‘I don’t know exactly,’ he went on honestly, ‘only I mean that it was awfully real and splendid, a bit of my own life somewhere—somewhere else—where it lies hidden away behind a lot of days and months that choke it up. I can never get at it except in woods and places, quite alone, hearing the wind or making fires, or—in sleep.’ He hid his face in his hands a moment, then looked up with a hint of censure in his eyes. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that such things were done? You never told me,’ he repeated.
‘I didn’t know it myself until this evening. Leysin——’
‘I thought you knew everything,’ Lord Ernie broke in in that same half-chiding tone.
‘Monsieur Leysin told me to-night for the first time,’ said Hendricks firmly, ‘that such people and such practices existed. Till now I had never dreamed that such superstitions survived anywhere in the world at all.’ He resented the reproach. But he was also aware that the boy resented his authority. For the first time his ascendency seemed in question; his voice, his eye, his manner did not quell as formerly. ‘So you mean, when you say “sweet and awful,” that it was very real to you?’ he asked. He insisted now with purpose. ‘Is that it, Bindy?’
The other replied eagerly enough. ‘Yes, that’s it, I think—partly. This time it was more than dreaming. It was real. I got there. I remembered. That’s what I meant. And after I woke up the thing still went on. The man seemed still in the room beside the bed, calling me to get up and go with him——’
‘Man! What man?’ The tutor leant upon the back of a chair to steady himself. The wind just then went past the open windows with a singing rush.
‘The dark man who passed us in the village, and who pointed to the fires on the heights. He came with the wind, you remember. He pulled my coat.’
The boy stood up as he said it. He came across the naked boarding, his step light and dancing. ‘Fire that heats but does not burn, and wind that blows the heart alight, or something—I forget now exactly. You heard it too.’ He whispered the words with excitement, raising his arms and knees as in the opening movements of a dance.
Hendricks kept his own excitement down, but with a distinctly conscious effort.
‘I heard nothing of the kind,’ he said calmly. ‘I was only thinking of getting home dry. You say,’ he asked with decision, ‘that you heard those words?’