The Flight of the Shadow

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"Let me tell you, then, something that happened to-day," I answered.
"When first I asked him to come with me this morning, it was a temptation
to him of course, not knowing when we might see each other again; but he
hadn't his own horse, and said it would be an impertinence to ride
yours."

"I hope you did not come alone!"

"Oh, no. I had set out with Dick, but John came after all."

"Then his refusal to ride my horse does not come to much. It is a small
thing to have good impulses, if temptation is too much for them."

"But I haven't done telling you, uncle!"

"I am hasty, little one. I beg your pardon."

"I have to tell you what made him give in to riding your horse. I
confessed I was a little anxious lest Death, who had not been exercised
for some days, should be too much for Dick. John said then he thought he
might venture, for you had once spoken very kindly to him of the way he
handled his own horse."

"Oh, that's the young fellow, is it!" cried my uncle, in a tone that
could not be taken for other than one of pleasure. "That's the fellow, is
it?" he repeated. "H'm!"

"I hope you liked the look of him, uncle!" I said.

"The boy is a gentleman anyhow!" he answered.--"You may think whether I
was pleased!--I never saw man carry himself better horseward!" he added
with a smile.

"Then you won't object to his riding Death home again?"

"Not in the least!" he replied. "The man can ride."

"And may I go with him?--that is, if you do not want me!--I wish I could
stay with you!"

"Rather than ride home with him?"

"Yes, indeed, if it were to be of use to you!"

"The only way you can be of use to me, is to ride home with Mr. Day, and
not see him again until I have had a little talk with him. Tyranny may be
a sense of duty, you know, little one!"

"Tyranny, uncle!" I cried, as I laid my cheek to his hand, which was very
cold. "You could not make me think you a tyrant!"

"I should not like you to think me one, darling! Still less would I like
to deserve it, whether you thought me one or not! But I could not be a
tyrant to you if I would. You may defy me when you please."

"That would be to poison my own soul!" I answered.

"You must understand," he continued, "that I have no authority over you.
If you were going to marry Mr. Day to-morrow, I should have no right to
interfere. I am but a make-shift father to you, not a legal guardian."

"Don't cast me off, uncle!" I cried. "You _know_ I belong to you as much
as if you were my very own father! I am sure my father will say so when
we see him. He will never come between you and me."

He gave a great sigh, and his face grew so intense that I felt as if I
had no right to look on it.

"It is one of the deepest hopes of my existence," he said, "to give you
back to him the best of daughters. Be good, my darling, be good, even if
you die of sorrow because of it."

The intensity had faded to a deep sadness, and there came a silence.

"Would you like me to go now, uncle?" I asked.

"I wish I could see Mr. Day at once," he returned, "but I am so far from
strong, that I fear both weakness and injustice. Tell him I want very
much to see him, and will let him know as soon as I am able."

"Thank you, uncle! He will be so glad! Of course he can't feel as I do,
but he does feel that to do anything you did not like, would be just
horrid."

"And you will not see him again, little one, after he has taken you home,
till I have had some talk with him?"

"Of course I will not, uncle."

I bade him good-bye, had a few moments' conference with Martha, and found
John at the place appointed.

CHAPTER XVIII.

JOHN SEES SOMETHING.

As we rode, I told him everything. It did not seem in the least strange
that I should be so close to one of whom a few days before I had never
heard; it seemed as if all my life I had been waiting for him, and now he
was come, and everything was only as it should be! We were very quiet in
our gladness. Some slight anxiety about my uncle's decision, and the
certain foreboding of trouble on the part of his mother, stilled us both,
sending the delight of having found each other a little deeper and out of
the way of the practical and reasoning.

We did not urge our horses to their speed, but I felt that, for my
uncle's sake, I must not prolong the journey, forcing the last farthing
of bliss from his generosity, while yet he was uncertain of his duty. The
moon was rising just as we reached my home, and I was glad: John would
have to walk miles to reach his, for he absolutely refused to take Death
on, saying he did not know what might happen to him. As we stopped at the
gate I bethought myself that neither of us had eaten since we left in the
afternoon. I dismounted, and leaving him with the horses, got what I
could find for him, and then roused Dick, who was asleep. John confessed
that, now I had made him think of it, he was hungry enough to eat
anything less than an ox. We parted merrily, but when next we met, each
confessed it had not been without a presentiment of impending danger. For
my part, notwithstanding the position I had presumed to take with John
when first he spoke of his mother, I was now as distrustful as he, and
more afraid of her.

Much the nearest way between the two houses lay across the heath. John
walked along, eating the supper I had given him, and now and then casting
a glance round the horizon. He had got about half-way, when, looking up,
he thought he saw, dim in the ghosty light of the moon, a speck upon the
track before him. He said to himself it could hardly be any one on the
moor at such a time of the night, and went on with his supper. Looking up
again after an interval, he saw that the object was much larger, but
hardly less vague, because of a light fog which had in the meantime
risen. By and by, however, as they drew nearer to each other, a strange
thrill of recognition went through him: on the way before him, which was
little better than a footpath, and slowly approaching, came what
certainly could be neither the horse that had carried him that day, nor
his double, but what was so like him in colour, size, and bone, while so
unlike him in muscle and bearing, that he might have been he, worn but
for his skin to a skeleton. Straight down upon John he came, spectral
through the fog, as if he were asleep, and saw nothing in his way. John
stepped aside to let him pass, and then first looked in the face of his
rider: with a shock of fear that struck him in the middle of the body,
making him gasp and choke, he saw before him--so plainly that, but
for the impossibility, he could have sworn to him in any court of
justice--the man whom he knew to be at that moment confined to his bed,
twenty miles away, with a broken arm. Sole other human being within sight
or sound in that still moonlight, on that desolate moor, the horseman
never lifted his head, never raised his eyes to look at him. John stood
stunned. He hardly doubted he saw an apparition. When at length he roused
himself, and looked in the direction in which it went, it had all but
vanished in the thickening white mist.

He found the rest of his way home almost mechanically, and went straight
to bed, but for a long time could not sleep.

For what might not the apparition portend? Mr. Whichcote lay hurt by a
fall from his horse, and he had met his very image on the back of just
such a horse, only turned to a skeleton! Was he bearing him away to the
tomb?

Then he remembered that the horse's name was Death.

CHAPTER XIX.

JOHN IS TAKEN ILL.

In the middle of the night he woke with a start, ill enough to feel that
he was going to be worse. His head throbbed; the room seemed turning
round with him, and when it settled, he saw strange shapes in it. A
few rays of the sinking moon had got in between the curtains of one
of the windows, and had waked up everything! The furniture looked
odd--unpleasantly odd. Something unnatural, or at least unearthly, must
be near him! The room was an old-fashioned one, in thorough keeping with
the age of the house--the very haunt for a ghost, but he had heard of no
ghost in that room! He got up to get himself some water, and drew the
curtains aside. He could have been in no thraldom to an apprehensive
imagination; for what man, with a brooding terror couched in him, would,
in the middle of the night, let in the moon? To such a passion, she is
worse than the deepest darkness, especially when going down, as she was
then, with the weary look she gets by the time her work is about over,
and she has long been forsaken of the poor mortals for whom she has so
often to be up and shining all night. He poured himself some water and
drank it, but thought it did not taste nice. Then he turned to the
window, and looked out.

The house was in a large park. Its few trees served mainly to show how
wide the unbroken spaces of grass. Before the house, motionless as a
statue, stood a great gray horse with hanging neck, his shadow stretched
in mighty grotesque behind him, and on his back the very effigy of my
uncle, motionless too as marble. The horse stood sidewise to the house,
but the face of his rider was turned toward it, as if scanning its
windows in the dying glitter of the moon. John thought he heard a cry
somewhere, and went to his door, but, listening hard, heard nothing. When
he looked again from the window, the apparition seemed fainter, and
farther away, though neither horse nor rider had changed posture. He
rubbed his eyes to see more plainly, could no longer distinguish the
appearance, and went back to bed. In the morning he was in a high
fever--unconscious save of restless discomfort and undefined trouble.

He learned afterward from the housekeeper, that his mother herself nursed
him, but he would take neither food nor medicine from her hand. No doctor
was sent for. John thought, and I cannot but think, that the water in his
bottle had to do with the sudden illness. His mother may have merely
wished to prevent him from coming to me; but, for the time at least, the
conviction had got possession of him, that she was attempting his life.
He may have argued in semi conscious moments, that she would not scruple
to take again what she was capable of imagining she had given. Her
attentions, however, may have arisen from alarm at seeing him worse than
she had intended to make him, and desire to counteract what she had done.

For several days he was prostrate with extreme exhaustion. Necessarily, I
knew nothing of this; neither was I, notwithstanding my more than doubt
of his mother, in any immediate dread of what she might do. The cessation
of his visits could, of course, cause me no anxiety, seeing it was
thoroughly understood between us that we were not at liberty to meet.

CHAPTER XX.

A STRANGE VISIT.

On the fifth night after that on which he left me to walk home, I was
roused, about two o'clock, by a sharp sound as of sudden hail against my
window, ceasing as soon as it began. Wondering what it was, for hail it
could hardly be, I sprang from the bed, pulled aside the curtain, and
looked out. There was light enough in the moon to show me a man looking
up at the window, and love enough in my heart to tell me who he was. How
he knew the window mine, I have always forgotten to ask him. I would have
drawn back, for it vexed me sorely to think him too weak to hold to our
agreement, but the face I looked down upon was so ghastly and deathlike,
that I perceived at once his coming must have its justification. I did
not speak, for I would not have any in the house hear; but, putting on my
shoes and a big cloak, I went softly down the stair, opened the door
noiselessly, and ran to the other side of the house. There stood John,
with his eyes fixed on my window. As I turned the corner I could see, by
their weary flashing, that either something terrible had happened, or he
was very ill. He stood motionless, unaware of my approach.

"What is it?" I said under my breath, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He did not turn his head or answer me, but grew yet whiter, gasped, and
seemed ready to fall. I put my arm round him, and his head sank on the
top of mine.

Whatever might be the matter, the first thing was to get him into
the house, and make him lie down. I moved a little, holding him fast,
and mechanically he followed his support; so that, although with
some difficulty, I soon got him round the house, and into the great
hall-kitchen, our usual sitting-room; there was fire there that would
only want rousing, and, warm as was the night, I felt him very cold. I
let him sink on the wide sofa, covered him with my cloak, and ran to
rouse old Penny. The aged sleep lightly, and she was up in an instant.
I told her that a gentleman I knew had come to the house, either
sleep-walking or delirious, and she must come and help me with him. She
struck a light, and followed me to the kitchen.

John lay with his eyes closed, in a dead faint. We got him to swallow
some brandy, and presently he came to himself a little. Then we put him
in my warm bed, and covered him with blankets. In a minute or so he was
fast asleep. He had not spoken a word. I left Penny to watch him, and
went and dressed myself, thinking hard. The result was, that, having
enjoined Penny to let no one near him, _whoever_ it might be, I went to
the stable, saddled Zoe, and set off for Wittenage.

It was sixteen miles of a ride. The moon went down, and the last of my
journey was very dark, for the night was cloudy; but we arrived in
safety, just as the dawn was promising to come as soon as it could. No
one in the town seemed up, or thinking of getting up. I had learned a
lesson from John, however, and I knew Martha's window, which happily
looked on the street. I got off Zoe, who was tired enough to stand still,
for she was getting old and I had not spared her, and proceeded to search
for a stone small enough to throw at the window. The scared face of
Martha showed itself almost immediately.

"It's me!" I cried, no louder than she could just hear; "it's me, Martha!
Come down and let me in."

Without a word of reply, she left the window, and after some fumbling
with the lock, opened the door, and came out to me, looking gray with
scare, but none the less with all her wits to her hand.

"How is my uncle, Martha?" I said.

"Much better," she answered.

"Then I must see him at once!"

"He's fast asleep, child! It would be a world's pity to wake him!"

"It would be a worse pity not!" I returned.

"Very well: must-be must!" she answered.

I made Zoe fast to the lamp-post: the night was warm, and hot as she was,
she would take no hurt. Then I followed Martha up the stair.

But my uncle was awake. He had heard a little of our motions and
whisperings, and lay in expectation of something.

"I thought I should hear from you soon!" he said. "I wrote to Mr. Day on
Thursday, but have had no reply. What has happened? Nothing serious, I
hope?"

"I hardly know, uncle. John Day is lying at our house, unable to move or
speak."

My uncle started up as if to spring from his bed, but fell back again
with a groan.

"Don't be alarmed, uncle!" I said. "He is, I hope, safe for the moment,
with Penny to watch him; but I am very anxious Dr. Southwell should see
him."

"How did it come about, little one?"

"There has been no accident that I know of. But I scarcely know more than
you," I replied--and told him all that had taken place within my ken.

He lay silent a moment, thinking.

"I can't say I like his lying there with only Penny to protect him!" he
said. "He must have come seeking refuge! I don't like the thing at all!
He is in some danger we do not know!"

"I will go back at once, uncle," I replied, and rose from the bedside,
where I had seated myself a little tired.

"You must, if we cannot do better. But I think we can. Martha shall go,
and you will stay with me. Run at once and wake Dr. Southwell. Ask him to
come directly."

I ran all the way--it was not far--and pulled the doctor's night-bell. He
answered it himself. I gave him my uncle's message, and he was at the inn
a few minutes after me. My uncle told him what had happened, and begged
him to go and see the patient, carrying Martha with him in his gig.

The doctor said he would start at once. My uncle begged him to give
strictest orders that no one was to see Mr. Day, whoever it might be.
Martha heard, and grew like a colonel of dragoons ordered to charge with
his regiment.

In less than half an hour they started--at a pace that delighted me.

When Zoe was put up and attended to, and I was alone with my uncle, I got
him some breakfast to make up for the loss of his sleep. He told me it
was better than sleep to have me near him.

What I went through that night and the following day, I need not recount.
Whoever has loved one in danger and out of her reach, will know what it
was like. The doctor did not make his appearance until five o'clock,
having seen several patients on his way back. The young man, he reported,
was certainly in for a fever of some kind---he could not yet pronounce
which. He would see him again on the morrow, he said, and by that time it
would have declared itself. Some one in the neighbourhood must watch the
case; it was impossible for him to give it sufficient attention. My uncle
told him he was now quite equal to the task himself, and we would all go
together the next day. My delight at the proposal was almost equalled by
my satisfaction that the doctor made no objection to it.

For joy I scarcely slept that night: I was going to nurse John! But I was
anxious about my uncle. He assured me, however, that in one day more he
would in any case have insisted on returning. If it had not been for a
little lingering fever, he said, he would have gone much sooner.

"That was because of me, uncle!" I answered with contrition.

"Perhaps," he replied; "but I had a blow on the head, you know!"

"There is one good thing," I said: "you will know John the sooner from
seeing him ill! But perhaps you will count that only a mood, uncle, and
not to be trusted!"

He smiled. I think he was not _very_ anxious about the result of a nearer
acquaintance with John Day. I believe he had some faith in my spiritual
instinct.

Uncle went with the doctor in his brougham, and I rode Zoe. The back of
the house came first in sight, and I saw the window-blinds of my room
still down. The doctor had pronounced it the fittest for the invalid, and
would not have him moved to the guest-chamber Penny had prepared for him.

In the only room I had ever occupied as my own, I nursed John for a space
of three weeks.

From the moment he saw me, he began to improve. My uncle noted this, and
I fancy liked John the better for it. Nor did he fail to note the
gentleness and gratitude of the invalid.

CHAPTER XXI.

A FOILED ATTEMPT.

The morning after my uncle's return, came a messenger from Rising with
his lady's compliments, asking if Mr. Whichcote could tell her anything
of her son: he had left the house unseen, during a feverish attack, and
as she could get no tidings of him, she was in great anxiety. She had
accidentally heard that he had made Mr. Whichcote's acquaintance, and
therefore took the liberty of extending to him the inquiry she had
already made everywhere else among his friends. My uncle wrote in answer,
that her son had come to his house in a high fever; that he had been
under medical care ever since; and that he hoped in a day or two he might
be able to return. If he expressed a desire to see his mother, he would
immediately let her know, but in the meantime it was imperative he should
be kept quiet.

From this letter, Lady Cairnedge might surmise that her relations
with her son were at least suspected. Within two hours came another
message--that she would send a close carriage to bring him home the next
day. Then indeed were my uncle and I glad that we had come. For though
Martha would certainly have defended the citadel to her utmost, she might
have been sorely put to it if his mother proceeded to carry him away by
force. My uncle, in reply, begged her not to give herself the useless
trouble of sending to fetch him: in the state he was in at present, it
would be tantamount to murder to remove him, and he would not be a party
to it.

When I yielded my place in the sick-room to Martha and went to bed, my
heart was not only at ease for the night, but I feared nothing for the
next day with my uncle on my side--or rather on John's side.

We were just rising from our early dinner, for we were old-fashioned
people, when up drove a grand carriage, with two strong footmen behind,
and a servant in plain clothes on the box by the coachman. It pulled up
at the door, and the man on the box got down and rang the bell, while his
fellows behind got down also, and stood together a little way behind him.
My uncle at once went to the hall, but no more than in time, for there
was Penny already on her way to open the door. He opened it himself, and
stood on the threshold.

"If you please, sir," said the man, not without arrogance, "we're come to
take Mr. Day home."

"Tell your mistress," returned my uncle, "that Mr. Day has expressed no
desire to return, and is much too unwell to be informed of her ladyship's
wish."

"Begging your pardon, sir," said the man, "we have her ladyship's orders
to bring him. We'll take every possible care of him. The carriage is an
extra-easy one, and I'll sit inside with the young gentleman myself. If
he ain't right in his head, he'll never know nothink till he comes to
himself in his own bed."

My uncle had let the man talk, but his anger was fast rising.

"I cannot let him go. I would not send a beggar to the hospital in the
state he is in."

"But, indeed, sir, you must! We have our orders."

"If you fancy I will dismiss a guest of mine at the order of any human
being, were it the queen's own majesty," said my uncle--I heard the
words, and with my mind's eyes saw the blue flash of his as he said
them--"you will find yourself mistaken."

"I'm sorry," said the man quietly, "but I have my orders! Let me pass,
please. It is my business to find the young gentleman, and take him home.
No one can have the right to keep him against his mother's will,
especially when he's not in a fit state to judge for himself."

"Happily I am in a fit state to judge for him," said my uncle, coldly.

"I dare not go back without him. Let me pass," he returned, raising his
voice a little, and approaching the door as if he would force his way.

I ought to have mentioned that, as my uncle went to the door, he took
from a rack in the hall a whip with a bamboo stock, which he generally
carried when he rode. His answer to the man was a smart, though
left-handed blow with the stock across his face: they were too near for
the thong. He staggered back, and stood holding his hand to his face. His
fellow-servants, who, during the colloquy, had looked on with
gentlemanlike imperturbability, made a simultaneous step forward. My
uncle sent the thong with a hiss about their ears. They sprang toward him
in a fury, but halted immediately and recoiled. He had drawn a small
swordlike weapon, which I did not know to be there, from the stock of the
whip. He gave one swift glance behind him. I was in the hall at his back.

"Shut the door, Orba," he cried.

I shut him out, and ran to a window in the little drawing-room, which
commanded the door. Never had I seen him look as now--his pale face pale
no longer, but flushed with anger. Neither, indeed, until that moment had
I ever seen the _natural_ look of anger, the expression of _pure_ anger.
There was nothing mean or ugly in it--not an atom of hate. But how his
eyes blazed!

"Go back," he cried, in a voice far more stern than loud. "If one of you
set foot on the lowest step, and I will run him through."

The men saw he meant it; they saw the closed door, and my uncle with his
back to it. They turned and spoke to each other. The coachman sat
immovable on his box. They mounted, and he drove away.

I ran and opened the door. My uncle came in with a smile. He went up the
stair, and I followed him to the room where the invalid lay. We were both
anxious to learn if he had been disturbed.

He was leaning on his elbow, listening. He looked a good deal more like
himself.

"I knew you would defend me, sir!" he said, with a respectful confidence
which could not but please my uncle.

"You did not want to go home--did you?" he asked with a smile.

"I should have thrown myself out of the carriage!" answered John; "--that
is, if they had got me into it. But, please, tell me, sir," he went on,
"how it is I find myself in your house? I have been puzzling over it all
the morning. I have no recollection of coming."

"You understand, I fancy," rejoined my uncle, "that one of the family has
a notion she can take better care of you than anybody else! Is not that
enough to account for it?"

"Hardly, sir. Belorba cannot have gone and rescued me from my mother!"

"How do you know that? Belorba is a terrible creature when she is roused.
But you have talked enough. Shut your eyes, and don't trouble yourself to
recollect. As you get stronger, it will all come back to you. Then you
will be able to tell us, instead of asking us to tell you."

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