Scene II.--MASQUE

And let the Masquers, or any other, that are to come down from the Scene, have some motions, upon the Scene itself, before their comming down: For it drawes the Eye strangely, and makes it with great pleasure, to desire to see that, it cannot perfectly discerne.--_Bacon_.

The squire of Kingsmore and the rector of Thorlund stood in the latter’s study. The clock pointed to forty minutes past seven. Mr. Price looked more solemn than usual, while his companion was haggard and agitated.

“I know now you have spoken the truth,” the scholar was saying. “All along you have maintained that the Strath was haunted by an unholy influence, and I would not believe, because I could not feel it. What has come to me now I do not know. I am afraid of the place.”

He turned and striding across the room snatched a volume of old English poetry from a shelf. “I was drawn there this afternoon. The house fought against me,” he went on. “I was punished there. I was warned that with the falling of the house I too must fall.”

“Berry,” muttered the old squire. “During all the years of our acquaintance you have strained your brain upon thankless work. I do not know what to say about the Strath. One time I am certain it is badly haunted. Another time I have my doubts. Nothing has frightened me when I have been there, so far as I know, but--and this is the point--after leaving the place it has been impossible to remember what has happened there.”

The scholar was not listening. He bent the book of poetry open, so roughly that the binding broke, and cried, “‘Go, bid the world with all its trash farewell.’ Do you hear that? She has deceived me, laughed at me, mocked me. ‘Leave it, I say, and bid the world farewell.’ I trusted her. Can you not tell me what happened in the Strath this afternoon?”

“I can tell you one thing,” said the squarson. “You are doing yourself a lot of harm. Leave your poetry and get out into the air. Why, man, you are shivering from head to foot.”

“I am going to the Strath,” Dr. Berry muttered.

“I don’t like it,” said Mr. Price. “I don’t want to go, and Flora does not want to go either. My sister has the excuse of rheumatism, and she is the best off. It’s a regular wild night, dark as pitch, with a howling wind. If there are phantoms at the Strath they will show themselves to-night. I’ll order the carriage and go home. Flora!” he called, going to the door. “Here, Flora! We will go back.”

The girl came out of the drawing-room with a mask dangling from her gloved hand.

“I want to go now, uncle,” she said firmly. “Besides we must. There will be nobody there except ourselves, and Maude--and Dr. Berry.” She added the scholar’s name as he revealed himself.

“He must not go,” said Mr. Price decidedly. “He is going to bed. I’ll tell Mr. Conway he is not well.”

“I am coming,” said the poet.

It was, as the old squire had said, a wild night, full of wind and strange cries. They groped through the churchyard, found the door in the wall, and entered the garden. A heavy beam of light fell from the house and guided their steps. The bridge across the moat swayed perceptibly. The hall door stood ajar. They passed in and saw candles glowing in the saloon. Nance was kneeling in the great hall, warming her hands by a fire of logs, and looking up met Flora’s eyes without flinching.

“The wind is rough,” said Mr. Price in a melodramatic voice, responding as far as his simple nature allowed to the dominant influence.

As he spoke a tall figure crossed the hall, passing from one room to another, clad in close-fitting black with ruffles of yellow lace at its wrists and throat, its face hidden behind a brown mask. This tragic figure went towards the saloon with a dejected step, casting furtive glances to right and left as it disappeared.

“Abandoned and accursed,” muttered Dr. Berry. He turned and strode away into the silence of the house.

“Come aside with me,” said Flora in a thrilling voice, seizing her uncle and drawing him back. “Put on your mask,” she whispered. “They must not suspect who we are. I can trust you? You are my relative. You will not fail me?”

“I will serve you as I can,” said the old gentleman, with a wild shiver. “But let us be discreet, let us be watchful. Methinks our plans may be overheard. We will go to some more secret place, but let us carry ourselves boldly, so that no one may suspect we have anything on hand.” He stepped away from her and bowed low. “Will it please you to walk with me and study the pictures?” he said; and when she had accepted his invitation they walked away into the gloom, two tragic puppets, like all the other beings who were to cross, or had crossed, the threshold of the house that night.

Presently a little lady in Arcadian costume appeared, and beside her a stout man closely muffled. They were the Juxons. They had been called and could not refuse to come. Strange had been the feeling between husband and wife during the drive homeward after that remarkable meeting at the Strath. On Maude’s side there was a novel content; upon Juxon’s a sense of happiness. He understood that his wife had changed. While they rattled through the wind she talked, with none of the empty vivaciousness of former days; and had never a scolding word, nor any impatient frown. She inquired after his health with genuine solicitude, and asked fondly after Peggy, stating her intention of returning forthwith to devote herself to her child. And he, jealous of this new-found happiness, did not venture to confess that he had no home, that his business was almost ruined.

She had gained in beauty, he thought, with that pale seriousness. As he felt the wind sweeping in life-giving strength across the hills, he made for the hundredth time the resolution of another effort for her sake. His pretty little wife should have all that she had been accustomed to. As for the scene which had so recently closed it was gone from them both; but Maude knew that Dr. Berry would never fascinate her again. Juxon was not aware that he had been put to the ordeal, that his nature had triumphed, that his character had stood firm for his wife’s defence. He only knew that he had gone to the Strath, in obedience to the message, and that his wife had been restored to him there.

The group of tragic characters made a sombre party. The actors were six in number, for the two wearers of the brown masks had ceased to be human entities. They had become conflicting influences. The guests, who had been led to the house under the pretext of a dance, found themselves playing the part of conspirators. They instinctively mistrusted one another. In the saloon Mr. Price was gambling with the figure of tragedy. Upstairs Dr. Berry paced the corridors, biting his fingers, and planning vengeance. Juxon, the object of his hatred, stood with his dazed wife near the fireplace in the hall.

He had told her everything, and to his story of defeat and failure added the words:

“I have played my last card. There is nothing left with which to start afresh. I understand it all now,” he went on firmly. “No man can struggle against destiny. It was never intended that I should be wealthy, and though riches were for the time forced upon me it was only that they might be taken away. I am a poor man now, with only these hands, a clear conscience, and a strong head left to aid me in the struggle for existence.”

“And I have been a hindrance to you,” said Maude gently.

“If we have failed to agree perfectly in the past it was the fault of neither of us,” said Juxon. “Riches have been a curse, both to you and to me. For the future there will be no barrier to hold us apart.”

“Herbert,” she whispered, with a shudder. “You must go your way alone. The warning comes to me now that I have not much longer to live. I am to be punished for my heartlessness.”

“Hush,” said the man, almost fiercely.

“Only stay with me,” Maude entreated. “There is danger here for you, as well as for me.”

“There is horror in the very air,” Juxon shivered. “Let us go into the light.”

They crossed the hall with stealthy movements, and crept into the saloon, there to discover Mr. Price upon his knees, playing his cards madly, while the tragic figure opposite shook with laughter as it won again and again. The squire of Kingsmore had never gambled in his life before, and now he was losing everything he possessed, his invested capital, house, farm, and lands. The perspiration stood upon his face.

“I have an assignation which I must not fail to keep,” he cried. “But I will beat you first.”

Maude seated herself at the harpsichord, and drew from its loose keys and clogged wires some fantastic sounds, while her husband leaned beside her, watching and listening, all his faculties keenly alert.

As Mr. Price sent up his defiant cry Flora rushed into the supper room. Filling a glass with wine, she searched in all the cabinets, then snatching up the glass turned to the door. A figure appeared before her with a jingling of bells, a short figure clad in many colours, with a cap like a cock’s comb upon its head, a flute in its hand, and the leering mask of Comedy enveloping its face.

“Let me pass,” she screamed.

“What do you seek?” demanded the motley figure.

“Poison,” she cried.

With his flute he struck the glass from her hand. “You are one of my enemies,” he laughed. “You have set before your mind unnatural ideas, and sought to follow them. You have a friend who has been heartless, but she has submitted of her own free-will and shall be happy. You continue to resist and shall be broken. You shall harm no one while I am near.”

Flora could not recognise the voice of Drayton beneath the comic mask; but when the figure turned, and the light of the candles fell across the brown face, she shrank from the shape. Was that a mask? If so, it was a mask controlled by muscles, trembling with life, heated by blood: a mask that had grown upon the face like skin, moulding the features that bore it into its own grinning shape.

Dr. Berry was creeping cat-like about the house. He heard a sound of music and the wild ejaculations of the man who believed himself ruined. A smile crossed his face, and he murmured cunningly, “Extreme circumspection is necessary. I will hide in the ante-room, and behold what is taking place.” Stealthily descending the stairs he passed through a side door. An antique lamp was burning low upon a table which was littered with sheets of manuscript. The curtains which divided this room from the saloon were closed. The poet halted on the threshold. It seemed to him that he was standing upon the brink of an open grave.

Four of the rotten planks which comprised the flooring had been broken away. Taking the lamp he went to his knees, and lowering the light perceived a small cellar bricked in like a vault. The damp walls shone when the light flashed across them. The lamp-bearer saw two iron hooks driven into the crumbling cement; and to one of them clung a twisted fragment of what might have been leather, or rope, or even muscle.

“The grave is prepared,” he said craftily. “It remains with me to supply an occupant.”

He replaced the lamp, and sat in wild thought beside the table. Some sheets of manuscript lay beneath his eyes. Recognising a portion of Drayton’s Tragedy, he bent his head to read a fragment, which had been marked by the author’s hand, “Written when Comedy was in the ascendant, and therefore worthless.” The fragment ran thus:--

_St. James’s. A room in the palace. Enter the King, led by a page, singing, and beating time with a roll of music._

_King._ They say I’m not the King. Here, scapegrace! powder-head! let me hear truth! Who is he whom you lead?

_Page._ His Gracious Majesty George the Third, by the Grace of God King of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith--

_King._ Defender. Ha! Defender is my name. Old George was not afraid. He mocked the Pope, Witheld all justice from the Catholics, Broke up their churches, chased the cunning priests Back to their Roman cells. He beat them all. Did he not, boy?

_Page._ Yes, your Majesty.

_King._ Bah! I do hate great men: These politicians, with their quips and cranks; These big-wigs, with their tape and rhetoric, Brass trumpets of sedition. I stand Free of the highwaymen, that Pitt, that Burke. I’ll stand alone to fight. I will be king, Though I lose Colonies. Shall a king kneel, To beg a favour of his ministers? A king bow down to seek his subjects’ will, And crave their gracious leave to wear his crown? Will he not rather drive the rabble forth, And swear to all the rout he is the law? Boy, how long have I reigned?

_Page._ ’Tis fifty-five years, your Majesty.

_King._ Has any King of England reigned so long?

_Page._ No, your Majesty.

_King._ Then get you out, And call the guard, and bid them cheer the King.

_Exit Page. King goes to a harpsichord and sings a hymn, accompanying himself._

_The Queen enters, kneels at his side, and sings with him. A cheer from the palace yard, and shouts, God save the King._

_King._ Bid them be silent. They have spoilt my hymn. I am no king. I am a tired old man, Weighed down with grief. My darling is so quiet! They snatched her from me. I can smell the flowers They heaped upon her, and I feel the arms Of those who drew me from her bed of earth. That day I lost my crown. He lifteth up the lowly, and casts down The great ones to the dust. _Another cheer._ Hark, how they mock me there! Long live the King. Now let me speak--God grant the King may die.

_An uproar in the street. Loud cries of_ “_Victory_” _and_ “_Wellington._” _Queen closes the window._

_King._ ’Tis time to hold my court. See there the troops, Who fought in Flanders, waiting for review; A noble band. Soldiers, I’m proud of you. Fine fellows are ye, disciplined and bold. March past, my guards; march past, and sound your drums. _Claps his hands as the ghosts pass._ Right, Left! Right, Left! Aye, that’s the English swing, The tread that startled Louis and his French, The march that shook the Spaniards. Where are ye? Gone past already. Soft! What have we here? I know those faces and those powdered heads: My House of Commons. I’ll see to them straight! The stubborn knaves, who would have broke my will. Oppose me if ye dare. I know the means To break your party, to unseat each man, And drive him cringing to his rural poll. I’ll do it, if ye force me, and refuse To aid my plans. Traitor is every man Who power denies to kings. Out, villains! Out from here! What! Must I drive ye forth? _Runs among the ghosts, beating at them._ _Noise in the street continues._ Away, place-seekers! Out of this my court. I will not hear ye. Look now how they come! Fawning and sighing, each to kiss my hand, And seek a favour. Bishops sleek in lawn, Clergy corrupt, and politicians smooth, Two-faced, four-handed, Jacobite at night, Cringing before the man in power by day. They come on, more and more. _Noise increases._ And here we have bespangled generals, Savage for titles. Here bold Whig-patched dames Crowd on the stairs, and push some favourite up, To pay his hollow vows to win a post. Is this a Court? Call it a market-place, And me a merchant. Hear those whispered words, “Give me a Bishopric, and loyal I’ll be,” Or, “Grant me office, and I’ll be your man,” And there again, “Hand me authority, And I will preach the justice of the king.” Is there not here a man? Are these but masks, Stamped with some semblance of humanity? Are truth and honour dead and gone? Away, Trumpets and heraldry, and power and pomp, And find me here some loyal flesh and blood. Away, ye mummers! Out, ye titled clowns! And hide yourselves in graves. I’m still the King.

_Bursts into tears and falls, fainting. The Queen bears him up. Enter an officer noisily._

_Officer._ Great news, Your Majesties! Napoleon Has met defeat. His army is destroyed By the allies, and he, a fugitive, Must soon be taken.

_Queen._ Go with your tales of battle, And shout to them that live.

_Officer goes out sneering. Queen goes to window and opens it._

_Queen._ They do not look this way. For fifty years I’ve been the Queen of England. They forget. The Prince goes on his way to Carlton House; The crowds close round his carriage, crying out, “God save the King,” and “Victory.” The King! There lies the King.

The curtains were drawn apart. The reader started up to behold a fearful face with drooping mouth, cruel and thin-lipped, narrow forehead and sunken checks, quivering and palpitating with all the passions of evil. It was the figure of Conway; but the face was the face of Tragedy.

“I have ruined the old man yonder,” he mouthed. “Hear him howl! I have won everything that he possessed, and now all he asks for is a pistol that he may shoot himself. Tell me, friend, where I may find that young woman who lately entered this house. I would decoy her outside to a lonely part of this garden, and there--nay, but I was ever too free with my tongue.”

“I need your assistance,” muttered the scholar.

“It is yours,” came the answer. “I see you are a brave fellow, accustomed to use the knife.”

“See that man!” exclaimed the other, pointing out Juxon through a rent in the curtain. “He has made me a laughing-stock.”

“Trust in me, friend. We will despatch him together. Do you go into the long corridor and conceal yourself, while I engage the man in conversation. Presently I will bring him that way, and as we pass do you leap out upon him. I will have him held. He shall not have time to shout.”

“I will procure a knife,” the poet chuckled.

The garden of the Strath was plunged in total darkness outside the shafts of light proceeding from the windows. There was no rain, but the wind howled and worked havoc among the trees and shrubs. The few labourers of the hamlet, safe inside their shuttered cottages, were convinced that the Strath had never been so noisy before.

October blasts had howled as fiercely over Thorlund; but the grim influence of the house had never predominated as upon that night when all the ways were shaded.

The miserable squire of Kingsmore rushed into the hall, shouting the one word, “Ruined!” He saw himself a dishonoured man, deprived of the lands and house which his family had held for generations. He was half-mad to know that he should have come to this in his old age. True there were rumours in his family of an ancestor upon whose career the gambling element had been plainly marked; but even he was never so deeply dipped as to have forfeited the estate. He hung to Juxon and implored him for a loan upon easy terms, and when refused sought Dr. Berry with a like request. The scholar pushed him back with a curse. When Flora came to him, the miserable old man snatched her hand and tried to drag the bracelet from her wrist. She caught his hand and whispered a fierce reminder into his ear.

“Ha! I had forgotten,” he gasped. “Say, child, has she money? Let us go in search of the trollop.”

A sound of flute-playing entered their ears. They looked up to see Comedy descending the stairs. Recognising an enemy they shrank back against the draperies. He cast his grinning eyes upon them and cried, “Do your will. Do your worst. You shall find me near.”

That instant Tragedy came out and stopped, shivering with fear and fury, when it saw the motley. During that moment, while the two masks were glaring at each other, the hearts of the watchers seemed to cease. Then the fiend slunk abjectly away, and the merry flute piped onwards like a bird.

The Juxons were alone in the saloon. Maude was clinging to her husband, still haunted by the terrible prospect of death by violence. Beside them the table was overturned and the cards were scattered about the floor. While Juxon was attempting to calm her fears with words of consolation Nance fled into the saloon pale with terror, and screaming for help. Flora and Mr. Price pursued her with murder upon their faces. They caught the girl as she reached the Juxons and bore her to the floor; but as the old gentleman, whom his own sister could not then have recognised, hissed out, “Strangle her!” a tinkling of bells was heard, and Comedy jumped through the curtains with his mocking laugh. The tragic characters fell back. The figure in motley lifted the girl and led her away, leering upon the baulked couple and saying, “Did I not promise I would follow you?”

“We are foiled, child,” muttered the old gentleman with a ghastly smile. “But no matter. We can bide our time.”

The atmosphere of the Strath was charged like the thunder-cloud which is about to break. The two forces, through which destiny works her will, were fighting for supremacy. In the presence of Comedy, Tragedy had so far been powerless. Wherever the spirit of destruction went with its frown, the spirit of protection followed with its laugh. It was a battle between despair and happiness. It did not occur to any of the characters that safety might be found in flight. By the laws of the drama, they were compelled to remain upon the scene, until the entry of the final character and the exodic march.

A dark figure glided into the saloon. Taking its stand beside the Juxons, it engaged them in conversation with the subtility of Mephistopheles. Its tongue was full of flattery, and they yielded to it. There was a picture in the corridor above which deserved their attention, and he, the soft speaker, sought the privilege of conducting them there, having some poor knowledge of the arts, that he might point out its merits and its beauty. They went with him, and as the figure stopped in the dimly-lighted corridor and pointed with a horrible laugh towards a dark copy of The Plague at Athens, Juxon was held and a cry of exultation rang down the house.

“Blunderer! The knife,” hissed Tragedy.

But the bells again jingled. Through the gloom of the house danced Comedy, to strike down their hands with his flute and to hunt his enemy before him; and with the dark figure fled the scholar hand in hand.

For the greater part of another hour the struggle continued. Maude and her husband were also absorbed into the maelstrom and sought to be avenged. The Strath was occupied with conspiracies and stealthily moving creatures filled with the lust of slaughter. The dark spirit of tragedy hounded them on. And whenever the blow appeared certain to fall the bells jingled. Amid the frowns and screams and muttered words sounded the laugh of the flute-player. And the wind howled and beat upon the house in a wild chorus heralding the approach of the final character.

Apart from that final entry the supremacy of one of the opposing powers was inevitable. Although Tragedy feared its rival, the time came when repeated defeats goaded it to fury; until it dared to attack the motley figure, and the characters drew round to watch the fight.

The wind fell and there was silence throughout the garden. The old house seemed to be aware that its last hour had come. A stranger had passed through the gates, one who was able for a time to resist the influence, because he understood the secret of the power and his mind was not open to receive impressions but resolutely set upon the removal of the cause. This was the final character, who came in ignorance as to what was taking place at the crucial moment ordained by the dramatic laws.

The spectators of the struggle between the rival powers marvelled at the courage displayed by the last principal character of the drama when he entered and drove them aside to pass and fling himself upon the figure of Tragedy. The stranger’s body seemed to them a mere frame of bones, and his arms were like wire-ropes for strength and thickness. He held the dark shape upon the floor, one hand clutching its throat, the fingers of the other tearing at the hot palpitating mask, raising it by the edges where it adhered less powerfully to the skin, dragging and peeling it away. Off came the limp horrible face; and the stranger pressed it upon the fire and held it down, until the room was full of odours and a nauseous soot, and all its occupants shivered and grew sick, and the house seemed to thrill with groans. Then came the turn of comedy; and with the consigning of that mask also to the flames the power fled from the house, the influence came to an end; and the two men who had been controlled that night by those rival influences, which beat with fierce activity upon actors on and off the stage, were lying unconscious upon the floor, their faces blistered and their limbs rigid.

Then the wind arose and with it came a noise of thunder. A portion of the roof had fallen in. The Strath was a rotten carcase. It had lost its power of evil and its power of good. Biron, for he it was who had reached Thorlund at the time appointed, turned to the astounded guests, introduced himself, and briefly explained why he was there, and how he had served them.

“Destroyed the masks!” exclaimed Mr. Price feebly. “What masks? God bless my soul! what has been happening?”

PROSCENIUM

Tragedy is an imitation, not only of a completed action, but also of an action exciting pity and terror.--_Aristotle_.

Drayton and Conway were carried into the hall where they could receive the benefit of the cold wind. The little party abandoned the saloon in silence, Flora being supported by her uncle. Biron, after bending once more over the charred remains in the fire, joined them, closing and fastening the door behind him. The late mummers regarded each other with a curious suspicion, scarcely daring to speak, and feeling as though they had awakened from a drugged sleep. Already one of the company was missing. Dr. Berry had gone back to his solitude; and after a short interval the Juxons followed.

At last the survivors were able to regard the Strath with undistorted judgment. It appeared to them an impossible residence, damp, windy, and tottering. It had no more romance than an old barn filled with curiosities; it was a tumbledown museum, filled with draughts and dust, a place for owls and rats like the ruined parsonage house of Queensmore.

Drayton was the first to recover and stand upon his feet. Several more minutes elapsed before Conway was restored to consciousness. Both were depressed, troubled by nausea, and tormented by blistered faces. Neither had the slightest recollection of what he had undergone. Indeed the entire life of those past months remained a blank sheet unwritten on by time. There were memories of a dream-like nature, which could not be framed in words.

Refreshments were placed in the dining-room, and there the company betook itself, sane, human, and no longer theatrical. Presently Mr. Biron gave the tale, as he knew it, of the masks, from their creation by Joseph Falk, toy-maker of Nuremberg, to his own unexpected and dramatic arrival that night. He told them how his great-grandfather had entombed the horrible things in the vault--where, owing to decay of the flooring in the ante-room, Drayton had discovered them--and then had disappeared leaving the Strath to become impregnated with the rival influences. “From certain records handed down to me,” Biron proceeded, “I am convinced that these masks must have exerted a fearful power. They would have influenced not only this house and garden, but the surrounding country and its inhabitants also.”

“You have told us a strange story. You must forgive me when I say it is not easy to accept,” said Mr. Price in a bewildered voice. “I knew there was something unnatural here, indeed everybody knew that, but the curious part about it was that no one ever thought of organizing any active crusade against the Strath. I do not know what has been going on to-night. I am only painfully conscious of my aching limbs.”

“Do you suggest that my friend and myself have been under the control of these masks all the summer?” asked Conway.

“I say also you may consider yourselves fortunate in having escaped,” Biron answered. “Fine weather would have been favourable to you. During the long dark nights of winter you might have lost your reason and committed suicide. I speak from my small knowledge of the masks.”

“What brought you here in time to save us?”

“I can answer that,” said Drayton, coming forward, his face still bearing the comedian’s leer. “I pawned the masks which used to hang in your room in town. I wanted to tell you, but for some reason or other could not. It was a mean thing to do, but I wanted to reach you, and had no money.”

“You could not have rendered your friend a better service,” said Biron. “It is owing to your action I am here. I had offered a reward for information which might lead to the discovery of the originals. It was the least I could do to atone for my ancestor’s irresponsible conduct--I do him the credit of believing it to have been so. Unfortunately I was away from my home in Naples when the information was sent, or I should have been here much earlier.”

“You are right when you suggest that this neighbourhood has suffered,” said Mr. Price thoughtfully. “Everyone has left it, except those who are tied to the land. A little village yonder called Queensmore lies in ruins. Sheep-farming has been a failure. As for this valley of Thorlund, it has remained indifferent to everything. The villagers could talk of nothing but the Strath.”

Conway moved across to the wall and taking down the wooden copies of the masks turned them thoughtfully between his hands.

“They are harmless,” said Biron with his cadaverous smile.

Conway made no reply. Removing one of the logs he placed the masks in the hottest part of the fire and savagely watched the process of immolation.

“Flora, we must go,” said the old squire, lifting himself stiffly. “Take your last look at the inside of the Strath, for I doubt if you will ever see it again.”

“Indeed you may not, Miss Neill,” said the owner. “The house is coming down, and the wilderness outside shall be reclaimed.”

As the uncle and niece were about to take their departure Biron bent his bony figure to whisper into the squire’s ear, “If this young lady has been much under the influence of the masks I should advise you to send her away for a change of scene.”

At that warning the old gentleman looked at his niece and noticed the heaviness of her eyes. He dimly wondered what would have befallen her, and himself, had the masks been permitted to live, but dismissed the thought because it was not a pleasant one. He wished the men good-night and turned to leave the house for ever.

But Flora as she shook hands with Conway could not refrain from confessing in a low voice, “I think I have learnt something here.”

Biron, who was near, overheard and said, “I have always believed that there was good as well as evil in the power--or shall I call it the teaching?--of the masks. Unfortunately they could only impart that teaching, or we could only receive it, in a manner that was full of danger both to body and mind.”

“And we never knew anything about it,” said Mr. Price solemnly. “That is the strangest thing of all.”

“We know nothing of the influence which controls us in the state before birth or in the conditions after bodily death,” said Biron. “I have discharged the duty of my life,” he went on. “The masks are destroyed. Results must live after them, but I am content to know they cannot claim any more victims. I rejoice with all my heart at your escape.”

When Mr. Price and Flora had gone the three men continued to speak upon the subject which was uppermost in their minds; and presently it was Biron’s turn to listen while Conway spoke upon his uncle’s fate. When he had concluded, having indeed very little to state, the attenuated man took up the matter with interest.

“You tell me your uncle was found dead in this place, under conditions which precluded the possibility of anyone having placed violent hands upon him. You say also that the police, after making every effort to discover a murderer, were forced to relinquish their search for lack of material upon which to work. But surely the truth is obvious. Your poor uncle came to Joseph Falk’s end. He destroyed himself.”

“No,” cried both the listeners together, and Conway added, “it was shown at the inquest he had been strangled.”

“Not hanged?”

“He was discovered lying across the threshold of the hall-door.”

“Then here we have a mystery,” said Biron. “Some material influence must have been brought into requisition that night. You must give me time to think over it. And now with your permission, I will walk through the house.”

“We will go with you. It will be as new to us as to you,” said the owner grimly.

They made a tour of inspection throughout the Strath from cellars to attics. Upstairs the walls were mildewed and gaping with cracks. Room after room of the dead house they examined, scarcely venturing to speak during that solemn survey; until they entered a bedroom which contained an immense four-post bedstead hung about with a filthy valance. Part of the wall had broken away, and the wind howled inward, lashing the ivy against the loosening brickwork. Upon a table they saw a floriated cross and near it a book in shagreen covers. Conway picked up the book, and glanced through it idly, and pushed it into his pocket. Biron drew back the draperies and looked into the bed which was piled with clothes half-eaten by grubs. “My faith,” he muttered, “There should be some remote influence haunting this house even now.”

“I will tell you what I know of its history, if you will come downstairs,” said the owner. Then he turned to his friend and asked, “Drayton, do you think we have been living here without anyone to look after us? You may remember, but I cannot.”

“Wasn’t there a girl, or an old woman?” said the writer dubiously. “I seem to remember a tall girl, with a very serious brown face and quantity of black hair, and an old woman who was always grumbling.”

Upon going downstairs part of the mystery was solved; for they found in the kitchen the rachitic dame, who had served them, fast asleep in a crazy chair. Nancy Reed had gone, and at that time was running with the wind back to her late home at Kingsmore, a wild girl again, and her mind in borderland.

Venturing to re-enter the saloon the men found that the atmosphere had cleared. The fire which had destroyed the last remains of the criminal and the mountebank was burning low. More logs were piled upon the rotten irons, and then Conway gave his visitor a true account of the history of the Strath down to the end of the eighteenth century, mentioning what he knew of Sir John Hooper’s villainous career and punishment, and the story of his daughter’s misery. “This book, which I picked up in the bedroom above, seems to be Winifred Hooper’s journal,” he concluded.

The guest reached out his arm and having taken the tragic record passed his eyes hurriedly across its pages. Presently he began to read extracts aloud. Their interest increased. Biron lingered over a page, and from that point read on continuously, wherever the writing was legible. The two men drew closer and leaning forward listened intently, while the candles guttered down to their sockets, and the fire burnt to an angry red.

It was midnight, and the wild wind was at its height, rushing overhead and howling down the passages. Still the three men sat motionless, and Biron’s voice, enriched by its foreign accent, read on, lifting as it neared the last pages because of the noises in the house. Occasionally Conway started, or Drayton averted his eyes hurriedly from the black window. For the first time the Strath appeared to them haunted indeed. The shadowy visitor’s voice faltered once, then sounded strongly as it read:

“And now I am alone with the God who called me upon this scene. My dog is dead. He has been ailing for many days, and this evening, when I went to care for him as my poor skill permitted, he lifted his head and licked my hand, shivered and moaned and died. The body lies beside me. No longer will he spring up and growl when a footfall sounds along my passage. No longer will he stand before me to protect me from my father, snarling and showing his white teeth when he beholds the whip which is not for him. Dear faithful friend, good-night.

“It is strange that while we cannot by any means foretell the future we may yet feel the approach of calamity. During this last week, when listening in the silence of this room, I have felt the nearness of disaster. Will the omen fail? It matters so little. I am able to bear misfortune because accustomed to it, but any unexpected happiness might stop my heart for ever. Were Geoffrey to stand before me now I should neither laugh nor speak. Like my poor dog I could only kiss his hand and die. I would embrace a phantom were it his. I am a philosopher, and my crucible is filled with adversity out of which I strive all night to win knowledge, not of the world, nor of its hidden forces, nor of the stars which shine above, but an answer to my heart which goes on asking, ‘What is love?’ Is it a morning cloud melted by the sun, or a flower scattered by the breeze, or is it a rock which defies the storm? Is it made of dreams, loose-clinging stuff, falling from the body at a touch? Or is it an immortal essence, imbruing the soul through time and space and change?

“None can answer me, and indeed I care not. I doubt whether to-morrow’s sun will rise upon the hills. I fail when I try to trust in life eternal. I resign my confidence in ministering spirits and my hope in Heaven. I am not even assured of my own existence. I pass to and fro, without sound, with so little substance, haunting this house like some unhappy ghost. Have I indeed ceased to be material? Is there anything that I may believe in? Yes, there is one thing. I believe in the reality of fear.

“Geoffrey is but the memory of a long past time. I must speak to that I see and feel and hear, to the indifferent and unresponsive objects of this daily prison, to the drifting clouds and the whirling wind. There is life in the wind and strength. It passes on, the same, yet not the same, changing its cry, now howling, now falling to a sob, now rushing like a madman, now crawling snake-like. And I can hear the trees roaring like the sea. So I address the wind, and the trees, and my poor friend’s body, and all else that I can see and hear, because faith can do no more.

“It must be hard on midnight. I dare not think what may be taking place outside. The house is filled with shadows. It is like a cave beaten by the waves. Walking in the garden to-day I heard voices beyond the wall, and three strange men rode beside the gates, cloaked and long-booted, and one had a deep scar along his cheek, and all were armed. One muttered, as he nodded to this garden, ‘We may trap the old fox to-night.’ They passed on, along the high road in the direction of Kingsmore, and I knew it was I who had brought them. The villagers will not warn my father, because they hate him. His fate rests with me, his only child, and he is condemned for Geoffrey’s sake.

“I have been to the head of the stairs because I thought I heard a disturbance. Old Deborah is walking about the hall, beating her hands together. Deborah loves my father, because she nursed him as a boy. She saw me, and frowned, and began to snuff the candles that she might persuade me she was not anxious. She muttered, ‘’Tis a mighty wind, and bad luck to him who’s caught in it.’ Then she went to the door and I heard her say, ‘That’s the coach. And that’s the noise of--get you to your room,’ she cried, starting back and shaking her hand at me. ‘Get you away.’ So I came back, and am now straining my ears at every sound.

“Now I could hear were I stone deaf. The end has come. The terrible night! First the noise of furious galloping. There was the clang of the iron gate, the galloping again, and voices shouting; and after that a lantern flashed its light upon the side of the house. One horse crossed this light, my father’s mare flecked with foam, then another and that was Reed’s big grey, and then a third. What have they done? There has been murder upon the highway. The third horse carried a body slung across the saddle. They passed, were gone, and then a voice I know too well shouted, ‘Rub the mare dry, unsaddle her, and turn her into the field. Here, fool, you have dropped your mask. Burn it, and throw these pistols into the moat, and clean that sword. Then come into the house, for you and I must have a word together.’

“I can hear the beating of my heart. The awful night! Why did I not escape. Better the cold plantation than my father’s fury. All is silent now, apart from the wind--but there! It is the door. A wild voice shouts, ‘Deborah, bring brandy-wine and plenty of hot water.’ God grant he may forget me.

“Again I have listened in the passage. The hall-door was pushed open and the man Reed entered--I knew him by his oaths. He was breathing thickly and struggling with some burden, which he let down upon the floor, or dropped it rather, for I heard it roll and settle with dreadful heaviness.”

As Biron spoke that last word, there came from above the sound of a body, falling heavily, so as to shake the house. Without lifting his eyes, or moving in his seat, he read calmly on:

“Then a brawling began between the man and the master. Their words I could not often catch, but I heard my father’s voice, shaking with fear and rage. ‘Burn it,’ he shouted. ‘Or, if there be not time, hide it away in the girl’s bedroom.’ What Reed replied I could not hear, but I imagine he told my father there could be no cause for hurry, as he is a dense besotted creature, with a mind set upon strong liquors, a man too incapable of feeling to know fear. Their voices became hoarse mutterings, and now I hear the clinking of glasses and the rattling of flasks. I can write almost unmoved, and yet that horrible feeling of calamity impending remains, and when I look upon my bed I seem to see a cold sheet, and a shape, and a solemn candle burning at the head. Is that the shape of the poor wretch they have murdered to-night? No, it is too thin and small, and I think I discover a lock of fair hair upon the pillow. Well, there is but one more page remaining to this book.

“Again I hear the note of disagreement. They have always been violent in their cups. The voices are raised higher. There is none here they need fear. Still no sound from without. They have been favoured by the wind and the darkness of the night, and thus have again escaped. But there--a blow. Surely a blow, and now, ‘Traitor! Spy! Informer!’ There is death in that voice. The clash of swords! Oh God! they are fighting like beasts. Let me not be the cause of any man’s death, be he highwayman or murderer. Now I understand the reason of that fight which must end in death. My father knows that his guilt has been discovered. His return was a flight. Those cloaked long-booted men are perhaps even now upon his track, and he believes that his companion has betrayed him, and, half-drunk, half-mad, cannot listen to denial. And I am the informer. And I dare not go down, dare not face him as he is, dare not tell him that his accomplice is innocent, dare not tell him it was I. Oh, the clamour, the ringing, the clashing of those swords! The shrieks of the wind, and that awful breathing! Silence, but the whole house seems to be shuddering. There is a hollow sound in the hall, rising and swelling along the passage, louder every moment, and now, ‘Open, in the King’s name.’

“Torches are flaring in the garden. The house is surrounded. That beating upon the door continues, or is it the beating of my heart? But the same stern voice demands admission, and my wretched father shouts in terror, as he feels the shadow of the gallows creeping across his head, and blunders about the saloon, and now into the hall, past the rebounding door, and now he is upon the stairs, and I can hear a dragging and a heaving and two dead heels rattling from step to step. Oh, merciful God! He is coming here to hide the body, and I cannot bear it, I cannot look upon it. They are breaking down the door, battering it in with a heavy log, and won it gives with a noise of thunder, and the avengers rush in shouting at their loudest, ‘Surrender, in the King’s name!’”

The three men started fearfully, but not a sound escaped their lips, when there rose above the wind a terrific noise in the neighbourhood of the hall-door, a crashing thunderous riot, as though that door had indeed been crushed inwards and the human hounds were hunting in the house. The reader’s thin face quivered, as his tongue concluded the last wild words upon the final page:

“Let them seize him upon the stairs. He has reached the corridor, gasping in his terror. He is dragging no longer, but carrying. He enters this passage, shouting my name. They hear him. The house rocks as they rush up the stairs. ‘I have brought him. Take him. Hide him away.’ What does he mean? Will he reach the roof and fling himself down? He is here, panting outside my door. Again he is dragging the dreadful thing, and now I must look upon that, and upon him. He flings himself against the door…”

As the record ended with that blotted word, a fearful crash shook the ground, the house tottered, and suddenly the saloon wall opened peacefully, and men caught glimpses of a wild watery moon between two lack shuddering fringes of ivy.

“Run!” shouted Biron, dropping his hands and the time-worn book. “The house is falling upon us.”

EXODE

He had no brains for the Royal Diadem to cover; and if Zeus should give him his Lightning and Thunder, he would be no more Zeus for that.--_Plutarch_.

The vacarme had ceased and the Strath was abandoned to its decay. The influence had done its work upon the minds of those brought beneath its sway. Punishment, sharp and summary, had been meted out upon Henry Reed with the cruelty for which Nature is notorious. A like punishment was to fall upon Dr. Berry. Both were weak men, although in other respects eminently dissimilar; the one a dull material creature, the other a sensitive spiritual being. The former attempted to arrest the working of the influence, while the latter essayed the equally impossible task of establishing himself as an active principle of that power. The active and hostile scepticism of the one was no whit more dangerous than the complete resignation of the other.

Mr. Price, a man of very simple nature who clung to his belief, never adding to it nor subtracting from it, emerged from the ordeal unchanged. Juxon found himself equipped with a knowledge which had come unsought. He was further rewarded by the affection and constancy of his wife. Even when wealth came to him, and he was pointed out with some awe as a man endowed with uncanny gifts, little Maude kept her head and her resolutions. The Strath had been kind to her, because her faults had sprung from weakness and vanity, not, as in Flora’s case, from a malignant growth. The latter was punished by being compelled to know herself; and that punishment endured.

Conway had been shown that idleness and debauchery are serious infringements of the laws of nature. He carried away with him from the ruined Strath a bitter hatred of his former life. As for Drayton, when his inheritance came, late in life, he knew he had not himself to thank. He had always done his best, but the parrot-like nature of his former labours had stunted his mind, and poverty had sapped his physical powers. He acknowledged to himself, when his fame as a dramatic writer became fully established, that those ideas which enriched his brain had been born in him during the weeks of dream and languor spent in the garden of the Strath.

After those days of the change Conway found for Lone Nance a congenial home and a kindly guardianship. In that condition her wild beauty increased and her face softened, although her mind never recovered the even balance to which it had attained during her stay in the Strath.

It was Maude’s last day in the country, and she walked--donkeys, cart, and silver bells having been consigned to the auctioneer--to Kingsmore, that she might say good-bye to Mr. Price, also to Flora and her mother who were about to leave. The little lady had sobered down her exuberance of colour; she wore a grey skirt with coat to match, and a black hat, where a trace of the old Eve survived in the shape of a small pink bow nestling as though ashamed beneath the brim. Her husband had gone away, full of confidence, by reason of the new strength which had been vouchsafed to him at the Strath; and Maude was about to follow, having a wild desire to live in two rooms, and cook her husband’s dinner with her own ignorant hands, and be nurse to Peggy, and lady of work generally. “For I am going to be a wife now, Herbert,” she had declared. “And not a caricature. I am very stupid and shall have to learn everything. If you will just be as good to me as you have always been, I don’t mind getting old and I won’t be afraid to lose my looks.” Such was Maude’s new and liberal doctrine.

The squire came riding in from the farm as the little lady entered the drive and seeing her lowered himself stiffly from his horse. She noticed for the first time that he was looking old and fragile; his legs, crooked by years of riding, were weak and unsteady, his shoulders were bending, his cheeks were growing hollow, and the fringe of hair above the nape of his neck was as white as wool. She ran forward and offered him her arm with a pretty smile.

“Why, young lady!” he cried in his hearty manner. “I did not recognise you at first. So you have come to say good-bye. Well, I am sorry to hear that, because at my age it is a serious matter to say farewell. Do you mean to say you have walked all the way? Come into the house and rest yourself. Flora is not well, I’m afraid. She will be glad to see you, and you may cheer her up. There is something on her mind, but she won’t tell me what it is. I hope and pray she is not going into religious mania, like my poor eldest sister who went and made a useless nun of herself. In my young days girls were not allowed to have opinions. They were given their religion, just as they were given their husbands, and very much happier and more useful they were.”

“Flora wants a change,” said Maude. “Autumn is so depressing.”

“You don’t look particularly downcast,” said the old gentleman. “The autumn seems to agree with you.”

“That is because I have made a heap of resolutions, and I am going to stick to them,” said the little lady. “I have done nothing all my life, except dress and laugh, and now it’s time to work.”

The squire was about to chaff her, but one glance at her face convinced him that she meant what she had said.

“There is nothing like work,” he said, with more feeling than was usual with him. “There is no happiness in life without work. The preacher, who advised his fellow-creatures to follow the example of the ant, knew what he was talking about, even if he hadn’t the sense to put his teaching into practice. I lose money every year over my farm, but it gives me plenty of healthy work, and it affords a living to the people of my village. I hope to go on working to the day of my death and to pass from the saddle to the grave. That is how my grandfather went. He came in from the hunt at six o’clock, and was dead by dinner-time.”

“Don’t,” said Maude gently.

“Ah, you think we are here for ever,” said the squire. “We all think so when we are young. But when past seventy we feel the ravages of time and lose our roast-beef stomachs, as somebody once said. Fill in your years unselfishly, child. Fill them in with work and laughter, help those who are in trouble, and do your duty elsewhere, and you will be happy when you’re old.”

The old man tramped away, gave his horse to a boy, then went round the yard, ferreting out eggs from the hen-houses, poking his riding-crop into the sides of fattening porkers, an replacing the hay which wasteful cows had tugged from their rack and were trampling underfoot. As he stood in the raw autumn afternoon, with his dogs jumping round him, and the pigeons fluttering down for a portion of the grain he always carried in his pockets, he looked what he was, the last of the plain old squires.

Flora was alone in the drawing-room, lying on a sofa, reading a book, which she tried to smuggle away when her friend was announced; but Maude jumped upon the volume and secured it. She merely opened her eyes a trifle wider when she read the title, “Plato’s education of the young,” and dropped the book without a word.

“I thought you would come, Maude,” said Flora in a heavy voice. “I am going to Italy with mother next week. I may very likely never see you again.”

“My girl!” cried Maude. “What do you mean? Why, of course we shall meet again. Do you know I am going to learn housekeeping--yes, it is rather late in the day--and when I am proficient you shall come and stay with me, and I will give you lessons. Herbert is fearfully hard up just now, but he is going to make heaps of money presently.”

“I may stop in Italy,” said Flora, in the same dull voice.

“Then I shall come and worry you,” said Maude with decision. “But, my dear, you won’t. You will come back in the spring, and marry a nice husband, and be a nice wife. And then you will be as happy as I am.”

“Are you happy?” said Flora. “Really happy?”

“Happy enough to whistle on a foggy day,” said the grey lady.

“You have changed, Maude.”

“I have found out Herbert’s good points, and some of my bad ones,” said Maude. “And you have changed since that day when we sat in the punt on the river, and you tried to persuade me you were horrid and unnatural. You have changed all that, haven’t you, girl?”

Flora flushed a little, and by way of reply introduced a fresh topic.

“I have received a letter since I last saw you,” she said hurriedly. “It is from--well, I need only say that I led him on, he proposed, and I refused. He must be fond of me if he wants me still.”

“You will say yes?” said Maude softly.

“I have said no.”

“You shall, you must, change your mind. Write the letter now. Or let me send a telegram as I go back through the village. You would be happy if you were married. And if you had a little girl like my Peggy, you would be so proud of yourself you would turn up your nose if you met all the queens in the world at a street-corner.”

Flora had never been demonstrative, therefore when she suddenly flung her arm round Maude’s neck the little lady was considerably astonished; but this was nothing compared to her consternation when she heard the communication which the fair-haired girl proceeded to whisper into her ear.

“Flora!” she exclaimed. “It is not true. You have always been imaginative. That is your idea because you are not well. When you get away from here you will soon change all that.”

“Don’t you know that the neglected faculty dies for want of use?” came the answer. “I cannot love now. The power is not in me. And without love I will not marry. I am as cold as any stone and my heart will not respond. When I read that letter not a pulse in me stirred. I have repelled the blind boy too long, and now he has left me for ever.”

“He will come back,” said Maude earnestly. “He will come back in the spring and shoot a sharp arrow right through your poor little heart, and then you will forget all that has passed, and be a good wife--a much better one than I have ever been.”

“I called myself an asymptote and tried to live up to the part,” went on the girl. “Now I am the curve, and Cupid plays the asymptote. And yet it really matters very little,” she added firmly. “Love and marriage are, after all, only incidents in life. There is so much besides.”

“Oh, my dear! Take away love, and life is a tragedy. But I don’t know how to preach,” said the little lady with a laugh. “I will just hand you over to the mercies of time. Only promise that you will come and stay with me when you return.”

“If I return I will,” replied Flora; and with that delphic utterance Maude had to be content.

She never saw her friend again. The following year Flora offered her services to a missionary society, was accepted, and sent to Ceylon to work among the natives. There she became a Buddhist, accepting the religion she had gone out to fight against, an action which was typical of her. Maude gasped with horror when she heard, through Mr. Price, the news, for Buddhism and cannibalism were with her synonymous terms. She wrote several frantic letters to Flora, entreating her to leave the savage state and return to civilization. No answer came. Mrs. Neill lapsed ungrammatically to the grave; Mr. Price, with tears in his simple eyes, altered his will; and Flora, the original and strong-minded, was never heard of again.

Two characters remained upon the scene, the former leader of the dramatic mysteries, and he who had entered last. Biron would not leave until the whole of his duty had been accomplished. He conceived it incumbent upon himself to unravel the mystery of Reed’s end, that he might atone as completely as possible for the trouble brought upon the place by his great-grandfather’s actions. The day after Conway’s departure he drove to Thorlund and entered the dripping garden. There, hard by the sundial, he encountered the rector, closely muffled, and walking slowly with the aid of a stick. They greeted one another and fell into a conversation, which Biron quickly turned towards the subject he had at heart.

“This is a mournful sight,” he said, indicating what had been the house.

“And this a hateful wilderness,” replied the scholar weakly, waving his stick across the garden. “Once, I believe, I loved it.”

There was little remaining to inspire affection. The Strath had fallen. All that was left of the standing ruins were two blank walls, one gable, and a mass of ivy. Beyond were heaps of bricks, torn draperies smeared with mud, and shattered furniture. The unsupported walls appeared to sway gently, waiting for the blast which should level them with the ground; and the saloon window, still bearing the unbroken escutcheon of the Hooper family, stared vacantly across the unromantic tangle of garden. Illusion had left that haunted ground for ever.

“I can tell you nothing,” said the scholar, in answer to his companion’s question concerning Reed’s death. “Perhaps there are circumstances which later on I may recall, but at this present time my mind refuses to work. I have been very ill. There is a pain in my head as though my brain was wounded. It is strange to know that I was once so happy here. Now the whole place repels me.”

“It is certain that Reed came to a violent end,” urged Biron. “It is equally certain that no one was suspected of the crime of murder. I imagined that you, being in this garden so often, might have formed some theory.”

“He afforded an instance of a man whose folly brought its own punishment,” answered the rector. “I warned him that it would so happen, but he laughed at me. I do not believe that any man had a hand in his death. His life was removed by supernatural powers.”

“Those powers of which you speak can only work their will through human agency,” said Biron. “The masks might have supplied the influence, but the act could only have been consummated by material hands.”

“Come back with me,” said the scholar restlessly. “This damp wind cuts through my head.”

The fire was burning low when they entered the study where the scholar had dreamed his life away. So soon as Biron had seated himself his host emptied two drawers of a quantity of manuscript, and this mass he piled upon the glowing cinders, laughing foolishly when the flames blazed up. “Draw your chair near,” he cried to his guest. “That log of dry wood will soon warm the room.”

“Log of wood!” Biron muttered, with a quick glance at the scholar’s white face. “Do you call that paper wood?”

“Paper or wood, the chemical constituents of the two are alike,” came the answer. “Fire reduces each to carbon. I have finished my work,” he went on, with a touch of the old dreaminess. “I have nothing more to do. It is a false heat we find in poetry after all.”

“You have burnt your work?” suggested the other, his eyes fixed upon the stooping figure.

“It is wood that is burning there,” said the poet irritably. “Dry, rotten wood. Let me show you my books. I have some rare books here.”

The short autumnal day drew on, but the visitor did not rise to go. His host was talking wildly, yet never mentioning the Strath, nor its owners, nor his own griefs. Psychology was the subject he dilated upon. So great was his tongue’s activity that Biron was given no opportunity for replying to the distorted theories which tumbled one upon the other from the scholar’s mind. He conjured up all manner of phantasies, delighting himself with them as the child happy with new toys, diving far into abstruse beliefs, passing from one problem to another, his mind never seeking after cause, never pausing to grope for a solution, but glancing off lightly and speeding into fresh whirlpools of theory. The accumulated learning of a life burst from his brain, deluging the ears of his listener, who sat amid a library of books which had been piled around him.

At length Biron was given a chance of speaking. Seizing the opportunity he opened his lips hastily to put the question, “What are your theories regarding involuntary action and the secondary personality?”

Straightway the scholar was started upon fresh roads leading into stranger realms; but as he talked unceasingly the words “bodily insensibility” detached themselves from the general outpour and struck Biron’s ears with a sinister sound. Also the word “sleep” became bracketed constantly with the phrase “unconscious action,” and the word “premeditated,” came with an ominous ring in conjunction with such expressions as “natural fear” and “subliminal self.”

As darkness crept into the room and the firelight grew more pronounced Dr. Berry’s eloquence failed and he sank back exhausted in his chair. Then Biron began to talk, but his mood was neither argumentative nor controversial; he spoke gently and soothingly, avoiding the subject of the Strath, merely describing certain of the places he had visited in the course of a life mainly devoted to travel, Venice, the Campagna, the secret ways of mediæval cities, the ancient castles of the Rhine; and when he saw that his purpose was likely to be fulfilled his musical voice went on to picture Athens, the calm Aegean, and the tombs of Grecian heroes. His voice sank into a whisper when he understood that the poet had succumbed.

Fifteen minutes passed--thirty, but the sleeper made no sign. Biron watched the white face with its sealed eyes until a mist formed before his own. Outside, darkness had settled. Within a long flame darted from the midst of the burnt paper flashing across that set face and brightening the silvered hair. Forty-five minutes, and no movement, although the bony watcher still exercised the hypnotic power. When the hour was proclaimed by a little marble clock some sense of shame entered Biron’s mind. The knowledge that he was grievously abusing the laws of hospitality forced itself upon him. Half rising he called gently, “Doctor Berry,” then sank back with a thrill. The poet was standing upright before him, his hands swaying loosely at his sides, his eyes wide open.

“Show me what took place upon that night when Reed died,” said the hypnotist firmly.

Dr. Berry moved to the writing table, and his fingers rustled among some papers. Then he turned to the window, put out his arms, and at once evinced what might have been surprise or annoyance when he found it closed. Biron approached the casements and flung them open. They passed out, one after the other, the scholar taking the well-trodden path through the churchyard which led to the Strath, walking quickly and without hesitation, while Biron groped and blundered behind.

The ragged wall streaming with ivy lifted before them. They reached the muddy moat, choked with dead leaves and rotting branches, but as they neared the edge Biron saw that the bridge had disappeared. The sleeper was walking on. The hypnotist sprang forward and seized him; there was a slight struggle, and Dr. Berry awoke.

He did not show any surprise at finding himself in that place. He had in the past awakened beside the sun-dial, or in the orchard, without any remembrance of having left his study; but he was clearly dismayed to see the ruins looming out of the gloom, and he was irritated at discovering Biron close to him, pointing to the handkerchief which he had twisted like a rope. He laughed unpleasantly when Biron addressed him, and turned away still laughing; but the traveller stood before him whichever way he would have gone.

“What would you do with that handkerchief?” he demanded. “Why have you twisted it?”

“To beat back those who follow me,” the scholar shouted, with a sudden burst of anger, stepping out and flicking Biron across the face. “Why are you with me now?” Then he laughed again, and said quietly, “Go your own way, my friend, and I will go mine. The Strath has fallen. I had resolved never to come here again.”

Biron seized the speaker’s wrists in his bony fingers. “You have much to forgive my family,” he muttered. “Had my great-grandfather not lived those masks would never have been here. Had you only been strong enough to abstain from this garden your mind would not have suffered. Had Reed not incurred your ill-will he might have been alive to-day.”

“Folly,” cried Dr. Berry angrily. “That Reed was a monster, who wanted to turn this place into a farm and keep pigs and poultry. But the Strath was well able to take care of itself.”

Biron gulped down the answer which was ready on his tongue. “I entreat you,” he said loudly, “I implore you to leave Thorlund, and that quickly, and try to forget all that has taken place here.”

Dr. Berry’s laughter ceased. Taking a match from his pocket he struck it, and held it above his head without moving, until the flame burnt his fingers. Then he dropped the glowing fragments, and said in a choking voice, “Go away! You have frightened me.”

Biron made one step back, then hesitated. Again he advanced and muttered, “After all there may be nothing to forget. You have been all these years under the influence of the masks. You are not guilty. It was the eighteenth century monster Cagliari who controlled your body and made use of your hands. He alone is guilty, and no man can call him to account.”

“Go!” shouted the scholar. “You white-faced shivering creature, you bone-faced ghost!”

He stumbled forward with threatening motions, and Biron backed away, his feet ploughing through the leaves. That moment the dark clouds parted and a glimpse of moonlight passed, revealing the wild features of the one man and the bony face of the other. Suddenly Biron started round and ran towards the road, alive to the knowledge that alone he would be unable to restrain the scholar, who began then to comprehend how that garden and fallen house had used his mind and brain.

Many minutes passed before the rector presented himself at the iron gates, and passed from that scene for ever. The moon had vanished; the muddy road wound away like a black river; there was not any creature in sight, nor within hearing of his mumbled complaint; and upon the hills all was silent. He walked out. From the gates, beside the lichened wall, and so round to his home, was a distance of three hundred yards, past some ruined barns, a deserted farmyard, a standing pool, and the worn patchwork of turf and mud known as the green; and so to the churchyard and the mossy little Bethel which was his official, but had never been his spiritual, charge.

He paced along the centre of this road, his fingers knotted together. And as he went there flickered across his vision a fantastic object, something which resembled a small white tassel, shaken violently at the corner of his eye. When he turned it was gone, but only that it might appear upon the other side. And opposite the pool his foot trod upon and snapped a rotten stick, which cried out to him as though in pain. And when near the churchyard a phantasm started from the wall of the Strath, and walked beside him. At the lich-gate this apparition vanished, and the ghostly tassel quivered wildly between his eyes.

Later the old housekeeper of the rectory heard strange noises in the house and a voice which she could not recognise. Lifting the lamp, she left the kitchen. The study was unoccupied. The sounds proceeded from the dining-room. And there she discovered her master. He had placed a chair upon the table, and was seated upon it, with a paper crown on his head and a ruler in his hand. And as she stood and trembled before him he bade her have no fear, because he was Zeus, king of gods and of men, sitting in judgment upon the world.

“Open that door which leads down to the world and you shall hear the din of cries ascending to me,” he cried. “All are asking for riches, honour, or long life. Not a single voice supplicates me for wisdom or for charity. Do you not wonder how I restrain my anger and allow my thunderbolts to lie idle?”

In the grey of the morning, when the wet hills were wrapped in mist and the valley was full of gossamers, a closed carriage entered Thorlund, Biron accompanying it, and presently rolled away, removing Dr. Berry from his charge. The scholar was seated between two grave black-coated men, who held their hands upon his wrists and only spoke to humour him. The poet’s mind, which had always sought to soar above the world, had left it altogether. He was equal with the gods. He was destiny, able to use men and women according to his will. He had been lifted to the stars. “I will teach you,” he murmured from time to time, as the carriage wheels jolted through the mud. “I will lead you into the ways of happiness. I will be merciful, for I know how weak you are. I was once a man myself.”

Exeunt Omnes

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. countryfolk/country-folk, herb-garden/herb garden, etc.) have been preserved.

Alterations to the text:

Add ToC.

Punctuation: quotation mark pairings/nestings, missing periods and commas, sentences that ended in commas, etc.

[Interlude]

Change “intended originally to be in _comunication_ with bells” to _communication_.

[Act II./Scene I.]

“because he resented any allusion to his _pecularities_” to _peculiarities_.

[Act II./Scene II.]

“shall open at the one hundred and _nintieth_ page” to _ninetieth_.

[Act II./Scene III.]

“The prosaic figure of a coachman appeared _starlingly_” to _startlingly_.

[Act III./Scene II.]

“for the delectation of a fat _kittten_” to _kitten_.

[Act III. /Scene III.]

“voice still sounding in _hid_ ears. When he came near the grass-_filles_ road” to _his_ and _filled_, respectively.

[Act III./Scene IV.]

“and saying atrocious things about your _nieghbours_” to _neighbours_.

[Act III./Scene V.]

“while wiseacres nodded heads of clay _an_ recalled predictions” to _and_.

[Act III. /Scene VI.]

“I have _ask_ him to come and visit us” to _asked_.

[Act III./Scene VII.]

“delighted in consuming _her-baceous_ plants” to _herbaceous_.

“One great poet _fo_ the past heard a gentle fluttering” to _of_.

“Dear sister, put your hands for one moment upon _mnie_” to _mine_.

[Act IV./Scene I.]

“He dropped _he_ pen and rose, opening and closing” to _the_.

[Act IV./Scene II.]

“The ground _alloted_ to me was small, but beyond” to _allotted_.

[Act V./Scene II.]

“as far as his simple nature allowed to the _dominan_ influence” to _dominant_.

[Exode]

“The masks might have supplied the _influeuce_, but the act could” to _influence_.

[End of text]