Presently the path began to ascend, and he followed it upward. The climb became gradually steep and wearisome, and the track grew smaller, almost vanishing altogether among ma.s.ses of loose stones, which had rolled down from the summits of the hills, and he had again to carry Charlie, who very strenuously objected to the contact of sharp flints against his dainty little feet. The boisterous wind now met him full-faced,--but, struggling against it, he finally reached a wide plateau, commanding a view of the surrounding country and the sea. Not a house was in sight;--all around him extended a chain of hills, like a fortress set against invading ocean,--and straight away before his eyes ocean itself rose and fell in a chaos of billowy blackness. What a sight it was!
Here, from this point, he could take some measure and form some idea of the storm, which so far from abating as he had imagined it might, when pa.s.sing through the protected seclusion of the valley he had just left, was evidently gathering itself together for a still fiercer onslaught.
Breathless with his climbing exertions he stood watching the huge walls of water, built up almost solidly as it seemed, by one force and dashed down again by another,--it was as though great mountains lifted themselves over each other to peer at the sky and were driven back again to shapelessness and destruction. The spectacle was all the more grand and impressive to him, because where he now was he could not hear the full clamour of the rolling and retreating billows. The thunder of the surf was diminished to a sullen moan, which came along with the wind and clung to it like a concordant note in music, forming one sustained chord of wrath and desolation. Darkening steadily over the sea and densely over-spreading the whole sky, there were flying clouds of singular shape,--clouds tossed up into the momentary similitude of t.i.tanesque human figures with threatening arms outstretched,--anon, to the filmly outlines of fabulous birds swooping downwards with jagged wings and ravenous beaks,--or twisting into columns and pyramids of vapour as though the showers of foam flung up by the waves had been caught in mid-air and suddenly frozen. Several sea-gulls were flying inland; two or three soared right over Helmsley"s head with a plaintive cry. He turned to watch their graceful flight, and saw another phalanx of clouds coming up behind to meet and cope with those already hurrying in with the wind from the sea. The darkness of the sky was deepening every minute, and he began to feel a little uneasy. He realised that he had lost his way, and he looked on all sides for some glimpse of a main road, but could see none, and the path he had followed evidently terminated at the summit where he stood. To return to the valley he had left seemed futile, as it was only a way back to Minehead, which place he wished to avoid. There was a small sheep track winding down on the other side of the hill, and he thought it possible that this might lead to a farm-road, which again might take him out on some more direct highway. He therefore started to follow it. He could scarcely walk against the wind; it blew with such increasing fury. Charlie shivered away from its fierce breath and snuggled his tiny body more warmly under his protector"s arm, withdrawing himself entirely from view. And now with a sudden hissing whirl, down came the rain. The two opposing forces of cloud met with a sudden rush, and emptied their pent-up torrents on the earth, while a low muttering noise, not of the wind, betokened thunder. The prolonged heat of the last month had been very great all over the country, and a suppressed volcano was smouldering in the heart of the heavens, ready to shoot forth fire. The roaring of the sea grew more distinct as Helmsley descended from the height and came nearer to the coast line,--and the mingled scream of the angry surf on the sh.o.r.e and the sword-like sweep of the rain, rang in his ears deafeningly, with a kind of monotonous horror. His head began to swim, and his eyes were half blinded by the sharp showers that whipped his face with blown drops as hard and cold as hail. On he went, however, more like a struggling dreamer in a dream, than with actual consciousness,--and darker and wilder grew the storm. A forked flash of lightning, running suddenly like melted lava down the sky, flung half a second"s lurid blue glare athwart the deepening blackness,--and in less than two minutes it was followed by the first decisive peal of thunder rolling in deep reverberations from sea to land, from land to sea again. The war of the elements had begun in earnest. Amid their increasing giant wrath, Helmsley stumbled almost unseeingly along,--keeping his head down and leaning more heavily than was his usual wont upon the stout ash stick which was part of the workman"s outfit he had purchased for himself in Bristol, and which now served him as his best support. In the gathering gloom, with his stooping thin figure, he looked more like a faded leaf fluttering in the gale than a man, and he was beginning now to realise with keen disappointment that his strength was not equal to the strain he had been putting upon it. The weight of his seventy years was pressing him down,--and a sudden thrill of nervous terror ran through him lest his whim for wandering should cost him his life.
"And if I were to die of exhaustion out here on the hills, what would be said of me?" he thought--"They would find my body--perhaps--after some days;--they would discover the money I carry in my vest lining, and a letter to Vesey which would declare my actual ident.i.ty. Then I should be called a fool or a madman--most probably the latter. No one would know,--no one would guess--except Vesey--the real object with which I started on this wild goose chase after the impossible. It is a foolish quest! Perhaps after all I had better give it up, and return to the old wearisome life of luxury,--the old ways!--and die in my bed in the usual "respectable" style of the rich, with expensive doctors, nurses and medicines set in order round me, and all arrangements getting ready for a "first-cla.s.s funeral"!"
He laughed drearily. Another flash of lightning, followed almost instantaneously by a terrific crash of thunder, brought him to a pause.
He was now at the bottom of the hill which he had ascended from the other side, and perceived a distinct and well-trodden path which appeared to lead in a circuitous direction towards the sea. Here there seemed some chance of getting out of the labyrinth of hills into which he had incautiously wandered, and, summoning up his scattered forces, he pressed on. The path proved to be an interminable winding way,--first up--then down,--now showing glimpses of the raging ocean, now dipping over bare and desolate lengths of land,--and presently it turned abruptly into a deep thicket of trees. Drenched with rain and tired of fighting against the boisterous wind which almost tore his breath away, he entered this dark wood with a vague sense of relief,--it offered some sort of shelter, and if the trees attracted the lightning and he were struck dead beneath them, what did it matter after all! One way of dying was as good (or as bad) as another!
The over-arching boughs dripping with wet, closed over him and drew him, as it were, into their dense shadows,--the wind shrieked after him like a scolding fury, but its raging tone grew softer as he penetrated more deeply into the sable-green depths of heavily foliaged solitude. His weary feet trod gratefully on a thick carpet of pine needles and ma.s.ses of the last year"s fallen leaves,--and a strong sweet scent of mingled elderflower and sweetbriar was tossed to him on every gust of rain. Here the storm turned itself to music and revelled in a glorious symphony of sound.
"Oh ye Winds of G.o.d, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever!
"Oh ye Lightnings and Clouds, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever!"
In full chords of pa.s.sionate praise the hurricane swept its grand anthem through the rustling, swaying trees, as though these were the strings of a giant harp on which some great Archangel played,--and the dash and roar of the sea came with it, rolling in the track of another mighty peal of thunder. Helmsley stopped and listened, seized by an overpowering enchantment and awe.
"This--this is Life!" he said, half aloud--"Our miserable human vanities--our petty schemes--our poor ambitions--what are they? Motes in a sunbeam!--gone as soon as realised! But Life,--the deep, self-contained divine Life of Nature--this is the only life that lives for ever, the Immortality of which we are a part!"
A fierce gust of wind here snapped asunder a great branch from a tree, and flung it straight across his path. Had he been a few inches nearer, it would have probably struck him down with it. Charlie peeped out from under his arm with a pitiful little whimper, and Helmsley"s heart smote him.
"Poor wee Charlie!" he said, fondling the tiny head; "I know what you would say to me! You would say that if I want to risk my own life, I needn"t risk yours! Is that it? Well!--I"ll try to get you out of this if I can! I wish I I could see some sign of a house anywhere! I"d make for it and ask for shelter."
He trudged patiently onwards,--but he was beginning to feel unsteady in his limbs,--and every now and then he had to stop, overcome by a sickening sensation of giddiness. The tempest had now fully developed into a heavy thunderstorm, and the lightning quivered and gleamed through the trees incessantly, followed by huge claps of thunder which clashed down without a second"s warning, afterwards rolling away in long thudding detonations echoing for miles and miles. It was difficult to walk at all in such a storm,--the youngest and strongest pedestrian might have given way under the combined onslaught of rain, wind, and the pattering shower of leaves which were literally torn, fresh and green, from their parent boughs and cast forth to whirl confusedly amid the troubled s.p.a.ces of the air. And if the young and strong would have found it hard to brave such an uproar of the elements, how much harder was it for an old man, who, deeming himself stronger than he actually was, and buoyed up by sheer nerve and mental obstinacy, had, of his own choice, brought himself into this needless plight and danger. For now, in utter weariness of body and spirit, Helmsley began to reproach himself bitterly for his rashness. A mere caprice of the imagination,--a fancy that, perhaps, among the poor and lowly he might find a love or a friendship he had never met with among the rich and powerful, was all that had led him forth on this strange journey of which the end could but be disappointment and failure;--and at the present moment he felt so thoroughly conscious of his own folly, that he almost resolved on abandoning his enterprise as soon as he found himself once more on the main road.
"I will take the first vehicle that comes by,"--he said, "and make for the nearest railway station. And I"ll end my days with a character for being "hard as nails!"--that"s the only way in which one can win the respectful consideration of one"s fellows as a thoroughly "sane and sensible" man!"
Just then, the path he was following started sharply up a steep acclivity, and there was no other choice left to him but still to continue in it, as the trees were closing in blindly intricate tangles about him, and the brushwood was becoming so thick that he could not have possibly forced a pa.s.sage through it. His footing grew more difficult, for now, instead of soft pine-needles and leaves to tread upon, there were only loose stones, and the rain was blowing in downward squalls that almost by their very fury threw him backward on the ground.
Up, still up, he went, however, panting painfully as he climbed,--his breath was short and uneasy--and all his body ached and shivered as with strong ague. At last,--dizzy and half fainting,--he arrived at the top of the tedious and troublesome ascent, and uttered an involuntary cry at the scene of beauty and grandeur stretched in front of him. How far he had walked he had no idea,--nor did he know how many hours he had taken in walking,--but he had somehow found his way to the summit of a rocky wooded height, from which he could survey the whole troubled expanse of wild sky and wilder sea,--while just below him the hills were split asunder into a huge cleft, or "coombe," running straight down to the very lip of ocean, with rampant foliage hanging about it on either side in lavish garlands of green, and big boulders piled up about it, from whose smooth surfaces the rain swept off in sleety sheets, leaving them shining like polished silver. What a wild Paradise was here disclosed!--what a matchless picture, called into shape and colour with all the forceful ease and perfection of Nature"s handiwork! No glimpse of human habitation was anywhere visible; man seemed to have found no dwelling here; there was nothing--nothing, but Earth the Beautiful, and her Lover the Sea! Over these twain the lightnings leaped, and the thunder played in the sanctuary of heaven,--this hour of storm was all their own, and humanity was no more counted in their pa.s.sionate intermingling of life than the insects on a leaf, or the grains of sand on the sh.o.r.e. For a moment or two Helmsley"s eyes, straining and dim, gazed out on the marvellously bewitching landscape thus suddenly unrolled before him,--then all at once a sharp pain running through his heart caused him to flinch and tremble. It was a keen stab of anguish, as though a knife had been plunged into his body.
"My G.o.d!" he muttered--"What--what is this?"
Walking feebly to a great stone hard by, he sat down upon it, breathing with difficulty. The rain beat full upon him, but he did not heed it; he sought to recover from the shock of that horrible pain,--to overcome the creeping sick sensation of numbness which seemed to be slowly freezing him to death. With a violent effort he tried to shake the illness off;--he looked up at the sky--and was met by a blinding flash which tore the clouds asunder and revealed a white blaze of palpitating fire in the centre of the blackness--and at this he made some inarticulate sound, putting both his hands before his face to hide the angry ma.s.s of flame. In so doing he let the little Charlie escape, who, finding himself out of his warm shelter and on the wet gra.s.s, stood amazed, and shivering pitifully under the torrents of rain. But Helmsley was not conscious of his canine friend"s distress. Another pang, cruel and prolonged, convulsed him,--a blood-red mist swam before his eyes, and he lost all hold on sense and memory. With a dull groan he fell forward, slipping from the stone on which he had been seated, in a helpless heap on the ground,--involuntarily he threw up his arms as a drowning man might do among great waves overwhelming him,--and so went down--down!--into silence and unconsciousness.
CHAPTER XII
The storm raged till sunset; and then exhausted by its own stress of fury, began to roll away in angry sobs across the sea. The wind sank suddenly; the rain as suddenly ceased. A wonderful flush of burning orange light cut the sky asunder, spreading gradually upward and paling into fairest rose. The sullen clouds caught brightness at their summits, and took upon themselves the semblance of Alpine heights touched by the mystic glory of the dawn, and a clear silver radiance flashed across the ocean for a second and then vanished, as though a flaming torch had just flared up to show the troublous heaving of the waters, and had then been instantly quenched. As the evening came on the weather steadily cleared;--and presently a pure, calm, dark-blue expanse of ether stretched balmily across the whole width of the waves, with the evening star--the Star of Love--glimmering faintly aloft like a delicate jewel hanging on the very heart of the air. Far away down in the depths of the "coombe," a church bell rang softly for some holy service,--and when David Helmsley awoke at last from his death-like swoon he found himself no longer alone. A woman knelt beside him, supporting him in her arms,--and when he looked up at her wonderingly, he saw two eyes bent upon him with such watchful tenderness that in his weak, half-conscious state he fancied he must be wandering somewhere through heaven if the stars were so near. He tried to speak--to move,--but was checked by a gentle pressure of the protecting arms about him.
"Better now, dearie?" murmured a low anxious voice. "That"s right! Don"t try to get up just yet--take time! Let the strength come back to you first!"
Who was it--who could it be, that spoke to him with such affectionate solicitude? He gazed and gazed and marvelled,--but it was too dark to see the features of his rescuer. As consciousness grew more vivid, he realised that he was leaning against her bosom like a helpless child,--that the wet gra.s.s was all about him,--and that he was cold,--very cold, with a coldness as of some enclosing grave. Sense and memory returned to him slowly with sharp stabs of physical pain, and presently he found utterance.
"You are very kind!" he muttered, feebly--"I begin to recollect now--I had walked a long way--and I was caught in the storm--I felt ill,--very ill!--I suppose I must have fallen down here----"
"That"s it!" said the woman, gently--"Don"t try to think about it!
You"ll be better presently."
He closed his eyes wearily,--then opened them again, struck by a sudden self-reproach and anxiety.
"The little dog?" he asked, trembling--"The little dog I had with me----?"
He saw, or thought he saw, a smile on the face in the darkness.
"The little dog"s all right,--don"t you worry about him!" said the woman--"He knows how to take care of himself and you too! It was just him that brought me along here where I found you. Bless the little soul!
He made noise enough for six of his size!"
Helmsley gave a faint sigh of pleasure.
"Poor little Charlie! Where is he?"
"Oh, he"s close by! He was almost drowned with the rain, like a poor mouse in a pail of water, but he went on barking all the same! I dried him as well as I could in my ap.r.o.n, and then wrapped him up in my cloak,--he"s sitting right in it just now watching me."
"If--if I die,--please take care of him!" murmured Helmsley.
"Nonsense, dearie! I"m not going to let you die out here on the hills,--don"t think it!" said the woman, cheerily,--"I want to get you up, and take you home with me. The storm"s well overpast,--if you could manage to move----"
He raised himself a little, and tried to see her more closer.
"Do you live far from here?" he asked.
"Only just on the upper edge of the "coombe"--not in the village,"--she answered--"It"s quite a short way, but a bit steep going. If you lean on me, I won"t let you slip,--I"m as strong as a man, and as men go nowadays, stronger than most!"
He struggled to rise, and she a.s.sisted him. By dint of sheer mental force and determination he got himself on his feet, but his limbs shook violently, and his head swam.
"I"m afraid"--he faltered--"I"m afraid I am very ill. I shall only be a trouble to you----"
"Don"t talk of trouble? Wait till I fetch the doggie!" And, turning from him a moment, she ran to pick up Charlie, who, as she had said, was snugly ensconced in the folds of her cloak, which she had put for him under the shelter of a projecting boulder,--"Could you carry him, do you think?"
He nodded a.s.sent, and put the little animal under his coat as before, touched almost to weak tears to feel it trying to lick his hand.
Meanwhile his unknown and scarcely visible protectress put an arm round him, holding him up as carefully as though he were a tottering infant.
"Don"t hurry--just take an easy step at a time,"--she said--"The moon rises a bit late, and we"ll have to see our way as best we can with the stars." And she gave a glance upward. "That"s a bright one just over the coombe,--the girls about here call it "Light o" Love.""
Moving stiffly, and with great pain, Helmsley was nevertheless impelled, despite his suffering, to look, as she was looking, towards the heavens.
There he saw the same star that had peered at him through the window of his study at Carlton House Terrace,--the same that had sparkled out in the sky the night that he and Matt Peke had trudged the road together, and which Matt had described as "the love-star, an" it"ll be nowt else in these parts till the world-without-end-amen!" And she whose eyes were upturned to its silvery glory,--who was she? His sight was very dim, and in the deepening shadows he could only discern a figure of medium womanly height,--an uncovered head with the hair loosely knotted in a thick coil at the nape of the neck,--and the outline of a face which might be fair or plain,--he could not tell. He was conscious of the warm strength of the arm that supported him, for when he slipped once or twice, he was caught up tenderly, without hurt or haste, and held even more securely than before. Gradually, and by halting degrees, he made the descent of the hill, and, as his guide helped him carefully over a few loose stones in the path, he saw through a dark clump of foliage the glimmer of twinkling lights, and heard the rush of water. He paused, vaguely bewildered.
"Nearly home now!" said his guide, encouragingly; "Just a few steps more and we"ll be there. My cottage is the last and the highest in the coombe. The other houses are all down closer to the sea."
Still he stood inert.
"The sea!" he echoed, faintly--"Where is it?"
With her disengaged hand she pointed outwards.
"Yonder! By and by, when the moon comes over the hill, it will be shining like a silver field with big daisies blowing and growing all over it. That"s the way it often looks after a storm. The tops of the waves are just like great white flowers."