IX
He caught their hands in his. He was breathless. He sank down on the stone beside them:
"Give me a minute. . . . I'm done. Lord! this filthy fog. . . . Where haven't I been?" He panted, staring up at them with wide distracted eyes.
"Do you realize? I've failed. It's no use our crossing in that boat now even if we could find it. We've missed that train. We're done."
"Nonsense," Harkness broke in. "Why, man, what's happened to you? This isn't like you to lose your courage. We're not done or anything like it. In the first place we're all together again. That's something in a fog like this. Besides so long as we stick together we're out of their power. They can't force us, all of us, back into that house again. So long as we're out of that house we're safe."
"Oh, are we?" said Dunbar. "Little you know that man. I tell you we're not safe—or Hesther's not safe—until we're at least a hundred miles away. But forgive me," he looked up at them both, smiling, "you're quite right, Harkness. I haven't any right to talk like this. But you don't know what a time I've had in that fog."
"I had a little bit of a time myself," said Harkness.
"Well in the first place," went on Dunbar, "I was terrified about you. I knew that you didn't know these cliffs well. When the fog started I called to you to come back, but you didn't hear me, of course. I was an idiot to let you start out at all.
"And then, when it came to myself climbing them I wasn't very successful. I was nearly over the edge fifty times at least. But at last when I did get to the top the ridiculous thing was that I started off in the wrong direction. There I was only five minutes from the cottage and the pony and Hesther; I know the place like my own hand, and yet I went in the wrong direction.
"God knows where I got to. I was nearly over into the sea twice at least. I kept calling your names, but the only thing I heard in answer was that beastly bell. I never went very far, I imagine, because when I heard your voice at last, Harkness, I was quite close to it. But just to think of it! Every other emergency in the world I'd considered except just this one! It simply never entered my head."
"Well now," said Harkness, "let's face the facts. It's too late for that train. Is there any other that we can catch?"
"There's one at six, but I don't see ourselves hanging about here for another three hours, nor, if the fog doesn't lift, can Hesther get down into that cove. I'm not especially anxious to try it myself as a matter of fact."
"No, nor I," said Harkness, smiling. "Then we count the boat out. There aren't many other things we can do. We can take the pony and follow him. He'll lead us straight back to Treliss to whatever stables he came from—a little too close to the Crispin family, I fancy. Secondly, we can wait here until the fog clears; that may be in three minutes time, it may be to-morrow. You both know more about these sea-fogs down here than I do, but, from the look of it, it's solid till Christmas."
"A heat fog this time of year," said Dunbar, "within three miles of the sea can last for twenty-four hours or longer—not as thick as this though—this is one of the thickest I've ever seen."
"Well then," continued Harkness, "it isn't much good to wait until it clears. The only thing remaining for us is to walk off somewhere. The question is, where? Is there any garage within a mile or two or any friend with a car? It isn't three o'clock yet. We still have time."
"Yes," said Dunbar, "there is. I've had it in my mind all along as an alternative. Indeed it was the first thing of all that I thought of. Three miles from here there's a village, Cranach. The rector of Cranach is a sporting old man called Banting. During the last week or two we've made friends. He's sixty or so, a bachelor, and he's got a car. Not much of a car, but still it's something. I believe if we go and appeal to him—we'll have to wake him up, of course—he'll help us. I know that he disapproves strongly of the Crispins. I thought of him before, as I say, but I didn't want to involve him in a row with Crispin. However, now, as things have gone, it's got to be. I can think of no other alternative."
"Good," said Harkness, "that settles it. Our only remaining difficulty is to find our way there through this fog."
"I can start straight," said Dunbar. "Left from the cottage and then straight ahead. Soon we ought to leave the Downs and strike some trees. After that it's across the fields. I don't think I can miss it."
"What about the pony?" asked Hesther.
"We'll have to leave him. He must be there for Jabez in the morning or Jabez will have to pay for both the pony and the cart."
They started off. The character of the fog seemed now slightly to have changed. It was certainly thicker in some places than in others. Here it was an impenetrable wall, but there it seemed to be only a gauze covering hanging before a multitude of changing scenes and persons. Now it was a multitude of armed men advancing, and you could be sure that you heard the clang of shield on shield and a thousand muffled steps. Now it was horses wheeling, their manes tossing, their tails flying, now secret furtive figures that moved and peered, stopped, bending forward and listening, then moved on again.
All the world was stirring. A breeze ran along the ground, rustling the short thin grass. Sea-gulls were circling the mist crying. A ship at sea was sounding its horn. Figures seemed to press in on every side.
They linked arms as they went, stumbling over the tussocks at every step. It was strange how the sudden vanishing of the cottage left them forlorn. It had been their one sure substantial hold on life. They were in their own world while they could touch those ruined stones, but now they walked in air.
Nevertheless Dunbar walked forward confidently. He thought that he recognised this landmark and that. "Now we veer a bit to the left," he said. "We should be off the moor in another step."
They walked forward. Suddenly Hesther pulled back, crying. "Look out! Look out!" Another instant and they would have walked forward into space. The mist here twisted up into thinning spirals as though to show them what they had escaped; they could just see the sharp black line of the cliff. Far, far beneath them the sea purred like a cat.
They stopped where they were as though fixed like images into the wall of the fog.
Dunbar whispered: "That's awful. Another moment. . . ."
It was Hesther who pulled them together again. "Let's turn sharp about," she said, "and walk straight in front of us. At least we escape the sea."
They turned as she had said and then walked forward, but in the minds of all of them there was the same thought. Some one was playing with them, some one like an evil Will-o'-the-wisp was leading them, now here, now there. Almost they could see his red poll gleaming through the fog and could hear his silvery voice running like music up and down the scale of the mist.
They were, three of them, worn with the events of the night. They were beginning to walk somnambulistically. Harkness found in himself now a strange kind of intimacy with the Fog.
Yes, spell it with a capital letter. The Fog. The FOG. Some emanation of himself, rolling out of him, friendly and also hostile. He and Crispin were of the Fog together. They had both created it, and as they were the good and evil of the Fog so was all Life, shapeless, rolling hither and thither, but having in its elements Good and Evil in eternal friendship and eternal enmity.
Every part of his body was aching. His legs were so weary that they dragged with him, protesting; his eyes were for ever closing, his head nodding. He stumbled as he walked, and at his side, step by step in time the Fog accompanied him, a mountainous grey-swathed giant.
He was talking, words were for ever pouring from him, words mixed with fog, so that they were damp and thick before ever they were free. "In life there are not, you know, enough moments of clear understanding. Between nations, between individuals, those moments are too often confused by winds that, blowing from nowhere in particular, ruffle the clear water where peace of mind and love of soul for soul are reflected. . . . Now the waters are clear. Let us look down."
Yes, he had read that somewhere. In one of Galleon's books perhaps? No matter. It meant nothing. "A fine sentiment. What it means. . . . Well, no matter. Don't you smell roses? Roses out here on the moor. If it wasn't for the fog you'd smell them—ever so many. And so he tore the 'Orvieto' into shreds. Little scraps flying in the air like goose feathers. What a pity! Such a beautiful thing. . . ."
"Hold up," cried Dunbar. "You're asleep, Harkness. You'll have us all down."
He pulled together with a start, and opening his eyes wide and staring about him saw only the disgusting fog.
"This fog is too much of a good thing. Don't you think so? I guess we could blow it away if we all tried hard enough? You think Americans always say 'I guess,' don't you? The English books always make them. But don't you believe it. We only do it to please the English. They like it. It satisfies their vanity."
He seemed to be climbing an enormous endless staircase. He mounted another step, two, and suddenly was wide awake.
"What nonsense I'm talking! I've been half asleep. This fog gets into your brain." He felt Hesther's arm within his. He patted her hand encouragingly. "It's all right, Hesther. We'll be out of this soon. Just another minute or two."
"By Jove, you're right," Dunbar cried; "these are trees."
And they were. A whole row of them. Crusoe was not more glad to see the footprint on the sand than were those three to see those trees. "Now I know where we are!" Dunbar cried triumphantly. "Here's the bridge and here's the lane. What luck to have found it!"
The trees seemed to step forward and greet them, each one tall and dignified, welcoming them to a happier country. They were on a road and had no longer the turf beneath their feet. The fog here was truly thinner so that very dimly they could see the mark of the hedge like a clothes-line in mid-air.
They moved now much more rapidly, and in their hearts was an intense, an eager relief. The fog thinned until it was a wall of silver. Nothing was distant, but it was a world of tangible reality. They could kick pebbles with their feet, could hear sheep moving on the farther side of the hedge.
"This is better," said Dunbar. "We'll get out of this yet. Cranach is only a mile or so from here. I know this lane well. And the fog's going to lift at last."
Even as he spoke it swept up, thick and grey deeper than before. The trees disappeared, the hedges. They had once more to grope for one another's hands and walk close.
Harkness could feel from the way that Hesther leaned against him, and the drag of her feet, that she was near the end of her endurance. She said nothing. Only walked on and on.
They were all now silent. They must have walked it seemed to them, for miles. An endless walk that had no beginning and no end. And then Harkness was strangely aware—how, he never knew—that Dunbar and Hesther were drawing closer together.
He felt that new relation that he had in a way created beginning to grow between them. She drew away from Harkness ever so slightly. Then suddenly he knew that Dunbar had put his arm round her and was holding her up. She was so weary that she did not know what she was doing—but for that quiet, resolute, determined boy it must have been a moment of great triumph, the first time in their two lives that she had in any way surrendered to him or allowed him to care for her. Harkness was once more alone.
They walked and walked and walked. They did not know where they were walking, but in their minds they were sure it was straight to Cranach.
Suddenly, after, as it seemed, hours of silence in a dead world, Dunbar cried:
"We're there. Oh, thank God! we're there. This is the rectory wall."
A wall was before them and an open gate. They walked through the gate, only dimly seen, stumbled where the lawn rose from the gravel, then forward again, down on to the gravel again. The door was open.
Like somnambulists they walked forward. The door closed behind them.
Like somnambulists awakened they saw lights, a dim hall where flags waved.
For Harkness there was something familiar—quite close to him, the chatter-chatter of a clock, like a coughing dog. Familiar? He stared.
Some one was standing, looking at him and smiling.
With sudden agony in his voice, as a man cries in a terrible dream, Harkness shouted:
"Out, Dunbar! Back! Back! Run for your life!"
But it was too late.
That voice of exquisite melody greeted them:
"I had no idea that of your own free will you would return. My son only a quarter of an hour ago departed in search of you. I welcome you back."