Where Deep Seas Moan Part 8

"Quick, what happened?"

"Have patience, my son, and don't hurry an old woman. Well, great-grandfather asked the little chap where he was going and what was his name. And all he would say was "_Je vais cheminant_." But he stopped to Guernsey after all and he married a girl from near here--and it was him built _Les Casquets_. There! _that's_ where she gets her queer ways, Ellenor!"

"And now tell me about her plan."

"Well, it seems she thought, foolish girl, she'd find out, for sure, if Le Mierre really loves her or only her looks. And she couldn't think of no better way than this mad one. She can't know much of men and their ways, her!"

"It's the best thing that could have happened, if only it makes her see Le Mierre in his true colours."

"Well, we must hope for the best. And, look here, Perrin! Nothing he could do before, no wickedness, no cruelty, could make her leave off caring! But we women, if our looks are held up to scorn--well!--that's the worst of all. So who can tell what may happen! Come, I must make her and give her a cup of tea. She told me she hadn't eaten or drank all day."

CHAPTER VIII.

It was a wild wet night in March. Dominic Le Mierre had just finished supper, and he sat by the fire in the kitchen of Orvilliere; he was in a particularly good mood, owing to the excellence of the tobacco he was smoking. As he puffed at his second pipe he congratulated himself on his long acquaintance with Frenchmen, who had no scruples in giving him whole packages of this excellent tobacco; and no conditions attached except the fun of helping to hide it in the caves below the Haunted House, till it could be conveyed to Brittany!

Then he laughed aloud at the idea of the countryside about this very Haunted House. He had added two or three ghost tales to those current; and, though he believed firmly in every weird story of the two parishes, he had not felt a single scruple in inventing others to terrify people from the spot. His love of lawlessness and danger was infinitely stronger than his inherited faith in the supernatural. The Haunted House brought to his mind the festival of _Les Brandons_, when the dreaded place had lost its horror for the time being, owing to the safety that is supposed to lie in numbers.

He chuckled as he remembered what a fool he had made of Ellenor.

Bah! Once and for all he had done with her! Who cared to look at her now, fright that she was! And how dared that pious idiot of a fisherman throw him down before all the company! Ah! he would soon teach him better manners! he would thrash him well next time they met!

So he plotted and thought and smoked, and the night wind howled and the rain beat against the windows. All at once, he got up, and from the rack fastened across the beamed ceiling he took an old black book, his friend and evil counsellor, the _Grand-Mele_ which had been in his family for generations. It was a book of magic, containing spells to be used on every conceivable occasion, and Dominic Le Mierre was past-master in the black art. Turning over the pages with knitted brows, he searched for a spell to be used against Perrin Corbet. At last he found it.

"Ah, it is quite easy to draw blood, and it need be but a drop!" he muttered, "scratch his hand with my knife and it is done! Then, he will walk in his sleep to the Haunted House. There I will meet him!

Ah, Perrin Corbet, it will be your turn to be down on the ground! I will see him to-morrow, and the spell will work for the night.

_Bon_, nothing could be better!"

He took up his pipe again and smoked in full contentment. A sudden stillness had fallen over the wild night. It seemed to Dominic that he could hear the moan of the sea. He listened. His blood crept at the weird stillness.

Hark! Hus.h.!.+ What was that?

The wild sad cry of a sea-gull. Nearer and nearer it came, and Dominic's eyes were fixed in horror upon the uncurtained window.

The sea-gull came at last quite close, with wilder, sadder cries. It flapped its wings and circled round and round the cas.e.m.e.nt. Dominic was cold and stiff with terror. He knew who the sea-gull was, but what did it mean? Some dreadful thing was drawing near Orvilliere.

"Blaisette!" he cried, "I know you well enough! Why do you come here?"

Wilder, more despairing grew the cries. Closer and closer the bird drew to the panes, striking them with a tw.a.n.g like the sound of wild music.

With a curse the master roused himself from the freezing spell. He took his loaded gun from its place over the chimney piece. He fired.

One of the panes of gla.s.s was broken. Outside, on the cobbled yard, the gull lay dead, its glazed eyes fixed on the house.

With a laugh of triumph, Dominic re-lighted his pipe and sat down again by the fire. He had just settled once more to the reading of _Grand-Mele_ when a very tempest of wind and hail shook the house, and in the midst of it, a low, sharp knock fell on the house door.

This time, the master was not under a spell. He recognized the knock. In an instant he was in the entrance hall and had flung open the door. A rough, unkempt fisherman stood on the threshold.

"You must come at once, Monsieur," he cried, "there's been great luck! A lot of brandy has been brought, unexpected. It's to the cave below the Haunted House. We could have got it up the cliffs alone.

But we all agreed that you must have your share in the fun."

"Quick! where did the stuff come from?"

"From France, from les Messieurs ----."

"_Bon!_ Will you wait for me?"

"No, my horse is here--tied to the gate. He's impatient, him! I'll be off to tell the rest you're coming."

"I'll ride too," and Dominic slammed the door, and hurried to the back of the house where his horses were stabled for the night. He chose out a fleet white one that was used to wild rushes through the dark. Before he mounted, he fastened a pistol to the saddle; but he laughed as he did this, it was such a useless precaution. Never once yet had the excis.e.m.e.n appeared within miles of the Haunted House.

With a dark lantern swinging from the saddle bow, he rode out of the farmyard and cantered up the hill. Then, urging the white mare to her swiftest pace, he flew through steep lanes, past Torteval Church, and along the high road to Pleinmont.

The rain poured in torrents. The wind roared and howled. Several times the mare paused, trembling. But Dominic lashed her on, and in pain and terror she tore across the moorland, striking fire from the stones as she flew. He reined her in at last and fastened her to a hook in the side wall of the Haunted House. He laughed as he thought what a help she would be in keeping all comers away, for she seemed to shed a white dim light from her drenched skin, and her loud breathing might easily be taken for groans.

He scrambled down the face of the cliff. Fortunately, the wind blew in from the sea, and in safety he reached a large cave, brilliant with the light of many torches. His boon companions, the roughest gangs of the two parishes, greeted him with shouts and jests, and an hour of drinking and feasting followed. Then, with no little difficulty, kegs of brandy were hauled up the cliffs and deposited in the Haunted House. With wonderful skill, the men worked almost all the while in the dark, only using lanterns when it was absolutely necessary. At last, all the kegs were stowed away. The men scattered to fetch their horses from various sheds belonging to friendly people, and the master of Orvilliere was left alone.

He looked carefully round at the precious kegs stowed half way up the walls. Ah--what was that! One of the barrels leaked! Brandy, velvety fragrant brandy was oozing out on the earthen floor! He knelt down and caught a few drops in his hand. It was superfine, the best stuff he had ever tasted. Greedily he drank again and again from his hand. But that process was too slow. Catching up a hatchet, he enlarged the leak, and throwing himself flat on the ground, he lapped the golden spirit that filled him with ecstasy. At last, he had had enough. He fumbled at the leak, making futile efforts to stop it. But he was too drunk to know what he was about. He had just sense enough to darken his lantern, to reel out of the Haunted House and fling himself on the drenched gra.s.s beside his s.h.i.+vering mare.

Presently his debauch turned into a heavy sleep, and the hours pa.s.sed. Suddenly he woke and sat up. He heard, quite distinctly, the sharp click of a horse's hoof. It had rung through his drunken sleep like a knell. He had dreamt he heard again the pa.s.sing bell that had tolled for Blaisette.

All at once the click pa.s.sed into a smothered sound of pounding and slus.h.i.+ng. The horse had left the high road and must be on the moorland!

Sobered, Le Mierre leapt to his feet, unloosened the mare and jumped on her back. He turned her inland and urged her forward. But, trembling in every limb, the mare refused to move. Nearer and nearer came the pounding of the horse. It stopped. A lantern flashed out.

Le Mierre saw the figure of a well known exciseman riding a powerful black horse. A voice cried above the howling of the wind.

"Give yourself up, and all will be well! I've looked for you far and wide. At last I find you. Come, Le Mierre, don't be a fool about this. It will only be a fine, and perhaps not even that, if you give up the other chaps."

But the master of Orvilliere was not to be reasoned with. He was in a towering rage. He wrenched the pistol from the saddle. He fired it at the exciseman. It missed him. But he, too, lost his temper. In an instant he was beside Le Mierre and had dragged the pistol away and flung it against the house. Dominic, beside himself and unnerved with the night's carouse, grappled with the exciseman and tried to throttle him.

A terrible struggle. A wild pounding of hoofs. Cries and oaths. The fall of the lantern. Gusts of rain, and wind that shrieked as if an agony of warning. Then, the mare broke away at last, in a frenzy of terror, and made straight for the edge of the cliffs behind the Haunted House.

Not one word came from Dominic Le Mierre as the mare stumbled, fell, and, with a horrible, almost human cry, rolled over and over down the precipitous height.

The exciseman dismounted, groped for the lantern, lit it, and fought his way half down the cliff, at the risk of his life, as the wind had changed and was blowing out to sea. But there was not a sign of the mare and her rider.

At the earliest streak of dawn, the two parishes were roused, and long and careful search went on for days. But it was all in vain.

Somewhere, in the deep seas, perhaps, the body of the master was at rest, but, after "life's fitful fever," did he, indeed "sleep well?"

Orvilliere Farm was shut up. The finding of the dead gull, with a red wound in its white breast, proved conclusively that foul play and magic had been at work on the night of the storm. The servant and the housekeeper had been all the evening at a wedding feast, and when they returned at five o'clock next morning they found excited groups of people all about the farm, and they heard the story of the death of Dominic Le Mierre.

No one would dream of living henceforth at Orvilliere. It was haunted. People who were compelled to pa.s.s through the valley at nightfall, saw flickering lights moving from window to window of the farm, and heard the sudden firing of a gun, and the plaintive cry of a wounded bird.

The wind sighed about the lonely spot. The moan of the sea penetrated to the solitary farm. But no human creature wept for the departed soul of the master of Orvilliere. All shuddered at his end.

Two prayed, in defiance of their scruples, for his wicked, wild soul. And these were only an old woman and her fisherman son.

CHAPTER IX.