CHAPTER XII
I DREAM OF GREEN EYES
It was long enough before sleep visited me that night. For nearly halfan hour I stood at my open window looking across a moon-bathed slopeto where a tower projected, ghostly, above the fringe of the woods.The landlord had informed me that it was Friar's Park which could thusbe seen peeping out from the trees, and as I stood watching thatsentinel tower a thousand strange ideas visited me.
The curious air of loneliness of which I had become conscious at themoment of my arrival, was emphasized now that the residents in thedistrict had retired to their scattered habitations. No sound of birdor beast disturbed the silence. From the time that the footsteps ofMartin the landlord had passed my door as he mounted heavily to hisbed-chamber, no sound had reached me but the muffled ticking of agrandfather's clock upon the landing outside my room. And even thissound, the only one intruding upon the stillness, I weaved into myimaginings, so that presently it began to resemble the ticking of theclock on the mantelpiece in that gruesome room at the Red House.
The view which I commanded was an extensive one and although in theclear country air I could quite easily discern the upstanding wing ofFriar's Park, actually the house and the park were some two milesdistant. Where the park ended and the woods began it was impossible todetermine, yet such was my curious mood that I lingered thereendeavoring to puzzle out those details which were veiled from me bydistance.
To-morrow, I thought, I should be seeking admittance to that houseamong the trees. In fact so great was my anxiety to plumb the depthsof the mystery in the hope of recovering some new fact which shouldexculpate Coverly, that nothing but the unseemly lateness of the hourhad deterred me from presenting myself that very evening.
Yet, my night of idleness had not been altogether unfruitful. I hadmet the scarred man, and from Hawkins I had heard something of hissingular story. Now as I stood there drinking in, as it were, theloneliness of the prospect, my thoughts turned for the hundredth timeto the game-keeper's account of what had befallen the two rusticrake-hells. I admit that the concluding part of Hawkins' story, quiteevidently regarded by him as a detail of no importance, hadre-awakened hope which had been at lowest ebb in the hour of myarrival.
Although it was possible that the gift of a "sort of cat" to youngEdward Hines might prove on investigation to be not a clew but awill-o'-the-wisp, I preferred to think that fate or the acutereasoning of Inspector Gatton had sent me down to this quiet countryfor a good purpose; and I built great hopes around the figure of the"lady down from London." Indeed it appeared to me that there were morelines of investigation demanding attention than alone I could hope todeal with in the short time at my disposal. Except that I wasdetermined to visit Friar's Park early on the following day, Iscarcely knew in which direction next to prosecute my inquiries.
Determining that I should be well-advised to sleep on the problem, Ipresently turned in. And when I blew out the candle with which thechambermaid had provided me, I remember thinking that the moonlightwas so bright that it would have been possible to read moderatelylarge type without inconvenience.
I slept perhaps for two hours or more, an unrefreshing sleep disturbedby dreams of a wildly grotesque nature. Figures increasingly horribleand menacing crowded upon me; but that which proved the culminatinghorror and which finally awakened me, bathed in cold perspiration, wasa dream of two huge green eyes regarding me with a fixed stare,fascinating and hypnotic, against which evil power I fought in mydream with all the strength of my will.
Vaguely defined as if in smoke I could perceive the body of thecreature to which these incredible eyes belonged. It was slender andsinuous and sometimes I thought it to be that of a human being andsometimes that of an animal. For at one moment it possessed all thelines of a woman's form and in the next, with those terrible eyesregarding me from low down upon the ground, it had assumed the shapeof a crouching beast of prey. This fearsome apparition seemed to becreeping towards me--nearer and nearer, and was about to spring, Ithought, when I awakened as I have said and sat suddenly upright.
One thing I immediately perceived which may have accounted for my baddreams; I had been sleeping with the moonlight shining directly uponmy face. Another thing I thought I perceived, but endeavored to assuremyself that it represented the aftermath of an unpleasant nightmare.This was a lithe shape streaking through my open window--a figment ofthe imagination, as I concluded at the time, the tail-end of a dreamvisibly retreating in the moment of awakening.
So self-assured of this did I become, that I did not get up toinvestigate the matter, nor was there any sound from the road below tosuggest that the figure had been otherwise than imaginary, yet I foundit difficult to woo slumber again, and for nearly an hour I laytossing from side to side, listening to the ticking of thegrandfather's clock and constantly seeing in my mind's eye thatdeserted supper-room at the Red House.
And presently as I lay thus, I became aware of two things: first ofthe howling of dogs, and, second, of a sort of muttered conversationwhich seemed to be taking place somewhere near me. Listening intently,I thought I could distinguish the voice of a man and that of a woman.Possibly I was not the only wakeful inhabitant of the Abbey Inn was myfirst and most natural idea; but it presently became apparent to methat the speakers were not in the inn, but outside in the road.
Curiosity at last overcame inclination. Of the exact time I was notaware, but I think dawn could not have been far off, and I naturallywondered who these might be that conversed beneath my window at suchan hour. I rose quietly and crept across the room, endeavoring toavoid showing my head in the moonlight. By the exercise of a littleingenuity I obtained a view of the road before the inn doors.
At first I was unable to make out from whence this mutteredconversation arose, until fixing my attention upon a patch of shadowunderlying a tall tree which stood almost immediately opposite thewindow, I presently made out two figures there. Somewhere, a dog washowling mournfully.
For a long time I failed to distinguish any more than indefiniteoutlines, nor, throughout the murmured colloquy, did I once detecteven so much as a phrase. The night remained perfect and the moonpossessed a tropical brilliance, casting deep and sharply definedshadows, and lending to the whole visible landscape a quality ofhardness which for some obscure reason set me thinking of a paintingby Wiertz.
The low-pitched voices continued in what I thought was a dispute.Something in the voice of the woman, although I could only hear heroccasionally, piqued yet eluded my memory. But it was the voice of ayoung woman, whilst that of the man suggested a foreigner of some sortand one past youth. Subconsciously pursuing the Wiertz idea, I knownot why, I invested the dimly-visible speakers with distinctpersonalities. The man became Asmodeus, master of the revels at theBlack Sabbath, and the young woman I cast for that "young witch"depicted in one of the canvasses of the weird Belgian genius.
Everything in the black and silver scene seemed to fit the picture.Here was the unholy tryst, and I pictured the distant woods "peopledwith gray things, the branches burdened with winged creatures arisenfrom the pit; the darkness a curtain 'broidered with luminous eyes...."
And it was my recollection of that phrase, from a work on sorcery,which now set every nerve tingling. Closely I peered into the maskingshadow, telling myself that I was the victim of a subjectivehallucination. If this was indeed the case or if what I saw wasactual, I must leave each who reads to determine for himself; and theepisodes which follow and which I must presently relate will doubtlessaid the decision.
But it seemed to me that for one fleeting moment "luminous eyes"indeed "'broidered the darkness!'" From out of the shade below the bigtree they regarded me greenly--and I saw them no more.
A while longer I watched, but could not detect any evidence ofmovement in the shadow patch. The voices, too, had ceased; so thatpresently it occurred to me that the speakers must have withdrawnalong a narrow lane which I had observed during the evening and whichcommunicated with a footpath across the meadows.
>
I realized that my heart was beating with extraordinary rapidity. Sopowerful and so unpleasant was the impression made upon my mind bythis possibly trivial incident and by the extraordinary dream whichhad preceded it, that on returning to bed (and despite the warmth ofthe night) I closed both lattices and drew the curtains.
Whether as a result of thus excluding the moonlight or because of someother reason I know not, but I soon fell into a sound sleep from whichI did not awaken until the chambermaid knocked at the door at eighto'clock. Neither did I experience any return of those terrifyingnightmares which had disturbed my slumbers earlier in the night.
My breakfast despatched, I smoked a pipe on the bench in the porch,and Mr. Martin, who evidently had few visitors, became almostcommunicative. Undesirable patrons, he gave me to understand, had donehis business much harm. By dint of growls and several winks he soughtto enlighten me respecting the identity of these tradekillers. But Iwas no wiser on the point at the end of his exposition than I had beenat the beginning.
"Things ain't right in these parts," he concluded, and thereuponretired within doors.
Certainly, whatever the reason might be, the village even in broaddaylight retained that indefinable aspect of neglect, of loneliness.Many of the cottages were of very early date--and many were empty. Adeserted mill stood at one end of the village street, having somethingvery mournful and depressing about it, with its black, motionlesswings outspread against the blue sky like those of a great battransfixed.
There were rich-looking meadows no great way from the village, butthese, I learned, formed part of the property of Farmer Hines, andFarmer Hines was counted an inhabitant of the next parish. It was,then, this particular country about Upper Crossleys over which thecloud hung; and I wondered if the district had been one ofthose--growing rare nowadays--which had flourished under theprotection of the "big house" and had decayed with the decay of thelatter. It had been a common enough happening in the old days, and Ifelt disposed to adopt this explanation.
My brief survey completed, then, I returned to the Abbey Inn for mystick and camera, and set out forthwith for Friar's Park.
From certain atmospherical indications which I had observed, I hadanticipated a return of the electrical storm which a few days beforehad interrupted the extraordinary heat-wave. And now as I left thevillage behind and came out on the dusty highroad a faint breezegreeted me--and afar off I discerned a black cloud low down upon thedistant hills.