Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (36 page)

“Come,” he said, sternly; and, turning on his heel, he began to walk forward through the grove, with Matcham limping in his rear.

For some time they continued to thread the forest in silence. It was now growing late; the sun was setting in the plain beyond Kettley; the tree-tops overhead glowed golden; but the shadows had begun to grow darker and the chill of the night to fall.

“If there were anything to eat!” cried Dick, suddenly, pausing as he spoke.

Matcham sat down and began to weep.

“Ye can weep for your own supper, but when it was to save men’s lives, your heart was hard enough,” said Dick, contemptuously. “Y’ ‘ave seven deaths upon your conscience, Master John; I’ll ne’er forgive you that.”

“Conscience!” cried Matcham, looking fiercely up. “Mine! And ye have the man’s red blood upon your dagger! And wherefore did ye slay him, the poor soul? He drew his arrow, but he let not fly; he held you in his hand, and spared you! ‘Tis as brave to kill a kitten, as a man that not defends himself.”

Dick was struck dumb.

“I slew him fair. I ran me in upon his bow,” he cried.

“It was a coward blow,” returned Matcham. “Y’are but a lout and bully, Master Dick; ye but abuse advantages; let there come a stronger, we will see you truckle at his boot! Ye care not for vengeance, neither — for your father’s death that goes unpaid, and his poor ghost that clamoureth for justice. But if there come but a poor creature in your hands that lacketh skill and strength, and would befriend you, down she shall go!”

Dick was too furious to observe that “she.”

“Marry!” he cried, “and here is news! Of any two the one will still be stronger. The better man throweth the worse, and the worse is well served. Ye deserve a belting, Master Matcham, for your ill-guidance and unthankfulness to meward; and what ye deserve ye shall have.”

And Dick, who, even in his angriest temper, still preserved the appearance of composure, began to unbuckle his belt.

“Here shall be your supper,” he said, grimly.

Matcham had stopped his tears; he was as white as a sheet, but he looked Dick steadily in the face, and never moved. Dick took a step, swinging the belt. Then he paused, embarrassed by the large eyes and the thin, weary face of his companion. His courage began to subside.

“Say ye were in the wrong, then,” he said, lamely.

“Nay,” said Matcham, “I was in the right. Come, cruel! I be lame; I be weary; I resist not; I ne’er did thee hurt; come, beat me — coward!”

Dick raised the belt at this last provocation; but Matcham winced and drew himself together with so cruel an apprehension, that his heart failed him yet again. The strap fell by his side, and he stood irresolute, feeling like a fool.

“A plague upon thee, shrew!” he said. “An ye be so feeble of hand, ye should keep the closer guard upon your tongue. But I’ll be hanged before I beat you!” and he put on his belt again. “Beat you I will not,” he continued; “but forgive you? — never. I knew ye not; ye were my master’s enemy; I lent you my horse; my dinner ye have eaten; y’ ‘ave called me a man o’ wood, a coward, and a bully. Nay, by the mass! the measure is filled, and runneth over. ‘Tis a great thing to be weak, I trow: ye can do your worst, yet shall none punish you; ye may steal a man’s weapons in the hour of need, yet may the man not take his own again; — y’are weak, forsooth! Nay, then, if one cometh charging at you with a lance, and crieth he is weak, ye must let him pierce your body through! Tut! fool words!”

“And yet ye beat me not,” returned Matcham.

“Let be,” said Dick — ”let be. I will instruct you. Y’ ‘ave been ill-nurtured, methinks, and yet ye have the makings of some good, and, beyond all question, saved me from the river. Nay, I had forgotten it; I am as thankless as thyself. But, come, let us on. An we be for Holywood this night, ay, or to-morrow early, we had best set forward speedily.”

But though Dick had talked himself back into his usual good-humour, Matcham had forgiven him nothing. His violence, the recollection of the forester whom he had slain — above all, the vision of the upraised belt, were things not easily to be forgotten.

“I will thank you, for the form’s sake,” said Matcham. “But, in sooth, good Master Shelton, I had liever find my way alone. Here is a wide wood; prithee, let each choose his path; I owe you a dinner and a lesson. Fare ye well!”

“Nay,” cried Dick, “if that be your tune, so be it, and a plague be with you!”

Each turned aside, and they began walking off severally, with no thought of the direction, intent solely on their quarrel. But Dick had not gone ten paces ere his name was called, and Matcham came running after.

“Dick,” he said, “it were unmannerly to part so coldly. Here is my hand, and my heart with it. For all that wherein you have so excellently served and helped me — not for the form, but from the heart, I thank you. Fare ye right well.”

“Well, lad,” returned Dick, taking the hand which was offered him, “good speed to you, if speed you may. But I misdoubt it shrewdly. Y’are too disputatious.”

So then they separated for the second time; and presently it was Dick who was running after Matcham.

“Here,” he said, “take my cross-bow; shalt not go unarmed.”

“A cross-bow!” said Matcham. “Nay, boy, I have neither the strength to bend nor yet the skill to aim with it. It were no help to me, good boy. But yet I thank you.”

The night had now fallen, and under the trees they could no longer read each other’s face.

“I will go some little way with you,” said Dick. “The night is dark. I would fain leave you on a path, at least. My mind misgiveth me, y’are likely to be lost.”

Without any more words, he began to walk forward, and the other once more followed him. The blackness grew thicker and thicker. Only here and there, in open places, they saw the sky, dotted with small stars. In the distance, the noise of the rout of the Lancastrian army still continued to be faintly audible; but with every step they left it farther in the rear.

At the end of half an hour of silent progress they came forth upon a broad patch of heathy open. It glimmered in the light of the stars, shaggy with fern and islanded with clumps of yew. And here they paused and looked upon each other.

“Y’are weary?” Dick said.

“Nay, I am so weary,” answered Matcham, “that methinks I could lie down and die.”

“I hear the chiding of a river,” returned Dick. “Let us go so far forth, for I am sore athirst.”

The ground sloped down gently; and, sure enough, in the bottom, they found a little murmuring river, running among willows. Here they threw themselves down together by the brink; and putting their mouths to the level of a starry pool, they drank their fill.

“Dick,” said Matcham, “it may not be. I can no more.”

“I saw a pit as we came down,” said Dick. “Let us lie down therein and sleep.”

“Nay, but with all my heart!” cried Matcham.

The pit was sandy and dry; a shock of brambles hung upon one hedge, and made a partial shelter; and there the two lads lay down, keeping close together for the sake of warmth, their quarrel all forgotten. And soon sleep fell upon them like a cloud, and under the dew and stars they rested peacefully.

CHAPTER VII

THE HOODED FACE

They awoke in the grey of the morning; the birds were not yet in full song, but twittered here and there among the woods; the sun was not yet up, but the eastern sky was barred with solemn colours. Half starved and over-weary as they were, they lay without moving, sunk in a delightful lassitude. And as they thus lay, the clang of a bell fell suddenly upon their ears.

“A bell!” said Dick, sitting up. “Can we be, then, so near to Holywood?”

A little after, the bell clanged again, but this time somewhat nearer hand; and from that time forth, and still drawing nearer and nearer, it continued to sound brokenly abroad in the silence of the morning.

“Nay, what should this betoken?” said Dick, who was now broad awake.

“It is some one walking,” returned Matcham, “and the bell tolleth ever as he moves.”

“I see that well,” said Dick. “But wherefore? What maketh he in Tunstall Woods? Jack,” he added, “laugh at me an ye will, but I like not the hollow sound of it.”

“Nay,” said Matcham, with a shiver, “it hath a doleful note. An the day were not come —  — ”

But just then the bell, quickening its pace, began to ring thick and hurried, and then it gave a single hammering jangle, and was silent for a space.

“It is as though the bearer had run for a paternoster while, and then leaped the river,” Dick observed.

“And now beginneth he again to pace soberly forward,” added Matcham.

“Nay,” returned Dick — ”nay, not so soberly, Jack. ‘Tis a man that walketh you right speedily. ‘Tis a man in some fear of his life, or about some hurried business. See ye not how swift the beating draweth near?”

“It is now close by,” said Matcham.

They were now on the edge of the pit; and as the pit itself was on a certain eminence, they commanded a view over the greater proportion of the clearing, up to the thick woods that closed it in.

The daylight, which was very clear and grey, showed them a riband of white foot-path wandering among the gorse. It passed some hundred yards from the pit, and ran the whole length of the clearing, east and west. By the line of its course, Dick judged it should lead more or less directly to the Moat House.

Upon this path, stepping forth from the margin of the wood, a white figure now appeared. It paused a little, and seemed to look about; and then, at a slow pace, and bent almost double, it began to draw near across the heath. At every step the bell clanked. Face, it had none; a white hood, not even pierced with eye-holes, veiled the head; and as the creature moved, it seemed to feel its way with the tapping of a stick. Fear fell upon the lads, as cold as death.

“A leper!” said Dick, hoarsely.

“His touch is death,” said Matcham. “Let us run.”

“Not so,” returned Dick. “See ye not? — he is stone blind. He guideth him with a staff. Let us lie still; the wind bloweth towards the path, and he will go by and hurt us not. Alas, poor soul, and we should rather pity him!”

“I will pity him when he is by,” replied Matcham.

The blind leper was now about half-way towards them, and just then the sun rose and shone full on his veiled face. He had been a tall man before he was bowed by his disgusting sickness, and even now he walked with a vigorous step. The dismal beating of his bell, the pattering of the stick, the eyeless screen before his countenance, and the knowledge that he was not only doomed to death and suffering, but shut out for ever from the touch of his fellow-men, filled the lads’ bosoms with dismay; and at every step that brought him nearer, their courage and strength seemed to desert them.

As he came about level with the pit, he paused, and turned his face full upon the lads.

“Mary be my shield! He sees us!” said Matcham, faintly.

“Hush!” whispered Dick. “He doth but hearken. He is blind, fool!”

The leper looked or listened, whichever he was really doing, for some seconds. Then he began to move on again, but presently paused once more, and again turned and seemed to gaze upon the lads. Even Dick became dead-white and closed his eyes, as if by the mere sight he might become infected. But soon the bell sounded, and this time, without any further hesitation, the leper crossed the remainder of the little heath and disappeared into the covert of the woods.

“He saw us,” said Matcham. “I could swear it!”

“Tut!” returned Dick, recovering some sparks of courage. “He but heard us. He was in fear, poor soul! An ye were blind, and walked in a perpetual night, ye would start yourself, if ever a twig rustled or a bird cried ‘Peep.’”

“Dick, good Dick, he saw us,” repeated Matcham. “When a man hearkeneth, he doth not as this man; he doth otherwise, Dick. This was seeing; it was not hearing. He means foully. Hark, else, if his bell be not stopped!”

Such was the case. The bell rang no longer.

“Nay,” said Dick, “I like not that. Nay,” he cried again, “I like that little. What may this betoken? Let us go, by the mass!”

“He hath gone east,” added Matcham. “Good Dick, let us go westward straight; I shall not breathe till I have my back turned upon that leper.”

“Jack, y’are too cowardly,” replied Dick. “We shall go fair for Holywood, or as fair, at least, as I can guide you, and that will be due north.”

They were afoot at once, passed the stream upon some stepping-stones, and began to mount on the other side, which was steeper, towards the margin of the wood. The ground became very uneven, full of knolls and hollows; trees grew scattered or in clumps; it became difficult to choose a path, and the lads somewhat wandered. They were weary, besides, with yesterday’s exertions and the lack of food, and they moved but heavily and dragged their feet among the sand.

Presently, coming to the top of a knoll, they were aware of the leper, some hundred feet in front of them, crossing the line of their march by a hollow. His bell was silent, his staff no longer tapped the ground, and he went before him with the swift and assured footsteps of a man who sees. Next moment he had disappeared into a little thicket.

The lads, at the first glimpse, had crouched behind a tuft of gorse; there they lay, horror-struck.

“Certain, he pursueth us,” said Dick — ”certain! He held the clapper of his bell in one hand, saw ye? that it should not sound. Now may the saints aid and guide us, for I have no strength to combat pestilence!”

“What maketh he?” cried Matcham. “What doth he want? Who ever heard the like, that a leper, out of mere malice, should pursue unfortunates? Hath he not his bell to that very end, that people may avoid him? Dick, there is below this something deeper.”

“Nay, I care not,” moaned Dick; “the strength is gone out of me; my legs are like water. The saints be mine assistance!”

“Would ye lie there idle?” cried Matcham. “Let us back into the open. We have the better chance; he cannot steal upon us unawares.”

“Not I,” said Dick. “My time is come, and peradventure he may pass us by.”