A Pathway of Fire
The night was dark, no star shone, and, though the moon had risen, it could not penetrate the clouds, which hung over the sky, and rested on the mountain tops. There was just enough light to show how wild and lonely was the pack-horse track through Girdlestone Pass.
About nine o'clock Barbara came along it. She walked as a shepherd walks, who has many miles to travel, and must not grow weary. She did not hurry, neither did she dally nor halt, but kept up an even pace, regardless of the dips and rises in the road.
She was returning from a distant farm, whither she had carried the Need Fire, and where the good folk had waited all the afternoon, the cattle folded near the house, and a pile, like a haystack, of green wood ready to be lit, when the sacred element—for such they regarded it—should be brought from Boar Dale. They had given up all hope of receiving it that night, when, about seven o'clock, a loud knock came to the door, and Barbara Lynn stood there, with the smouldering embers in a cauldron.
Now she was returning, but not by the way she had come, over a shoulder of Thundergay, for there was no track to guide her, and the mist and darkness hid the familiar landmarks; so she struck the road through Girdlestone Pass instead, meaning to reach Greystones by the round-about way of the Robber's Rake.
She kept with her still some of the exalted feeling, which had thrilled her, when she had carried the Need Fire over the mountains. In her own eyes she had been raised from her humble office of hewer of wood and drawer of water to the rank of a priestess.
No Druidess, administering the rites of her religion, could have had a greater sense of the mystery of life, and the debt it owed to symbolism to make it intelligible, than Barbara at this time. Her character, founded upon Christian principles, was yet bathed in a pagan glow of awe and wonderment. Natural forces drew forth her reverence. Fire, Wind and Water became personified: they bore an analogy to Life, Soul, and Spirit. And her love of the old Greek tales filled her imagination with so rich a store of treasure—much that was strange, fair and exalted in ancient thought—that she had an inexhaustible wealth to draw upon for her delight and nourishment.
She had watched Timothy Hadwin kindle the Need Fire with a keen sense of its inner significance. Fire was the symbol of purification and smoke the symbol of prayer. It seemed to her fitting that man should make this outward show of his repentance, for she believed—as most of the fell-folk did—that the pestilence threatening the cattle was the sign of an aggrieved heavenly power. When the Greeks sinned had not the god of the Silver Bow sent his deadly arrows hissing among them, killing first their dogs and mules, and then their men, until they heeded the warning and made their peace with sacrifices and restitution? For what transgression the black bane had been sent into the dales and fells Barbara did not ask. Was it a question worth asking, when no heart was pure? Let every man amend his ways, and the appeal to heaven would not go up in vain.
Filled with some such thoughts as these, she threaded her lonely path through the dim land. Upon her body were still the marks of fire, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were scorched, and her clothes were so well thurified, that they shook out a pungent odour of smoke at every movement. Neither weariness, nor pain—she had been on her feet since long before day-break—could rob her figure of its lofty carriage.
The silence suited her mood; and the darkness, blotting out the well known features of the landscape, allowed her brain to paint its own picture of the country through which she was journeying. She was, in fact, carried by her imagination far away from the Girdlestone. But no earthly land received her spiritual body. She had come to a place where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, having passed through the Need Fire which purifies from all dross. There she walked in a clear light, holding sweet fellowship with one from whom she must be forever separated on earth.
More and more of late Barbara had begun to fix her thoughts upon that which lay beyond mortal existence. Her life was empty: instincts, desires, hopes—the birthright of the human soul—were spilled like water upon the ground. She had nothing to expect here: but there—what glorious prospects opened out!
Timothy Hadwin often talked to her about the next world, and she had imbibed much of his philosophy, colouring it to satisfy her own desires. She believed in a Great Spirit. She believed that every living creature had a living soul. She believed that behind every material thing there was a spiritual force. She believed that her desire for knowledge would, hereafter, be fulfilled. All that she knew from the outside now, would there be revealed in its inmost reality.
But it was not an immaterial world that her faith painted. Trees, streams, mountain gorge and starry peak made it beautiful. She loved the trees, their leaves pleased her eyes, their chiming her ears; but when she became a spirit, she would enjoy their very life in a deeper sense; for she would be able to pass into their being like the Hamadryads of Greece, only she would not die with the trees, for death would no longer exist. In the same way she would be able to become one with the streams, the dales and fells. But above all and beneath all—for it was both the foundation and summit of her hopes—human fellowship would then present no barriers to a perfect communion. She would need no eyes to see and recognise the loved one, no hands to draw his attention, no feet with which to come nigh him, no voice to tell him her thoughts. Spirit would pass into Spirit, would live and move and understand, without bodily aids, which are also the instruments of misunderstanding and separation.
She was wakened from her dream by hearing a voice speak from the wayside. Now that her attention was drawn to it, she could dimly make out a huddled figure, whose limbs seemed to melt and become one with the rock upon which it sat.
"Angel or devil!" said a hoarse voice. "Who are you?"
She came nearer and peered into the man's face.
"Why, Joel," she exclaimed in surprise. "I didn't expect to see you here."
He staggered to his feet and she felt sure that he had been drinking.
"It's always the unexpected that happens," he replied.
When Lucy had run away from him, he had been so overtaken by surprise, that for a few seconds he had not been able to grasp the reality of the fact. Then passion had swept away his senses, and he had rushed hither and thither like a mad man, calling, cursing, but seeing nothing, so swiftly had her grey-cloaked figure been swept up into the gathering darkness. His wild scheme of carrying her off defeated, and knowing that his desires and hopes could never now be realized, he had so far recovered himself as to lay hold of a shred of reason, and stifle his anger. He had taken the horse back to the inn, and then had sat down in his corner by the fire, silent and sullen, heedless of the dame's chatter, and only wishful to be left alone. He had demanded wine, and had tried to drown his wrath and bitter sense of failure. But he could not endure the good-wife's tongue, and at length had got up and gone out. He had told himself that he would go back to Forest Hall to-morrow, settle his affairs with all speed and never set foot in Boar Dale again. He was sick of the Shepherd's Rest, and would not have stayed so long only the place had been convenient for his purpose. There he had hoped to decoy Lucy and take her away. In the light of their last meeting, he had felt sure that she would go with him.
And now, having walked aimlessly along the pack-horse track, the mist chilling him to the bone, he would have returned again to the inn, but that he was afraid of the inquisitive eyes of the woman there, who looked at him as though she were suspicious that some wild adventure was in the air. He was not able to lash himself into his former fury, his heart seemed to be dead. The hand of the woman he loved had killed it. Even the thought of Peter did not rouse him. Hate, for the time being, was burning low.
In this mood he had come again to the spot where Lucy had fled from him. He had begun to wonder in which direction she had really gone. How was it that she had eluded him so quickly? He looked round him. Then there had been light enough to distinguish the nearer objects—a stunted thorn, the flash of the beck, the overhanging crags, but now all was undefined, and bleak. A little glitter, just beyond the left bank of the road, had caught his eye, and held him spell-bound. He had stared with growing understanding. On that side lay marshy ground, stretching away to the opposite fells, and yonder was Quaking Hag, shunned by all travellers, and forsaken of God. He had sunk on a stone, sobered by that which he saw, for the glittering mark was followed by another and yet another, until the misty nature of the night prevented further sight. They were the froth o' the marsh, a kind of putrified earth, which, when it has been trodden upon, shines like fire in the darkness.
He had just realised what the igneum lutum meant, when Barbara had come along the pass and he had accosted her.
"Barbara Lynn," he muttered, a note of suspicion creeping into his voice. "What the devil are you doing here?"
"I'm going home."
"Going home to Greystones! Have you seen Lucy?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
He did not reply for a moment, then said:
"Are you sure you haven't passed her?"
Barbara's blood began to quicken with vague doubts.
"Have you seen her?" she demanded. "Has my sister been here?"
"Yes, I sent for her."
"And where is she now?"
"Gone home long ago."
"Thank God."
Barbara uttered the words with profound gratitude, then she turned sharply on the man. "You're doing wrong, Joel. Neither you nor Lucy have any right to meet in this way."
"It will never happen again," he said.
She started uneasily. Into her mind crept a fear that all was not well. She tried to read his face: the night was too dark and his manner baffled her.
But he rose suddenly, took her roughly by the arm, and turning her round, pointed to the shining marks.
"Do you know what they are?" he cried.
"I've seen them before," she said, "on such a night as this. They're footprints. Someone has been crossing the marsh." Horror crept over her, but before she could frame a question, he had jerked his hand in the direction of Quaking Hag.
"The fence is broken," he said, "there are gaps in it. Does Lucy know the place?"
"What do you mean, Joel? What has happened? You said Lucy had gone home."
"She ran away and left me. I don't know where she went: I don't know what's become of her. No doubt she's safe at home."
Barbara uttered no cry, no word of anguish or condemnation. She stood for a moment as though frozen, then turned to the man beside her.
"God forgive you! Some ill may have happened to Lucy! Go to the inn," she said. "Go at once. Tell every one to follow me to Quaking Hag."
He hesitated.
"Go," she cried. "Why do you stand there as if you hadn't heard? You're sober enough to know what may have happened."
"I'll help you to look for her," he doggedly replied.
"That's as you please. But you'll go to the inn first."
There was such a note of authority in her voice that he had to obey. He dared not do otherwise.
Barbara left the road, and followed the glittering prints that led away over the marsh. As she got nearer to it, the will o' the wisp shone here and there; the ground got softer, and she knew that slimy pools were opening out on every side. Now and again she called Lucy's name, but there was no answer. Utter silence closed round her. She went on, not daring to hope that she might find a trace of her sister. Quaking Hag kept whatsoever it took, and told no secrets.
Her mind seemed to be stiff with horror. She could think of nothing save that she must go on, until she could go no further.
The footprints were Lucy's. She had run, in her blind fear, some way across the mire before she became aware of its nature. Her one idea had been to escape from Joel, and, when she was safe, steer, by any landmarks she could recognise, for Thundergay. She would not dare seek the Robber's Rake in case her pursuer laid in wait for her there. Now she realised that she was running in the direction of Quaking Hag, and stricken with horror, she would have given expression to it in a call for help, had not dread of Joel's finding her, controlled her tongue.
She paused in her flight and listened. But she could only hear the breaking of bubbles at her feet. Bewildered by the twilight, and the unfamiliar place, she lost herself among a maze of peat-pots. With every step she sank deeper in the ground.
Then afraid to go this way or that she stood still. Should she call? No one would hear her but Joel, and she would rather spend the night here than see his face appearing through the darkness. She looked round. A light shone and flickered like a candle. Could the pack-horse track be so near, and was some one passing along it with a lantern?
She started forward again, but only to feel water ooze round her ankles. Another light shone for a moment to her right, then went out; one rose almost at her feet.
"The witch lights, the witch lights," she muttered, and sinking down upon the damp ground, she covered her eyes with her hand.
There was nothing for it but to wait till morning. She knew that by some mischance she had wandered right in among the quagmire and, as she saw the will-o'-the-wisps burn here and there, she wondered that she had not been sucked down to death. She saw the glitter of her own footsteps as the night darkened, but thought they were more witch-lights shining to lure her to her doom.
Numbed with cold, frightened to move, her teeth began to chatter, and her limbs shook until they became even too cold for that sign of life. She sank into a kind of stupor, from which she started at times, thinking that she heard footsteps creeping nearer. But it was only the marsh gas escaping with a sound like a low chuckle. She had no means of guessing the time. Often she thought that the night must be nearly past; it had lasted so long already. When the faintest light crept over the blackness of the sky, she hailed it as the coming of day, but it was only the moon rising behind the clouds.
After that followed a period of utter prostration, in which she saw and heard nothing. She was only conscious of an ever-present horror, which did not seem to have any outward source—she had lost all knowledge of the witch-lights and the marsh.
In this state of stupor Barbara found her.
"Lucy, Lucy," she said, lifting the girl in her arms, and though tears came hardly to her, she sobbed with thankfulness.
Lucy was roused at the sound.
"Save me, save me," she cried.
"You're all right," Barbara replied. "See, I'll carry you through the mire, and then we'll jog along home. Great-granny will think we're both lost, so long out at this time o' year."
"It's nearly morning, isn't it?" asked the girl, clinging to her sister with both hands.
"Bless the bairn, no; not more than ten, at the latest."
She carried the light form as easily as if it had been a child, and retraced her steps. By the time she had reached firmer ground, she was met by the inn-keeper and two men with lanterns. She saw Joel hovering behind them; when she looked for him again he was gone.
She took the fainting girl to the Shepherd's Rest, and there spent the night, while a message was sent to Mistress Lynn to reassure her of their safety.