THE MONASTERY AMONG THE HILLS.
When I awoke in the morning the sun was already high in the heavens and
it was considerably past my usual hour of rising. I jumped out of bed at
once and began my toilet. I had scarcely finished my bath when there came
a loud tap at the door.
"Hallo!" I cried out. "Anything the matter?"
"Yes, sir. Please, sir, John wants to know whether you locked anything up
in the coach-house last night. There was----"
"Yes, I did," I interrupted quickly. "Tell him not to go there till I
come down."
"Please, sir, it's too late," the girl answered, in a frightened tone.
"It's got away, whatever it is."
I dropped the towel with which I had been rubbing myself and hurried on
my clothes. In a few minutes I was down in the yard, where several men
were standing together talking. John left them at once and came to me.
"Why did you want to go to the coach-house so early?" I exclaimed,
glancing at the wide-open door and empty interior. "I had an awful job to
get that man in there last night, and now you've let him go."
"Well, sir, it was a fearful row he was a-making," explained John. "Soon
as I came this morning, about five o'clock, I was passing through the
stack-yard when I heard an awful thumping at the coach-house door from
the inside. Of course, I knew nowt about there being anyone theer, so I
just goes straight up and opens the door, to see what was the matter,
like, and, lor, I did 'ave a skeer, and no mistake! It wur quite dark,
and I could see nowt but a pair o' heyes a-glaring at me as savage as a
wild animal's. 'Coom out o' this 'ere and let's ha' a look at yer,' I
says, for, d'ye see, I thought as it wur someone who had crept in
unbeknown in the daytime and got locked in by mistake. There warn't no
answer, and I wur just about to strike a match and 'ave a look at 'im,
when he springs at me like a wild cat. I tried to hold him and I'm darned
if he didn't nearly make his teeth meet through my hand."
He touched his right hand lightly, and I noticed for the first time that
it was bandaged up.
"He got away from you, then?" I remarked.
"Got away from me?" John repeated, in a tone of utter disgust. "He warn't
such a sweet-looking object, or sweet-tempered 'un either, that I wur
over-anxious for the pleasure of his company, he warn't! I just got my
hand out of his jaws and let him go as fast as he liked, with a jolly
good kick behind to help him on, too. You see, sir, I didn't know as
you'd anything to do with putting him in there," the man added
apologetically. "I thought he'd got in quite promiscuous-like."
To tell the truth, although I had been alarmed at first, I did not
particularly regret what had happened. At any rate, it saved me the
bother of going over to the police-station at Mellborough. Still, the
thought that he might even now be lurking about in the vicinity, with
plenty of opportunities to provide a weapon for himself, was not
altogether a pleasant one.
"Who might he have been, sir?" John inquired curiously.
"Just what I should like to know," I answered. "He's a lunatic and a
dangerous one, that's certain--escaped from some asylum, I should think."
And I told him of my adventure on the previous night, to which the whole
group listened open-mouthed.
"I'm thinking, sir," John remarked, when I had finished, "that it'd be as
well for Foulds and I to have a scour round and see if we can't find him,
or he'll be doing someone a mischief."
"If you are not very busy I wish you would," I said. "I don't feel quite
easy at the thought of his wandering about round here. If you do find
him, lock him up and send word to the police-station at Mellborough."
After breakfast that morning my mother made a request which startled me
almost as much it delighted me.
"I am going to walk over to the monastery, Philip," she said quietly.
"Will you come with me?"
"Of course I will, mother," I answered promptly. "Nothing could give me
greater pleasure. When will you start?"
"I shall be ready in half an hour," she said, with a faint smile, as
though she were pleased at my ready acquiescence. Then she left the room
to get ready.
In about the time she had mentioned she came into the garden to me and we
started on our walk. It was a very uneventful one, but I don't think that
I shall ever forget it. My mother seemed, after her brief relapse into
comparative kindness, to have become more inaccessible than ever; and she
walked along by my side, with downcast eyes and a nervous, thoughtful
expression on her pale face.
I, too, felt somewhat depressed at starting, but soon the fresh, pure
air, becoming stronger and stronger as we left the road and followed the
footpath by Beacon Hill, had its invariable effect upon my spirits. All
perplexing thoughts and forebodings of trouble passed away from me like
magic, and my heart beat and the blood flowed through my veins with all
the impetuous ardour of sanguine youth.
At the top of the hill we paused, I to look round upon my favourite
scene, my mother to rest for a moment. Then we saw how great had been the
storm of the night before.
Here and there were the bare trunks of trees and many a cattle-shed and
barn stood roofless. The storm seemed to have worked havoc everywhere,
save where, on the summit of its wooded hill, Ravenor Castle, with its
great range of mighty battlements, its vast towers, and grey walls of
invincible thickness, frowned down upon the country at its feet. Looking
across at it, it seemed to me that the place had never seemed so imposing
as then.
My mother stood by my side and noticed my intent gaze.
"You admire Ravenor Castle very much, Philip?" she said quietly.
I withdrew my eyes with an effort.
"I do, mother," I confessed; "very much indeed. The place has a sort of
fascination for me--and the man who lives there!"
My mother had turned a little away from me and stood with face upturned
to heaven and mutely moving lips. Out of her eyes I could see the tears
slowly welling, and her tall slim figure was convulsed with sobs. I
sprang to her side and caught hold of her hand.
"What is it, mother?" I cried. "Tell me!"
She shook her head sadly.
"Not now, Philip--not now. Come, let us go!"
Side by side we began to descend the hill. Our path wound around several
freshly-planted spinneys and then led through a plantation of pine-trees.
Then we turned with regret, so far as I was concerned, into the muddy
road again and walked for more than a mile between high, straight hedges.
At last, soon after mid-day, we turned to the left, passed through a
farmyard and along a winding path, which led us, now by the side of
turnip fields, now across bracken-covered open country, to the summit of
our last hill.
Here again we paused. Below us, close up against the background of the
colourless hills, drearily situated in the bleakest spot of the austere
landscape, the straight spires and severely simple buildings of the
monastery were clustered together. A little above it, on an artificial
eminence of rock, a rude cross stood out in vivid relief against the sky,
and on this my mother's eyes were fixed with a sort of rapt wistfulness,
as we stood side by side on the top of the hill looking downwards.
It was a fitting spot that these men--who counted it among their virtues
that in their rigid self-immolation they had cut themselves off even from
the beauties of Nature--had chosen for their habitation. But although the
place had a peculiar impressiveness of its own, which never failed to
exercise a sort of fascination upon me, I was glad to-day when my mother
moved forward again.
As we neared the end of our journey and turned in at the long, straight
avenue which led to the monastery doors, the strange agitation which I
had noticed in my mother's manner during the earlier part of the day
visibly increased. The cold inexpressiveness which had dwelt for so long
in her face vanished, and into it there crept a look which, having once
seen, I cared not to look upon again. It seemed as though she were
endeavouring to brace herself up for some tremendous ordeal, and I would
have given anything to have been able to put into words the sympathy
which had risen up strongly within me.
Unnatural, cold, severe and, at the best of times, indifferent, as she
had lately been to me, she was still my mother and I loved her. But I
dared not break in with words upon the fierce anguish which was already
beginning to leave its marks upon her white, strained face. Only when we
stood before the bare stone front of the monastery, and with feeble
fingers she had pulled the great iron bell, could I speak at all, and
then the words were not such as I wished to speak. Afterwards, when I
thought of them--and I often did think of them and of every trifling
incident of that memorable walk--they seemed to me weak and ill-chosen.
But, such as they were, I am glad that I spoke them.
She listened as one whose thoughts were far away, but when I ceased,
breathless, she laid her hand upon my arm and, with her dim, sad eyes
looking into mine, said simply:
"This is for your sake, Philip--for your sake!"
Then, before I could ask her what she meant, the great door slowly opened
and the guest-master stood before us. She passed him with a silent
salutation and vanished on her way to the chapel; and, though I watched
her longingly, I dared not follow. Then, declining Father Bernard's
invitation to go to his room and rest, I turned away from the door and
wandered into the grounds.
Hour after hour of the brief winter's day passed away. Father Bernard
came out in search of me and offered me refreshments; but I shook my
head. I could not eat, nor drink, nor rest. A strange but powerful
apprehension of some coming crisis in my life--some great evil connected
with my mother's visit to this place--had laid hold of me, and all my
struggles against it were impotent.
It was late in the afternoon before she came. I had climbed up to the top
of "Calvary" and, with sick heart and longing eyes, was watching the door
from which she must issue. Suddenly it was opened and she stood for a
moment upon the threshold looking around for me. To my dying day I shall
think of her as I saw her then.
Her face was the face of a saint--calm, passionless, and happy, with a
gentle, chastened happiness. I knew, when I looked upon her, that she had
left the burden of her great sorrow behind. But she had paid a price for
it. Pale and fragile as she had always appeared, she seemed now to have
been wasted by some fierce, scathing ordeal, which had driven out of her
features everything human and left only a spiritual life. As she moved
slowly forward into the drive and I saw her even more distinctly, she
seemed to me to have gained a strange, new beauty; but it was a beauty
which made me look upon her with a sudden shuddering fear.
I hurried down to her side and she welcomed me with a smile such as I had
seldom seen on her face, and which was altogether in harmony with her
softened expression. Then she took my arm and we turned towards home.
"You are happier now, mother?" I ventured to ask her, and she answered me
by silently pressing my arm.
We passed down the avenue, thickly strewn with decaying leaves, along the
winding lane, and through the gate which led up to Ive's Head Hill. Once
or twice as we were making the ascent I fancied that she hung heavily
upon my arm and I asked if she were tired; but she only shook her head.
We had reached the summit before the terrible fear which had been gnawing
at my heart took definite shape. Then, for the first time since we had
started upon our return journey, I was able to look into her face, which
she had been keeping averted from me, and when I saw the ghastly change
which had crept into it, my heart stood still and all my senses seemed
numbed with fear.
"Mother," I cried, "you are ill! What is the matter? Oh, speak to
me--do!"
She had fallen into my arms, and her hands, which touched mine as they
fell to her side, were as cold as ice. Her face was like the face of one
who has already triumphed over the shadows of death. Far away at our feet
the Cross of Calvary was standing out with rugged vividness against the
fast darkening sky and upon it her closing eyes were steadily fixed. Her
lips were slightly parted in a happy, confident smile, and her whole
being seemed absorbed in the most religious devotion. Once she whispered
my name and faintly pressed my hand; then her lips moved again and I
heard the dread sound of the solemn prayer, faltered out in a broken
whisper, "_In manus Tuas, Domine_!"
In my heart I knew that she was dying, and that human help would be of no
avail. Yet I was loth to abandon all hope, and setting her gently down I
looked anxiously around. On the summit of the next range of hills a man
was sitting on horseback, looking down upon the monastery--a motionless
figure against the sky. I cried out to him, and at the sound of my voice
he started round and looked towards us; then, suddenly digging the spurs
deep into the sides of his great black horse, he came thundering up the
side of the hill at a pace which made the ground shake beneath my feet
like the tremblings of an earthquake.
"What is wrong?" he cried hoarsely; and, looking into his face, I
recognised Mr. Ravenor.
I pointed to my mother's prostrate figure, and, gazing at him with dry
eyes, I answered mechanically:
"She is dying!"
The words had scarcely left my lips before he had leaped from his horse,
and, passing his arm around her, bent over her pallid face.
"Oh, this is horrible!" he murmured. "You must not die--you must not die!
I have----"
His voice seemed choked with emotion and he did not finish his sentence.
She spoke to him, but so softly that I could not hear the words.
I walked a few yards away and once more looked wildly round. Far away on
the dark hillside I could see the white-robed figures of the lay brethren
bending over their labour. Nearer there was no one. The road below was
deserted and a deep stillness seemed brooding over the bare, shadowy
landscape. Sick at heart I turned back and fell on my knees by my
mother's side.
We remained there, fearing almost to look into her face, until the
twilight deepened upon the hills and slowly blotted out from our view
even the dark cross standing up against the grey sky. Then Mr. Ravenor
leaned for a moment forward and a low groan escaped from his lips. It
told me what I dreaded--that my mother was dead!