“Certainly. All you’ve got to do is, step across to the ‘Canterbury Arms’—it’s five minutes’ walk from this house on the left—the coach starts for Canterbury at half-past seven in the morning, every day.”
“Thank you,” said Holdsworth, who found it impossible, amid the renewed hubbub of conversation that had burst out, to ask some questions about Hanwitch, which might help him to understand the longing that possessed him to visit it.
“You’re not going—the night’s very young, sir?” said the man, seeing Holdsworth rise. But Holdsworth merely wished him “Good night,” and slipped out of the room unnoticed by the company, who were at that moment busy in entreating the fat man to give them another song.
The cool air and silence of the passage were a great relief after the heat and noise of the public room. It was now drawing near to eleven o’clock. Holdsworth went to the bar and asked for a candle, and was lighted to his bed-room by a chambermaid with ringlets and black eyes, who probably felt surprised that her charms attracted no notice whatever from the gentleman, who seemed to find pleasure in no other object than the carpet on which he trod.
Holdsworth closed the door, and a whole hour passed before he rose to remove his clothes. There was something in the recollection of the thrill which the name of Hanwitch had sent through him, that impelled him to bend the whole energies of his mind to the word, and he strove with memory passionately and fiercely, but could not wrench a syllable from her. He repeated the name until it lost even its sense as the designation of a town. Nevertheless, every moment made his longing to visit it deeper. There must be some reason why this name had so stirred him. The names of other English counties and cities had been pronounced before him and by him over and over again, but they touched no chord, they awoke no echo in his mind, however dim and elusive.
If memory would only define the object he sought! This it would not do. He was a wanderer, obeying the dictation of blind instinct, which urged without guiding him. Of all his past, nothing was present to his mind. He knew not what he sought. His was an affliction crueller than blindness, for a blind man could say: “A beloved one has strayed from me. I seek her. I see not, indeed, those who surround me, but my mission has form and substance in my mind, and my inquiries cannot always prove fruitless.” But Holdsworth was commanded by a mysterious emotion which controlled without enlightening him. Something had been lost—something was to be found. He felt his want, but could not explain it to himself. No man could help him, since no man could guess what was the thing he looked for.
When he left his chair he sank upon his knees and asked God in broken tones to help him—to direct him into the path that should lead him to the light—to aid him in his yearning to re-illuminate his memory.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
FOR HANWITCH.
If a man has one good reason for being grateful for living in these times, it is because they are not coaching days.