“For coming?” said the man, turning round to peer into his face though it was covered by the darkness; and then he gave a low laugh. “I could have told you that!”
For a moment Geoff’s blood ran colder; he felt a little thrill of dismay. Was this strange creature a “natural” as he had thought, or did what he said imply danger? But no more was said for a long time. Bampfylde sank back again all at once into the silence he had so suddenly broken, or rather into the low crooning of monotonous old songs with which he had beguiled the first part of the journey. There was a kind of slumbrous soothing in them which half-interested, half-stupefied Geoff. They all went to one tune, a tune not like anything he knew—a kind of low chant, recalling several airs that did not vary from verse to verse, but repeated itself, and so lulled the wayfarer that all active sensation seemed to go from him, and the monotonous, mechanical movement of his limbs seemed to beat time to the croon of sound which accompanied the gradual march. There was something weird in it, something like “the woven paces and the waving hands” of the enchantress. Geoff felt his eyes grow heavy, and his head sinking on his breast, as the low, regular tramp and chant went on.
At length, all at once, the hills seemed to clear away from the sky, opening up on either hand; and straight before them, hanging low, like a signal of trouble, a late risen and waning moon that seemed thrust forward out into the air, and hanging from the sky, appeared in the luminous but mournful heaven in front of them. There is always something more or less baleful and troublous in this sudden apparition, so late and out of date, of a waning moon; the oil seems low in the lamp, the light ready to be extinguished, the flame quivering in the socket. Between them and the sky stood a long, low cottage, rambling and extensive, with a rough, grey stone wall built round it, upon which the pale moonlight shone. Long before they reached it, as soon as their steps could be audible, the mingled baying and howling of a dog was heard, rising doleful and ominous in the silence; and from under the roof—which was half rough thatch and half the coarse tiles used for labourers’ cottages—a light strangely red against the radiance of the moon flickered with a livid glare. A strange black silhouette of a house it was, with the low moonlight full upon it, showing here and there in a ghostly full white upon a bit of wall or roof, and contrasting with the red light in the window: it made a mystic sort of conclusion to the journey. Bampfylde directed his steps towards it without a word. He knocked a stroke or two on the door, which seemed to echo over all the country and up to the mountain-tops in their great stillness. “We are at home, now,” he said.
CHAPTER XX.
THE COTTAGE ON THE FELLS.
There was a sound of movement within the house, but no light visible as they stood at the door. Then a window was cautiously opened, and a voice called out into the darkness, “Is that you, my lad?” Geoff felt more and more the little thrill of alarm which was quite instinctive, and meant nothing except excited fancy; such precautions looked unlike the ordinary ease and freedom of a peasant’s house. A minute after the door was opened, and ’Lizabeth Bampfylde made her appearance. She had her red handkerchief as usual tied over her white cap, and the flash of this piece of colour and of the old woman’s brilliant eyes were the first things which warmed the gloom, the blackness and whiteness and mystic midnight atmosphere. She made an old-fashioned curtsey, with a certain dignity in it, when she saw Geoff, and her face, which had been somewhat eager in expression, paled and saddened instantly. The young man saw her arms come together with a gesture of pain, though the candle she held prevented the natural clasp of the hands. She was not glad to see him, though she had sent for him. This troubled Geoff, whom from his childhood most people had been pleased to see. “You’ve come, then, my young lord?” she said, with a half-suppressed groan.
“Indeed, I thought you wanted me to come,” he said, unreasonably annoyed by this absence of welcome; “you sent for me.”
“You thought the lad would be daunted,” said Wild Bampfylde, “and I told you he would not be daunted if he had any metal in him. So now you’re at the end of all your devices. Come in and welcome, my young lord. I’m glad of it, for one.”
Saying this, the vagrant disappeared into the gloom of the interior, where his step was audible moving about, and was presently followed by the striking of a light, which revealed, through an open door, the old-fashioned cottage kitchen, so far in advance of other moorland cottages of the same kind, that it had a little square entrance from the door, which did not open direct into the family living-room. This rude little ante-room had even a kind of rude decoration, dimly apparent by the light of ’Lizabeth’s candle. A couple of old guns hung on one wall, another boasted a deer’s head with fine antlers. Once upon a time it had evidently been prized and cared for. The open door of the room into which Bampfylde had gone showed the ordinary cottage dresser with its gleaming plates (a decoration which in these days has mounted from the kitchen to the drawing-room), deal table, and old-fashioned settle, lighted dimly by a small lamp on the mantelpiece, and the smouldering red of the fire. ’Lizabeth closed the door slowly, and with trembling hands, which trembled still more when Geoff attempted to help her. “No, no; go in, go in, my young gentleman. Let me be. It’s me to serve the like of you, not the like of you to open or shut my door for me. Ah, these are the ways that make you differ from common folk!” she said, as the young man stood back to let her pass. “My son leaves me to do whatever’s to be done, and goes in before me, and calls me to serve him; but the like of you—. It was that, and not his name or his money, that took my Lily’s heart.”
Geoff followed her into the kitchen. It was low and large, with a small deep-set window at each corner, as is usual in such cottages. Before the fire was spread a large rug of home manufacture, made of scraps of coloured cloth, arranged in an indistinct pattern upon a black background, and Bampfylde was occupying himself busily, putting forward a large high easy-chair in front of the fire, and breaking the “gathered” coals to give at once heat and light. “Sit you down there,” he said, thrusting Geoff into it almost with violence, “you’re little used to midnight strolling. Me, it’s meat and drink to me to be free and aneath the stars. Let her be, let her be. She’s not like one of your ladies. Her own way, that’s all the like of her can ever get to please them—and she’s gotten that,” he said, giving another vigorous poke to the fire. Up here among the fells the fire was pleasant, though it was the middle of August: and Geoff’s young frame was sufficiently unused to such long trudges to make him glad of the rest. He sat down and looked round him with a grateful sense of the warmth and repose. A north-country cottage was no strange place to young Lord Stanton, and all the tremour of the adventure had passed from him at the sight of the light and the homely, kindly interior. No harm could possibly happen in so familiar an atmosphere, and in such a natural place. Meantime old ’Lizabeth, with a thrill of agitation in her movements which was very apparent, busied herself in laying the table, putting down a clean tablecloth, and placing bread, cheese, and milk upon it. “I have wine, if you like wine better,” she said. “He will get it, but he takes none himself—nothing, poor lad, nothing. He’s a good son and a good lad—many a time I’ve thanked God that He’s left me such a lad to be the comfort of my old age.”
Wild Bampfylde gave a laugh which was harsh and broken. “You were not always so thankful,” he said, producing out of some unseen corner a black bottle; “but the milk is better of its kind, being natural, than the wine.”