Bernard Capes

“ A discordant cry echoed through the chamber: “The skull! My God, let me pass!”—and Luvaine, dashing aside the restraining arm, bounded to the furthermost of the stone blocks and snatched something into his hands. He had no respect, no sympathy, no decency even, in the covetous lust of his soul. Perhaps if he had had, the Fates had vouchsafed a kindlier turn to his fortunes.
Tuke and Blythewood would not echo his jubilance—would hardly give him their notice, indeed. To them a solemner tragedy appealed—a mystery far profounder than that of humanity’s morbid attraction to coloured pebbles. ”

“ Tuke leaned and took the impassive form under the arms. With his foot he shuffled the limp trailing legs over into the pit, and so lowered the body with a single heave. It went down unresistingly, save for a broken moan or two, and sank into a huddled heap at the bottom.
He raised the flap, and stood an instant looking down. There was little motion below him, or sign of life but a weak fitful whimpering.
Feeling as one who stubbornly signs his own soul to the devil, he closed the pit-mouth, secured it, and walked away with his heart thumping. ”

“ Oppressive dusk was drooping as Mr. Tuke came in sight of the lonely tavern on the downs. The inconsistent moodiness of autumn had fallen into another humour as the day declined. The steely thrust of wind at night—a morning cold and fair and pure, such as ever seems an earnest of weeks of serene tranquillity—and then, as noon ticked into evening, a dull fall in the barometer, and gathering battalions of clouds rolling to the front, with a noise of rumbling in them like the labouring wheels of gun-carriages—such was the record of twenty-four hours. ”

“ He found the girl prostrate on her knees beside the dead body—sobbing—appealing to it—murmuring broken words of penitence and love. She had moved the napkin from the face, and Tuke saw the cunning still engraved finely about the sightless eyes, and the little close leer of covetousness at the corners of the mouth, which showed a grotesque, clownish distortion of shape in the sooty border that suffocation had painted round it. Knowing what he did, he could not bear to see her thus wasting her heart of affection on the dead, unworthy thing. ”

“ For an hour he may have walked, when, without forespeech or warning, the door was flung open and there quickly entered Fern and Brander, who shut themselves in and stood by the threshold, facing the prisoner.
Both men were braced and accoutred as if for some immediate business of violence. Into belts drawn about their waists were stuck murderous-looking knives; pistol-butts stood from their skirt-pockets, and each had a flint-lock slung across his shoulders. For the rest they were the suave and the brutal, and a couple of as soulless ruffians as ever fouled the sunlight. ”

“ Luvaine came to himself with a shock. Something had rung out, and there was a distant flurry of shouting in his ears. He started forward, amazed at his own abuse of the trust committed to him. With eyes yet clouded with the fumes of sleep, he looked down into the vault. One of the irresolute company a little bolder than his fellows to solve the reason of the inaction that had befallen, and of the noise that suddenly swooped down upon them, was crept out into the pit; but seeing the face staring down he re-dived for his burrow like a rat. ”

“ He left the old city and took the Stockbridge road; and presently, entering between country hedgerows, looped his reins slackly and let his horse amble fairly as he listed.
The sunshine in his soul was constitutional, inextinguishable, and not reflected from his surroundings; for the day was bitter for the time of year, and the wind stuck as rigidly in the northeast as if the stiff-pointing weathercocks had nailed it there. The greyness, however, emphasized the sparkle of hip and holly and all red berries; for every dull mood of Nature has its compensations to shame us out of peevishness. ”

“ Tuke felt little but the instinct to prick his snorting beast onwards with bloodless heels. Yet through all he was conscious of a spark that glowed and wavered in him like a pulse—a little fierce flame of triumph and of ecstasy—a suffusion of audacity, or repudiation of the formal conduct to which he had vainly struggled to subscribe. He had no deliberate plan of evil in his soul; neither had he the courage or the inclination to face the situation of his own contriving. ”

“ While they were within, the wind had called up its reserves and the undulating plain was all one sheeted spectre of driving white.
“We must make the attempt,” said Tuke. “To stay here is to perish.”
He took Blythewood’s arm, and drove into the whirl as he spoke. The other two followed apart.
The snow was up to their ankles; it hurtled into their faces and stung their blinking eyelids. Every minute they felt the labour of progress more acute.
“My God!” cried Sir David—“seven miles of this!”
“Oh, courage, man! There is no hope but to keep going!” ”

“ A fiery tooth tore itself through Tuke’s shoulder, while an explosion shook the room. In one wild instant all was uproar and confusion, in the midst of which the groom ran to the hearth and kicked the smouldering logs into a blaze. Light leapt up, and revealed a struggling and swaying block of men down by the door, and in the aperture above a dark figure standing irresolute. ”

“ To know that refined civilization was within a couple of miles or so of his gates, did more to reconcile him to his embowered lot, than any philosophy of nature. He felt friendless and isolated no longer; but rather inspired to a pursuit that should make of his thickets a garden of Hesperus.
In this mood of exaltation he reached his own door, rapped on it with the butt of his riding-whip, and, as it was swung open, encountered the figures of Whimple and his sister arrayed as if for a journey. ”

“ Life seems never so desirable as in typical days of autumn, when the year rallies of its disease and makes a brave effort to renew its thoughtless morning with a few withering leaves. Of all the motley months, none is so pathetic as October in its likeness to an aging lady, striving to salve by gentleness the unhealed wounds inflicted of her earlier pugnacity.
Mr. Tuke’s spirits rose as he advanced. He seemed already in touch with the world again—a butterfly of the second brood emerged from a buried larva. ”

“ To the most of us at some time comes this bitter realization of the force that keeps humanity low. High as our sense of justice and of decency may be—serene as may figure the outlook from our lofty chambers of self-respect, we have only to descend into the plain to find manifest the brutal ruggedness of life that our hitherto aloofness has idealized. The impotence of honesty to enforce itself in any question of might; the impotence of morality to convince self-interest of its baseness—these are the first lessons in the despair of being. ”

“ Brander, it seemed, was alone. The latter stooped forward eagerly, a pistol raised in his hand. His difficulty was to hit the pigeon and not the crow. The flash of indecision cost him dear. Tuke, trailing on his knees, fired full at him, and the fellow doubled and collapsed on the step like a kinked sand-bag.
Fern was under Whimple and Sir David. He struggled like a madman. The taut strength of the old villain was amazing. The groom was hurrying to help, when the baronet, spun aside as if he were a child, crashed against him and both tumbled on the floor in a heap. ”

“ I have noticed her very strange of late—ever since—I have noticed her very strange, sir. Her soul seemed caught in a deeper thrall than she had known before. Somehow there has appeared more of the woman in her eyes and less of madness. To-day, in the dusk afternoon, she came upon me out of your library, sir, where she was at work. ‘Dennis,’ she said, all in a moment, ‘isn’t there a love that can be bribed with gifts of jewels?’ I answered the poor wench laughing—‘Oh, yes; no doubt there was.’ ‘Tell him,’ she said—‘tell him, your master, that I know where the great ruby is hid. ”

“ Tuke’s relief, took cross-tracks for a number of miles, and struck the London road at Basinstoke, where they dined. He rode at their wheel, or not, as circumstance permitted, and Angela was gracious or peevish with him according to her mood.
Perhaps his own varied. After dinner his heart would sing jocundly: “She unites sense with beauty, and hath a hundred charms of wit and winsomeness. I am a fool to doubt.”
Then he would murmur: “Am I frighted by the shadow of my own past? I will carry her in the teeth of it all. None but the brave deserve the fair.” ”

“ I cry you mercy, Captain Luvaine. What would you have, sir? The night is far advanced; I have had an exhausting experience of travel. On my honour, I must recuperate for the next move.”
“Mr. Tuke, do you mean to tell me, with all deliberateness, that you purpose resting upon my sickness—upon my agony of suspense, sir, counting the question of my reason as nothing compared with your little bodily discomfort?”
“If you will put it crudely, sir; why, so must I. I refuse to act further until I have rested; and you will do well to school your reason into a little consideration for others.” ”

“ He walked towards the door, and put his hand kindly on Darda’s shoulder; for Darda it was that had come, softly and unbidden, into the room, and who stood silently awaiting the upshot of the explosion her entrance had evoked.
Her slim white figure, her immobile face and glowing hair, made of her against the fire-lit wall such a presentment of the spiritual as one sees in old cathedral frescoes; but, at her master’s touch, a rose grew to her cheek, announcing her all one at heart with pitiful humanity. ”

“ Stupidly staring, they saw by the hearth a heap of rubbish, an overturned flag; and with bursting oaths they rushed for the place, and, swinging the light down, were aware of a jagged rent, torn through the rotted fabric, that looked into the room below.
“His room!” cried Fern, putting his hand to his forehead and staggering back.
The next moment they were out on the landing again. The sitting sentry grunted and cocked a bleared eye at them. With a foul curse, and no condescension of question to him, Brander drove his heavy foot at the man with all his force. ”

“ Tuke, whose soul was hot with vexing self-problems, worried to get this distracting and depressing business of the stone done with; Luvaine stalked a very nightmare embodiment of grievance. Altogether it was something a dismal party that followed in the wake of the dismal serving-man—its members mere moving pillars of duffel and muffler, hands in pockets, rigid as pantomime chimney-pots, with their heads bent to the blast like cowls. ”

“ What weed ever won man’s heart?”
“I had best slip off and go back to my dead.”
“Down with you, girl! and we will lie and die in the snow together.”
“Oh, me! What can I say? Will your honour not ride on and forget I am here?”
“To be sure, Betty—as I forget myself. You had best not remind me of it by addressing me so.”
“I am your honour’s servant.”
“Lip-service, wench. No, it will not do. Before others as you like; but alone with me—there, don’t cry! the frost will catch your tears, and your lashes will be hung with diamonds no gift of mine. ”

“ The blade whipped aloft—the arm of the dead man sprung up and struck the murderer a backhanded blow full in the face. His knife rattled on the boards—he gave a screech of terror, and rolled grovelling and as Tuke, the horrible spell broken, bounded to his love and caught her, fluttering, to his arms, Sir David and the others rushed into the stable with pale faces, and the how, when, and what, of startled men. ”

“ Is there any fool in the world invites the curse?”
“Luvaine,” said Sir David, gently, “let me take the vile thing and hurl it into the sea.”
The dying man looked at him with a strange stare.
“Because it has been the sport of devils, shall we discard its infinite possibilities of good? It is the means—the means, if somewhere we can find the instrument.”
Betty, with her loving woman’s instinct to pity and relieve, had put her arm about the trembling shoulders to support them. Now Luvaine’s head fell back upon that tender pillow, and a rare smile flickered on his tortured mouth. ”

“ She gave a light laugh as she was lifted into her saddle.
“You flatter me, brother,” she said. “I will persuade in the language of flowers, and you by club-law. We will see which hath the better wit.”
She flicked up her horse, and, whether by accident or design, drove it brushing against Darda as she stood near.
The girl sprang back, almost with an oath on her lips.
“Some day, perhaps,” she muttered in her teeth—“some day, perhaps, you shall set your wit against bright steel, mistress, and see which is the sharper.” ”

“ This, like desperate men, blind and unreasoning, they fought through—crossed a downward slope of white—plunged into a second great tangle of growth, tore their way through it, and brought up sharp before a little low door that seemed to pierce the base of an inverted bowl of snow set in a small clearing. It was no time to wonder or inquire. Tuke kicked at the woodwork, and it reeled open on screaming hinges. They saw an aperture leading to some darkness of refuge—stooped, and one by one scrambled in and sank exhausted upon the rubbish that lay beneath. ”

“ Blythewood knows him well, and has a high opinion of him. What then? What favourable view can I possibly take of his reticence and evasiveness? For all I know, Blythewood himself may be the chief of a colony of pads and cut-throats. I am a lamb amongst wolves—knowing nought of the neighbourhood; moving in the dark. I am drowned and overwhelmed in a sea of mysteries—in a cursed Lake of Wine. And there, there, there! Luvaine’s fabulous stone! ”

“ As he was preparing to mount:
“Tuke,” said Sir David, “now I think on’t—wasn’t it that girl at the inn first gave you warning of Mr. Breeds and his gang?”
“Betty Pollack? Yes.”
He answered brusquely, and touched his horse with his heel.
“The women, it seems, give us the lead in this business.”
“Betty,” said Tuke, with a little fierce glow of emotion, “is gold to the inside of her heart. Now, gentlemen—and keep your eyes alert, by your favour, as we pass the ‘Dog and Duck.’”
A creaking, and pounding of the frozen snow, and the three were on their way once more. ”