WANDERING LIGHTS.

No sooner was Mr. Jordan left alone than his face became ghastly, and his eyes were fixed with terror, as though he saw before him some object of infinite horror. He put his quivering thin hands on the elbows of his armchair and let himself slide to his knees, then he raised his hollow eyes to heaven, and clasped his hands and wrung them; his lips moved, but no vocal prayers issued from them. He lifted his hands above his head, uttered a cry and fell forward on his face upon the oak floor. Near his hand was his stick with which he rapped against the wall or on the floor when he needed assistance. He laid hold of this, and tried to raise himself, but faintness came over him, and he fell again and lost all consciousness.

When he recovered sufficiently to see what and who were about him, he found that he had been lifted on to his bed by Jasper and Barbara, and that Jane was in the room. His motion with his hands, his strain to raise himself, had disturbed the bandages and reopened his wound, which was again bleeding, and indeed had soaked through his clothes and stained the floor.

He said nothing, but his eyes watched and followed Jasper with a mixture of hatred and fear in them.

‘He irritates me,’ he whispered to his daughter; ‘send him out. I cannot endure to see him.’

Then Barbara made an excuse for dismissing Jasper.

When he was gone, Mr. Jordan’s anxiety instead of being allayed was increased. He touched his daughter, and drew her ear to him, and whispered, ‘Where is he now? What is he doing?’

‘I do not know, papa. He is probably in his room.’

‘Go and see.’

‘Papa dear, I cannot do that. Do you want him?’

‘Do I want him? No, Barbara, but I do not choose that he shall escape. Go and look if there is a light in his window.’

She was about to send Jane, when her father impatiently insisted on her going herself. Wondering at his caprice she obeyed.

No sooner was the door closed behind her, than the old man signed Jane Welsh to come near him.

‘Jane,’ he said in a whisper, ‘I want you to do something for me. No one must know about it. You have a sweetheart, I’ve heard, the policeman, Joseph Woodman, at Tavistock.’

The girl pulled at the ends of her apron, and looking down, said, ‘Lawk! How folks do talk!’

‘Is it true, Jane?’

‘Well, sir, I won’t deny us have been keeping company, and on Sunday went to a love-feast together.’

‘That is well,’ said Mr. Jordan earnestly, with his wild eyes gleaming. ‘Quick, before my daughter comes. Stand nearer. No one must hear. Would you do Joseph a good turn and get him a sergeantry?’

‘O please, sir!’

‘Then run as fast as you can to Tavistock.’

‘Please, sir, I durstn’t. It be night and it’s whisht[2] over the moor.’

‘Then leave it, and I will send someone else, and you will lose your lover.’

‘What do you want me to do, sir? I wouldn’t have that neither.’

‘Then run to Tavistock, and tell Joseph Woodman to communicate at once with the warder of the Prince’s Town jail, and bid him bring sufficient men with him, and come here, and I will deliver into their hands a runaway convict, a man who broke out of jail not long ago.’

‘Please, sir, where is he? Lawk, sir! What if he were on the moor as I went over it?’

‘Never mind where he is. I will produce him at the right moment. Above all—Jane—remember this, not a word of what I have said to Mr. Jasper or to Miss Barbara. Go secretly, and go at once. Hush! Here she comes.’

Barbara entered. ‘A light is in his window,’ she said. Then her father laughed, and shut his hands.

‘So,’ he muttered, ‘so I shall snap him.

When her father was composed, and seemed inclined to sleep, Barbara left his room, and went out of the house. She needed to be by herself. Her bosom heaved. She had so much to think of, so many troubles had come upon her, the future was dark, the present uncertain.

If she were in the house she would not be able to enjoy that quiet for which she craved, in which to compose the tumult of her heart, and arrange her ideas. There she was sure to be disturbed: a maid would ask for a duster, or another bunch of candles; the cook would send to announce that the chimney of the kitchen was out of order, the soot or mortar was falling down it; the laundrymaid would ask for soap; Eve would want to be amused. Every other minute she would have some distracting though trifling matter forced on her. She must be alone. Her heart yearned for it. She would not go to the Rock, the association with it was painful. It was other with the moor, Morwell Down, open to every air, without a tree behind which an imp might lurk and hoot and make mows.

Accordingly, without saying a word to anyone, Barbara stole along the lane to the moor.

That was a sweet summer night. The moon was not yet risen, the stars were in the sky, not many, for the heaven was not dark, but suffused with lost sunlight. To the east lay the range of Dartmoor mountains, rugged and grey; to the west, peaked and black against silver, the Cornish tors. But all these heights on this night were scintillating with golden moving spots of fire. The time had come for what is locally called ‘swaling,’ that is, firing the whinbrakes. In places half a hill side was flaked with red flame, then it flared yellow, then died away. Clouds of smoke, tinged with fire reflection from below, rolled away before the wind. When the conflagration reached a dense and tall tree-like mass of gorse the flame rose in a column, or wavered like a golden tongue. Then, when the material was exhausted and no contiguous brake continued the fire, the conflagration ended, and left only a patch of dull glowing scarlet ember.

Barbara leaned against the last stone hedge which divided moor from field, and looked at the moving lights without thinking of the beauty and wildness of the spectacle. She was steeped in her own thoughts, and was never at any time keenly alive to the beautiful and the fantastic.

She thought of Jasper. She had lost all faith in him. He was false and deceitful. What could she believe about that meeting on the Raven Rock? He might have convinced her father that he was not there. He could not convince her. What was to be done? Would her father betray the man? He was ill now and could do nothing. Why was Jasper so obstinate as to refuse to leave? Why? Because he was infatuated with Eve.

On that very down it was that Jasper had been thrown and nearly killed. If only he had been killed outright. Why had she nursed him so carefully? Far better to have left him on the moor to die. How dare he aspire to Eve? The touch of his hand carried a taint. Her brain was dark, yet, like that landscape, full of wandering sparks of fire. She could not think clearly. She could not feel composedly. Those moving, wavering fires, now rushing up in sheaves of flame, now falling into a sullen glow burnt on the sides of solid mountains, but her fiery thoughts, that sent a blaze into her cheek and eye, and then died into a slow heat, moved over tossing billows of emotion. She put her hand to her head as if by grasping it she could bring her thoughts to a standstill; she pressed her hands against her bosom, as if by so doing she could fix her emotions. The stars in the serene sky burned steadily, ever of one brightness. Below, these wandering fires flared, glowed, and went out. Was it not a picture of the contrast between life on earth and life in the settled celestial habitations? Barbara was not a girl with much fancy, but some such a thought came into her mind, and might have taken form had not she at the moment seen a dark figure issue from the lane.

‘Who goes there?’ she called imperiously.

The figure stopped, and after a moment answered: ‘Oh, Miss! you have a-given me a turn. It be me, Jane.’

‘And pray,’ said Barbara, ‘what brings you here at night? Whither are you going?’

The girl hesitated, and groped in her mind for an excuse. Then she said: ‘I want, miss, to go to Tavistock.’

‘To Tavistock! It is too late. Go home to bed.’

‘I must go, Miss Barbara. I’m sure I don’t want to. I’m scared of my life, but the master have sent me, and what can I do? He’ve a-told me to go to Joseph Woodman.’

‘It is impossible, at this time. It must not be.’

‘But, Miss, I promised I’d go, and sure enough I don’t half like it, over those downs at night, and nobody knows what one may meet. I wouldn’t be caught by the Whish Hounds and Black Copplestone, not for’—the girl’s imagination was limited, so she concluded, ‘well, Miss, not for nothing.’

Barbara considered a moment, and then said, ‘I have no fear. I will accompany you over the Down, till you come to habitations. I am not afraid of returning alone.’

‘Thank you, Miss Barbara, you be wonderfully good.’

The girl was, indeed, very grateful for her company. She had had her nerves sorely shaken by the encounter with Watt, and now in the fulness of her thankfulness she confided to her mistress all that Mr. Jordan had said, concluding with her opinion that probably ‘It was naught but a fancy of the Squire; he do have fancies at times. Howsomever, us must humour ‘m.’

Jasper also had gone forth. In his breast also was trouble, and a sharp pain, that had come with a spasm when Barbara told him how she hated him.

But Jasper did not go to Morwell Down. He went towards the Raven Rock that lay on the farther side of the house. He also desired to be alone and under the calm sky. He was stifled by the air of a house, depressed by the ceiling.

The words of Barbara had wounded him rather than stung him. She had not only told him that she hated him, but had given the best proof of her sincerity by betraying him. Suspecting him of carrying on an unworthy intrigue with Eve, she had sacrificed him to save her sister. He could not blame her, her first duty was towards Eve. One comfort he had that, though Barbara had betrayed him, she did not seek his punishment, she sought only his banishment from Morwell.

Once—just once—he had half opened her heart, looked in, and fancied he had discovered a tender regard for him lurking in its bottom. Since then Barbara had sought every opportunity of disabusing his mind of such an idea. And now, this night, she had poured out her heart at his feet, and shown him hatred, not love.

Jasper’s life had been one of self-denial. There had been little joy in it. Anxieties had beset him from early childhood; solicitude for his brother, care not to offend his father. By nature he had a very loving heart, but he had grown up with none to love save his brother, who had cruelly abused his love. A joyous manhood never ensues on a joyless boyhood. Jasper was always sensible of an inner sadness, even when he was happy. His brightest joys were painted on a sombre background, but then, how much brighter they seemed by the contrast—alas, only, that they were so few! The circumstances of his rearing had driven him in upon himself, so that he lived an inner life, which he shared with no one, and which was unperceived by all. Now, as he stood on the Rock, with an ache at his heart, Jasper uncovered his head, and looked into the softly lighted vault, set with a few faint stars. As he stood thus with his hands folded over his hat, and looked westward at the clear, cold, silvery sky behind and over the Cornish moors, an unutterable yearning strained his heart. He said no word, he thought no thought. He simply stood uncovered under the summer night sky, and from his heart his pain exhaled.

Did he surmise that at that same time Barbara was standing on the moor, also looking away beyond the horizon, also suffering, yearning, without knowing for what she longed? No, he had no thought of that.

And as both thus stood far removed in body, but one in sincerity, suffering, fidelity, there shot athwart the vault of heaven a brilliant dazzling star.

Mr. Coyshe at his window, smoking, said: ‘By Ginger! a meteor!’

But was it not an angel bearing the dazzling chalice of the sangreal from highest heaven, from the region of the still stars, down to this world of flickering, fading, wandering fires, to minister therewith balm to two distressed spirits?