"I will tell you. Not more than three miles from here stands a lonely house among the moors, Rockmount by name. Its owner, a solitary, is a man well advanced in years--a scholar and a bookworm. But although leading such a secluded life, his door is open day and night to any one who--like yourself--has lost his way, or who craves the shelter of his roof on any account whatever. To Rockmount you must now hie you and put Mr. Ellerslie's hospitality to the proof: that you will not do so in vain I am well assured. I know the way and will gladly guide you there. Come, let us lose no more time. This cursed rain shows no signs of leaving off."
"But if this part of the country is so well known to you," urged the other, "why not direct me the way I want to go, instead of pressing me--and at this hour of the night--to intrude on the hospitality of a stranger?"
"There are two, if not more, very sufficient reasons why I am unable to oblige you in this matter," responded the other dryly. "In the first place, I could not direct you, as you call it, into the Whinbarrow road. On such a night as this no directions would avail you; I should have to lead you there, and plant the nose of your mare straight up the road before leaving you. In the second place, my way lies in an opposite direction. Matters of moment need my presence elsewhere, and before the first cock begins to crow I must be a score miles from here."
As if to bar any further discussion in the matter, he took hold of the bridle of the other's horse and, leading the way out of the plantation, started off at an easy canter up the road in the direction taken by the chaise. The younger man offered no opposition to the proceeding.
He seemed little more than a boy, and the night's adventures had fluttered his nerves. To go wandering about in the pitch-dark, hunting for a road that was wholly strange to him--not one of the great highways, which he could hardly have missed, but a narrow cross-country turnpike which had nothing to distinguish it from half-a-dozen other roads--was more than he was prepared to do. He felt like one in a half-dream; all that had happened during the last hour had an air of unreality; he was himself, and yet not himself. To-night's business seemed to separate him by a huge gap both from yesterday and to-morrow. His will was in a state of partial suspension; he allowed himself to be led blindly forward, he neither knew nor greatly cared whither.
Before long they turned sharply to the left up a rutted and stony cart-track, which apparently led right into the heart of the moors. Here they could only go slowly, trusting in a great measure to the instinct and surefootedness of their horses. The highwayman still kept hold of the other's bridle. The rain had in some measure abated, and a rift in the clouds low down in the east was slowly broadening.
Not a word had passed between them since they left the plantation. But now, as if the silence had become irksome to him, the man with the crape mask burst into song. His voice was a full, clear baritone:
"Oh, kiss me, Childe Lovel," she breathes in his ear;
"Night's shadows flee fast, the moon's drown'd in the mere."
He turns his head slowly. "Christ! what is't I see?
A demon rides with me!" shrieks Ellen O'Lee.
When he had come to the end of the verse, he drew forth his snuff-box, tapped it, opened it, and with a little bow proffered it to his companion.
The moon had come out again, dim and watery, by this time, and they were now enabled to see each other so far as outlines and movements were concerned, although the more minute points of each other's appearance were still to some extent conjectural.