“Don’t say that, Luke dear,” protested the girl, with a little apprehensive movement of her shoulders, and a tightened clasp of her hands round her knees. “I don’t like to think of that! ’Tis lonesome enough in this place, mid-day, without thinking of them ghost-stories.”
“Why do you say ghost-stories?” inquired Luke. “There’s nothing ghostly about that dirty old pond and there’s nothing ghostly about these hollow trees — not now, any way.”
“’Tis what you said about their listening, that seems ghostly-like to me,” replied the girl. “I am always like that, you know. Sometimes, down home, I gets a grip of the terrors from staring at old Mr. Pratty’s barn. ’Tis funny, isn’t it? I suppose I was born along of Christmas. They say children born then are wonderful ones for fancying things.”
Luke prodded the ground with his cane and looked at her in silence. Conscious of a certain admiration in his look, for the awkwardness of her pose only enhanced the magnetic charm of her person, she proceeded to remove her hat and lean her head with a wistful abandonment against the rough bark of the tree.
The clouds hung heavily over them, and it seemed that at any moment the rain might descend in torrents; but so far not a drop had fallen. Queer and mysterious emotions passed through Luke’s mind.
He felt in some odd way that he was at a turning-point in the tide of his existence. It almost seemed to him as though, silent and unmoving, under the roof of the little inn which he could see from where he sat, his brother was lying in the crisis of some dangerous fever. A movement, or gesture, or word, from himself might precipitate this crisis, in one direction or the other.
The girl crouched at his feet became to him, as he gazed at her, something more than a mere amorous acquaintance. She became a type, a symbol — an incarnation of the formidable writing of that Moving Finger, to which all flesh must bow. Her half-coquettish, half-serious apprehensions, about the ghostliness of the things that are always listening, as the human drama works itself out in their dumb presence, affected him in spite of himself. The village of Hullaway seemed at that moment to have disappeared into space, and he and his companion to be isolated and suspended — remote from all terrestial activities, and yet aware of some confused struggle between. invisible antagonists.
From the splashing ducks in the pond who, every now then, so ridiculously turned up their squat tails to the cloudy heavens, his eye wandered to the impenetrable expectancy of the stone path which bordered the muddy edge of the water. With the quick sense of one whose daily occupation was concerned with this particular stone, he began calculating how long that time-worn pavement had remained there, and how many generations of human feet, hurrying or loitering, had passed along it since it was first laid down. What actual men, he wondered, had brought it there, from its resting-place, æons-old in the distant hill, and laid it where it now lay, slab by slab?
From where he sat he could just observe, between a gap in the trees of the Manor-Farm garden, the extreme edge of that Leonian promontory. It seemed to him as though the hill were at that moment being swept by a storm of rain. He shivered a little at the idea of how such a sweeping storm, borne on a northern wind, would invade those bare trenches and unprotected escarpments. He felt glad that his brother had selected Hullaway rather than that particular spot for his angry retreat.
With a sense of relief he turned his eyes once more to the girl reclining below him in such a charming attitude.
How absurd it was, he thought, to let these vague superstitions overmaster him! Surely it was really an indication of cowardice, in the presence of a hypothetical Fate, to make such fantastic vows as that which he had recently made. It was all part of the atavistic survival in him of that unhappy “conscience,” which had done so much to darken the history of the tribes of men. It was like “touching wood” in honour of infernal deities! What was the use of being a philosopher — of being so deeply conscious of the illusive and subjective nature of all these scruples — if, at a crisis, one only fell back into such absurd morbidity? The vow he had registered in his mind an hour before, seemed to him now a piece of grotesque irrelevance — a lapse, a concession to weakness, a reversion to primitive inhibition. If it had been cowardice to make such a vow, it were a still greater cowardice to keep it.
He rose from his seat on the stocks, and began idly lifting up and down the heavy wooden bar which surmounted this queer old pillory. He finally left the thing open and gaping; its semi-circular cavities ready for any offender. Moved by a sudden impulse, the girl leant back still further against the tree, and whimsically raising one of her little feet, inserted it into the aperture. Amused at her companion’s interest in this levity, and actuated by a profound girlish instinct to ruffle the situation by some startling caprice, she had no sooner got one ankle into the cavity thus prepared for it, than with a sudden effort she placed the other by its side, and coyly straightening her skirts with her hands, looked up smiling into Luke’s face.
Thus challenged, as it were, by this wilful little would-be malefactor, Luke was mechanically compelled to complete her imprisonment. With a sudden vicious snap he let down the enclosing bar.
She was now completely powerless; for the most drastic laws of balance made it quite impossible that she could release herself. It thus became inevitable that he should slip down on the ground by her side, and begin teasing her, indulging himself in sundry innocent caresses which her helpless position made it difficult to resist.
It was not long, however, before Phyllis, fearful of the appearance upon the scene of some of Hullaway’s inhabitants, implored him to release her.
Luke rose and with his hand upon the bar contemplated smilingly his fair prisoner.
“Please be quick!” the girl cried impatiently. “I’m getting so stiff.”
“Shall I, or shan’t I?” said Luke provokingly.
The corner of the girl’s mouth fell and her under-lip quivered. It only needed a moment’s further delay to reduce her to tears.
At that moment two interruptions occurred simultaneously. From the door or the King’s Arms emerged the landlord, and began making vehement signals to Luke; while from the corner of the road to Nevilton appeared the figures of two young ladies, walking briskly towards them, absorbed in earnest conversation. These simultaneous events were observed in varying ratio by the captive and her captor. Luke was vaguely conscious of the two ladies and profoundly agitated by the appearance of the landlord. Phyllis was vaguely conscious of the landlord and was profoundly agitated by the appearance of the ladies. The young stone-carver gave a quick thoughtless jerk to the bar; and without waiting to see the result, rushed off towards the inn. The heavy block of wood, impelled by the impetus he had given it, swung upwards, until it almost reached the perpendicular. Then it descended with a crash. The girl had just time to withdraw one of her ankles. The other was imprisoned as hopelessly as before.
Phyllis was overwhelmed with shame and embarrassment. She had in a moment recognized Gladys, and she felt as those Apocalyptic unfortunates in Holy Scripture are reported as feeling when they call upon the hills to cover them.
It had happened that Ralph Dangelis had been compelled to pay a flying visit to London on business connected with his proposed marriage. The two cousins, preoccupied, each of them, with their separate anxieties, had wandered thus far from home to escape the teasing fussiness of Mrs. Romer, who with her preparations for the double wedding gave neither of them any peace.
They approached quite near to the group of elms before either of them observed the unfortunate Phyllis.