“La, Mr Winter,” Morgan interrupted, looking at me with a highly disagreeable expression, “you are so quick, you quite take my breath away. However could you guess that, now?”
“It’s kind of you, at any rate, to make the parting easier,” I said.
For I saw that I must go; although it did not stand in my code of honourable obligation to fling myself, without sufficient reason, adrift in mid-winter on the wild hills of Somerset and Devon, at the risk of being shot by a bloody and reckless pirate. But, after all, there was a faint possibility that I might prove of service; although, unless I shot Mr Murch from behind a hedge—which was unfortunately impossible, even for a gentleman of fortune—I could not for the life of me see what I should be doing.
“Do you think I would not go myself, if I had not promised to stay here?” demanded Morgan.
“God forbid!” I said. “Only absolve me of the same promise, and you shall be rid of me at once!”
“Bless you, Harry, I don’t want to be rid of you!” cried this singular lady, changing from wrath to kindness in a moment. “I’m short of temper, I know. You must forget what I said. Only it went to my heart to see you stand there prating like a sea-lawyer, and Murch doing his eight knots over the hills.”
The sun was rising behind Dundry Hill, with the old tower a-top that keeps vigil over Bristol city, as horse and man ploughed through the melting snow; the sky was clearing to seaward, and a space of blue was lifting about the horizon. Murch was out of sight, and the schooner was hidden in the deep gorge of the river behind me. No more solitary atom in all the bleak world than Henry Winter, riding on a fool’s errand, to meet a fool’s end very likely. In the thawing drift and the deep mire the going was very heavy; at present the odds were in favour of the ship, despite the contrary wind. It was noon before a black spot appeared far in front, crawling up the hillside all ribbed with brown amid the white.
We were climbing the spurs of the Mendips by this time; and when the road began to descend on the farther side into the flat country of the Brent Marshes, I let Mr Murch forge still further ahead. At Weare, where one crosses the River Ax, I learned from the people of the ale-house that a solitary traveller had passed an hour since. We had covered some twenty miles in five or six hours. I could not tell how the schooner did, for the road lay too deep inland. But all across the marshes the road slants towards the coast, and the sea rose again into view upon the right hand. The dim, blue plain was studded here and there with sails, but whether the schooner were in sight or not I could not determine. Then the road turned due south to Bridgwater. The dusk was thickening fast, and horse and man were pretty well jaded when we clattered into the little town. The red firelight beaconed from the windows, and I had more urgent desire for a bed than ever in my life. But there was no rest for this miserable adventurer. He must press on, and when he could bear the saddle-chafe no longer, he must even pad the hoof himself. The horse was near foundered already, and when I made request at the inn for a fresh mount, behold, Mr Murch, for no doubt but it was he, had already departed astride the only nag available. I stayed in that house an hour, had a meal while the horse was baiting, gave the wretched beast a drench of wine after the manner of the highwaymen, and started anew.
The next stage was Watchett, and with good luck we might make it in three hours. You are to remember that no man fresh from the sea feels easy on a horse, though he be an experienced rider, which I never was; conceive, then, the misery of Henry Winter. The saddle was no better than red-hot iron to him, every bone ached, and he had a dreadful pain in his belly. As the darkness gathered, a thick, soft rain began to fall. The horse stumbled and plashed and floundered onward, now and again coming to a dead stop, hanging his head and blowing heavily. Every minute the rider thought he could endure no longer, and then he would try for one more minute; and so, minute by minute, the pain and weariness wore themselves into a kind of nexus of suffering, a dolorous condition in which he seemed to have existed always, and which would endure for ever. Then he fell into a broken sleep, bowing forward with both hands clasping the pommel of the saddle; and he thought he was at sea again and had fallen asleep on watch; and then he thought he was a child, going to church with the sound of the bells in his ears, the tedious Sunday bells; and then he would awake again to see the moon shining from a rift in the clouds and a humped shadow gliding beside him. At these times I had wit enough to take an observation of the stars; and so it was, I suppose, that I kept the road, travelling at the foot of the Quantocks, and passed between the butt of the hills and the sea, and came to Watchett.
It was midnight then, and not a light shone in any window, save one; and, steering for that, I came to the inn of the place. I slid off and fell down in a heap, and staggered up, and into the tavern; and there, beside a great fire, with a bottle at his elbow, sat Mr Murch. I had forgot Mr Murch. There he was, and I suppose I stood staring at him like a ninny. Murch looked up, took his cigarro from his mouth, and surveyed me in silence.