Thesame day on which these incidents occurred the Stanton family were in full conclave at Elfdale. It was the birthday of Laura, and there were various merrymakings on hand, an afternoon party, designed to include all her “young friends,” besides a more select company in the evening. As Laura was the one whom the family intended to be Lady Stanton, her affairs, with the willing consent, and indeed by the active energy of her sister, were generally pushed into the foreground. And Geoff and his mother were the chief of the guests specially invited, the only visitors who were staying in the house.
To say that the family intended Laura to be Lady Stanton is perhaps too wild a statement, though this settlement of conflicting claims had been tacitly decided upon when they were children. It was chiefly Lydia who actively intended it now, moved and backed up by some of the absent brothers, who thought it “hard luck” that the young unnecessary Geoff should have interfered between their father and the title, and vowed by Jove that the only fit thing to do in the circumstances was to marry him to one of the girls. Lydia, however, was the most active mind in the establishment at Elfdale, and carried things her own way, so that though Sir Henry disliked fuss,and disliked Geoff’s mother, who had done him so much wrong, yet the party in the evening had been specially selected to suit her, and Maria, Lady Stanton, was established in the house.
“It can’t last long, papa,” Lydia said; “but we can’t have Geoff without her.”
“What do you want with Geoff?” growled Sir Henry.
“Papa! in the first place he is our cousin; and Laura likes him; and you know we girls must marry somebody. You can’t get commissions and nominations for us, more’s the pity; so we must marry. And Laura may as well have Stanton as any one else, don’t you think? and of course in that case she ought to be on good terms with her mother-in-law; and people expect us—— ”
“Oh, that will do,” said Sir Henry, “ask whom you like, only free me from all this clatter. But keep that woman off me with her sanctified airs, confound her,” said the baronet. He had forgiven Geoff for being born, but he could not forgive Geoff’s mother for bringing him so unnecessarily into the world.
And thus it was that Geoff and his mother were at Elfdale. The elder Lady Stanton was no more disposed to go than Sir Henry was to ask her. Visits of this kind are not rare—the inviters unwilling to ask, the invited indisposed to go; and with such cordial results as might be anticipated. “I care for nobody in that house except Cousin Mary,” Lady Stanton said, “and even she perhaps—though it is wrong to say so, Geoff, my dear boy, for of course everybody means for the best.” With these mutual objections the party had met all the same. The other Lady Stanton was very mild and very religious. She could not prevent herself from having an occasional opinion—that is to say, as she explained it herself, for “caring for” one person more than another; but that was because she had not seen enough of the others perhaps—had not quite understood them. “Yes, Geoff, I do not doubt, my dear, that the girls are very nice. So many things are changed since my time. Manners are different. And we are all such prejudiced, unjust creatures, we constantly take the outside for our standard as if that was everything. There is but One that sees fully, and what a blessing,Geoff, that it is Him whom we have most to deal with!” said his mother. For it was one of her troubles in life that she had uneasy instincts about the people she met with, and likings and dislikings such as she felt—the latter at least—a true Christian ought not to indulge in. There was a constant conflict of duty in her against such rebellious feelings. As for Cousin Mary, Sir Henry Stanton’s wife, she was one of those whom Geoff’s mother had no difficulty in liking, but a cold doubt had been breathed into her mind as to the “influence” which this lady might exercise over her boy. She could not quite get it out of her thoughts. Mary could mean no harm, that was certain, but—and then Lady Stanton would upbraid herself for the evil imagination that could thus believe in evil. So that altogether she was not happy to go to Elfdale. When she was there, however, the family paid her a sort of court, though the girls frankly considered her a hypocrite. What did that matter? “All the people one meets with are humbugs more or less,” Lydia said with superior philosophy. Lydia was the one who saw through everybody, and was always unmasking false pretensions. Laura only acquiesced in the discoveries her sister made, and generally followed her in whatever was going on.
The morning of the birthday dawned brightly and promised to be all that could be desired, and the presents were pretty enough to please anydébutante. Laura was nineteen, and so far as the county gaieties went she had been already “out” for nearly a year. Any more splendid introduction into society had been denied to the girls. They had entertained dreams of London, and had practised curtseys for a problematical drawing-room during one whole year, but it had come to nothing, Sir Henry being economical and Lady Stanton shy. It was to their stepmother’s account that Laura and Lydia set down this wrong, feeling convinced that if she had been theirrealmother she would have managed it somehow. “You’ll see she’ll find some way of doing it when these little things grow up,” the elder sisters said to each other, and they bore her a grudge in consequence, and looked at her with glances of reproaches whenever London was spoken of—though that she was not their real mother could not be held to be poor Mary’s fault. However, all this was forgottenon the merry morning, when with the delights of the garden party and a dance before them they came to breakfast and found Laura’s place at table blocked up with presents. Many of them it is true were not of very much value, but there was a pretty bracelet from Geoff and a locket from his mother, which amply rewarded the young ladies for their determination to have their cousin and his mother invited. The opening of the presents made a little pleasant commotion. The donors were all moved by an agreeable curiosity to see how their gifts were received, and as Laura was lavish in her expressions of delight and Lydia in generous admiration, and the little girls hovered behind in fluttering awe, curiosity, and excitement, a general air of family concord, sympathy, and happiness was diffused over the scene. There was not very much love perhaps in the ill-compacted household. But Sir Henry could not help sharing the infection of the half-real amiability of the moment, and his wife could not but brighten under any semblance of kindness. They sat down quite happily to breakfast and began to chatter about the amusements of the afternoon. Even little Fanny and Annie were allowed to have their say. To them was allotted a share in the croquet, even in the delightful responsibility of arranging the players. All the old fogies, the old-fashioned people, the curate and his sister, the doctor and his niece, the humbler neighbours, were reserved for that pastime which is out of fashion—the girls kept the gayer circle and the more novel amusements for Geoff and their own set. And moved by the general good-nature of the moment Sir Henry made apologies to his guests for the occupations which would occupy his morning. He was an active magistrate, and found in this version of public duty a relief from the idleness of his retired life.
“I have that scamp Bampfylde in hand again,” he said; “he is never out of mischief. Have you ever seen that fellow, Geoff? Wild Bampfylde they call him. I think the keepers have a sneaking kindness for him. There is not a poaching trick he is not up to. I am tired of hearing his name.”
“What did you say was his name?” said Geoff’s mother.
The other Lady Stanton had looked up too with a little start, which attracted Geoff’s attention. He stopped short in themiddle of an animated discussion with the girls on the arrangements of the afternoon, to hear what was being said.
“Ah! to be sure—Bampfylde; for the moment I had forgotten,” Sir Henry said. “Yes—that family of course, and a handsome fellow; as fine a man as you could see in the north country. Certainly they are a good-looking race.”
“I suppose it is gipsy blood,” said the elder Lady Stanton, with a sigh. “Poor people! Yes, I say poor people, Sir Henry, for there is no one to care what evil ways they take. So far out of the way among the hills, no teaching, no clergyman; oh, I make every excuse for them! They will not be judged as we are, with our advantages.”
“I don’t know about our advantages,” said Sir Henry, somewhat grimly; “but I sha’n’t make excuses for them. A pest to the country; not to speak of the tragedy they were involved in—— ”
“Oh, don’t let us speak of that,” said Mary, under her breath.
Sir Henry gave her a look which irritated young Geoff. The young man felt himself his beautiful cousin’s champion, and he would have liked to call even her husband to account for such a glance under frowning eyebrows at so gentle a creature. Sir Henry for his part did not like his wife to show any signs of recollecting her own past history. He did not do very much to make her forget it, and was a cold and indifferent husband, but still he was affronted that she should be able to remember that she had not always been his wife.
“I wish it did not hurt you, Cousin Mary,” said Geoff, interposing, “for I should like to speak of it, to have it all gone into. I am sure there is wrong somewhere. You said yourself about that young Musgrave—— ”
“Oh hush, hush, Geoff!” she said under her breath.
“He cannot be young now,” said the elder lady. “I am very sorry for him too, my dear. It is not given to us to see into men’s hearts, but I never believed that John Musgrave—— I beg your pardon, Mary, for naming him before you, of course it must be painful. And to me too. But it is such a long time ago, and I think if it were all to do overagain—— ”
“It would have been done over again and the whole case sifted if John Musgrave had not behaved like a fool, or a guilty man,” said Sir Henry. “It is not a pleasant subject for discussion, is it? I was an idiot to bring up the fellow’s name. I forgot what good memories you ladies have,” he said, getting up and breaking up the party. And there was still a frown upon his face as he looked at his wife.
“What is the matter with papa?” cried the girls in a breath. “You have been upsetting him. You have worried him somehow!” exclaimed Lydia, turning upon her stepmother. “And everything was going so well, and he was in such a good humour. But it is always the way just when we want a little peace and comfort. I never saw such a house as ours! And he is not very unreasonable, not when you know how to manage him—papa.”
As for Mary, she broke down and cried, but smiled again, trying to keep up appearances. “It is nothing,” she said; “your father is not angry. It will all be right in a moment. I suppose I am very silly. Run, little ones, and bring me some eau-de-cologne, quick! You must not think Sir Henry was really annoyed,” she said, turning to Lady Stanton. “He is just a little impatient; you know he has all his old Indian ways; and I am so silly.”
“I don’t think you are silly,” said Lady Stanton, who herself was flushed and excited. “It was natural you should be disturbed, and I too. Sir Henry need not have been so impatient; but we don’t know his motives,” she added hastily, with the habitual apology she made for everybody who was or seemed in the wrong.
“Oh, how tiresome it all is,” cried Lydia, stamping her foot, “when people will make scenes! Come along, Geoff; come with us and let us see what is to be done. Everything has to be done still. I meant to ask papa to give the orders; but when he is put out, it is all over. Do come; there are the hoops to put up, and everything to do. Laura, never mind your tiresome presents. Come along! or the people will be here, and nothing will be done.”
“That is how they always go on,” said Laura, following her sister with her lap full of her treasures, “Come, Geoff. It isso easy to put papa out; and when he is put out he is no good for anything. Do come. I do not think this time, Lydia, it washerfault.”
“Oh, it is always her fault,” said the harsher sister: “and sending these two tiresome children for the eau-de-cologne! She always sends them for the eau-de-cologne. As if that could do any good! like putting out a fire with rose-water. There now, Laura, put your rubbish away, and I will begin settling everything with Geoff.”
The young man obeyed the call unwillingly; but he went with his cousins, having no excuse to stay, and did their work obediently, though his mind was full of very different things. He had put aside the Musgrave business since his visit to Penninghame, not knowing how to act, and he had not spoken of it to his mother; but now it returned upon him with greater interest than ever. Bampfylde he knew was the name of the girl whom John Musgrave had married, whom his brother Walter had loved, and whom the quarrel was about; and she it was who, with her mother, had been accused of helping young Musgrave’s escape. All the story seemed to reopen even upon him with the name; and how much more upon those two ladies who were so much more deeply interested. The two girls and their games had but a slight hold of Geoff’s mind in comparison with this deeper question. He did what they wanted him, but he wasdistraitand preoccupied; and as soon as he was free went anxiously in search of his mother, who, he hoped, would tell him more about it. He knew all about it, but not as people must do who had been involved in the circumstances, and helped to enact that sad drama of real life. He found his mother very thoughtful and preoccupied too, seated alone in a little sitting-room up-stairs, which was Lady Stanton’s special sanctum. The elder Lady Stanton was very serious. She welcomed her son with a momentary smile and no more. “I have been thinking over that dreadful story,” she said; “it has all come back upon me, Geoff. Sometimes a name is enough to bring back years of one’s life. I was then as Mary is now. No, no, my dear, your good father was very different from Sir Henry; but a stepmother is often not very happy. It used to be the other way, thestory-books say. Oh, Geoff, young people don’t mean it—they don’t think; but they can make a poor woman’s life very wretched. It has brought everything back to me. That—and the name of this man.”
“You have never told me much about it, mother.”
“What was the use, my dear? You were too young to do anything; and then, what was there to do? Poor Mr. Musgrave fled, you know. Everybody said that was such a pity. It would have been brought in only manslaughter if he had not escaped and gone away.”
“Then it was madness and cowardice,” said Geoff.
“It was the girl,” said his mother. “No, I am not blaming her; perhaps she knew no better. And his father and all his family were so opposed. Perhaps they thought, to fly away out of everybody’s reach, the two together, was the best way out of it. When young people are so much attached to each other,” said the anxious mother, faltering, half afraid even to speak of such mysteries to her son, “they are tempted to think that being together is everything. But it is not everything, Geoff. Many others, as well as John Musgrave, have lost themselves for such a delusion as that.”
“Is it a delusion?” Geoff asked, making his mother tremble. Of whom could the boy be thinking? He was thinking of nobody—till it suddenly occurred to him how the eyes of that little girl at Penninghame might look if they were older; and that most likely it was the same eyes which had made up to John Musgrave for the loss of everything. After all, perhaps this unfortunate one, whom everybody pitied, might have had some compensation. As he was thinking thus, and his mother was watching him, very anxious to know what he was thinking, Lady Stanton came in suddenly by a private door, which opened from her own room. She had a little additional colour on her cheeks, and was breathless with haste.
“Oh, where is Geoff, I wonder?” she said; then seeing him, ran up to him. “Geoff, there is some one down-stairs you will like to see. If you are really so interested in all that sad story—really so anxious to help poor John—— ”
“Yes, who is it? Tell me who it is, and I will go.”
“Elizabeth Bampfylde is down-stairs,” she said, breathless, putting her hand to her heart. “The mother of the man Sir Henry was speaking of—the mother of—the girl. There is no one knows so much as that woman. She is sitting there all alone, and there is nobody in the way.”
“Mary!” cried the elder lady, “is it right to plunge my boy into it? We have suffered enough already. Is it right to make Geoff a victim—Geoff, who knows nothing about it? Oh, my dear, I know you mean it for the best!”
Mary fell back abashed and troubled.
“I did not mean to harm him, Lady Stanton. I did not think it would harm him. Never mind; never mind, if your mother does not approve. After all, perhaps, she knows no more than we do,” she said, with an attempt at a smile. “The sight of her made me forget myself.”
“Where is she?” said the young man.
“Ah! that is just what overcame me,” said Mary, with a sob, and a strange smile at the irony of fate—“down-stairs inmyhusband’s room. I have seen her often in the road and in the village—but here, in my house! Never mind, Geoff; it was she that helped him to get out of prison. They were bold, they had no fear of anything; not like us, who are ladies, who cannot stir a step without being watched. Never mind, never mind! it is not really of any consequence. She is sitting there in—in my husband’s room!” Mary said, with a sob and a little hysterical laugh. It was not strange to the others, but simple enough and natural. She alone knew how strange it was. “But stop, stop—oh, don’t pay any attention. Don’t go now, Geoff!”
“Geoff! my dear Geoff!” cried his mother running to the door after him, but for once Geoff paid no attention. He hurried down-stairs, clearing them four or five steps at a time. The ladies could not have followed him if they would. The door of Sir Henry’s business room stood open, and he could see an old woman seated like a statue, in perfect stillness, on a bench against the wall. She wore a large grey cloak with a hood falling back upon her shoulders, and a white cap, and sat with her hands crossed in her lap, waiting. She raised her eyes quickly when he came in with a look of anxiety and expectation,but when she found it was not the person she expected, bowed her fine head resignedly and relapsed into quiet. The delay which is always so irksome did not seem to affect her. There was something in the pose of the figure which showed that to be seated there quite still and undisturbed was not disagreeable to her. She was not impatient. She was an old woman and glad to rest; she could wait.
“You are waiting for Sir Henry?” Geoff said, in his eagerness. “Have you seen him? Can I do anything for you?”
“No, sir. I hope you’ll forgive me rising. I have walked far and I’m tired. Time is not of so much consequence now as it used to be. I can bide.” She gave him a faint smile as she spoke, and looked at him with eyes undimmed, eyes that reminded him of the child at Penninghame. Her voice was fine too, large and melodious, and there was nothing fretful or fidgety about her. Except for one line in her forehead everything about her was calm. She could bide.
And this is a power which gives its possessor unbounded superiority over the impatient and restless. Geoff was all curiosity, excitement, and eagerness. “I don’t think Sir Henry will have any time for you to-day,” he said; “tell me what it is. I will do all I can for you. I should like to be of use to you. Sir Henry is going to his luncheon presently. I don’t think you will see him to-day.”
Just at this moment a servant came in with the same information, but it was given in a somewhat different tone. “Look here, old lady,” said the man, “you’ll have to clear out of this. There’s a party this afternoon, and Sir Henry he hasn’t got any time for the likes of you. So march is the word.—I beg your lordship ten thousand pardons. I didn’t see as your lordship was there.”
“You had better learn to be civil to every one,” said Geoff, indignantly; “begherpardon, not mine. You are—Mrs. Bampfylde, I think? May I speak to you, since Sir Henry cannot see you? I have very urgent business—— ”
She rose slowly, paying no attention to the man—looking only at Geoff. “And you are the young lord?” she said with anintent look. There was a certain dignity about her movements, though she seemed to set herself in motion with difficulty, stiffly, as if the exertion cost her something. “I’ve had a long walk,” she added, with a faint smile and half apology for the effort, “there’s where age tells. And all my trouble for nothing!”
“If I can be of any use to you I will,” said Geoff. Then he paused and added, “I want you to do something for me.”
“What is it that old ’Lizabeth Bampfylde could do for a fine young gentleman? Your fortune?—ay, I’ll give you your fortune easy; a kind tongue and a bright eye carries that all over the world. And you look as if you had a kind heart.”
“It is not my fortune,” he said with an involuntary smile.
“You’re no believer in the likes of that? May be you have never met with one that had the power. It runs in families; it runs in the blood. There was one of your house, my young lord, that I could have warned of what was coming. I saw it in his face. And, oh that I had done it! But he would not have been warned. Oh! what that would have saved me and mine, as well as you and yours!”
“You think of my brother then when you see me?” he said, eager at once to follow out this beginning. She looked at him again with a scrutinizing gaze.
“What had I to do with your brother, young gentleman? He never asked me for his fortune any more than you; he did not believe in the likes of me. It is only the silly folk and the simple folk that believe in us. I wish they would be guided by us that are our own flesh and blood—and then they would never get into trouble like my boy.”
“What has he done?” asked Geoff, thinking to conciliate. He had followed her out of the house, and was walking by her side through the shrubberies by the back way.
“What has he done? Something, nothing. He’s taken a fish in the river, or a bird out of the wood. They’re God’s creatures, not yours, or Sir Henry’s. But the rich and the great, that have every dainty they can set their face to, make it a crime for a poor lad when he does that.”
Geoff did not make any answer, for he had a respect for game,and would not commit himself; but he said, “I will do anything I can for your son, if you will help me. Yes, you can help me, and I think you know you can, Mrs. Bampfylde.”
“I am called ’Lizabeth,” said the old woman, with dignity, as if she had said, I am called Princess. Her tone had so much effect upon Geoff that he cried, “I beg your pardon,” instinctively, and faltered and coloured as he went on—
“I want to know about what happened when I was a child—about my brother’s death—about—the man who caused it. They tell me you know more than any one else. I am not asking for idle curiosity. You know a great deal, or so I have heard, about John Musgrave.”
“Hus—sh!” she cried, “it is not safe to say names—you never know who may hear.”
“But all the world may hear,” said Geoff. “I am not afraid. I want him to come home. I want him to be cleared. If you know anything that can help him, tell me. I will never rest now till I have got that sentence changed and he is cleared.”
The old woman looked at him, growing pale, with a sort of alarmed admiration. “You’re a bold boy,” she said, “very bold! It’s because you’re so young—how should you know? When a man has enemies we should be careful how we name him. It might bring ill-luck or more harm.”
“I don’t believe much in ill-luck, and I don’t believe in enemies at all,” said Geoff, with the confidence of his years.
“Oh!” she cried, with a long moan, wringing her hands. “Oh, God help you, innocent boy!”
“No,” Geoff repeated, more boldly still, “neither in enemies nor in ill-luck, if the man himself is innocent. But I believe in friends. I am one; and if you are one—if you are his friend, his true friend, why, there is nothing we may not do for him,” the young man cried, standing still to secure her attention. She paused too for a moment, gazing at him, with a low cry now and then of wonder and distress; her mind was travelling over regions to which young Geoff had no clue, but his courage and confidence had compelled her attention at least. She listened while he went on repeating his appeal; only to tell him what she knew, what she remembered—to tell him everything. Itseemed all so simple to Geoff; he went on with his pleadings, following through the winding walk. It was all he could do to keep up with her large and steady stride as she went on quickening her pace. The stiffness had disappeared, and she walked like one accustomed to long tramping over moor and hill.
“My young lord,” she exclaimed abruptly, stopping him in the midst of a sentence, “you’ve talked long enough; I know all you can say now; and here’s the bargain I’ll make. If my lad gets free, I’ll take his advice—and if he consents, and you have a mind to come up to the fells and see me where I bide—— ”
“Certainly I will come,” cried Geoff, feeling a delightful gleam of adventure suddenly light up his more serious purpose. “Certainly I will come; only tell me where I shall find you—— ”
“You’re going too fast, my young gentleman. I said if my lad gets free. Till I have talked to him I’ll tell you nothing. And my bit of a place is a lonely place where few folk ever come near.”
“I can find it,” said Geoff. “I do not mind how lonely it is. I will come—to-morrow, whenever you please.”
“Not till my lad comes to fetch you,” said ’Lizabeth, with a gleam of shrewd humour crossing her face for a moment. “I must see my lad first, and hear what he says, and then I’ll send him to show you the way.”
“It would be better not to make it dependent on that chance,” said Geoff prudently. “He might not care to come; I don’t know your son; why should he take so much trouble for me? He may decline to do it, or he may dislike my interference, or—— ”
“Or he may not get free,” said ’Lizabeth, stopping short, and dismissing her young attendant almost imperiously. “Here you and me part paths, my young lord. It will be soon enough to say more when my lad is free.”
Geoff was left standing at the outer gate, startled by the abruptness of his dismissal, but incapable he felt of resisting. He gazed after her as she sped along the road with long swift steps, half-appalled, greatly excited, and with a touch ofamusement too. “I am to cheat justice for her in the first place, and elude the law,” he said to himself as he watched her disappearing along the dusty road.
Theresult of this interview was that Geoff, as was natural, threw himself body and soul into the cause of Wild Bampfylde. When he had once made up his mind to this, a certain comic element in the matter delighted him and gave him double fervour. The idea of defeating justice was delightful to the young man, not much older than a schoolboy. He talked to all the people he met about the case of this wild man of the woods, this innocent savage, to whom all the sylvan sins came by nature; and he engaged the best lawyer who could be had to defend him, and if possible get the wild fellow free. Where was the harm? Wild Bampfylde had never been guilty of violence to any human creature, he ascertained. It was only the creatures of the woods he waged war against, not even the gamekeepers. And when Sir Henry, coming home from Quarter Sessions, informed the party that Wild Bampfylde had managed to get off by some quibble, the magistrates being fairly tired of convicting him, everybody was delighted to hear of the safety of Geoff’sprotégéexcept the two elder ladies, who showed no satisfaction. Neither of them were glad, notwithstanding that Geoff was so much interested; Lady Stanton from a vague concern for her son, and Mary because of the prejudice in her which all her gentleness could not eradicate. She looked at Geoff with tears in her eyes. “You will have nothing to do with them,” she said; “him nor any of them? Oh, Geoff, promise!” which was inconsistent, as it was she herself who had put the old mother in his way. But Geoff only laughed, and asked what he could have to do with them, and made no promise. This episode had not interfered with the business of life, with the afternoon party or the dinner, the dancing or the croquet. All had “gone off” as well aspossible. Laura and Lydia had “enjoyed themselves” to their hearts’ content. They had been admired and praised and fêted, and every one had said it was a delightful party. What more could any young lady of nineteen desire? Geoff was very good-natured, and did everything that was asked of him. And Laura wore his bracelet, which was much admired by her friends, and gave rise to many pleasant suggestions. “He is just the very person for you,” Lydia said reflectively, as she examined it. “Now I should have liked emeralds or diamonds, or grown-up jewels; but the turquoises are the very thing for you. He sees your taste. If he were not Lord Stanton, just for simple suitableness you should marry Geoff—he is the very person for you.”
“I do not see why I should be made to marry any one for simple suitableness, as if I were a baby,” was Laura’s protestation; but she liked the turquoises, and she did not dislike the hints and smiling gossip. And when young Lord Stanton and his mother went away, the house regretted them from the highest to the lowest. The little girls stood behind backs, crying, when the carriage drove away. “I should like to know what they have to cry about,” Lydia said; “what is Geoff to them? It is such nonsense; but they always are encouraged in everything. You two little things, stop that, and be off with you! You are always in some one’s way.”
“He is as much our cousin as yours,” said Fanny, who was always known to be saucy; but they skimmed away in a panic when Lydia turned round upon them, not knowing what she might do. “Oh, how nice it would be to have nothing but a mamma!” they said to each other as they alighted in her room, where it was always quiet, and smoothed down their ruffled plumes. Poor little doves! it was not for Geoff alone they were crying, for Geoff’s mother had been very good to them. They had hung about her for hours, and had stories told to them, and the world seemed an empty sort of place when these two visitors went away.
The mother and son drove home to their own house, he a little sorry, she a little glad. It was wrong perhaps to be glad, implying a kind of tacit censure on the people she had left; butthere was no harm in being happy to get home. Stanton Hall was not an immemorial place like Penninghame, nor a cosy unpretending country house like Elfdale, but a great mansion intended to be grand and splendid, and overawe the country. The splendour had fallen into a little disuse during Geoff’s long minority, but as he had lived chiefly at home with his mother, it had proportionately gained in comfort and the home aspect which only being lived in can give to a house. They lived chiefly in one wing, leaving the state part of the mansion almost unoccupied. Geoff had not been brought up as most youths of his age are brought up. His mother had been too timorous, both physically and spiritually, to trust her child amid all the appalling dangers and indulgences of a public school. And he had not even, more wonderful still, gone to any university. She was his sole guardian, no one sharing her powers, for it never had been supposed that little Geoff would be anybody in particular, or that it was of the least importance how his mother brought him up. His education had therefore been chiefly conducted at home by a tutor, chosen rather for his goodness than his learning. Did it matter very much? Geoff was not very clever, and it does not require much learning, as Mrs. Hardcastle concluded in the case of her son Tony Lumpkin, to spend fifteen thousand a year. Geoff had learned a great many things which university men do not much meddle with, and he had forgotten as successfully as any university man could do. He had a great deal less Greek, but a good deal more French than most of those heroes; and he was a good, honest, simple-hearted boy, as, Heaven be praised, in spite of their many advantages, a great many of those same university men manage to be. And, in short, he was very much like his contemporaries, though brought up so very differently—a fact which would have wounded his mother’s feelings more than anything else you could have said; for if the result is just about the same as it would have been by the other process, what is the good of taking a great deal of additional trouble? Mr. Tritton, the tutor, had been all alone at Stanton during this visit to Elfdale. He was a very good man. He had been as kind as a father to Geoff from the moment he took charge of him, and had watched over him with unfailing care;indeed he was like a second mother as well—perhaps more like that than the other—very anxious not to “over-tire” his pupil, or to put any strain on his faculties. They were the most peaceful household that could be conceived, and Geoff, according to all rule, ought to have grown up a very feminine youth. But by good luck he had not done so. In that demure household he got to be a lively, energetic, out-door sort of person, and loved adventure, and loved life perhaps all the better in consequence of the meek atmosphere of quietness which surrounded him. To tell the truth it was he who, for a long time, had held the helm of the house in his hand, and had everything his own way.
Mr. Tritton was upon the steps to welcome them, and the servants, who were glad to see them back after the week of quiet. Who does not know the kind of servants Lady Stanton would have?—men and women who had seen the boy grow up, and thought or seemed to think there was nobody in the world like Geoff—a housekeeper to whom her mistress was very obsequious and conciliatory, but whom Geoff treated with a familiarity which sometimes froze the very blood in his mother’s veins, who would not for the world have taken such liberties; and a butler, who felt himself an independent country gentleman, and went and came very much at his own pleasure, and governed his inferiorsen bon prince, but with a lively sense of his own importance. These all received the travellers with cordiality at the door, and brought them tea and were very kind to them. It was quite touching and gratifying to Lady Stanton that they should always be so kind. Harris, the butler, took her little travelling-bag, and carried it into the drawing-room with his own hand; and Mrs. Benson herself came to pour out her cup of tea. “I hope your ladyship is not too much tired with your long drive,” Mrs. Benson said; and Harris kindly lingered to hear her reply, and to assure her that all had been going on well at Stanton while she was away.
Geoff did not pay so much attention to the kindness of the servants. He went off to the stables to give some orders, leaving Mr. Tritton with his mother. Geoff called his tutor Old Tritton as easily as if he had mixed in the world of men at Eton or Oxford, and went off about his own business unconcerned. Butwhen he had turned the corner of the house to the stables, Geoff’s whistle stopped suddenly. He found a man standing there with his back against the wall, whose appearance startled him. A poacher is a thing that is obnoxious to every country gentleman, however easy his principles may be on the question of game; and a tramp is a thing that nobody with a house worth robbing can away with. The figure that presented itself thus suddenly before Lord Stanton’s eyes was the quintessence of both; a tall, loose-limbed man, with strong black locks and an olive skin, in coarse velveteen and gaiters, and a coat with multitudinous pockets, with a red handkerchief knotted round his neck, a soft felt hat crushed into all manner of shapes, and a big stick in his hand. He stood in a careless attitude, at his ease, leaning against the wall. What had such a man to do there? and yet there he was for a purpose, as any one could see, lying in wait; was it to rob, or to kill? Geoff’s heart gave a little leap at the sight of the intruder. He had not had much experience of this kind.
“What are you doing here?” he asked sharply, the instincts of property and authority springing up in disapproval and resistance. What had such a fellow to do here?
“I am doing nothing,” said the man, not changing his attitude, or even taking off his hat, or showing the smallest mark of respect. He continued even to lounge against the wall with rude indifference. “I am here on your business, not on mine,” he said, carelessly.
“On my business! Yes, I know,” said Geoff, suddenly bethinking himself; “you are Bampfylde? I am glad you’ve got off; and you come to me from—— ”
“Old ’Lizabeth; that is about it. She’s a funny woman: whatever silly thing she wants she always gets her way. She wants you now, and I’ve come to fetch you. I suppose you’ll come, since she says it. And you’d better make up your mind soon, for it does not suit me to stay here.”
“I suppose not,” said Geoff, scarcely noticing what he said.
“Why should you suppose not!” said the man, rousing himself with an air of offence. He was taller than Geoff, a lanky but muscular figure. “I have eyes and feelings as well as you.I like a fine place. Why shouldn’t I take my pleasure looking at it? You have a deal more, and yet you’re not content.”
“We were not discussing our feelings,” said Geoff, half contemptuous, half sympathetic. “You have brought me a message, perhaps from your mother?”
“I’ve come from old ’Lizabeth. She says if you like to start to-night along with me we’ll talk your business over, and if she can satisfy you she will. Look you here, my young lord, your lordship’s a deal of consequence to some, but it’s nothing to her and me. Come, if you like to come; it’s your business, not our’s. If there’s danger it’s your own risk, if there’s any good it’s you that will have it, not us—— ”
“Danger!” said Geoff; “the danger of a walk up the fells! and good—to me? Yes, you can say it is to me if you like, but you ought to be more interested than I am. However, words don’t matter. Yes, let us say the good is mine, and the danger, if any, is mine—— ”
“Have it your own way,” said Bampfylde. “I’ll come back again, since you’ve made up your mind, at ten to-night and show you the way.”
“But why at night?” said Geoff; “to-morrow would be better. It is not too far to go in a day.”
“There’s the difference between you and us. Night is our time, you see. It must be by night or not at all. Would you like to walk with me across country, my lord? I don’t think you would, nor I wouldn’t like it. We shouldn’t look natural together. But at night all’s one. I’ll be here at ten; there’s a moon—and a two hours’ walk, or say three at the most, it’s nothing to a young fellow like you.”
This was a very startling proposition, and Geoff did not know what to make of it. It grew more and more like a mysterious adventure, and pleased him on that side; but he was a modern young man, with a keen perception of absurdity, and everything melodramatic was alarming to him. Why should he walk mysteriously in the middle of the night to a cottage about which there need be no mystery on a perfectly innocent and honest errand? He stared at his strange visitor with a perplexity beyond words.
“What possible object could be gained,” he said at last, “by going in the night?”
“Oh, if you’re afraid!” said this strange emissary, “don’t go—that’s all about it: neither me nor her are forcing you to hear what we may happen to know.”
“I am not afraid,” said Geoff, colouring. It was an accusation which was very hard to bear. “But there is reason in all things. I don’t want to be ridiculous—” The man shrugged his shoulders—he laughed—nothing could have been more galling. Geoff standing, looking at him, felt the blood boiling in his veins.
“Quite right too,” said Bampfylde. “What can we know that’s worth the trouble? You’ll take a drive up some day in your coach and four, and oblige us. That is just what I would do myself.”
“In Heaven’s name, what am I expected to do?” cried Geoff; “make a melodramatic ass of myself, and go in the middle of the night?”
“I’m no scholar: long words are not my sort. Do or don’t, that’s the thing I understand, and it is easy to settle. If you’re not coming, say No, and I’ll go. If you are coming, let me know, and I’ll be here. There’s nothing to make such a wonder about.”
Geoff was in great doubt what was best to do. The adventure pleased him; but the idea of ridicule held him back. “It is not pleasant to be thought a fool,” he said. Then, nettled by the jeer in the face of this strange fellow who kept his eyes—great, dark, and brilliant as they were—fixed upon him, the young man cut the knot hurriedly. “Then never mind the absurdity; be here at ten, as you say, and wait if I am not ready. I don’t want everybody to know what a fool I am,” he said.
“You are coming then?” said the man with a laugh. “That’s plucky whatever happens. You’re not afraid?”
“Pooh!” cried Geoff, turning away. He was too indignant and annoyed to speak. He went on impatiently to the stables, leaving the stranger where he stood. He was not afraid; but his young frame thrilled in every fibre with excitement. Had not adventures of this kind sounded somewhat ridiculous to the ideas of to-day, the mysterious expedition would have beendelightful to him. But that uneasy sense of the ridiculous kept down his anticipations. What could old ’Lizabeth have to tell that could justify such precautions? But if she chose to be fantastic about her secret, whatever it was, he must humour her. When he went in again, there was no sign of his visitor, except the half-effaced mark of a footstep on the soft gravel. The man had ground the heel of his boot into it while he stood talking, and there it was, his mark to show the place where he had been.
The evening passed very strangely to young Lord Stanton. He heard his mother and Mr. Tritton talking calmly of to-morrow. To-morrow the old family lawyer was expected, and some of the arrangements attendant on his coming of age, which was approaching, were to be discussed; and he was asked, What he would like—in one or two respects. Should this be done, or that, when his birthday came? Geoff could not tell what curious trick of imagination affected him. He caught himself asking, Would he ever come of age? Would to-morrow be just as the other days, no more and no less? How absurd the question was! What could possibly happen to him in a long mountain walk, even though it might be through the darkness? There is nothing in that homely innocent country to make midnight dangerous. Wild Bampfylde might be an exciting sort of companion; but what more? As for enemies, Geoff remembered what he had said so short a time before. He did not believe in them; why should he? he himself, he felt convinced, possessed no such thing in all the world.
But it was astonishing how difficult it was that evening to get free. Lady Stanton, who generally was fatigued with the shortest journey, was cheerful and talkative to-night, and overflowing with plans; and even Mr. Tritton was entertaining. It was only by saying that he had letters to write that Geoff at last managed to get away. He disliked writing letters so much that the plea was admitted with smiles. “We must not balk such a virtuous intention,” the tutor said. He went into the library with a beating heart. This room had a large window which opened upon the old-fashioned bowling-green. Geoff changed his dress with great speed and quiet, putting on a rough shooting suit.The night was dark, but soft, with stars faintly lighting up a hazy sky. He stepped out from the big window and closed it after him. The air was very fresh, a little chilly, as even a midsummer night generally is in the north country. He gave a little nervous shiver as he came out into the darkness and dullness. “There’s some one walking over your grave,” said a voice at his elbow. Geoff started, to his own intense shame and annoyance, as if he had received a shot. “Very likely,” he said, commanding himself; “over all our graves perhaps. That harms nobody. You are there, Bampfylde? That’s well; don’t talk, but go on.”
“You’re a good bold one after all,” said the voice by his side. Geoff’s heart beat uneasily at the sound, and yet the commendation gave him a certain pleasure. He was more at his ease when they emerged from the shadow of the house, and he could see the outline of his companion’s figure, and realize him as something more than a voice. He gave a somewhat longing look back at the scattered lights in the windows as he set out thus through the silence and darkness. Would any one find out that he was gone? But his spirit rose as they went on, at a steady pace, swinging along under the deep hedgerows, and across the frequent bridges where so many streamlets kept crossing the road, adding an unseen tinkle to the sounds of the summer night.
Whenyoung Lord Stanton left his own house with Wild Bampfylde there was a tingle of excitement in the young man’s veins. Very few youths of his age are to be found so entirely home-bred as Geoff. He had never been in the way of mischief, and he had no natural tendency to lead him thitherward, so that he had passed these first twenty years of his existence without an adventure, without anything occurring to him that might not have been known to all the world. To leave your own housewhen other people are thinking of going to bed, for an expedition you know not where, under the guidance of you know not whom, is a sufficiently striking beginning to the path of mystery and adventure; and there was a touch of personal peril in it which gave Geoff a little tingle in his veins. His brother had been killed by some one with whom this wild fellow was closely connected; it was a secret of blood which the young man had set himself to solve one way or other; and this no doubt affected his imagination, and for a short time the consciousness of danger was strong in him, quickening his pulses and making his heart beat. This was increased by a sense of wrong-doing, in so far as Geoff felt that he might be exposing the tranquil household he had left behind to agonies of apprehension about him, did he not return sufficiently early to escape being found out. Finally, on the top of this consciousness of conditional fault came a feeling, perhaps the most strong of all, of the possible absurdity of his position. Romantic adventure, if it never ceases to be attractive to the young, is looked upon with different eyes at different periods, and the nineteenth century has agreed to make a joke of melodrama. Instead of being moved by a fine romantic situation, the modern youth laughs; and the idea of finding himself in such picturesque and dramatic circumstances strikes him as the most curious and laughable, if not ridiculous, idea. To recognize himself as setting out, like the hero of a novel or a play (of the old school), to search out a mystery—into the haunts of a law-defying and probably law-breaking class, under the guidance of a theatrical vagrant, tramp, or gipsy, to ask counsel of the weird old woman, bright-eyed and solemn, who held all the threads of the story in her hands, filled Geoff with mingled confusion and amusement. He had almost laughed to himself as he realized it; but with the laugh a flush came over his face—what would other people think? He felt that he would be laughed at as romantic, jibed at as being able to believe that any real or authentic information could be obtained in this ridiculous way. ’Lizabeth Bampfylde in the witness-box would no doubt be valuable, but the romances she might tell in her own house, to a young man evidently so credulous and of such a theatrical temperament—these two things wereentirely different, and he would be thoroughly laughed at for his foolishness.
This consciousness of something ridiculous in the whole business reassured him, however; and better feelings rose as he went on with a half-pleased, half-excited, exhilaration and curiosity. The night was fine, warm, and genial, but dark; a few stars shone large and lambent in the veiled sky, but there was as yet no moon, so that all the light there was was concentrated above in the sky, and the landscape underneath was wrapped in darkness, a soft, cool, incense-breathing obscurity—for night is as full of odours as the morning. It is full of sounds too, all the more mysterious for having no kind of connection with the visible; and no country is so full of sounds as the North country, where the road will now thread the edge of a dark, unseen, heathery, thymy moor, and now cross, at a hundred links and folds, the course of some invisible stream, or some dozens of little runlets tinkling on their way to a bigger home of waters. Now dark hedgerows would close in the path; now it would open up and widen into that world of space, the odorous, dewy moorland; now lead by the little street, the bridge, the straggling outskirts of a village. Generally all was quiet in the hamlets, the houses closed, the inhabitants in bed, but sometimes there would be a sudden gleam of lightness into the night, a dazzle from an open door or unshuttered window. The first of these rural places was Stanton, the village close to the great House, where Geoff unconsciously stole closer into the shadow, afraid to be seen. Here it was the smithy that was still open, a dazzling centre of light in the gloom. The smith came forward to his door as they passed, roused by the steady tread of their footsteps, and looked curiously out upon them, his figure relieved against the red background of light. “What, Dick! is’t you, lad?” he said, peering out. “Got off again? that’s right, that’s right; and who’s that along with you this fine night?” Bampfylde did not stop to reply, to Geoff’s great relief. He went on with long swinging steps, taking no notice. “If anybody asks you, say you don’t know,” he said as he went on, throwing back a sort of challenge into the gloom. He did not talk to his companion. Sometimes he whistled low, but as clearly as a bird, imitating indeed thenotes of the birds, the mournful cry of the lapwing, the grating call of the corn-crake; sometimes he would sing to himself low crooning songs. In this way they made rapid progress to the foot of the hills.
Geoff had been glad of the silence at first; it served to deliver him from those uncomfortable thoughts which had filled his mind, the vagabond’s carelessness reassuring and calming his excitement; for neither the uneasy sense of danger he had started with, nor the equally uneasy sense of the ludicrous which had possessed him, were consistent with the presence of this easy, unexcited companion, who conducted himself as if he were alone, and would stop and listen to the whirr and flutter of wild creatures in the hedgerows or on the edge of the moor, as if he had forgotten Geoff’s very presence. All became simple as they went on, the very continuance of the walk settling down and calming the agitation of the outset. By and by, however, Geoff began to be impatient of the silence, and of the interest his companion showed in everything except himself. Could he be, perhaps, one of the “naturals” who are so common in the North, a little less imbecile than usual, but still incapable of continuous attention? Thus, after his first half-alarmed, half-curious sense of the solemnity of the enterprise, Geoff came back to an everyday boyish impatience of its unusual features and a disposition to return to the lighter intercourse of ordinary life.
“How far have we to go now?” he asked. They had come to the end of the level, and were just about to ascend the lower slopes of hilly country which shut in the valley. The fells rising before them made the landscape still more dark and mysterious, and seemed to thrust themselves between the wayfarers’ eyes and that light which seemed to retire more and more into the clear pale shining of the sky.
“Tired already?” said the man, with a shrug of his shoulders. He had stopped to investigate a hollow under a great gorse-bush, just below the level of the road, from which came rustlings and scratchings indistinguishable. Bampfylde raised himself with a half-laugh, and came back to Geoff’s side. “These small creatures is never tired,” he said; “they scuds about all day, and sleep that light at night that a breath wakes them; and yetthey’re but small, not so big as my hand; and knows their way, they does, wherever they’ve got to go.”
“I allow they are cleverer than I am,” said Geoff, good-humouredly, “but then they cannot speak to ask their way. Men have a little advantage. And even I am not so ignorant as you think. I have been on the fells in a mist, and knew my way, or guessed it. At all events, I got home again, and that is something.”
“There will be no mist to-night,” said Bampfylde, looking up at the sky.
“No; but it is dark enough for anything. Look here, I trust you, and you might trust me. You know why I am going.”
“How do you trust me, my young lord?”
“Well,” said Geoff; “supposing I am a match for you, one man against another, how can I tell you have not got comrades about? My brother lost his life—by some one connected with you. Did you know my brother?”
The suddenness of this question took his companion by surprise. He wavered for a moment, and fell backward with an involuntary movement of alarm.
“What’s that for, lad, bringing up a dead man’s name out here in the dark, and near midnight? Do you want to fley me?Inever meddled with him. He would be safe in his bed this night, and married to his bonnie lady, and bairns in his house to heir his title and take your lordship from you, if there had been nobody but me.”
“I believe that,” said Geoff, softened. “They say you never harmed man.”
“No, nor beast—except varmint, or the like of a hare or so—when the old wife wanted a bit o’ meat. Never man. For man’s blood is precious,” said the wild fellow with a shudder. “There’s something in it that’s not in a brute. If I were to kill you or you me in this lonesome place, police and that sort might never find it out; but all the same, the place would tell—there would be something there different; they say man’s blood never rubs out.”
Geoff felt a little thrill run through his own veins as he saw his companion shiver and tremble; but it was not fear. Thewords somehow established perfect confidence between himself and his guide; and he had all the simplicity of mind of a youth whose faith had never been tampered with, and who believed with the unshaken sincerity of childhood. “The stain on the mind never wears out,” he said, thoughtfully. “I knew a boy once who had shot his brother without knowing it. How horrible it was! he never forgot it; and yet it was not his fault.”
“Ah! I wish as I had been that lucky—to shoot my brother by accident,” said Wild Bampfylde, with a long sigh, shaking into its place a pouch or game-bag which he wore across his shoulder. “It would have been the best thing for him,” he added, in answer to Geoff’s cry of protest; “then he wouldn’t have lived—for worse—— ”
“Have you a brother so unfortunate?”
“Unfortunate! I don’t know if that is what you call it. Yes, unfortunate. He never meant bad. I don’t credit it.”
“You are not speaking,” said Geoff, in a very low voice, overpowered at once with curiosity and interest, “of John Musgrave?”
“The young Squire? No, I don’t mean him; he’s bad, and bad enough, but not so bad. You’ve got a deal to learn, my young lord. And what’s your concern with all that old business? If another man’s miserable,thatdon’t take bit or sup from you—nor a night’s rest, unless you let it. You’ve got everything that heart could desire. Why can’t you be content, and let other folks be?”
“When we could help them, Bampfylde?” said Geoff. “Is that the way you would be done by? Left to languish abroad; left with a stain on your name, and no one to hold out a hand for you—nobody to try to get you righted; only thinking of their own comfort, and the bit and the sup and the night’s rest?”
“You’ve never done without neither one nor t’other,” came in a hoarse undertone from Bampfylde’s lips. “It’s fine talking; but it’s little you know.”
“No, I’ve never had the chance,” said Geoff. “I can’t tell what it’s like, that’s true; but if it ever comes my way—— ”
“Ah, ay! it’s fine talking—it’s fine talking!”
Geoff did not know how to reply. He went on impatiently,tossing aloft his young head, as a horse does, excited by his own words like the playing of a trumpet. They proceeded so up a stiff bit of ascent that taxed their strength and their breathing, and made conversation less practicable. The winding mountain road seemed to pierce into the very fastnesses of the hills, and the tall figure of the vagrant a stop in advance of him appeared to Geoff like the shadow of some ghostly pioneer working his way into the darkness. No twinkle of a lamp, no outline of any inhabited place looming against the lighter risings of the manifold slopes, encouraged their progress. The hills, which would have made the very brightness of the morning dark, increased the gloom of the night. Only the tinkle of here and there a little stream, the sound of their own footsteps as they passed on, one in advance of the other, the small noises which came so distinctly through the air—here a rustle, there a jar of movement, something stirring under a stone, something moving amid the heather, were to be heard. Bampfylde himself was stilled by these great shadows. His whistle dropped; and the low croon of song which he had raised from time to time did not take its place. He became almost inaudible, as he was almost invisible; only the sound of a measured step and a large confused outline seen at times against the uncertain openings and bits of darkling sky.
When they came abreast again, however, on a comparatively smooth level, after a stiff piece of climbing, he spoke suddenly. “It’s queer work going like this through the dark. Many a night I have done it with no company, and then a man’s drawn out of himself watching the living things: one will stir at your foot, and one go whirr and strike across your very face, for they put more trust in you in the dark. You see they have the use of their eyesight, and the like of you and me haven’t. So they know their advantage. But put a man down beside another man, and a’s changed. I cannot understand the meaning of it. It puts things in your head, and it puts away the innocent creatures. Men’s seldom innocent: but they’re awful strange,” said the vagrant, with a sigh.
“Do you think they are so strange? I am not sure that I do,” said Geoff, bewildered a little. “They are just likeeverything else—one is dull, one is clever; but except for that—— ”
“Clever! it’s the creatures that are clever. Did you ever see a bird make a fuss to get you off where her nest was? A woman wouldn’t have sense to do that. She’d run and shriek, and get hold of her bairns; but the bird’s clever. That’s what I calls clever. It’s something stranger than that. When a man’s beside you, all’s different; there’s him thinking and you thinking; and though you’re close, and I can grip you”—here Bampfylde seized upon Geoff with a sudden, startling grasp, which alarmed the young man—“I can’t tell no more than Adam where your mind is. Asking your pardon, my young lord, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he added, dropping his hold. “Now the creatures is all there; you know where you have ’em. Far the contrary with a man.”
Geoff was not given to abstract thoughts, and this sudden entry into the regions of the undiscovered perplexed him. “You like company, then?” he said, doubtfully. He knew a great deal more than his companion did of almost everything that could be suggested, but not of this.
“Like company? it’s confusing, very confusing. But the creatures is simple. You can watch their ways, and they’re never double-minded. They’re at one thing, one thing at a time. Now, a man, there’s notions in his head, and you can never tell how they got there.”
“I suppose,” said young Geoff, perplexed yet reverential, “it is because men are immortal; not like the beasts that perish.”
“Ay, ay—I suppose they perish,” said Bampfylde. “What would they be like us for, and sicken, and pine? They get the good of it all the time; run wild as they like, and do mischief as they like, and never put in gaol for it. You think they’re sleeping now? and so they are, and waking too—as still as the stones and as lively as the stars up yonder. That’s them; but us, if we’re sleeping, it’s for hours long, and dreams with it; one bit of you lying like a log, t’other bit of you off at the ends of the airth. So, if you’re woke sudden, chances are you aren’t there to be woke—and there’s a business; but the creatures, they’re always there.”
“That is true,” said Geoff, who was slightly overawed, and thought this very fine and poetical—finer than anything he had ever realized before. “But sometimes they are ill, I suppose, and suffer too?”
“Then them that is merciful puts them out of their pain. The hardest-hearted ones will do that. A bird with a broken wing, or a beast with a broken leg, unless it be one of the gentlefolks’ pets, that’s half mankind, and has to suffer for it because his master’s fond of him (and that’s funny too)—the worst of folks will put them out of their pain. But a man—we canna’ do it,” cried the vagrant; “there’s law again’ it, and more than law. If it was nothing but law, little the likes of me would mind; but there’s something written here,” he said, putting his hand to his breast; “something that hinders you.”
“I hope so indeed,” said Geoff, a little breathless, with a sense of horror; “you would not take away a life?”
“But the creatures, ay; they have the best of it. You point your gun at them, or you wring their necks, and it’s all over. I’m fond of the creatures—creatures of all kinds. I’m fond of being out with them on a heathery moor like this all myself. They know me, and there’s no fear in them. In the morning early, when the air’s all blue with the dawn, the stirring and the moving there is, and the scudding about, setting the house in order! A thing not the size of your hand will come out with two bright eyes, and cock its head and look up at you. A cat may look at a king; a bit of a moor chicken, or a rabbit the size o’ my thumb, up and faces you, and, ‘Who are you, my man?’ That is what they looks like; but you never see them like that after it’s full day.”
“Then is night their happy time?” said Geoff, humouring his strange companion.
“Night, they’re free. There’s none about that wishes them harm; and though I snare varmint, and sometimes take a hare or a bird,—I’ll not deny it, my young lord, though you were to clap me in prison again to-morrow—they’re not afraid o’ me; they know I’ll not harm them. Even the varmint, if they didn’t behave bad and hurt the rest, I’d never havethe heart. When you go back, if you do go back—— ”
“I must go back,” said Geoff, very gravely. “Why should not I? You don’t think I could stay up here?”
“I was not thinking one thing or another. The like of you is contrary. I’ve little to do with men; but when you go, if you go, it might be early morning, the blue time, at the dawn. Then’s the time to see; when there’s all the business to be done afore the day, and after the night. Children is curious,” said Bampfylde, with a softening of his voice, which felt in the darkness like a slowly dawning smile; “but creatures is more curious yet. I like to watch them. You’ll see all the life that’s in the moors if it’s that time when you go.”
“I suppose if there is anything to tell me I cannot go sooner,” said Geoff. His tone was grave, and so was his face, though that was invisible. “Then it will be day before I get home, and they will all know—perhaps I was a fool.”
“For coming?” said the man, turning round to peer into his face though it was covered by the darkness; and then he gave a low laugh. “I could have told you that!”
For a moment Geoff’s blood ran colder; he felt a little thrill of dismay. Was this strange creature a “natural” as he had thought, or did what he said imply danger? But no more was said for a long time. Bampfylde sank back again all at once into the silence he had so suddenly broken, or rather into the low crooning of monotonous old songs with which he had beguiled the first part of the journey. There was a kind of slumbrous soothing in them which half-interested, half-stupefied Geoff. They all went to one tune, a tune not like anything he knew—a kind of low chant, recalling several airs that did not vary from verse to verse, but repeated itself, and so lulled the wayfarer that all active sensation seemed to go from him, and the monotonous, mechanical movement of his limbs seemed to beat time to the croon of sound which accompanied the gradual march. There was something weird in it, something like “the woven paces and the waving hands” of the enchantress. Geoff felt his eyes grow heavy, and his head sinking on his breast, as the low, regular tramp and chant went on.
At length, all at once, the hills seemed to clear away from the sky, opening up on either hand; and straight before them,hanging low, like a signal of trouble, a late risen and waning moon that seemed thrust forward out into the air, and hanging from the sky, appeared in the luminous but mournful heaven in front of them. There is always something more or less baleful and troublous in this sudden apparition, so late and out of date, of a waning moon; the oil seems low in the lamp, the light ready to be extinguished, the flame quivering in the socket. Between them and the sky stood a long, low cottage, rambling and extensive, with a rough, grey stone wall built round it, upon which the pale moonlight shone. Long before they reached it, as soon as their steps could be audible, the mingled baying and howling of a dog was heard, rising doleful and ominous in the silence; and from under the roof—which was half rough thatch and half the coarse tiles used for labourers’ cottages—a light strangely red against the radiance of the moon flickered with a livid glare. A strange black silhouette of a house it was, with the low moonlight full upon it, showing here and there in a ghostly full white upon a bit of wall or roof, and contrasting with the red light in the window: it made a mystic sort of conclusion to the journey. Bampfylde directed his steps towards it without a word. He knocked a stroke or two on the door, which seemed to echo over all the country and up to the mountain-tops in their great stillness. “We are at home, now,” he said.