The Flight Of The Shadow by George MacDonald (reading e books txt) 📖

returned home to brood over the strange things that had happened. But before long I found myself in a weltering swamp of futile speculation, and turned my thoughts perforce into other channels, lest I should lose the power of thinking, and be drowned in reverie: my uncle had taught me that reverie is Phaeton in the chariot of Apollo.

The weary hours passed, and my uncle did not come. I had never before been really uneasy at his longest absence; but now I was far more anxious about him than about John. Alas, through me fresh trouble had befallen my uncle as well as John! When the night came, I went to bed, for I was very tired: I must keep myself strong, for something unfriendly was on its way, and I must be able to meet it! I knew well I should not sleep until I heard the sounds of his arrival: those came about one o'clock, and in a moment I was dreaming.

In my dream I was still awake, and still watching for my uncle's return. I heard the sound of Death's hoofs, not on the stones of the yard, but on the gravel before the house, and coming round the house till under my window. There he stopped, and I heard my uncle call to me to come down: he wanted me. In my dream I was a child; I sprang out of bed, ran from the house on my bare feet, jumped into his down-stretched arms, and was in a moment seated in front of him. Death gave a great plunge, and went off like the wind, cleared the gate in a flying stride, and rushed up the hill to the heath. The wind was blowing behind us furiously: I could hear it roaring, but did not feel it, for it could not overtake us; we out-stripped and kept ahead of it; if for a moment we slackened speed, it fell upon us raging.

We came at length to the pool near the heart of the heath, and I wondered that, at the speed we were making, we had been such a time in reaching it. It was the dismalest spot, with its crumbling peaty banks, and its water brown as tea. Tradition declared it had no bottom-went down into nowhere.

"Here," said my uncle, bringing his horse to a sudden halt, "we had a terrible battle once, Death and I, with the worm that lives in this hole. You know what worm it is, do you not?"

I had heard of the worm, and any time I happened, in galloping about the heath, to find myself near the pool, the thought would always come back with a fresh shudder-what if the legend were a true one, and the worm was down there biding his time! but anything more about the worm I had never heard.

"No, uncle," I answered; "I don't know what worm it is."

"Ah," he answered, with a sigh, "if you do not take the more care, little one, you will some day learn, not what the worm is called, but what it is! The worm that lives there, is the worm that never dies."

I gave a shriek; I had never heard of the horrible creature before-so it seemed in my dream. To think of its being so near us, and never dying, was too terrible.

"Don't be frightened, little one," he said, pressing me closer to his bosom. "Death and I killed it. Come with me to the other side, and you will see it lying there, stiff and stark."

"But, uncle," I said, "how can it be dead-how can you have killed it, if it never dies?"

"Ah, that is the mystery!" he returned.

"But come and see. It was a terrible fight. I never had such a fight-or dear old Death either. But she's dead now! It was worth living for, to make away with such a monster!"

We rode round the pool, cautiously because of the crumbling banks, to see the worm lie dead. On and on we rode. I began to think we must have ridden many times round the hole.

"I wonder where it can be, uncle!" I said at length.

"We shall come to it very soon," he answered.

"But," I said, "mayn't we have ridden past it without seeing it?"

He laughed a loud and terrible laugh.

"When once you have seen it, little one," he replied, "you too will laugh at the notion of having ridden past it without seeing it. The worm that never dies is hardly a thing to escape notice!"

We rode on and on. All at once my uncle threw up his hands, dropping the reins, and with a fearful cry covered his face.

"It is gone! I have not killed it! No, I have not! It is here! it is here!" he cried, pressing his hand to his heart. "It is here, and it was here all the time I thought it dead! What will become of me! I am lost, lost!"

At the word, old Death gave a scream, and laying himself out, flew with all the might of his swift limbs to get away from the place. But the wind, which was behind us as we came, now stormed in our faces; and presently I saw we should never reach home, for, with all Death's fierce endeavour, we moved but an inch or two in the minute, and that with a killing struggle.

"Little one," said my uncle, "if you don't get down we shall all be lost. I feel the worm rising. It is your weight that keeps poor Death from making any progress."

I turned my head, leaning past my uncle, so as to see behind him. A long neck, surmounted by a head of indescribable horror, was slowly rising straight up out of the middle of the pool. It should not catch them! I slid down by my uncle's leg. The moment I touched the ground and let go, away went Death, and in an instant was out of sight. I was not afraid. My heart was lifted up with the thought that I was going to die for my uncle and old Death. The red worm was on the bank. It was crawling toward me. I went to meet it. It sprang from the ground, threw itself upon me, and twisted itself about me. It was a human embrace, the embrace of some one unknown that loved me!

I awoke and left the dream. But the dream never left me.


CHAPTER XXVI.


THE EVIL DRAWS NIGHER.

I rose early, and went to my uncle's room. He was awake, but complained of headache. I took him a cup of tea, and at his request left him.

About noon Martha brought me a letter where I sat alone in the drawing-room. I carried it to my uncle. He took it with a trembling hand, read it, and fell back with his eyes closed. I ran for brandy.

"Don't be frightened, little one," he called after me. "I don't want anything."

"Won't you tell me what is the matter, uncle?" I said, returning. "Is it necessary I should be kept ignorant?"

"Not at all, my little one."

"Don't you think, uncle," I dared to continue, forgetting in my love all difference of years, "that, whatever it be that troubles us, it must be better those who love us should know it? Is there some good in a secret after all?"

"None, my darling," he answered. "The thing that made me talk to you so against secrets when you were a child, was, that I had one myself-one that was, and is, eating the heart out of me. But that woman shall not know and you be ignorant! I will not have a secret with her! -Leave me now, please, little one."

I rose at once.

"May I take the letter with me, uncle?" I asked.

He rubbed his forehead with a still trembling hand. The trembling of that beloved hand filled me with such a divine sense of pity, that for the first time I seemed to know God, causing in me that consciousness! The whole human mother was roused in me for my uncle. I would die, I would kill to save him! The worm was welcome to swallow me! My very being was a well of loving pity, pouring itself out over that trembling hand.

He took up the letter, gave it to me, and turned his face away with a groan. I left the room in strange exaltation-the exaltation of merest love.

I went to the study, and there read the hateful letter.

Here it is. Having transcribed it, I shall destroy it.

"Sir,-For one who persists in coming between a woman and her son, who will blame the mother if she cast aside forbearance! I would have spared you as hitherto; I will spare you no longer. You little thought when you crossed me who I was-the one in the world in whose power you lay! I would perish ever-lastingly rather than permit one of my blood to marry one of yours. My words are strong; you are welcome to call them unladylike; but you shall not doubt what I mean. You know perfectly that, if I denounce you as a murderer, I can prove what I say; and as to my silence for so many years, I am able thoroughly to account for it. I shall give you no further warning. You know where my son is: if he is not in my house within two days, I shall have you arrested. I have made up my mind.

"Lucretia Cairnedge.

"Rising-Manor, July 15, 18-."

"Whoever be the father, she's the mother of lies!" I exclaimed.-"My uncle-the best and gentlest of men, a murderer!"

I laughed aloud in my indignation and wrath.

But, though the woman was a liar, she must have something to say with a show of truth! How else would she dare intimidation with such a man? How else could her threat have so wrought upon my uncle? What did she know, or imagine she knew? What could be the something on which she founded her lie?-That my uncle was going to tell me, nor did I dread hearing his story. No revelation would lower him in my eyes! Of that I was confident. But I little thought how long it would be before it came, or what a terrible tale it would prove.

I ran down the stair with the vile paper in my hand.

"The wicked woman!" I cried. "If she be John's mother, I don't care: she's a devil and a liar!"

"Hush, hush, little one!" said my uncle, with a smile in which the sadness seemed to intensify the sweetness; "you do not know anything against her! You do not know she is a liar!"

"There are things, uncle, one knows without knowing!"

"What if I said she told no lie?"

"I should say she was a liar although she told no lie. My uncle is not what she threatens to say he is!"

"But men have repented, and grown so different you would not know them: how can you tell it has not been so with me? I may have been a bad man once, and grown better!"

"I know you are trying to prepare me for what you think will be a shock, uncle!" I answered; "but I want no preparing. Out with your worst! I defy you!"

Ah me, confident! But I had not to