Читать книгу Rogue Herries - Hugh Walpole - Страница 5

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Charles Francis Herries woke when the light of the fine new day was throwing silver shadows across the misty fields. Pushing back the creaking diamond-paned window, standing there in his purple bed-gown he looked down on the courtyard, the thick clustered yews that guarded, as though with fingers on their lips, the house, the ragged stone wall, then, beyond, the river, the thatched roofs of the nearest yeoman’s farm, the fields and the dark sombre hills.

He drew a deep breath, flung off the bed-gown and stood there naked. He did not feel the cold, nor the sharp crisped air; he was at that time impervious to all physical pain and discomfort, a magnificent creature in all bodily force and feeling. He stared out, then looked back into the little, thin, low-ceilinged room. It was furnished scarcely at all—only a narrow truckle-bed on which he and his son had been sleeping—David, his flushed cheek against his arm, still lay there soaked in sleep—a big carved chest with the date 1652 roughly cut upon it, a mirror on the chest, and against the farther wall some old green tapestry (very faded) that flapped and rustled now in the breeze from the open window. There was one high-backed and clumsy chair, and into this his clothes had been carelessly flung. David’s little things, carefully folded, were on the top of the chest.

He felt his body, punching it here and there, pinching it, kicking out a leg, stretching an arm. He might have been proud that he was so handsome and in such splendid health—such marvellous health indeed, considering the life that for ten years now he had led. But he was scornful of that as he was of everything else. What good had his beauty, health, strength brought him? Not so much good as that silver moon setting now in a pale rosy sky beyond the latticed window.

He stood there, the breeze blowing on his bare back and thighs, looking down on his little son. Here, too, he was scornful. His young son loved him, but would he love him as the years passed and he grew to realise his father? Would there not develop in him that same withdrawal that seemed to come to every human creature after a short contact with him—yes, even to so poor a thing as Alice Press, who was already beginning to look at him with that strange, surmising glance? David at present trusted and adored him, and in the centre of Herries’ universal scorn, scorn of himself, of all human beings, of the round world and all that moved in it, there stayed this pleasure and pride that his young son so thought of him. That he could neither deny nor reject. But for how long was it to remain? Would he take any steps to retain it? He knew himself too well to fancy that he would.

He turned again to look out of the window on to the scene that was to be his now, he was determined, for evermore. Whatever came of this step that he had taken, whatever misery, ruin, disgrace, he would hold by it. It was final. Only thirty years of age, he yet seemed to see far, far into the future, and something told him that at the very last these dark hills would encircle him.

The hill that chiefly his window faced seemed especially to tell him this. The houses of this time in this country were not built that their tenants might look out on beautiful views, but rather for safety and shelter, tucked tight in under the hill, guarded by heavy yews.

Beyond the fields, in far distance, this humped, lumpish hill, Glaramara, sprawled in the early morning light. Herries knew well its name. For so long as he could remember he had known precisely how this house must stand, and all its history. In 1565, the year following the founding of the Company of Mines Royal, Sir Francis Herries, his great-great-grandfather, had come from his house Seddon, north of Carlisle, in part charge of the ‘Almaynes,’ the foreign miners, and built him a little house here, called it Herries, and, at last, liking it and the country, had lived in it altogether, giving up Seddon to his younger brother.

In all his young days at Seddon, Francis had heard of Herries, the strange house in the strange country, shut in under the mountains behind rocky barriers, cut off from all the world. His grandfather, Robert Herries, had tried for a while to live in it, but it had been too isolated for him. That, too, his father Matthew had found, and had moved back to Seddon, and after this the old house had been held by a yeoman, Satterthwaite, farm-buildings had been added to it, and much of the older house had been allowed to fall into ruin.

When Francis’ elder brother, Pomfret, had made a fortune in speculation (this largely by chance, because Pomfret was no brilliant financier) he had built him his house in Keswick, caring nothing for Herries, which, although so near to him, seemed yet at the very world’s end.

Satterthwaite, a clever yeoman above the abilities of his fellows, had done well for himself, and built a farm-house over towards Threlkeld. It was then, after some years of desolate neglect, that Herries had been suggested to Francis by his brother, and, driven both by his romantic love for the notion of it and by his own desperate circumstances, he had accepted with an eagerness that had amazed the unimaginative Pomfret. Yes, an eagerness that was amazing even to himself. What was it that had driven him? That part of him that loved to be alone, that loved to brood and dream and enfold about him, ever closer and closer, his melancholy and dark superstition and defiant hatred of the world. That part of him, too, that felt, as neither Pomfret nor Harcourt, his brothers, felt, his passionate pride in his family. Why that pride? God only knew. There was no reason for it. The Herries men had never done great deeds nor supplied to the world famous figures. For hundreds of years they had been drunken, robbing Border freebooters; only, in Elizabeth’s time, his great-great-grandfather, Francis, having some good fortune at the Court, had pushed up a little the family fortunes. That Francis had been a hard-headed fellow, a flatterer, a time-server, a sycophant, but not ungenerous if he got his way, and no fool at any time. Elizabeth had a fancy for him, would have kept him with her, and was none so well pleased when, quite eagerly, he accepted the opportunity of surveying the foreign miners who were sent to Keswick.

Something hurried him thither, that odd strain that was for ever cropping up in every Herries generation, the strain of the dreamer, the romanticist, the sigher for what was not, the rebel against facts; and in that old Elizabethan Herries this romantic dreaming went ill enough with hardness, his pushing ambitions, his desire for wealth.

Between the two stools of temperament he fell to the ground, as many another Herries had done before him. This land in Borrowdale caught his fancy; he stayed on and on there, losing at length his interest in the mines, mooning, a dirty unlaced old man, behind the rocks that bounded that valley, keeping company with the yeomen, pursuing their daughters, drinking, riding, dicing—dying at last in his old tumble-down house, a little soiled rat of a man with ale dribbling at his ragged beard.

That was great-great-grandfather Herries. The place had done something to him, and Francis Herries, gazing now out of his window, thought it an odd fancy that this same sprawling hill, Glaramara, had looked across into that old man’s eyes, seeing them grow ever more bleary, more dim, more obstinately sodden.

And so it might be with him! He had come even as that old man had come, in the vigour of his prime and strength, and he had in him those same things—that longing for what was not, dream of Paradise round the corner, belief in a life that could never be. And in him also, riding him full strength, were lechery and drunkenness, lasciviousness and cruelty.

As he stood there, idly gazing, he had a passionate family feeling. Not for individuals. He hated Pomfret, despised Harcourt, cared nothing for his cousins, the children of his uncle Robert, who lived London way, nor for his other two cousins, Humphrey and Maurice Cards and their children, Dorothy, Jeremy, and Henry. Humphrey Cards, a man a good deal the elder of Francis, lived now at Seddon and was said to be a tight-lipped Quaker. Francis had never seen the Cards brothers; they inhabited London when he, as a boy, lived at Seddon, but Pomfret knew them and despised them both.

No, there was not one of the family for whom Francis cared a rap, neither agricultural Pomfret and his yellow-faced wife, nor bachelor Harcourt, there on the edge of that dirty sea-coast at Ravenglass, nor the purse-proud Kensington children of Uncle Robert with their family coach and fine Queen Anne house and garden, nor Humphrey at Seddon, nor ship-owning Maurice (his eyes, they said, so deeply stuck into his business that he could see nothing else) down at Portsmouth—not for a single one of them had he a warm feeling or a kindly thought—they were all rogues and fools together—and yet here he was, new-come to this tumbled old ruin, gazing out on a couple of shabby hills and some grass-greasy fields, and his heart was swelling at the thought of Herries and of the Herries men and women before them, the Scotch and English blood that had gone to the making of them, the English soil that had seen the breeding of them.

He felt suddenly the cold, and with a shiver pulled to the window and took on his bed-gown again.

There was a pump in the yard behind the house—he could hear the handle going; he would go and soak his head under it. He pulled on a pair of breeches, thrust his feet into some slippers, and then softly, lest he should wake his son, stole out.

The morning was deepening now, but the small heavily paned windows let in little light.

The part of the old house that remained had not been ill designed, the rooms lofty and the staircase wide enough for two to go abreast, still something of a wonder in Queen Anne’s day and exceedingly unaccustomed in Elizabeth’s.

This old house was of two floors, a most unusual thing in that country, the court-room, the dining-hall, the withdrawing-room leading one from the other. Out of the court-room a stair led to a loft that held the three bedrooms, two very small (in one of them he had slept last night with David, in the other Alice Press with the two little girls), and the other larger, containing a grand bed, and in this his wife was still sleeping; Father Roche had a small room below.

On the ground floor there was the entrance-hall and the kitchen, and on to the kitchen abutted the farm-buildings rented by Satterthwaite. These were a diminutive example of the yeoman’s dwelling. This building was slated, the ridge made of what were known as ‘wrestlers,’ slates notched so as to interlock. The rest was primitive enough, the upper floor open to the oaken beams, an oak partition portioning off the sleeping-place for master and mistress.

Below was the house-place, the parlour and the kitchen. A man and his wife called Wilson had been caring for the house ever since the Herries family had forsaken it.

Coming down the rickety stair from the loft in the dim light, Francis Herries could see at once that their care had been neither vigilant nor arduous.

He stood in the dining-hall and looked about him. In that dim air without a sound in the world it seemed forlorn and desolate enough.

At the withdrawing-room end there was a raised dais, and at the court-room end, opposite the dais, some high oak screens, intricately carved.

Along one wall hung a fine spread of tapestry, fresh and living still, worked in colours of red, brown, amber, dark purple, its subject a hunting-scene, so handsomely wrought that all the wall seemed alive with straining hounds and noble horses, huntsmen winding their horns, and for their background dark hills and clustering trees.

This was a fine piece, and Herries, looking at it, wondered that it should be so well preserved. For the rest the hall was furnished barely—one long oak table, some stiff-backed chairs, a carved chest, and a portrait hanging above the dais.

It was this portrait that drew now Herries’ attention. In the dim light it seemed marvellously alive. He did not question but that it was the portrait of old great-great-grandfather Herries himself. It had been undoubtedly painted after his coming to Herries, possibly by some wandering artist who had strayed into these wilds or by some London friend passing through Kendal on his way to Scotland—whoever had executed it, he was, in that wavering light, alive and dominating. An old man, his face wrinkled and seamed, his head poked forward out of some dark furs, his eyes dimmed, half closed, and one thin hand stretching forward out of the picture, as though to seize some prize or arrest some attention.

What Francis Herries felt, looking at it, was that there was here an odd resemblance to himself. Was it in the eyes? How could that be when his own were so bright and eager? Or the mouth? But this mouth was puffed and seemed as you looked at it to tremble. Or the skinny neck between the furs? Or the grasping hand? He looked at it, nodded his head as though the sight of it had decided some problem for him, and passed on down the stairs, through the shabby little entrance-hall into the open.

Behind the house he found an old-fashioned pump, and leaning against the wall, scratching his head and yawning, was Benjamin.

By the side of the pump was a wooden bucket. He signed to Benjamin to come and help him, stripped (this was the blind side of the house, and in any case he did not care who might see him). Benjamin splashed him. The water was ice-cold. He pulled on his breeches again, bid Benjamin rub his chest and back. He was in a splendid glow.

Over the low wall he could see the lights of the sky clustering about Glaramara’s shoulders. Long swaths of yellow lay across the pale ivory, and the edge of the hills rippled with fire. A bird sang, a little uncertainly, from the yews, and in the fresh stillness other birds could be heard beating their way through the shining air.

Benjamin, his mouth open, stared at his master, waiting for orders.

‘Strip, you devil,’ Francis Herries said, laughing. ‘You are sodden with sleep.’ Benjamin stripped at once, and his plump, stout body began to shiver and quake as the cold air caught his flesh. Francis laughed, then filled the bucket and splashed the water over the man, who did not, however, flinch, but stood there, shaking, but at attention.

‘I will repay your courtesy,’ Francis said, and seizing him, rubbed his naked body with a ferocious vigour. Then, giving him a kick with his soft slippers, cuffed him on the cheek and bid him put on his clothes.

‘How does this place seem to you, Benjamin?’

Benjamin, pulling up his breeches, answered:

‘We shall come to a handsome knowledge of one another’s customs, hidden here from the world—but ’tis a good place for horses.’

Francis Herries looked about him. ‘I haven’t seen so clear a water nor smelt so fresh an air for years. But you can leave me when you will. I’ll have no man stay who’s a grumbler.’

‘If I would leave you, master,’ Benjamin answered with that odd, half-sulky, half-humorous speech that was so especially his, ‘I’d have left you long ago. There’s been often reason enough.’

‘Why do you stay then?’ asked Herries.

Benjamin, rubbing his wet head, answered: ‘I can’t tell. There’s no reason for why I do things.’ He paused, then added: ‘Where you are, master, there’s food and dogs and horses. Day come, day go, life is the same anywhere in the world, I fancy.’

‘And when I beat you?’

‘All men are beaten,’ answered Benjamin, shuffling inside his clothes. ‘I’d sooner be beaten by you than another.’ He added, looking about him at the hills as though he were seeing them for the first time—‘The fellow in the house tells me there’s fine bull-baiting, wrestling and other games round these parts. Life’s not over for us yet, master,’ and, as he shuffled off with his fat walloping walk he grinned at Herries, showing himself half servant, half friend; half hireling, to be kicked, beaten, abused; half equal, knowing secrets and sharing confidences that must breed equal contact.

As he turned to go back into the house Herries saw, looking at him from the corner of the house-wall, an old, bent, infinitely aged woman. She had long, white, ragged hair, and a thin, yellow face. She stood without moving, looking at him.

‘Who’s that?’ he asked Benjamin.

‘The house-man’s mother.’

The old woman raised her hand as though to feel the wind, then disappeared.

He went into the house to see his wife. The bedroom was dark. He pulled back the curtains and then stood by the window looking across at her. That was a fine bed in which she was lying, the curtains of faded crimson velvet, the woodwork splendidly carved. Crimson velvet, torn and shabby, was tacked also on to some of the panelling of the walls. There was a portrait of a young lady in a green dress and a white ruff over the fireplace.

His wife was yet sleeping. He came to the bed and stood there watching. There was something pathetic in poor Margaret Herries as she lay there, happy for a while at least in dreamless slumber. All the anxieties, woes and bewildered distresses that attacked, so increasingly, her waking life were for the moment stilled.

She looked a fool as she slept. She was a fool, she would always be one, but there was something gentle, kindly, appealing in her stout characterless features. And it might be that there was more character there than anyone, herself most certainly, at this time knew.

Maybe Herries, as he looked at her, felt something of this. Drawing his purple gown closely around him, he gazed at her, lost in his own disappointed ironical thoughts.

Why in folly’s name had he ever married her? They had been young enough, he eighteen, she seventeen. They had been idiots enough, he vain beyond all vanity, she adoring beyond all conceivable adoration; she had been pretty, innocent and wealthy. Her father, Ephraim Harden, a very successful City merchant, had died a year before their meeting, her mother being already long-time dead. She was an only child and sent to an aunt in Carlisle on a holiday. They had met at a Carlisle ball, he handsome, without a penny, loathing the dull life at Seddon, where he hung on because he had no means wherewith to live in any other more lively place.

Seddon was still his brother Pomfret’s at that time, and Francis and his brother Harcourt were permitted to remain there on a kind of tolerating sufferance. How he had hated that place with its dull grey walls, its poverty and greasy indolence. You might say that this place, Herries, to which he had now come was dull and grey enough, but, from the first moment seen on that moonlit night, he had thrilled to it. It had touched, and he knew this absolutely, some deep fundamental chord in him.

But Seddon and brother Harcourt! Harcourt with his thin, shanky frame, peering eyes and most exasperating cough, his passionate absorption in his books, so that he was only happy when they were piled high around him, sending up their dusty thick smell on every side of him. Harcourt who, in his twenties, had been a gay spark in London, an acquaintance of Swift and Addison and Steele, who had helped in the exposure of the great Psalmanazar, been present at the trial of John Tutchin, and even spent an evening with the infamous Mrs. Manley of the New Atalantis!

But as Harcourt had grown, his zeal for letters had grown with him; he had abandoned the town, buried himself in Seddon with his books, and then, at Francis’ marriage, taken himself to the sea-coast, near Ravenglass, where he lived, a contented hermit.

It had not been altogether Francis’ desire for money that had driven him into marriage with Margaret Harden. His motives were never unmixed in anything that he did, always there was nobility with his greed, tenderness with his cruelty, humour with his pessimism. He cared for her prettiness and innocence. He might have had her without the marriage ceremony, her body and her money too, she adoring him so that from the first moment she could deny him nothing, and he did not.

Nor was it only his weariness with Seddon. From the first he had realised that it was likely that Margaret Harden would weary him more than ever Seddon had done. He had felt a tenderness (which he might now allow was principally a weak sentiment) for this lonely orphaned girl, tied, until some man should carry her away, to the strings of a dumpy, frowzy aunt whose only interest was in cards and the scandals of the country town.

He had been stung to the venture also by the sharp pleasures of rivalry. The neighbouring squires, the sparks of the little town, even some of the graver, more aged officers of the garrison, had seen in Miss Harden’s pretty face and splendid fortune an exciting prize. But from the first moment of Francis Herries’ appearance there had been no chance for any other. He had been for her, poor silly fool, the god of all her dreams and maiden longings.

Yes, she had been cheated as vilely as he—nay, in the issue of it, much more vilely. She was no judge of men, poor thing, and had thought him as noble in character as he was handsome in person. The aunt, tired swiftly of the burden of this innocent girl for whom cards were too intricate a pleasure and scandal too distressing a pastime, was delighted to have her off her hands.

Herries had, indeed, considered the thing at some surprising length for a boy so young, but even at that age he had no illusions about himself, knew himself very well for what he was. But he wanted the money, her face pleased him, he had a certain kindness for her, and so the thing had been.

Looking down at her now he could not believe that, so short a while back, she had been that pretty, slender girl. Marriage had at least agreed so far with her that, in the very first year, she had begun to thicken. The three children that had come to her (the only happiness the poor lady had known) had not assisted her beauty; you could not believe that now she was but twenty-nine years of age.

And he would swear that all their quarrels and distress had not been his fault alone. She had never tried at all to grow to his taste and wishes; she had developed in nothing during the twelve years of their life together. She had no curiosity, no inquisitiveness, no sensitiveness, no humour—only sentiment, a liking for good food, a weak indulgence of the children and an infinite capacity for tears. Unfortunately all his ill-temper, his infidelities, his squandering of her fortune had not caused her to love him less; rather she adored him more to-day than when she had married him. Even this last insult, of carrying Alice Press to this place with them, had not stirred her resentment.

It was that above all that irked him. Although he had tried again and again to kill it, he had deep shame at his treatment of her—a shame that never drove him to better behaviour, but that for ever irritated and vexed him. Had she abused him, sworn at him, there would have been some reason for him to despise himself less, but this submission to his unkindness made him, when he was conscious of it, hate her for his reproach of himself.

Not one of his mistresses had ever been anything to him, and Alice Press the least of all. He had taken them in a kind of impatient scorn of their eagerness. What did it matter, one thing more or less, since all had gone so ill?

She was stirring. She raised her arm, let it fall again, sighed in her half-sleep, sighed again and woke. Seeing him, she gave a little cry. He must have looked wild enough standing there in the half-light, his shaven head with its short, bristling hairs, his chest showing bare through the lapels of the bed-gown.

‘Francis!’ she said, and smiled that trusting, half-deprecating, appealing smile that he so thoroughly detested.

‘It is a fair morning,’ he answered, ‘and time you were about.’

‘I know.’ She raised herself, putting her hand modestly over her breasts. ‘I was dreaming. I dreamt that my aunt Hattie was here again and her dog Pompey, and that she was giving it chocolate.’

‘Thank God,’ he answered grimly, ‘that the reality is more gracious. You are at Herries, and the cesspool below this window is in full odour, and there is a witch in the house.’

‘A witch?’ she cried, alarmed. She was crammed with superstitions, old wives’ tales of warlocks and broomsticks, prophecies and magic spells.

‘A witch. I saw her but now alight on her broomstick, scratch a flea from her ear and whisper with her familiar hedgehog.’

Margaret Herries smiled that nervous smile with which she always greeted his pleasantries, not knowing whether he were in jest or earnest; whichever way her conclusion went she was always wrong.

Now she thought that he was jesting and tittered. Also she was but half awake and could not see his face clearly in the half-light. He came nearer to the bed and bent over her. He was moved by one of those sudden and to himself most exasperating impulses of compassion.

‘You had best stay where you are,’ he said. ‘The last week has been exhausting enough for a hide-bound alligator.’ He smiled, sat down on the high bed’s edge and touched her hand.

‘Lie here, and the woman shall bring you some food.’

Margaret was awake enough now. Any kindness from this adored husband set her heart wildly beating, her cheeks flushing, her tongue dry in her mouth.

‘If you think it wise——’ she stammered. She had a desperate impulse to press his hand, even to put her arm up, pull his head towards her and embrace him, but she knew by bitter experience how dangerous those actions would be. Her hand lay pulsing in his.

‘Margaret,’ he said, ‘if you find that I have done you wrong to bring you here, if you cannot endure the remoteness of the place and the savagery of the inhabitants, you must go for intervals of every year to some town. York is not so far—even Scotland. There is Carlisle ...’ He broke off, remembering certain old scenes in Carlisle.

‘And you shall take the children with you. Only you shall not keep David too long. I have done wrong to bring you to this forsaken country.’

The flush yet on her cheeks, she answered:

‘Whilst you care to have me here, Francis, I care to stay.’

It was the most aggravating thing that she could have said. It called up in its train a thousand stupidities, placidities, nervousnesses, follies that had, in their time, driven him crazy with irritation. Never a mind of her own, always this maddening acquiescence and sentimental fear of him.

He drew his hand away.

‘The rocks that hem us in are not more implacable than your amiability, my dear. I remember that your aunt, prophesying (how truly!) our wedded bliss, said that you had a nature, mild, trustful and clinging. With what knowledge of human character she spoke! Cards and the frailties of her neighbours yielded her human wisdom. Then you shall not go—you shall stay and love and cherish your husband, caring nothing for the odour of the cesspool, the machinations of the household witch, the rustic brutalities of the neighbouring yeomen! I will see that some food comes to you.’

He got up from the bed with that abrupt, impatient movement that she knew so well. She recognised, poor lady, that she had already lost her momentary advantage, how she could not tell.

She looked at him, loving his every feature, then said:

‘Yes, Francis, I thank you.’

She was an exasperating woman. As he went from her room he felt that he did not care how unhappy she might be in this desolation to which she had come. She might make friends with the pigs for all that he cared, and good luck to her. And she was but twenty-nine and growing fatter with every hour! Was ever man so cursed?

And yet once again, as, later in the day, he rode out on his black horse, Mameluke, he was affected by his compassion. He had escaped them all; he had not stayed for the meal which now that it was past three o’clock would soon be on the table. He must be alone and facing his own strange thoughts.

At first, as Mameluke trotted quietly along the rough path, he did not notice the country round him. He saw for a while nothing but himself and he saw himself in a mirror, his features caricatured by the distorting glass, his body lengthened to a hideous leanness, his forehead peaked to a white cone-shaped dome. Well, thus he was—and thus. This sudden quiet, this hush of the fields and sharp, refreshing coldness of the air seemed to bring the issue of the situation before him in sharper form than it had taken for many months.

The issue was this—that unlike all the men and women that he knew, the squires and boon-companions of Doncaster, the women, loose and otherwise—alone of them all he longed for something that he could not touch. He had a vision, a vision that took, when he was with Father Roche, a religious shape, when he was with Alice Press a fleshly, with little David a pride in family, with the beauty of landscape and fine stuffs and rare pieces a poetic, but all these only forms and vestures of a vision that was none of them, but of which thing all were. And with this vision there was the actuality of his life—his life wasteful, idle, cruel, sensual, selfish, vain. He did not, as he rode now on Mameluke, turn his head away from a single aspect of it.

He had once dreamed a dream. It was some five years back at the end of a race-meeting in Doncaster. He had stayed in an inn in the town for the night. Drinking heavily, he was yet not drunk as were his companions. He had shared a room with one of them, pulled his boots off him, flung him down on his bed, where he lay loathsomely snoring. Himself he had gone to the window, pushed it open and stared out on a splendid night flaming with stars.

And there, it had seemed, propped forward on a little chair, his head almost through the window (so that he might easily have tumbled on to the cobbles below), he had fallen asleep. Had he slept or no? How many times since then he had asked himself that question! In any case, through his dream he had seemed to hear the sounds of the night. The slow, lazy call of the watchman, the love duet of cats, the rumbling of a country cart on distant cobbles, the snores of his neighbour, these had been behind and through his dream.

His eyes open, he would have sworn, staring into the stars he had beheld a vision. He was in a region of vast, peaked, icy mountains. Their fierce and lonely purity, as silver-pointed they broke the dark sky, caused him to cry out with wonder. The sky was dark; the mountains glittering white, they ringed round a small mere or tarn, black as steel in shadow.

There was absolute silence in this world. Then as he looked he saw a great white horse, glorious beyond any ever beheld by man, come, tossing his great white mane, to the edge of the mere. He hesitated, lifting his noble head as though listening, then plunged in. He swam superbly, tossing his mane, and Francis could see silver drops glistening in the icy air. He swam to the farther edge; and then Francis was seized with an agonising terror lest he should not be able to climb, out of the mere, up the icy sides of the cliff that ran sheer into the water. That moment of suspense was fearful and compounded of a great love for the splendid horse, a great tenderness, a great reverence and an anguish of apprehension.

Then, tossing his mane once more, the beautiful horse mounted out of the mere, strode superbly across the ice and vanished. Then, again, there was great loneliness.

Waking from this dream and staring back at the little room, stuffy and smelling of drink, the floor tumbled with clothes, his thick, open-mouthed, red-faced companion, he knew an instant of acute, terrible disappointment. For a moment he thought that he would throw himself out, end everything, so as to kill the disappointment; and perhaps it would have been as well had he done so, because, since then, that disappointment had been always with him.

The more that he had hated the noise and filth and confusion of his life in Doncaster, the more he had plunged into it. Now, as he slowly passed along the darkening path that was leading him gradually into the shadow of the hills, he saw one incident after another of the Doncaster life, stretching out their hands to him as though they were figures that kept pace with him. The foolish duel with young Soltery, a quarrel about nothing when they were both drunk, Soltery who was terrified, and then more terrified yet that he should seem terrified. He saw young Soltery’s eyes now, as they faced one another in the early morning light on the fields outside Doncaster, eyes of a frightened, bewildered child—and he had shot away one of young Soltery’s ears, so that he would be disfigured for life.

Or fat Maitchison the surgeon with his brilliance, his obscenity, his odd beliefs in magic and other humbug—that foolish night in Maitchison’s rooms when they had defied the Devil, smashed the mirror, stripped Maitchison’s mistress naked and painted her yellow. He could see now the room, furniture overturned, the glass of the big mirror scattered over the floor, and fat Maitchison with gusts of drunken laughter painting the naked back of the swearing girl.... And the sudden opening of the door, the breeze blowing in from the street, the candles going out, and someone crying that bats were hanging on the ceiling....

Yes, the races, the cock-fights, the bull and bear baiting, the debauchery and smells and noise—a roaring in his ears, a stink at his nostrils, and always in his heart this longing for the icy peaks of his dream, the black tarn, the splendid horse with the snow-white mane.

He was young, and should do something with his talents. That he was talented he knew. They all told him so. He had infinite courage, splendid physique, an interest and curiosity in many things. What should it be? Which way should he go? And meanwhile the years slipped by, and now, obeying some mad, mysterious impulse, he had cut himself right off, hidden himself among the savages.

Was he to laze here, slouching about, making familiars of the yeomen, riding with them, chaffing their wives, perhaps seducing their daughters?

For what had he come here? He only knew that already the place was working into his veins—the silence, the air with an off-scent of ice in it, the hills that were perhaps only little hills and yet had so strong a power—witchcraft hills, hiding in their corners and wrinkles magic and spells. As he rode on, the outside world was beginning to slip ever farther and farther away from him. His was the only figure in the landscape; the whole country, as the afternoon shadows lengthened, seemed naked. Above the clustered group of mountains at the end of the valley a little minaret of pale grey clouds was forming, one cloud stealing upon another as though with some quiet purpose; a purple shadow fell over these hills as though a cloak had been suddenly dropped over them.

He saw on his right then a group of buildings. His empty world was in a moment peopled with life. Near him at the fork of the road was a small crowd gathered about a pedlar who had slung his box off his neck and rested it on a flat stone. Herries drew nearer and, sitting his horse, watched quietly.

The scene that had been a moment before wild and haunted was now absolutely domestic. Three healthy, red-faced girls stood there, their arms about one another’s necks, laughing and giggling, one stout yeoman, some farm boys, and a little man, tow-coloured like a wisp of hay, who, by his drab dress, should be one of those itinerant parsons and schoolmen who went from house to house in country districts, taking odd services of a Sunday and teaching the children.

The pedlar was a tall, thin scarecrow of a man, having on his head a peaked faded purple hat, and round his neck some of the coloured ribbons that he was for selling. By his speech, which was cultivated, he was no native, and, indeed, with his sharp nose and bright eyes he seemed a rascal of unusual intelligence.

The little scene was charming in its peace and security. Some cattle were being brought across the long field, two dogs at their heels; a voice calling in rising and falling cadence sounded, as it seemed, from the hills, and in the foreground there was the sharp humorous note of the pedlar, the laughter of the girls and young men and, once and again, the deep Cumbrian accents of the yeoman.

At first they had not noticed Herries, but when one of the girls, looking up, gave a cry of surprise, they were not disturbed, and after a glance went on with their private affairs, governed by a certain dignity and independence of their own.

The pedlar, however, was aware of him although he continued his patter. He had ‘Fine thread satins both striped and plain, Persia nets, anterines, silks for scarves and hoods, shalloons, druggets, and some Scotch plaids.’ On his tray there were some pieces of fine bone lace, Chinese boxes, necklaces, gold rings set with vermilions, several gold buttons, and red watch bottles ribbed with gold—or he said it was gold. And some books. Chap-books and calendars, Poor Robin, The Ladies’ Diary, some old sheets of the London Gazette, and some bound volumes of Plays. These things of fashion looked strange in the open fields before the little country group, who fingered and laughed and fingered again. The jewellery, indeed, had a false air, but the ribbons and lace were pretty, and above, Herries must fancy, the purses of the locals. Herries noticed, too, that the pedlar did not seem too intent upon his sales or purchases, and that his sharp eyes went everywhere, and especially to Herries and his horse.

He thought to himself that this would not be the last time that he would see that pedlar.

The shadows of the hills now covered the valley; the light flashed palely above Glaramara and then fell. Herries turned his horse towards home. As he moved away the little tow-haired parson detached himself from the others and approached him.

His long parson’s coat was green with age, shabby and stained, and his breeches were tied about the knees with string, his bony fingers purple with cold, his nose red; but he had about him a very evident dignity. He bowed, but not subserviently.

‘It has been a fine afternoon,’ he said, keeping pace with Mameluke’s gentle step.

Herries, impressionable ever to the moment’s atmosphere, his spirit touched now by some quiet and happiness, answered, as he could when he so pleased, with charm and courtesy.

‘The day falls quickly in these valleys.’

‘And the light is for ever changing,’ the little clergyman answered with pleased eagerness. ‘You are newly arrived here, sir?’

‘But yesterday.’

‘I know everyone in this neighbourhood—man, woman and child. You are the gentleman who has come to Herries by Rosthwaite?’

‘I am,’ answered Herries.

‘There has been much interest in your coming, sir. It will be the wish of everyone that you will find it pleasant here, and stay with us.’

‘Do you also belong here?’ asked Herries.

‘I do the Lord’s will and go whither He sends me. For some years now I have taught the children of these villages, assisted at services, done what the Lord has bidden me.’

‘You are not a native of Cumberland then?’

‘No, sir, I am from the South. I was born in Bideford in Devon. For many years I was chaplain to the Earl of Petersham.’

‘Why, then, have you come here? It must seem a severe exile to you.’

‘The Lord spoke to me in a dream and ordered me to go North. I was to walk forward until I saw a naked man tied to a tree, and in that place to abide and do His will.’

‘Where saw you your naked man?’

‘After many months, begging and preaching my way through the country, I came at last to the village of Grange on a summer evening. And above the river where the bridge is, I saw a man naked and bound with ropes to a tree. The men of the village were throwing stones at him: he was near death. He had been caught robbing a yeoman of the place of two hens. I urged them to release him, the Lord prevailed, and afterward I lodged in his house. I lodge there yet.’

‘And what, then, do you teach the children?’ asked Herries, entertained by this simplicity.

‘The Lord’s Word, the Catechism, and, when they wish it, Greek and Latin.’

‘You have no family?’

‘My wife is with God.’

The dark was falling more swiftly now, and it was difficult to see the path. Herries jumped off his horse and walked beside the clergyman.

‘What is your name?’ he asked him.

‘Robert Finch.’

‘How shall I like this place? It is cut off from the world.’

There was a sudden odd note of scorn in the little man’s voice as he answered:

‘It is the world, sir. Here within these hills, in this space of ground is all the world. I thought while I was with my lord Petersham that the world was there, but in every village through which I have passed since then I have found the complete world—all anger and vanity and covetousness and lust, yes, and all charity and goodness and sweetness of soul. But most of all, here in this valley, I have found the whole world. Lives are lived here completely without any thought of the countries more distant. The mountains close us in. You will find everything here, sir. God and the Devil both walk on these fields.’

‘And if I believe neither in God nor the Devil?’

‘You are a young man for such confident disbelief. God was speaking to me now, and has told me that you will find everything that you need for the growth of your soul here in this valley. You have come to your own place, sir. You are young and strong, but the day will come when you will remember my words.’

Herries looked back down the path. In the dusk he could see it point like a pale, crooked finger straight at the heavy black hump of Glaramara that was dark against lighter dark. Again he felt ice in the air and shivered.

‘They are little hills by your foreign sort,’ he said, ‘and yet they impress.’

The small voice beside him answered:

‘They are the loveliest hills in all God’s world.’ Then it continued, taking another tone, very mild and a little anxious: ‘You have children sir?’

‘Three,’ answered Herries.

‘If you were in need——’ he hesitated. ‘My Greek and Latin are good, and I have authority with children. If I could serve you——’

Herries laughed.

‘I must warn you,’ he said, ‘there is a priest in the house.’

There was a pause while the wind, rising, began to blow fiercely, swaying the branches and turning the dead leaves about their feet.

The voice began again: ‘He instructs your children?’

‘A little.’

‘Your own religion——?’

‘Nay, I am no Catholic. I have told you I have no religion. How think you, Mr. Finch? In this drunken, debauched world what is your God engaged upon? He is busy elsewhere improving some other planet.’

‘Christ died upon the Cross suffering a worse bewilderment.’

Herries laughed again.

‘Well, you shall try your luck upon them. But we are a wild house, Mr. Finch, and may, in this desolate country, become yet wilder.’

They had come to the gate that led to Herries. They paused. To Francis’ surprise the little man laid his hand on his arm.

‘You are young, sir. I have ten years’ advantage of you. I fancy your wildness does not frighten me.’

‘On thy head be it then,’ Herries cried, as he led Mameluke up the path. The way here was very rough, and he began to curse as he hit the loose stones, plunged into mud, fearing that his horse might stumble and damage his knees. His mood was changing with the swiftness that belonged to his moods. Oddly enough his mind had turned to Father Roche. The little clergyman had reminded him. Why was he burdened with this priest and the risks and penalties connected with his presence? It was true that just now there was a lull in the Catholic agitation, but it might burst out again at any instant. Herries did not doubt but that Roche was busied in a thousand intrigues both political and religious, and they were intrigues with which he had no sort of sympathy. Jacobitism made no appeal to him—he hated the French influence behind it. He wanted no king for England who would be ruled by French money and ambition. Moreover, he took in any case but little interest in politics, and had no romantic feeling for that world. Nor had the Catholic religion attraction for him; he despised what seemed to him its mummery, the child’s play, as he saw it, of its tinkling bells and scented air. But Roche’s influence over him was strong and subtle. Ever since his first meeting with the man some five years before, it had persisted. And for what reason? Roche was stern, unsympathetic to all Herries’ pleasures, showed no warmth of feeling to Herries (no warmth of feeling to anyone, indeed, save little David), used Herries’ house quite openly for his own private purposes, had carried on in Doncaster, as Herries well knew, a network of plans and plots with an odd audacity and defiance. When he spoke intimately with Herries it was to rebuke him. And yet Herries would endure from him things that from another he would most furiously resent. Where lay Roche’s power? In the continued suggestion that he held somewhere a solution for Herries’ sickness of soul? Not in any dogma lay that solution, but in something deeper, something far more profound....

But (and here the house with its lighted windows loomed suddenly up before him as though it had been pushed up through the rough ground) was the priest to remain? Why? He and Alice Press should both be sent packing. One must start fair in this new place—and for a moment before he pushed back the heavy door he had a picture before his eyes of the country group in the fading afternoon light, the coloured scene, the quiet and the animals and the purple-shaded hills. Here in this good land there should be no place for the priest and the woman. ... Here in this good land—and a moment later he was caught into one of his dark, bestial, frantic rages.

He had left his horse outside the door and, calling Benjamin, pressed up the staircase to the little tapestried dining-hall. A high, thick-clustered candelabrum was burning on the table, all the candles blowing in the winds that came from the floor-cracks, the slits in wall, roof and window.

At the table his wife was seated crying. Alice Press, very gay in a crimson gown, was turning scornfully away from her, even as he entered. The three children were playing together by the oak chest. Over all the room there was a frantic disorder. Some of the boxes, brought by the pack-horses the night before, were there, and scattered about were suits, gowns, china, stuffs, linen, children’s toys.

A strange thick scent of burning wax, damp straw and odours from the neighbouring cesspool lay heavy about the candle-shine. He had ordered that the boxes were not to be touched until the morrow, when he could supervise the opening of them.

By whom had he been disobeyed? Both women began to chatter, his wife wailing, Alice Press loud and shrill and defiant. The little girls began to cry. At that moment Benjamin, a foolish smile on his chubby face, appeared at the stair-head.

Francis Herries caught him by the neck, then, raising the riding-whip that was still in his hand, cried:

‘What said I to these boxes? Hast thou no wit, thou lubber-pated bastard?’

Benjamin shouted something; everyone began to call aloud at once. The room, the house, the world was filled with shouting and stink and a raging anger.

To come thus, from an afternoon so quiet and promising, to this vileness! Anger boiled in his heart, choking him. He had Benjamin’s coat off his back, struck the bare flesh again and again, lashed him about the head, the legs, the thighs, and when suddenly the man hung his head and began to droop in his arms he let fall his whip and began to beat him with his hands, letting him at last drop, a huddled, half-naked heap.

The man had fainted. Raising Benjamin’s head, Herries was suddenly remembering how that morning in the fresh air by the pump he had rubbed in friendliness the man’s body while the birds wheeled through the sky.

A sickness caught him at the heart. He told David to run for some water, but before the boy had returned the man was reviving. He was lying back, his head on his master’s knee. He looked up, then, flicking his eyelids, said:

‘It was not by my word, master, that the boxes were opened.’

Clumsily he rose to his feet; he caught his coat to his bare chest—

‘I’ll be rubbing the horse down,’ he said, and stumbled down the staircase.