Chapter IX: Omens of Darkness

Look here upon this picture, and on this;
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See what grace was seated on his brow;
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself.
An eye like Mars to threaten or command.
--_Hamlet_, Act III, Scene 3.

She looked up as if surprised at my question.

"Hate you, shun you, Roger," she repeated. "Whatever led you to ask such a question?"

"How can I help asking it," I said, "when it is true? You never have a word for me now. Your every thought is given to my brother. I suppose it is because Roger is a boor, Roger is a clown, Roger is ugly."

"What can possess you to speak in such a way?" she said.

I knew I had spoken foolishly; but I could not help it. I was mad with rage and jealousy. Having once begun to speak, all judgment and discretion were gone. I was determined to know my fate, determined to know if she loved my brother Wilfred.

"Possess me!" I answered. "Well, I hardly know; but this I know. Ever since my prig of a brother has come home from Oxford with his affected smile and flattering ways, Ruth has had no ears or eyes for any one else."

"Still I fail to understand you," she said.

"I do not doubt," I replied, savagely, "that I am too ignorant a clown to make my meaning clear. Were Wilfred speaking, you would understand him. He would put his thoughts in such poetic language, and speak in such cooing tones, that little Ruth would be made to think as he thought, and feel as he felt; but I--I am nobody."

"Roger," she said, "you are not kind, you are not speaking like my big brother."

"No, I cannot," I said, "I do not feel that I am your brother. What kind feeling have you towards me? Not a jot. It is Wilfred, Wilfred, ever Wilfred."

She walked on by my side in silence, I feeling that I had been a brute, a savage. What right had I to speak so roughly, and thus to annoy her? I looked down at her face, and I saw that her eyes were filled with tears and her lips trembled. For a moment my jealousy and anger were gone.

"Forgive me, sister Ruth," I said, "I ought not to speak so. Try and forget what I have said. See, we are in Honeysuckle-lane, and here is some."

I picked a sprig of honeysuckle as I spoke and gave it to her, which she received kindly. This emboldened me. Perhaps after all I was not so hateful to her.

I have not a very poetical nature; but I think the scene by which we were surrounded aroused what little I had. The birds were finding their way to the hedgerows to seek rest for the night, ever and anon giving a faint chirp of content. The beetles went humming heedlessly by, the bees laden with honey returned to their hives, and all nature seemed to be at peace. The honeysuckle and the hedge flowers that grew in wild confusion perfumed the lane in which we walked; the nuts hung in thick clusters on the fences, blackberries everywhere abounded. One by one the stars came out of their obscurity until the heavens became glorious; and as we walked on, the evening became more still. The harvesters reached their homes, and we no longer heard the sound of their voices. The night wind served only to make delicious music as it played with the leaves on the trees and hedges or coquetted with the golden corn. Now and then we could hear the sea murmur its old, old song. To me it told of peace, and calm, and beauty.

And I was alone with the maiden whom I loved more dearly than my life.

I said that her kindness emboldened me, so with great trembling hands I took her bonnet from her head and wove a piece of honeysuckle amid her nut-brown hair.

Beautiful, beautiful Ruth! Yes, after the long stretch of weary years I still call her so; but that night she was to me more than beautiful, she was like an angel. I was young and unsophisticated, and--and I did not know what was coming.

For fully five minutes we did not speak. Slowly we walked side by side in the calm still eventide, until we emerged from the lane, and went towards Pentvargle Cove. Then the sight of the rugged cliffs seemed to alter my feelings, and the old jealous passion returned. I could see the five great prongs of the "Devil's Tooth" towering into the sky, and I could not help thinking of the time, years ago, when I had scaled its slippery precipitous sides to save the girl at my side. Again the old desire to know the worst came back to me. Did Ruth love my brother Wilfred?

"Do you see the 'Devil's Tooth' yonder, Ruth?" I said.

"Yes," she said, "how calm the sea is now. How different from when I saw it first. Then--but I cannot bear to think about it, can you?" and she shuddered as she spoke.

"Oh, yes," I said. "I like to think about it. Why, Ruth, I was able to save you, you know."

She was silent, and again a bitter feeling crept into my heart.

"Don't you wish it had been Wilfred who saved you, instead of Roger?" I asked, a little bitterly.

"Why?" she said, quickly.

"Because you seem to think so much more about him. You like to be in his company, and you treasure every word that he says."

I thought she looked confused, as she said hurriedly, "Why should I not?"

At this answer I was as much the slave to my mad feelings as when we had commenced our walk. It was bitter hard for me. There, in sight of the very place where I had saved her, she admitted her preference for him who had done nothing for her.

"Why should you not?" I answered, boisterously, "why not indeed. There is every reason why you should. No doubt you wish Wilfred were the elder son and I the younger. No doubt you wish he were Trewinion's heir, and that I were penniless."

"No, Roger," she said, "were you penniless, and were your father to die, you would have no means of obtaining a livelihood. It is best as it is."

Blunt and dull of perception as I was I could not help seeing the purport of this. She thought me too much of a fool to earn a living; that it was only by the money which I inherited as a birthright I was saved from starving.

"I see the point of your answer, Ruth," I said. "You think Wilfred far more fit for the position of Trewinion's heir than I, and that I am too ignorant a clown to get a living for myself."

"I cannot help what conclusions you draw from my words, Roger," she replied.

"There is only one conclusion to be drawn," I answered. "You think Wilfred better than I. You think he should be master, and not I. You think I am a brute, a savage."

"I think no such thing," she replied, "but you must yourself feel the difference between you and him. He is kind, thoughtful, gentle; he is cultured and refined. He gives way to no fits of passion, nor does he seek to hurt one's feelings."

"Yes, yes," I said, bitterly. "He has been to Oxford, and has learnt tricks dear to a woman's heart, and, having learnt them, he knows how to practise them. He can quote poetry, and make soft speeches; he can please you with flattery. His face is pale and interesting, his hands are soft and white; and Ruth is very fond of him."

"You are unkind, and you are unjust, Roger. If he has been fonder of study than you, and if he has learnt to govern his temper, don't be jealous or cruel. Better try and emulate him. You call yourself boorish and clownish. Try and improve yourself; and then, perhaps, you will not feel so much inferior to your brother."

As I have said before, no one cares to hear another say what in self-disparaging moments he often says about himself. A dozen times in the last fortnight had I spoken of myself as inferior to my brother, but for another to say it was wormwood and gall to me.

"Copy my brother!" I said, savagely. "Be a soft-fingered coward like him! To be afraid of my own shadow like him! Copy him! Why he is but a mere woman disgracing the clothes he wears. Had I been a puny thing like him I should have ran away just as he did, and left you to die on yon rocks. And yet you talk of my copying him. Why, he's just a soft-muscled contemptible coward."

"I scarcely know which I like less," she cried, "a coward--although I don't admit that your brother is one--or one who boasts of his own bravery and taunts you with his own kind deeds. Roger, do you think because you cannot appreciate your brother's nobleness that it does not exist?"

This silenced me. I had been answered. She had championed my brother. She had declared in so many words that she preferred him to me. She regarded what I had done for her as nothing.

I found then that my passion had been inflamed by hope, that my jealousy was due to this reason. No sooner did Ruth speak in the way I have described than a dull despair laid hold of my heart, and I was dumb. I could see now that she loved Wilfred, and that she saw nobility in him, which, in her opinion my nature was too poor to see, that the fact of my having saved her life was to her little more than the action of an animal, who acted instinctively without a thought of danger. Well, on the whole I was glad to know the worst. I knew how to act now, I was not upheld by any false hope.

"I am glad you have told me this, Ruth," I said quietly. "It is best that I should know. I am afraid I have behaved very rudely! forgive me and you shall have no reason to complain again."

She clutched my arm tightly, and seemed about to protest, but I did not allow her to speak.

"It was mean and unmanly of me to say what I have," I said, "but I was excited and almost beside myself; let us walk more rapidly towards home."

At this Ruth looked at my face as if in surprise, and began to speak.

"I hope I have not hurt your feelings, Roger, but I--that is----"

"Pray, don't distress yourself, Ruth," I said. "It is well you have spoken and let me see the truth. Perchance I shall be thankful some day that you have spoken. Look, what's that?"

I pointed towards the "Devil's Tooth," which we could still see rising clearly against the sky. On its very summit was a small flickering light, and in my fancy I saw a dark form moving among its rugged peaks.

"It's a light," said Ruth, as if glad to change the subject; "what can it mean?"

"It means death," I said.

"Death! I don't understand, Roger."

"Whenever any one sees a light on the 'Devil's Tooth' it means death to some one belonging to the man or woman who first saw it," I replied with a shudder.

"But that's only a superstition," replied Ruth, "surely you will pay no attention to such stories."

I knew it was only a superstition; but such is the power of education and association that I could do no other than believe the warning to be real. Why should it come just now when I was so little able to bear it? Why should a darker cloud blacken my sky than was already there?

I looked again. The light was gone, but surely I saw even in the pale moonlight a dark moving figure. Try as I would to banish the feeling I could not help fearing that a dread calamity was about to fall on me. I felt ill able to bear it. I had been stunned by the fact of Ruth's love for Wilfred and her dislike for me. It is true she had not told me in as many words that she disliked me, or that she loved Wilfred better, but I was convinced that she thought him more noble and true, and that there was no hope of her ever coming to love me.

It was quite dark now, and we were away from the soothing influences of the green honeysuckle lane and the rustling of the ripe corn. We were walking on the top of the cliff and could see the misty outline of the coast. We walked slowly on for some distance, and then we both stopped, trying to see if the dark form were a reality or only a fancy. Scarcely had we done so when I felt my arm touched.

"What be 'ee lookin' for, Maaster Roger, my dear?" said a half-wheedling, half-mocking voice.

I turned and saw Deborah Teague.

I must confess that seeing her there alone made me feel strangely. She had not spoken to me since the night when we met in the cave of evil repute. Whenever we did chance to meet she looked steadily on the ground, never answering any words I might address to her. I did not wonder at this, for I fancied she had some ill-will towards me for not complying with her wishes, but I did wonder at her coming now and speaking to me in this familiar way. Nevertheless, I answered quietly:

"I thought I saw some one on the 'Devil's Tooth,' but I'm not sure."

"Ded 'ee zee a light jist now?" she continued.

"Yes, I did," I replied.

"Do 'ee knaw who made the light?"

"No," I replied. "I have been wondering what it meant."

"Iss, and you've bin tellin' Miss Ruth 'bout it, aint 'ee, Maaster Roger? I'll tell 'ee what you've zid (seen). You've zid Betsey Fraddam, my dear, and you do knaw what that do main."

"I know what foolish people say it means," I replied, "but I do not know what it really means."

"Do'ant 'ee? But you will. 'Tis nearly come, Maaster Roger. You defied and got vexed with they who would kip this from comin'; but 'tis comin' now!"

"What's coming now?"

"Trewinion's curse," she screamed.

"You hag," I cried, aroused into a passion. "You have ill-wished me."

"Ill-wished 'ee? No, I ain't, and that you do knaw. We can't ill-wish a eldest son; but the curse es comin', and that we could have kipt off."

"See there, see there!" she continued, pointing towards the great forbidding-looking rock, "do 'ee zee the light? I can!"

Again I saw the flickering light on the rock between the great prongs, and my flesh crept with fear.

"Ted'n too late, is it?" she said. "Come to th' ould plaace to-night at the same time, and we may do summin."

"Do you think I'm a fool?" I said. "You cannot gull me with your stories, for I know your tricks."

She laughed in my face, revealing gums that were toothless save for one yellow fang that rested on her lower lip.

"Oa, I remember it, Maaster Roger," she said. "Ould Debrah do knaw the curse. La me zee, how do it go?--

His power be given to another,
And he be crushed by younger brother,
Then his son, though born the first,
By the people shall be cursed;
And for generations three
Trewinion's heirs shall cursed be!

The old woman recited these lines glibly, as though they had been often on her lips, and she chuckled as she repeated them.

"Go home," I said, angrily, "and trouble me no longer with your ugly face."

"Iss! Iss! I'll go," she screamed; "but there'll be black days for you. Ah, yer brother'll be wise if you be'ant. Ah, a Trewinion disgraced, starvin', ruined!"

I turned savagely towards her, but old as she was she nimbly stepped out of my way, and pointed to the five-pronged rock.

"The light es gone, and Maaster Roger's hope es gone, unless he do come to Betsy Fraddam's cave at midnight, and there 'ee'll zee strange things."

"You'll suffer for this, Deborah," I said, almost beside myself.

"Zee where you're standin'," she screamed, "and think of what you zeed three years agone, when you went to see the passen."

I looked, and, to my horror, I remembered that long years before I had on this very spot seen a figure in white, which had disappeared on the edge of the cliff.

I was so astonished that for a minute I did not move, and when I recovered my senses Deborah had gone, although I thought I heard her croaking, mocking laugh a little distance away.

"The old woman is mad, Roger," said Ruth; "let us go home quickly."

I was nothing loth. I hurried on as though the furies were behind me, while Ruth was evidently as anxious as I to get indoors.

We had entered the old postern door, and were walking up the drive leading to the house, when a servant met me.

"Mr. Roger," he said, anxiously, "you must please come in at once."

"Why, is anything the matter?"

"Yes, your father has fallen off his horse and is badly hurt."

A great dread laid hold of me, but I hurried towards his room.