"ON BOSSINGTON HEADLAND"
A very demon of unrest laid hold of me that night. I ought to have
been sleepy, for we had had a long fatiguing day in the open air, but,
as a matter of fact, I was nothing of the sort. I have always been a
rigid materialist, but never since that night have I been without some
faint belief in that branch of superstition known as presentiments.
I had led a strange life for a boy of my age. I had never been to
school, and I had no companions of my own station save my father. As
regards my education, that had been entrusted to Mr. Cox, our nearest
clergyman. He did his best with me, poor man; but he must have found
it terrible work, for I was anything but brilliant. There was another
part of my education, the part undertaken by my father, in which I was
not so backward, and, with all due respect to the classics, I found it
of infinitely more use to me in my after life. I could ride, fish,
shoot, fence, box, or row as well as most men, and, though I was
slight, I was tall and strong, as who would not have been leading the
healthy life which we did?
It had never troubled me that I had no friends of my own age. Indeed,
I never had need of any, for when I had finished for the day with Mr.
Cox, or on holidays--which came not unfrequently--my father was always
ready to do anything I desired; and what better companion could I have
had? He was a better shot and a far better fencer than I, and, at a
distance, no one would have taken him for more than my elder brother.
He was over six feet in height, and as slim and upright as a dart. His
slight moustaches and hair were, indeed, grey, but they were the only
signs of age, save, perhaps a weary, troubled look which sometimes came
into his face and dwelt there for days. But a good hand-gallop or an
hour or two shooting from a boat round the coombe, used generally to
drive that away; and then his blue eyes would flash as eagerly and his
interest in the sport would be as strong as ever mine was. But, though
we were out in all weathers, sometimes for the whole day together, it
seemed as though neither sun nor wind could do more than very slightly
tan his clear, delicate skin; and his hands, although they were as
tenacious and strong as a bargeman's, remained almost as white and
shapely as a lady's. I used to think him the handsomest man in the
world, and I have certainly never seen a handsomer. To be told that I
was growing like him was to make me supremely happy--and people often
told me so in those days.
No wonder that I grew to love him with more even than an ordinary
filial love. The ties between us were so various, that it would have
been strange had it not been so. To the love of a son for his father,
was added the love which springs from constant companionship whilst
engaged with kindred tastes in following a common object. My mother,
too, claimed a large share of my affection, and so did Marian, my
sister. But neither of them came anywhere near him in my heart.
I was not of a speculative nature, but gradually it had begun to dawn
upon me that we were somehow different from other people--that there
must be some reason for the absolute and unbroken solitude in which we
lived, and the events of the last two days had now made this certain.
"The boy must be told." What was it that I must be told? I had
thought that I should have known this very evening, for just as I was
going to bed my father had called me to him.
"Hugh," he had said kindly, "you were saying something last night about
never having been away from this place. You were quite right. You
must not live here always. There has been a reason, a very grave
reason, for our having lived here so long and in such solitude. You
must be told that reason."
I could see that he was agitated, and a vague yet strong sense of
trouble filled me.
"Do not tell me now, father," I cried; "do not tell me at all if it
distresses you. I will ask no more questions. I will be content to
live on here always as we are doing now."
He shook his head slowly.
"No, Hugh, my boy, you must be told. It is my duty to tell you. But
not to-night. I have gone through enough to-day," and he sighed.
I thought of that terrible scene on the moor, of my father's wild words
and passionate action, and I asked him no questions. But when I left
him for the night and went to bed, there was in my heart a strong sense
of some approaching trouble. I tossed about from side to side in my
bed till sleep became hopeless. Then I rose, and, hastily putting on
my clothes, slipped out of the house.
Even outside I found it warm and oppressive. The sky was black with
clouds, and without the moon's softening light the sea looked sullen
and uninviting. The air seemed heavy, and, even when I stood on the
headland after half-an-hour's climbing, there was no cool breeze to
reward me, and, though I had thought myself hard and in good condition,
the perspiration came streaming from every pore in my body, and I found
myself panting for breath.
I stood upright, and tried to look around me, but everything was
wrapped in a thick pall of darkness. I had never known so dark a
night, and, after standing there for a moment or two, I grew afraid to
move lest I should make a false step. To the right of me I could hear
the wind moaning amongst the pine-trees of Allercombe Wood, which the
slightest breeze, when in a certain direction, always seemed to cause,
and, many hundred feet below, there was the roar of the sea, unusually
loud for such a quiet night, as it swept round the sharp corners of the
headland.
Never had I stood there before on such a night, or with such a heavy
heart. I wished that I had not come, and yet I was afraid to go. The
darkness had closed in upon me till I could almost feel it, and knowing
that a single step in the wrong direction might cost me my life, I
dared not move. Suddenly the heaviness of the atmosphere was
explained. The sky above me seemed to be rent aside to let out a great
blaze of vivid light which flashed, glittering and fiercely brilliant,
right across the arc of the heavens, sinking at last into the horizon
of the sea, which it showed me for a moment with a lurid light, green
and disturbed. Almost on its heels came the thunder, and I trembled as
I listened. It seemed as if the hills were one by one splitting open
with a great crash all around me, and the ground on which I stood
shook. Again the lightning was scattered all over the inky sky, giving
me ghastly peeps at sections of the patch-worky landscape below, and
once it flashed down the conductor of Porlock steeple, showing me the
little town as distinctly as I had ever seen it. A gale sprung up with
marvellous suddenness; the moaning of the pine-trees became an angry
shrieking, and the roar of the sea far away below became a deafening
thunder. Black clouds and grey mists came rolling along, sometimes
enveloping me, and sometimes passing so close above my head that I
could feel their moisture, and, by stretching out my hand, could almost
have touched them. Every now and then above the storm I could hear the
piteous bleating of the mountain sheep, as they rushed frantically
about seeking in vain for shelter which the bare hillside could not
afford them. For the rain was coming down in sheets, blinding, driving
sheets, and already the swollen mountain streams were making themselves
heard above all the din, as they swept down into the Porlock valley.
Before the storm had even commenced to die away I had thrown myself
face downwards on the wet grass, and was praying. A strange idea had
flashed into my mind, and had suddenly become a conviction. This storm
had somehow associated itself in my mind with the sudden sense of
gloomy depression which had laid hold of me, and driven me out into the
black night. As one ended, so would the troubles which the other
foretold. It was a strange idea, but it was stranger still what a
mastery it gained over me. I dared not look up lest I should still see
a threatening sky and an angry see. If such had been the case, I am
convinced that I should have been strongly tempted to have thrown
myself from the cliffs into the arms of certain death. But when at
last I summoned up courage to rise, and gaze fearfully around, it was a
very different sight upon which my eyes dwelt. So strangely different
that at first it seemed almost as though the hideous storm which had
been raging so short a while ago must surely have been a wild
nightmare. The dark line of the Exmoor hills was betopped with a
gorgeous bank of rosy-coloured clouds, and the sun which had just
escaped from them was shining down from a clear sky, gilding and
transforming the whole landscape like some great magician. The white
cottages of Porlock seemed basking in its pleasant warmth, whilst the
fields between it and the sea seemed to be stretching themselves out
smiling and refreshed. Here and there, scattered about amongst them,
and on the white sands, were long sparkling streaks of silver, which
bore witness of the violence of the rainfall; and the tops of the
pine-trees, amongst which the wind was no longer playing strange
pranks, seemed encrusted with a glittering mass of diamonds, which shot
forth their rays in every direction; and strangest of all seemed the
altered aspect of the sea. It stretched away below me like a great
lake, with only the gentlest ripple disturbing its placid surface, a
mighty playground for myriads of dancing, sparkling sunbeams to revel
and disport themselves upon. Never had I seen the hills so green or
the sea such an exquisite deep, clear blue. Everything seemed to speak
of peace and calm and happiness after suffering. It struck an
answering chord in my heart, and I could have cried out with joy. The
hideous depression seemed rolled away from me, and I could breathe
freely again. My spirits leaped up within me, and I threw my hat into
the air and shouted for joy till Allercombe Wood rang with the echoes.
Then I turned away and strode down the narrow winding path, suddenly
conscious that I was stiff and wet and tired. If I had known then when
and how I should next stand on Bossington Point, should I ever have
come down? I cannot tell.