The Flight of the Shadow

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"She shall not hurt me. I will take care of myself for your sakes. Your
life shall not be clouded by scandal about your uncle."

"How are you to prevent it, uncle dear? Fulfil her threat or not, she
would be sure to talk!"

"When she sees it can serve no purpose, she will hardly risk reprisals."

"She will certainly not risk them when she finds we have said good-bye."

"But how would that serve me, little one? What! would you heap on your
uncle's conscience, already overburdened, the misery of keeping two
lovely lovers apart? I will tell you what I have resolved upon. I will
have no more secrets from you, Orba. Oh, how I thank you, dearest, for
not casting me off!"

Again I threw myself on my knees by his bed.

"Uncle," I cried, my heart ready to break with the effort to show itself,
"if I did not now love you more than ever, I should deserve to be cast
out, and trodden under foot!--What do you think of doing?"

"I shall leave the country, not to return while the woman lives."

"I'm ready, uncle," I said, springing to my feet; "--at least I shall be
in a few minutes!"

"But hear me out, little one," he rejoined, with a smile of genuine
pleasure; "you don't know half my plan yet. How am I to live abroad, if
my property go to rack and ruin? Listen, and don't say anything till I
have done; I have no time to lose; I must get up at once.--As soon as I
am on board at Dover for Paris, you and John must get yourselves married
the first possible moment, and settle down here--to make the best of the
farm you can, and send me what you can spare. I shall not want much, and
John will have his own soon. I know you will be good to Martha!"

"John may take the farm if he will. It would be immeasurably better than
living with his mother. For me, I am going with my uncle. Why, uncle, I
should be miserable in John's very arms and you out of the country for
our sakes! Is there to be nobody in the world but husbands, forsooth! I
should love John ever so much more away with you and my duty, than if I
had him with me, and you a wanderer. How happy I shall be, thinking of
John, and taking care of you!"

He let me run on. When I stopped at length--

"In any case," he said with a smile, "we cannot do much till I am
dressed!"

CHAPTER XXVII.

AN ENCOUNTER.

I left my uncle's room, and went to my own, to make what preparation I
could for going abroad with him. I got out my biggest box, and put in all
my best things, and all the trifles I thought I could not do without.
Then, as there was room, I put in things I could do without, which yet
would be useful. Still there was room; the content would shake about on
the continent! So I began to put in things I should like to have, but
which were neither necessary nor useful. Before I had got these in, the
box was more than full, and some of them had to be taken out again. In
choosing which were to go and which to be left, I lost time; but I did
not know anything about the trains, and expected to be ready before my
uncle, who would call me when he thought fit.

My thoughts also hindered my hands. Very likely I should never marry
John; I would not heed that; he would be mine all the same! but to
promise that I would not marry him, because it suited such a mother's
plans to marry him to some one else--that I would not do to save my life!
I would have done it to save my uncle's, but our exile would render it
unnecessary!

At last I was ready, and went to find my uncle, reproaching myself that I
had been so long away from him. Besides, I ought to have been helping him
to pack, for neither he nor his arm was quite strong yet. With a heartful
of apology, I sought his room. He was not there. Neither was he in the
study. I went all over the house, and then to the stable; but he was
nowhere, neither had anyone seen him. And Death was gone too!

The truth burst upon me: I was to see him no more while that terrible
woman lived! No one was to know whither he had gone! He had given himself
for my happiness! Vain intention! I should never be happy! To be in
Paradise without him, would not be to be in Heaven!

John was in London; I could do nothing! I threw myself on my uncle's bed,
and lay lost in despair! Even if John were with me, and we found him,
what could we do? I knew it now as impossible for him to separate us that
he might be unmolested, as it was for us to accept the sacrifice of his
life that we might be happy. I knew that John's way would be to leave
everything and go with me and my uncle, only we could not live upon
nothing--least of all in a strange land! Martha, to be sure, could manage
well enough with the bailiff, but John could not burden my uncle, and
could not lay his hands on his own! In the mean time my uncle was gone we
knew not whither! I was like one lost on the dark mountains.--If only
John would come to take part in my despair!

With a sudden agony, I reproached myself that I had made no attempt to
overtake my uncle. It was true I did not know, for nobody could tell me,
in what direction he had gone; but Zoe's instinct might have sufficed
where mine was useless! Zoe might have followed and found Thanatos! It
was hopeless now!

But I could no longer be still. I got Zoe, and fled to the moor. All the
rest of the day I rode hither and thither, nor saw a single soul on its
wide expanse. The very life seemed to have gone out of it. When most we
take comfort in loneliness, it is because there is some one behind it.

The sun was set and the twilight deepening toward night when I turned to
ride home. I had eaten nothing since breakfast, and though not hungry,
was thoroughly tired. Through the great dark hush, where was no sound of
water, though here and there, like lurking live thing, it lay about me, I
rode slowly back. My fasting and the dusk made everything in turn take a
shape that was not its own. I seemed to be haunted by things unknown. I
have sometimes thought whether the spirits that love solitary places, may
not delight in appropriating, for embodiment momentary and partial, such
a present shape as may happen to fit one of their passing moods; whether
it is always the _mere_ gnarled, crone-like hawthorn, or misshapen rock,
that, between the wanderer and the pale sky, suddenly appals him with the
sense of _another_. The hawthorn, the rock, the dead pine, is indeed
there, but is it alone there?

Some such thought was, I remember, in my mind, when, about halfway from
home, I grew aware of something a little way in front that rose between
me and a dark part of the sky. It seemed a figure on a huge horse. My
first thought, very naturally, was of my uncle; the next, of the great
gray horse and his rider that John and I had both seen on the moor. I
confess to a little awe at the thought of the latter; but I am somehow
made so as to be capable of awe without terror, and of the latter I felt
nothing. The composite figure drew nearer: it was a woman on horseback.
Immediately I recalled the adventure of my childhood; and then remembered
that John had said his mother always rode the biggest horse she could
find: could that shape, towering in the half-dark before me, be indeed my
deadly enemy--she who, my uncle had warned me, would kill me if she had
the chance? A fear far other than ghostly invaded me, and for a moment I
hesitated whether to ride on, or turn and make for some covert, until she
should have passed from between me and my home. I hope it was something
better than pride that made me hold on my way. If the wicked, I thought,
flee when no man pursueth, it ill becomes the righteous to flee before
the wicked. By this time it was all but dark night, and I had a vague
hope of passing unquestioned: there had been a good deal of rain, and we
were in a very marshy part of the heath, so that I did not care to leave
the track. But, just ere we met, the lady turned her great animal right
across the way, and there made him stand.

"Ah," thought I, "what could Zoe do in a race with that terrible horse!"

He seemed made of the darkness, and rose like the figurehead of a frigate
above a yacht.

"Show me the way to Rising," said his rider.

The hard bell-voice was unmistakable.

"When you come where the track forks," I began.

She interrupted me.

"How can I distinguish in the dark?" she returned angrily. "Go on before,
and show me the way."

Now I had good reason for thinking she knew the way perfectly well; and
still better reason for declining to go on in front of her.

"You must excuse me," I said, "for it is time I were at home; but if you
will turn and ride on in front of me, I will show you a better, though
rather longer way to Rising."

"Go on, or I will ride you down" she cried, turning her horse's head
toward me, and making her whip hiss through the air.

The sound of it so startled Zoe, that she sprang aside, and was off the
road a few yards before I could pull her up. Then I saw the woman urging
her horse to follow. I knew the danger she was in, and, though tempted to
be silent, called to her with a loud warning.

"Mind what you are doing, lady Cairnedge!" I cried. "The ground here will
not carry the weight of a horse like yours."

But as I spoke he gave in, and sprang across the ditch at the way-side.
There, however, he stood.

"You think to escape me," she answered, in a low, yet clear voice, with a
cat-like growl in it.

"You make a mistake!"

"Your ladyship will make a worse mistake if you follow me here," I
replied.

Her only rejoinder was a cut with her whip to her horse, which had stood
motionless since taking his unwilling jump. I spoke to Zoe; she bounded
off like a fawn. I pulled her up, and looked back.

Lady Cairnedge continued urging her horse. I heard and saw her whipping
him furiously. She had lost her temper.

I warned her once more, but she persisted.

"Then you must take the consequences!" I said; and Zoe and I made for the
road, but at a point nearer home.

Had she not been in a passion, she would have seen that her better way
was to return to the road, and intercept us; but her anger blinded her
both to that and to the danger of the spot she was in.

We had not gone far when we heard behind us the soft plunging and sucking
of the big hoofs through the boggy ground. I looked over my shoulder.
There was the huge bulk, like Wordsworth's peak, towering betwixt us and
the stars!

"Go, Zoe!" I shrieked.

She bounded away. The next moment, a cry came from the horse behind us,
and I heard the woman say "Good God!" I stopped, and peered through the
dark. I saw something, but it was no higher above the ground than myself.
Terror seized me. I turned and rode back.

"My stupid animal has bogged himself!" said lady Cairnedge quietly.

Deep in the dark watery peat, as thick as porridge, her horse gave a
fruitless plunge or two, and sank lower.

"For God's sake," I cried, "get off! Your weight is sinking the poor
animal! You will smother him!"

"It will serve him right," she said venomously, and gave the helpless
creature a cut across the ears.

"You will go down with him, if you do not make haste," I insisted.

Another moment and she stood erect on the back of the slowly sinking
horse.

"Come and give me your hand," she cried.

"You want to smother me with him! I think I will not," I answered. "You
can get on the solid well enough. I will ride home and bring help for
your horse, poor fellow! Stay by him, talk to him, and keep him as quiet
as you can. If he go on struggling, nothing will save him."

She replied with a contemptuous laugh.

I got to the road as quickly as possible, and galloped home as fast as
Zoe could touch and lift. Ere I reached the stable-yard, I shouted so as
to bring out all the men. When I told them a lady had her horse fast in
the bog, they bustled and coiled ropes, put collars and chains on four
draught-horses, lighted several lanterns, and set out with me. I knew the
spot perfectly. No moment was lost either in getting ready, or in
reaching the place.

Neither the lady nor her horse was to be seen.

A great horror wrapt me round. I felt a murderess. She might have failed
to spring to the bank of the hole for lack of the hand she had asked me
to reach out! Or her habit might have been entangled, so that she fell
short, and went to the bottom--to be found, one day, hardly changed, by
the side of her peat-embalmed steed!--no ill fitting fate for her, but a
ghastly thing to have a hand in!

She might, however, be on her way to Rising on foot! I told two of the
men to mount a pair of the horses, and go with me on the chance of
rendering her assistance.

We took the way to Rising, and had gone about two miles, when we saw her,
through the starlight, walking steadily along the track. I rode up to
her, and offered her one of the cart-horses: I would not have trusted my
Zoe with her any more than with an American lion that lives upon horses.
She declined the proffer with quiet scorn. I offered her one or both men
to see her home, but the way in which she refused their service, made
them glad they had not to go with her. We had no choice, therefore turned
and left her to get home as she might.

Not until we were on the way back, did it occur to me that I had not
asked Martha whether she knew anything about my uncle's departure. She
was never one to volunteer news, and, besides, would naturally think me
in his confidence!

I found she knew nothing of our expedition, as no one had gone into the
house--had only heard the horses and voices, and wondered. I was able to
tell her what had happened; but the moment I began to question her as to
any knowledge of my uncle's intentions, my strength gave way, and I burst
into tears.

"Don't be silly, Belorba!" cried Martha, almost severely. "You an engaged
young lady, and tied so to your uncle's apron-strings that you cry the
minute he's out of your sight! You didn't cry when Mr. Day left you!"

"No," I answered; "he was going only for a day or two!"

"And for how many is your uncle gone?"

"That is what I want to know. He means to be away a long time, I fear."

"Then it's nothing but your fancy sets you crying!--But I'll just see!"
she returned. "I shall know by the money he left for the house-keeping!
Only I won't budge till I see you eat."

Faint for want of food, I had no appetite. But I began at once to eat,
and she left me to fetch the money he had given her as he went.

She came back with a pocket-book, opened it, and looked into it. Then she
looked at me. Her expression was of unmistakable dismay. I took the
pocket-book from her hand: it was full of notes!

I learned afterward, that it was his habit to have money in the house, in
readiness for some possible sudden need of it.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ANOTHER VISION.

That same night, within an hour, to my unspeakable relief, John came
home--at least he came to me, who he always said was his home. It was
rather late, but we went out to the wilderness, where I had a good cry on
his shoulder; after which I felt better, and hope began to show signs of
life in me. I never asked him how he had got on in London, but told him
all that had happened since he went. It was worse than painful to tell
him about his mother's letter, and what my uncle told me in consequence
of it, also my personal adventure with her so lately; but I felt I must
hide nothing. If a man's mother is a devil, it is well he should know it.

He sat like a sleeping hurricane while I spoke, saying never a word. When
I had ended,--

"Is that all?" he asked.

"It is all, John: is it not enough?" I answered.

"It is enough," he cried, with an oath that frightened me, and started to
his feet. The hurricane was awake.

I threw my arms round him.

"Where are you going?" I said.

"To _her_" he answered.

"What for?"

"To _kill_ her," he said--then threw himself on the ground, and lay
motionless at my feet.

I kept silence. I thought with myself he was fighting the nature his
mother had given him.

He lay still for about two minutes, then quietly rose.

"Good night, dearest!" he said; "--no; good-bye! It is not fit the son of
such a mother should marry any honest woman."

"I beg your pardon, John!" I returned; "I hope _I_ may have a word in the
matter! If I choose to marry you, what right have you to draw back? Let
us leave alone the thing that has to be, and remember that my uncle must
not be denounced as a murderer! Something must be done. That he is beyond
personal danger for the present is something; but is he to be the talk of
the country?"

"No harm shall come to him," said John. "If I don't throttle the tigress,
I'll muzzle her. I know how to deal with her. She has learned at least,
that what her stupid son says, he does! I shall make her understand that,
on her slightest movement to disgrace your uncle, I will marry you right
off, come what may; and if she goes on, I shall get myself summoned for
the defence, that, if I can say nothing for _him_, I may say something
against _her_. Besides, I will tell her that, when my time comes, if I
find anything amiss with her accounts, I will give her no quarter.--But,
Orbie," he continued, "as I will not threaten what I may not be able to
perform, you must promise not to prevent me from carrying it out."

"I promise," I said, "that, if it be necessary for your truth, I will
marry you at once. I only hope she may not already have taken steps!"

"Her two days are not yet expired. I shall present myself in good
time.--But I wonder you are not afraid to trust yourself alone with the
son of such a mother!"

"To be what I know you, John," I answered, "and the son of that woman,
shows a good angel was not far off at your birth. But why talk of angels?
Whoever was your mother, God is your father!"

He made no reply beyond a loving pressure of my hand. Then he asked me
whether I could lend him something to ride home upon. I told him there
was an old horse the bailiff rode sometimes; I was very sorry he could
not have Zoe: she had been out all day and was too tired! He said Zoe was
much too precious for a hulking fellow like him to ride, but he would be
glad of the old horse.

I went to the stable with him, and saw him mount. What a determined look
there was on his face! He seemed quite a middle-aged man.

I have now to tell how he fared on the moor as he rode.

It had turned gusty and rather cold, and was still a dark night. The moon
would be up by and by however, and giving light enough, he thought,
before he came to the spot where his way parted company with that to
Dumbleton. The moon, however, did not see fit to rise so soon as John
expected her: he was not at that time quite _up_ in moons, any more than
in the paths across that moor.

Now as he had not an idea where his rider wanted to be carried, and as
John did for a while--he confessed it--fall into a reverie or something
worse, old Sturdy had to choose for himself where to go, and took a path
he had often had to take some years before; nor did John discover that he
was out of the way, until he felt him going steep clown, and thought of
Sleipner bearing Hermod to the realm of Hela. But he let him keep on,
wishing to know, as he said, what the old fellow was up to. Presently, he
came to a dead halt.

John had not the least notion where they were, but I knew the spot the
moment he began to describe it. By the removal of the peat on the side of
a slope, the skeleton of the hill had been a little exposed, and had for
a good many years been blasted for building-stones. Nothing was going on
in the quarry at present. Above, it was rather a dangerous place; there
was a legend of man and horse having fallen into it, and both being
killed. John had never seen or heard of it.

When his horse stopped, he became aware of an indefinite sensation which
inclined him to await the expected moon before attempting either to
advance or return. He thought afterward it might have been some feeling
of the stone about him, but at the time he took the place for an abrupt
natural dip of the surface of the moor, in the bottom of which might be a
pool. Sturdy stood as still as if he had been part of the quarry, stood
as if never of himself would he move again.

The light slowly grew, or rather, the darkness slowly thinned. All at
once John became aware that, some yards away from him, there was
something whitish. A moment, and it began to move like a flitting mist
through the darkness. The same instant Sturdy began to pull his feet from
the ground, and move after the mist, which rose and rose until it came
for a second or two between John and the sky: it was a big white horse,
with my uncle on his back: Death and he, John concluded, were out on one
of their dark wanderings! His impulse, of course, was to follow them.
But, as they went up the steep way, Sturdy came down on his old knees,
and John got off his back to let him recover himself the easier. When
they reached the level, where the moon, showing a blunt horn above the
horizon, made it possible to see a little, the white horse and his rider
had disappeared--in some shadow, or behind some knoll, I fancy; and John,
having not the least notion in what part of the moor he was, or in which
direction he ought to go, threw the reins on the horse's neck. Sturdy
brought him back almost to his stable, before he knew where he was. Then
he turned into the road, for he had had enough of the moor, and took the
long way home.

CHAPTER XXIX.

MOTHER AND SON.

In the morning he breakfasted alone. A son with a different sort of
mother, might then have sought her in her bedroom; but John had never
within his memory seen his mother in her bedroom, and after what lie had
heard the night before, could hardly be inclined to go there to her now.
Within half an hour, however, a message was brought him, requesting his
presence in her ladyship's dressing-room.

He went with his teeth set.

"Whose horse is that in the stable, John?" she said, the moment their
eyes met.

"Mr. Whichcote's, madam," answered John: _mother_ he could not say.

"You intend to keep up your late relations with those persons?"

"I do."

"You mean to marry the hussy?"

"I mean to marry the lady to whom you give that epithet. There are those
who think it not quite safe for you to call other people names!"

She rose and came at him as if she would strike him. John stood
motionless. Except a woman had a knife in her hand, he said, he would not
even avoid a blow from her. "A woman can't hurt you much; she can only
break your heart!" he said. "My mother would not know a heart when she
had broken it!" he added.

He stood and looked at her.

She turned away, and sat down again. I think she felt the term of her
power at hand.

"The man told you then, that, if you did not return immediately, I would
get him into trouble?"

"He has told me nothing. I have not seen him for some days. I have been
to London."

"You should have contrived your story better: you contradict yourself."

"I am not aware that I do."

"You have the man's horse!"

"His horse is in my stable; he is not himself at home."

"Fled from justice! It shall not avail him!"

"It may avail you though, madam! It is sometimes prudent to let well
alone. May I not suggest that a hostile attempt on your part, might lead
to awkward revelations?"

"Ah, where could the seed of slander find fitter soil than the heart of a
son with whom the prayer of his mother is powerless!"

To all appearance she had thoroughly regained her composure, and looked
at him with a quite artistic reproach.

"The prayer of a mother that never prayed in her life!" returned John;
"--of a woman that never had an anxiety but for herself!--I don't believe
you are my mother. If I was born of you, there must have been some
juggling with my soul in antenatal regions! I disown you!" cried John
with indignation that grew as he gave it issue.

Her face turned ashy white; but whether it was from conscience or fear,
or only with rage, who could tell!

She was silent for a moment. Then again recovering herself,--

"And what, pray, would you make of me?" she said coolly. "Your slave?"

"I would have you an honest woman! I would die for that!--Oh, mother!
mother!" he cried bitterly.

"That being apparently impossible, what else does my dutiful son demand
of his mother?"

"That she should leave me unmolested in my choice of a wife. It does not
seem to me an unreasonable demand!"

"Nor does it seem to me an unreasonable reply, that any mother would
object to her son's marrying a girl whose father she could throw into a
felon's-prison with a word!"

"That the girl does not happen to be the daughter of the gentleman you
mean, signifies nothing: I am very willing she should pass for such. But
take care. He is ready to meet whatever you have to say. He is not gone
for his own sake, but to be out of the way of our happiness--to prevent
you from blasting us with a public scandal. If you proceed in your
purpose, we shall marry at once, and make your scheme futile."

"How are you to live, pray?"

"Madam, that is my business," answered John.

"Are you aware of the penalty on your marrying without my consent?"
pursued his mother.

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