Читать книгу Urith: A Tale of Dartmoor - S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould - Страница 4

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The whole of Dartmoor Proper is included within the bounds of a single parish, the parish of Lydford. The moor belongs to the Duchy of Cornwall, and at Lydford stood the Ducal Castle. For two hundred years this castle has been in ruins, but stands a monument of possession, and just as the estate has been eaten into and pillaged through a long course of years, so has the castle of the Duke been broken into and robbed, to furnish cottages with stone, and cowstalls with timber.

Parishes when first constituted followed the boundaries of manors, consequently, as the Duke of Cornwall claimed the entire Forest of Dartmoor, that whole forest was included within the parish limits. It is the largest parish as to acreage in England, and that with the scantiest population in proportion to its area.

In former times the moor attracted miners, it does so still, but to a very limited extent; extensive operations were anciently carried on in every stream bed in quest of tin.

The vast masses of upturned refuse testify to the vastness of the mining works that once made the moors teem with people. The workers in the mines lived in huts merely constructed of uncemented granite blocks, thatched with turf; the ruins of which may still be inspected. But even these ruins are comparatively recent, though dating from the Middle Ages, for there were earlier toilers on the same ground, and for the same ends, who also lived on the moor, and have also left there their traces; they dwelt in circular beehive huts, like those of the Esquimaux, warmed by a central fire, and covered in by a conical roof that had a smoke-vent in the midst. Tens of thousands of these remain, some scattered, most congregated within circular enclosures, and hundreds of thousands have been, and are being, annually destroyed. In connection with these are the megalithic circles and lines of upright stones, cairns that contain tombs made of rude stone blocks set on end, and covered with slabs equally rude.

Who were the people that made of Dartmoor at a remote period a scene of so much activity? Probably a race that occupied Britain before the British, and which was subjugated by the inflowing, conquering Celts.

Throughout the Middle Ages, down to the Civil Wars, the tin was much worked, and men living on the moor also died there; and dying there had to be buried somewhere, and that somewhere was properly in the parish churchyard.

Now, as there is but a single road across the moor from Tavistock to Two Bridges, where it forks, one road going to Moreton, the other to Ashburton, and as the main road was of no great assistance to such as desired to reach Lydford for the sake of their burying their dead, a way was made, rudely paved, and indicated where not paved by standing stones, for the sole purpose of conveying corpses to their final resting place.

This way, of which at present but faint traces exist, was called the Lyke-Way. Since the establishment of the prison at Prince's Town, first for French captives in the European War, then for Irish and English convicts, a church has been erected, and a graveyard enclosed and consecrated, for the convenience and accommodation of those who live and those who die on Dartmoor. The Lyke-Way has accordingly been abandoned for three-quarters of a century; nevertheless it is still pointed out by the moor-men, and is still occasionally taken advantage of by them.

In former days, when for weeks the moor was covered with snow, and its road and tracks deep in drifts, corpses were deliberately exposed to the frost, or were salted into chests, to preserve them till the Lyke-Way was once more passable.

Where the Lyke-Way touches a stream, there double stepping-stones were planted in the bed, for the use of the bearers, occasionally a rude bridge was constructed, by piling up a pier in midwater, and throwing slabs of granite across, to meet in the midst on this pier; but these were always wide enough to permit of the bearers to cross the bridge with the bier between them.

It is not to be marvelled at that superstition attaches to this road, and that at night, especially when the moon is shining, and the clouds are flying before the wind, the moor-men aver that there pass trains of phantom mourners along this way, bearing a bier, gliding rather than running, shadows only, not substantial men of flesh. And as, in the old days, the funeral train sang hymns as they went along with their load, up hill and down dale, so do the moor-men protest at the present time that when the phantom train sweeps along the Lyke-Way, a solemn dirge is wafted on the wind of such overwhelming sadness, that he who hears it is forced to cover his face, and burst into tears.

It is said that if one be daring enough to hide behind a rock on the side of the corpse-track when the phantom procession is on the move, so as to suffer it to pass near him, he will see his own face upturned to the moon on the bier that goes by. Then must he make the best of his time, for within a year he will be dead.

Along the Lyke-Way, as the nearest way to her home, and also to his own, in defiance of the superstition that clung to it, did Anthony Cleverdon purpose to conduct Urith.

When she heard him suggest this way she shivered, for she was, though a strong-minded girl, imbued with the belief of the age. But the power to resist was taken from her. Moreover, along that way there was less chance than on any other of encountering travellers, and Urith shrank from being seen.

On reaching the point where she and her companion touched the Lyke-Way, a point recognisable only by Anthony, who was familiar with it—for here it was but a track over smooth turf, then Cleverdon bade his companion seat herself on a stone and await him. He would, he said, go to the tavern and fetch his horse.

Her opposition to his determination had ceased, not because her will was conquered, but because she was without an alternative course to cling to, without a purpose to oppose to his. She was weary and hungry. She had rambled for many hours before Cleverdon had discovered her, and had eaten nothing. Fatigued and faint, she was glad to rest on the stone, and to be left alone, that she might unobserved give way to the tears of annoyance and anger that welled up in her heart.

In an access of inconsiderate wrath—wrath is ever inconsiderate—she had run away from home—run from a sick mother—and she was now reaping the vexations that followed on what she had done. Her annoyance was aggravated, not tempered, by the thought that no one was to blame for the unpleasant predicament in which she was placed but her own self.

As Urith sat, awaiting the return of Anthony, gazing around her, it appeared to her that the scene could hardly be more awful at the consummation of all things. The whole of the world, as far as she could see, was on fire; it looked as if a black crust were formed over an inner glowing core, like the coal-dust clotted in a blacksmith's forge above the burning interior. There were wandering sparks ranging over it, and here and there a quiver of lurid flame. All that was needed to excite to universal conflagration was a thrust with an iron rod, a blast of concentrated wind, and then the crust would break up, and through its rents would flare out rays of fire too dazzling to look upon, that would swallow up all darkness and dissolve mountain and granite into liquid incandescent lava, and dry up every river with a breath. There was water near the rock where Urith sat, and she again unwound her hands and dipped the bandages in the cool stream.

She was thus engaged, when softly over the velvet turf came Anthony, leading his horse.

"Let me look," said he, bluntly; "let me tie up your rags. How did you injure your knuckles?"

She obediently held out her hands.

"I did it myself."

"How? Against the rocks?"

"No—with my teeth."

"What! You bit your hands?"

"Yes. I bit my hands. I was in a rage."

"We men," said Anthony, "when we are angry, hurt each other, but you women, I suppose, hurt your own selves?"

"Yes. We have not the strength or the means to hurt others. Not that we lack the will—so we hurt ourselves. I would rather have bitten some one else, but I could not, so I tore my own hands—with my teeth."

"You are strange beings, you women," said Anthony.

Then he threw the bridle on the ground, and set his foot on it, so as to disengage his own hands.

He took hold of Urith's wrist, and the kerchiefs, one after the other, and arranged the bandages, and fastened them firmly. Whilst thus engaged, he suddenly looked up, and caught her sombre eyes fixed intently on him.

"Would you hurt me—bite and mangle me?" he asked, with a laugh.

"Yes—if you gave me occasion."

"And if I gave you opportunity?"

"Assuredly, if I had the occasion and the opportunity."

"Which latter I would not be such a fool as to allow you."

"Opportunities come—are not made and given."

"You are a strange girl," he said; holding her hands by the bandaged knots at the wrists, and looking into her gloomy eyes; "I should be sorry to rouse the wild beast in you—there is one curled up in your heart—that I can see. Your eyes are the entrance to its lair."

"Yes," answered Urith, without shrinking, "it is true there is a wild beast in me."

"And you obey the wild beast. It stretched itself and sniffed the moor air—than away you ran out into the wilderness."

He continued to study her face; that exercised a strange fascination upon him.

"Yes; I was in one of my fits. I was angry, and when I am angry I have no reason—no thought—no feelings, nothing save anger. Just as the moor now is—all fire; and the fire consumes everything. I could not hurt my mother—I did not want to hurt my Uncle Solomon. That other—— He was beyond my reach, and so I bit myself."

Anthony made an attempt to shake himself free from the sensation that stole over his senses, a sensation of giddiness. The effort was ineffectual, it lacked resoluteness, and again the spell settled over him; he was falling into a dream, with his hands on her wrists, and her pulses throbbing against his fingers, a dream woven about him, enlacing, entangling mind and heart and consciousness; a dream in which he was losing all power of seeing anything save her eyes, of hearing anything save her breathing, of feeling anything save the dull throb of her pulse—a dream in which he was being caught and bound, and thrown powerless at her feet—a dream of mingled rapture and pain and undefined terror. She had called herself his captive a little while ago, and now she, without a word or a movement, was subjecting him absolutely.

How long he stood thus fascinated he could not conjecture, he was startled out of it by his horse jerking his bridle from under his foot, and then at once, as one starting out of a trance, he passed into a world of other sensations, he heard the rush of water and the wail of wind, he saw the fires about him, and Urith's eyes no longer filled the entire horizon.

"Come," said he, roughly, as he caught the bridle, "get on the horse; we must waste no more time talking folly." He put his hands under her foot, and with a leap she was in the saddle.

"You can ride of course," said he, churlishly; he detested the spell that had been thrown over him; the conviction that he had been very nearly falling wholly into her power.

"Of course I can ride—I am a moor-maid."

With his hand at the bit he urged the horse on, and strode forward, looking down at the turf, without speaking. The sudden drunkenness of brain that had come over him left its vapours that were not withdrawn wholly and at once. But Anthony was not a man to brood over any sensation or experience, and when Urith asked, "Did you find your father's colts?" he recovered his good humour and gaiety, and answered in his wonted tone, "No, the fire must have driven them further north, maybe they are lost in Cranmeer." Then, with a laugh, he added, "I have been like Saul seeking my father's beasts, and like Saul, have found something better." He looked up at her with a flashing eye.

She turned her head away.

"You came to the moors alone?" she asked.

He did not reply, but pointed to the west. "The wind is shifting, I hold. The direction of the smoke and flames is changed."

She did not observe that he evaded giving her a reply to her question.

The way now dipped into a broad valley, where the fire had already burnt, and had exhausted itself.

It lay before them a dark trough, and yet scintillating in points where ashes glowed after the flames had exhausted themselves. An auroral light pervaded the sky overhead, especially bright above the hills to the east, and against it the granite piles of rock on the mountain tops, stood forth as ruined castles crumbling away in the conflagration, and above one huge block, like an altar, smoke rose in columns intermingled with flame, as though on it a gigantic sacrificial oblation were being made.

"I suppose you were angry with me when I snatched you off Devil Tor, and you strove to free yourself?" said Anthony.

"Not angry, but reluctant," she replied; "for I knew that you wished me well, and that your violence was kindly meant."

He drew the reins sharply and arrested the horse, then turned, put his arm over the neck, and looked up at Urith.

"Verily," said he, "I have the fancy that I should like to put you into one of your fits—as you term them."

"Indeed," she answered; "it is a cruel fancy, for my fits end in some hurt. When the devil entered into the child it cast him into the fire or into the water, and tore him before it came out. You see what one fit has cost me"—she extended her bandaged hands. "But you do not feel how they sting and burn. It may have been rare sport for such as looked on to see this child half scorched by the fire, half smothered by the water, and prostrate, mangled by the devil—but I question if any one would have had the heart to invoke the devil to possess the child; yet that is what you would do."

"Nay," said Anthony, a little confounded by her vehemence and the charge against him; "nay, I would not have you again hurt."

"Then would you stand to be torn yourself?"

"What—would you tear and bite me?"

"I cannot say. When I have one of my fits on me I do not know what I am about."

"Are you repentant for your action afterwards?"

"Assuredly I am repentant when I have gnawed my hands, for they are full of pain."

He turned away. The girl disturbed him. The young man was not accustomed to meet with damsels who were not honey and cream, smiles and allurements—the frank avowal of savagery in Urith, mingled with the consciousness that she exerted over him a certain fascination against which he had no counter-spell, caused him uneasiness. He turned abruptly round and went forward with lowered head, and the vapours recently lifted from his brain began to settle over them again.

Presently he came to the side of a foaming tumbling river. He halted, and, without looking into Urith's face, said——

"Now we have come to the Walla, and my cob has been restive at crossing water to-day, shall I help you to dismount? You can go over by the stepping-stones. I must ride him across."

He put forth his hand, but she slipped to her feet unassisted, and handed to him the crop or long-lashed whip that had hung at the saddle-bow, but which she had taken in hand.

"Yes," he said, "I shall require the crop." Then he leaped into the saddle and spurred the horse down into the water.

Urith tripped along the stones till she reached a broad block in the midst of the river. She found no difficulty in crossing, as the light overhead mirrored itself in the water, making of the Walla a very Phlegethon. But for the same reason Anthony's cob objected to enter. He reared and plunged, and when whipped and spurred, wheeled about.

Urith watched the futile efforts of her companion.

Presently she called to Anthony, "The cob will go into the water if you pat him. You further frighten him by your violence when he is already frightened. The river seems to roll down fire and blood."

"What!" laughed Anthony; "will you teach me how to manage a horse?"

"I have had to do with horses every whit as much as yourself," she replied. "Remember, I am the Wild Maid of the Moors."

He made no reply, but again essayed to force the cob to enter the water. Suddenly Urith, still stationed in midstream, uttered an exclamation of surprise, not unmingled with alarm.

She saw black figures emerge on the hill shoulder, visible against the lurid sky, and then descend along the Lyke-Way, coming along the same track, in the same direction.

At once there rushed upon her the stories she had heard of ghostly trains of mourners, sweeping at night along this road, and of the ill-luck that attended such as cast eyes on them.

"Look!—look!" she exclaimed, now in real terror. "Who are they?—what are they? They are following us, Anthony Cleverdon! Do not let us see them more. Do not let them overtake us."