Kitabı oku: «By Violence», sayfa 3

Oliver said nothing, his head was down, and his hands grubbed at the great roots. There was no answer to make.

It was evening, the time of restlessness, and Searell came downstairs; his study was above, and he came down only to change his rooms, to get into another atmosphere, that he might find rest for his mind. The kitchen door was open. Oliver was seated in a low chair, and Sibley was upon his knees, her arms around his neck, her head upon his shoulder. Both were motionless as if asleep.

Searell went away. This time he could not interfere, and the noise of the wind became to him the cry of the wild world. "Men must be violent," it cried. "Men were made for passion," it cried; "and with the strength of the body, rather than by the gropings of the mind, they shall clear the mists from their eyes, and by means of the act of creation find Creator."

IV

A perfect evening is often the prelude to a stormy night. It was such an evening in spring again, when the wind-flowers were out, and an old man riding off the moor paused beside Searell's boundary-wall to prophesy a tempest. This was a white old man with queer blue eyes, and he too was a mystic under the spell of solitude; but, unlike Searell, he had his ties, without which no man can be happy. By day he roamed, and at evening, by the fireside, told the children small and great his own weird tales of Dartmoor. There were no restless evenings for him. Searell shook his head almost angrily. He lived upon the face of the moor, wrapped himself in its secrets, yet he could not foretell its weather. The passing cloud had no message, the river with its changing cry told him nothing. He went into the house.

"Where is your wife?" he said to Oliver.

"Her bain't well, master." The man was nervous, and his eyes were large.

"Who is that woman in the kitchen?"

"I had to get she up to do the cooking."

"You have neglected your work today."

"I be cruel sorry, master."

"What is the matter with your wife? Yesterday I heard her singing."

"Nothing serious, master"; but the man was listening all the time, as if dreading to hear a call, a cry of pain, or the voice of life coming along the moor.

The old man was right. So soon as night began, the Dartmoor tempest broke; there was no rain, nor thunder, but a dry and mighty wind which made the rocks shake; and through the storm came a weird light defying the wind to blow it out, that light which does not enter the lowlands, but lives upon mountains; and Searell stood at his high writing desk, and sought out legends of the wind.

If there were sounds in the house he could not hear them. Deep in mysticism, he read on of the winged clouds which brought the tempests, and of their symbols, the rock-shattering worm, the stone of wisdom which tears open the secrets of life, the rosy flower which restores the dead, the house-breaking hand of glory; and the eagle symbol of lightning, and the rushing raven returning to Odin. And he read of the voices in the wind, while boulders were grinding along the river-bed; of Hulda in the forest singing for baby-souls; of the Elf maidens alluring youths astray; of Thoth staggering into oblivion with brave men's spirits; of Hermes with his winged talaria, playing the lyre and shutting fast all the myriad eyes of the stars. And something more he read about the storm-wind. It was not always taking away, it was giving; it was a bringer of new life, coming in spring as a young god with golden hair, breaking the spell of winter, bringing a magic pipe to make folk dance.

"At one time it lulls into a mystic sleep, at another it restores to new life," said Searell, speaking loudly and strongly, partly to reassure himself, because the tumult was frightening. "What is this wind bringing to me, more of the mystic sleep, or the new life?"

He paced up and down the room, which shook as if with earthquake; and hidden from him by a partition of lath and plaster was the staring horror of a dream, one small lamp, turned down, giving the half-light which suggests terror more than darkness, and on the bed a woman moaning, and against the wall a weak man groaning. Let them rave and scream, no sound of theirs could have pierced that lath and plaster, for the god of violence was fighting on their side.

"There be only one way."

That was how Oliver had been muttering the last hour.

"No, no," she sobbed.

"What can us do? Master be hard, he bides by his word. He ha' been good to we in all else, but this be our ruin."

"No, no." She could not hear him, but she knew what he was saying.

"Back on them streets again. No home to cover we, no food. Us ha' lived easy too long to stand it. 'Twould end in the river. Better to lose the one than our two selves."

"No, no," her lips made the words, but not the sounds.

"'Tis only a matter o' two minutes," he cried fiercely. "Then us be free again." He left the wall, crossed to the bed, bent down, cried into her ear, "It be awful outside. The watter be roaring down under. Us mun live, woman."

Sibley lifted herself with a face of death, and screamed as if it had been the last effort of her life, screamed again and again; but what was that in the wind? Not even a whisper; while Searell read on of the Sons of Kalew, and the miracle of their harps which changed winter into summer and death into life.

Oliver Vorse was staggering downstairs weeping; and outside the wind caught him, dragged him hither and thither like a straw, stuffing his mouth with vapour, and flung him against bellowing walls and into shrieking bushes; and still he protected what he held by instinct, and when he fell upon the steep descent he let his body be bruised and his face torn by that same instinct which makes the timid beast a savage thing.

It took no time… He was back in the ghastly lamplight, staring at a ghastly face which was the reflection of his own; and the master was still in his musing, and knew nothing.

"Let me die, I'd sooner," Sibley muttered simply; but Oliver could not hear. He was leaning against the wall again; then he went on his knees, and then he turned his back upon the bed. That face, the black hair, a blood-stain visible, they frightened him. He passed into a kind of agony; he was so cold and his body was dry, and there was a lightness in his limbs.

"The watter wur roaring – roaring. There warn't no wind, not there. It wur sheltered down under, and them little white flowers scarce shook."

He turned his head and saw those staring eyes.

"Bain't what yew thinks," he howled. "There wur moss, plenty on't. I made a bed beside the rocks. It bain't cold, not very; but the watter be rising – rising – rising."

So was the tempest. It would be nearing its end, and would drop as suddenly as it had arisen; and Searell was smiling as he read of the beasts of the forest weeping as they listened to the song-wind of Gunadhya.

"I can't go out. Might see it crawling up-along, trying to come back, little white thing in the dark."

Oliver could see Sibley was speaking, making with her agonized mouth the shape of words, "Go out." He could not, dared not, had not even the courage to open the door and look down the dimly lighted horror of the stairs. They were in the last stage of weakness, the one morally, the other physically; and the almighty strength of the wind gave them nothing except the security of its tumult.

"It'll be over," he shuddered. "The watter wur coming up all white. I couldn't bide there – there wur drops o' summat on my face, and 'twur so helpless, and it looked up. Blue, warn't 'em blue, woman?'"

Sibley could not have heard, but, with all those instincts quivering, she recognized the word upon his lips and tried to nod.

"Innocent. Hadn't done nought. Would ha' kep we good, made we man and wife. I'll go down. I'd go down if I dared – the little chin wur agin my cheek. I'll never face the dark. I'd see it move, and the little drowning bubbles on the watter. Be it over now?"

He glared at Sibley as if she could answer; and she stared back, asking, pleading, imploring him to play the man and face the night again; but he grovelled against the wall and shuddered, damp with an awful sweat, and the weird light upon the mountain-tops went out, because other clouds were coming up, having travelled far since evening, and the darkness became real as the roarings of the dry wind decreased. It was getting on towards midnight, and those mighty winds were tired.

"Go!" came a sudden scream; and Searell heard the echo of it and started. The cry seemed to have its origin in the storm. He closed his book, listened, heard nothing more except the coherent bellowing, and then he answered, "I will." Certainly the word had sounded, and as certainly he was alone. The Vorses would have been asleep for hours.

"I will walk along the path. It is sheltered down there," he murmured. "This may be the night appointed, the time of revelation, the time of young life. This is the mad music of the spring, the shattering of the chains of winter. The growth follows. It is the birth-night."

He wrapped a coat around him and went. During those few minutes the wind had much decreased; in another hour it would be calm and clear; and then the awful stillness of the sunrise and the perpetual wonder of the daylight.

There was again a kind of light, for the raven-clouds had gone by and the swan-clouds were crossing; and the wind was now the magic piper who drives away care, and with his merry music sets Nature capering. Searell was on the pixy-path and the wind-flowers were jigging; it was ghostly, but a dance, not a solemn marching as in autumn, when the leaves fall processionally downwards. It was recessional spring, when the leaves awoke, as it were, from their moon-loved sleep, preserved in unfading youth and beauty by that sleep, and leapt back at the piper's music to the branches, kissing their ancient oaks with the fervour of young love. Every flower had a moist eye and a sweet heart; and the pixy-water rang for festival.

One turn Searell made, seeing nothing, because his eyes struggled with the mist; another, and he stopped. There was a wonder, a miracle, a revelation among his wind-flowers, upon the edge of the rising water, a sleeping silent wonder which made him thrill.

"It has no bodily existence. When I come back it will be gone."

It was still there, and now the water was almost level with the bed of moss, and some of the flowers were struggling to keep their pale heads above; and it was silent, this child of the morning, lying upon its back in the moss, numbed, perhaps, though the night was not cold, and there was a beauty upon the small face, not the beauty which makes for violence, but that which gives peace, the beauty of innocence; and there was also upon it that perfect weakness, and the submission of weakness which is one of the strongest things created. And it seemed to be growing there like the wind-flowers, as fragile, but as hardy, and among them; for white anemones had been blown across each eye and across the mouth, and they gleamed from each ear, and the chin was another edged with pink, and all of them seemed to be jealous of the child.

"And it comes into the world by violence," Searell murmured.

Even then he hardly knew what had happened. He could not think, for his mind was full of the wonder, and commonplace ideas would not enter. He picked up the child reverently; there was no motion, no sound, no opening of bue eyes; had there been a shrill scream, the spell might have been broken – the contact was dreadful to him. He was tending a sacred mystery, elevating a sacrament newly consecrated, something which a few hours ago had been leaping like a spark in the place of his dreams, and had been flung as lightning upon his path to strike his heart open. Here was the answer of the flowers. To men the Creator was as a child, for the child is the only thing all-powerful and the only thing all-pure.

About the house Searell seemed to hear the sound of groaning like the moan of the dying wind, and there were movements once or twice as of a wounded body.

A dusty prie-dieu stood in the comer of the study. This he placed near the fire, a cushion upon it, and then the child; and lighted a candle upon each side. He stood with his arms folded, the Omega of life worshipping the Alpha of it, until all things seemed to be new and strange, as upon a resurrection morning, and he awoke from the sleep of death and felt the spring. The winter was over and past, the time of the opening of flowers had come, and the voice of creation stirred upon the garden; and the change had been wrought by violence.

It was necessary to speak and find sympathy. He hated the solitude because no one shared it with him; he had grown to hate the wonderful garden because there was no one to wonder at it with him; he hated himself because no one cared for him. "Oliver!" he called, breaking the horrible quietness, forgetful of the time. "Sibley!"

Movements followed, again like wounded bodies, and Searell remembered that the woman was ill and he had done nothing for her. He went to the door; it opened, and Vorse was cowering against the wall, his hand upon his eyes. Searell hardly noticed the horrid smoking of the lamplight, the eyes upon that bed, the guilty, frightened man. Still full of himself, he cried:

"Come and see what I have found."

"I couldn't do it, master," moaned Oliver. "I took it down, but the eyes opened. 'Don't ye hurt me,' it said. I be just come. Bain't time vor me to go.'"

Still Searell would not understand.

"Come," he said impatiently. "She was upon my path, among my flowers."

Then life stirred again upon the bed, and Sibley drew herself up with ravenous eyes and muttered:

"Alive – alive!"

Soon the room was like a chapel. The smoky lamp had been extinguished, the prie-dieu stood beside the bed, the candles cast a warm, soft light; and outside upon the moor was peace. Even the merry piper had become weary and had put all things to sleep till daybreak; while Oliver Vorse upon his knees confessed the sin which had been forced upon him.

"Us dared not keep she. Sibley dared, but not me. If a child wur born, us must go, yew said. I couldn't face it, but her would ha' faced it. Us be ready to go now," he said boldly. "I ha' these hands. I'll fight. I ha' the maiden to fight vor."

"Her lives. Her moves on my bosom," cried Sibley. "Look at 'em, master. Did ye ever see the like?"

"What made you kinder, Sibley, more attentive to me, soft and tender?"

"'Twur the child coming, master."

"What made you sober, Oliver, fond of your wife? What was it stopped the quarelling?"

"I minded the little child, master."

There was something tender in their illiterate speech.

"You cast her away. The sin is mine, so is the atonement. And she is mine."

"She'm mine, master," murmured Sibley.

"I found her among my flowers, the reward of my searching. She is the answer," he said. "Let her be to you the daughter of love, and to me the daughter of violence. Oliver," he cried, turning, "bring up water from the pixy-stream. As the sun rises I will baptise – my child."

"Yew'm fond o' she, master?"

"She is mine," he said, with the old impatience.

"And we, master?"

"I am old and you are young," said Searell. "But we are all beginning life, we know nothing. We will try to find another and a better pathway."

He went back to his rooms to rest, but not to sleep, for there was something burning inside him like a coal from the altar; and a new light crept upon the moor, giving it form, changing it from black to purple. It was the dawn.