VIII
He was free; it was from the moment that the red-faced policeman, smiling upon him benevolently, had informed him that, for the moment, he had had from him all that he needed, his one burning and determined impulse—to get away from that hall, that garden, that house with the utmost possible urgency.
He had not wished even to stay with Hesther and Dunbar. He would see them later in the day, would see them, please God, many many times in the years to come.
What he wanted was to be alone—absolutely alone.
The cuts on the upper part of his body were nothing—a little iodine would heal them soon; it seemed that there had come to him no physical harm—only an amazing all-invading weariness. It was not like any weariness that he had ever before known. He imagined—he had had no positive experience—that it resembled the conditions of some happy doped trance, some dream-state in which the world was a vision and oneself a disembodied spirit. It was as though his body, stricken with an agony of weariness, was waiting for his descent, but his soul remained high in air in a bell of crystal glass beyond whose surface the colours of the world floated about him.
He left them all—the doctor, the policeman, Dunbar and Hesther. He did not even stop at Jabez's cottage to inquire. That was for later. As half-past seven struck from the church tower below the hill he flung the gate behind him, crossed the road, and struck off on to the Downs above the sea.
By a kind of second sight he knew exactly where he would go. There was a path that crossed the Downs that ran slipping into a little cove, across whose breast a stream trickled, then up on to the Downs again, pushing up over fields of corn, past the cottage gardens up to the very gate of the hotel.
It was all mapped in his mind in bright clear-painted colours.
The world was indeed as though it had only that morning been painted in green and blue and gold. While the fog hung, under its canopy the master-artist had been at work. Now from the shoulder of the Downs a shimmer of mist tempered the splendour of the day. Harkness could see it all. The long line of sea on whose blue surface three white sails hovered, the bend of the Downs where it turned to deeper green, the dip of the hill out of whose hollow the church spire like a spear steel-tipped gesticulated, the rising hill with the wood and the tall white tower, the green Downs far to the right where tiny sheep like flowers quivered in the early morning haze.
All was peace. The rustling whisper of the sea, the breeze moving through the taller grasses, the hum of tiny insects, a lark singing, two dogs barking in rivalry, a scent of herb and salt and fashioned soil, all these things were peace.
Harkness moved a free man as he had never been in all his life as yet. He was his own master and God's servant too. Life might be a dream—it seemed to him that it was—but it was a dream with a meaning, and the events of that night had given him the key.
His egotism was gone. He wanted nothing for himself any more. He was, and would always be, himself, but also he had lost himself in the common life of man. He was himself because his contact with beauty was his own. Beauty belonged to all men in common, and it was through beauty that they came to God, but each man found beauty in his own way, and, having found it, joined his portion of it to the common stock.
He had been shy of man and was shy no longer; he had been in love, was in love now, but had surrendered it; he had been afraid of physical pain and was afraid no longer; he had looked his enemy in the eyes and borne him no ill-will.
But he was conscious of none of these things—only of the freshness of the morning, of the scents that came to him from every side, and of this strange disembodied state so that he seemed to float, like gossamer, on air.
He went down the path to the little cove. He watched the ripple of water advance and retreat. The stream of fresh water that ran through it was crystal clear and he bent down, made a cup with his hands and drank. He could see the pebbles, brown and red and green like jewels, and thin spires of green weed swaying to and fro.
He buried his face in the water, letting it wash his eyes, his forehead, his nostrils, his mouth.
He stood up and drank in the silence. The ripple of the sea was like the touch on his arm of a friend. He kneeled down and let the fine sand run, hot, through his fingers. Then he moved on.
He climbed the hill: a flock of sheep passed him, huddling together, crying, nosing the hedge. The sun touched the outline of their fleece to shining light. He cried out to the shepherd:
"A fine morning!"
"Aye, a beautiful morning!"
"A nasty fog last night."
"Aye, aye—all cleared off now though. It'll be a warm day."
The dog, his tongue out, his eyes shining, ran barking hither, thither. They passed over the hill, the sheep like a cloud against the green.
He pushed up, the breeze blowing more strongly now on his forehead.
He reached the cottage gardens, and the smell of roses was once more thick in his nostrils. The chimneys were sending silver skeins of smoke into the blue air. Bacon smells and scent of fresh bread came to him.
He was at the hotel gates. Oh, but he was weary now! Weary and happy. He stumbled up the path smelling the roses again. Into the hall. The gong was ringing for breakfast. Children, crying out and laughing, raced down the stairs, passed him. He reached his room. He opened the door. How quiet it was! Just as he had left it.
Ah! there was the tree of the "St. Gilles," and there the grave friendly eyes of Strang leaning over the etching-table to greet him.
Just as they were—but he!—not as he had been! He caught his face in the glass smiling idiotically.
He staggered to his bed, flung himself down still smiling. His eyes closed. There floated up to him a face—a little white face crowned with red hair, but not evil now, not animal—friendly, lonely, asking for something. . . .
He smiled, promising something. Lifted his hand. Then his hand fell, and he sank deep, deep, deep into happy, blissful slumber.