Mehalah trembled with anger.
'Some boat was here last night, and night afore, and the keel marks
remain. I saw them, and I saw footprints of sheep too, near them.'
'When?'
'The tide is up, and you can't see. Near the Burnt Hill.'
'Abraham, this is not to be borne.'
'Who is to help it?'
'I will. I will watch,' she stamped her foot fiercely on the red
glasswort; 'I will kill the cowardly sneaking thief who comes here to
rob the widow and the orphan.'
'You must see him first,' said Abraham, 'and sheep-stealers don't
generally let themselves be seen.'
'A man who steals sheep can be hung for it.'
'Yes.'
'I'll catch him,' she laughed, 'and the gallows will be set up on the
Burnt Hill, and then he shall dangle till his bones drop away into the
ooze.'
'You must catch him first,' said the shepherd, and shrugged his
shoulders again.
Mehalah strode up and down in the marsh, her brows knit, and the veins
swollen on her temples. She breathed fast and her blood sang in her
ears. To be robbed in this cowardly manner! The thought was maddening.
Hitherto she and her mother had deemed themselves perfectly safe on the
Ray: nothing had ever been taken from them; the ooze and the sea water
walled them in. The Ray was a trap from which there was no escape save
by boat. It was said that once a deserter found his way into Mersea
Isle and lingered about the marshes for many days. He dared not return
by the causeway, thinking it would be watched and he would be secured,
and he had no money wherewith to bribe a boatman to put him across
elsewhere. One evening he lit on a farmer with a spade over his
shoulder going to the sea-wall to block a rent against an expected tide.
He fell on the man from behind, wrenched away his spade and cut his head
open with it, then turned out his pockets in search of coin, but found
none. The man was taken. He could not escape, and was hung on the
marshes where the murder was done, by the mouth of the Pyefleet.
If Mersea was a trap, how much more so the Ray. The Sharlands had not
even a lock to their door. No one was ever seen on the island after
dark save those who dwelt there, for the hill was surrounded on all
sides, save where girt by the sea, by a labyrinth of creeks and pools.
A robber there would be like a fly in a cobweb, to be caught at once.
The sheep were allowed to ramble all over the marsh and saltings, they
could thread their way; and it was only when the moon was full or new,
and the wind in the south-east, that the shepherd drove them into fold
till the waters subsided. There were times--such as the coincidence of
a peculiar wind with an equinoctial tide--when to leave the sheep on the
marsh would be to ensure their being drowned. This was so well known,
that precaution was always taken against the occasion.
The sense of being treated unjustly, of being cruelly wronged, of
advantage being taken of their feebleness, filled Mehalah's heart with
bitterness, with rage. An over-mastering desire for revenge came upon
her. She, a girl, would defend her property, and chastise the man who
injured her. She gave up all thought of obtaining the assistance of
Abraham, if it ever entered her mind. The old man was too slow in his
movements, and dull of sight and hearing, to be of use. As likely as
not, moreover, he would refuse to risk himself on the saltings at night,
to expose himself to the ague damp or the bullet. What could he, a
feeble old loon, do against a sturdy sheep-stealer?
'Whom do you suspect?' asked Glory abruptly.
He drew up his shoulders.
'Come, tell me.'
'An empty belly.'
'Abraham! one man cannot have taken four sheep for himself.'
Another shrug.
There was nothing to be got out of the dogged rustic. Mehalah waited
till evening, then she wrapped a cloak round her, put her pistol in her
belt, and walked through the marsh to the point indicated by the
shepherd as the Burnt Hill.
Through all the low flat coast land of this region, above the saltings,
or pasture overflowed by high tides occasionally, are scattered at
irregular intervals large broad circular mounds of clay burned to brick
red, interspersed with particles of charcoal. A few fragments of bone
are found in them, relics of the meals of those who raised these heaps,
but they cover no urns, and enclose no cists, they contain no skeletons.
They were never intended as funeral monuments, and are quite different
from the hoes or barrows which stand on high land, and which were burial
mounds. The burnt or red hills are always situate at high-water mark;
near them, below the surface of the vegetable deposit, are multitudes of
oyster shells. Near them also are sometimes found, sunk in the marsh,
polished chert weapons. Who raised these mounds? For what purpose were
they reared? These are questions that cannot be answered satisfactorily.
One thing is certain. An immense amount of wood must have been consumed
to burn such a mass of clay, and the country must then have been more
overgrown with timber than at present. Many of the mounds are now
enclosed in fields by sea-walls which hold out the tide, the plough has
been drawn over them, and the spade has scattered them over the surface,
colouring a whole field brick red, and making it rich for the production
of corn. There is no better manure than a red hill.
But why were these mounds so laboriously raised? The tradition of the
marsh-dwellers is that they were platforms for huts, the earth burned as
a prevention to ague. It is curious that in the marshy regions of
Central Africa the natives adopt a precisely similar method for their
protection from miasma. But why men dwelt in such numbers on the
saltings remains undetermined. Whether they lived there to burn the
glasswort for nitre, or to steam the sea water for salt, or to take
charge of oyster grounds, is uncertain. Fragments, very broken, of
pottery are found in these heaps, scattered throughout them, but not a
specimen of a perfect vessel. The burnt hills are built up on the old
shingle of the shore, with no intervening line of vegetable matter, the
growth of the marsh has been later and has risen about their bases and
has partly buried them.
Glory reached the Burnt Hill, and stood on it. A cold east wind wailed
over the waste; a white fog like curd lay on the water, and the surface
of the saltings, clinging to the surface and rising scarce above three
feet from it. Here and there it lifted itself in a vaporous column, and
moved along in the wind like a white spectral woman, nodding her head
and waving her arms cumbered with wet drapery. Above, the sky was
clear, and a fine crescent moon sparkled in it without quenching the
keenness of the stars. Cassiopeia was glorious in her chair, Orion
burned sideways over Mersea Isle. No red gleam was visible to-night from
the tavern window at the City, the veil of fog hung over it and
curtained it off. To the north-west was a silvery glow at the horizon,
then there rose a pure ray as of returning daylight, it was answered by
a throb in the north-east, then it broke into two rays, and again united
and spread, and suddenly was withdrawn. Mehalah had often seen the
Aurora, and she knew that the signals portended increased cold or bad
weather.
She seated herself on the mound, and drew her cloak about her more
closely, the damp cold bit into her flesh; she knew she was safe from
ague on the burnt earth.
Her anger subsided, not that she resented the wrong the less, but that
her mind had passed to other contemplations. She was thinking of
George, of her dead hopes, of the blankness of the future before her. A
little sunlight had fallen on her sad and monotonous life, but it had
been withdrawn, and had left her with nothing to live for, save her
mother. Her heart had begun to expand as a flower, and a frost had
fallen on it, and blackened its petals. She brooded now on the past.
She wished for nothing in the future. She had no care for the present.
It was all one to her what befell her, so long as her mother were cared
for. She had no one else to love. She was without a friend. She would
resent an injury, and fight an enemy. George might have introduced her
into a new world of gentleness, and pity, and love. Now the door to
that world was shut for ever, and she must beat her way through a world
of hard realities, where every man's hand was lifted against his
brother, and where was hate and resentment, and exacting of the
uttermost farthing. She had gone forth seeking help, and except from
George, had found none. Mrs. De Witt, Phoebe Musset, Admonition, such
were the women she had met; and the men were selfish as Parson Till,
fools as Charles Pettican, surly as Abraham Dowsing, or brutal as Elijah
Rebow.
Hark!--She caught the dip of an oar.
She drew in her breath and raised her head. Then she saw a boat shoot
out of the mist, white and ghost-like as the mist forms that stalked
over the water, and in the boat a man.
There he was! The sheep-stealer, come once more to rob her mother and
herself. At once her furious passion boiled up in her veins. She saw
before her the man who had wronged her; she thought nothing of her own
weakness beside his strength, of there being no one within call to come
to her aid, should his arm be stouter than hers. She sprang to her feet
with a shout, such as an Indian might utter on leaping on his foe, and
rushed to the water's edge, just as the man had landed, and had her
hands at his throat in a moment.
'You coward, you thief!' she cried shaking him savagely.
'Glory!'
In an instant a pair of stronger hands had wrenched her hands away and
pinioned them.
'By heaven! you wild cat, what are you flying at me like that for? What
has brought you here at this time of night?'
Mehalah was abashed. Her rage sank. She had mistaken her man. This
was no sheep-stealer. She could not speak, so great was her agitation.
She writhed to free herself, but writhed in vain. Elijah laughed at her
attempts.
'What are you here for?' he asked again. 'Can you not answer my
question?'
'Some one has been stealing our ewes,' she said.
'And you took me for the thief,' said Rebow. 'Much obliged for the
compliment. _Me_--the owner of Red Hall, and the man that purchased the
Ray, the farm house, and the marshes and the saltings and all that
thereon is for eight hundred pounds, to be taken and hanged for
sheep-lifting! A likely story, Glory. You must manage better another
time.'
'What brings you here?' asked Mehalah sullenly, angry with herself and
with him.
'That is the question I asked of you, and you return it. I will tell
you. I am out duck-shooting, but the mist lies so thick on the water,
and eats into the marrow of the bones. I could see no ducks, and I was
freezing in my punt; so I have come to lie with my gun on the Burnt Hill
awhile till the fog clears, as it will in an hour, when I shall return.'
'Were you here yesterday night?'
'No, I was not; I was up Tottesbury creek and got a dozen pair of wild
duck. Will you have some? I have a pair or two in the punt.'
'I have refused them before, and I refuse them again.'
'Why do you ask me if I were here yesternight?'
'Because then two sheep were taken. Were you here the night before?'
'No, I was then on Abbots' Hall marshes. Do you suspect me still of
sheep-stealing?' he asked scoffingly.
'I do not, but I thought had you been here you might have seen some
signs of the villains who have robbed us.'
'Come here, Glory! out of the fog on to the Burnt Hill.'
'I am going home.'
'You are not, till I have said what I have to say. Come out of the ague
damps.'
'I am going home, now.'
He held her by both wrists. She was strong, but her strength was
nothing to his. She made no great effort to get away. If he chose to
speak to her, she would listen to him. If she struggled in his grasp,
it would make him think she feared him. She would not allow him to
suppose himself of such importance to her. If he insulted her, she had
her pistol, and she would not scruple to defend herself.
He drew her to the top of the mount; there they were clear of the mist,
which lay like snow below and round them, covering the morass and the
water. The clear cut crescent moon hung over a clump of pines on
Mersea. Rebow looked at it, then waved an arm in the direction.
'Do you see Grim's Hoe yonder?--That great barrow with the Scotch pines
on top? Do you know how it comes there? Have you heard the tale?'
Mehalah was silent.
'I will tell you, for I often think of it, and so will you when you have
been told the tale. In the old times when the Danes came here, they
wintered on Mersea Isle, and in the summer they cruised all along the
coast, burning and plundering and murdering. There were two chiefs to
them, brothers, who loved one another, they were twins, born the same
hour, and they had but one heart and soul; what one willed that willed
the other, what one desired that the other desired also. One spring
they sailed up the creek to St. Osyth's, and there they took Osyth and
killed her. She had a sister, very beautiful, and she fell to the lot
of the brothers. They brought her back to Mersea, and then each would
have her for his own. So the brothers fell out whose she should be, and
all their love turned to jealousy, and their brotherhood to enmity, and
it came about that they fought with their long swords who should have
the maid. They fought, and smote, and hacked one another till their
armour was broken, and their flesh was cut off, and their blood flowed
away, and by nightfall they were both dead. Thereupon the Danes drew
their ship up to the top of the hill just above the Strood, and they
placed the maid in the hold with a dead brother on either side of her,
in his tattered harness, sword in hand, and they heaped a mountain over
them and buried them all, the living and the dead together.'
Rebow paused, and pointed to the moon hung over the hoe.
'When the new moon appears, the flesh grows on their bones, and the
blood stanches, and the wounds close, and breath comes back behind their
ribs. When the moon is full they rise in the ship's hold and fall on
one another, and if you listen at full moon on the hoe you can hear the
brothers fighting below in the heart of the barrow. You hear them curse
and cry out, and you hear the clash of their swords. But when the moon
wanes the sounds grow fainter, their armour falls to bits, their flesh
drops away, the blood oozes out of all the hacked veins, and at last all
is still. Then, when there is no moon, you can hear the maid mourning
and sobbing: you can hear her quite distinctly till the new moon
reappears, and then she is hushed, for the brothers are recovering for a
new fight. This will go on month after month, year after year, till one
conquers the other and wins the maid; but that will never be, for the
brothers are of the same age, and equally strong, and equally resolute.'
'Why have you told me this?' asked Mehalah.
'Why have I told you this, Glory?' repeated Rebow; 'because you and I
are like those brothers, only they began with love and ended with
fighting, and you and I begin with fighting and must and shall end with
love. I love you, Glory, and yet, at times, I almost hate you.'
'And I,' broke in Mehalah, 'hate you with my whole heart, and never,
never can love you.'
'You have a strong spirit, so have I,' said Elijah; 'I like to hear you
speak thus. For long you have let me see that you have hated me: you
have fought me hard, but you shall love me yet. We must fight, Glory;
it is our destiny. We were made for one another, to love and fight, and
fight and love, till one has conquered or killed the other. How can you
live at the Ray, and I at Red Hall, apart? You know, you feel it, that
we must be together to love and fight, and fight and love, till death.
What is the use of your struggling against what must come about? As
soon as ever I saw you I knew that you were ordained for me from the
moment you were born. You grew up and ripened for me, for me, and no
one else. You thought you loved George De Witt. I hated you for loving
him. He was not worthy of you, a poor, foolish, frightened sop. You
would have taken him and turned him inside out and torn him to pieces,
in a week, disgusted with the fellow that made calf-love to you, when
you had sounded his soul and found a bottom as soon as the lead went out
of your hand. You thought George De Witt would belong to you. It could
not be. You cannot oppose your destiny. A strong soul like yours must
not mate but with a strong soul like mine. Till I saw you I hated
women, poor, thin-headed, hollow-souled toys. When I saw you I saw the
only woman who could be mine, and I knew, as the pointers yonder know
the polestar, that you were destined to me. You hate me because you
know this as well as I do. You know that there is no man on earth who
can be yours save me, but you will play and fight with your destiny.
Sooner or later you must bend to it. Sooner or later you must give way.
You thought of George De Witt, and he is swept out of your path. You
may fancy any other man, and he will go this way or that, and nothing
will prosper till you set your face in the direction whither your
destiny points. You can take no other than me, however much you may
desire it. You need me and I need you. You may hate me and go on
hating me and fighting me to the last, but you cannot escape me.
'Elijah,' said Mehalah, 'escape you I will. Since I have known you, you
have been mixed up with all the ills that have come upon us, I do not
know how; but I seem to feel that you are like an evil wind or a
blighting cloud passing over my life. I would look up and laugh, but I
cannot, I turn hard, and hate the world--only because you are in it. It
would be another world without you.'
'Why do you turn hard and hate the world? Because you are on a wrong
road, you are battling against your destiny. All goes across with you,
because you are across your proper path. Why do you hate me? Because
you feel in your soul that you must sooner or later be mine, and your
haughty will rebels against having your future determined for you. Yet
I know it. The time is at hand when you will take me for better, for
worse, for all life. We cannot live a moment the one without the other.
If I were to die you would die too, you would rage and writhe against
death, but it would come. I know it. Our lives are bound up together
in one bundle, and the knife that cuts one string cuts the other also.
Our souls are twins to love and to hate, to fondle and fight, till death
us do part! Till death us do part!' repeated Rebow scornfully, 'Death
can no more part us than life. We will live together and we will die
together, and moulder away in one another's arms. The worm that gnaws
me shall gnaw you. I think of you night and day. I cannot help it: it
is my fate. I knew it was so the moment I saw you. I came here. I
cannot keep away till you come to me to Red Hall.'
'I shall never go there again,' said Mehalah sullenly,
'Not before New Year?'
'Never.'
He laughed. 'She would swear to it, and yet at the New Year she will be
there. And she will take me and be mine. For me she must and will
love. It is her fate; she cannot oppose that for ever. For me she
would even give up George De Witt.'
'George De Witt is dead.'
'I say, were it to come to this, George or Elijah, one or the other, you
would fly to Elijah and cast George off.'
'Let me go. I will have no more of this mad babble,' said Mehalah,
wrenching her hands out of his grasp. She would not run away. She was
too proud. She folded her arms on her breast and confronted him.
'Hark!' she said, 'the Christmas bells.'
Faint and far off could be heard the merry pealing of the Colchester
bells. The wind had shifted.
'Peace on earth and good will to men,' muttered Elijah; 'but to them
that fight against their destiny fury and hate.'
'Go back, Elijah, and speak to me no more on this matter. I will not
hear you again. I have but endured it now.'
'This is Christmas Eve,' said Rebow. 'In eight days is the New Year,
and then you will be in Red Hall, Glory!'
'Listen to me, Elijah,' exclaimed Mehalah passionately. 'If you find me
there, then you may hope to see your other fond dream fulfilled.
Destiny will have been too strong for me.'
'Farewell.'
'May we not meet again.'
'We shall. It cannot be helped. I feel it coming. You may fight
against it; you cannot escape. Destiny must fulfil itself. We must
fight and love, and love and fight in life, in death, and through
eternity, like the old warriors in Grim's Hoe.'
'Farewell.'
'Till this day sen'night.'
*CHAPTER XV.*
*NEW YEAR'S EVE.*
No more sheep were stolen; but then the moon was filling her horns, and
a robbery could not be committed without chance of detection. But
though nothing further had been taken, Mehalah was uneasy. Some
evilly-disposed person had visited the Ray and plundered her and her
mother of four ewes; others, or the same, might attempt the house, in
the hopes of finding money there. The auction had shown people that
Mistress Sharland was not without money.
On New Year's Eve Mehalah went to Colchester to make some purchases for
the New Year. The kalends of January and not the Nativity of Christ is
the great winter festival among the Essex peasantry on the coast. They
never think of wishing one another a Happy Christmas, but only a Merry
New Year. No yule log is burnt, no mummers dance, no wassail bowl is
consumed at Christmas, but each man who can afford it deems himself
bound to riot and revel, to booze and sing, to wake the death of the old
year, and baptise the new with libations of brandy or ale.
When Mehalah returned, she brought with her a new lock and key for the
house-door. There had been once a lock there, but it had been broken
many years ago, and had never been repaired. On the Ray no lock was
needed, it had been supposed. Mehalah was of a different opinion now.
The short day had closed some time ago; she had seen it die over
Bradwell from Abberton Hill, but the full moon was rising, and she knew
her way over the marshes, she could thread the tangle easily by
moonlight. She reached the Ray, threw open the door, and strode in.
Her mother was by the fire, with her head on the table. Mehalah's heart
stood still for a moment, and then her face flushed. The smell of
spirits in the close room, the attitude of her mother, the stupefied
eyes which opened on her, and then closed again without recognition,
convinced her that her mother had been drinking.
Mehalah was angry as well as distressed. This was a new trouble, one to
which she was quite unaccustomed. She knew that her mother had taken a
little rum-and-water against her ague, and she had not grudged it her.
But of late there had been something more than this. Since Rebow had
supplied Mrs. Sharland with spirits, the old woman had been unable to
resist the temptation of going to her keg whenever she felt lonely or
depressed. Mehalah had insisted on her mother receiving no more from
Elijah Rebow, but she was by no means certain that the widow had
complied with her desire. The sight of her mother in this condition
angered Mehalah, for she was sure now that a fresh supply had been
obtained, and was secreted somewhere. She was angry with her mother for
deceiving her and with Rebow for tempting the old woman and laying her
under an obligation to him. She was angry with herself for not having
watched her mother more closely, and explored the places of concealment
which abounded in the old house.
She stood over her mother for some moments with folded arms and bowed
head, her brows knit, and a gloomy light in her eyes. Then she shook
her roughly and spoke harshly to her.
'Mother! answer me. You have received more from Rebow?'
'It was very kind, very kind indeed,' stuttered the old woman. 'Capital
for ague shivers and rheumatic pains in the bones.'
'Has Elijah been here again?'
'He's wery civil; he knows what suits old bones.'
'Has he brought you another keg?'
'It is stowed away,' said the widow drowsily. 'Quite comfortable. Go to
bed, Mehalah, it's time to get up.'
The girl drew back in disgust and wrath. Elijah was making her own
mother despicable in her eyes. She was quite resolved what to do. She
thrust open the door to the cellar, and behind a heap of faggots found a
fresh keg, evidently recently brought, and quite full. She drew it forth
into the front room and held it up.
'Mother!' she shouted.
'I am here, Mehalah. The ague isn't on me yet.'
'Do you see this little cask? It is full, quite full.'
'Don't do that, child, you may drop it.'
'I shall dash it to pieces,' said the girl, and she flung it with her
whole force on the bricks. A stave was broken: the precious liquor
spurted out. Some flew into the fire and flashed into blue flame up the
chimney. In a moment the floor was swimming, and the thirsty bricks
were sucking in the spirit. The old woman was too besotted with drink
to understand what was done. Mehalah's bosom heaved with passion and
excitement.
'I have done with that,' she said; 'I said that I would, and I have kept
my word. Never, never shall my poor mother be like this again. He did
it.' She knit her hands, and a fire flickered in her eye, like that of
the burning spirit in the chimney.
'Now come to bed, mother.' She drew or carried the old woman out of the
room, undressed her, and put her in bed. Mrs. Sharland made no
resistance. She submitted drowsily, and her head was no sooner on the
pillow than she fell asleep.
Mehalah returned to the front room. She got out some tools and set
herself to work at once to fasten on the lock. She was accustomed to
doing all sorts of things herself; she could roughly carpenter, she had
often patched her boat. The old farmhouse was in a decayed condition
and needed much mending, and for several years she had done what was
required to it. To put on a lock was a trifle; but the old nails that
had fastened the former lock remained in the wood, and had to be punched
out, and the keyhole was not quite in the right place when the lock was
first put on, and had to be altered. At length the lock was fast, a
strong lock, strong for such a worm-eaten door.
Mehalah went to her mother's room and looked at the old woman. She
slept heavily, unlike her usual sleep, which would be broken at once by
the entry of her daughter with a light.
Mehalah returned to the kitchen and seated herself at the hearth. How
long had this keg of spirits been in the house? She had paid no
attention to the introduction of spirits since George's death, her mind
had been occupied with other matters. Her mother and Rebow had taken
advantage of this. How was it that Rebow came to the house when she was
away? He never came when she was present, at least not since the night
when the money was stolen; but she was sure that he visited her mother
during her absence, from little things let drop by the old woman.
How did he manage to time his visits so as not to meet her? She would
find out when he was last at the Ray Farm. She sprang up, and went out
of the door, unlocking it to let herself go forth; and she called
Abraham. There was no answer. The old man was already turned into his
loft over the cowhouse, and asleep.
She called him again, but with equal want of success. Not a thunderbolt
falling on the thorns beside the house would rouse him. Mehalah knew
that, and went back to her seat by the fire, relocking the door. 'I
will ask him in the morning. He must know.'
She drew off her shoes, and put her bare feet on the warm hearth. She
was without her guernsey and cap, for she did not wear them when she
went to Colchester.
She fell, as was her wont, to thinking. Since the death of George, she
had been accustomed to sit thus over the fire, after her mother had
retired. She was not thinking of him now, she was thinking of Elijah.
His words, his strange, mad, fierce words, came back to her. Was there
a destiny shaping her life against her will, and forcing her into his
arms? She shuddered at the thought. To hate and love, and love and
hate, year out, year in, that was what they were fated to do, according
to him. That he was drawn towards her by some attractive power
exercised against her will, she knew full well, but she would not allow
that he exercised the least attraction on her. Yet she did feel that
there was some sort of spell upon her. Hate him as she did and would,
she knew that she could not altogether escape him, she had an
instinctive consciousness that she was held by him, she did not
understand how, in his hands. Perhaps it was her destiny to hate and
fight him; for how long? Love him she never could, she never would.
There was an assurance in his manner and tone which impressed her
against her better judgment. He spoke as though it were but a matter of
time before she yielded herself wholly to him, and came under his roof
and joined her lot with his, for life and for death. What right had he
to assume this? What grounds had he for this confidence? None but a
blind, dogged conviction in his own mind that destiny had ordained them
for each other. Then she thought of the story of Grim's Hoe, of the two
who loved and hated, embraced and fought eternally therein, those two
destined from their mother's womb to be together in life and death, with
twin souls and bodies, who had they lived in love might have rested in
death, but as they fought must fight on. There they were, in the old
hollow womb of the ship down in the earth in darkness, loving one
another as brothers, fighting each other as rivals; the conflict lasting
till one shall master the other, a thing that never can be, for both
were born with equal strength, and equal purpose, and equal stubbornness
of will. The fumes of the spilled spirits hung in the air, and
stimulated Mehalah's brain. Instead of stupefying, they quickened her
mind into activity. Her heart beat. She felt as if she were in the
ship hold watching the eternal conflict, and as if she must take a part
with one or the other; as if her so doing would determine the victory.
But which should she will to conquer, when each was the counterpart of
the other? She could not bear this thought, she could not endure the
fumes of the spirit, it suffocated her. She sprang up. The full moon
was glaring in at the window from a cloudless sky.
She opened the door. The air was cold, but there was little wind. She
could see on the south-east horizon, at the highest point of the island,
the great Hoe crowned with black pines.
The moon was at full. The old warriors were now hewing at one another,
and the dim, frightened captive maid looked on with her hands on her
heart, her great eyes gleaming like glow-worms in the decaying ship
hold. Ha! at each sword stroke the sparks flashed. Ha! the cut flesh
glimmered like phosphorescent fish, and the blood ran like blue fire.
Was the story true? Could anyone hear the warriors shout and smite, who
chose to listen at the full of the moon? The distance to Grim's Hoe was
not over two miles. Mehalah thought she must go there and listen with
her own ears. She would go.
Once more she returned to her mother's room, and saw that Mrs. Sharland
was asleep. Then she drew on her shoes, her guernsey, and her red cap,
went out, locked the door, and put the key in her pocket.
'Who went there?' She started. She thought she saw something--some
one, move; but then laughed. The moon was so bright that it cast her
shadow on the wall, distinct and black as if it were a palpable body.
She stood still, listened, and looked round. She could see the stretch
of the saltings as distinctly as if it were day, only that the shadows
were inky black, not purple as by sunlight. Not a sound was to be
heard.
'I will go,' she said, and she strode off towards the causeway.
The path over the marshes was perfectly distinct. She walked fast, the
earth crackled under her feet, the frost was keen. Her eyes rose ever
and anon to Grim's Hoe. The pines on it did not stir, they stood like
mourners above a grave.
The Mersea channel gleamed like a belt of silver, not a ripple was on
the water on the west side of the causeway, and but slight flapping
wavelets, driven by the north-east wind, played with the tangles on the
piles on the other side of the Strood.
She reached the island of Mersea by the causeway, now dry, and began to
ascend the hill. Once she turned and looked back. She could see the
Ray rising above the marshes, bathed in moonlight, patched with coal
black shadows cast by the ancient thorn trees, and the farm buildings.
Before her rose the great barrow, partly overgrown with shrubs, but bare
on the north-west towards the Strood. It was a bell-shaped mound rising
some thirty feet above the surface of the ground. She paused a moment
at the foot and listened. Not a sound. She must then climb the
tumulus, and lie on the top between the pines, and lay her ear to the
ground. She stepped boldly up the little path trodden by children and
sheep, and in a few moments was at the top. She stopped to breathe, to
look up at the wan white moon that gazed down on her, and then she cast
herself on the ground, with her face to the north-west.
What was that? A fir cone fell beside her. There was no sound. Hist!
a stoat ran past and disappeared in a hole. Then she heard screams. A
poor rabbit was attacked and its blood sucked. She lifted her head, and
then laid it on the ground again. Her eyes were fixed on the distance.
What was that? In a moment she was on her feet.
What was that red spot over the marshes, on the Ray, among the trees?
What was that leaping, dancing, lambent tongue, shooting up and
recoiling? What was that white rising cloud above the thorns?
Before she knew where she was, Mehalah was flying down the hill towards
the Strood, the dead Danish warriors forgotten in the agony of her fear.
As she ran on, her eyes never left the Ray, and she saw the red light
grow in intensity and spread in body. The farm was on fire. The house
was on fire, and her mother was in a dead sleep within--locked in--and
the key was in her pocket.
O God! what had she done? Why had she gone? Had not the spilled spirits
caught fire and set the house in flames! Why had she locked her mother
in? a thing never done before. Mehalah ran, terror, horror, anguish at
her heart. She did not look at her path, she took it instinctively, she
did not heed the rude bridges, she dashed across them, and one broke
under her hasty foot, and fell away after she had passed. The flames
were climbing higher. She could see them devouring the wooden tarred
walls. Then came a great burst of fire, and a rushing upwards of
blazing sparks. The roof had fallen in. A pillar of blue and golden
light stood up and illumined the whole Ray. The thorn trees looked now
like wondrous, finely-ramified, golden seaweeds in a dim blue sea.
Mehalah would not pause to look at anything, she saw only flames leaping
and raging where was her home, where lay her mother. How could she
reach the place before the house was a wreck, and her dear mother was
buried beneath the burned timbers of the roof, and the hot broken tiles?
She was there at last, before the great blaze; she could see that some
one or two men were present.
'My mother, my mother!' she gasped, and fell on her knees.
'Be still, Glory, she is safe, no thanks to you.'
Mehalah lost consciousness for a few moments. The revulsion of feeling
was so great as to overcome her. When she recovered, she was still
unable for some time to gather all her faculties together, rise, look
round, and note what had taken place.
The whole farmhouse was on fire, every wall was flaming, and part of the
roof had fallen in. If once the house were to catch fire it was certain
to go like tinder. A spout of flame came out of her mother's bed-room
window. The fire glowed and roared in the old kitchen sitting-room.
'Where is my mother?' asked Mehalah abruptly.
'She is all safe,' answered Abraham Dowsing, who was dragging some saved
bedding out of reach of the sparks. 'She is in the boat.'
'The cow?' asked Mehalah.
'She is all right also. The fire has not caught the stable.'
'Who got my mother out?'
'I did, Glory!' answered Elijah Rebow. 'You owe her life to me. Why
were you not here? Fighting your destiny, I suppose.'
Several articles were scattered about under the trees. The Sharlands had
not many valuables; such as they had seemed to have been saved.
'Where is my mother? Lead me to her.'
'She is in the boat, Glory!' said Rebow. 'Come with me. The fire must
burn itself out. There is nothing further to be done; we must put your
mother at once under shelter. There is a cruel frost, and she will
suffer.'
'Where is she? What have you done with her?' again asked Mehalah, still
hardly collected and conscious of what she said.
'She is safe in my boat, well wrapped up. Come with me. You shall see
her. Abraham and my man shall stay and watch till the fire dies out,
and see that no further harm is done, and then follow in your boat.'
'Where are you going?'
'I am going to place your mother under cover, at once, or the cold will
kill her. Come on, Glory!'
Elijah led the way down the steep gravelly slope to the Rhyn. There
floated his boat--his large two-oared boat, and in the stern half lay,
half crouched, Mrs. Sharland, amidst blankets and bedding.
'Joseph!' shouted Elijah to one of the men by the fire, 'follow us as
soon as you can, and bring Abraham Dowsing with you. We will fetch away
the traps to-morrow.'
Mrs. Sharland was wailing and wringing her hands.
'Oh Mehalah! this is dreadful! too dreadful!'
'Step in and take the oar,' said Elijah impatiently. 'We must get off,
and house the old woman as soon as possible, or she will be
death-struck.'
The flames were reflected in the water about the boat, it seemed to
float in fire.
'Take the oar!' ordered Elijah gruffly.
Mehalah obeyed mechanically. He thrust the boat off, and cast himself
in.
No word was spoken for some time, Mehalah's eyes were fixed on her
burning home, with despair. Her brain was numb, her heart oppressed.
Mrs. Sharland wailed and wept, and uttered loud reproaches against
Mehalah, which the girl heard not. She was stunned, and could not take
in the situation.
The boat shot past the head of the Ray.
There stood the low broad bulk of the Burnt Hill. Mehalah roused
herself.
Elijah looked over his shoulder and laughed.
'Up Salcot Fleet!' he said shortly.
'What!' suddenly exclaimed Mehalah, as a pang shot through her heart.
'Whither are we going?'
'To Red Hall,' answered Elijah.
'I will not go there!' exclaimed the girl in a tone of despair, as she
drew her hands sharply from the oar, and the boat swung round.
'Take the oar again,' ordered Elijah. 'Where else can your mother go?
You must think of her. She cannot be left to die of cold on the
marshes, this night.'
A groan escaped Mehalah's breast. She resumed the oar. 'Hold hard!'
shouted Elijah after a row of half-an-hour. He sprang into the water,
and drew the boat ashore.
'Give your mother a hand and help her to land,' he said peremptorily.
Mehalah obeyed without a word.
Rebow caught the girl by both hands as she stepped on shore.
'Welcome, Glory! welcome to Red Hall! The new year sees you under the
roof where you shall rule as mistress; your destiny is mightier than
your will.'
*CHAPTER XVI.*
*IN NEW QUARTERS.*
When the boat reached the landing place for Red Hall, Mrs. Sharland was
found to have been so overcome with terror, and numbed with frost, as to
be unable to walk. She moaned under her blankets, but made no effort to
rise. Elijah was obliged to carry her out of the boat upon the
sea-wall, and then with the assistance of Mehalah she was conveyed to
the house in their arms. Neither spoke, and Mrs. Sharland's
lamentations, over various articles she had prized, and which she feared
were lost or destroyed, remained unattended to.
The old woman was wrapped up from the cold in a blanket that enfolded
her entire person and head, and she kept working an aperture for her
face, whilst being carried, not so much to obtain air, as to give vent
to queries.
'My green bombazine,--where is it?'
The folds of the blanket closed over the face. The fingers worked at
them, till they had made a gap.
'Is the toad-jug saved?' at the same time a point of a nose and a thin
finger emerged from the wraps.
'There was a dozen of Lowestoft soup-dishes!' A jerk as she was being
lifted over a rail sent her head and shoulders deeper into the blanket,
and it was some minutes before she had grubbed a hole for herself again.
'The warming-pan! I can't go to bed unless I have the sheets aired.'
A spring across a dyke buried the old woman again 'in woollen.' She
emerged only as the house was reached to exclaim 'My rum!'
'You've come where there's lots of that,' said Elijah, and he indicated
with his chin to Mehalah to carry her up the steps into the hall.
A red fire was glowing and painting the walls. The great room was warm,
and Mrs. Sharland battled out of her envelopes as soon as she became
aware that she was under cover.
'Take me to bed,' she said; 'my legs are frozen. I can't go a step. Oh!
is the toad-jug saved?'
'I will carry her now,' said Elijah. 'You light a candle, Glory, and
follow me.'
He took the old woman over his shoulder, and led the way up the stairs.
Mehalah followed with a light she had kindled at the hearth. He
conducted into a bed-room, comfortably furnished, with white curtains to
the windows, and a low tester bed in the corner.
'Light the fire,' he ordered, and Mehalah applied the candle to the
straw and chips in the grate. Presently the flames were dancing up the
chimney, and making the whole chamber glow. The old woman was laid on
the bed.
'This looks comfortable,' said she; 'just as if you was prepared for
us.'
'I was prepared for you. Everything was ready. Glory knows that I have
been expecting you and her. I told her she must come, sooner or later.
Sooner or later the same roof must cover both, as sooner or later the
same grave will hold us both. She would fight me, and would not come to
me, but her destiny is stronger than her will. My will is the destiny
of her life. It shapes and directs it.'
Mehalah did not speak. She could not speak. She was stunned. A belt of
iron bound her heart and restrained its free bounds, a weight of lead
crushed her brain and killed its independence of action. She, who had
been hitherto a law to herself, whose will had been unfettered, now
discovered herself a captive under the thraldom of a will mightier, or
more ungovernable, than her own. She had no time or power to think how
to escape, and free herself from the situation in which she was placed.
All her thoughts that she could collect must be about her mother. She
must think of herself when she had more leisure. But though she could
not think of herself, she could feel that she was conquered, and a
captive, and that escape would not be easy.
'There,' said Elijah, indicating a door, 'there is another little room
for you and your mother to put away what you like. If you want
anything, come downstairs.'
Elijah went heavily down the stairs and out at the door. Mehalah looked
from the window, and saw him on his way to the boat. He was going back
to the Ray. She could still see a red cloud hanging over her burnt
home. The tears rose in her heart at the sight, but would not well out
at her eyes. She stood and looked long at the dying fire, drawing the
window curtain behind her to screen from her the light of the room. Her
mother lay quiet, evidently pleased at having got into such comfortable
quarters, and exhausted with her alarm. By degrees she dozed off into
unconsciousness of her loss and of her situation, and Mehalah remained
at the window looking moodily over the fens and the water, at the ruby
spark that marked her old home.
She was standing in the same place when the boats arrived, bringing
portions of their goods to Red Hall. She heard the voices of Rebow and
other men below. She opened the door and listened. He was giving them
something to eat and drink. Abraham Dowsing was there. She could
distinguish his voice.
'If I hadn't turned you out, you'd have been burnt,' said Rebow.
'A good job for mistress we saved the cowhouse,' answered Abraham, with
sulky unwillingness to admit that he was indebted to Elijah for
anything.
'Don't you think you owe me your life?' asked Rebow.
'The cowhouse didn't burn.'
'No. But it would have, had not we been there to keep the flames off,'
observed one of the men.
'Good job for mistress I wasn't burnt. I don't know how she'd got along
without me.'
'It did not matter particularly to yourself then, Abby?'
'Don't know as it did. A man must die some time, and I've always heard
as smothering is a nice quiet sort of death--better than being racked
with cramps and tormented with rheumatics and shivered into the pithole
with agues.' After a pause Abraham's voice was heard to add, 'Besides,
I should have woke, myself, with the fire and smoke.'
'Not you. And if you had, what could you have done to save the old
woman? She'd have been burnt to a cinder before you woke.'
'That's mistress' matter, not mine,' answered Dowsing.
'You could not have got the things out of the house.'
'They are not mine,' retorted Abraham angrily. 'You are not going to
make a merit to me of saving what are the belongings of other folk?'
'They belong to your mistress.'
'Well, so they do, that is, they don't belong to me; so none of your
boasting to me, as if I owed you anything.' This ungracious remark, but
one not unnatural for a rude peasant jealous lest an obligation should
place him in a position of disadvantage, was followed by silence, during
which the party ate.