The Broad Highway - Jeffery Farnol (urban books to read .txt) 📗

back, by the hedge here, and—oh, Peter! your face was white and shining in the moonlight—and there was—blood upon it, and you looked like one that is—dead!” and she shivered.

“And you have brought me back to life,” said I, rising; but, being upon my feet, I staggered giddily, to hide which, I laughed, and leaned against a tree. “Indeed,” said I, “I am very much alive still, and monstrously hungry—you spoke of a rabbit, I think—”

“A rabbit!” said Charmian in a whisper, and as I met her eye I would have given much to have recalled that thoughtless speech.

“I—I think you did mention a rabbit,” said I, floundering deeper.

“So, then—you deceived me, you lay there and deceived me—with your eyes shut, and your ears open, taking advantage of my pity—”

“No, no—indeed, no—I thought myself still dreaming; it—it all seemed so unreal, so—so beyond all belief and possibility and—” I stopped, aghast at my crass folly, for, with a cry, she sprang to her feet, and hid her face in her hands, while I stood dumbfounded, like the fool I was. When she looked up, her eyes seemed to, scorch me.

“And I thought Mr. Vibart a man of honor—like a knight of his old-time romances, high and chivalrous—oh! I thought him a —gentleman!”

“Instead of which,” said I, speaking (as it were), despite myself, “instead of which, you find me only a blacksmith—a low, despicable fellow eager to take advantage of your unprotected womanhood.” She did not speak standing tall and straight, her head thrown back; wherefore, reading her scorn of me in her eyes, seeing the proud contempt of her mouth, a very demon seemed suddenly to possess me, for certainly the laugh that rang from my lip, proceeded from no volition of mine.

“And yet, madam,” my voice went on, “this despicable blacksmith fellow refused one hundred guineas for you to-day.”

“Peter!” she cried, and shrank away from me as if I had threatened to strike her.

“Ah!—you start at that—your proud lip trembles—do not fear, madam—the sum did not tempt him—though a large one.”

“Peter!” she cried again, and now there was a note of appeal in her voice.

“Indeed, madam, even so degraded a fellow as this blacksmith could not very well sell that which he does not possess—could he? And so the hundred guineas go a-begging, and you are still —unsold!” Long before I had done she had covered her face again, and, coming near, I saw the tears running out between her fingers and sparkling as they fell. And once again the devil within me laughed loud and harsh. But, while it still echoed, I had flung myself down at her feet.

“Charmian,” I cried, “forgive me—you will, you must!” and, kneeling before her, I strove to catch her gown, and kiss its hem, but she drew it close about her, and, turning, fled from me through the shadows.

Heedless of all else but that she was leaving me, I stumbled to my feet and followed. The trees seemed to beset me as I ran, and bushes to reach out arms to stay me, but I burst from them, running wildly, blunderingly, for she was going—Charmian was leaving me. And so, spent and panting, I reached the cottage, and met Charmian at the door. She was clad in the long cloak she had worn when she came, and the hood was drawn close about her face.

I stood panting in the doorway, barring her exit.

“Let me pass, Peter.”

“By God—no!” I cried, and, entering, closed the door, and leaned my back against it.

And, after we had stood thus awhile, each looking upon the other, I reached out my hands to her, and my hands were torn and bloody.

“Don’t go, Charmian,” I mumbled, “don’t go! Oh, Charmian—I’m hurt—I didn’t want you to know, but you mustn’t leave me—I am not—well; it is my head, I think. I met Black George, and he was too strong for me. I’m deaf, Charmian, and half blinded—oh, don’t leave me—I’m afraid, Charmian!” Her figure grew more blurred and indistinct, and I sank down upon my knees; but in the dimness I reached out and found her hands, and clasped them, and bowed my aching head upon them, and remained thus a great while, as it seemed to me.

And presently, through the mist, her voice reached me.

“Oh, Peter! I will not leave you—lean on me there—there!” And, little by little, those strong, gentle hands drew me up once more to light and life. And so she got me to a chair, and brought cool water, and washed the blood and sweat from me, as she had once before, only now my hurts were deeper, for my head grew beyond my strength to support, and hung upon my breast, and my brain throbbed with fire, and the mist was ever before my eyes.

“Are you in much pain, Peter?”

“My head—only my head, Charmian—there is a bell ringing there, no—it is a hammer, beating.” And indeed I remembered little for a while, save the touch of her hands and the soothing murmur of her voice, until I found she was kneeling beside me, feeding me with broth from a spoon. Wherefore I presently took the basin from her and emptied it at a gulp, and, finding myself greatly revived thereby, made some shift to eat of the supper she set before me.

So she presently came and sat beside me and ate also, watching me at each morsel.

“Your poor hands!” said she, and, looking down at them, I saw that my knuckles were torn and broken, and the fingers much swelled. “And yet,” said Charmian, “except for the cut in your head, you are quite unmarked, Peter.”

“He fought mostly for the body,” I answered, “and I managed to keep my face out of the way; but he caught me twice—once upon the chin, lightly, and once up behind the ear, heavily; had his fist landed fairly I don’t think even you could have brought me back from those loathly depths, Charmian.”

And in a while, supper being done, she brought my pipe, and filled it, and held the light for me. But my head throbbed woefully and for once the tobacco was flavorless; so I sighed, and laid the pipe by.

“Why, Peter!” said Charmian, regarding me with an anxious frown, “can’t you smoke?”

“Not just now, Charmian,” said I, and leaning my head in my hands, fell into a sort of coma, till, feeling her touch upon my shoulder, I started, and looked up.

“You must go to bed, Peter.”

“No,” said I.

“Yes, Peter.”

“Very well, Charmian, yes—I will go to bed,” and I rose.

“Do you feel better now, Peter?”

“Thank you, yes—much better.”

“Then why do you hold on to the chair?”

“I am still a little giddy—but it will pass.” And “Charmian —you forgive—”

“Yes—yes, don’t—don’t look at me like that, Peter—and—oh, good night!—foolish boy!”

“I am—twenty-five, Charmian!” But as she turned away I saw that there were tears in her eyes.

Dressed as I was, I lay down upon my bed, and, burying my head in the pillow, groaned, for my pain was very sore; indeed I was to feel the effects of George’s fist for many a day to come, and it seems to me now that much of the morbid imaginings, the nightly horrors, and black despair, that I endured in the time which immediately followed, was chiefly owing to that terrible blow upon the head.

CHAPTER XXI

OF THE OPENING OF THE DOOR, AND HOW CHARMIAN BLEW OUT THE LIGHT

He bestrode a powerful black charger, and his armor glittered through the green. And, as he rode beneath the leafy arches of the wood, he lifted up his voice, and sang, and the song was mournful, and of a plaintive seeming, and rang loud behind his visor-bars; therefore, as I sat beside the freshet, I hearkened to his song:

“For her love I carke, and care, For her love I droop, and dare, For her love my bliss is bare. And I wax wan!”

Forth he rode from the shadowy woodland, pacing very solemn and slow; and thrice he struck his iron hand upon his iron breast.

“For her love, in sleep I slake, For her love, all night I wake, For her love, I mourning make More than any man!”

Now, being come to where I sat beside the brook, he checked his horse, and gazed full long upon me, and his eyes shone from the gloom of his helmet.

“Messire,” quoth be; “how like you my song?”

“But little, sir—to be plain with you, not a whit,” I answered.

“And, beseech you—wherefore?”

“Because it is folly—away with it, for, if your head be full of such, how shall you achieve any lasting good—Glory, Learning, Power?” But, sighing, he shook his head; quoth he:

“O Blind One!—Glory is but a name, Learning but a yearning emptiness, and whither leadeth Ambition? Man is a mote dancing in a sun-ray—the world, a speck hanging in space. All things vanish and pass utterly away save only True-love, and that abideth everlastingly; ‘tis sweeter than Life, and stronger than Death, and reacheth up beyond the stars; and thus it is I pray you tell me—where is she?”

“She?”

“She whom ye love?”

“I love no woman,” said I.

“Liar!” cried he, in a terrible voice, and the voice was the voice of Black George.

“And who are you that says so?” I demanded, and stood upon my feet.

“Look—behold and know thyself, O Blind and more than blind!” And, leaning down, he raised his visor so that the moonlight fell upon his face, and the face I looked upon was my own; and, while I gazed, he lifted up his voice, and cried:

“Ye Spirits of the Wood, I charge ye—who is he that rideth in the green, dreaming ever of her beauty, and sighing forth his love everlastingly, Spirits of the Wood, I charge ye?”

And out of the gloom of the wood, from every rustling leaf and opening bud, came a little voice that rose and blended in a soft, hushed chorus, crying:

“Peter Vibart—Peter Vibart!”

“Spirits of the Wood, I charge ye—who is he that walketh to and fro in the world, and having eyes, seeth not, and ears, heareth not—a very Fool of Love?”

Once again the voices cried in answer:

“Peter Vibart!—Peter Vibart!”

“Spirits of the Wood, I charge ye—who is he that shall love with a love mightier than most—who shall suffer greatly for love and because of it—who shall think of it by day, and dream of it o’ nights—who is he that must die to find love and the fulness of life?—O Spirits of the Wood, I charge ye!”

And again from out the green came the soft, hushed chorus:

“Peter Vibart—Peter Vibart!”

But, even as I laughed, came one from the wood, with a horse and armor. And the armor he girded on me, and the horse I mounted. And there, in the moonlit glade, we fought, and strove together, my Other Self and I. And, sudden and strong he smote me, so that I fell down from my horse, and lay there dead,