CHAPTER XIX.
APPLEGARTH AGAIN.
I travelled along the beach until I reached the southern cape ofMorecambe Bay, and only now and again swerved inland when I espiedahead of me the smoke and houses of a village. This I did more forsafety's sake than for any comfort or celerity in the act of walking.Indeed, the sand, which, being loose and dry, slipped and yielded withevery step I took, did, I think, double the labour and tedium of myjourney. But on the other hand, the country by the sea-coast was flat,so that I could distinguish the figures of people and the direction oftheir walk at a long distance--a doubtful advantage, you may say, andone that cut both ways. And so it would have been but for the grassysand-hills which embossed the wide stretch of shore. It was an easything to drop into the grass at the first sight of a stranger andcrawl down into the hollows betwixt the hillocks; and had suchan one pursued me, he would have had the most unprofitable game ofhide-and-seek that ever a man engaged in. I had other reasons besidesfor keeping near the sea. For since I travelled chiefly by nightand in the late and early quarters of the day, I had need of aresting-place when the day was full. Now so long as I kept to thecoast I had ever one ready to my hand amongst these lonely anddesolate sandhills, where I was easily able to scoop out a bed, and solie snug from the wind. For another thing, I had thus the noise of thesea continually in my ears. I did not know in truth what great store Iset on that, until a little short of Lancaster I turned my back on it.The sea sang to me by day and by night, lulling me like a cradle-songwhen I lay cushioned among the sand-hills, inspiriting as the drums ofan army when I walked through the night. It was not merely that ittold me of the _Swallow_ swinging upon its tides, and of the greathopes I drew therefrom, but it spoke too with voices of its own, andwhether the voices whispered or turbulently laughed, it was always thesame perplexing mystery they hinted of. They seemed to signify amessage they could not articulate, and it came upon me sometimes, as Isat tired by the shore, that I would fain sit there and listen until Ihad plucked out the kernel of its meaning. I used to fancy that once aman could penetrate to that and hold it surely, there would be littlemore he needed to know, but he would carry it with him, as a magiccrystal wherein he could see strangely illuminated and made plain, theeternal mysteries which girded him about.
From Morecambe Bay I turned inland towards the borders of Yorkshire,and passing to the east of Kirby Lonsdale, that I might avoid the lineof Forster's march, curved round again towards Grasmere. Here I beganto redouble my precautions, seeing that I was come into a countrywhere my face and recent history might be known. For since I had leftthe coast I had voyaged in no great fear of detection, taking a liftin a carrier's cart when one chanced to pass my way, and now and againhiring a horse for a stage. The apothecary at Preston, in addition tohis other benefactions, had provided me with an inconspicuous suit ofclothes, and as I had money in my pockets wherewith to pay my way, Iwas able to press on unremarked, or at least counted no more than amerchant's clerk travelling upon his master's business.
From Grasmere, I mounted by the old path across Cold Barrow Fell,which had first led me to Blackladies, and keeping along the ridgecrept down into Keswick late upon the seventh day. There was no lightin Mrs. Herbert's lodging as I slipped down the street, and for asecond I was seized with a recurrence of my fear that she had left thetown. It was only for a second, however. For that conviction which Ihad first tasted when I rode down Gillerthwaite in the early morning,had been growing stronger and stronger within me, more especially oflate. I was possessed by some instinctive foreknowledge that theoccasion for which I looked would come; that somehow, somewhere Ishould be enabled to bring forward my testimony to the clearing of Mr.Herbert from the imputation of disloyalty. It was a thought that moreand more I repeated to myself, and each time with a stouterconfidence. It may be that these more immediate tasks to which I hadset my hand--I mean the rescue of Mr. Curwen and his daughter from theconsequence of participation in the rebellion--hindered me fromlooking very closely into the difficulties of the third and last. Itmay be, too, that this conviction was in some queer way the particularmessage which the sea had for me--that I had received the messageunconsciously while pondering what it might be. I do not know; I onlyknow that when I repeated it to myself, it sounded like nothing somuch as the booming of waves upon a beach.
I slept that night under a familiar boulder on the hillside aboveApplegarth, and in the early morning I came down to the house, andwithout much ceremony roused the household. Mary Tyson poked her headout of a window.
"Miss Dorothy?" I cried
"She is asleep."
"Wake her up and let me in!"
So I was in time. Mary Tyson came down and opened the door; and in alittle, as I waited in the hall, I heard Dorothy's footsteps on thestairs.
"You have escaped!" she cried; "and my father--you bring bad news ofhim?"
"No; I thank God for it, I bring good news."
And the blood came into her cheeks with a rush.
I told her briefly how we had escaped from Preston. She listened tothe story with shining eyes.
"And all this you have done for--for us?" she said with a singularnote of pride in her voice.
"It is little," I replied, "even if what's left to do crowns itsuccessfully. But if in that we go astray, why, it is less thannothing." Thereupon I told her of the plan which I had formed withregard to the _Swallow_, and of the journey which she and I must take.She listened to me now, however, with an occupied air, and interruptedme before I had come to a close.
"It is you who have done this?" she repeated in the same tone whichshe had used before.
"I did but keep my promise. It was made to you," I answered simply.
"I am your debtor for all my life."
"No," I cried. "It is the other way about."
"I do not feel the debt," she said very softly, and then raising aface all rosy: "Ah, but I let you stand here!" she exclaimed. "Youshall tell me more of your plan while we breakfast, for I am not surethat I gave a careful ear to it;" and taking me by the arm she led metowards the dining-room. "You have come from Preston in all thishaste. My poor child!" She spoke in a quite natural tone of pity, andI doubt not but what my appearance gave a reasonable complexion to herpity. It was the motherliness, however, which tickled me.
"What is it you laugh at?" she asked suddenly, her voice changing atonce to an imperious dignity.
"I was thinking," said I, "that your head, Miss Curwen, only reachesto my chin."
"If God made me a dwarf," said she, with a freezing stateliness, "itis very courteous of you to reproach me with it--the most delicatecourtesy, upon my word."
She was in truth ever very sensitive as to her height, and anxious toappear taller than she was; for which anxiety there was no reasonwhatever, since she was just of the right stature, and an inch more orless would have been the spoiling of her; which opinion I mostunfortunately expressed to her, and so made matters worse. For saidshe--
"Your condescension, Mr. Clavering, is very amiable and consoling;"and with that she left me alone in the room, until such a time asbreakfast should be ready. I went out, however, in search of MaryTyson, and finding her, explained my design, and asked her to puttogether in a bundle the least quantity of clothes which would sufficefor Dorothy until she reached France. Mary fell in with the planimmediately, and began to regret her age and bulk that would hinderher from keeping pace with us. But I cut short her discourse, andbidding her hasten on the breakfast, made shift with a basin of waterand a towel to hurriedly repair the disarray of my toilet.
For now every instant of delay began to drag upon my spirits. Onceupon the hillside, it would be strange, I thought, if we did notcontrive to come undetected to Ravenglass. We had to cross twovalleys, it is true, but they were both rugged and bleak, with but fewdwellings scattered about them, and those only of the poorer sort,inhabited by men cut off from the world by the barrier of the hills,who from very ignorance
could not, if they would, meddle in theirneighbours' affairs. The one danger of the journey that I foresaw lay,as I have said, in the great fall of snow.
But here within the walls of the house it was altogether different.Danger seemed impending about me. Every moment I looked to hear thebeat of hoofs upon the road, and a knocking on the door. It was, Iassured myself, the most unlikely thing that on this one day theofficers should come for Dorothy Curwen, but the assurance brought melittle comfort I tasted in anticipation all the remorse which I shouldfeel if the girl should be taken at the very moment of deliverance.
I was the more glad, therefore, when, on coming into the garden, Ifound Dorothy already dressed for the journey, in a furred waistcoatand a hood quilted and lined with a rose-coloured taffety.
"That is wise," said I, "for I fear me, Miss Curwen, we shall have itcold before we get to our journey's end."
She said never a word, but stood looking at me, and if glances couldmake one cold, I should have been shivering then.
"But let me be quick," I continued. "Is it known that you are atApplegarth? Have you ridden far abroad?" And in my anxiety I went overto the window and gazed down the road. Neither did she answer myquestions, but, standing by the fireplace, in an even, deliberatevoice she began to read me a lecture upon my manners.
"Miss Curwen!" I cried; "do you understand? Every moment you stayhere, every word you speak, imperils your liberty."
She waited patiently until I had done, and continued her lecture atthe point where I had interrupted her, as though I had not so much asspoken at all.
"This is the purest wilfulness!" I interrupted again, being indeed atmy wits' end to know how I should stop her. I think that I showed toomuch anxiety, with my bobbings at the window, and exclamations, andthat, seeing my alarm, she prolonged her speech out of sheerperversity to punish me the more. At last, however, she came to anend, and we set ourselves to the breakfast in silence. However, I wastoo hot with indignation to keep that silence wisely.
"The most ill-timed talk that ever I heard," I muttered.
She laid her knife and fork on the instant, and quietly recommenced. Irose from the table in a rage, and by a lucky chance hit upon the oneargument that would close her lips.
"You forget," said I, "that your father's safety depends on yourescape. If you and I are taken here, how shall he get free?" And in avery few minutes after that I took up the bundle Mary Tyson had madeready, and we crossed the threshold of Applegarth and made our way upGillerthwaite.
It was still early in the morning, but I pushed on with perhapsgreater urgency than suited my companion, since I was anxious that weshould lie that night in Eskdale. Dorothy, indeed, walked more slowlythan was usual with her, and there seemed to me to be an uncertaintyin her gait, at which I was the more surprised, since the wind blewfrom the east, and we, who were moving eastwards, were completelysheltered from it by the cliffs of Great Gable, towering at the headof the valley. The steeper the ascent became, the greater grew theuncertainty of movement, so that I began to feel anxious lest somesickness should have laid hold upon her. I thought it best, however,to say nothing of my suspicion, but contented myself with glancing ather stealthily now and again. There was no hint of sicknessdiscoverable upon her face, only she pursed her lips somethingsullenly, as though she was persisting in what she knew to be wrong;and once I thought that her eyes caught one of my troubled glances,and she coloured like one ashamed. At last, just as we had topped thesummit of the pass, and were beginning to descend the broad, grassycliffs between that mountain and the Pillar, she spoke, and it was thefirst time she had opened her lips since we had left Applegarth.
"It is an apology you need, I suppose," said she, with a singularaggressiveness, and my anxiety increased. For since I could not seethat I had given her any occasion to take that tone, I was inclined toset it down to some bodily suffering.
"An apology?" I asked, with an effort at a careless laugh. "And whatmakes you fancy I need that?"
"It is so," she insisted, "else you would not be glowering at me inthis ill-humour."
"Nay," I answered seriously, "I am in no ill-humour."
"You are," she interrupted almost viciously. "You are in the worstill-humour in the world. Well, I do apologize. I should not have keptyou waiting at Applegarth."
And I do not think that I ever heard an apology tendered with a worsegrace.
"And now that I have begged your pardon," she continued, "I will carrymy own bundle, thank you;" and she held out her hand for it.
"No indeed, and that you will not do," said I, hotly, "if you begpardon from now to Doomsday."
"It is perfectly plain," said she, "that you mean to pick a quarrelwith me."
Now, that I took to be the most unjust statement that she could make.And--
"Who began it?" I asked. "Who began the quarrel?"
"It is a question," she replied, with the utmost contempt, "thatchildren ask in a nursery;" and very haughtily she marched in front ofme down the hillside.
We had not gone more than a few yards before I stopped, only halfstifling the cry which rose to my lips. I plumped down on the grassand fumbled in my pockets. Dorothy paused in her walk, turned, andcame back to me.
"What is it?" she cried, and, I must suppose, noting my face, her tonechanged in an instant "Lawrence, what is it? What is the paper?"
The paper was that on which Mr. Curwen had sketched the line of ourjourney. We were come to the curve in our descent into Mosedale fromwhich that line was visible, as plainly marked on the face of thecountry as on the paper which I held in my hand. On the ridge of thehorizon I could see the long back of Muncaster Fell, but it was notthat which troubled me. We could keep on the western flank ofMuncaster Fell. It was that gap between Scafell and the Screes whichleads on to Burnmoor! I looked east and west. This gap that I see, Isaid to myself, is not the gap which Mr. Curwen meant; there will beanother--there will be another! But all the time I knew most surelythat this was the gap, and that over it stretched our path. Slantwiseacross Wastdale, and bearing to the right, Mr. Curwen had said. Well,Wastdale lay at my feet, its fields marked off by their stone walls,like the squares on a chess-board. Yes, that indeed was our way. Why,I could see Burnmoor tarn, of which he had made particular mention,and--and it lay like a pool of ink upon a sheet of white paper. Therewas the trouble! The wind had blown from the southeast this many aday, and with the wind, the snow; so that while in Gillerthwaite, inEnnerdale, in Newlands, through which I had come to Applegarth, I hadseen the snow only upon the hilltops, and had not been troubled withit at all; there on Burnmoor it was massed from end to end. AndBurnmoor was five miles across. I looked at Dorothy. Could shetraverse it--she that was ailing? Five miles of snow, and the windsweeping across those five miles like a wave! For there was no doubtbut we should have the wind. If I looked upwards towards Scafell, Icould see, as it were, the puff of a cannon's smoke rising up into theair. That was the wind whirling the snow. If I looked downwards intoWastdale, I could see the yew-trees by the church tossing their boughswildly this way and that. I could hear it rushing and seething inMosedale bottom. I looked at Dorothy, and my anxiety grew to alarm.
"What is it troubles you?" she said again.
Well, somehow or another this line had to be traversed. I should serveno end by increasing her suffering with an anticipation of the evilsbefore us.
"Nothing," I answered, thrusting the paper back into my pocket "I waswondering whether or no I had mistaken our road." And I rose to myfeet.
I could perceive from her face that she knew I was concealing someobstacle from her. She turned abruptly from me, and led the waywithout a word I followed, noticing, with an ever-increasing dismay,how more and more she wavered as the descent grew steeper. And thenall at once I caught sight of something which set me laughing--loudly,extravagantly, as a man will at the sudden coming of a great relief.Dorothy stopped and regarded me, not so much in perplexity, as in thehaughtiest displeasure.
"Good lack!" I cried; "nay, d
on't stare at me. I cannot but laugh. ForI believe it was the beginning of a fever troubled you, and now I knowit to be a pair of heels."
She flushed very red and turned herself to face me, so that I could nolonger see more than the tips of her toes.
"I know too the cause of your anger against me. It was a mereconsciousness that you should not be wearing them."
"Oh, what a wiseacre!" says Dorothy, confiding her opinion to therocks about her. "What a wonderful perceptive wiseacre! how MissCurwen is honoured with his acquaintance!" All this in a tone of quietsarcasm, which would have been more effectual had she not stamped herfoot upon the ground. For on stamping, the heel slipped upon a loosestone, and had I not been near enough to catch her, the next instantshe would have been lying full-length on the ground.
She gave something of a cry as I caught her, and sitting down, pantedfor a little. We both contemplated the heels. Then I drew out thepaper again from my pocket.
"It was this I was considering;" and I handed it to her. "Mr. Curwensketched it for me, and it is the way we have to go."
I pointed out the gap and the snow upon Burnmoor. She followed thedirection of my gaze with a shiver, and again, but this time withequal melancholy, we fell to contemplating the heels.
"I put them on," she explained, with a touch of penitence, "before yousaid that about my father."
"But you could have changed them afterwards," I rejoined foolishly;and for my pains saw the penitence harden into exasperation.
"Besides, I cannot walk at all without heels," says she, brisklymaking a catch at her assurance.
"You cannot walk with them, I know, that's a sure thing," I persisted.
She turned to me very quietly--
"In spite of this great knowledge of yours, Mr. Clavering, of which,during the last minute, I have heard so much," she began deliberately,"there is one lesson you have yet to learn and practise. I haveremarked the deficiency not only on this but on many occasions. Youlack that instinct of tact and discretion which would inform you ofthe precise moment when you have said enough----"
How much longer she would have continued in this strain I do not know.For I sprang to my feet.
"If it is to be another lecture," I cried, "I accept the conclusionbefore it is reached. I can guess at it. Heels are your only wear, andthe taller the better. Sailors should be enjoined by law to wear them,and they alone preserve the rope-dancer from a sure and inevitabledeath."
"A wiseacre first," says she, ticking off my qualities upon herfingers, "and now a humorist! Well there! a salad bowl of all theestimable virtues estimably jumbled. And meanwhile," she askedinnocently, "are we not wasting time?"
I well-nigh gasped at her audacity; for who was to blame, if not shewith the heels? However, this time I was sufficiently wise to keepsilence, leaving it to experience to reprove her, as it most surelywould. In which conviction I was right, for more than once she trippedon the grass as we descended; halfway down she reluctantly allowed meto assist her with a hand, and as we two moved along the side ofMosedale Beck at the entrance into Wastdale, she wrenched her ankle.The pain of the wrench luckily was not severe, and lasted no greatwhile. She was in truth more startled than hurt, for we were treadingthe narrowest steep path, and at the side the rocks fell clear forabout twenty feet to the torrent.
Thereupon she gave in and allowed me to go forward to a farmhouselying at no great distance in Wastdale, and procure for herfoot-gear of a more suitable kind. And comical enough it looked whenshe put it on, but I dared not laugh or so much as give hint of asmile, since I saw that her eyes were on the alert to catch me; forthe worthy housewife hearing a story that I made up about a young girlwho was travelling in a great haste across Ennerdale to visit a fatherwho lay sick beyond there, which story was altogether a lie, thoughevery word of it was truth, made me a present of a pair of her ownboots and would take no money for them.
These Dorothy put on. I slipped those she had been wearing into thepockets of my great-coat, and making a hurried meal off someprovisions which Mary Tyson had added to the bundle, we again set out.
I was now still more inclined to push forward at our topmost speed,for it was well past midday, and the tokens of foul weather which Ihad noted in the morning had become yet more distinct. The clearnesshad gone from the day, the clouds, woolly and grey, sulked upon themountain-tops and crept down the sides; the wind had suddenly fallen;there was a certain heaviness in the air, as of the expectation of astorm. We went forward into the valley. When we were halfway to thechurch, a puff of wind, keen and shrewd, blew for an instant in ourfaces, and then another and another. But that last breath did not dielike the rest; it blew continuously, and gathered violence as it blew.
The yew-trees in the churchyard resumed their tossing; we were so nearthat I could hear the creaking of their boughs. I looked anxiouslytowards the gap through which we were to pass to Eskdale. It was stillclear of the mist, but where a shrub grew, or a tree reached out abranch on the slope beneath the gap, I saw the wind evident as abeating rain; and even as I looked, the gap filled--filled in asecond--not with these slow, licking mists, but with a column oftempest that drove exultant, triumphing, and now and again in themidst of it I perceived a whirling gleam of white like foam of thesea.
I looked forwards to the church, backwards to the house. The churchwas the nearer. I took Dorothy by the elbow.
"Run!" I cried.
"I cannot," she replied, lagging behind.
I pressed her forward.
"You must."
"These shoes----" she began.
"Devil take the shoes!" cried I; and thereupon, with a perversitywhich even I would not have attributed to her, she slipped a foot outof a shoe, and stepped deliberately into a puddle.
"There," says she, defiant but shivering, "I told you they were toowide."
"You did it of a set purpose," said I. I looked towards the gap: itwas no longer visible. The storm was tearing across the valley. Ipicked up Miss Dorothy Curwen in my arms, and ran with her towards thechurch. I got to the stone wall of the churchyard; a little wicketgave admittance, but the wicket was latched.
"Let me down!" says Dorothy.
"No!" says I, and I pushed against the wicket with my knee. Ityielded; a few flakes of snow beat upon my face; I ran through theopening.
The churchyard, like the church, was the tiniest in the world; thewalls about it reached breast high, and within the walls the yews wereplanted close in a square: so that standing within this square, itseemed to me that the storm had lulled. I carried Dorothy to that sideof the church which was sheltered from the wind. I tried the door ofthe church, but it was locked. I set Dorothy down under the wall,slipped off my great-coat, and wrapped it warm about her.
"Look!" said I, shortly.
Just past the angle of the church the snow swirled forwards--down inthe valley here it was rather sleet than snow--lashing the fieldsthrough which I had run.
"Where are you going?" said Dorothy, as perhaps with some ostentationI buttoned my coat across my breast.
"To pick up your shoe," said I; and I walked out through the wicket.
"I never met a man of so wicked a perversity," said she from behindme.