can’t be.
She’m strong set to follow, for ’tis the road of her own choosin’.”
He proceeded to the spot where Sarah had first promised herself to him.
The beech bole shone ghost grey; as yet no copper-coloured bud-spike had
opened and aloft the thickening traceries, still spotted by a few
seed-cases of last year’s mast, shewed in wonderful black lace-work
against the silver sky. Sarah Belworthy was not visible, and Aggett felt
a mighty dread tightening at his stomach, like hands. He threw down his
bundle and stick. Then he listened awhile, only to hear the jolt and
grind of a wood-sledge proceeding down the hill. He looked about him,
calculated that it yet wanted ten minutes to moon-rise, then struck a
light with a flint, puffed it into flame and sought idly for the initials
and lover’s knot that he had set upon the beech. His work had suffered
little since its first completion; but now it vanished, for, upon some
sudden whim, the man fetched out his knife, obliterated the inscription
with a few heavy gashes, pared all away, and left nothing but a raw white
blaze upon the bark. His own downcast condition puzzled him. Now,
albeit within five minutes of his triumph, now, while each moment was
surely bringing Sarah to him on tripping feet, he grew more morose and
ill at ease. It was the thought of the other standing at the gate. Once
more John talked to himself aloud to cheer his spirit. “Curse the
fule—standin’ so stark as a mommet{100} to fright pixies. Her won’t stop
for him—never. Her’ll come; her’s promised.”
He repeated the words over and over again like a parrot; but a voice,
loud as his own, answered him and mocked him out of the darkness. His
life and its futility reeled before him, like phantasmagoria upon the
night. He stamped and swore to disturb the visions; but as he waited and
listened for Sarah’s coming, the past took visible shape again and
summoned pictures of days gone by, when he went wool-gathering with
little Sally on the Moor. No sound broke the silence, no footfall
gladdened his heart. And then there floated out the moon over the black
billows of the horizon. Very slowly its silver ascended into the sky and
rained splendour upon the nocturnal earth. The hour of moon-rise was
numbered with time past and the world rolled on.
Great floods of passion drowned the man. He flung himself upon the earth
and beat the young green things with his clenched hands. The smell of
bruised primroses touched his nostrils and in the spirit he saw Sarah
Belworthy again bearing a great nosegay of them. She moved beside him
through a bygone April; her laugh made music through the spring woods;
her lips were very red; and round her girl’s throat hung a little
necklace of hedge-sparrow’s eggs, blue as the vernal sky.
Aggett arose, rubbed the earth from his knuckles and began to tighten the
thong he wore about his waist. But the leather under his hands suddenly
challenged his mind, and he took off the belt and examined it.
“Her never loved me—never—never,” he said to the night. “To leave me
arter what I said—to leave me now knowin’—’Tis enough. I be tired—I be
weary of the whole earth. Her lied to me through it all; but I won’t lie
to she.”
He flung down the belt, then picked it up again and removed a little bag
that was fastened to it and contained a few shillings in silver. This he
placed beside his bundle. Then he flung the long snaky coil of the
girdle upon the ground and stood staring at it.
Elsewhere, Sarah, hastening down the hill five minutes after John had
noted Timothy at the gate of the hayfield, similarly saw and recognised
him. His presence reminded her of a fact entirely forgotten during the
recent storm and stress. He was there by appointment and eager to hear
the first rustle of his sweetheart’s approach. Now her heart flogged at
her breast and she felt her knees weaken. But she kept steadily on with
averted face and instinct quick to find concealment in every shadow. She
drew her hood about her and walked upon the grass by the wayside.
The man heard and turned, waking from a reverie. He saw his sweetheart
even as she passed him by.
“Sally! It is Sally!” he cried.
She did not answer, though his voice shook her to the well-springs of her
life; and he, supposing that she was about some lover’s pretty folly,
laughed joyously and came after her. Then she hastened the more, and he
did likewise.
“A starlight chase! So be it, sweetheart; but you’ll have to pay a heavy
penalty when I catch you!”
Still she could not speak; then, perceiving that he must speedily
overtake her, she found her tongue.
“For Christ’s sake, doan’t ’e follow me! ’Tis life—life an’ death.
Ban’t no time for play. Turn back, Tim, turn back if you ever loved me.”
Her tone alarmed him and he hesitated a moment, then came steadily on
again, calling to Sarah to stop.
“Tell me what’s amiss—quick—quick, dear one! Who should help you in the
whole world but your Tim?”
Now her quick brains had devised a means of possible escape. The stream
that ran by the road here passed immediately under a high hazel hedge,
and the bank had been torn down by cattle at one point. Upon the other
side of this gap extended a narrow meadow at the fringe of young coppice
woods. Once within this shelter Sarah felt she might be safe. But there
was not a moment to lose, for Tim had now approached within fifteen yards
of her. A thousand thoughts hastened through the girl’s mind in those
fleeting moments, and not the least was one of indignation against her
pursuer. She had bid him stay in the name of Christ, yet he paid no
heed, but blundered on, dead to consequences, ignorant of the awful evil
for which he might be responsible if he restrained her. To leap the
stream was Sarah’s first task—a feat trifling by day, but not so easy now
that night had sucked detail from the scene and banished every particular
of the brook’s rough course. Here its waters chattered invisible; here
they dipped under young grasses and forget-me-nots; here twinkled out
only to vanish again, engulfed by great shadows. The girl sped upon her
uneven way, marked the gap ahead and in her haste, mistaking for light a
grey stone immediately before her at a little bend in the stream, leapt
forward, struck her feet against granite, and, falling, spread her hands
to save herself. But, despite this action, her forehead came violently
against the stone and her left foot suffered still more severely. She
struggled to recover and rise, while her basket tumbled into the stream,
scattering small, precious possessions on the water. With a desperate
effort Sarah actually regained her feet, but only to lose consciousness
and be caught up in Tim Chave’s arms as she fell again.
Then it was her pursuer’s turn to suffer; though rapid action relieved
him of some anxiety and occupied his mind. The place was very lonely,
the girl apparently dead. For half an hour he sought to revive her; then
she opened her eyes and lifted them to the moon; and by slow stages of
broken thoughts took up the thread of her life again.
“Thank God—thank God, my darling! If you only knew what I have endured!
I thought you had killed yourself and the terror of it has made me grow
old. What, in Heaven’s name, were you doing to run from me like that?”
She put up one hand to her head and uttered a shivering sigh, but as yet
lacked the power to speak. Beneath her hair was a terrible bruise, and
she felt that something stabbed her eyes and made them flash red fiery
rings into the cold silver of the moonlight.
“Speak,” he said, “just one little word, my treasure—just one word, so
that I may know my life has come back to me.”
Then she spoke, slowly at first, with increased speed as her memory
regained clearness.
“No—no—no. Not to Tim—not back to Tim. I remember. I fell running away
from ’e. You sinned a gert sin to come arter me when I bade ’e in
Christ’s name to let me abide. Help me now—now ’fore ’tis to late. ’Tis
the least you can do an’ theer’s a man’s life hanging to it for all I
know. Say nothin’; ax nothin’; help me—help me quick to go to un.”
“To whom, Sarah? You’re dreaming, lovey. Who should I take you to—your
father? But I’m here—Timothy—an’ thank God I was. What frightened you
so? Like a moonbeam you went and nearly broke your neck and my heart
together—‘pon my honour you did.”
“Help me,” she said. “Give over talkin’, for it ban’t the time. You’ll
know how ’twas some day. I’ve prayed solemn as you should know. Let me
go down-along quick—quicker’n lightning—or it may be too late. Wheer’s
my basket gone? I had a li’l basket. An’ allus b’lieve I loved
’e—b’lieve it to the end of the world.”
“As if I ever doubted it! Now let me carry you right home, my little
wounded bird. The sooner the better.”
“No, I tell ’e. Help me to my feet—now this instant minute, if you
doan’t want me to go mad! Theer’s things hid—terrible things! I must
go. He won’t wait for me; he swore it. Down to the gert beech he
bides—Jan—Jan Aggett! Oh, help me, my own love; help me, Tim, for my
body’s weak an’ I can’t rise up without ’e.”
“To him—help you to him!”
“I mean it. I can’t tell you nothin’. For the love of the Lard, doan’t
talk no more. Oh, if I thwart un!”
She struggled desperately, like a trapped animal that sees dog or man
approaching; and he helped her to stand, though now he scarcely knew what
he did. Then the pang of a dislocated bone in her foot pierced the girl
and she cried aloud and sank back breathless and faint with pain.
“I can’t go to un, so you must. Hasten, hasten, if ever you loved me,
an’ mend the gert wrong you’ve done by bringing me to this. Speed down
to the beech at the corner o’ the woods an’ tell Jan Aggett what have
fallen out. Never mind me; my foot ban’t no account; but Jan—him—tell un
I’m here against my will. Shout aloud through the peace o’ the night as
you’m coming to un from me.”
Still he hesitated until her voice rose in a high-pitched shriek of
impatience and she tore her hair and beat her breast. Then he departed
and even ran as she screamed to him to go faster.
Once fairly started, Timothy made the best of his way to Postbridge for a
doctor and man’s aid to carry Sarah to her home. At the dripping well
beside the stile he stopped a moment and shouted his rival’s name till
the woods echoed; but no answer came and he ran on, gasping, to the
village.
Fifteen minutes later Timothy returned to the hill with a medical man and
two labourers. Investigation proved that Sarah Belworthy had not been
very gravely injured, though her mind was evidently suffering from some
serious shock. She asked for Aggett on Tim’s return and, being assured
that he had left the beech tree before her messenger reached it, she
relapsed into silence. Soon the slight dislocation in her foot was
reduced and she lay in comfort on the pallet that she had thought to
press no more.