The Laughing Mill and Other Stories Part 5

"Yes, indeed, sir; he'll make an honest woman of her. What he has done has laid heavy on his conscience ever since. And so he says he hopes you'll forgive and forget, and that we'll all prosper and be happy in the future."

Gloam's chest began to heave, and he folded his arms tightly across it.

There was another long pause, as though he feared to trust his voice to speak. Finally the words came between his shut teeth:

"When--when--when?"

"Did you mean, when will he be here, sir? Well, he was expecting to reach the next town late this afternoon; and from there he'd foot it over here; and that wouldn't bring him here till nigh midnight. But likely he'll wait over, and get here to-morrow morning. Luckily though there's a moon to-night, to show him where to step, in case he comes right on."

Gloam unfolded his arms, and raising his hands to his head, pa.s.sed them several times slowly through his hair; staring downwards, meanwhile, at the wheel. The rigidity had pa.s.sed away, and he seemed to be recovering from the agitation into which the first shock of the news had thrown him. Jael's mind was a good deal relieved at the absence of any signs of hostility on his part against David; and she was just about withdrawing, when Gloam turned quickly about and stepped after her.

For the first time in the interview she now saw his face; and the sight so far startled her firm nerves as to draw from her a short low cry. It was not that the face was pallid, furrowed, and wasted; it had been all that from the first; but what appalled her was the ghastly expression of the mouth and eyes. It was not a smile, unless an evil spirit smiles, foreseeing the destruction of its victim. Evil it was--delightedly evil, like the triumph of long-baffled hate. It was a cruel, hungry, debased expression, hideously at variance with the pa.s.sionate and ill-regulated but refined character of the man. It suggested the idea that Gloam was possessed by a strange spirit, more potent and more wicked than his own, which commanded his body to what uses it pleased, in spite of all that he could do.

For it was evident that he himself understood the cause of Jael's dismay; and he made a violent effort to drive the awful look out of his face. So far from succeeding, however, he was forced to break out into a frantic laugh, which echoed shrilly through the silent house, and seemed, to Jael's scared ears, a copy of the infernal cachinnation which was wont to issue from the bewitched mill!

"Don't mind it, Jael," he said, as soon as he could speak; "it's nervousness--it's the reaction from suspense! Wait,--have you told...?"

"Swanhilda, sir? not yet,--I thought I'd best break it gradually----"

"Don't tell her! don't hint it to her!" He spoke in a harsh whisper, bending forwards towards her: "Because--because he might not come after all!" Then the mocking devil seized upon him again; and though he folded his arms and held down his head, the unholy laughter which he strove to suppress shook his whole body and turned his white face dark.

The housekeeper was glad to escape from the room; for she thought Gloam must have gone mad, and knew not what insane violence he might commit. Her first impulse was to run out and summon help, but after her immediate panic had cooled down, she thought better of such a proceeding. The explanation of his behaviour which Gloam himself had given seemed, upon reflection, reasonable enough. The abrupt manner in which she had told the news had thrown him for the moment off his balance. It was, upon the whole, rather a good sign than a bad one, for it showed him not so much deadened by suffering as he had appeared to be. When he had had time to rally, he would be his own gentle and manageable self once more.

Meanwhile she made preparations to receive David on his return. The young man's conduct towards Swanhilda had so angered his mother that she had more than acquiesced in the banishment which Gloam's rage had forced upon him. Not that she loved Swanhilda much; nor did the mere immorality of her son's deed greatly afflict her. But she had never ceased to have faith that, sooner or later, news would come of the yellow-haired maiden's relatives beyond the sea. It would come, perhaps, in the form of a wealthy and open-hearted gentleman; or of a lady, with diamonds sparkling on her hands and bosom. They would say, "We have learnt that the little niece or cousin whom we had thought lost, was saved, and is living here with you." "Yes," Jael would reply; "and she has been brought up as true a lady as if she were in a queen's palace; for we knew she had blue blood in her veins, and would come by her own at last." Then Swanhilda would appear, and captivate them with her beauty and simplicity. But when they offered to take her away, the girl would say, "Not without David, for I love him!" Whereupon, no doubt, there would be objections and remonstrances; but David's handsome face and engaging manners would half disarm them; and at the last Jael herself would arise, and sacrificing the woman to the mother, would declare openly, "He too is of gentle blood; his father was old Harold Gloam; he is the descendant of gentlemen, and not unworthy of the girl who loves him." So would resistance finally be overcome, and all concerned be enriched.

Such had been Jael's dream; and her resentment at the revelation of David's crime had been mainly aroused by the fact that it involved the frustration of a chance of fortune her own espousal of which had rendered especially dear to her. When the scheme was first conceived, the young man had, indeed, acquiesced in it, but as time went on, and inquiries proved fruitless, he had abandoned the hope of obtaining wealth and station through Swanhilda's means. Yet the girl loved him, and was very beautiful; much of their time was of necessity pa.s.sed in each other's society; and in the end the sin was sinned. Doubtless he had regretted her ruin; but to make her honourable amends had not been compatible with the projects of his ambition: and when Gloam's unexpectedly violent outbreak had driven him forth upon the world, he had perhaps deemed his banishment a not inconvenient pretext for freeing himself from the enc.u.mbrances, such as they were, which might otherwise have impeded him. He left Swanhilda behind, to pa.s.s her dark hour alone.

But, this being so, what was the occasion of his sudden change of purpose? Was he penitent? or had he found that honour and expediency could be made compatible after all? The letter which he had written to Jael did not explicitly answer this question; but from hints which it contained, the housekeeper had drawn favourable inferences; and she looked forward to his coming with agreeable anxiety. She had told Gloam the news, intending (should he refuse a reconciliation) to acknowledge to him that his father was David's likewise. But his strange behaviour had frightened this purpose out of her head; and when she recollected it again, it seemed most advisable that the revelation should for the present be postponed.

X.

About sunset Jael was surprised by the beginning of a jarring and rumbling noise, the like of which had not been heard in the gorge for a number of weeks past. Half incredulous of the evidence of her own ears, she paused to listen. Certainly there was no mistake--the mill was going! She stepped to the window and looked out. Yes, there revolved the great black wheel heavily upon its axle, churning the headlong torrent into foam, and hurling the white froth from its rigid rims. As she gazed, astonished, she saw Gloam issue from the mill and stand beside the boiling mill-race, watching, with manifest excitement, the sullen churning of the huge machine. He wore no hat, his hair was tossed and tangled, his bearing reckless and wild. All at once (for the machinery, having been so long out of use, had doubtless become very rusty) an unearthly peal of laughter--or what seemed such--was launched upon the evening air. It partly died away; then it again burst forth, clinging to the listener's ears and stabbing them, and leaving a sting that rankled there long afterwards. In the midst of the infernal din, Jael saw Gloam toss up his arms and abandon himself to a sympathetic paroxysm of grisly merriment. The man and the machinery were possessed by one and the same demon.

"Master--Master Gloam!" cried the woman, throwing open the window and lifting her voice to her shrillest pitch, "what is the matter? Why have you set the mill going?"

He glanced up at her with wild eyes, and waved his hand. "It is a season of rejoicing," he answered. "The prayer that I prayed is coming to pa.s.s.

Therefore let the wheel go round. Hear it, how it laughs and rejoices!"

"But there is no grist--the mill is empty."

"It will not be empty long; the grist is coming. It comes! it comes! Let the great wheel go round and grind it to powder!"

Jael drew back with a sickening apprehension at her heart. Gloam was too plainly in a state of delirious frenzy, if he were not actually mad. She longed for David's appearance, and yet dreaded it; she knew not whether the meeting between the two men would issue well or ill. And then her mind reverted to Swanhilda, and she asked herself what the effect of her lover's presence would be upon her. Ever since the first week following upon his departure the young mother had maintained a singularly pa.s.sive demeanour, only occasionally disturbed by seasons of vague and tremulous anxiety. The housekeeper had looked in upon her several times that afternoon. She lay quietly in one position, her eyes open and fixed, save when the baby claimed her attention. She did not speak, and seemed scarcely aware of outward things. Even the uproar of the mill, when that began, commanded her notice but for a short time, and appeared rather to gratify than to distress her. She perhaps a.s.sociated it with the thought of David, and fancied it in some way indicative of that home-return which she had all along never allowed herself to despair of. But she was as one partly entranced, whose ears and eyes, as some believe, are opened to things beyond the ordinary ken of human senses.

The evening was cloudy, and night came on apace. Gloam had re-entered the house shortly after dark, and Jael presently went to his room to ask him where he would take his evening meal. But he met her in the upper pa.s.sage-way. He seemed to carry something in his hand. She could not make out what it was, and he immediately hid it beneath his coat. To her inquiries he replied that he was going forth to resume his old practice of walking, and that he would sup with David after his return. Jael, in her uneasiness, would gladly have persuaded him to remain at home; but he was obstinate against all entreaties, and finally pushed roughly by her and was gone.

Meanwhile the mill was still in motion. The housekeeper had an impulse, soon after Gloam's departure, to go out and uncouple the machinery; but she feared lest he might resent her interference, and forebore. The noise, and the suspense she was in, combined to keep her in a state of feverish restlessness. Her thoughts busied themselves, against her will, with all manner of gloomy and painful memories and speculations. The vision of her youth rose up before her, and filled her with vain, remorseful terrors. She strove to cheer herself with picturing her son's arrival; but even that had now become a source of apprehension rather than of comfort. All the time she was oppressed by an indefinable sensation that someone was prowling about outside the house; and once, after the wheel had delivered itself of an outpouring of inhuman mirth, Jael fancied the strain was taken up in a no less wild, though not so penetrating key. Was it possible that Gloam was lurking in the gorge?

And, if so, what could he be doing there? Cautiously she peered out of the window; but the moon was as yet obscured by clouds, and nothing was certainly distinguishable. She returned to the fireside; yet paused and listened again, because--or else her excited imagination deceived her--another and a different sound had reached her from without: a sharp, grating sound, like that made by a rusty saw eating its way through close-grained timber. Ere she could be certain about the matter, however, the noise stopped, and returned no more.

An hour or so later, it wanting then only a few minutes of midnight, Swanhilda suddenly awoke from her half-trance, and sat upright in her bed. The house resounded dully to the m.u.f.fled throbbing of the machinery, but otherwise there was no stir. The little baby had fallen sound asleep, and lay at its mother's side, with its tiny hands folded beneath its chin, and grasping the pearl-sh.e.l.l necklace, which was its favourite plaything. After sitting tense and still for a moment, Swanhilda got out of bed, huddled on some clothes, kissed the unconscious baby twice or thrice, and then silently left the room. In another minute she had stolen down the stairs, and was standing between the house and the stream in the open air. She looked first one way and then another, and finally, without any hesitation in her manner, but with an a.s.sured and joyful bearing, bent her steps towards the top of the gorge. A narrow footpath led up thither, and at the highest point turned to the right, and was carried across the torrent by a narrow bridge formed of a single plank. When Swanhilda came to the turn, she did not go over the bridge, but sat down upon a stone amidst the shrubbery, and waited.

How had she known that there was anyone to wait for? Jael, certainly, had told her nothing; still less could she have learned anything from Gloam. Nevertheless, there she sat, waiting, and knowing beyond question that her lover was near, and was rapidly coming nearer. In a few minutes she would hear his steps; then he would be upon the bridge, and she would rise and meet him there. Had he not promised, months ago, that he would never leave her? and though he had been driven away for a time, she had never doubted that he would return. He loved her; soon, soon she would feel his arms about her, his kisses on her lips. Ah! what happiness after all this pain; what measureless content! How glad would be their meeting; and when she showed him their little baby, the cup of joy would be full. Nay, it was so already. In all Swanhilda's life she had never known a moment so free from all earthly trouble as was this!

It was near the end. She stood up; she had heard a footstep; yes, there again! He must be close at hand; if it were not so dark she would have already seen him. And now the clouds which had so long obscured the moon broke away, and the pale sphere hung poised in dark purple s.p.a.ce, and shed a dim l.u.s.tre over the little gorge. The light glanced on the curve of the cataract, and twinkled in the eddies of the pool, and danced along the tumultuous rapid, and glistened upon the froth of the mill-race. There the black wheel still plunged to its work, whirling its gaunt arms about as if grasping for a victim. In the bushes close beside it crouched a man with white face and staring eyes. He had laid his trap, and was waiting the issue. He had not seen Swanhilda leave the house and climb the little path; his eyes and thoughts had been turned elsewhither.

David came swiftly along the upland path, whistling to himself as he walked. We will not search his thoughts, seeing he was so near the end of his journey. When he arrived at the brow of the gorge, and was within a few paces of the bridge, he halted and peered forward earnestly. What figure was that that seemed to stand expectantly on the other side? It could not be Swanhilda--ay, but it was! He gave a little laugh, and then his hard heart softened and warmed towards her. "How she does love me, poor little thing!" he muttered. "And I've treated her devilish badly, no mistake. Well, well, I'll make it up to her, if all goes well, see if I don't!"

He came on to the bridge, and Swanhilda also hurried forward. Then the man below among the bushes started up, dry-mouthed and breathless. In an instant he sent forth a great, terrible cry of warning and agony; but before it could be uttered the lovers had met upon the narrow plank, and Swanhilda had received her kiss. While their lips yet touched, the plank, sawn in two all but a finger's breadth, broke downwards, and they fell, clasped in each other's arms--headlong down over the fall, down to the bottom of the eddying pool; up again, and over in the rapids, whirling round and round, dashed against the jagged stones, bleeding piteously; stunned, let us trust, already, but still clinging to each other. Now the last plunge: and so, at length, with a final shriek of heaven-defying laughter, the hungry demon of the wheel grappled its prey. Ay, s.n.a.t.c.h at them, tear, break, grind them down and hold them there; they are past feeling now. But not so the man upon the bank, with uncovered hair showing black and white in the moonlight, who has looked on at this scene, powerless to help, but awake to every swift phase of the tragedy, losing not a struggle or a pang, realising his own unspeakable horror and anguish, and foreseeing no comfort or pardon through all time to come.

The wheel stopped suddenly. Jael came breathless out of the mill-house, and shrinkingly approached the margin. A formless ma.s.s of something was wedged beneath the lower rim of the wheel and the bed of the stream, and a long ma.s.s of yellow hair floated out along the black water, and gleamed in the l.u.s.tre of the untroubled moon. The man on the other side was kneeling down, and seemed to be gazing idly into the current.

"He was your brother," said Jael, sobbing with rage and misery. "Your father was his. You have murdered him. G.o.d curse you! I wish you lay where he is."

"Why, Jael," returned Gloam, smiling at her, "you invoke a curse and a blessing in the same breath! My brother?--well. Swanhilda loved him and not me. Thank G.o.d I was the brother of the man she loved; the same blood ran in our veins--she loved a part of me in him. But why do you trouble yourself to curse me, Jael? I ask the charity of all men, and their sympathy!"...

I unclasped my hands from above my eyes, and started to my feet. No, there was no one near me; I was quite alone. It was deep twilight, but objects were still discernible: yet nowhere, neither beneath the Black Oak, nor beside the Laughing Wheel, nor anywhere in the gorge, could I see a trace of my late companion--of him whose last words were even then ringing in my ears: "I ask the charity of all men, and their sympathy!"

XI.

The next morning I was down late to breakfast. It was glorious weather, and the blue sparkle of the sea came through the open window, bringing with it a limitless inspiration of hope and wholesomeness. It was difficult to believe that there had ever been any sorrow or wrong in the world.

"Ye're not looking right hearty," said Mr. Poyntz, with bluff geniality, while his good wife set before me a huge plate of daintily fried bacon and eggs, and a smoking cup of coffee. "Maybe ye walked a bit too far last night? 'Twas powerful late afore ye got home, anyhow."

"Yes," said I, glancing at Agatha, who was knitting a pair of stockings for Peter in the eastern window, the morning sun glistening on the broad plaits of her yellow hair. "Yes, Mr. Poyntz, I think I must have made a very long journey last evening. By-the-way, is not to-day Sunday?"

"Ay, surely!" exclaimed husband and wife in a breath; and then the former added, "Ye'll be wanting to go to church, I suppose?"

"No, not this Sunday; though I hope to go before long, if Miss Agatha is willing to show me the way." I glanced at her again as I said this, but she would not look up, and I could not even be sure whether she were listening. "What I want," I continued, "is for you, Mr. Poyntz, since you'll be at leisure, to take a stroll with me a little way up the stream. It will be a novelty, perhaps almost as much so to you as to me."

"Up the stream, is it?" returned he, pausing in the operation of cutting up a piece of tobacco, and turning his blue eyes on me; "why, truly, sir, that's a trip I've not made for a number of years. Howsoever, none knows the road better than I do, and if so be as naught else 'll do ye, why, I'm your man!"

Accordingly, so soon as I had done breakfast, the st.u.r.dy old mariner mounted a wonderful glazed hat and a new pea-jacket of blue pilot cloth, took a fresh clay pipe from the mantelpiece, with a sigh and a shake of the head over the destruction of his beloved meerschaum, and professed himself ready.

"Good-bye, Agatha," I said, pa.s.sing the window. "Is there anything you would like me to bring you when we come back?"

"Oh, a great many!" answered she, looking up gravely; "but nothing, I'm afraid, that you can get for me. Though--you'll bring yourself back to dinner, I suppose, won't you?"

She bent over her knitting as she said it, and her mouth and downcast eyelids were very demure. Nevertheless, I was encouraged to fancy that my former remark about church-going had not fallen so entirely unheeded as it had appeared to do. Before I could hammer out a fitting answer (my brain always seemed to work with really abnormal sluggishness when I most wanted to do myself credit with Agatha), Poyntz rolled out in his deep, jovial voice, "Back to Sunday dinner? Well, I should hope so.

Why, the old woman is baking a pie as I'd sail round the Horn to get a snack of! Come on, Mr. Firemount; it'll go hard but we fetches back an appet.i.te as 'll warm the women's hearts to look at."

We trudged off at a tolerably round pace, and soon struck into a narrow gra.s.s-grown lane which led towards the east; and had proceeded some distance along it before I said:

"Do you know, Mr. Poyntz, that your daughter is one of the loveliest women in the world?"

"Ye mean Agatha? Ay, surely, that she is, heaven bless her! She was always that. A tiny bit of a la.s.s, I remember her, not so long as my arm; as pretty a baby she was then as she's a woman now."

"Has she any thought of getting married soon? Such a face and character must have suitors enough."