Into the Highways and Hedges Part 34

Meg was not on the high road at all; she had turned sharp to the left from the hut, and struck into a short cut to the farm. She fancied she knew her way across these familiar marshes, even in the dark.

Indeed, she kept on quite steadily at first, only stooping now and then to make sure with her hands that her feet were still on the track, or to shut her eyes, that were nearly blinded by the lightning. How small she felt among the immense resistless powers that were at play round her!--One tiny atom in the midst of the great plan of nature that whirls on through the ages, taking no count of the individual births, and deaths, and pains and joys! She kept on quite steadily till the sluice gates opened and the water descended with a force that made her stagger, taking her breath away, pelting her, drenching her through and through in a minute. Meg was swept half round by it, driven backwards a few steps in her surprise up against a tree, to which she clung instinctively. Both her arms were round the trunk, and she felt it sway and creak. Already her feet were in a puddle, nearly ankle-deep.

"If this goes on much longer, it will be a second deluge," thought she.

"Were any of the people who were drowned in the Flood rather _glad_ to be swept away, I wonder?"

But it did not last. The storm ceased almost as suddenly as it had begun. The birds lifted their heads again, and began to chirp a feeble sleepy thanksgiving. The worst was over. Meg loosened her hold of the willow, and wandered on.

She was as soaked as if she had fallen into the stream; her clothes were very heavy, and her steps were more uncertain than they had been. The track was lost in water; everywhere there seemed nothing but shallow glistening pools, which reflected the deep dark sky and the stars, when the clouds parted and rolled off.

Presently Meg found herself on the verge of a salt-water spring that was deeper than the others. She discovered that she was going the wrong way when she got to the "Pixie's Pool". She had all but walked into it, but had been stopped by the black post with a supposed depth, marked in rough white figures, put up by one of the Thorpes.

Meg leaned against the post to rest, and looked down into the black depths; and, thus looking, a temptation seemed to rise from them, and lay hold of her soul and body.

She had so nearly fallen in! Suppose she let herself drop; a step would do it, and no one would ever know that it had not been an accident!

Barnabas would be unhappy--for a time; but his work was his real love, and he never looked on death as a misfortune, and it would set him free.

Tom would be rather sorry, Mr. Thorpe more than "rather"; but, after all, she had always been a strange element at the farm,--never quite one of them, even when they were kindest. They would go on as before she came; there would hardly be a place to fill up; she had never been much good to any one! She slipped on to her knees and stooped lower over the water. It seemed drawing her, with a force that was part of the pitiless power that she had felt in the storm; that she had felt too in her own life. "As we sow, so we must reap;" "must reap," it was running in her head again,--but she could escape the "must" so, and so only.

Terrible relentless law, that she felt she could bow to no more. Should she break through it once and for ever, so that the reaping should be no more for her,--in this world, at any rate?

She could see the moon in the water; she could fancy herself falling through it, disturbing the reflection for a moment, then it would close over her again; it would look just as though she had never been; it would _be_ just the same. One life less; it counted for nothing among the thousands; and the sky and marsh and water would keep the secret, and she would have to make no more efforts. She was tired, oh so tired!

Ah, how the water was pulling her--it was like a magnet to a needle!

She had failed utterly. Life was a perplexity and a terror; and G.o.d was too far away--if, indeed, He "was" at all. Scepticism was unnatural to Meg; it meant blank despair to her. The horrors "granny" had poured into her ears, mingled with her own sense of impotence and failure, made her feel it better to risk anything, to force a verdict of d.a.m.nation from an angry G.o.d, rather than to stay where He was not, where the heartless horror of mechanical laws reigned supreme.

Natural healthy love of life was never so strong as it should be in her: she would always rather fly to the ills she knew not, than bear the evils she knew, and face misery she could picture to herself. Her courage had given way. She shut her eyes and swayed towards the pool.

One plunge and it would be done!

"Margaret, Margaret!" the shout, loud and insistent, rang across the marshes and broke the spell. "Margaret!" farther off and fainter.

"Margaret, Margaret!" once more, quite away in the distance.

It was the preacher's voice. He must be looking for her. Meg had sprung to her feet at the first call. A choking sensation rose to her throat, and tears to her eyes. Had he been searching for her all night? _He_ did not break his bargain, nor fling aside his responsibilities, whatever she did; and she had promised him she would go back. What a coward she was! What a mad, dishonourable coward! With a burning sense of shame, Meg turned her back on the death that had tempted her sorely, with a yearning, that was deeper than articulate prayer, to the G.o.d who alone knows how hard life is.

"One _must_ pay one's debts and keep one's promises. I'll go on again and finish it," she said. She spoke to the invisible, and did not know she had spoken aloud. Then she began to stumble in the direction of the farm.

It was fresher and cooler after the rain; but her feet sank into the softened ground, making puddles where they trod, and her wet clothes clung to her.

She would have run if she could, but that was impossible; and she was beginning to have a vague impression that she had been several weeks, at least, struggling over these moonlit boggy tracks. The path was swamped; but by some wonderful chance she did find herself at last in the straight cart road to the farm.

The house stood before her, visible at the end of the road, silhouetted black and solid against the sky. It was at night that she had seen it first.

Then with that recollection came back the wonder as to what they would all say. How long had she been gone? Her senses were so confused that she could not think connectedly, much less find words in which to explain.

She reached the house and leaned against the rough grey stone, conscious the while that her limbs would not have carried her any further. The door was shut, but the light streamed from the windows. Who was up so late? She could hear voices inside. Some one was saying:--

"Gi'e me the lantern; I'll start again." But she heard as if in a dream.

Approaching steps sounded behind the door, but she had not knocked. It was opened. The light flashed in her eyes.

"Eh, who is it? my la.s.s!" said Barnabas. She felt his hand on her arm for a moment, and then he put down the lantern, lifted her up as if she were a child, and carried her right in. She was in Mr. Thorpe's wooden chair by the fire, and Barnabas was kneeling beside her; she looked at him with a vague wonder at seeing him so moved.

"Barnabas, is it morning?" she said quickly. "I meant--I did try--to keep my promise to come back the same day--I couldn't help it.

Everything tried to prevent me, but I started meaning to come back; only the storm came on, and father wouldn't see me, and there seemed no end to the 'reaping,' and I was so tired; but father was quite right, you know--and you were right too; only--oh! that isn't what I wanted to say; I can't--I can't remember the right words!"

"Never mind," said Barnabas; and he drew her head on to his shoulder.

"Don't talk, little la.s.s. Ye can tell me to-morrow. Bring me that soup, Cousin Tremnell. Take a pan o' coals and warm her bed. Eh, ye are soaked!"

He was feeding her as if she were a baby; and Meg was so utterly exhausted that she let him do as he liked, with a sense of relief at not being expected even to lift her hand to her lips.

But the soup revived her, and after a minute she sat upright and looked round her.

"An' where have ye been?" said Tom. He was dripping too, and had another lantern in his hand. He was more relieved than he cared to express to see Barnabas' wife safe.

"A pretty dance ye ha' led us," he cried. "An' what were ye doin'?" But the preacher saw the scared look come back to Meg's eyes, and interposed.

"Never mind," he said again. "It doesna matter! There is only one thing that matters,--that ye've come home to me; ye've come home to me! Why, ye can hardly stand, la.s.s!" seeing Meg make the attempt.

"I have been running miles, I think, and my knees are shaking so," she explained. And Barnabas lifted her in his arms again, and carried her up.

"Good-night!" said Tom good-naturedly, "or good-morning, which is it?

Next time ye go in for these high jinks, Barnabas' wife, do 'ee choose a finer night! Oh well," stretching himself, "dad needn't ha' been afear'd lest Barnabas should be too rough on her!"

CHAPTER IX.

One enemy is too much.

--_Herbert._

It was the last day of August. The London plane trees were beginning to shed their leaves, that were choked with the season's dust; the air was still and hot, the West End nearly deserted.

The hatchment, that had been put up on Mr. Russelthorpe's death, still hung in Bryanston Square, but fresh straw was laid down in the street.

This time, at least, all that the living could do to keep out death was being done.

Mr. Deane had had a relapse after the journey to London. Two nurses were in attendance, and the doctors came night and day.

"Really, sis, I should be ashamed to get well again after this," he had said playfully; "and what is the use of having regiments of physicians?

I am sure my case is delightfully simple! I know perfectly well what's the matter. They vary a little as to 'how long' they will give me, according to whether they are of the hopeful or the gloomy school; and some of them have very small respect for my intellect, and pretend I may live years; and so, perhaps, I might, if I weren't dying; and some of them have inconvenient consciences, and feel bound to tell the truth; but it makes no difference. 'Not all the king's horses and all the king's men will ever set this Humpty Dumpty up again.'"

"You give way too easily!" Mrs. Russelthorpe cried, with an impatience born of sharp anxiety. She _would_ not think that that hurried flight had nearly killed him.

"You'll get over this fresh chill you caught at that horrible damp rectory. It was high time you left. I shall write to Dr. Renshawe at once. These old-fas.h.i.+oned pract.i.tioners are of no use; they don't open their eyes to the new lights!"

"Poor sis! you must be feeling very hopeless, when you go in for the new lights. Let it alone, and let's enjoy our last weeks together in peace.

No? Well, as you like. If it comforts you to have all the quacks in England fighting over me, why shouldn't you?" He smiled while he spoke.