"I can"t ride any longer," she said. "I am so tired; let me walk."
She took his arm; in a few minutes she began to lean heavily upon it.
With the other hand he upheld the mare; thus the woman and the animal relied upon the man. But Margaret"s spirit was unbroken--she walked as fast as she could.
"Ah, this is not the Firs either!" she cried, as they reached some low underwood--nut-tree and hawthorn and thick bramble, overtopped by some stunted beeches, with but two or three firs among them. Pa.s.sing round the small copse they came to an opening, and in the dimness saw some large grey stones inside. Utterly wearied and disappointed she left his arm, sat down on the soft turf, and leaned against a boulder. He looked closer.
"There is a dolmen under the trees," he said. "Margaret dear, have you ever heard of this place?"
"These are Grey Wethers," she said, in a low tone. "And no doubt what you call the dolmen is the Cave."
"Then you know where we are?"
"Oh, no; just the reverse. I have only heard people talk of it; I have never been here before; all I know is we must have been going right away from Millbourne, just the opposite direction."
"Do not trouble, dear; it seems a little lighter. Stay here while I go out of the copse and look round."
"You will not go far away?" She could not help saying it.
"No, indeed I will not." He went out some thirty yards, and then stopped, finding the ground began to decline. As she sat on the turf she could see his form against the sky; it was certainly lighter. In a rude circle the great grey boulders crouched around her; just opposite was the dolmen. It was built of three large flat stones set on edge, forming the walls, and over these an immense flat one--the table-stone-- made the roof, which sloped slightly aside. A dwarf house, of Cyclopaean masonry; a house of a single chamber, the chamber of the dead. The place, she had heard, was the sepulchre of an ancient king-- of a nameless hero. This Cave, as the shepherds called it, was a tomb.
They had a dim tradition of the spirits haunting such magic circles of the Past. A sense of loneliness came over her--the silence of the vast expanse around weighed upon her; an unwonted nervousness took possession of her, as it naturally might in that dreary gloom. She tried to smile at herself, and yet put out her hand, and touched the mare"s neck--she was grazing near: it was companionship.
"Margaret!" Her name startled her in the oppressive stillness; she was glad to rise and go to him, away from that shadowy place.
"The clouds are breaking fast," he said. "It will not rain; I am going to light a fire."
"A fire! Why, it is too warm now."
"Not for heat, but as a beacon. Some shepherd may see it, and come to us."
"Indeed he would not,"--a little petulantly, for she was overtired. "He would be afraid, and say it was Jack o" the Lanthorn."
"Well, I will try; possibly a farmer may see it."
"But where is your fuel? You cannot see to pick up sticks in the copse."
"I stumbled on two hurdles just now; one has been thatched with straw."
"I know; that is what the shepherds prop up with a stake, and sit behind as a shelter from the wind."
"And the furze-bush here will burn." She watched him tear some leaves out of his pocket-book, and place the fragments under the furze; then he added a little straw from the thatched hurdle, and a handful of dry gra.s.s.
"The stars are coming out again," said Margaret, looking round; "and what is that glow of light yonder?" There was a white reflection above the eastern horizon where she pointed.
"It must be the moon rising," he said, and applied a match to his bonfire. A blue tongue of flame curled upwards, an odour of smoke arose, and then a sharp crackling, and a sudden heat, that forced them to stand away. The bush burned fiercely, hissing and crackling as the fibres of the green wood and the pointed needles shrivelled up. By the light of the tawny flames he now saw the weary expression of her face; she must rest somewhere and somehow.
"Quick, Geoffrey! it is going out; throw your hurdles on."
"On second thoughts I will not burn the hurdles." Nothing flares so swiftly or sinks so soon as furze; in a few minutes the beacon was out.
"I must rest," she said, and went back to the trees and sat on a boulder. Opposite, the pale glow in the east shot up into the sky; as it rose it became thinner and diffused. Slowly the waning moon came up over the ridge of a distant hill, whose top was brought out by the light behind it, as a well-defined black line against the sky. Vast shadows swept along and filled the narrow vales--dark as the abyss of s.p.a.ce; the slopes that faced eastwards shone with a faint grey. The distorted gibbous disk lifted itself above the edge--red as ruddle and enlarged by the refraction: a giant coppery moon, weird and magical. The forked branches of a tree on the hill stretched upwards across it, like the black arms of some gibbering demon.
"Look round once more," he said, as the disk cleared the ridge.
"Perhaps you may recognise some landmark, and I will run and bring a.s.sistance."
"And leave me here alone!" reproachfully.
"No, I will never leave you." There was an intense pleasure in feeling how thoroughly she relied upon him. They went outside the copse and looked round. The dim moonlight was even more indefinite than the former mist and starlight. She saw nothing but hills, grey where the moonbeams touched them, black elsewhere; great cavernous coombes; behind them a shadowy plain. Here and there a hawthorn bush, fantastic in the faint light. It seemed as if a lengthened gaze might perhaps distinguish strange shapes flickering to and fro in the mystic waste.
"I see nothing but hills," she said. "I do not like to look; let us go back to the trees."
She sat down again on the sunken boulder, where only a part of the s.p.a.ce around and its spectral shadows was visible.
"I feel so sleepy," she said. Doubtless the warmth made her drowsy as well as weariness. "I think I shall lie down." She sat on the sward and leaned against the stone; Geoffrey felt the short gra.s.s, it was perfectly dry.
"If only I had something to wrap round you!" he said. "How foolish I have been! Mr Fisher"s rug that was strapped on my horse would have been the very thing! I am so angry with myself--I ought to have thought of it."
"But how could you antic.i.p.ate?"
"At least, wrap your handkerchief about your neck."
"I do not want it; it is too warm. But I will, as you wish me to."
An idea suddenly occurred to him; he went on his knees and crawled right under the table-stone of the dolmen--into the tomb. She watched him with a sleepy horror of the place. In a minute he emerged triumphant.
"I have found it--this is it. It is a house built on purpose for you."
"Oh, I hope not," shuddering; "though, of course, we must all die."
"Why--what do you mean?"
"That is a tomb."
"A tomb!" laughing; "oh, yes, perhaps it was once, two thousand years ago, before Pisces became Aries."
"I do not understand," petulantly. "Do let me sleep."
"I mean before the precession of the equinoxes had changed the position of the stars; it was so very long ago--"
"Please don"t talk to me."
"But I want you to come in here."
"In there! Impossible!"
"But do, Margaret; it is quite empty; only like a room. The ground inside is as dry as a floor, and the roof will shelter you from the night air, and, perhaps, save you from illness."
"I couldn"t--no; please."
"Well, just come and look."