"I have known men, Lawrence," he said, "who went down to their graves in the winter of their years—children—all the more lovable for that, maybe," for an instant his grip tightened about my arm, "but none the less children, and I have known others who were greybeards in their teens."
He paused and looked at me doubtfully, as though he would say more.
"You will be wary of this man. He can have little friendliness for you and it will be no common motive that can bring him back to these parts. You will be wary of him, Lawrence?"
So much I readily promised, and again he stood shifting from one foot to the other, balanced, uneasily, betwixt speech and silence. But all he said was, again—
"You will be wary of him, Lawrence," and so with a grasp of the hand moved off.
I watched him going, and as the torches dwindled to candle-flames and, from candle-flames to sparks, a great desire grew in me to run after him and disclose all that I knew of Jervas Rookley. The desire grew almost to a passion. Had I spoken then, doubtless he would have spoken then, and so, much would have been saved me. But I had given my word to hold this estate in trust, and ignorance or the assumption of ignorance was the condition of my keeping it. The torches vanished in the darkness. I walked back to the inn and mounted my horse. As I rode out of the courtyard, I saw, far away down the street and close to the lake's edge, four stars, as it were, burning. There was still time. I turned my horse; but I had given my word, and I spurred him to a gallop up the Castle Hill and rode down Borrowdale to Blackladies.
CHAPTER VII.
[A DISPUTE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.]
But as I rode, this warning I had received swelled in importance; it became magnified to a menace, and my desire to speak changed into an overmastering regret that I had not spoken. I had kept my word loyally to—well, to Ashlock, since so I still must term him, even in my thoughts—nay, was still keeping it the while he played false with me. That he trusted me to keep it I was assured by the memory of his words and looks on that night when he had talked of my picture in the hall. Why, then, should he play false? There was but one man who might be able to enlighten me upon the point—Lord Derwentwater—and to that one man my lips were closed, I was, moreover, disturbed too by the knowledge that I had planned to travel to Grasmere on the following day, and be absent there until the night, thus leaving Rookley a free hand. It was late when I turned out of Borrowdale, but I noticed that there was a light still burning in the steward's office. I rode into the courtyard of the stables, and, leaving my horse there, walked to the front of the house. One or two of the attic windows still showed bright, and the ground floor was dimly lit. But somehow the house smote on me as strangely desolate and dark.
Luke Blacket was waiting to let me in, and whether it was that my strained fancies tricked me into discovering a mute hostility upon his face, but it broke in upon me with a full significance that all the servants, down to the lowest scullion, must be in the secret, and were leagued against me. I saw myself entering a trap, and so piercing a sense of loneliness invaded me, that I plumbed to the very bottom of despondency. I stood in the doorway gazing across the valley. The hills stood sentinel leaguering me about, the voices of innumerable freshets sounded chilly in my ears, as though their laughter had something of a heedless cruelty; my whole nature cried out for a companion, and with so urgent a demand that I bethought me of the light shining in the steward's office. It would be Aron without a doubt, sitting late over the books. I went down the passage and opened the door.