CHAPTER XL.
THE ATTORNEY'S ADVENTURES ON THE WAY HOME.
Mr. Jos. Larkin was now moving alone, under the limbs of the Brandontrees. He knew the path, as he had boasted to Lord Chelford, from hisboyhood; and, as he pursued his way, his mind got upon the accustomedgroove, and amused itself with speculations respecting the vagaries ofMark Wylder.
'I wonder what his lordship thinks. He was very close--very' ruminatedLarkin; 'no distinct ideas about it possibly; and did not seem to wish tolead me to the subject. Can he _know_ anything? Eh, can he possibly?Those high fellows are very knowing often--so much on the turf, and allthat--very sharp and very deep.'
He was thinking of a certain noble lord in difficulties, who had hit aclient of his rather hard, and whose affairs did not reflect much creditupon their noble conductor.
'Aye, I dare say, deep enough, and intimate with the Lakes. He expects tobe home in two months' time. _He's_ a deep fellow too; he does not liketo let people know what he's about. I should not be surprised if he cameto-morrow. Lake and Lord Chelford may both know more than they say. Whyshould they both object merely to receive and fund his money? They thinkhe wants to get them into a fix--hey? If I'm to conduct his business, Iought to know it; if he keeps a secret from me, affecting all hisbusiness relations, like this, and driving him about the world like anabsconding bankrupt, how can I advise him?'
All this drifted slowly through his mind, and each suggestion had itscollateral speculations; and so it carried him pleasantly a good way onhis walk, and he was now in the shadow of the dense copsewood thatmantles the deep ravine which debouches into Redman's Dell.
The road was hardly two yards wide, and the wood walled it in, andoverhung it occasionally in thick, irregular masses. As the attorneymarched leisurely onward, he saw, or fancied that he saw, now and then,in uncertain glimpses, something white in motion among the trees besidehim.
At first he did not mind; but it continued, and grew graduallyunpleasant. It might be a goat, a white goat; but no, it was too tall forthat. Had he seen it at all? Aye! there it was, no mistake now. Apoacher, maybe? But their poachers were not of the dangerous sort, andthere had not been a robber about Gylingden within the memory of man.Besides, why on earth should either show himself in that absurd way?
He stopped--he listened--he stared suspiciously into the profounddarkness. Then he thought he heard a rustling of the leaves near him, andhe hallooed, 'Who's there?' But no answer came.
So, taking heart of grace, he marched on, still zealously peering amongthe trees, until, coming to an opening in the pathway, he more distinctlysaw a tall, white figure, standing in an ape-like attitude, with its armsextended, grasping two boughs, and stooping, as if peeping cautiously, ashe approached.
The good attorney drew up and stared at this gray phantasm, saying tohimself, 'Yes,' in a sort of quiet hiss.
He stopped in a horror, and as he gazed, the figure suddenly drew backand disappeared.
'Very pleasant this!' said the attorney, after a pause, recovering alittle. 'What on earth can it be?'
Jos. Larkin could not tell which way it had gone. He had already passedthe midway point, where this dark path begins to descend through theravine into Redman's Dell. He did not like going forward--but to turnback might bring him again beside the mysterious figure. And though hewas not, of course, afraid of ghosts, nor in this part of the world, ofrobbers, yet somehow he did not know what to make of this gigantic graymonkey.
So, not caring to stay longer, and seeing nothing to be gained by turningback, the attorney buttoned the top button of his coat, and holding hishead very erect, and placing as much as he could of the path betweenhimself and the side where the figure had disappeared, marched onsteadily. It was too dark, and the way not quite regular enough, torender any greater speed practicable.
From the thicket, as he proceeded, he heard a voice--he had often shotwoodcocks in that cover--calling in a tone that sounded in his ears likebanter, 'Mark--Mark--Mark--Mark.'
He stopped, holding his breath, and the sound ceased.
'Well, this certainly is not usual,' murmured Mr. Larkin, who was alittle more perturbed than perhaps he quite cared to acknowledge even tohimself. 'Some fellow perhaps watching for a friend--or tricks, maybe.'
Then the attorney, trying his supercilious smile in the dark, listenedagain for a good while, but nothing was heard except those whisperings ofthe wind which poets speak of. He looked before him with his eyebrowsscrewed, in a vain effort to pierce the darkness, and the same behindhim; and then after another pause, he began uncomfortably to move downthe path once more.
In a short time the same voice, with the same uncertain echo among thetrees, cried faintly, 'Mark--Mark,' and then a pause; then again,'Mark--Mark--Mark,' and then it grew more distant, and sounded among thetrees and reverberations of the glen like laughter.
'Mark--ha--ha--hark--ha--ha--ha--hark--Mark--Mark--ha--ha--hark!'
'Who's there?' cried the attorney, in a tone rather ferocious fromfright, and stamping on the path. But his summons and the provocationdied away together in the profoundest silence.
Mr. Jos. Larkin did not repeat his challenge. This cry of 'Mark!' wasbeginning to connect itself uncomfortably in his mind with hisspeculations about his wealthy client, which in that solitude anddarkness began to seem not so entirely pure and disinterested as he wasin the habit of regarding them, and a sort of wood-demon, such as a queerlittle schoolfellow used long ago to read a tale about in an old Germanstory-book, was now dogging his darksome steps, and hanging upon hisflank with a vindictive design.
Jos. Larkin was not given to fancy, nor troubled with superstition. Hisreligion was of a comfortable, punctual, business-like cast, whichaccording with his genius--denied him, indeed, some things for which, intruth, he had no taste--but in no respect interfered with his mainmission upon earth, which was getting money. He had found no difficultyhitherto in serving God and Mammon. The joint business prospered. Let ussuppose it was one of those falterings of faith, which try the best men,that just now made him feel a little queer, and gave his thoughts aboutMark Wylder, now grown habitual, that new and ghastly complexion whichmade the situation so unpleasant.
He wished himself more than once well out of this confounded pass, andlistened nervously for a good while, and stared once more,half-frightened, in various directions, into the darkness.
'If I thought there could be anything the least wrong orreprehensible--we are all fallible--in my allowing my mind to turn somuch upon my client, I can certainly say I should be very far fromallowing it--I shall certainly consider it--and I may promise myself todecide in a Christian spirit, and if there be a doubt, to give it againstmyself.'
This resolution, which was, he trusted, that of a righteous man, was, Iam afraid, the effect rather of fright than reflection, and employed inthat sense somewhat in the manner of an exorcism--whispered rather to theghost than to his conscience.
I am sure Larkin did not himself suppose this. On the contrary, he reallybelieved, I am convinced, that he scouted the ghost, and had merelyvolunteered this salutary self-examination as an exercise of conscience.He could not, however, have doubted that he was very nervous--and that hewould have been glad of the companionship even of one of the Gylingdenshopkeepers, through this infested bit of wood.
Having again addressed himself to his journey, he was now approachingthat part of the path where the trees recede a little, leaving aconsiderable space unoccupied at either side of his line of march. Herethere was faint moonlight and starlight, very welcome; but a little inadvance of him, where the copsewood closed in again, just above thosestone steps which Lake and his sister Rachel had mounted together uponthe night of the memorable rendezvous, he fancied that he again saw thegray figure cowering among the foremost stems of the wood.
It was a great shock. He stopped short--and as he stared upon the object,he felt that electric chill and rising of the hair which accompanysupernatural panic.
As he gazed, however,
it was gone. Yes. At all events, he could see it nomore. Had he seen it there at all? He was in such an odd state he couldnot quite trust himself. He looked back hesitatingly. But he rememberedhow very long and dark the path that way was, and how unpleasant hisadventures there had been. And although there was a chance that the graymonkey was lurking somewhere near the path, still there was now but ashort space between him and the broad carriage track down Redman's Dell,and once upon that he considered himself almost in the street ofGylingden.
So he made up his mind, and marched resolutely onward, and had nearlyreached that point at which the converging screen of thicket againovershadows the pathway, when close at his side he saw the tall, whitefigure push itself forward among the branches, and in a startlingunder-tone of enquiry, like a conspirator challenging his brother, avoice--the same which he had so often heard during this walk--cried overhis shoulder,
'Mark _Wylder_!'
Larkin sprung back a pace or two, turning his face full upon thechallenger, who in his turn was perhaps affrighted, for the same voiceuttered a sort of strangled shriek, and he heard the branches crack andrustle as he pushed his sudden retreat through them--leaving the attorneymore horrified than ever.
No other sound but the melancholy soughing of the night-breeze, and thehoarse murmur of the stream rising from the stony channel of Redman'sDell, were now, or during the remainder of his walk through these hauntedgrounds, again audible.
So, with rapid strides passing the dim gables of Redman's Farm, he atlength found himself, with a sense of indescribable relief, upon theGylingden road, and could see the twinkling lights in the windows of themain street.
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