There was plenty of sport to be had in the forest which stretched away from the Schloss, and Herriard, with the enjoyment of one for whom struggle and danger had suddenly ceased, threw himself with zest into the novel, emancipated life, and wandered every day farther in pursuit of game. In the still depths of the forest, in a fairy-land which seemed far from the ken of worldly strife and schemes, Herriard felt he had left the events of a few weeks back years behind him; he could laugh at his fears. Paul Gastineau was no longer a haunting terror, but merely a strange episode.
What creatures of our impressions, our surroundings we are. How one mind, determined, inscrutable, can dominate a weaker: how long the paralyzing effect of a stronger will lingers, to be weakened and at last banished not by a human effort but by the external agency of a changed environment.
Reflections such as these were passing through Herriard’s mind as, after a full day’s sport, he sat, tranquilly smoking a cigar, on the platform of an ancient hunting-tower which stood in the forest depths some two or three miles from the castle. The two foresters who had accompanied him he had sent home with the heavy bag of game; being himself somewhat tired with his long tramp, he had thought to rest awhile before resuming his homeward walk.
The tower was situated in an open clearing where three glades met. To Herriard, as he stretched himself comfortably on the old weather-beaten benches, it seemed the most tranquilly romantic spot in the world. All round him from the sunlit dell rose majestically the dark violet masses of the vast forest; its density pierced by the three moss-carpeted roads which the tower commanded. The day had been hot; a hazy film seemed to hang over the dark, illimitable battalions of pines, standing motionless in the windless atmosphere. On either side of the long vista which lay before Herriard’s idle observation, the haze seemed to line the dark walls, fringing the avenue beyond the line of trees, and leaving a narrow road still bright and clear.
Presently Herriard became conscious that far down this glade, perhaps half an English mile away, a figure had appeared. For a while he watched it lazily, as a break in that magnificent monotony it had become the most interesting object in sight, and it amused the watcher to observe whether the figure was moving towards the tower or away from it. Nearer, surely; but with a progress so slow as to be scarcely perceptible. Herriard took out his stalking glasses and brought them to bear on the object of his curiosity. A man, a bent old man, he seemed, carrying a load, probably a faggot-gatherer crawling on his daily round. Herriard put back the glasses—he was never quite free now from suspicion—and contentedly resumed his cigar. Then he fell to moralizing, as an idle man will, over the lot of such an one as the solitary peasant who was creeping slowly towards him. Presently as he looked, the figure bore to one side of the track, and next moment vanished in the curtain of mist that hung before the line of trees. He had crept off by some forest path, Herriard conjectured, with a slight feeling of an ended companionship. For in that place, surrounded by the almost oppressive loneliness compelled by nature in all her unchallenged predominance and autocracy, even the distant presence of an obscure peasant creeping laboriously through the forest ways to his primitive hovel, gave a welcome touch of company. But he was gone now, passed out of his observer’s life, in all probability never to cross his way again.
With that thought in his mind Herriard gave an exclamation of surprise. There again was the man he had seen and who was still furnishing a text for his moralizing; he had reappeared as abruptly as he had vanished. He was close at hand now, almost under the tower; the same bent figure, bowed beneath a bundle of faggots, and using one as a staff to aid his steps.
The old man seemed to have come quickly from the point where he had disappeared not many minutes before; if, perhaps, more time had not passed in the interval than Herriard was conscious of. The man came on until he was under the tower, and so out of sight from the platform. Herriard was debating with himself whether he should accost the solitary creature and brighten the day for him with a present of a few florins, when, somewhat to his surprise, he heard the slow footsteps ascending the winding stairs of the tower. Perhaps, he thought, the old fellow is accustomed to billet himself here; the half-ruinous building is useless enough; one could scarcely complain.
At the floor below the footsteps stopped for a while: if the poor man was resting there comfortably Herriard would not disturb him unnecessarily. No; he was moving about softly; now, surely he was on the stairs again, coming up to the roof platform. It seemed a strange thing to do; the reason was not quite obvious, unless the man had noticed a stranger there, and was coming up to beg. Herriard watched for his appearance with some curiosity. The ascent sounded hard and laboured, and when at length the expected figure emerged from the trap-door the man’s back was, by the trend of the steps, turned towards the place where Herriard sat. For a few moments he seemed to fumble with his neck-cloth, apparently unaware that he was not alone, since he took no notice of him.
“What in the world is he doing?” As the remark was uttered half aloud, the man turned quickly. The unkempt beard was gone; and, with a great leap of the heart, Herriard found himself staring at the face of Paul Gastineau.