“Why, it is perjury!” he cried, confused, not knowing what he said.
“If you like to call it so; but nobody minds. No one is harsh to a fib of that sort. Everything’s fair, don’t you know, in love?—or so they say.”
Walter’s head seemed going round and round. He could not feel the ground under his feet. He seemed to be lifted away from his firm and solid footing and plunged into a dark and whirling abyss. He could feel her leaning almost heavily upon his arm—all her weight upon him, both her hands clasping that support. That palpable touch seemed the only reality left in earth and heaven. He seemed to himself for a long time unable to speak; and when his voice came forth at last it was not his voice at all—it was a hoarse outburst of sound such as he had never heard before. Nor was it he who said the words. He heard them as if some one else had said them, hoarse, harsh, like the cry of an animal.
“Should you like me to do that?” the question was asked by some one, in that horrible way, in the midst of the chilled but heavenly stillness of the night.
He heard the question, but he was not conscious of any answer to it; nor did he know any more till he found himself, or rather heard himself, stumbling down the steep road to the Hook, almost falling over the stones in the way, making a noise which seemed to echo all about. He knew the way well enough, and where the stony places were, and generally ran up and down as lightly as a bird, his rapid elastic steps making the least possible sound as he skimmed along. But this evening it was very different. He stumbled against every obstacle in his way, and sent the stones whirling down the road in advance of him as though he had been a drunken man. He felt indeed as if that were what he was, intoxicated in a way that had no pleasure in it, but only a wild and stupefied confusion, which made a chaos all around—a noisy chaos full of the crash of external sounds—full of voices, conversations, in none of which he took any part, though he heard things said that seemed to come from himself flitting across the surface of his dream.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
A DOMESTIC EXPLOSION.
The breakfast-table at the Hook was not a particularly quiet scene. The children were all in high spirits in the freshness of the morning, and the toys and Christmas presents, though not very fine or expensive, had still novelty to recommend them. Little Molly, before she was lifted up to her high-chair, working away conscientiously and gravely with a large rattle, held at the length of her little arm, while her next little brother drew over the carpet a cart fitted up with some kind of mechanism which called itself music; and Horry flogged his big wooden horse, and little Dick added a boom upon his drum, made a combination of noises which might well have shut out all external sounds. This tumult, indeed, calmed when father came in, when the ringleaders were lifted up on their chairs, and another kind of commotion, the sound of spoons and babble of little voices, began. What other noise could be heard through it? Mab did not think she could have heard anything, scarcely the approach of an army. But the ears of the family were used to it, and had large capabilities. When Martha came in with a fresh supply of milk and a countenance more ruddy than usual, her mistress put the question directly which so much embarrassed the young woman.
“Martha, was that your father’s voice I heard? Is there anything wrong at home?”
“No, ma’am—my lady,” said Martha, in her confusion stumbling over the new title which she was in fact more particular about than its possessor.
“What does he want, then, so early in the morning? I hope your mother is not ill?”