The House of Egremont

by Molly Elliot Seawell

Roger spoke not one word until they came near the town.

“I will not go back to my lodging just now. I like the fresh air and the wind; it does one good after the nauseous company we have been in. Can we not leave to-morrow?”

“By God, we shall,” replied Berwick. “My errand is done. I have now only to do my work as a soldier; and as for fearing to offend that miserable apology for a man and a prince, he is worth no man’s enmity.”

“Arrange it so that I may be excused from a farewell visit,” asked Roger.

“I will. You must have a cold and fever to-morrow, which will only abate at the hour fixed for us to start. I will be out of this place, please God, by noon.”

Roger turned off from the town into the fields and woods. He wished to be away from the sight of that white palace, from which the lights in the windows were disappearing one by one. Yet it seemed as if he could always see it whenever he looked backward, until he climbed the wooded heights around the town, and plunged into the heart of the forest.

He wandered about in the woods the whole night. He felt that, had he been cooped up in that one room in the dingy schloss, he should have gone mad. But in his agony he again became the primitive man. As at Egremont, he found a kind of solace in the moist earth, the solemn trees, the inscrutable stars. At least, pain was more easily borne in the woods than under a roof. When he considered how many summers and winters, how many lifetimes, those ancient trees had seen; what vast years the rocks and hills had known; for how many æons those glittering, palpitating stars had looked down upon the miseries, the toils, the graves of men, he felt himself and his own sorrows become insignificant. The thought of the briefness of life, the little time wherein there was a flicker of breath in man, was comforting to him. If one could suffer for long as he was suffering, and as that unfortunate girl was suffering, the earth would be intolerable.

Toward four o’clock in the morning he had reached the limit of pain. A man can only suffer so much, then relief must come. The ghastly moon, that had seemed to follow him all night, was going down in the west. In the east there was a faint glory that heralded the dawn. Amid the awakening of the birds, and all the sights and sounds that mark the miracle of a new day, Roger Egremont was overcome by that wretched sleep which eludes the night, and comes only at daybreak. With his cloak wrapped about him, he lay down under a low-branched cedar tree, and fell into a heavy sleep.

It was long past sunrise when he awaked. He was in his right mind then, and rising, went and washed his face in a neighboring stream, and examined himself carefully. His suit of green and silver was wet with dew and full of earth stains—altogether wretched. He had worn, the night before, a hat with plumes in it; but it was nowhere to be found.

A peasant’s cottage could be seen about a mile off. Roger made for it. A man was slouching out of the cottage when Roger, leaping the hedge, came upon him. He looked at Roger, and his mouth came open in a grin. Truly, this scion of the Egremonts looked ridiculous enough, with his smart clothes wet and stained with mud, and the hood of his riding-cloak over his head in lieu of a hat.