Roger Trewinion Part 37

"Whoso hateth his brother is a murderer." So said the disciple of the Son of G.o.d, and I had hated him, and now neither G.o.d nor eternity could undo what I had done.

I thought of my mother. Soon she would learn that Wilfred was dead, and then her sky would be black, and it would be I, Roger, who had blackened it. The deed which would bring her grey hair with sorrow to the grave, had been done by me.

"Ah," I thought, "if I could only cease to be, cease to think," but that, I knew, could never be. Had I hurled myself from that dizzy height, so that my battered body might be beside my brother's, the awful thing I had done would remain, and I should remain. I might kill the body, but I could not kill the soul; and self-murder would make my crime greater, not less.

Oh, how desolate the world was. The summer sky had no beauty; the fields, which I could still dimly see, were shorn of every loveliness.

Then I looked seaward, and the only visible object was the ghastly rock which was ever a nightmare to my soul.

What was it I saw there? It was a light, like the light I had seen on the night of my father's death, a weird, ghostly light, moving between the great grey p.r.o.ngs.

I remembered then of what that light was supposed to be the omen, and my senses seemed to leave me. Everywhere, everywhere, I could hear taunting voices crying "Murderer! Murderer!" The winds as they swept by said it, the sea playing with the pebbles on the beach said it, and thousands of voices all around me uttered the same dread word. I put my fingers in my ears to keep away the hideous sound; but not so could I silence conscience. The word came not from without, but from within.

It was my guilty soul that repeated it, until I longed to have the power to flee from the self which I loathed.

Not only did my ears hear the word; my eyes saw it. Everywhere it was written. On the broad sky I could see it written from end to end. I turned to the sea, and on its silvery waters the same awful word was traced, in letters that were black as the blackest night. I turned my eyes landward, and it was there, and when I closed them I saw it still.

Yet I was not sorry for what I had done! I suffered the pains of h.e.l.l, but I was not sorry, nor did I hate my brother the less. Could I have shed one bitter tear or realised one true feeling of repentance I should have suffered less; but I could not, and this made my h.e.l.l harder to bear, it made my h.e.l.l a h.e.l.l of the blackest kind. Dives did not feel the burning so keenly as I, for in his pain he could still love his brothers and long for their salvation; but I was in worse straits than he. I hated all, because of my hatred of one.

And all the time I felt this, I stood on the verge of the cliffs hundreds of feet above the ever-sounding sea. My loneliness was terrible! I longed to hear some voice, to feel the grasp of some friendly hand, yet I dreaded the approach of any one.

My eyes and ears were, after a while, delivered from the terrible word, and looking again I saw the mysterious light moving among the p.r.o.ngs of the "Devil's Tooth," then I saw a form approaching me, a grey, bent, ungainly form.

Trembling I waited as it approached, until it stood close by my side.

"What do 'ee zee?" said a croaking voice.

I did not reply. I felt that I could not.

"Es it the light you be lookin' at? That's Betsey Fraddam's lantern, that es, and that do'ant tell'ee of any good luck."

I knew now that it was old Deborah Teague who spoke. The years had not softened her harsh features, nor did she seem older than when I had left Trewinion, save that she stooped more. My blood curdled when I knew it was she. When I stood on this place last she had come to me and had repeated some lines of the Trewinion's curse; she had told me of the darkness that was approaching, and now on the night that I had come back, the night on which I had been engaged in a deed of darkest dark on this same dread spot, she had come to me again.

Yet did I not reply.

"Who be you?" she continued.

I remained silent, looking again towards the "Devil's Tooth," where angry flames leaped up.

The old dame laughed when she saw my evident fear, and continued in her hoa.r.s.e, croaking voice:

"That's ou'll Betsey cookin' her broth, that es; and it was made where you do'ant want to go. I shudn't stay there much longer or ou'll Betsey 'll bring'ee some, and n.o.body ever refuses her."

With that she hobbled away, leaving me again alone. But I did not stay long. A maddening desire came into my heart to get away, and with eager feet I rushed landward.

Where should I go? Somewhere, anywhere away from Trewinion, away from this dark deed of my life. For a mile I rushed blindly on. Then I stopped. I must make up my mind what was to be my destination.

Morton Hall! I had not been thinking of it, but that was the place that impressed itself on my thought and memory. I would go there. For what purpose I did not know, but in my misery that one place seemed to invite me. I could do no good, for Ruth was dead, and laid in the cold tomb. Dead, dead, and she had died loving me! The thought softened my h.e.l.l, and yet it made it harder to bear, for while it put tenderness into my heart, it made me feel more than ever unworthy even to mention her name.

I stopped in my journey again, for I had started in the direction of Ruth's home, and, looking upward, I saw a star that was nearer to me than any other, and it seemed to look lovingly upon me; then my heart was subdued, and I sobbed like a child.

Again a mad frenzy possessed me, and I rushed away in the direction of Ruth's home as though the powers of darkness pursued me.

CHAPTER XIX

TOWARDS RUTH'S GRAVE

But if you look into it, the balance is perfectly adjusted, even here.

G.o.d has made His world much better than you and I could make it.

Everything reaps its own harvest; every act has its own reward. And before you covet the enjoyment which another possesses, you must first calculate the cost at which it was procured.--FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON.

Morton Hall was about thirty-five miles from Trewinion, in a south-easterly direction. It lay on the opposite side of the county, and the country between was hilly, but fertile. I did not know the road well, but I knew it well enough for my purpose. By travelling at the rate of four miles an hour I could reach the Hall in nine hours. I could give no reason for going thither except that I was drawn by an irresistible power, a power by means of which I hoped to quench the awful fires in my soul.

The night was clear, and the stars shone brightly overhead. These I had studied through the long years of my seafaring life and so knew their location well. Fixing on one which lay in the direction in which I desired to go, I followed it as my guide.

To a.n.a.lyse the feelings that possessed me that night would be impossible. One hears sometimes of a murderer "escaping." That may never be. The officers of the law may not suspect him, the hangman's rope may never come near him, but no murderer escapes. He never escapes the terrible undefinable fear which constantly dogs him, the ghastly gnawing which eats at his heart.

At every step I saw my brother Wilfred. I constantly heard his voice, and every footfall spoke of what I had done. The hedges were full of grinning devils, which mocked me, while the stars that spangled the sky spelt the word that was dragging me deeper into h.e.l.l.

Time after time I tried to comfort myself with the thought that I did not intentionally kill him, that it was an accident which caused him to fall upon those cruel rocks hundreds of feet below, but I found no comfort in the thought. I could not get rid of the fact that I hated my brother, and that whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. Even had I not done the deed, even had Wilfred been alive, I was still a murderer at heart. I had hated him alive, I hated him still, and even now I had no sorrow at what I had done.

On, on I went, wildly yet wearily; tired I was, but I never rested, nor abated my speed, and ever as I went ghastly thoughts tormented me. Now I pictured him lying bruised and bleeding among the rocks, alive yet helpless; and as he lay I saw the tide rising all around him, and laughing at his cries for help. Then I saw him a ghastly, mis-shapen ma.s.s, crushed and battered beyond all recognition, with eyes red as blood and bursting from their sockets. Again I saw him, and the scene was more terrible still. He was entering a great gulf which I knew to be the mouth of h.e.l.l, and as he went I saw that he was attended by ghastly, pallid creatures, who were cold and clammy in spite of the fires that burned in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Who sent you here?" they cried, in harshly grating voices.

"My brother Roger!" he answered.

"Breathe the prayer dearest to your heart!" they grinned.

"May he wallow in a h.e.l.l a thousand times blacker and more painful than this," he said.

"Your prayer shall be granted," they screamed.

Then I lost him amidst gloomy caverns, that burned with fires giving no light, and I realised that I was still tramping madly on towards the south-east, but I knew his prayer was answered--my h.e.l.l was blacker than his.

Oh! the length of that awful night. Every second seemed a minute, every minute seemed a day, nay, a night, a thousand dark nights! I was in eternal punishment! I had died into eternal death!

How many hours I had tramped on I knew not, when I saw in the eastern sky a red tinge which made the whole horizon seem a wall of heated steel, set in diamonds. North and south the sky appeared more blue because of the brighter colour in the east, and it looked more distant, more unfathomable. Of what moment was this earth of ours in this vast s.p.a.ce which separated it from the nearest star? It was but as the fine dust of the balance, and yet I, the loathsome thing that walked the earth, could feel--could suffer--I was something more than the earth!

Slowly the day dawned, brighter and brighter became the flush in the east, one by one the stars sank out of sight, and suddenly I saw a golden streak of light flash across the hills, then another, and still others, until a disc of the king of day became visible. A minute more and it was day! Day! and yet I was still in night, the gloomy fires of my heart were still unquenched, the darkness of my soul was still unillumined.

I now began to think about what my mother would say, what she would feel. When Wilfred did not come home a search would naturally be made, and in time he would be found. And what then? I dared not think of that!

Presently I saw a labourer with hedging tools on his shoulder. I would speak to him, it would relieve my feelings to hear the sound of a human voice.

Closer and closer we came until we were within a few yards of each other. I could not speak to him. I was ashamed. I was a guilty wretch, and could not look an honest man in the face, so I pa.s.sed by without looking at him or speaking a word. Another mile I tramped, then I saw a farmer coming in his cart; evidently he was going to some distant market. I would speak to him. I had now got over the shock which the sight of the other man had given me.