I DROP THE CLOAK.
The lesson, however, was lost on me, or rather, to speak by the book,
had the very reverse effect to that it aimed at. For my solemnity was
increased thereby. I reflected that Dorothy would never have played
this trick upon an enemy, or even upon an unconsidered acquaintance,
but only upon one whom she thought of as a friend. And there was the
trouble. I held her in that reverence that it irked me intolerably to
masquerade to her, though the masquerading was to my present advantage
in her esteem. I had, of course, no thought that ever I could win her,
since I saw myself hourly either doomed to the gallows, or, if I
failed of that, to a more disgraceful existence. But I was fain that
she should know me through and through for no better than I was; and
so I wore her friendship as a stolen cloak.
Now, a thief, if the cloak galls him, may restore it. That I could not
do without telling her the whole story; and the story I could not
tell, since it was not I alone whose honour was concerned in it, but a
woman with me. Or the thief may drop the cloak by the roadside without
a word, and get him into the night. Over that alternative I pondered a
long, dreary while.
But while I was yet tossed amidst these perplexities, news came to
hand which quite turned the current of my thoughts. It was the 18th
day of September, and Mr. Curwen, I remember, had left Applegarth
early that morning on horseback, and, though it was now past
nightfall, had not yet returned; the which was causing both his
daughter and myself no small uneasiness at the very time when Tash
rapped upon the door. He brought me a letter. I mind me that I stood
in the hall staring in front of me, holding the open letter in my
hand. It seemed that I saw the lock fall from a door, and the door
opening on an unimagined dawn.
"What is it?" cried Dorothy, and for a second she laid a gentle hand
upon my arm.
"It is," I exclaimed, drawing in a breath, "it is that the Earl of
Mar--the duke, God bless him! for now one may give him his proper
title--has raised King James's standard at Kirkmichael in Braemar."
Dorothy gave a cry of delight, and I joined in with it. For if the
duke did but descend into England, if England did but rise to welcome
him--why, there would be the briefest imprisonment for those lying
under charge, whether true or false, of conspiring for King James.
Through the open doorway sounded the tramp of a horse.
"My father!" said Dorothy.
I crammed the letter into my pocket without a glance at its
conclusion, and ran down the pathway to the gate. As I opened the gate
Mr. Curwen rode up to it.
"I am glad to have this chance of speaking to you alone," said he, as
he dismounted. "I have been to-day to Whitehaven. My ship, the
_Swallow_, is fitting out I have given orders that the work should be
hurried, and the crew shipped with the least delay. The Swallow will
sail the first moment possible, and lie off Ravenglass until you come.
It is an arduous journey from here to Ravenglass, but safe."
A farm-servant came up and led away the horse.
"The _Swallow_ should be at Ravenglass in six weeks from to-day," he
continued.
"But, sir," said I in a whisper, though I felt an impulse to cry the
news out, "there will be no need, I trust, for the _Swallow_. There is
the grandest news to tell you;" and I informed him of the contents of
my letter.
Mr. Curwen said never a word to me, but dropped upon his knees in the
pathway.
"God save the King!" he cried in a quavering voice, and the fervour of
it startled me. His hands were clasped and lifted up before him, and
by the starlight I saw that there were tears upon his cheek. Then he
stood up again and mopped his face with his handkerchief, leaning
against the palings of the garden fence. "Mr. Clavering, I could add
with a full heart, 'Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,' but
that there is work even for an arm as old and feeble as mine." At that
he stopped, and asked, in a very different tone of trepidation, "Does
Mary Tyson know?"
"Miss Dorothy does."
"Ah, of course, of course," he said with resignation, "It is all one;"
and he walked slowly up the path. At the door he turned to me, and set
a hand on my shoulder. "There is work, Mr. Clavering, for the feeblest
arm?" he asked wistfully.
Now, all my instincts urged me to say "Yes," but, on the other hand, I
remembered certain orders which had been given to me in a very decided
voice, so that I stood silent. With a sorrowful shake of the head, Mr.
Curwen passed through the door.
"Maybe you are right," said he, disconsolately; and then, "But the
question is worth proving"--this bracing his shoulders and making a
cut in the air with an imaginary sabre. However, Mary Tyson bustled
forward to help him off with his great-coat, and scolded all the
boldness out of him in the space of a minute, drawing such a picture
of the anxiety into which his early outgoing and late home-coming had
thrown the household, as melted him to humility.
"It was to do me a service," said I, interposing myself.
"And the more shame to you," says she, bluntly; "white hairs must wait
on young legs!" and off she flung to the kitchen.
It was not until the following morning that Dorothy made allusion to
his absence.
"I went on business to Whitehaven," he replied with a prodigious wink
at me, which twisted the whole side of his face--his daughter could
not but have observed it--"though the business might have waited;" and
he added hurriedly, "However, I bring a message for you, my dear, for
I chanced to meet old Mr. Aislabie in the street, and he sent his love
to Miss Cherry-cheeks."
"Cherry-cheeks!" cried she, indignantly, "Cherry-cheeks! How dare he?
Is it a bumpkin, a fat country milk-maid he takes me for?"
"My dear," said Mr. Curwen, with the gentlest spice of raillery, "you
certainly deserve the charming title now."
She said no more concerning the journey to Whitehaven, being much
occupied with her indignation. Once or twice I heard her mutter,
"Cherry-cheeks!" to herself, but with a tone as though her tongue was
too delicate for the gross epithet, and, as if to disprove its
suitability, she sailed in to dinner that day with her hair all piled
and builded on the top of her head under a little cap of lace, and a
great hoop petticoat of silk, and the funniest little shoes of green
and gold brocade with wonderful big paste buckles and the highest
heels that ever I saw. Nor was that the whole of her protest. For
though, as a rule, she was of a healthy, sensible appetite, now she
would only toy with her meat, protesting that she could not eat a bit.
"I have no doubt," says I, "but what you are troubled with the
vapours," and got a haughty glance of contempt for my pains. And after
dinner what does she do but sit in great state in the drawing-room,
with her little feet daintily crossed upon a velvet cushion, fanning
herself languidly, and talking of French gowns, as the latest
Newsletter represented them, and the staleness of matrimony, and
such-like fashionable matters.
"But no doubt," says she with a shrug of the shoulders, and a pretty
voice of insolence, "Mr. Clavering will marry;" she paused for a
second. "And what will the wife be like?"
I was taken aback by the question, and from looking on her face, I
looked to the ground or rather to the velvet cushion by which I
happened to be sitting. It was for that reason, that not knowing
clearly what I should say, I answered absently--
"She must have a foot."
"I suppose so," she replied, "and why not two?"
"Yes!" I continued slowly, "she must certainly have a foot."
"And maybe a head with eyes and a mouth to it," says she; "or does not
your modesty ask so much?"
"I wonder you can walk on them at all," said I.
The heels were popped on the instant demurely under the hoop
petticoat.
"Owl," she said in a very soft, low, reflective voice, addressing the
word in a sort of general way to the four walls of the room.
"Miss Cherry-cheeks," said I, in as near the same tone as I could
manage.
She rose immediately, the very figure of stateliness and dignity, swam
out of the room, without so much as a word or a nod, and, I must
suppose, went hungry to bed; for we saw no more of her that night.
For the next few days, as may be guessed, we lived in a great
excitement and stress of expectation at Applegarth. Mr. Curwen would
get him to his horse early of the morning, now rather encouraged
thereto than dissuaded, and ride hither and thither about the country
side, the while his daughter and I bided impatiently for his return. I
cannot say, however, that the information which he gleaned was a
comfort to compensate us for the impatience of our waiting. From
Scotland, indeed, the news was good. We heard that the Earl of Mar was
gathering his forces at the market-town of Moulin, and that the sixty
men who proclaimed King James at Kirkmichael were now swelled to a
thousand. But of England--or rather of those parts of it which lay
about us--it was ever the same disheartening story that he carried
back, a story of messengers buzzing backwards and forwards, betwixt a
poor handful of landlords, and, for the rest, of men going quietly
about their daily work. Once or twice, indeed, he returned uplifted
with a rumour that the towns of Lancashire were only waiting for the
Scottish army to march into England, before they mounted the White
Cockade; on another occasion he satisfied us with a fairy-tale that
the insurgents had but to appear before the walls, and Newcastle would
forthwith open its gates; and at such times the old panels of the
parlour would ring with laughter, as doubtless they had rung in the
old days after Atherton Moor, and I would sit with a heart unworthily
lightened by a thought that I might escape the payment which was due.
But for the most part I had ever in my mind Lord Derwentwater's word
about the pawns, and those yet earlier forebodings of my kinsman
Bolingbroke. It seemed to me, indeed, that in this very rising of the
Earl of Mar's, I had a proof of the accuracy of his forecasts. For he
had sent word that the rebellion would be deferred, and here were the
orders reversed behind his back. Moreover, we heard that the French
King had died upon September 1st, and that I counted the most
disheartening of calamities.
In this way, then, a week went by. On the evening of the eighth day,
being the 25th September, I was leaning my elbows on the gate of the
little garden, when I heard a heavy step behind me on the gravel. I
turned, and there was Mary Tyson. It seemed to me that she was barring
the path.
"Good-evening, Mary," said I, as pleasantly as possible.
"I am wishing for the day," said she, "when I can say the same to you,
Mr. Clavering."
"And why?" said I, in astonishment. "It is no doing of mine that Mr.
Curwen rides loose about the country-side."
"It is not of the father I am thinking," she interrupted; and I felt
as though she had struck me.
"What do you mean?" I asked shortly.
"I know," she said, "this is no way for a rough old serving-body to
speak to the likes of you. But see, sir," and her voice took on a
curiously gentle and pleading tone, "I remember when she couldn't
clinch her fist round one of my fingers. It's milk of mine, too, that
has fed her, and it's honey to my heart to think she owes some of her
sunshine to it I've seen her here at Applegarth grow from baby to
child, and from child to woman. Yes, woman, woman," she repeated;
"perhaps you forget that."
"No, indeed," said I, perplexed as to what she would be at; "it was
the first thought I had of her."
"Then the more blame to you," she cried, and speech rushed out of her
in a passion. "What is it that you're seeking of her--you that's
hunted, with a price on your head? What is it? what is it?" And she
stretched out her great arms on either side of her as though to make a
barrier against myself. "Ah, if I were sure it would bring no harm on
her, you should have the soldiers on your heels to-morrow. Many and
many's the time I've been tempted to it when I've spied you in the
orchard or on the lake. I have been sore tempted to it--sore tempted!
What is it you want of her? It's the brother's clothes you are
wearing, but is it the brother's heart beneath them?"
"Good God, woman!" I cried, dumfounded by her words.
She stood in the dusk before me, her grotesque figure dignified out of
all knowledge by the greatness of her love for Dorothy. The very
audacity of her words was a convincing evidence of that, and at the
sight of her the anger died out of my heart. If she accused me
unjustly, why, it was to protect Dorothy, and that made amends for
all. Nay, I could almost thank her for the accusation, and I answered
very humbly--
"I am like to get little good in my life, but may I get less when that
is done if ever I had a thought which could disparage her."
"And how will I be sure of that?" asked Mary Tyson.
"Because I love her," said I.
An older man would have made, and a more experienced woman would have
preferred, perhaps, a different answer; but I suppose she gauged it by
the depth of her own affection. It struck root in a responsive soil.
"Ay, and how could you help it!" she cried, with a little note of
triumph in her voice. But the voice in an instant deadened with
anxiety. "You will have told her?"
"Not a syllable," says I. "I am, as you say, a man with a price on his
head. I may be mated with an axe, but it is the only mate that I can
come by."
She drew a deep breath of relief, and hearing it I laughed, but with
no merriment at my heart She took a step forward on the instant.
"Well, and I am sorry," said she, "for you are not so ill-looking a
lad in the brother's clothes." It was a whimsical reason, but given in
a voice of some tenderness. "Not so ill-looking," she repeated, and at
that her alarm reawakened. "But there's a danger in that!" she cries.
"Miss Dorothy has lived here alone, with but a rare visitor once or
twice in the twelvemonths. Maybe you speak to her in the same voice
you use to me."
"Nay," I interposed, and this time my laugh rang sound enough. "Miss
Curwen treats me with friendliness--a jesting friendliness, which is
the very preclusion of love."
She bent forward a little, peering at me.
"Well, it may be," said she, "though I would never trust a boy's
judgment on anything, let alone a woman."
Dorothy's voice called her from the house. She looked over her
shoulder, and went on, lowering her tone--
"Look," said she, "at these boulders here," and she pointed to the
darkening hillside. "They are landmarks to our shepherds in the mist
But when the snow lies deep in winter, they will cross them and never
know until they come to something else that tells them. It's so with
us. We cross from this friendliness into love, thinking there are
landmarks to guide us; but the landmarks may be hid, and we do not
know until something else tells us we have crossed. And with some,"
and she nodded back towards the house, "there will be no retracing of
the steps. Suppose you left your image with her. A treasure she will
think it. It will prove a curse. You say you care for her?"
I saw what she was coming to, and nodded in assent.
"There is the one way to show it--not to her. No, not to her. That is
the hardest thing I know, but the truest proof, that you will be
content, for your love's sake, to let her think ill of you."
Dorothy's voice sounded yet louder. She came out into the porch. Mary
Tyson hurried towards her, and receiving some order, disappeared into
the house. Dorothy came slowly down the path towards me.
"You were very busy with Mary Tyson," said she.
"She was talking to me of the landmarks," said I.
"But one cannot see them," said she, looking towards the hillside.
I stood silent by her side. It was not that Mary Tyson's words had so
greatly impressed me. I believed, indeed, that she spoke out of an
overmastering jealousy for the girl's welfare. But I asked myself,
since she had said so much, knowing so little of me, what would she
have said had she known the truth? The temptation to set the sheriff
on my path would long ago, I was certain, have become an accomplished
act. Nor could I have blamed her. I was brought back to my old thought
that I was wearing this girl's friendship as a thief may wear a stolen
cloak.
"There is something I ought to tell you," said I suddenly, and came to
a no less sudden stop, the moment that the sound of the words told me
whither I was going. "But at this time," I continued in the lamest of
conclusions, "I have no right to tell it you," and so babbled a word
or two more.
She gave a little quiet laugh, and instead of answering me, began to
hum over to herself that melody of "The Honest Lover." In the midst of
a bar she broke off. I heard her breath come and go quickly. She
turned and ran into the house.
That night, at all events, I acted upon an impulse of which I have
never doubted the rectitude. Since I could not restore to her the
stolen cloak, I took that other course, and dropped it by the wayside.
I wrote a brief note of thanks to Mr. Curwen, and when the house was
quiet, I crept from my room along the passage, and dropping out of
that window which my host had shown me on the night of my coming to
Applegarth, betook me under the star-shine across the fells.