CHAPTER LII
FOR LIFE, DEATH
Upon my return, I saw nothing for a time but fans and feathers ofbrowning fern, dark shags of ling, and podded spurs of broom and furze,and wisps of grass. With great relief (of which I felt ashamed whileeven breathing it), I thought that the man was afraid to tell the restof his story, and had fled; but ere my cowardice had much time forself-congratulation a tall figure rose from the ground, and fearcompelled me into courage. For throughout this long interview more andmore I felt an extremely unpleasant conviction. That stranger might notbe a downright madman, nor even what is called a lunatic; but stillit was clear that upon certain points--the laws of this country, forinstance, and the value of rank and station--his opinions were sooutrageous that his reason must be affected. And, even without suchproofs as these, his eyes and his manner were quite enough. Therefore Ihad need of no small caution, not only concerning my words and gestures,but as to my looks and even thoughts, for he seemed to divine these lastas quickly as they flashed across me. I never had learned to conceal mythoughts, and this first lesson was an awkward one.
"I hope you are better," he said, as kindly as it was possible for himto speak. "Now have no fear of me, once more I tell you. I will not shamany admiration, affection, or any thing of that kind; but as for harmingyou--why, your father was almost the only kind heart I ever met!"
"Then why did you send a most vile man to fetch me, when my father wasdead in the desert?"
"I never did any thing of the sort. It was done in my name, but not byme; I never even heard of it until long after, and I have a score tosettle with the man who did it."
"But Mr. Goad told me himself that you came and said you were the trueLord Castlewood, and ordered him at once to America. I never saw truthmore plainly stamped on a new situation--the face of a rogue--than I sawit then on the face of Mr. Goad."
"You are quite right; he spoke the truth--to the utmost of hisknowledge. I never saw Goad, and he never saw me. I never even dreamedof pretending to the title. I was personated by a mean, low friend ofSir Montague Hockin; base-born as I am, I would never stoop to such atrick. You will find out the meaning of that by-and-by. I have takenthe law into my own hands--it is the only way to work such laws--Ihave committed what is called a crime. But, compared with Sir MontagueHockin, I am whiter than yonder shearling on his way to the river forhis evening drink."
I gazed at his face, and could well believe it. The setting sun shoneupon his chin and forehead--good, resolute, well-marked features; hisnose and mouth were keen and clear, his cheeks curt and pale (thoughthey would have been better for being a trifle cleaner). There wasnothing suggestive of falsehood or fraud, and but for the wildnessof the eyes and flashes of cold ferocity, it might have been called ahandsome face.
"Very well," he began again, with one of those jerks which hadfrightened me, "your father was kind to me, very kind indeed; but heknew the old lord too well to attempt to interpose on my behalf. Onthe other hand, he gave no warning of my manifest resolve; perhaps hethought it a woman's threat, and me no better than a woman! And partlyfor his sake, no doubt, though mainly for my mother's, I made the shortwork which I made; for he was horribly straitened--and in his free,light way he told me so--by his hard curmudgeon of a father.
"To that man, hopeless as he was, I gave fair grace, however, andplenty of openings for repentance. None of them would he embrace, and hethought scorn of my lenity. And I might have gone on with such weaknesslonger, if I had not heard that his coach-and-four was ordered for theMoonstock Inn.
"That he should dare thus to pollute the spot where he had so forswornhimself! I resolved that there he should pay justice, either with hislife or death. And I went to your father's place to tell him to preparefor disturbances; but he was gone to see his wife, and I simply borroweda pistol.
"Now you need not be at all afraid nor shrink away from me like that.I was bound upon stricter justice than any judge that sets forth oncircuit; and I meant to give, and did give, what no judge affords to theguilty--the chance of leading a better life. I had brought my motherto England, and she was in a poor place in London; her mind was failingmore and more, and reverting to her love-time, the one short happinessof her life. 'If I could but see him, if I could but see him, and showhim his tall and clever son, he would forgive me all my sin in thinkingever to be his wife. Oh, Thomas! I was too young to know it. If I couldbut see him once, just once!'
"How all this drove me no tongue can tell. But I never let her know it;I only said, 'Mother, he shall come and see you if he ever sees any bodymore!' And she trusted me and was satisfied. She only said, 'Take mypicture, Thomas, to remind him of the happy time, and his pledge to meinside of it.' And she gave me what she had kept for years in a bag ofchamois leather, the case of which I spoke before, which even in ourhardest times she would never send to the pawn-shop.
"The rest is simple enough. I swore by the God, or the Devil, who mademe, that this black-hearted man should yield either his arrogance or hislife. I followed him to the Moon valley, and fate ordained that I shouldmeet him where he forswore himself to my mother; on that very plankwhere he had breathed his deadly lies he breathed his last. Would youlike to hear all about it?"
For answer I only bowed my head. His calm, methodical way of tellinghis tale, like a common adventure with a dog, was more shocking than anyfury.
"Then it was this. I watched him from the Moonstock Inn to a house inthe village, where he dined with company; and I did not even know thatit was the house of his son, your father--so great a gulf is fixedbetween the legitimate and the bastard! He had crossed the wooden bridgein going, and was sure to cross it in coming back. How he could treadthose planks without contrition and horror--but never mind. I resolvedto bring him to a quiet parley there, and I waited in the valley.
"The night was soft, and dark in patches where the land or wood closedin; and the stream was brown and threw no light, though the moon was onthe uplands. Time and place alike were fit for our little explanation.The path wound down the meadow toward me, and I knew that he must come.My firm intention was to spare him, if he gave me a chance of it; but henever had the manners to do that.
"Here I waited, with the cold leaves fluttering around me, until I hearda firm, slow step coming down the narrow path. Then a figure appeared ina stripe of moonlight, and stopped, and rested on a staff. Perhaps hislordship's mind went back some five-and-thirty years, to times when hetold pretty stories here; and perhaps he laughed to himself to think howwell he had got out of it. Whatever his meditations were, I let him havethem out, and waited.
"If he had even sighed, I might have felt more kindness toward him; buthe only gave something between a cough and a grunt, and I clearly heardhim say, 'Gout to-morrow morning! what the devil did I drink port-winefor!' He struck the ground with his stick and came onward, thinking farmore of his feet than heart.
"Then, as he planted one foot gingerly on the timber and stayed himself,I leaped along the bridge and met him, and without a word looked at him.The moon was topping the crest of the hills and threw my shadow uponhim, the last that ever fell upon his body to its knowledge.
"'Fellow, out of the way!' he cried, with a most commanding voice andair, though only too well he knew me; and my wrath against him began torise.
"'You pass not here, and you never make another live step on thisearth,' I said, as calmly as now I speak, 'unless you obey my orders.'
"He saw his peril, but he had courage--perhaps his only virtue. 'Fool!whoever you are,' he shouted, that his voice might fetch him help; 'noneof these moon-struck ways with me! If you want to rob me, try it!'
"'You know too well who I am,' I answered, as he made to push me back.'Lord Castlewood, here you have the choice--to lick the dust, or bedust! Here you forswore yourself; here you pay for perjury. On thisplank you knelt to poor Winifred Hoyle, whom you ruined and cast by; andnow on this plank you shall kneel to her son and swear to obey him--orelse you die!'
"In spite of all his p
ride, he trembled as if I had been Death himself,instead of his own dear eldest son.
"'What do you want!' As he asked, he laid one hand on the rickety railand shook it, and the dark old tree behind him shook. 'How much willsatisfy you?'
"'Miser, none of your money for us! it is too late for your halfcrowns! We must have a little of what you have grudged--having none tospare--your honor. My demands are simple, and only two. My mother isfool enough to yearn for one more sight of your false face; you willcome with me and see her.'
"'And if I yield to that, what next?'
"'The next thing is a trifle to a nobleman like you. Here I have, inthis blue trinket (false gems and false gold, of course), your solemnsignature to a lie. At the foot of that you will have the truth towrite, "I am a perjured liar!" and proudly sign it "Castlewood," in thepresence of two witnesses. This can not hurt your feelings much, and itneed not be expensive.'
"Fury flashed in his bright old eyes, but he strove to check itsoutbreak. The gleaning of life, after threescore years, was better, insuch lordly fields, than the whole of the harvest we got. He knew that Ihad him all to myself, to indulge my filial affection.
"'You have been misled; you have never heard the truth; you have onlyheard your mother's story. Allow me to go back and to sit in a dryplace; I am tired, and no longer young; you are bound to hear my tale aswell. I passed a dry stump just now; I will go back: there is no fear ofinterruption.' My lord was talking against time.
"'From this bridge you do not budge until you have gone on your kneesand sworn what I shall dictate to you; this time it shall be no perjury.Here I hold your cursed pledge--'
"He struck at me, or at the locket--no matter which--but it flew away.My right arm was crippled by his heavy stick; but I am left-handed, as abastard should be. From my left hand he took his death, and I threw thepistol after him: such love had he earned from his love-child!"
Thomas Castlewood, or Hoyle, or whatever else his name was, here brokeoff from his miserable words, and, forgetting all about my presence, sethis gloomy eyes on the ground. Lightly he might try to speak, but therewas no lightness in his mind, and no spark of light in his poor deadsoul. Being so young, and unacquainted with the turns of life-worn mind,I was afraid to say a word except to myself, and to myself I only said,"The man is mad, poor fellow; and no wonder!"
The sun was setting, not upon the vast Pacific from desert heights, butover the quiet hills and through the soft valleys of tame England; and,different as the whole scene was, a certain other sad and fearful sunsetlay before me: the fall of night upon my dying father and his helplesschild, the hour of anguish and despair! Here at last was the cause ofall laid horribly before me; and the pity deeply moving me passed intocold abhorrence. But the man was lost in his own visions.
"So in your savage wrath," I said, "you killed your own father, and inyour fright left mine to bear the brunt of it."
He raised his dark eyes heavily, and his thoughts were far astray frommine. He did not know what I had said, though he knew that I had spoken.The labor of calling to mind and telling his treatment of his father hadworked upon him so much that he could not freely shift attention.
"I came for something, something that can be only had from you," hesaid, "and only since your cousin's death, and something most important.But will you believe me? it is wholly gone, gone from mind and memory!"
"I am not surprised at that," I answered, looking at his large wan face,and while I did so, losing half my horror in strange sadness. "Whateverit is, I will do it for you; only let me know by post."
"I see what you mean--not to come any more. You are right about that,for certain. But your father was good to me, and I loved him, thoughI had no right to love any one. My letter will show that I wronged himnever. The weight of the world is off my mind since I have told youevery thing; you can send me to the gallows, if you think fit, but leaveit till my mother dies. Good-by, poor child. I have spoiled your life,but only by chance consequence, not in murder-birth--as I was born."
Before I could answer or call him back, if I even wished to do so,he was far away, with his long, quiet stride; and, like his life, hisshadow fell, chilling, sombre, cast away.