I
The twisting path through Briony Wood had never been traveled at such
a speedy pace before. Walden Slater, carrying Deborah in his arms
much as he might carry a small baby, maintained his dog-trot over the
hummocky path, through puddles, across deceptive roots. As Dreeme,
close behind him, running, too, in his bare feet, observed the square
back of the farmer, a back against which the water-soaked shirt clung
tightly and so revealed the contours of the great sliding back-muscles
much as a skin might, a feeling of wonder and intense indebtedness
crept over him. He had never known Walden Slater but now he knew him,
knew him for a determined and relentless machine bent on justice. He
had seen him in previous years bowed by the killing toil of his stony
acres, eating gluttonously at table, sagging in his creaking rocker on
the back porch, always silent, always (now that he came to think of
it) self-contained. The young doctor’s mind swept back over the past
few days. Walden Slater eating cabbage. Walden Slater rocking in the
darkness. Walden Slater finding words with difficulty, announcing that
Deborah might stay with him as long as she pleased. Dreeme knew now
that this statement was a secret challenge to Westcott and Burroughs.
Walden Slater whittling on the back porch, asking the preacher for
a knife. The knife was dull. How easily he had achieved this bit of
detective acumen. Walden Slater thinking, reaching conclusions in that
slow dogged mind that was, after all, so far from stupidity. Walden
Slater watching night after night, keeping guard under the bright moon.
Walden Slater like an enormous hound on the scent. Walden Slater rising
like justice with the smoking gun in his hand. The figure of the farmer
grew to colossal dimensions in the young doctor’s estimation.
All this while they were hurrying through Briony Wood, hurrying through
trees that were no longer malevolent spectres of a diseased fancy but
merely slender birches and pines. Though the branches whipped across
his face, though he stumbled into muddy hollows, though sharp thorns
tore at his soiled and soaking garments, Dreeme no longer experienced
that instinctive fear that had haunted him so short a time before.
His body was emptied of fright. It was almost emptied of exertion as
well for a growing hollowness within him, a tightening at the pit
of his stomach, a painful numbness in his legs informed him that
he was approaching the end of his endurance. Still, an implacable
nervous energy pushed him forward, a febrile comprehension of one
more important thing to be done. He knew what it was but he did not
permit his mind to dwell upon it too fiercely. After all, what had he
to do with the peculiar ideas of justice in the valley. He had seen
what could be accomplished by established authority during the day
following the murder of Wagner. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. There had
been evasion, then, a deliberate slowness, a maddening deflection of
proper proceedings. But this time it would be different. Justice would
secure its own and would even the balance. He hurried on at the heels
of Walden Slater serious but determined. He could see the loose hair of
Deborah resting against the stout shoulder of the farmer and the sight
of it filled him with a vast pity. It would be justice accomplished for
her sake so far as he was concerned. She, the innocent victim, would
be furiously avenged. Walden Slater might have the future of the whole
valley in his thoughts, its complete release from an evil domination,
but the safety of Deborah was enough for him to think about. There was
only one way in which to fight madness.
They were at the height of Briony Wood now and the soughing wind was a
cold lance against their faces. It was remarkable how swiftly they had
proceeded on their return journey. The way to Dagon had seemed much
longer. As they pressed forward the heavens seemed to split apart like
two halves of a dark shell and out of the break sprang the moon like
a great white seed. A milky light flooded the black shining leaves
and the tall thin tree-trunks. It was like a miracle, a glittering
phenomenon that translated the dripping environment into a place
of mingled silver and tossed diamonds. There had been a moon like
this when he had held Deborah’s slight figure close against him and
understood that she was an absolute part of his life. He had walked
home that night from Humphrey Lathrop’s cottage and phantoms had
walked on either side of him. One of them had said: “I had a very good
lawyer, Mr. Stopes.” He had forgotten what the other phantom said. It
did not exist any longer. It had been a world of glittering jewelry.
It was marvelous, the way in which the earth changed. It was the slave
of imagination, the willing Genie that brought whatsoever the dreamer
desired. Though he was surrounded by trees and following a path that
permitted no view of the country on either side he yet experienced the
sensation that he was on a sort of Mount of Vision, that everything was
being made clear to him here without words, that the answers to all
he had been asking were in the sparkling moonlight and among the dark
wet green leaves of the trees. He felt immeasurably grown in spiritual
dimensions, enlarged so that he might contain all the love and wonder
that abounded in the world. The uneven stones cut his feet but he was
oblivious of them. Malicious branches lashed across his face like small
whips but he laughed to himself as he thrust them aside. It was all
right now.
The path turned and slanted downward and he understood that they were
on the final stretch that led into Jeffrey Westcott’s land. The name
sprang back into his intelligence ominously and his lips tightened at
the thought. There was still justice to be accomplished. Glancing back,
he wondered vaguely what had become of the score of farmers who had
gathered about the Devil Stone in that hollow which he should never see
again. What justice could there be for those deluded men? He strove
to remember what had actually happened but all he could recollect was
the report of a gun, the log-like fall of Burroughs, and his own mad
rush when he had snatched Deborah up from the stone and darted into
the bushes with her. A vague idea of scattered running forms lingered
in the back of his consciousness but he could not verify it by any
reasoning. Had those men fled into the swamp or were they now slowly
returning along the path which Walden Slater and he had followed?
Were they, even now, lurking among the trees to the rearward of him,
watching him with fanatic eyes, planning among themselves some secret
onslaught? He could not tell and he did not care. He knew that the
head of the serpent had been crushed in the Reverend George Burroughs
and that the heart of the serpent would be stilled when justice was
accomplished on Jeffrey Westcott. After that, the blind body could
do what it desired. He understood that the frenzied farmers had been
controlled by a malicious power of will and that when that will was
destroyed there would be, as Walden Slater had said, “Nothing to fight
about.” Comforted by this thought, he plodded on, Walden Slater’s
dog-trot having dwindled to a fast walk on the downward grade.
The last stretch of woods passed swiftly and as the path turned and
they faced the thinning trees Dreeme became aware of a reddish glow
that lit up the heavens before him. It was not the light of the moon
for that great white miracle hung directly above his head in the wide
cleft of the split storm-cloud. It was something else, something
that glowed upward from the ground, and as they burst through the
final fringe of bushes into Westcott’s back meadow, he saw that the
mysterious farm-house was a mass of high leaping flames. At the same
instant Walden Slater started forward in a run and the young doctor,
accelerating his pace, followed closely at his heels. As he ran his
mind automatically snapped back to a lighted lamp with a protector and
a flying end of curtain that ever blew closer and closer to that lamp.
Had they put that lamp out? He knew that they had done nothing of the
sort, that, in their hurry, they had left it burning just as they had
left the window open regardless of the wind that puffed the curtain
inward. His first thought was one of relief that the farm-house, a
hive of malevolence, was burning up with its books, its sacrilegious
altar, and its memories. The lair of the serpent was destroyed. Then
he remembered the purpose that brought them back here. Where would
Jeffrey Westcott be? Would he hide in the swamp while his years of
evil knowledge went up in thick smoke and spurting flame? Walden Slater
shifted Deborah from one shoulder to the other and ran all the faster.