A COLLISION.
And now came a dreary time of re-action. There seemed nothing left for
me to do, and I felt listless and weary. Something kept urging me to
get away and hide myself, and I soon made up my mind to yield to the
impulse and go abroad. My intention was to avoid cities, and, wandering
from village to village, lay my soul bare to the healing influences of
nature. As to any healing in the power of Time, I despised the old
bald-pate as a quack who performed his seeming cures at the expense of
the whole body. The better cures attributed to him are not his at all,
but produced by the operative causes whose servant he is. A thousand
holy balms require his services for their full action, but they, and
not he, are the saving powers. Along with Time I ranked, and with
absolute hatred shrunk from--all those means which offered to cure me
by making me forget. From a child I had a horror of forgetting; it
always seemed to me like a loss of being, like a hollow scooped out of
my very existence--almost like the loss of identity. At times I even
shrunk from going to sleep, so much did it seem like yielding to an
absolute death--a death so deep that the visible death is but a picture
or type of it. If I could have been sure of dreaming, it would have
been different, but in the uncertainty it seemed like consenting to
nothingness. That one who thus felt should ever have been tempted to
suicide, will reveal how painful if not valueless his thoughts and
feelings--his conscious life--must have grown to him; and that the only
thing which withheld him from it should be the fear that no death, but
a more intense life might be the result, will reveal it yet more
clearly. That in that sleep I might at least dream--there was the rub.
All such relief, in a word, as might come of a lowering of my life,
either physically, morally, or spiritually, I hated, detested,
despised. The man who finds solace for a wounded heart in
self-indulgence may indeed be _capable_ of angelic virtues, but in the
mean time his conduct is that of the devils who went into the swine
rather than be bodiless. The man who can thus be consoled for the loss
of a woman could never have been worthy of her, possibly would not have
remained true to her beyond the first delights of possession. The
relief to which I could open my door must be such alone as would
operate through the enlarging and elevating of what I recognized as
_myself_. Whatever would make me greater, so that my torture,
intensified, it might well be, should yet have room to dash itself
hither and thither without injuring the walls of my being, would be
welcome. If I might become so great that, my grief yet stinging me to
agony, the infinite _I_ of me should remain pure and calm, God-loving
and man-cherishing, then I should be saved. God might be able to do
more for me--I could not tell: I looked for no more. I would myself be
such as to inclose my pain in a mighty sphere of out-spacing life, in
relation to which even such sorrow as mine should be but a little
thing. Such deliverance alone, I say, could I consent with myself to
accept, and such alone, I believed, would God offer me--for such alone
seemed worthy of him, and such alone seemed not unworthy of me.
The help that Nature could give me, I judged to be of this ennobling
kind. For either nature was nature in virtue of having been born
(_nata_) of God, or she was but a phantasm of my own brain--against
which supposition the nature in me protested with the agony of a
tortured man. To nature, then, I would go. Like the hurt child who
folds himself in the skirt of his mother’s velvet garment, I would fold
myself in the robe of Deity.
But to give honour and gratitude where both are due, I must here
confess obligation with a willing and thankful heart. The _Excursion_
of Wordsworth was published ere I was born, but only since I left
college had I made acquaintance with it: so long does it take for the
light of a new star to reach a distant world! To this book I owe so
much that to me it would alone justify the conviction that Wordsworth
will never be forgotten. That he is no longer the fashion, militates
nothing against his reputation. We, the old ones, hold fast by him for
no sentimental reminiscence of the fashion of our youth, but simply
because his humanity has come into contact with ours. The men of the
new generation have their new loves and worships: it remains to be seen
to whom the worthy amongst them will turn long ere the frosts of age
begin to gather and the winds of the human autumn to blow. Wordsworth
will recede through the gliding ages until, with the greater Chaucer,
and the greater Shakspere, and the greater Milton, he is yet a star in
the constellated crown of England.
Before I was able to leave home, however, a new event occurred.
I received an anonymous letter, in a hand-writing I did not recognize.
Its contents were as follows:--
‘SIR,--Treachery is intended you. If you have anything worth watching,
_watch_ it.’
For one moment--so few were the places in which through my possessions
I was vulnerable--I fancied the warning might point to Lilith, but I
soon dismissed the idea. I could make no inquiries, for it had been
left an hour before my return from a stroll by an unknown messenger. I
could think of nothing besides but the register, and if this was what
my correspondent aimed at, I had less reason to be anxious concerning
it, because of the attested copy, than my informant probably knew.
Still its safety was far from being a matter of indifference to me. I
resolved to ride over to Umberden Church, and see if it was as I had
left it.
The twilight was fast thickening into darkness when I entered the
gloomy building. There was light enough, however, to guide my hand to
the right volume, and by carrying it to the door, I was able to satisfy
myself that it was as I had left it.
Thinking over the matter once more as I stood, I could not help wishing
that the book were out of danger just for the present; but there was
hardly a place in the bare church where it was possible to conceal it.
At last I thought of one--half groped my way to the pulpit, ascended
its creaking stair, lifted the cushion of the seat, and laid the book,
which was thin, open in the middle, and flat on its face, under it. I
then locked the door, mounted, and rode off.
It was now more than dusk. Lilith was frolicsome, and, rejoicing in the
grass under her feet, broke into a quick canter along the noiseless,
winding lane. Suddenly there was a great shock, and I lay senseless.
I came to myself under the stinging blows of a whip, only afterwards
recognized as such, however. I sprung staggering to my feet, and rushed
at the dim form of an assailant, with such a sudden and, I suppose,
unexpected assault, that he fell under me. Had he not fallen I should
have had little chance with him, for, as I now learned by his voice, it
was Sir Geoffrey Brotherton.
‘Thief! Swindler! Sneak!’ he cried, making a last harmless blow at me
as he fell.
All the wild beast in my nature was roused. I had no weapon--not even a
whip, for Lilith never needed one. It was well, for what I might have
done in the first rush of blood to my reviving brain, I dare hardly
imagine. I seized him by the throat with such fury that, though far the
stronger, he had no chance as he lay. I kneeled on his chest. He
struggled furiously, but could not force my gripe from his throat. I
soon perceived that I was strangling him, and tightened my grasp.
His efforts were already growing feebler, when I became aware of a soft
touch apparently trying to take hold of my hair. Glancing up without
relaxing my hold, I saw the white head of Lilith close to mine. Was it
the whiteness--was it the calmness of the creature--I cannot pretend to
account for the fact, but the same instant before my mind’s eye rose
the vision of one standing speechless before his accusers, bearing on
his form the marks of ruthless blows. I did not then remember that just
before I came out I had been gazing, as I often gazed, upon an Ecce
Homo of Albert Dürer’s that hung in my room. Immediately my heart awoke
within me. My whole being still trembling with passionate struggle and
gratified hate, a rush of human pity swept across it. I took my hand
from my enemy’s throat, rose, withdrew some paces, and burst into
tears. I could have embraced him, but I dared not even minister to him
for the insult at would appear. He did not at once rise, and when he
did, he stood for a few moments, half-unconscious, I think, staring at
me. Coming to himself, he felt for and found his whip--I thought with
the intention of attacking me again, but he moved towards his horse,
which was quietly eating the grass, now wet with dew. Gathering its
bridle from around its leg, he mounted, and rode back the way he had
come.
I lingered for a while utterly exhausted. I was trembling in every
limb. The moon rose and began to shed her low yellow light over the
hazel copse, filling the lane with brightness and shadow. Lilith,
seeming-in her whiteness to gather a tenfold share of the light upon
herself, was now feeding as gently as if she had known nothing of the
strife, and I congratulated myself that the fall had not injured her.
But as she took a step forward in her feeding, I discovered to my
dismay that she was quite lame. For my own part I was now feeling the
ache of numerous and severe bruises. When I took Lilith by the bridle
to lead her away, I found that neither of us could manage more than two
miles an hour. I was very uneasy about her. There was nothing for it,
however, but make the best of our way to Gastford. It was no little
satisfaction to think, as we hobbled along, that the accident had
happened through no carelessness of mine, beyond that of cantering in
the dark, for I was on my own side of the road. Had Geoffrey been on
his, narrow as the lane was, we might have passed without injury.
It was so late when we reached Gastford, that we had to rouse the
ostler before I could get Lilith attended to. I bathed the injured leg,
of which the shoulder seemed wrenched; and having fed her, but less
plentifully than usual, I left her to her repose. In the morning she
was considerably better, but I resolved to leave her where she was,
and, sending a messenger for Styles to come and attend to her, I hired
a gig, and went to call on my new friend the rector of Umberden.
I told him all that had happened, and where I had left the volume. He
said he would have a chest made in which to secure the whole register,
and, meanwhile, would himself go to the church and bring that volume
home with him. It is safe enough now, as any one may find who wishes to
see it--though the old man has long passed away.
Lilith remained at Gastford a week before I judged it safe for her to
come home. The injury, however, turned out to be a not very serious
one.
Why should I write of my poor mare--but that she was once hers all for
whose hoped perusal I am writing this? No, there is even a better
reason: I shall never, to all my eternity, forget, even if I should
never see her again, which I do not for a moment believe, what she did
for me that evening. Surely she deserves to appear in her own place in
my story!
Of course I was exercised in my mind as to who had sent me the warning.
There could be no more doubt that I had hit what it intended, and had
possibly preserved the register from being once more tampered with. I
could think only of one. I have never had an opportunity of inquiring,
and for her sake I should never have asked the question, but I have
little doubt it was Clara. Who else could have had a chance of making
the discovery, and at the same time would have cared to let me know it?
Also she would have cogent reason for keeping such a part in the affair
a secret. Probably she had heard her father informing Geoffrey; but he
might have done so with no worse intention than had informed his
previous policy.