With a dreadful swiftness they rushed toward me, and in a single second had merged themselves into my own being; and I understood in some marvellous manner beyond the possibility of doubt that they were symbolic of my own soul: the dull animal part of me that had hitherto acknowledged nothing beyond its cage of minute sensations, and the higher part, almost out of reach, and in touch with the stars, that for the first time had feebly awakened into life during my journey over the hill.
V
I forget altogether how it was that I escaped, whether by the window or the door. I only know I found myself a moment later making great speed over the moor, followed by screaming birds and shouting winds, straight on the track downhill toward the Manor House. Something must have guided me, for I went with the instinct of an animal, having no uncertainties as to turnings, and saw the welcome lights of windows before I had covered another mile. And all the way I felt as though a great sluice gate had been opened to let a flood of new perceptions rush like a sea over my inner being, so that I was half ashamed and half delighted, partly angry, yet partly happy.
Servants met me at the door, several of them, and I was aware at once of an atmosphere of commotion in the house. I arrived breathless and hatless, wet to the skin, my hands scratched and my boots caked with mud.
“We made sure you were lost, sir,” I heard the old butler say, and I heard my own reply, faintly, like the voice of someone else:
“I thought so too.”
A minute later I found myself in the study, with the old folk-lorist standing opposite. In his hands he held the book I had brought down for him in my bag, ready addressed. There was a curious smile on his face.
“It never occurred to me that you would dare to walk—tonight of all nights,” he was saying.
I stared without a word. I was bursting with the desire to tell him something of what had happened and try to be patient with his explanations, but when I sought for words and sentences my story seemed suddenly flat and pointless, and the details of my adventure began to evaporate and melt away, and seemed hard to remember.
“I had an exciting walk,” I stammered, still a little breathless from running. “The weather was all right when I started from the station.”
“The weather is all right still,” he said, “though you may have found some evening mist on the top of the hills. But it’s not that I meant.”
“What then?”
“I meant,” he said, still laughing quizzically, “that you were a very brave man to walk tonight over the enchanted hills, because this is May Day eve, and on May Day eve, you know, They have power over the minds of men, and can put glamour upon the imagination—”
“Who—‘they?’ What do you mean?”
He put my book down on the table beside him and looked quietly for a moment into my eyes, and as he did so the memory of my adventure began to revive in detail, and I thought quickly of the shadowy man who had shown me the way first. What could it have been in the face of the old folk-lorist that made me think of this man? A dozen things ran like flashes through my excited mind, and while I attempted to seize them I heard the old man’s voice continue. He seemed to be talking to himself as much as to me.
“The elemental beings you have always scoffed at, of course; they who operate ceaselessly behind the screen of appearances, and who fashion and mould the moods of the mind. And an extremist like you—for extremes are always dangerously weak—is their legitimate prey.”
“Pshaw!” I interrupted him, knowing that my manner betrayed me hopelessly, and that he had guessed much. “Any man may have subjective experiences, I suppose—”
Then I broke off suddenly. The change in his face made me start; it had taken on for the moment so exactly the look of the man on the hillside. The eyes gazing so steadily into mine had shadows in them, I thought.
“Glamour!” he was saying, “all glamour! One of them must have come very close to you, or perhaps touched you.” Then he asked sharply, “Did you meet anyone? Did you speak with anyone?”
“I came by Tom Bassett’s cottage,” I said. “I didn’t feel quite sure of my way and I went in and asked.”
“All glamour,” he repeated to himself, and then aloud to me, “and as for Bassett’s cottage, it was burnt down three years ago, and nothing stands there now but broken, roofless walls—”
He stopped because I had seized him by the arm. In the shadows of the lamp-lit room behind him I thought I caught sight of dim forms moving past the book-shelves. But when my eye tried to focus them they faded and slipped away again into ceiling and walls. The details of the hill-top cottage, however, started into life again at the sight, and I seized my friend’s arm to tell him. But instantly, when I tried, it all faded away again as though it had been a dream, and I could recall nothing intelligible to repeat to him.
He looked at me and laughed.
“They always obliterate the memory afterward,” he said gently, “so that little remains beyond a mood, or an emotion, to show how profoundly deep their touch has been. Though sometimes part of the change remains and becomes permanent—as I hope in your case it may.”
Then, before I had time to answer, to swear, or to remonstrate, he stepped briskly past me and closed the door into the hall, and then drew me aside farther into the room. The change that I could not understand was still working in his face and eyes.
“If you have courage enough left to come with me,” he said, speaking very seriously, “we will go out again and see more. Up till midnight, you know, there is still the opportunity, and with me perhaps you won’t feel so—so—”
It was impossible somehow to refuse; everything combined to make me go. We had a little food and then went out into the hall, and he clapped a wide-awake on his gray hairs. I took a cloak and seized a walking-stick from the stand. I really hardly knew what I was doing. The new world I had awakened to seemed still a-quiver about me.
As we passed out on to the gravel drive the light from the hall windows fell upon his face, and I saw that the change I had been so long observing was nearing its completeness, for there breathed about him that keen, wonderful atmosphere of eternal youth I had felt upon the inmates of the cottage. He seemed to have gone back forty years; a veil was gathering over his eyes; and I could have sworn that somehow his stature had increased, and that he moved beside me with a vigour and power I had never seen in him before.
And as we began to climb the hill together in silence I saw that the stars were clear overhead and there was no mist, that the trees stood motionless without wind, and that beyond us on the summit of the hills there were lights dancing to and fro, appearing and disappearing like the inflection of stars in water.
CARLTON’S DRIVE
It is difficult, of course, to estimate the effect of such a thing upon another’s temperament. The change seemed bewilderingly sudden; yet spiritual chemistry is a process incalculable, past finding out, and the results in this case were undeniable. Carlton had changed in the course of a brief year or two. And he dates it from that drive. He knows.
He told it to a few intimates only. Those who know his face as it is today, serene and strong, yet recall how it was scored and beaten with the ravages of dissipation a few years before (so that the human seemed almost to have dropped back into the beast), can scarcely credit his identity. Now—its calm austerity, softened by the greatest yearning known to men, the yearning to save, proclaim at a glance the splendid revolution; whereas then! The memory is unpleasant; exceedingly wonderful the contrast. His life was inoffensive enough, negatively, at least, till the money came; then, with the inheritance, his innate sensuality broke out. Yet it seemed a prodigious step for a man to make in so brief a time: from that life of depravity that stained his face and smothered his soul, to the Brotherhood of Devotion he founded, and himself led full charge against the vice of the world! But not incomprehensible, perhaps. He did nothing by halves. It was the swing of the pendulum.
He was somewhere about thirty, his nerves shatt
ered by the savagery of concentrated fast living, his system too exhausted to respond even to unusual stimulant, when he found himself one early spring morning on the pavement beside St. George’s Hospital. He had been up all night, and was making his way homewards on foot, his pockets stuffed with the proceeds of lucky gambling; and how he happened to be standing at that particular spot, watching the traffic, at eight in the morning, is not clear. Probably, seduced by the sweetness of the air, he had wandered, driven by gusts of mood as by gusts of wind. Though he had drunk steadily since midnight he was not so much intoxicated as fuddled—stupid. He was on the south corner, where the ’buses stop in their journey westwards. The sun poured a flood of light down Piccadilly; the street was brisk with pedestrians going to work; the hospital side-entrance behind him already astir. Across the road the trees in the park shimmered in a wave of fluttering green. The pride of life was in the June air. In his own heart, however, was a loathsome satiety—sign of the first death.
In a line with the trees opposite stood a solitary hansom. A faint surprise that it should be there at such an hour jostled in his sodden brain with the idea that he might as well drive home—when, suddenly, he became aware that the man perched on the box was looking at him across the street with a fixity of manner that was both singular and offensive. Carlton felt his own gaze, blear-eyed and troubled, somehow caught and held—uncomfortably. The other’s eyes were fastened upon his own—had been fastened for some time—sinisterly, and with a purpose. Just at this moment, however, a sharp spasm of pain and faintness, due to exhaustion and debauch, shot through him, so that he reeled, half staggering, and, before he quite knew what he was doing, he had nodded to the driver, and saw that the horse was already turning with clattering hoofs to cross the slippery street. A minute later he had climbed heavily in, noticing vaguely that the driver wore all black, the horse was black, and on the whip was a strip of crêpe that fluttered in the breeze. As he got in, too, the effort strained him. But, more than that, something that was cold and terrible—“like a hand of ragged steel,” he described it afterwards—clutched at his heart. It puzzled him; but he was too “done” to think; and he lurched back wearily on the cushions as the horse started forward with the jerkiness of long habit.
“Same address, sir?” the man called down through the trap. His voice was harsh “like iron”; and Carlton, supposing that he recognized a fare, replied testily, “Of course, you fool! And let her rip—to the devil!” The spasm of strange pain had passed. He only felt tired to brokenness, sick with his corrupt and unsatisfying life, a dull, incomprehensible anger burning in him against the world, the driver—and himself.
The hansom swung forwards over the smooth, uncrowded streets like a ship with a breeze behind her, for the horse was fresh, and the man drove well. He took off his opera hat and let the cool wind fan his face. That drive of a mile to his rooms was the most soothing and restful he had ever known. But, after a while, braced, perhaps, by the morning wind, he began to notice that they were following a strange route through streets he did not recognize. He had been lolling in the corner with half-closed eyes; now he sat up and looked about him. Time had passed. He ought to have reached home long ago. They were going at a tremendous and unholy pace, too.
He poked open the trap sharply.
“Hi, hi!” he called out angrily; “are you drunk? Where, in the name of—are you driving to?”
“It’s all right, sir; it’s the shortest way. The usual roads are closed.” The man’s voice—deep, with a curious rumbling note—had such conviction and authority in it that Carlton accepted the explanation with a growl and flung himself back into his soft corner.
Again, however, for a single second, that cold thing of steel moved horribly in his heart. He felt as if the “ragged hand” had given it another twist. Then it passed, and he gave himself up to the swinging motion of the drive. The hansom tore along now; it was delightful. Curious, though, that all the known streets should be “up”! Positively the houses were getting less, as though he was driving out into the country. Perhaps, too, the feeling of laisser aller that came over him was caused by some inhibition of the will due to prolonged excesses. Canton admits it was unlike his normal self not to force the man to drive where he wanted; but he felt lulled, lazy, indifferent.
“Let the fool take his own way!” his thought ran; “I shan’t pay him any more for it!” Somebody was waving to him from the pavement with a coloured parasol—a girl he knew, one of his sort; gay and smiling, tripping along quickly. With a momentary surprise that she should be thus early astir, he smiled through the window and waved his hand. It gave him pleasure to see she was going in the same direction as himself. The instant he passed her the horse leaped forward with increased speed, so that the hansom rattled, shaking him a little as it lurched from side to side.
“Steady on, idiot!” he shouted, “or you’ll smash me up before I get to the end!” And he was just going to bang open the trap and swear, when his attention was caught by another salutation from the pavement. It was a man this time—running hard; a man who played, drank, and the rest of it even harder than himself, a man who shared his trips to Paris. He was radiant and gesticulating. “Good journey, old man!” he heard him cry as the hansom shot past; “Hurry up! We’re coming, too! We shall be there together!” Canton did not quite like this greeting. It reminded him for a second that he was a bit uncertain where the mad driver was heading for. It gave him a passing uneasiness—almost immediately forgotten, however. The pace was too delicious to bring to an end just yet. Presently he would call the fellow to order with a vengeance, but meanwhile—“let her rip!” His friends were all going the same way; it must be all right. His thoughts, he admits, were somewhat mixed; for great speed destroys calm judgment; it exhilarated, but it also bewildered. The pace, assuredly, had something to do with his mental confusion, for it was terrific. Yet he saw on the pavement, from time to time, more friends and acquaintances, and somehow at the moment it did not strike him as too peculiar that they should be there, all moving hurriedly in the same direction. He had an odd feeling that they all knew of some destination agreed upon; that he, too, knew it; but that it was not “playing the game” to admit that he knew. Yet about some of them—their hurried steps, their gay faces, their waving hands—there was a queer fugitive suggestion of sadness, even of fear. One or two touched the source of horror in him even. It hardly surprised him that the horse, steaming and sweating, should start forward with a frightened leap as each figure in turn was sighted and left behind.
Probably he was himself too much a part of the wild, exhilarating rush to realize how singular it was. Certainly, it seemed as though some faculty of his mind was suspended during that drive.
But at last, after passing another friend, the horse gave a leap that really frightened him, flinging him against the boards. It was a man, twice his own age, who more than any other had helped him in his evil living, not by doing likewise, but by smothering his first remorse with a smile and a sentence: “Of course, my boy, sow your wild oats! You’ll settle down later. No man is worth his salt who hasn’t sown his wild oats!” He was sliding along—a kind of crawl, with something loathsome in his motion that suggested the reptile. Carlton nodded to him. The same second the horse gave its terrible bound. The whip for the first time slashed down across its flanks. He saw the strip of crêpe, black against the green and sunny landscape. For by now all houses were left behind, and they were rushing at a mad pace along a broad country road, growing momentarily steeper, and—downhill. At the same moment he caught his own face in the glass. To his utter horror he saw that a black veil, crêpe-like, hung over the upper part, already hiding the eyes, and that it was moving downwards, slowly creeping. The hand of steel turned again within him. He knew that it was Death.
Yet, most singular of all, he instantly found in himself the power to believe it was not there.
His hand brushed it off. His face was young, clean, and smiling once more.… And now the
hansom flew. The horse was running away; he heard the driver shouting to it, and the shouting sounded like a song. The man was drunk after all. Mingled with his song, too, came a confused murmur of voices behind—far away. What in the world did it all mean? Dashing aside the little curtain he looked back out of the window, and the first thing he saw was a face pressed close against the glass, staring straight into his eyes with a beseeching, pitiful expression. Good God! It was the face of his mother. He swore; the face melted away—and he then saw that the whole country behind him was black, and through it, down the darkened road, ran the figures he had passed. But how changed! The girl was no longer gay and smiling; her face was old, streaked with evil, and with one hand she clutched her heart as she ran—trying in vain to stop. Behind her were the others—worn and broken, with bloodshot eyes and toothless gums, all grinning dreadfully, all racing down the ever-steepening descent, yet all trying frantically to stop. One or two, however, still ran with a brave show as if they wished to; debonair, holding themselves with a certain appearance of dignity and pleasure. And some—the old man of the “wild oats” sentence at their head —were close upon the hansom, pushing it… The face of his mother slid once again upon the glass, between their evil, outstretched hands and himself, but less close, less visible than before.…
Carlton knew a spasm of pain that was terrible. He sat up. He flung open the doors, and his eyes measured the leap. But the faculty of mind that had all the time been in suspension returned a little, and he saw that to jump was—impossible. He smashed the trap open with his fist and cried out, “Stop! I tell you, stop!”
“Can’t stop here, sir,” the driver answered, peering down at him out of the square opening that let in—darkness. “It’s not allowed. It’s not usual, either.”
“Stop, I say,” thundered Canton, trying to rise and strike him.
The Second Algernon Blackwood Megapack Page 13