Notwithstanding Part 29

A minute speck appeared upon it.

Roger pulled himself together.

"That's the Harwich boat," he said, "or it may be one of Moy's coaling-ships. I rather think it is."

He gazed with evident relish at the small puff of smoke. He experienced a certain relief in its advent, as one who descries a familiar face in a foreign crowd. He said he wished he had brought his gla.s.ses, as then he could have identified it. And he pointed out to her, far away in the mist, the crumbling headlands of the Suffolk coast, and the church tower of Dunwich, half lost in the sea haze, waiting for the next storm to engulf it.

Recalled to a remembrance of their destination by the coal-boat, they rose and walked slowly on towards the old stone cross standing bluntly up against a great world of sky. Mr. Stirling and Mrs. Stoddart were sitting under it; and close at hand a spring bubbled up, which slipped amid tumbled stone and ling to a little pond, the margin fretted by the tiny feet of sheep, and then wavered towards the Rieben as circuitously as the Rieben wavered to the sea.

There was nothing left of the anchorite's cell save scattered stones, and the shred of wall on which Mrs. Stoddart was sitting. But a disciple of Julian of Norwich had dwelt there once, Mr. Stirling told them, visited, so the legend went, by the deer of the forest when the moss on their horns fretted them, and by sick wolves with thorns in their feet, and by bishops and princes and knights and coifed dames, with thorns in their souls. And she healed and comforted them all. And later on Queen Mary had raised the cross to mark the spot where the saint of the Catholic Church had lived, as some said close on a hundred years.

"It is a pity there are no saints left nowadays," said Mr. Stirling, "to heal us poor sick wolves."

"But there are," said Annette, as if involuntarily, "only we don't see them until we become sick wolves. Then we find them, and they take the thorn away."

A baby-kite, all fluff, and innocent golden eyes, and callow hooked beak, flew down with long, unsteady wings to perch on the cross and preen itself. Presently a chiding mother's note summoned it away. Mr.

Stirling watched it, and wondered whether the link between Mrs. Stoddart and Annette, which he saw was a very close one, had anything to do with some dark page of Annette's past. Had Mrs. Stoddart taken from her some rankling thorn?--healed some deep wound in her young life? He saw the elder woman's eyes looking with earnest scrutiny at Roger.

"The girl believes in him, and the older woman doubts him," he said to himself.

Annette's eyes followed a narrow track through the gorse towards a distant knoll with a clump of firs on it.

"I should like to walk to the firs," she said.

Roger thought that an excellent idea, but he made no remark. Mr.

Stirling at once said that it could easily be done if she were not afraid of a mile's walk. The knoll was farther than it looked.

Mrs. Stoddart said that she felt unequal to it, and she and Mr. Stirling agreed to make their way back to the carriage, and to rejoin Roger and Annette at Mendlesham Mill.

The little stream was company to them on their way, playing hide-and-seek with them, but presently Roger sternly said that they must part from it, as it showed a treacherous tendency to boggy ground, and they struck along an old broken causeway on the verge of the marsh, disturbing myriads of birds congregated on it.

"Shall I do it now?" Roger said to himself. He made up his mind that he would speak when they reached the group of firs, now close at hand, with a low grey house huddled against them. He had never proposed before, but he stolidly supposed that if others could he could.

The sun had gone in, and a faint chill breath stirred the air.

"But where is the river gone to?" said Annette.

Roger, who had been walking as in a dream, with his eyes glued to the firs, started. The river had disappeared. The sun came out again and shone instead on drifting billows of mist, like the clouds the angels sit on in the picture-books.

"It is the sea roke," he said; "we must hurry."

"It won't reach Mrs. Stoddart, will it?" said Annette breathlessly, trying to keep up with his large stride. "Damp is so bad for her rheumatism."

"_She_ is all right," he said almost angrily. "They have wraps, and they are half-way home by now. It's my fault. I might have known, if I had had my wits about me, when Dunwich looked like that, the roke would come up with the tide."

He took off his coat and put it on her. Then he drew her arm through his.

"Now," he said peremptorily, "we've got to walk--hard."

All in a moment the mist blotted out everything, and he stopped short instantly.

"It will shift," he said doggedly. "We must wait till it shifts."

He knew well the evil record of that quaggy ground, and of the gleaming, sheening flats--the ruthless oozy flats which tell no tales. The birds which had filled the air with their clamour were silent. There was no sound except the whisper everywhere of lapping water, water stealing in round them on all sides, almost beneath their feet. The sound meant nothing to Annette, but Roger frowned.

The tide was coming in.

"The roke will shift," he said again doggedly.

And it did. The tawny clouds, yellow where the sun caught them, drifted past them and parted. They saw the homely earth beneath their feet, the tiny pink convolvulus peering up at them.

"Do you see that bunch of firs?" he said.

"Yes."

"Well, we've got to get there. We must run for it."

They ran together towards it over the slippery sedge, and up the still more slippery turf. The sun came out brilliantly, and she laughed and would have slackened to look at the fantastic world sailing past her; but he urged her on, his hand gripping her elbow. And he was right. By the time they reached the trees they were in a dense white darkness, and the nearest fir whipped them across the face.

Annette was frightened, and it was Roger's turn to laugh--a short, grim laugh, with considerable relief in it.

"Ha! That's right," still holding her elbow tightly, and reaching out with the other hand. "We've fired into the brown and no mistake. Here's the middle tree. Two more this side. Then down. Mind your footing, and hold on to me."

They slid down into a dry ditch--at least, Roger said it was dry. "And good luck, too," he said. "Made that ditch myself to carry off the snow-water. Awful lot of water off the bank in winter." He pulled her up the other side, and then stopped and felt about him.

"The garden wall should be here," he said. "Empty house. Take shelter in it. Yes." He groped, and met with resistance. "Here it is."

They stumbled slowly along beside a wall. "Lot of nettles, I'm afraid.

Sorry, but can't be helped," as they plunged into a grove of them. "Here we are."

His hand was on an iron gate which gave and opened inwards. She felt a house rising close above them. Roger relinquished her, with many injunctions to stand still, and she heard his steps going away along a flagged path.

Annette was not country-bred, and she had not that vague confidence in her mother earth which those who have played on her surface from childhood never lose in later life. She was alarmed to find herself alone, and she shivered a little in the dripping winding-sheet of the mist. She looked round her and then up. High in heaven a pale disk showed for a moment and was blotted out. The sun!--it was shining somewhere. And far away, in some other world, she heard a lark singing, singing, as it soared in the blue.

A key in a lock turned, and a door close at hand grated on its hinges.

"Wait till I light a match," said Roger's welcome voice.

The match made a tawny blur the shape of a doorway, and she had time to reach it before it flickered out.

Roger drew her into the house, and closed the door.

CHAPTER XXIX

"There's no smoke in the chimney, And the rain beats on the floor; There's no gla.s.s in the window, There's no wood in the door; The heather grows behind the house, And the sand lies before.