now were the threads of three lives to be tangled by fate upon the vast bosom of cater's beam; and here, within the secret morasses beneath that great hill, walked maurice malherb under the dawn and tempest. he ranged with the thunderbolt, for the storm had called him from his bed; the elemental chaos echoed his own heart and drew him forth into it.
he suffered such misery as only men built in his great, futile pattern are called to suffer. the calculating and responsible find themselves in no such sea of troubles; for their flotillas hold inshore; their sapient eyes ever scan the weather of life, and their ready hands trim sail to it. but this faulty fool with his mad temper and sanguine trust in self, had listened to none, marked no sign, heeded no warning. he had played the greatest game that he knew, in hope that an unborn babe might some day bless his name and perpetuate it. he had staked all and lost all. his daughter was driven from him; his wife, in the agony of her bereavement, had shed bitter tears, and, for the first time in her life, lifted up her voice against his judgment. his plans had miscarried; his money was nearly all lost. he stood under the storm bankrupt of everything that he had worked for and hoped for. he felt naked when he thought of his life, now stripped so bare; for every interest was torn out of it, and, as a tree robbed of leaves, it threatened to perish. present tribulations thundered on his heart as the storm upon his ears. his soul felt deafened and bewildered; therefore he ran for shelter into the past. time rolled back for him and he saw the tortuous journey of his days stretching into childhood. the vernal, sweet delights of youth appeared again, and he remembered old forgotten springtimes—birds' eggs—minnows—his first pony—the scent of the new-mown hay. then his own disposition developed and darkened the hour. puberty was past; freedom became his and he abused it. manhood plunged him into gloomy and sombre avenues of years, lighted only by the flashing flame-points of his own temper. he marked how ungoverned wrath had at last grown ungovernable, and had risen, time out of mind, like a demon, between him and wisdom; how his own action had ceaselessly turned him out of the proper road, had clouded justice and threatened honour. he clung to honour as a drowning man to a straw. he fought the cruel white light of truth and strove to shut his eyes to it; for soaked in that blinding ray, honour stood no longer undefiled. a canker grew there; a blot dimmed it; and the spectacle, shattering self-respect, hurt him worse than loss of friends and fortune and his only child. cowardice and high honour could not chime together; and light showed him that the canker-growth spelt cowardice. he had outraged the freedom of his daughter; he had used force against her liberty; he had denied her sacred rights in the disposal of her own life and body.
before this thought he came to his better self through his worst. he called down a curse on the forces that played with his convictions; he damned the inner voice of reason that showed him what he had deemed duty was an interested crime. standing beneath the storm he put bitter facts behind him for vain phantoms, and maligned the awful ray of truth. then, moody and sick in spirit, he leapt suddenly to sweeter and cleaner thinking. some phase of mind, some physical conjunction, or some psychic crisis pervious to the influence of nature, lifted him, as often happened, into great longing for the better part. the dawn showed him what no dawn had ever yet revealed. he turned to the east and prayed to it.
"before heaven i mourn for what i am! i see myself cursed—self-cursed. oh, god, give me back my child again, and i will be a wiser man! only my child—only my grace. i humble myself. punish me, great god, but not by taking her—my only one. i repent; i will mend my life if i may but have my child again."
the sun, struggling above wild new-born day and dying tempest, answered his petition with shafts of flame, and wrapped that desolate wilderness in a mingled splendour of mist and fire. the pageant of the sky uttered a music proper to the man's sore spirit, and unrolled with solemn glory. heaven glowed and burnt, or frowned and shuddered in black precipices of storm-cloud that sank upon the west. into the deep senses of the watcher these things penetrated graciously. they touched the ragged wounds of his heart and helped to heal them, while a harmony, as of music, fell upon his helpless, hopeless soul. all the wonder of the sky filled malherb's dark eyes as he lifted them; but a light greater than the sky or any inspiration born of day shone out. upon the verge of apocalypse he stood; yet gulfs unseen separated him from it. his days were not accomplished; his darkest hour was not yet come.
now, where a rock rose at a point not far distant, there appeared lovey lee. she stood like some night-spirit, surprised by dawn, blinking and disarmed in the unfamiliar sunshine. for a moment she hesitated at the sight of malherb; then approached him, conscious of her complete power. this man, and perhaps only this man in the world, was impotent against her. not a finger could he lift. harm done to her must bring far worse upon himself. her wits planned a cunning lie and she advanced to utter it.
"you'm stirring early, maurice malherb. 'tis strange that you an' me should both choose to walk this here ill-wisht heath all rotten wi' bog and water."
"i came to seek peace—not you. i ask you to quit my sight without more words. there is no anger in me now."
"'peace'! do 'e find peace in your own company? i'll swear you never have, nor never will. no peace for the likes of you till you be dead. come, let's talk secrets—shall us? i've got things you'd dearly like to hear about."
"leave me," he said. "i've done with cursing and swearing. there is much upon my mind. i will not be angry with you. my daughter is lost."
"they say you drove her away with a whip."
"they lie! 'twas her own damnable folly that drove her away."
"maybe you lie too, to say it. you've held me in such contempt and scorn—you've treated me so vile—that it's good, even at a time like this, to make you bleed a bit. an' i'm going to now. you shall cringe yet, though i have got the gallows hanging over me; you shall grovel yet, though i do stand an outlawed, doomed woman for helping them at the prison. i'll crack your heart first; then i'll ax you to save me from the soldiers. and yet i doubt if t'other ban't a more solid man to trust—norcot i mean. anyway, he's a wiser one, and can pay better, too."
"do you dare to mean that you know where grace malherb is hidden?"
"ah! that wakes you up—you that have done wi' cursing an' swearing—you that stole my grazing rights and called me 'hag' and 'miser'! i've got your fortune in my hand still, for all your bluster and great oaths. and i've got your daughter, too! now you can listen—eh? now i don't worrit you no more? yes, i've got her hard an' fast, wi' cords biting at her wrists an' ankles like poisonous snakes—she said it felt so. i told you i'd wreck your stupid, brawling fool's life; an' i have. you owe every pang you suffer to yourself—then to me; every curse you utter hops back to roost on your own head—so grey it grows with their droppings! my work—all mine! now howl an' roar—i want to hear you!"
the man preserved an astounding self-control before lovey's confession.
"this is what her grandson tried to tell me yesterday, and i would not listen," he said aloud.
"ah!—you was ever a poor listener. more poison for 'e! he was your nephew—jack lee—the son of your younger brother, an' so like him as peas in a pod! he knowed, but you wouldn't heed him. but you always heed me, malherb—doan't 'e?"
still he spoke no angry word, though his great chest rose and his face grew dark.
"if you tell me the truth—that my daughter is alive and in your keeping—that is well. much has happened since she went away. if she knew, she would be glad to come back to me. i—i am not faultless—i have erred. my eyes are opened. give me back my daughter, woman—i will reward you."
"'give' her back! when was i ever knowed to give aught to anybody? that's your own fool's way—give—give—give. i might sell her; but you've not enough money to buy her. i'd rather kill her by inches under your nose an' see you wriggle an' rave till them black veins on your brow burst!"
his passion began to beat up strong and tempestuous under her lash. the spiritual dawn-light was still-born. storm awoke in his soul before this infernal provocation and the sea of his mind fell into its accustomed waves before the wind of wrath. he forgot the danger of passion now; he did not appreciate the importance of self-control. his voice rose to the familiar roar and he clutched his riding-stock.
"what a loathsome reptile can a woman be! no man would descend to such filthy degradation. to treat you like a fellow-creature is vain; you are a beast, and must feel like a beast, and understand like a beast. force at least you recognise; then see force here figured in me! disobey at your peril, for i'll not stand upon words with you again. get before me to my daughter! instantly lead the way. deny me, and i'll destroy you and rid the world of a venomous fury who has lived too long."
she did not guess that he intended actual and instant violence, but supposed he threatened to give her up to the authorities.
"lies—lies!" she answered, mocking him. "you kill me? i know better. you're not mad every way. do your own errands—i spit at you! i wasn't born to obey a fool. the hills and rivers laugh to see you dance an' blow, as if you'd got poison in your vitals. never—never again shall you see her; never, not for millions! to give me up! bah! how's that going to help? an' i'd laugh to think of her starving alongside fifteen thousand pounds. how black you get! why don't you use that great horn handle you're waving about like a lunatic? come, there's only white hair on my head, an' little of that. smash my skull in! and then? kill me. ha, ha!——"
for the first time in her life, lovey lee mistook the nature of a man. that there was a sort of anger capable of rising high above its own interest her own cautious nature could not guess. she saw that the whole of malherb's earthly desires were in her hand; and that he, who also realised this, would, with one mad stroke, rob himself of his last hope, she never imagined even as a possibility. had he kept his reason, she had never succeeded in goading him to this murder pitch; but now he grew insane, and the woman paid forfeit.
she intended to show him the folly of threats. but the words were never uttered; her laugh was not finished. beside himself, the master leapt forward; his whip shrieked across the air, and the massive handle dropped like a hammer on the miser's crown. to her knees she came, without a sound; next she fell prone before him. her legs and arms shot forth convulsively twice; a patch of blood swelled on her sun-bonnet, then soaked through and ran. one groan came with it and only one. after that she was still, and malherb knew she was dead.
he turned away and lifted his eyes and saw the golden reefs and rosy cloud-islands of that wonderful dawn. still the pomp and glory of sunrise filled the sky, for only minutes had passed since he stared upwards and prayed and uttered premises. he marvelled that so much could happen in such a brief compass of time. he mused of this experience and of his former hatred of a psalmist's curse. he had rebelled against that awful petition as being the demon's plea, beyond a good god's power to grant. yet the thing had happened to himself in this hour: his prayer was turned into sin.
and then he hid himself within the hollow and lonely antres of the land. from dawn till dusk he tramped the desert beyond man's sight, and called on darkness to inspire him. once without set purpose, he returned within sight of the spot where lovey lee had fallen. she lay there just as he had struck her down; and there she would lie until the carrion crows scattered her bones. his crime was safe enough from discovery unless it pleased him to reveal it. the deed he gradually grasped; its consequence still evaded his mind; but as he worked backwards in thought he came to grace. then he stood still before the vision of her perchance perishing of starvation. he was doubly a murderer; and, to escape that awful imputation, he told himself that the dead woman had lied to torture him; that her tales concerning his amphora were as untrue as the things that she had asserted concerning his child. he strove to find comfort in the thought that her life had stood forfeit to the state; then sophistry faded from him and a man, at best but little versed in the force of speech, stood dumb before a terrific truth. murder overtook him and stuck to his side like a ponderable, shadow-casting shape. far away he knew that foxes were creeping at the dim edge of dusk and barking of what they had found. first an aversion from any thought of a human face crowded upon him; then as the stars began to shine, he found himself craving hungrily for the companionship of man. he sat and rested for a while; he drank and watched a young moon in a green sky. the heath rolled here in deep billows, unfretted by stock or stone. as it held unshed waters, so it could suck up darkness; and already detail was dying out of it ere twilight fell. he rose and walked onwards, careless of direction, into a chaos of marsh and broken peat hillocks. his mind worked quicker while his body moved; it stagnated into a slough of sheer blood when he sat still. deep longing to see a fellow-creature held him; and suddenly, though he was got beyond the power of astonishment, a thing astonishing happened, and he found another man. it was improbable that two human beings had met in this shunned spot for years; perhaps no foot of man had trodden it since some storm-lost miner wandered that way when elizabeth was queen.
here now malherb chanced upon one who sat motionless on a bank with his feet in the mire. he turned as the other approached, but showed no interest at sight of him.
"what lonely soul art thou?" cried malherb; and as he spoke he remembered that for the first time in his life he heard a murderer's voice.
the figure revealed a strange countenance, made stranger still by suffering.
"no man me—just a skinful of hell-fire burning itself out! get gone, for i poison the air around me. i never want ter see no human more."
the speaker's awful despair had power to arrest one, himself despairing. malherb came nearer, and sought confidence. his crime had shaken his nature and unsettled the tenour of his disposition as a drug unsettles human organs. now he thirsted to talk.
"you can rail so loud and confess so much! and yet here i stand; and to my misery yours, be it what it may, is the short grief of a child to a man's abiding woe."
"lordy, what big words! you to prattle about trouble, stranger—ter me—ter me—a man who's touched bottom deeper than any man since judas hanged himself. away you and sorrow that can bear speech! leave me ter burn."
an opal light from the west was in the speaker's eyes, and they glittered green. their dreadful expression held malherb, for agony far beyond the fear of death looked out of them. the sufferer's head was bare and nearly bald; his face was hatchet-shaped and narrow; the yellow skin seemed drawn to bursting over his high cheek-bones; and upon his chin was a fan-shaped and grizzled beard.
"i perceive you are an american—a lonely wretch who might carry all his cursed country's crimes and sorrows on his own forehead. yet what are national troubles to a man's own? you sit gazing and glaring. what then have you done that makes such a night of life for you?"
"a thing satan's self never did—a thing as would heat hell again if 'twere cold—a thing not yet writ against any starving ragtail on god's earth. past hope—past praying for. and it seemed nought until it were done; but after—it's brought me ter this. tell me, you who talk as if you knew big trouble, why did it seem nought till afterwards?"
"what have you done?"
"it seemed nought till afterwards, i tell you. then it grew up into a mountain. the fallen angels will be took back ter heaven sooner than me. prayer's vain beyond a certain pass. has life showed you that?"
"it has. yet what is there in your torture that can make me unbosom mine?"
"because 'tis the first longing that comes after crimes—to tell 'em," said the american. "so you've prayed too?" he added.
"'prayed'? yes, i've prayed hard and earnestly. i've frightened my horse by night as i suddenly challenged my god. i have dismounted and fallen upon my knees by lonely roads and secret places. i've bruised my soul and cried aloud to the almighty and bade him touch my fiend's temper and give me a clean heart."
"never had no truck with heaven myself. kinder knew i'd have no use for it."
"heaven—heaven—you talk of heaven! another heart—a humble heart was all the heaven i wanted. to be at peace with myself—to learn patience: that was my unanswered prayer. and now the deed i have done has made me mad. mad must i be, since i can talk of it to you. yet 'tis to the thing looking out of you—not to you—i speak."
david leverett stared into the dark face above him, and his starved, hollow countenance grew hard.
"what a trumpet! ter bleat because you've got a nasty temper! what full-grown baby are you, that thinks god's its nurse, and cries becuz it's lost him! look at me! like the rest of men, you've lived ter find your puny misery capped by worse. but look at me! christ's sweat! you're an angel of light beside of me! a short temper——"
"that has driven me into murder."
"murder—what's that? david was a murderer. so was scores that have marble stuck up to 'em all over the earth. 'tis worse ter bring life inter the world than put it out. have you never larned that much? you make a man in a moment of passion, and set another puppet strutting ter suffer life. and you mar a man in a passion, and—well, journey's end is no evil; death's no evil ter them that die. there's thousands of men this day as would tear me to pieces, limb by limb, and reckon they did heaven and hell both a service. and so they would. curse the man as got me; curse the woman as bore me; not him who would kill me."
"all this is nothing; you are only mad," said malherb.
"nothing at all! see here now—this great bag of leather. i've dragged it thus far—further i won't. that is what i'm damned for; that is why hell's gathering up heat for me."
he dragged out a big knife; opened it with his teeth; then fell upon the bag and slashed the leather. a flash answered every stroke, and gold coin tumbled and twinkled and fell in a shower upon the ground.
"murder—if i could murder that; if i could cut the throat of what that bag means! but i can't—so i'll cut my own. it seemed nought in the planning and promising—nought till after i'd done it and felt the weight of the money here—here."
he beat at his chest.
"murder—killing kittens! i've murdered a whole country—murdered america! for this filth here mixing with the mire—for this and for liberty! whoever you are, help me ter curse liberty! the name of a thing that is not. judas only betrayed one man. a little matter that, come to think on it. i betrayed my own flesh and blood—them that had wives and children yonder, and old, fond mothers. sold the whole of 'em—every blessed monkey of 'em; played god and fate—for two hundred pound—and liberty!
"i sold men who had shared their all with me—who had spared the coats off their backs when i was sick, the food for their stomachs when i was hungry. they trusted me with their secrets. i was a sailor—i'd had a hand shot away for my country. god tell why my head wasn't shot away! and first i betrayed my own true friends and hoarded the money, and felt no smart from that. and next i sneaked upon a nation. they took me along with the rest and put me in the cachot, that none might guess and turn and kill me. then, when night came, they thrust me out—me and my money and my liberty! and out of the thunder came what i suffer now. tell me why i didn't see the punishment sooner and escape it? tell me why the money looked different till 'twas mine? and tell me what's left for me?"
"there's death for you and for me," said malherb.
"that's the same as hell. just judge! then take my knife. you that fear ter let blood—let more. you was sent ter do it. then you'll be forgiven, and your durned tender conscience will prune its feathers and pipe up again. kill me. let me get the worst of hell over; for thoughts of things are worse than any things themselves can be. i hoped the lightning would do it; but 'twouldn't foul its blade with me. i thought a great red-eyed bull would do it, and stood in his path; but he knew, and turned out of the road; he wouldn't red his horn with me."
"you see yourself," said malherb solemnly, "even as i see myself—too late. you are the second who has asked me to kill them since the sun rose. the first i took at her word, and she is dead."
"a woman! one less to breed men."
"there may be repentance for you, if you can endure life till memory grows blunt. for me there can be nothing but increasing horror at my crime. nothing can save me now."
"i reckon we have done the worse that was in our nature ter do," said the american. "that's nought—so have many and slept no worse. the scourge is that we've been made ter feel it."
"you are right; we feel; therefore we suffer. farewell," answered maurice malherb.
leverett did not reply, and the other passed out of his sight. one man plunged onward, never resting, never halting; one sat like a stone with his chin resting on his palm and his handless arm hanging beside him. the light of the stars was reflected on the knife at his feet; and presently a glitter caught his eye; whereupon he stooped and picked up the blade.
