CHAPTER IV
THE FACE IN THE THICKET
When the three friends arrived at the inn it was full to the door.Rogers, wigless again, caught sight of Warrender over the heads of thecrowd, and came from behind the counter, edging his way outwards throughthe press of villagers.
"Missus have got the rooms shipshape, sir," he said. "She's a rarewoman for making a man comfortable."
"I'm sure she is," returned Warrender, "and I'm only sorry we shan'tknow it by personal experience. The fact is, we're going to camp on NoMan's Island; there's plenty of time before sunset to fix ourselves up."
"She'll be main sorry, that she will," said the innkeeper, pocketing thetwo half-crowns Warrender handed him. "No Man's Island, did 'ee say?Maybe you haven't heard what folk do tell?"
"We have heard something, but I dare say it's just talk, you know.Anyhow, we're going to try it, and we'll let you know in the morning howwe get on."
"Now, Rogers--drat the man!" cried his wife's voice from behind. Shecame out into the porch, flourishing his wig. "How many times have Itold 'ee I won't have 'ee showing yourself without your hair? If you dobe a great baby, there's no need for 'ee to look like one."
Rogers meekly allowed her to adjust the wig, explaining meanwhile theintention of the expected guests. She received the news withdisappointment and concern.
"I hope nothing ill will come o't," she said. "Fists bain't no mortaluse against spirits; 'twould be like hitting the wind. Howsomever, theyoung will always go their own gait. 'Tis the way o' the world." Shewent back into the inn.
"That furriner chap was hurt more in his temper than his framework,"said Rogers. "And knowing what furriners be, I'd keep my weather eyeopen. There's too many of 'em in these parts."
"I understand they're servants of Mr. Pratt; they should be fairlyrespectable."
"Ay, that's where 'tis. A gentleman must do as he likes, and we haven'tgot nothing to say to't. But we think the more. And I own I was faircut up when my sister Molly married the cook; a little Swiss feller heis."
"We saw him up at the post office a while ago; the shopwoman inquiredafter your sister, I remember."
"And well she might. I never see the girl nowadays; girl, I say, butshe's gone thirty, old enough to know better. By all accounts Rod'suncommon clever at the vittles, and the crew down yonder be living onthe fat of the land, while the skipper's a-dandering round in furrenparts."
"Mr. Pratt's away from home, then?"
"Ay sure. He haven't been seen a good while, and 'tis just like him togo off sudden-like. You'd expect he'd be tired of it at his time o'life, but 'tis once a wanderer, always a wanderer. Well, the evening'sgetting on, so I won't keep 'ee. Good luck, sir."
Warrender rejoined his companions, who had taken over the boat from theferryman, and they were soon floating down on the current. They tookthe narrow channel on the left of the island which they had avoided onthe way up, and found it less difficult to navigate than it had appearedat the other end. The dusk was deepening beneath the trees, but in afew minutes they discovered a wide open space that offered moreaccommodation than they needed. Running the boat close to the shore,they sprang to land, moored to a tree overhanging the stream, and set towork with a will to make their preparations for the night.
The clearing was carpeted with long grass, damp from yesterday's rain,and encircled by dense undergrowth, thicket, and bramble. They pitchedthe tent in the centre, beat down a stretch of grass in front of it onwhich to place the stove and the bulk of their impedimenta, and by thetime that darkness enwrapped them had everything in order. The moon,almost at full circle, had risen early, and soon, peering over thetree-tops on the mainland, flung her silver sheen into the enclosure,whitening the tent to a snowy brilliance and throwing into strong reliefthe massed foliage beyond. A light breeze set the leaves quivering witha murmurous rustle. The hour and the scene made an appeal to Pratt'ssentimental soul too strong to be resisted. Opening one of the foldingchairs, he lay back in it with crossed legs, gazed up into the serene,star-flecked heavens, and began with gentle touches of his strings toserenade the moon.
Warrender, having slipped on his overalls, kindled a lamp and went downto tinker with his engine. Unmusical Armstrong, always accused by Prattof being "fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils," sauntered, hands inpockets, across the clearing. Elbowing his way through the undergrowthhe found, after some fifty or sixty yards, that the vegetation thinned.The lesser shrubs gave way to trees, which grew close together, but witha regularity that suggested planting on a definite plan. Pursuing hisway, he came by and by to a more spacious clearing than the one he hadquitted; and on the left, in the midst of what had evidently been at onetime a small garden, he saw the shell of a two-storeyed cottage. Thewalls were covered with creepers growing in rank disorder; the windowsgaped, empty of glass; the doorless entrance shaped a rectangle ofblackness; and bare rafters, shaggy with unpruned ivy, drew parallellines upon the inky gloom of half the upper storey. Ruins, in daylightmerely picturesque, take a new beauty in the cold radiance of the moon,but present at the same time an image of all that is desolate andforlorn. Practical, unemotional as Armstrong was, he thrilled to theimpression of vacuity and abandonment, and stood for a while at gaze, asthough unwilling to disturb the loneliness.
Presently, however, he stepped lightly across the unmown lawn, and themoss-grown path beyond, and, entering the doorway, struck a match andlooked around. From the narrow hall--strewn with fragments of brick andmortar, broken tiles, heaps of plaster, and here and there spotted withfungi--sprang the staircase, whole as to the stairs, but showing gaps inthe banisters. Curling strips of torn discoloured paper hung from thewalls. The match went out; through the open roof the stars glimmered.Deciding to defer exploration till daylight, lest a tile or brick shouldfall on his head, or the staircase give way under him, Armstrong turnedto go out. As he did so he was aware of a low moaning sound, such as aperson inside a house may hear when a high wind soughs under the eaves.It rose and fell in cadences eerily mournful, as though the spirit ofsolitude itself were lonely and in pain. Armstrong shivered and soughtthe doorway, and as he felt how gentle was the breeze he met, hewondered at its having power enough to produce such sounds. The moaningceased; he listened for a moment or two; it did not recur, though thezephyr had not sensibly dropped. Puzzled, he started to retrace his wayto the camp. At the farther side of the clearing the melancholy soundonce more broke upon his car. Almost involuntarily he wheeled round tolook back at the cottage; then, impatient with himself, turned again toquit the scene.
His feeling, which was neither awe nor timorousness, but rather a vaguediscomfort, left him as soon as his active faculties were again in play.Pushing his way through the undergrowth, he was inclined to deride hisunwonted susceptibility. All at once, however, without sound or anyother physical fact to account for it, he was seized with the fancy thatsome one was behind him. Does every human being move in the midst of aninvisible, intangible aura, that acts as a sixth sense? Whatever thetruth may be, certain it is that we have all, at one time or another,been conscious of the proximity of some bodily presence, which neithersight nor sound nor touch has revealed.
Armstrong swung quickly round, and started, for there in the thicket,within a dozen yards of him, a shaft of moonlight struck upon a face,pallid amidst the green. It disappeared in a flash.
"Who's there?" called Armstrong, sharply; then impulsively startedforward, parting the foliage.
There was no answer, nobody to be seen. Indeed, within a yard of himthe thicket was so dense, so closely overarched by loftier trees, thatno ray of moonshine percolated into its pitchy blackness.
Holding the branches apart, peering into the gloom, he listened.Overhead the leaves softly rustled; within the thicket there was not amurmur. He let the branches swing back; stood for a few momentsirresolute; then, with an impatient jerk of the shoulders, strode awaytowards the camp.
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Armstrong was not what the pathologist would call a nervous subject.His physical courage had never been questioned; in his healthy life ofwork and play his moral courage had never been called upon; his lack ofimagination had saved him from the tremors and terrors that prey uponthe more highly strung.
To find himself mentally disturbed was a novel experience; it filled himwith a sense of humiliation and self-contempt; it enraged him. Thoughtsof Pratt's mocking glee when the tale should be told made him squirm."I say, the old bean's seen a spook"--he could hear the light, ringingtones of Pratt's voice, see the bubbling merriment in his large, roundeyes. "I swear it _was_ a face!" he angrily told himself. "Dashed if Idon't come in daylight and hunt for the fellow--some tramp, I expect,who finds a lodging gratis in the ruins."
By the time he reached the camp he had made up his mind to say nothingabout the incident. Emerging into the silent clearing, he saw Pratt andWarrender side by side on their chairs, fast asleep, the latter withfolded arms and head on breast, the former holding his banjo across hisknees, his face, the image of placid happiness, upturned to the sky.Apparently the swish of Armstrong's boots through the long grasspenetrated to the slumbering consciousness of the sleepers. Warrenderlifted his head, unclosed his eyes for a moment, muttered "Hallo!" andslept again. Pratt, without moving, looked lazily through half-shuteyelids.
"'O moon of my delight, who know'st no wane!'" he murmured. "Well, oldbean, seen the spook?"
"Rot!" growled Armstrong.
"I believe you have!" cried Pratt, starting up, his face kindling."What's she like?"
"Ass!"
"Well, what _did_ you see? You don't, as a rule, snap for nothing.I'll say that for you. Only cats will scratch you for love. What'supset the apple-cart?"
"I saw the ruined cottage, if you want to know--a ghastly rotten hole.I'm dead tired--I'm going to turn in."
"All right, old chap; you shall have a lullaby." He struck an arpeggio.
"Sing me to sleep, the shadows fall; Let me forget the world and all; Lone is my heart, the day is long; Would it were come to evensong! Sing me to sleep, your hand in mine----"
Armstrong had fled into the tent.
"I say, Warrender," murmured Pratt, nudging the somnolent form at hisside, "something's put the old sport in a regular bait."
"Eh?" returned Warrender, drowsily.
"Armstrong's got the pip. Never knew him like this. Something'scurdled the milk."
"Well, it's time to turn in," said Warrender, rising and stretchinghimself. "He'll be all right in the morning. Good-night."
"Same to you. I suppose I must follow you, but it's so jolly under thisheavenly moon."
And Warrender, undressing within the tent, smiled as he heard thelingerer's pleasant voice.
"Dark is life's shore, love, life is so deep: Leave me no more, but sing me to sleep."