Chapter V: I Am Carried Away as a Specimen

The very rudeness of the creature nominated by Fate to be my warden gave me a feeling of confidence. Here was a shepherd’s dog ugly enough to frighten away the wolf himself, should he cross us in the shape of my master. I thrilled to have secured his promise, which, for all his boorishness, and perhaps because of it, I had faith in. The dark pit was already half bridged in my foolish young imagination, and I dreamed of alighting on the farther side--to what? Not, indeed, to the old melancholy life of the cottage near the Steine. For all my sad experience, I never entertained that prospect for one moment. I was but now in my eleventh year, yet some instinct informed me that the dead--amongst whom, surely, I must be written--should not return if they would avoid the mortification of home truths; that broken threads cannot be made one again, and leave no scar. Perhaps the spirit of vagabondage even had entered a little into my blood. In any case, it was the breezy security of my father’s, not my mother’s, protection to which I hurried in thought, with this reverent cur for escort.

As for him, accounting for his presence on the roof, he growled out to me once after this, in order to still my inquisitive importunity, while I still held the spectacles in pledge, that he had indeed taken the alarm that morning, with the rest of the family to whom he was spiritual director; but that, remembering his book left behind, he had insisted upon quitting the general flight and returning for it--with what awkward results for the steward had appeared, though, as a fact, I believe the poor man recovered later. Now, I was to understand, he had the intention, if he could make good his escape, to seek asylum, while the storm blew over, with a lady, a co-religionist and connection of his patrons, who lived distant a two days’ journey on foot. And so, having grudgingly informed me, he subsided into his unsavoury self, and would speak no more.

I did not much care, once being put in possession of the facts and the chances they afforded me. No one, it was evident, guessed at our retreat; and, for the rest, I was content to bide my time, and the opportunity I foresaw of impressing even this dull animal with a revelation of the pretty romance he had undertaken to squire.

Evening fell, and we were still sitting there. Not a footstep sounded in the house beneath us; not a voice but the birds’ came from the garden. Presently, emboldened by the quiet, I went softly climbing and investigating, finding the trap-door by way of which the chaplain had ascended, and peeping between the gables and over the roof ridges. So far as I could see, nothing human was stirring in all the placid demesne. The sundial on the lawn, the arbour in the corner, the brook embroidering the low trees, like a ribbon run through lace, were things inanimate in a painted picture. But there was something in their voiceless watchfulness that made me long to open the door, as it were, and run into the air. I was not born, like my mother, for cloisteral seclusions.

I was passing my companion once soft-footed, when he startled me by demanding, suddenly and savagely, “What’s your name?”

“Diana, please,” I answered, in a flutter.

“_Diana--Please!_” he protested crossly. “Fah! Diana Please don’t please”--and he subsided into himself again.

But he had christened me. I had gone lacking nothing but a name of my own hitherto and here was one given me, apt and pat. From that moment I became Diana Please.

The very sense of its possession made me forward.

“Aren’t we safe now?” I said, “or are you going to stop here all night?”

He looked up at me hurriedly, and, scowling, motioned me away from him. Then, without a word, he snatched his book, rose, and striding to the trap-door, began to descend. I followed him closely. The way led by a flight of steps in the walls to a cupboard under the main stairs where they rose from the hall. We emerged from darkness into a wide echoing twilight. For the first time the thought of my master secreted somewhere, watchful and waiting for me, sent my spirits reeling. I slunk against the wall.

“Where was it?” demanded my companion brusquely.

I stared at him. He stamped his foot, so that the noise resounded horribly through the empty house.

“The steward!” he cried. “Where did they leave him?”

“By the door,” I whispered, trembling--“out there.”

It was still ajar. He hurried to it, looked out, went out, returned after a minute or two, and slammed the oak thunderously.

“There are trails of blood down the steps. He has been removed, or has removed himself,” he said, and began immediately to ascend the stairs.

“O, where are you going?” I cried fearfully.

“To bed,” he snapped.

“To bed!”

I clung to his coat-tails. There was a sort of nightmare struggle between us, up as far as the first landing. There he rent himself away, and, leaving me sprawling, banged and locked himself into a room. I crouched on the mat outside, sobbing and imploring. “What am I to do? Where am I to go?”

He answered not a word to my pleading. Presently I heard him snoring, and--would you believe it?--the gross carnival of sound was heavenly music in my ears. In all that vast loneliness it was my only human stay and comfort. O, my Alcide! To think of thy Diane owing her reason to the grunting of a hog.

It was a terrible night. I dared not move--scarcely breathe. But fear and exhaustion at last overcame me, and I slept.

I awoke to sweet, soundless daylight. The look and smell of sunshine restored me in a moment to myself. I had not been disturbed. The house was utterly abandoned. I arose, resolved at once to put into effect the plan I had formed. A little memory of something I had noticed yesterday was urging me. I fled softly upstairs. Signs of the raid met me at every turn: broken crucifixes, torn vestments, scattered Hosts--up and down they lay, trodden into dirty rubbish by the swarming footsteps. There had been, I believe, no secular looting, unless, as was probable, by my master, who would be sure, on that account, to have withdrawn himself remote from consequences. I had nothing to fear from him. I looked for a room where I had seen some children’s clothes scattered, and finding it still undisturbed, quickly selected from among the litter the simplest outfit I could adapt in mind to my figure.

A common watch lay ticking on a table. I examined it--scarce five o’clock--lingered, hesitated, and left it where it was. I had not yet come to thieve, even had it been less bulky for my juvenile fob. Hastily I snatched soap and towels from a washing-stand, and holding the clothes so as not to soil them against my own, stole out. There was not water enough in all the house for my cleansing. My spirit rushed to the little river I had seen gleaming under the trees.

At the back of the hall I found a low window, unlatched it, and dropped into the garden. A light fog was spread abroad, which, dripping from the trees, alarmed me with a thought of unseen things moving near. But presently a bird piped close above my head, with a note of reassurance, and I slipped on and made my way stealthily towards the river until I heard it gurgling; and in a moment later I came upon it.

There, with only the wild things in the grass to scare my modesty, I made my bath. The ecstasy of it, as all that foul husk slipped off, and was carried from me down the stream! The joy to recover my near-forgotten self, the thing of pink and pearl, from its long mourning! The wonder, and the strangeness of that reincarnation to a maturer estate! I was not, like the Sleeping Beauty, to renew my old, but to awake to a newer self--a different from the Diana from whom I had departed nine months before. It seemed incredible; and still when I was washed as white as a lamb, I must sluice, and relather, and sluice again, to convince myself that no stain of my horrible livery remained. Then, at last, I came out, and dried and dressed myself hurriedly; and so, being secure, sat awhile on the bank to let my hair sun. It had never been but roughly clipped since that first cruel shearing, and now was down to my collar, thick and golden. I could see it in the water glass, when I bent over, reflected like a dim glory, and I nodded and laughed to the picture in my delight, and was only sorry presently to bind it about gipsy fashion with the silk handkerchief I had brought down with me for the purpose. But time was moving, and so must I be. I rose, and returned to the house.

I heard a shuffling on the stairs as I re-entered by the window, and in a moment, tripping lightly, came upon Father Pope descending. He had his great book under his arm, and he tiptoed with a sort of scared effort to hush the creaking of his tell-tale shoes. He gave a guilty start on seeing me standing smiling before him, and stumbled and caught himself erect by the banisters, frowning at me.

I did not speak. I stood dumbly to let him canvass the transformation; but the creature had no nerve of sentiment in all his dull anatomy.

“What do you want?” he said; “who are you?”

I could see he only fenced with the truth to recover himself. I dropped him a pretty little curtsey.

“Diana, please,” I said.

I was in trepidation that he would deny me, as I was convinced he had designed to give me the slip; and, though for policy’s sake I must propitiate him, I hated the creature for his treachery. But, despite his being a Jesuit, he was too crude a wit for the double part.

“Humph!” he growled. “I was wondering what had become of you,”--which, no doubt, was true enough.

He glowered at me dislikingly; then bidding me wait for him, stalked off into the gloom of passages, from which he presently re-emerged with a bagful of bread and biscuit ends which he had collected.

“I have no money,” he said. “You must manage with your share of these or nothing. If you look for better, it must be out of my company.”

“What does for you, will do for me, Father,” I said meekly; but nothing would disarm his churlishness.

“That’s a matter of opinion,” said he. “I could do very well without you, to begin with.”

I dropped my eyes.

“Now, then, bestir yourself,” he bullied. “If you’re to come at all, come before the world’s awake.”

He strode off, and I followed, through shuttered glooms, and along silent corridors to a distant part of the building, emerging from a door in which we found ourselves in a close shrubbery-walk going up towards woods. Very soon the comforting screen of trees was about us, and the peril of watchful enemies surpassed. We pushed on without rest or pause. My spirit and my feet danced together. It was all so free and fragrant, and the rapture of my new emancipation was like a second sight. Fays and sweet things seemed to melt before me round green corners, or overhead among the branches, leaving a scent of the unknown world in their footsteps. I sang low, I laughed to the birds, I seemed incapable of weariness. And, indeed, my late training served me in good stead, for this clerical Caliban had no mercy on my tender limbs. He desired only the least excuse to shake me off, and I would not gratify him with one.

All day he led me south by wood and common, avoiding the living places where men were like to be alert on the new Crusade. We hardly exchanged a word, as he swung on with the gait of a camel; but in the end it was he who succumbed first. The weight of his great folio crushed him--that is the truth. He called a halt in an unfrequented copse, and flung himself exhausted on the grass.

“Go, find yourself a lodging,” he said. “I will sleep here.”

I did not dare cross him. I crept away; but only so far as a low thorn tree, mounting into which I could easily hold him in view. But I need not have feared. The poor wretch was sunk in fatigue, and incapable of further effort. He had an odious night, I am sure, while I, from my late habits, slept as securely as in an arm-chair.

Early next morning we were afoot again. My companion, mouldy-cheeked and limping, greeted me with a scowl.

“What have I not suffered of humiliation as a priest,” he said, “to have thee breathing in the same wood!”

The world must have been an insufficient dormitory to this misogynist.

At noon, having wandered for hours through forest so green, so profound, that its deer-haunted vistas seemed the very byways to the infinite, we came out suddenly, when half faint with toil and hunger, upon the foot of a low hill, on whose summit was a queer octagonal stone tower, crowned with a dome like a pepper-box. My companion sputtered anathema upon seeing it, and stood stock still.

“What is it, Father?” I whispered, creeping up to him.

“We’ve overshot the mark, that’s all,” he growled, conceding a point to civility. “Here’s Shole beyond; and I aimed at no farther than Wellcot-Herring. Well, we must go over as the shortest way,” and he began to mount the slope.

I followed him, emboldened to ask, “What’s this we’re coming to?”

“Rupert’s Folly,” he answered viciously. “Old Lousy’s spy-house.”

“What’s he?” I asked.

He gave a rude laugh.

“He’s an itch on the skin of my lord that he can’t scratch away;” and, with these coarse, enigmatic words, he motioned me to fall behind.

The tower sprouted clean from the grass. Reaching and skirting it, I had occasion barely to notice a figure seated under a low door against its farther angle, before the liveliest prospect below engaged all my attention. The hill went down on this side into a wide valley, in the midst of whose trees and pastures, dominating a tiny village with forge and tavern, stood a great old house of grey stone. On the green before, as we could see, was a merry-making: sports, and dancing, and long tables spread, and a vast broaching of casks. And the villagers in their ribbons were all there, so that my eyes and my heart danced to see them.

But my companion stood looking down with a most venomous expression.

“Fah! A nest of heretics!” he muttered. “What golden calf are they met to worship?”

“The red herring’s spawn, good sir,” said the voice of the creature behind us. I turned and stared at him for the first time. He sat sucking at a long pipe at the open door of the tower--the filthiest little scrub you could imagine. His face was like old crumpled parchment, his crafty eyes floated in rheum, and he scratched a dusty tag of beard down upon his breast as he leered at us.

“What! Lousy John,” said the priest. “Is it our heir of all the Herrings come of age?”

“Ay,” said the old wretch. “Nephew Salted. You know him? Ay, ay. You should be the man Pope, of course, by your rudeness? Go down to your whore of Babylon, sir. She mingles with yonder company.”

“You’d have me into the range of your burning-glass, hey?” said the priest, with a snort between laughter and contempt.

The other smoked on unperturbed.

“All in good time, priest,” he said. “I’m not for anticipatin’ the devil. Is that his scriptures you’re a-carryin’ to propagate?”

My companion uttered a furious exclamation, and, hugging his book, shuffled out of range. Most like a woman, he could not bear to have his spiteful humour returned upon him.

I understood nothing of all this, of course, and was standing bewildered, when the old obscenity beckoned me.

“See,” he said, taking his pipe from his mouth and pointing with the scarlet tongue of it: “a beautiful landscape, ain’t it?”

“Yes,” I faltered.

“Ah!” said he. “I’ll tell you--just you, mind. I don’t take a-many into my confidence. It’s the beauty of pain, child; a local inflammation in the system.”

I murmured something, and he chuckled.

“They call this tower ‘Rupert’s Folly,’” he said privately; “and I laugh, settin’ up here in my shell. D’ye think they’d laugh too, if they guessed where the smut came from that blasted of their crops?”

“From you?” I whispered.

He bent over, and pointed upwards. For the first time I noticed that the muzzle of a telescope projected from the little dome on the roof. While I was gazing, I suddenly felt my wrist in the clutch of his apish claw.

“Hush!” he said. “It’s there I gathers my star-powder, and discharges it where I will. I’m Briareus, the last of the Uranids, left behind to rack the world to all eternity for its presumption.”

He let me go, squinting and nodding at me. I backed from him in horror. Nothing was plain to me but that here was one of those astrologic demons who delight to bring heaven close that they may measure our remoteness from it, and to cast away poor souls amidst the eternal silences. That he seemed to rave was nothing. Such inhumanity is in itself a madness.

“Ay,” he chuckled, hugging himself in a secret way, “you didn’t expect that, did you? You must be a god to lust in pain. Why, lord, child! the earth would be drab all over but for its galls and breakings. See where I’ve set a withered crop among the green; see where I’ve teased the soil to scarlet--a blazing core of fever. I know the World, the wanton. So long as she can cover her cancer with a ribbon, she’ll smile. By and by I shall set a spark to the west, and burn up the day’s rubbish. Look when the sun drops, and you’ll see it a little point of white, and afterwards a bonfire.”

I backed still farther.

“Lord!” he cried, doubling with laughter, “what headaches I’ve projected into their beer-barrels down there! What poison laid on the lasses’ lips! I shall have some fine incense of sufferin’ risin’ to me to-morrow! What, you’re goin’, are you? Down into the fire, hey? A pretty little faggot to mend its blazin’!” And he kneaded his hands rapturously between his knees.

I saw the priest had disappeared over the crest, and, half crying, pursued him. He turned on me angrily as I came up.

“Now,” said he, adjusting his spectacles to glare through them, “if that old carrion speaks truth, I come to an end with you.” He gripped my shoulder. “Hold your tongue, d’you hear? Not a word of us till we find out how the land lies.”

He dropped his hold, on a sudden thought, to my elbow, and, with a muttered menace, marched me down the hill.

At the bottom, in a little lane, with hedges to screen it from the view beyond, we came unexpectedly upon a lady gathering wild flowers. She started violently upon observing my companion, and dropped her nosegay. He accosted her, with a manner of gruff civility, and here it was somehow that, as they broke into talk of an urgent nature, we got separated.