He came by the Flying Horse, and there, tied to the blue post, stood the horse and trap. Natt was inside. There he was, the villain, in front of the fire, laughing boisterously, a gla.s.s of hot liquor in his hand.
Paul jumped into the trap and drove away.
It was hardly in human nature that Natt should resist the temptation to show his cronies by ocular demonstration what a knowing young dog he could be if he liked. Natt never tried to resist it.
"Is it all die-spensy?" he asked, with a wink, when, with masterly circ.u.mlocution, he had broached his topic.
"It"s a fate, I tell tha"," said Tom o" Dint, taking a churchwarden from between his lips; and another thin voice, from a back bench--it was little Jacob Berry"s--corroborated that view of the mystery.
A fine scorn sat on the features of Natt as he exploded beneath their feet this mine of supernaturalism.
"Shaf on your bogies and bodderment, say I," he cried; "there are folks as won"t believe their own senses. If you"ll no" but show me how yon horse of mine can be in two places at once, I"ll maybe believe as Master Paul Ritson can be here and in London at the same time. Nowt short o"
that"ll do for me, I can tell you."
And at this conclusive reasoning Natt laughed, and crowed, and stirred his steaming liquor. It was at that moment that Paul whipped up into the trap and drove away.
"Show me as my horse as I"ve tied to the post out there is in his stable all the time, and I"s not be for saying as maybe I won"t give in."
Gubblum Oglethorpe came straggling into the room at that instant, and caught the words of Natt"s clinching argument.
"What see a post?" he asked.
"Why, the post afore the house, for sure!"
"Well, I wudna be for saying but I"s getten a bit short-sighted, but if theer"s a horse tied to a post afore this house, I"s not be for saying as I won"t be domd!"
Natt ran to the door, followed by a dozen pairs of quizzing eyes. The horse was gone. Natt sat down on the post and looked around in blank astonishment.
"Well, I will be domd!" he said.
At last the bogies had him in their grip.
CHAPTER XIII.
By the time that Paul had got to the Ghyll his anxiety had reached the point of anguish. Perhaps it had been no more than a fancy, but he thought as he approached the house that a mist hung about it. When he walked into the hall his footsteps sounded hollow to his ear, and the whole place seemed empty as a vault. The spirit-deadening influence of the surroundings was upon him, when old Dinah Wilson came from the kitchen and looked at him with surprise. Clearly he had not been expected. He wanted to ask twenty questions, but his tongue cleaved to his mouth. The strong man trembled and his courage oozed away.
Why did not the woman speak? How scared she looked, too! He was brushing past her, and up the stairs, when she told him, in faltering tones, that her mistress was gone.
The word coursed through his veins like poison. "Gone! how gone?" he said. Could it be possible that his mother was dead?
"Gone away," said Dinah.
"Away! Where?"
"Gone by train, sir, this afternoon."
"Gone by train," Paul repeated, mechanically, with absent manner.
"There"s a letter left, sir; it"s on the table in her room."
Recovering his self-possession, Paul darted upstairs at three steps a stride. His mother"s room was empty; no fire in the grate; the pictures down from the walls; the table coverless; the few books gone from the shelf; all chill, voiceless, and blind.
What did it mean? Paul stood an instant on the threshold, seeing all in one swift glance, yet seeing nothing. Then, with the first return of present consciousness, his eye fell on the letter that lay on the table.
He took it up with trembling fingers. It was addressed in his mother"s hand to him. He broke the seal. This is what he read:
"I go to-day to the shelter of the Catholic Church. I had long thought to return to this refuge, though I had hoped to wait until the day your happiness with Greta was complete. That, in Heaven"s purposes, was not to be, and I must leave you without a last farewell. Good-bye, dear son, and G.o.d bless and guide you. If you love me, do not grieve for me. It is from love of you I leave you.
Think of me as one who is at peace, and I will bless you even in heaven. If ever the world should mock you with your mother"s name, remember that she is your mother still, and that she loved you to the last. Good-bye, dear Paul; you may never know the day when this erring and sorrowing heart will be allowed, in His infinite pity, to join the choirs above. Then, dearest, from the hour when you read this letter, think of me as dead, for I shall be dead to the world."
Paul held the letter before him, and looked at it long with vacant eyes.
Feeling itself seemed gone. Not a tear came from him, not a sigh, not one moan of an overwrought heart escaped him. All was blind, pulseless torpor. He stood there crushed and overwhelmed, a shaken, shattered man.
A thousand horrors congealed within him to one deep, dead stupor.
He turned away in silence, and walked out of the house. The empty chambers seemed, as he went, to echo his heavy footsteps. He took the road back toward the vicarage, turning neither to the right nor the left, looking straight before him, and never once shifting his gaze. The road might be long, but now it fretted him no more. The night might be cold, but colder far was the heart within him. The moon might fly behind the cloud floes, and her light burst forth afresh; but for him all was blank night.
In the vicarage the slumberous fire was smoldering down. The straggle-brained guest had been lighted to his bed, and the good parson himself was carrying to his own tranquil closet a head full of the great world"s dust and noise. Greta was still sitting before the dying fire, her heart heavy with an indefinable sensation of dread.
When Paul opened the door his face was very pale and his eyes had a strange look; but he was calm, and spoke quietly. He told what had occurred, and read aloud his mother"s letter. The voice was strong in which he read it, and never a tremor told of the agony his soul was suffering. Then he sat some time without speaking, and time itself had no reckoning.
Greta scarcely spoke, and the old parson said little. What power had words to express a sorrow like this? Death had its solace; but there was no comfort for death in life.
At last Paul told Parson Christian that he wished the marriage to take place at once--- to-morrow, or, at latest, the day after that. He told of their intention to leave England, of his father"s friend, and, in answer to questions, of the power of attorney drawn up in the name of his brother.
The old man was deeply moved, but his was the most unselfish of souls.
He understood very little of all that was meant by what had been done, and was still to do. But he said, "G.o.d bless you and go with you!"
though his own wounded heart was bleeding. Greta knelt at his chair, and kissed the tawny old face lined and wrinkled and damp now with a furtive tear. It was agreed that the marriage should take place on Friday. This was Wednesday night.
Paul rose and stepped to the door, and Greta followed him to the porch.
"It is good of you to leave all to your brother," she said.
"We"ll not speak of it," he answered.
"Is there not something between you?" she asked.
"Another time, darling."
Greta recalled Hugh Ritson"s strange threat. Should she mention it to Paul? She had almost done so, when she lifted her eyes to his face. The weary, worn expression checked her. Not now; it would be a cruelty.
"I knew the answer to that omen was somewhere," he said, "and it has come."
He stepped over the threshold and stood one pace outside. The snow still lay under foot, crusted with frost. The wind blew strongly, and soughed in the stiff and leafless boughs. Overhead the flying moon at that moment broke through a rack of cloud. At the same instant the red glow of the fire-light found its way through the open door, and was reflected on Paul"s pallid face.
Greta gasped; a thrill pa.s.sed through her. There, before her, eye to eye with her once again, was the face she saw at the Ghyll!