The man stood very weak. Brion put an arm about him—observing as he did so that his clothes were stiff and sodden, as if with half-dried sea-water—and supported him through the wood. In all these years, since that day of poignant memory, he had never once retraversed this road to the old well-house. But Sentiment must yield to Urgency. The natural bridge still spanned the moat, and they crossed it together—painfully and with difficulty on the stranger’s part; but, with his escort’s strong help, the journey was made at last, and the well-house reached. Once within, Brion lost no time, but, by aid of what daylight entered, found his way to the familiar contrivance, and laid bare the subterranean opening. Descending, then, he helped the other down after him, and, reaching the little stone-lined chamber, laid his own riding-cloak on the ground and the wounded man on it.
‘Now,’ said he: ‘so far’s so well. But I must e’en shut you away and leave you thus till I have withdrawn that evidence of my steed in the copse. Which having done, I will return with due caution, and bring you what comforts I can compass on the instant. Will that serve you?’
The strange eyes looked up at him in the wan twilight. They were full of weary pain; but, even tempering it, a ghost of fathomless curiosity.
‘I thank you from my heart,’ said their owner. ‘Will you first, in one word, tell me where I am?’
‘You are in the old well-house of the Moated Grange, a manor belonging to my uncle, Master Quentin Bagott. The secret of this chamber is known only to me, who discovered it by chance. You are as safe here as in a fortress—or safer, since ignorance and superstition hold it more inviolate than would locks and bolts.’
And with that he went, unconscious of the emotion his words had awakened in the stranger’s breast. He recrossed the moat, regained and remounted his horse, and going round to the main entrance, rode into the courtyard with as matter-of-fact an air as if nothing untoward lay upon his mind.
Now his next business was to forage without attracting undue observation. But, as to that, having a general way with him the least tolerant of any inquisitiveness as to the motives of his actions, he might appropriate whatever he pleased, and for whatever mysterious purpose, without fear of exciting comment, other than such as might privately turn upon another of the young master’s inscrutable fancies. So, going very coolly about it, he provided himself with bread and meat, a flagon of good Malmsey, a packet of tapers with materials for making a fire, a heavy horse-cloth from the stable, and, from an outhouse, with a spare brazier stuffed with lumps of charcoal: armed with all of which commodities, he made his way into the garden, leaving behind him an impression that he was bent on one of those solitary gipsy picnics to which on fine evenings he had more than once been drawn.
It was nearing dusk as Brion, loaded as he was, disappeared among the ilexes.
CHAPTER XXVI.
AN INCUBUS
‘Thou hast bound up my wounds, and set me on thine own beast, and brought me to an inn,’ said the stranger. ‘Blessed be thy living witness to Christ’s parable.’