A Nest of Linnets

by Frank Frankfort Moore

In the moonlight it seemed to his eyes like the city of a dream. All the enchantment of the first sweet sleep of night permeated it. It was surely like a silver city of a mirage—a wonder of the desert, with towers mingling with minarets and shadowy spires.

He did not feel unhappy. How could any one feel unhappy looking down upon such a scene? And there beneath his eyes the mystery and the magic of it all was added to, for the delicate veil of vapour which had been hanging over the windings of the river began to crawl up the banks, and, under the influence of the gentlest of breezes, to spread itself abroad over the city. Looking down upon it, it seemed to be a silent sea—the sea of a dream that comes without sound and floods the visionary landscape, and then swims into the dreamy moonlight. Tower and spire remained above the surface of the river mist—silver islands rising out of a silver sea.

What was this mystery of moonlight that was spread abroad before his eyes? he asked himself. What did it mean to him? Why had he been led forth on this night to be a witness of its wonders?

Was he to learn on this night of nights something of the mystery of life? Was he to learn that the destiny of man is worked out in many phases unfamiliar to man?

One mystery of life had already been revealed to him this night: the happiness of self-abnegation. She had taught him this—the one girl who came into his life, and who would, he felt sure, ever remain a part of his life, though it might be that he and she would never meet again as they had been accustomed to meet during the previous two years—she had taught him this, at least, and he felt that his life was not the same since he had learned that lesson. He was conscious of the change. His life was better. It was purified; he was living it, not for the joy of life, not for the ambitions which he hitherto sought to realise, but for the spiritual gain; and he was content even though that gain could only be achieved at the sacrifice of all that he had once held most dear.

And all the time that he was reflecting upon the change that had come to him, the scene was changing under his eyes. The breeze that had lifted the mist from the river and spread it abroad through the by-ways of Bath, strengthened and swept those airy billows away into nothingness, and the still fleecy clouds that had been floating motionless about the moon began to feel the breath that came from the west, bringing up somewhat denser, but still fleecy, masses. The moon began to climb among the clouds, and now and again its disc was hidden as it laboured upward.

He rose from his seat on the green bank, and began to make his way down the lane to the London road. The night was very silent. The striking of the clocks of the city was less clear than that of a bell in the far distance. The barking of a dog came from one of the farms on the opposite slope of the river. The bleating of sheep came fitfully and faintly through the trees that concealed the meadow beyond the upward curve of the road.

He reached the road and made some haste homeward. Hitherto he had seen no wayfarer; but before he had gone more than a mile, he heard the rumble of a vehicle in the distance, and a few minutes after, one of the coaches came up and galloped past in a whirl of dust. Dick turned aside to avoid the dust, and stood for a few minutes in the cover of a small shrubbery. When he resumed his walk the coach was not only out of sight, it was out of hearing as well.

But before he had gone on more than a hundred yards he was startled by hearing another sound—the sound of a man’s shout as if for help. It came from the distance of the road in front of him, and it was repeated more than once.

Dick stopped at the first cry, faint though it sounded, and listened closely. After all, he thought, the sound might only come from a shepherd driving his sheep from one pasturage to another; but the next time it came his doubt vanished. He was running at the top of his speed round where the road curved, and before he had gone far he saw three men furiously lunging—the moonlight flashed on their blades—at what seemed to him to be the iron gate between the carriage drive of a house and the road. When he got closer to them, however, he saw that there was a man behind the bars of the gate, and that while he was holding the latch fast with his left hand, with the sword which he held in his right he was cleverly parrying the thrusts of the others.