CHAPTER XXV.
THE FUGITIVE
It was March, 1585, and but a few weeks remained to Brion before starting on the great adventure. All his and Clerivault’s preparations were made, and they only awaited the signal to join the fleet at Plymouth, and launch upon whatever destiny the unknown might have in store for them. Some anxiety may have been his: misgivings, none. He was now twenty-six—the age of fully matured strength and reason and the fearless confidence that goes with both—and ripe manhood in him peremptorily demanded its employment and enlargement in scenes of vigorous action. His sole concern lay in thus temporarily abandoning his Uncle to the possible perils of an agitated time; but, as to that, having confessed his fears to Raleigh, he had found some reassurance in his friend’s promise to have a watch kept on the district, and any sinister symptoms appearing therein at once reported to him, when they should be drastically dealt with. That undertaking, and the confidence he felt in the stalwart fidelity of the household remaining, had to be his sufficient guarantees in the question of the untoward coming to threaten.
He would have liked, from that one point of view, to leave Clerivault behind; only his pledge was given. Moreover, to insist, would have wounded that excellent’s feelings beyond cure. Clerivault, while still retaining his grateful attachment to, and sorrowful belief in, his old master, had yet come to regard as the crowning expression of his allegiance his devotion to the younger trust committed to him. He was dedicated body and soul to the service of the nephew, and to be separated from him, or considered inessential to his welfare in any way, would have killed his very heart. Wherefore the outrage was not even to be considered; and Nol porter must take his place in personally attending on the recluse—a task for which at least that great creature’s physical strength fitted him, inasmuch as his Honour, the wreck of a great man himself, was often in need, owing to his enfeebled capacities and shattered constitution, of the support and assistance which only strong arms could afford him.
As to Quentin Bagott himself, he was little more than a cypher in the business, wanting his nephew to go, and not wanting him; now dwelling on the eternal loneliness to which he was condemned, now implying a sort of furtive glee in the prospect of that loneliness being intensified. He did not know his own mind—as, indeed, how should he, that feeble remnant of the force that once had been, and, such as it had become, devoted to fears and superstitions? No one looking upon him in these days but must have felt the tragedy of that ruined intellect. It mourned from the brilliant eyes, set in the wasted and degraded features, about which the black hair that hung in neglected strands was still without a touch of gray in it; it drooped in the apathetic shoulders, yielded at last, and unresisting, to the burden of fatality; it spoke in the blurred, disjointed voice, which was like that of a sleeper only half awakened. Now and again, in instants of rare provocation, a ray of the old brilliancy would flash out; but for the most part the man’s faculties were hopelessly obscured, and he would sit for long hours together in a blank preoccupation, staring, as it might be, into a baffling fog, where moving shadows that never materialized shrunk, and expanded, and intensified, and again faded into nebulous blots.
If during these years, so inoperative, and so barren in their prospect, a thought which seemed to tremble near the verge of treason to himself had come now and again into Brion’s mind, who can wonder at it. It was a thought of a little house in far-away Clapham, and of a figure going always cheerfully and capably about its business there. He had seen Alse once again during his second visit to London, and had pleasantly renewed in her an impression as of something very wholesome and fragrant, like a garden herb, and as such associating itself with perfumed thoughts in homely ways. To uproot so sweet a plant from under that old church wall, and transport it to these unproductive solitudes—what a difference it might make, to him, to all, to the whole atmosphere of the place! It was at least a pleasant fancy to indulge; and could even be supported by some arguments—a little specious. The girl would, he believed, be glad to come. Was he justified, in that case, in sacrificing her happiness to a vain ideal? Again, had he the moral right to waste himself on a profitless abstraction? Every mortal man held his affections in trust for some mortal woman, so that to maintain oneself celibate for a dream’s sake was to rob not one but two natures of their just fulfilment. Supposing he were to decide to be done, for once and for all, with that old dead illusion, and to accept the living gift the gods had offered him? Let him, for amusement’s sake, just consider that possibility. Clerivault, he knew very well, would, for one, be delighted. But then Clerivault knew nothing of the other——
The other—O, the other! Only to think of her was to banish every lesser thought. Was this the value of his deathless fidelity? His, yes; but what of hers? Ah, time enough to turn away from that dear illusion when its falseness should be a proven thing!
He had reached, maybe, that period in his reflections when Raleigh’s summons to London came; and at once everything else, comfortable visions, specious arguments, soft and amorous fancies, were swept aside and forgotten in the excitement of the approaching adventure. His soul was too greatly occupied to be patient any longer of such minor distractions.
Nor was it different when he returned. He lived for the coming voyage, and was bent only on one purpose—to make, by constant vigorous exercise, the interval between now and then appear as short as possible.
One afternoon, in late February of the New Year, he had gone out riding on the moors, rather to work off an excess of animal spirits than for any attraction the day offered, for it was bleak and cold, with a shrill wind blowing in from the sea. He was alone, and had ridden eastward to within sight of Highweek church, standing up solitary and austere from the folds of the shivering hills, when, turning into a narrow gulch between two rocky slopes, he saw a pedestrian coming towards him from the direction of Newton Bushel and the head of the Teign estuary. The figure, the moment it sighted him, stopped, and made a hurried movement as if to turn and retreat, but, thinking better of it, or recognising the hopelessness of the attempt, continued its advance, and slowly approached the spot where he had reined in, waiting the explanation of so suspicious an action. As the stranger drew near, walking, it seemed, with considerable difficulty, Brion had leisure to study his aspect, and to wonder over certain details of it. He appeared a man of about forty, of mean stature, but blunt and strong, and he was dressed like a simple citizen in a suit of plain black, with no more decoration about it than was exhibited in a pair of epauletted shoulders. His close-cropt scalp was hatless, and underneath appeared a serious, beardless face, possessed of a very prim, dry, dogmatic expression, and, in odd contrast, curious hot brown eyes, the pupils of which were not black but tawny, and ringed at their circumferences with a brighter russet. But all this no more than indicated itself, as it were, through a veil of disorder, for his features were grim white and drawn with suffering, his clothes streaked and soiled, and his whole appearance suggestive of some recent conflict in which he had been violently worsted. Having made up his mind, he came limping resolutely on, and never hesitated until he reached the horseman, to whom, without an instant’s pause, he made his desperate appeal:—
‘I am being hunted for my life, Sir: I have done no wrong: for God’s sake, if you are a Christian man, help me to escape.’