MR. HERBERT.
It was eleven of the forenoon when I stopped at Mr. Herbert's door,
and the long incline of the street was empty. At the bottom of the
hill, beyond the little bridge, there was a shimmer of green trees,
and beyond the trees a flashing corner of the lake. Through a gap in
the houses on my left, I caught a glimpse of the woods of Brandelaw,
and the brown slope of Catbells rising from the midst of them. A
shadowless August morning bent over the country, cradling it to sleep
with all its drowsy murmurings, so that contentment was like a perfume
in the air. And it was with a contentment untroubled by any presage
that I tied up my horse and knocked at the door.
Mr. Herbert's lodging was on the first floor, and as I mounted the
stairs the noise of an altercation came to me from behind the closed
door. The woman who led me up shrugged her shoulders and stopped.
"One of the April showers," I thought, recalling Lord Derwentwater's
words.
"Will you go up?" she asked doubtfully.
"Yes," said I. "For I take it that if I deferred the visit till
to-morrow, to-morrow might be own brother of to-day."
She knocked at the door twice and got no answer. I heard a man's voice
exclaim acrimoniously:
"It was the worst mistake man ever made," and a woman cry in a
passion--
"Or woman either. Deary me, I wish I were dead!"
And "Deary me, I wish it too," said my attendant, and impatiently she
turned the handle and opened the door. A man sprang forwards. He was
young, I noticed, of a delicate face, with a dark, bilious complexion.
"Mr. Anthony Herbert, I suppose," I said, taking off my hat, and I
stepped into the room. The next moment I regretted nothing so much as
that I had not taken the landlady's advice, for a woman sat at the
table, with her face couched upon her arms, crying.
"Your business?" asked Mr. Herbert, abruptly, getting between myself
and the table.
I turned my back to the room and looked out of the window, making as
though I had not seen his wife.
"Lord Derwentwater showed me yesterday a picture of his wife painted
by you," I said; and I unfolded the purport of my visit slowly. In the
midst of my speech I heard the rustle of a dress and a door cautiously
open and shut. A second or two later I turned back into the room; it
was empty. The artist accepted the commission, and I arranged with him
that he should set to work next day.
"I am afraid," he said awkwardly, as he bowed me from the room, "that
you caught me at an inopportune moment."
"Did I?" I returned, playing surprise. "Ah yes, you are not dressed,"
for he was wearing a dressing-gown. "But it is my fault in that I came
too early."
And he closed the door.
"Thank you!"
The words were breathed in a whisper from the landing above that on
which I stood. I looked up; the staircase was ill-lighted and panelled
with a dark mahogany, so that I saw nothing but the outline of a head
bent over the balustrade; and even as I looked that outline was
withdrawn.
"Not at all," I replied to the empty air.
The door behind me was thrown open.
"What is it, Mr. Clavering?" asked Herbert, and he glanced
suspiciously up the stairs.
I, on the contrary, stared down them.
"It is," I answered, "that your staircase is cursedly dark."
"True," says he, and steps to my side. "One cannot see an inch further
than is needful;" and he looked down them too.
"One cannot even see so far," says I, and I peered upwards.
"One might break one's neck if one were careless," he continued in a
musing tone.
"Oh, I did not stretch it out enough for that," I replied, thinking of
something totally different.
Herbert looked at me with a puzzled expression.
"It occurs to me, Mr. Clavering," he resumed, "that if it would please
you better I could fetch my easel over to Blackladies."
"There is no manner of occasion for that," I replied hastily, and I
got me into the street with as little difficulty as if there had been
a window to every step of the stairs.
Thus, then, I had my excuse. I rode back to Blackladies that
afternoon, and bade Luke Blacket carry such clothes as I required to
Mr. Herbert's lodging.
"Very well, sir," he said, but did not go. For just as it was getting
dusk I saw from the library window Ashlock--for so I still called him,
even or perhaps more particularly to myself--ride down the drive with
the package upon his saddle-bow. I was as much surprised now at this
voluntary exposure of himself as I had been previously at his sedulous
concealments. But I bethought me in time that it would be dark long
before Ashlock reached the village of Keswick, and as to his
doings--well, I deemed it wisest to busy myself as little as possible
on that head. For I was never certain from one minute to the next but
what I might stumble upon some proof which I could not disregard.
Consequently neither then, nor when he returned, did I utter a single
word.
But on the next morning I followed my clothes to Mr. Herbert's
lodging, sat to him for an hour or so, and then went about my
business. And this I did day after day, visiting the gentry about, and
attending the fairs and markets until I had acquired as complete a
knowledge of what the district intended as would have satisfied my
Lord Bolingbroke in person. That there were a great many, not merely
of the gentry, but of the smallest statesmen and even peasants who
favoured King James, I was rejoiced to perceive. But against this
disposition I had to set a deplorable lack of arms and all munitions
of war. Here and there, indeed, one came across a gentleman, like Mr.
Richard Salkeld, of Whitehall, in Cumberland, who had carefully
collected and stored away any weapon that he could lay his hands on,
and I remember that in Patterdale, one Mr. John Burtham, a man very
advanced in years, led me with tottering steps down to his cellar and
showed me with the greatest glee a pile of antique musketoons and a
couple of barrels of gunpowder, which his grandfather had hidden there
for the service of King Charles I., but had discovered no use for
after Marstoon Moor. For the most part, however, such as took the
field I saw would take it with no more effectual armament than scythes
and sickles and beaten-out ploughshares; and, indeed, I am not sure
but what I would rather have so armed myself than with the musketoons
and gunpowder of Mr. Burtham. One necessary condition, however, or
rather I should say, one necessary preliminary of a rising, all with
whom I had speech required and in a unanimous voice--I mean that his
Most Christian Majesty should land twenty thousand troops in England
and with them money for their subsistence. On the other hand, I knew
that the French King, howbeit disposed to the utmost friendliness, was
yet anxious, before he violated the peace of Utrecht, to ascertain
which way the wind blew in England, and whether it was a steady breeze
or no more than a flickering gust. It was about this time, too, that
news was brought to me of the Duke of Ormond's flight to Paris, and I
did not need the letter of Lord Bolingbroke which conveyed the news,
to assure me how great a discouragement that flight must be to our
friends in France. This, then, was the posture of affairs: France
waited upon the Jacobites in England, and they in their turn waited
upon France.
"There is but one hope," said Lord Derwentwater, when we were
discussing the uncertainty wherein we lived--"there is but one hope of
precipitating the matter to an issue, and that hope lies in the
activity of the English Government. The Commons have suspended the Act
of Habeas Corpus until next January, in the case of all persons
suspected of conspiracy; Papists and Non-jurors are banished from the
cities of Westminster and London and for ten miles round; the laws
against them are to be put into the strictest execution. I do not know
but what the rigour of these proceedings may goad the Jacobites to an
extremity. But therein lies the one hope. And how goes it with Darby
and Joan?" he broke off in a laugh. "I saw the portrait but yesterday,
and it will do no discredit to the young Master of Blackladies."
But the young Master of Blackladies turned his face awkwardly to the
window, and felt the blood rush to his cheeks, but never a word of
answer to his lips. For, alas! what before had been the pretext and
excuse was now become the real object of my journeyings. I had
garnered my information--and the picture was still a-painting and
little more than halfway to completion. I cannot even after this long
interval of years think of that period without a lurking sense of
shame--though I paid for the wrong--yes, to the uttermost farthing,
and thank God in all humility that it was given me to repair it. For
this, indeed, is true: the wrong went not beyond the possibility of
reparation.
It was on the third occasion of my coming to the artist's apartment
that I first met Mrs. Herbert face to face. She entered the room by
chance, as it seemed, in the search for some embroidery. Mr. Herbert,
for a wonder, was in a great good-humour that morning and presented me
to her.
"This is Mr. Clavering, of Blackladies," he said with a wave of the
hand, and so went on with his work. I rose from my chair and bowed to
her. But with a quick impulsive movement she came forward and held out
her hand to me, reddening, I must think, with some remembrance of the
occasion whereon I had first seen her. And then--
"Tony," she cried reproachfully, with a glance about the room. Indeed,
it had something of a slatternly appearance, which seemed to me to
accord very ill with the woman who dwelled in it. The poor remains of
breakfast--a dish of clammy fish, a crumbled oatmeal cake, and a plate
of butter soft and oily--were spread upon a stained table-cloth. But
the stains were only upon one side, and I chose to think it was there
the man had sat.
"Well," says he, looking up in a flash of irritation, "what is it?
What is it?" And then following the direction of her gaze, "We can
afford nothing better," he snapped out.
"That is no reason," she replied, "why it should drag here till
midday;" and she rang a little bell upon a side-table. He shrugged his
shoulders and returned to his picture. She stood looking at him for a
second, as though she expected him to speak, but he did not.
"Then, Mr. Clavering," she said, turning to me with a flush of anger
upon her face, "I must needs undertake my husband's duty and make you
his apologies."
Herbert started up from his seat, throwing the brush which he held
petulantly on to the floor.
"Nay," I answered in some distress, for this apology was the last
thing I expected or desired, "madam, there is no manner of need that
such consideration should be shown me. Mr. Herbert honours me
sufficiently by painting my portrait."
"That is very courteous of you," she answered with a little bow, "and
I expected nothing less. _But_," and she drew herself up again and
faced her husband, "it is not fitting we should receive our patrons
with so little regard."
"Madam," I blurted out in the greatest confusion, "I beseech you. It
would cause me the greatest distress to think that I had proved a
trouble betwixt your husband and yourself."
It was not the discreetest phrase I could have chosen, but it served
its turn, for it brought them both to a stop, and in a little Mrs.
Herbert left us alone. Thereupon I put my hand in my pocket and drew
out the medal of which I have spoken.
"Mr. Herbert," I said, "I have an ornament here, which I would fain
have you add to the portrait;" and I held it out to him.
"Very well," said he, taking it "If you will leave it here, I will
paint it in at my leisure."
"But," said I, "it would not be wise to let it lie open to the gaze of
any chance-comer."
He turned it over in his hands and glanced at it
"For myself," said he, "I do not meddle in politics one way or the
other. I will keep it locked. See!" And he placed it in a little iron
box, and locking it put the key in his pocket.
On the next day that I came, the room was all tidied and newly swept,
though the improvement brought no more peace than did its previous
disorder. For, this time Mr. Herbert could find nothing that he
wanted--even his brushes and colours had been tidied out of sight; so
that he was forced to call in his wife to help him in the search for
them, and seeing her thus engaged somehow fell ungratefully to rating
her. The which she listened to with a patience which I could not but
greatly admire; and after all it was she who discovered the brushes.
Then very quietly she said:
"I will be no party to a quarrel before Mr. Clavering. It might
perchance savour of ill-breeding;" and so she departed with the
pleasantest smile, leaving Herbert in a speechless exasperation. For
my part I wished intensely that she had not dragged my name into the
business.
Herbert turned from the door to me, and from me again to the door; his
mouth opened and shut; he spread out his hands in despair, as though
the whole world was a riddle to be given up. Then he looked at the
brushes in his hand.
"She hid them," he cried. "Damme but she hid them."
I felt inclined to rise from my chair and determine my visits there
and then. I changed my mind, however, bethinking me that the couple
were poor, and that if I acted on the inclination, I should be
punishing not merely the husband but the wife as well.
To drive the notion finally from my head I needed nothing more than
that by accident I should chance upon Mrs. Herbert on the stairs. For
she spoke to that very point as I wished her good day.
"It will be good-bye you mean, Mr. Clavering," she answered, with
something of a sigh for the loss which would befall them, since the
defection of a client thus prematurely could not but damage his
reputation in those parts.
"It will be good-bye if you wish it," I returned with a laugh, "but
not otherwise."
Mrs. Herbert gave a start and looked across my shoulder. I turned
sharply and saw Mr. Herbert himself standing in the doorway above me.
He must have heard the words, I knew, but he stood quite still, his
face passionless as stone, and for that reason, maybe, I did not at
the time consider the construction he would be likely to put on them.
"Speaking for myself," I continued, "I shall not easily part from Mr.
Herbert until the picture is finished and in my safe keeping."
So I spake with a polite bow to the painter, little thinking in how
strange and hazardous a fashion I was destined to fulfil my words.
It must not, however, be thought that the pair were ever a-seething in
this pot of quarrels. The sun shone betwixt the thunderclaps and with
no dubious rays. At times, for instance, Mrs. Herbert would bring a
book of plays into the room and read them aloud whilst her husband
worked, and I--I, alas! watched the changes of her face. Once I
remember she read in this way Mr. Congreve's "Love for Love," with a
decent slurring of some passages and a romantical declaiming of
others, at which Mr. Herbert would break into languishments and sighs,
and Mr. Lawrence Clavering would feel himself the most awkward
intruder in the world.
It was in the midst of this particular reading that Anthony Herbert
was called downstairs upon some business, and she and I were left for
a little to our devices. Mrs. Herbert continued to read with her eyes
glued upon the pages, but gradually I could not but notice that a
certain constraint and awkwardness crept into her voice. At last she
stumbled over a passage and stopped. I rose from my chair, and,
sensible that a like awkwardness was stealing over me, went and gazed
at the picture. I made the mistake, however, of praising it, and of
praising it, perhaps, with some extravagance, for the encomium
naturally enough being couched in that vein, brought the artist's wife
across the room to consider of it too.
"In truth," says she, looking from the portrait to myself, "he has
caught your features, Mr. Clavering, even to the eyes and the curve of
the chin."
"Yes!" I replied. "It needs no connoisseur to foretell how much Mr.
Herbert will achieve."
She did not answer, but kept looking at me curiously, and I continued,
in an unaccountable flurry:
"Sir Godfrey Kneller ages; one hears of no one who can fitly claim his
place. The honour of it should fall to Mr. Herbert--nay, must fall to
him, I think--and it is no barren honour. He has an estate at Witton,
Lord Derwentwater tells me. He sits as Justice of the Peace there, and
he is even now painting his tenth monarch. It is no barren honour."
I spoke with all the earnestness I could command, but of a sudden,
from the corner of my eye, I saw her lips part in a queer smile. I
felt my voice shake, and covered the shaking with a feeble laugh.
"So an obscure country gentleman," I continued, "has reason to count
himself lucky in getting his picture done by Mr. Herbert before the
sovereigns of Europe engross his art;" and at that, for sheer want of
assistance, I faltered to a stop. The silence crept about us,
insidious, laden with danger, and every second that passed made it yet
more dangerous to speak. The woman at my side stood motionless as a
statue. I did not dare to glance at her; I stared at the portrait and
saw nothing of it. It was as though my face had faded from the canvas
in a mist I was conscious only of the tall figure at my side. I tried
to speak, but no thoughts came to me--nothing but a tumult of
unconsidered words--words which I had never spoken before, and of
which even now I did not apprehend the meaning. They whirled up within
me and beat against my teeth for passage, I locked my mouth to keep
them in, and then I began to be afraid; I began to tremble, too, lest
the woman should move. At last I conned over a sentence in my mind,
and repeated it and repeated it, silently, until I was sure that I
could utter it without a trip.
"It must be a noble thing to be the wife of so great an artist," and
as I spoke the words I was able to move away.
She gave a little quiet laugh, and answered--
"With, besides, the prospect of being wife to a Justice of the Peace
at Witton."
For speaking that word I almost felt that I hated her.
"Oh, why won't you help?" I cried in a veritable despair, stretching
out my arms to her.
She turned on me suddenly with her face aflame and a cry half uttered
on her lips. What would have been the upshot I cannot tell, but the
door opened or ever she could articulate a word, and Mr. Herbert
returned to put an end to our talk. For a week after that I mounted
the stairs with uncertain steps, each footfall accusing me for that I
came. However, during that week I saw her no more, and was beginning
to acquire some confidence in my powers of self-mastery. Indeed, I
went further, and became even vaingloriously anxious that I might
chance upon her in order to put those powers to the test.
The opportunity came, and this is what I made of it. There had been
some dispute that morning over a trivial domestic matter, and Mr.
Herbert sat glooming before his easel, when his wife entered the room
with a certain air of defiance and took her customary seat. She held a
book in her hand, bound in old leather, with gold lettering upon the
back, so that I was able to read the title. It was Sir Thomas Malory's
Book of the Morte d'Arthur, and in a very deliberate voice she read
out of the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, and much emphasis she laid
on the temperate gentleness of King Arthur and his unreadiness to
believe in any misdoings either of his wife or his companions. But her
words fell vainly upon deaf ears, for Herbert took no heed of any word
she read or any accent of her voice; the which she came to see, and
losing all her defiant dignity in a little, shut the book with a bang
and ran out of the room.
For my part I had listened to the story in the greatest disorder of
spirit, and was very glad to be quit of it, and of Mr. Herbert too,
for that day at all events, in spite of the supremacy of his genius.
But the staircase, as I have said, was very dark, and particularly so
at one corner where it turned sharply two flights below the doorway
and made an angle in the wall. Now as I passed this angle, something
moved in it I stopped, wondering what it was, and then a voice came to
me in a whisper--
"Lancelot!"
Instinctively I drew back and threw out my hands. They touched--they
held another pair of hands--for the fraction of a second.
"No," said I with an attempt at a laugh, hollow as the clatter of an
empty mug, "the name does not fit me, for at all events Lancelot could
fight, and I have not learnt even so much skill as that."
Unconsciously I raised my voice as I spoke, and a second after the
door creaked gently above us. She drew back into the corner all
a-tremble, like a chided dog, and the movement touched me with a pity
that made my heart sicken. The angle I knew could not be seen from the
stair-head. I slipped purposely on a step, and swore a little not
over-quietly.
"What is it?" asked Mr. Herbert.
"An ill-lighted staircase is the devil," said I; and I grumbled my way
to the street-door. But I heard Mr. Herbert's door shut before I left
the house.
Whither I went after leaving the house I was in that perturbation of
mind I cannot tell. It was my habit to stable my horse at the Lamb and
Flag, opposite, and subsequently I was told that I entered the
courtyard and wandered out of it again like one blind. A fire burned
in my blood, and the aspect of the world was fiery to my vision. I
went whither my footsteps guided me, and all places they led me to
were alike. Afterwards it came upon me like the memory of a dream,
that I had stood for some while with the sheen of water beneath my
eyes, and the lapping of water in my ears, and that hereafter I had
climbed for long hours up a wearisome green slope; and indeed my
insteps and knees ached for days to come, so it may be that I went
down to Derwentwater and thence toiled up some part of Skiddaw. But of
all this I knew nothing at the time; I only knew that I came again to
the possession of my wits in Keswick Street about ten o'clock of the
night, very hungry and very tired. I entered the inn and bade the
landlord get me some supper before I started homewards. And this he
did, laying a table for me in the best parlour of the house--a long
room on the first floor, with window-seats, from which one commanded
the street. The landlord prepared the table for me at the inner end of
the apartment and set the lamp there; so that as the light was but
dim, and I rested myself in the window until such time as supper
should be brought, I was well-nigh in the actual dark.
Now while I was seated there, a man came down the street towards me. I
should not, I think, have noticed him at all but for the caution of
his movements. For he kept very close to the houses and stepped
lightly upon his toes; and when for all his care his spurs clinked or
his foot rolled on a loose stone, he paused and looked behind and
about him. So he walked until he came in front of Mr. Herbert's house.
Then he stopped, and it came upon me that there was something familiar
in his appearance.
I drew back into the curtains. He gazed up and down the street and
then to the windows of the Lamb and Flag. A heavy tramp sounded on the
cobbles some yards away, very loud and unexpected, so that it startled
me little less than it did the man I watched. I drew yet farther into
the curtains; he slunk into a cavity between two of the houses, and
that action of his flashed of a sudden a plan into my mind; I
remembered that dark angle on the staircase. The footfalls grew
louder, a dalesman passed along the centre of the roadway, his steps
died away up the hill. My man crept from his hiding-place, and
whistled softly under Mr. Herbert's windows. The blind was pushed
aside from the window an inch or so, and I saw a head against the
light pressed upon the window-pane. Then the window creaked and
opened. The head was thrust out and a few words were interchanged, but
in so low a tone that I could catch nothing of their purport. Then the
window was shut and the man advanced to the door. One thing was clear
to me from these proceedings, that whosoever he might be, and I had
little doubts upon that score, this was by no means his first visit to
Mr. Anthony Herbert.
I set that piece of knowledge aside, however, for the present. There
was a further point which concerned me more particularly just then.
Was the street-door on the latch? Or must Mr. Herbert descend to give
his visitor entrance?
The visitor turned the handle, opened the door, and closed it again
behind him. I waited until I saw his shadow on the blind. He had taken
off his hat and his cloak, and his profile was figured upon it in a
silhouette.
I ran down the stairs and across the street without so much as picking
up my hat. I opened Mr. Herbert's door, and crept up the staircase
until I came to the angle which I had reason to know so well. There I
hid myself and waited in the dark. And how dark it was and how
intolerably still! Very rarely a burst of laughter, or a voice louder
than the usual, would filter up to me from the back part of the house.
But from the studio above, nothing--not the tread of a foot, not the
whisper of a voice, not the shuffle of a chair.
What were they debating in such secrecy? I asked myself and then,
"Perhaps I had been mistaken after all?" I clung to the possibility,
though I had little faith in it. At all events, this night I should
make sure--one way or another I should make sure.
After the weariest span, the door was opened. I could not see it
because of the turn of the staircase. I stood, in fact, just under the
door; but I could see on the wall facing me, at the point where the
stairs turned a bright disk of light suddenly appear, such as a lamp
will throw. The visitor would pass by that disk; he would intercept
the rays of the lamp; those rays would burn upon his face. I leaned
forward, holding my breath; the steps above me cracked as a man
descended them. I heard a short "good night," but it was Mr. Herbert
who spoke; and then the door was closed again and the disk vanished
from the wall I could have cursed aloud, so bent was I upon
discovering this visitor; but the footsteps descended towards me in
the dark, and I drew myself back into my corner.
As they passed me I felt a sudden flap of wind across my face, as
though the man was moving his hands in the air to guide him, and I
reckoned that the hand was waved within an inch of my nose. A few
seconds later and the street-door opened. The sound brought home to me
all the folly of my mistake. If I had only waited outside, in that
alley, say, where he himself had crept, I should have seen him--I
should have known him! Now I must needs wait where I stood until he
was clean out of reach, I counted a hundred, a hundred and fifty, two
hundred and then in my turn I slipped down the stairs and out of the
house. The night was not over-clear, and I could perceive no one in
the street. I strained my ears until they ached, and it seemed to me
that I heard a light tip-toe tread very faint, diminishing up the
hill. I ran in its direction with as little noise as I might. But I
heard my spurs clink-clinking even as his had done, only ten times
louder.
I stooped and loosed them from my feet. Then I ran on again; it seemed
to me that the footsteps grew louder. I turned the corner at the head
of the street. In front of me there was a blur of light; the blur
defined itself into four moving points of flame as I approached, and,
or ever I was aware of it, I had plumped full into my Lord
Derwentwater, who was walking homewards behind his torch-bearers to
the lake.
"Come, my man," said he, "what manners are these?"
"The manners of a man in a desperate hurry," says I, "and so good
night to you, my lord;" and I moved on one side.
"Lawrence Clavering!" he cried out and caught me by the arm. "The very
man I would be speaking with."
"But to-morrow, my lord--to-morrow."
"Nay, to-night. You come so pat upon my wish that I must needs believe
God sent you;" and the deep gravity of his tone was the very
counterpart of his words. I stopped, undecided, and listened. But I
could no longer hear the faintest echo of those stealthy footsteps.
"Then there is something new afoot," said I.
"Something new, indeed," says he, "though I take it, it concerns no
one but you." And he bade his footmen go forward. "A minute ago a man
passed me on this road, his cloak was drawn about his face, his hat
thrust down upon his ears, but the light of my torches flickered into
his eyes, and I knew the man."
"It was doubtless my steward," I blurted out. "He was in Keswick
to-day."
"Your steward?" he asked in wonderment "Your steward? No, I should not
pester you with news about your steward. It was young Jervas Rookley."
"Well," said I, "what of him, my lord? I have nothing to fear from
Jervas Rookley."
"You think that?"
"I know it," I answered, a trifle unsteadily. "At all events, there is
solid reason why I should have no grounds for fear." For I bethought
me that I had loyally kept faith with him.
Lord Derwentwater stood for a moment silent.
"Walk a step with me," he said, and holding my arm he continued, "I
would not meddle in your private concerns, Mr. Clavering, but I know
Jervas Rookley, and it will be a very ill day for you when you hear
his step across the threshold of Blackladies."
I felt a chill slip into my veins, for if he spoke truth and his
words fitted so aptly with my suspicions that I could not disbelieve
them--why, that day was long become irrevocable. However, I sought to
laugh the matter off.
"A very ill day indeed, for on that day I lose Blackladies to the
Crown."
"The danger will come from Jervas Rookley himself."
"Then it will be man to man."
We were now come within a few paces of the footmen, so that the flare
of their torches lighted up our faces fitfully. My companion stopped.
"I have known men, Lawrence," he said, "who went down to their graves
in the winter of their years--children--all the more lovable for that,
maybe," for an instant his grip tightened about my arm, "but none the
less children, and I have known others who were greybeards in their
teens."
He paused and looked at me doubtfully, as though he would say more.
"You will be wary of this man. He can have little friendliness for you
and it will be no common motive that can bring him back to these
parts. You will be wary of him, Lawrence?"
So much I readily promised, and again he stood shifting from one foot
to the other, balanced, uneasily, betwixt speech and silence. But all
he said was, again--
"You will be wary of him, Lawrence," and so with a grasp of the hand
moved off.
I watched him going, and as the torches dwindled to candle-flames and,
from candle-flames to sparks, a great desire grew in me to run after
him and disclose all that I knew of Jervas Rookley. The desire grew
almost to a passion. Had I spoken then, doubtless he would have spoken
then, and so, much would have been saved me. But I had given my word
to hold this estate in trust, and ignorance or the assumption of
ignorance was the condition of my keeping it. The torches vanished in
the darkness. I walked back to the inn and mounted my horse. As I rode
out of the courtyard, I saw, far away down the street and close to the
lake's edge, four stars, as it were, burning. There was still time. I
turned my horse; but I had given my word, and I spurred him to a
gallop up the Castle Hill and rode down Borrowdale to Blackladies.