Part 14

Mehalah returned to the front room. She got out some tools and set herself to work at once to fasten on the lock. She was accustomed to doing all sorts of things herself; she could roughly carpenter, she had often patched her boat. The old farmhouse was in a decayed condition and needed much mending, and for several years she had done what was required to it. To put on a lock was a trifle; but the old nails that had fastened the former lock remained in the wood, and had to be punched out, and the keyhole was not quite in the right place when the lock was first put on, and had to be altered. At length the lock was fast, a strong lock, strong for such a worm-eaten door.

Mehalah went to her mother's room and looked at the old woman. She slept heavily, unlike her usual sleep, which would be broken at once by the entry of her daughter with a light.

Mehalah returned to the kitchen and seated herself at the hearth. How long had this keg of spirits been in the house? She had paid no attention to the introduction of spirits since George's death, her mind had been occupied with other matters. Her mother and Rebow had taken advantage of this. How was it that Rebow came to the house when she was away? He never came when she was present, at least not since the night when the money was stolen; but she was sure that he visited her mother during her absence, from little things let drop by the old woman.

How did he manage to time his visits so as not to meet her? She would find out when he was last at the Ray Farm. She sprang up, and went out of the door, unlocking it to let herself go forth; and she called Abraham. There was no answer. The old man was already turned into his loft over the cowhouse, and asleep.

She called him again, but with equal want of success. Not a thunderbolt falling on the thorns beside the house would rouse him. Mehalah knew that, and went back to her seat by the fire, relocking the door. 'I will ask him in the morning. He must know.'

She drew off her shoes, and put her bare feet on the warm hearth. She was without her guernsey and cap, for she did not wear them when she went to Colchester.

She fell, as was her wont, to thinking. Since the death of George, she had been accustomed to sit thus over the fire, after her mother had retired. She was not thinking of him now, she was thinking of Elijah. His words, his strange, mad, fierce words, came back to her. Was there a destiny shaping her life against her will, and forcing her into his arms? She shuddered at the thought. To hate and love, and love and hate, year out, year in, that was what they were fated to do, according to him. That he was drawn towards her by some attractive power exercised against her will, she knew full well, but she would not allow that he exercised the least attraction on her. Yet she did feel that there was some sort of spell upon her. Hate him as she did and would, she knew that she could not altogether escape him, she had an instinctive consciousness that she was held by him, she did not understand how, in his hands. Perhaps it was her destiny to hate and fight him; for how long? Love him she never could, she never would. There was an assurance in his manner and tone which impressed her against her better judgment. He spoke as though it were but a matter of time before she yielded herself wholly to him, and came under his roof and joined her lot with his, for life and for death. What right had he to assume this? What grounds had he for this confidence? None but a blind, dogged conviction in his own mind that destiny had ordained them for each other. Then she thought of the story of Grim's Hoe, of the two who loved and hated, embraced and fought eternally therein, those two destined from their mother's womb to be together in life and death, with twin souls and bodies, who had they lived in love might have rested in death, but as they fought must fight on. There they were, in the old hollow womb of the ship down in the earth in darkness, loving one another as brothers, fighting each other as rivals; the conflict lasting till one shall master the other, a thing that never can be, for both were born with equal strength, and equal purpose, and equal stubbornness of will. The fumes of the spilled spirits hung in the air, and stimulated Mehalah's brain. Instead of stupefying, they quickened her mind into activity. Her heart beat. She felt as if she were in the ship hold watching the eternal conflict, and as if she must take a part with one or the other; as if her so doing would determine the victory. But which should she will to conquer, when each was the counterpart of the other? She could not bear this thought, she could not endure the fumes of the spirit, it suffocated her. She sprang up. The full moon was glaring in at the window from a cloudless sky.

She opened the door. The air was cold, but there was little wind. She could see on the south-east horizon, at the highest point of the island, the great Hoe crowned with black pines.

The moon was at full. The old warriors were now hewing at one another, and the dim, frightened captive maid looked on with her hands on her heart, her great eyes gleaming like glow-worms in the decaying ship hold. Ha! at each sword stroke the sparks flashed. Ha! the cut flesh glimmered like phosphorescent fish, and the blood ran like blue fire. Was the story true? Could anyone hear the warriors shout and smite, who chose to listen at the full of the moon? The distance to Grim's Hoe was not over two miles. Mehalah thought she must go there and listen with her own ears. She would go.

Once more she returned to her mother's room, and saw that Mrs. Sharland was asleep. Then she drew on her shoes, her guernsey, and her red cap, went out, locked the door, and put the key in her pocket.

'Who went there?' She started. She thought she saw something--some one, move; but then laughed. The moon was so bright that it cast her shadow on the wall, distinct and black as if it were a palpable body. She stood still, listened, and looked round. She could see the stretch of the saltings as distinctly as if it were day, only that the shadows were inky black, not purple as by sunlight. Not a sound was to be heard.

'I will go,' she said, and she strode off towards the causeway.

The path over the marshes was perfectly distinct. She walked fast, the earth crackled under her feet, the frost was keen. Her eyes rose ever and anon to Grim's Hoe. The pines on it did not stir, they stood like mourners above a grave.

The Mersea channel gleamed like a belt of silver, not a ripple was on the water on the west side of the causeway, and but slight flapping wavelets, driven by the north-east wind, played with the tangles on the piles on the other side of the Strood.

She reached the island of Mersea by the causeway, now dry, and began to ascend the hill. Once she turned and looked back. She could see the Ray rising above the marshes, bathed in moonlight, patched with coal black shadows cast by the ancient thorn trees, and the farm buildings.

Before her rose the great barrow, partly overgrown with shrubs, but bare on the north-west towards the Strood. It was a bell-shaped mound rising some thirty feet above the surface of the ground. She paused a moment at the foot and listened. Not a sound. She must then climb the tumulus, and lie on the top between the pines, and lay her ear to the ground. She stepped boldly up the little path trodden by children and sheep, and in a few moments was at the top. She stopped to breathe, to look up at the wan white moon that gazed down on her, and then she cast herself on the ground, with her face to the north-west.

What was that? A fir cone fell beside her. There was no sound. Hist! a stoat ran past and disappeared in a hole. Then she heard screams. A poor rabbit was attacked and its blood sucked. She lifted her head, and then laid it on the ground again. Her eyes were fixed on the distance.

What was that? In a moment she was on her feet.

What was that red spot over the marshes, on the Ray, among the trees? What was that leaping, dancing, lambent tongue, shooting up and recoiling? What was that white rising cloud above the thorns?

Before she knew where she was, Mehalah was flying down the hill towards the Strood, the dead Danish warriors forgotten in the agony of her fear. As she ran on, her eyes never left the Ray, and she saw the red light grow in intensity and spread in body. The farm was on fire. The house was on fire, and her mother was in a dead sleep within--locked in--and the key was in her pocket.

O God! what had she done? Why had she gone? Had not the spilled spirits caught fire and set the house in flames! Why had she locked her mother in? a thing never done before. Mehalah ran, terror, horror, anguish at her heart. She did not look at her path, she took it instinctively, she did not heed the rude bridges, she dashed across them, and one broke under her hasty foot, and fell away after she had passed. The flames were climbing higher. She could see them devouring the wooden tarred walls. Then came a great burst of fire, and a rushing upwards of blazing sparks. The roof had fallen in. A pillar of blue and golden light stood up and illumined the whole Ray. The thorn trees looked now like wondrous, finely-ramified, golden seaweeds in a dim blue sea. Mehalah would not pause to look at anything, she saw only flames leaping and raging where was her home, where lay her mother. How could she reach the place before the house was a wreck, and her dear mother was buried beneath the burned timbers of the roof, and the hot broken tiles?

She was there at last, before the great blaze; she could see that some one or two men were present.

'My mother, my mother!' she gasped, and fell on her knees.

'Be still, Glory, she is safe, no thanks to you.'

Mehalah lost consciousness for a few moments. The revulsion of feeling was so great as to overcome her. When she recovered, she was still unable for some time to gather all her faculties together, rise, look round, and note what had taken place.

The whole farmhouse was on fire, every wall was flaming, and part of the roof had fallen in. If once the house were to catch fire it was certain to go like tinder. A spout of flame came out of her mother's bed-room window. The fire glowed and roared in the old kitchen sitting-room.

'Where is my mother?' asked Mehalah abruptly.

'She is all safe,' answered Abraham Dowsing, who was dragging some saved bedding out of reach of the sparks. 'She is in the boat.'

'The cow?' asked Mehalah.

'She is all right also. The fire has not caught the stable.'

'Who got my mother out?'

'I did, Glory!' answered Elijah Rebow. 'You owe her life to me. Why were you not here? Fighting your destiny, I suppose.'

Several articles were scattered about under the trees. The Sharlands had not many valuables; such as they had seemed to have been saved.

'Where is my mother? Lead me to her.'

'She is in the boat, Glory!' said Rebow. 'Come with me. The fire must burn itself out. There is nothing further to be done; we must put your mother at once under shelter. There is a cruel frost, and she will suffer.'

'Where is she? What have you done with her?' again asked Mehalah, still hardly collected and conscious of what she said.

'She is safe in my boat, well wrapped up. Come with me. You shall see her. Abraham and my man shall stay and watch till the fire dies out, and see that no further harm is done, and then follow in your boat.'

'Where are you going?'

'I am going to place your mother under cover, at once, or the cold will kill her. Come on, Glory!'

Elijah led the way down the steep gravelly slope to the Rhyn. There floated his boat--his large two-oared boat, and in the stern half lay, half crouched, Mrs. Sharland, amidst blankets and bedding.

'Joseph!' shouted Elijah to one of the men by the fire, 'follow us as soon as you can, and bring Abraham Dowsing with you. We will fetch away the traps to-morrow.'

Mrs. Sharland was wailing and wringing her hands.

'Oh Mehalah! this is dreadful! too dreadful!'

'Step in and take the oar,' said Elijah impatiently. 'We must get off, and house the old woman as soon as possible, or she will be death-struck.'

The flames were reflected in the water about the boat, it seemed to float in fire.

'Take the oar!' ordered Elijah gruffly.

Mehalah obeyed mechanically. He thrust the boat off, and cast himself in.

No word was spoken for some time, Mehalah's eyes were fixed on her burning home, with despair. Her brain was numb, her heart oppressed. Mrs. Sharland wailed and wept, and uttered loud reproaches against Mehalah, which the girl heard not. She was stunned, and could not take in the situation.

The boat shot past the head of the Ray.

There stood the low broad bulk of the Burnt Hill. Mehalah roused herself.

Elijah looked over his shoulder and laughed.

'Up Salcot Fleet!' he said shortly.

'What!' suddenly exclaimed Mehalah, as a pang shot through her heart. 'Whither are we going?'

'To Red Hall,' answered Elijah.

'I will not go there!' exclaimed the girl in a tone of despair, as she drew her hands sharply from the oar, and the boat swung round.

'Take the oar again,' ordered Elijah. 'Where else can your mother go? You must think of her. She cannot be left to die of cold on the marshes, this night.'

A groan escaped Mehalah's breast. She resumed the oar. 'Hold hard!' shouted Elijah after a row of half-an-hour. He sprang into the water, and drew the boat ashore.

'Give your mother a hand and help her to land,' he said peremptorily. Mehalah obeyed without a word.

Rebow caught the girl by both hands as she stepped on shore.

'Welcome, Glory! welcome to Red Hall! The new year sees you under the roof where you shall rule as mistress; your destiny is mightier than your will.'

*CHAPTER XVI.*

*IN NEW QUARTERS.*

When the boat reached the landing place for Red Hall, Mrs. Sharland was found to have been so overcome with terror, and numbed with frost, as to be unable to walk. She moaned under her blankets, but made no effort to rise. Elijah was obliged to carry her out of the boat upon the sea-wall, and then with the assistance of Mehalah she was conveyed to the house in their arms. Neither spoke, and Mrs. Sharland's lamentations, over various articles she had prized, and which she feared were lost or destroyed, remained unattended to.

The old woman was wrapped up from the cold in a blanket that enfolded her entire person and head, and she kept working an aperture for her face, whilst being carried, not so much to obtain air, as to give vent to queries.

'My green bombazine,--where is it?'

The folds of the blanket closed over the face. The fingers worked at them, till they had made a gap.

'Is the toad-jug saved?' at the same time a point of a nose and a thin finger emerged from the wraps.

'There was a dozen of Lowestoft soup-dishes!' A jerk as she was being lifted over a rail sent her head and shoulders deeper into the blanket, and it was some minutes before she had grubbed a hole for herself again.

'The warming-pan! I can't go to bed unless I have the sheets aired.'

A spring across a dyke buried the old woman again 'in woollen.' She emerged only as the house was reached to exclaim 'My rum!'

'You've come where there's lots of that,' said Elijah, and he indicated with his chin to Mehalah to carry her up the steps into the hall.

A red fire was glowing and painting the walls. The great room was warm, and Mrs. Sharland battled out of her envelopes as soon as she became aware that she was under cover.

'Take me to bed,' she said; 'my legs are frozen. I can't go a step. Oh! is the toad-jug saved?'

'I will carry her now,' said Elijah. 'You light a candle, Glory, and follow me.'

He took the old woman over his shoulder, and led the way up the stairs. Mehalah followed with a light she had kindled at the hearth. He conducted into a bed-room, comfortably furnished, with white curtains to the windows, and a low tester bed in the corner.

'Light the fire,' he ordered, and Mehalah applied the candle to the straw and chips in the grate. Presently the flames were dancing up the chimney, and making the whole chamber glow. The old woman was laid on the bed.

'This looks comfortable,' said she; 'just as if you was prepared for us.'

'I was prepared for you. Everything was ready. Glory knows that I have been expecting you and her. I told her she must come, sooner or later. Sooner or later the same roof must cover both, as sooner or later the same grave will hold us both. She would fight me, and would not come to me, but her destiny is stronger than her will. My will is the destiny of her life. It shapes and directs it.'

Mehalah did not speak. She could not speak. She was stunned. A belt of iron bound her heart and restrained its free bounds, a weight of lead crushed her brain and killed its independence of action. She, who had been hitherto a law to herself, whose will had been unfettered, now discovered herself a captive under the thraldom of a will mightier, or more ungovernable, than her own. She had no time or power to think how to escape, and free herself from the situation in which she was placed. All her thoughts that she could collect must be about her mother. She must think of herself when she had more leisure. But though she could not think of herself, she could feel that she was conquered, and a captive, and that escape would not be easy.

'There,' said Elijah, indicating a door, 'there is another little room for you and your mother to put away what you like. If you want anything, come downstairs.'

Elijah went heavily down the stairs and out at the door. Mehalah looked from the window, and saw him on his way to the boat. He was going back to the Ray. She could still see a red cloud hanging over her burnt home. The tears rose in her heart at the sight, but would not well out at her eyes. She stood and looked long at the dying fire, drawing the window curtain behind her to screen from her the light of the room. Her mother lay quiet, evidently pleased at having got into such comfortable quarters, and exhausted with her alarm. By degrees she dozed off into unconsciousness of her loss and of her situation, and Mehalah remained at the window looking moodily over the fens and the water, at the ruby spark that marked her old home.

She was standing in the same place when the boats arrived, bringing portions of their goods to Red Hall. She heard the voices of Rebow and other men below. She opened the door and listened. He was giving them something to eat and drink. Abraham Dowsing was there. She could distinguish his voice.

'If I hadn't turned you out, you'd have been burnt,' said Rebow.

'A good job for mistress we saved the cowhouse,' answered Abraham, with sulky unwillingness to admit that he was indebted to Elijah for anything.

'Don't you think you owe me your life?' asked Rebow.

'The cowhouse didn't burn.'

'No. But it would have, had not we been there to keep the flames off,' observed one of the men.

'Good job for mistress I wasn't burnt. I don't know how she'd got along without me.'

'It did not matter particularly to yourself then, Abby?'

'Don't know as it did. A man must die some time, and I've always heard as smothering is a nice quiet sort of death--better than being racked with cramps and tormented with rheumatics and shivered into the pithole with agues.' After a pause Abraham's voice was heard to add, 'Besides, I should have woke, myself, with the fire and smoke.'

'Not you. And if you had, what could you have done to save the old woman? She'd have been burnt to a cinder before you woke.'

'That's mistress' matter, not mine,' answered Dowsing.

'You could not have got the things out of the house.'

'They are not mine,' retorted Abraham angrily. 'You are not going to make a merit to me of saving what are the belongings of other folk?'

'They belong to your mistress.'

'Well, so they do, that is, they don't belong to me; so none of your boasting to me, as if I owed you anything.' This ungracious remark, but one not unnatural for a rude peasant jealous lest an obligation should place him in a position of disadvantage, was followed by silence, during which the party ate.

Presently Abraham asked, 'How came you to be there?'

'Master sent Jim out with me in the big boat after ducks, and he was in the punt,' answered one of the men. 'He bade us lie by at the mouth of the Rhyn, while he went on to drive the birds our way; there was a lot, and we thought to pepper into a whole flight. He was not long away--not above an hour--when we saw the Ray house afire, and heard him shouting to us to come on, so we rowed as hard as hard, and by the time we landed he had broke open the door, and got the old lady out. We helped as best we might, and saved a deal of things.'

'They ain't worth much,' said Abraham. 'There's nothing in the house worth five pound,--take the whole lot. The cow was the only thing would pay for saving, and she was safe. I slept in the loft over her.'

'The life of your mistress was worth something, I hope, Abby.'

'Don't know that. Not to me, anyhow. She's not mistress; it is Mehalah that orders, and does everything. I don't reckon an old woman's life is worth a crown, not to nobody but herself, may be; but that is her concern not mine. She was an ailing aguish body. Why!' exclaimed Abraham banging his can of ale on the table, 'when you've saved an old woman who is nought but a trouble to everybody as does with her, of what wally is it? They might have paid you to let her alone, but not to lug her out of the fire. Now, Mehalah, she was another sort. But you didn't save her.'

'Where was she? She was not in the house.'

'How am I to know? I don't spy after her. Others may,' he gave a sly, covert look at Elijah, 'I don't. But I reckon she was out on the saltings watching for the sheep-stealers.'

'Have you had sheep-stealers on the Ray?'

'Aye, we have.'

'Did you watch for them at night?'

'I!' with a grunt. 'They were not my sheep. No, thank you. Let them that wallys the sheep watch 'em. I do what I'm paid to do, and I don't do more.'

Mehalah did not listen to the whole of this conversation. She had satisfied herself that Abraham was there, and had heard how Rebow and his men came to be on the spot when the fire broke out; she then closed the door again, and returned to the window. She did not leave her station till dawn, except to attend to the fire, to make it up from the heap stacked by the side of the chimneypiece. When day began to break, she seated herself on a stool by the bed, and laying her head on the mattress fell asleep, and slept for an hour or two, uneasily, troubled by dreams and the discomfort of her position.

When she awoke the house was quiet. She went downstairs, with reluctance, and found no one stirring, but the fire made up and a kettle boiling over it, the table spread with everything she could desire for breakfast. Elijah, Abraham, and the other men were gone. There was a canister with tea on the board. Mehalah made her mother some, and took it up to her.

The old woman was awake, and drank the tea with eagerness.

'I don't think I can get out of bed to-day, Mehalah!' she said. 'I feel my limbs all of an ache; the cold has got into the marrow of my bones, and I feel as if the frost were splitting them, as at times it will split pipes. I must lie abed till the thaw comes to them.'

'Can you eat anything?'

'I think I can.'

'Mother, how long are we going to remain here?'

'It is wery comfortable, I am sure.'

'But we cannot stay in this house.'

'Where else can we go?'

'I will get into service somewhere.'