Chapter II

August and September passed away, and October had now begun. Arthur avoided the Warleighs as much as he could; Winnington was constantly at their house. The friends grew estranged. But, with the younger, the estrangement made no difference in the feeling of affection he always had entertained for Arthur. He was hurt, however, by the change he perceived in his manner. He was hurt at his manifest avoidance of the society of the squire and his daughter. He was hurt, also, at the total silence Arthur now maintained on the subject of his cousin Lucy. He saw her letters left unopened, sometimes for a whole day, upon the table instead of being greedily torn open the moment the straggling and uncertain post had achieved their delivery at the door. He was hurt at some other things besides, too minute to be recorded; too minute perhaps to be put into language even by himself, but all perceptible to the sensitive heart of friendship such as his. With no visible improvement in Arthur’s fortune or prospects, it was evident that his ideas were constantly on the rise. A strange sort of contempt of poverty mingled with his aspirations after wealth. An amount of income which, at one time, would have satisfied his desires, was looked on with disdain, and the possessors of it almost with hatred. The last words Winnington had heard him speak about Lucy were, that marriage was impossible under a thousand a-year. And where was that sum to come from? The extent of Lucy’s expectations was fifty,—his own, a hundred—and yet he sneered at the Warleighs as if they had been paupers; although in that cheap country, and at that cheap time, a revenue of three hundred pounds enabled them to live in comfort, almost in luxury.

Winnington took no thought of to-morrow, but loved Ellen Warleigh, with no consideration of whether she was rich or poor. It is probable that Ellen had no more calculating disposition than Winnington; for it is certain her sentiments towards him were not regulated by the extent of his worldly wealth,—perhaps she did not even know what her sentiments towards him were—but she thought him delightful, and wandered over the solitary heaths with him, in search of specimens. They very often found none, in the course of their four hours’ ramble, and yet came home as contented as if they had discovered an Emperor of Morocco on every bush. Baulked in their natural history studies by the perverse absence of moth and butterfly, they began,—by way of having something to do—to take up the science of botany. The searches they made for heath of a particular kind! The joy that filled them when they came on a group of wild flowers, and gathered them into a little basket they carried with them, and took them back to the manor, and astonished Mr. Warleigh with the sound of their Latin names! What new dignity the commonest things took under that sonorous nomenclature! How respectable a nettle grew when called an urtica, and how suggestive of happiness and Gretna Green when a flower could be declared to be cryptogamic.

“See what a curious root this piece of broom has,” said Winnington, one night, on his return from the Manor, and laid his specimen on the table.

Arthur hardly looked up from his book, and made some short reply.

“It took Ellen and me ten minutes, with all our force, to pull it up by the roots. We had no knife, or I should merely have cut off the stalk; but see, now that the light falls on it, what curious shining earth it grows in; with odd little stones twisted up between the fibres! Did you ever see anything like it?” Arthur had fixed his eyes on the shrub during this speech—He stretched forth his hand and touched the soil still clinging to the roots—he put a small portion to his lips—his face grew deadly pale.

“Where did you get this?” he said.

“Down near the waterfall—not a hundred yards from this.”

“On whose land?—on the glebe?” said Arthur, speaking with parched mouth, and still gazing on the broom.

“Does Warleigh know of this?” he went on, “or the clergyman? Winnington! no one must be to told, tell Ellen to be silent; but she is not aware perhaps. Does she suspect?”

“What? what is there to suspect, my dear Arthur? Don’t you think you work too much,” he added, looking compassionately on the dilated eye and pale cheek of his companion. “You must give up your studies for a day or two. Come with us on an exploring expedition to the Outer fell to-morrow; Mr. Warleigh is going.”

“And give him the fruits of all my reading,” Arthur muttered angrily, “of all I learned at the Hartz; tell him how to proceed, and leave myself a beggar. No!” he said, “I will never see him. As to this miserable little weed,” he continued, tearing the broom to pieces, and casting the fragments contemptuously into the fire; “it is nothing; you are mad to have given up your butterflies to betake yourself to such a ridiculous pursuit as this. Don’t go there any more—there!” (here he stamped on it with his foot) “How damp it is! the fire has little power.”

“You never take any interest, Arthur, in anything I do. I don’t know, I’m sure, how I’ve offended you. As to the broom, I know it’s a poor common thing, but I thought the way its roots were loaded rather odd. Ellen will perhaps be disappointed, for we intended to plant it in her garden, and I only asked her to let me show it to you, it struck me as being so very curious. Come, give up your books and learning for a day. We must leave this for Oxford in a week, and I wish you to know more of the Warleighs before we go.”

“I am not going back to Oxford,” said Arthur, “I shall take my name off the books.”

Winnington was astonished. He was also displeased. “We promised to visit my aunt,” he said, “on our way back to college—Lucy will be grieved and disappointed.”

“I will send a letter by you—I shall explain it all—I owe her a letter already.”

“Have you not answered that letter yet? it came a month ago,” said Winnington. “Oh! if Ellen Warleigh would write a note to me, and let me write to her, how I would wait for her letters! how I would answer them from morn to night.”

“She would find you a rather troublesome correspondent,” said Arthur, watching the disappearance of the last particle of the broom as it leaped merrily in sparkles up the chimney. “Lucy knows that I am better employed than telling her ten times over, that I love her better than anything else— and that I long for wealth principally that it may enable me to call her mine. I shall have it soon. Tell her to be sure of that. I shall be of age in three days, then the wretched driblet my guardian now has charge of comes into my hands; I will multiply it a thousand-fold—and then—”

“The palace will be built,” said Winnington, who could not keep anger long, “and the place at your right hand will be got ready for the resident physician—who in the meantime recommends you to go quietly to bed, for you have overstrung your mind with work, and your health, dear Arthur, is not at all secure.”

For a moment, a touch of the old kindness came to Arthur’s heart. He shook Winnington’s hand. “Thank you, thank you,” he said, “I will do as you advise. Your voice is very like Lucy’s, and so are your eyes—good night, dear Winnington.” And Winnington left the room, so did Arthur, but not for bed. A short time before this, a package had arrived from Hawsleigh, and had been placed away in a dark closet under the stairs. He looked for a moment out into the night. The moon was in a cloud, and the wind was howling with a desolate sound over the bare moor. He took down the package, and from it extracted a spade and a pickaxe; and, gently opening the front door, went out. He walked quickly till he came to the waterfall; he looked carefully round and saw a clump of broom. The ground from the rectory to this place formed a gentle declivity; where the river flowed there were high banks, for the stream had not yet been swelled by the rains, and he first descended into the bed, and examined the denuded cliffs. He then hurried towards the broom, and began to dig. He dug and struck with the pickaxe, and shovelled up the soil—weighing, smelling, tasting it, as he descended foot by foot. He dug to the depth of a yard; he jumped into the hole and pursued his work—breathless, hot, untiring. The moon for a moment came out from the clouds that obscured her. He availed himself of her light and held up a particle of soil and stone; it glittered for an instant in the moonbeam. With an almost audible cry he threw it to the bottom of the excavation, and was scrambling out when he heard a voice. It was the drunken shoemaker returning from some distant merrymaking. He lay down at the bottom of the hole, watching for the approaching footsteps. At a little distance from the waterfall the singer changed his path, and diverged towards the village. The song died off in the distance.

“That danger’s past,” said Arthur, “both for him and me. I would have killed him if he had come nearer. Back, back,” he continued, while he filled up the hole he had made, carefully shovelling in the soil—“No eye shall detect that you have been moved.” He replaced the straggling turf where it had been disturbed; stampt it down with his feet, and beat it smooth with his spade. And then went home.

“Hallo! who’s there?” cried Winnington, hearing the door open and shut. “Is that you, Arthur?”

“Yes; are you not asleep yet?”

“I’ve been asleep for hours. How late you are. Weren’t you out of the house just now?”

“I felt hot, and went out for a minute to see the moon.”

“Hot?” said Winnington. “I wish I had another blanket—good night.” Arthur passed on to his own room.

“If he had opened his door,” he said, “and seen my dirty clothes, these yellow stains on my knees, these dabbled hands, what could I have done?” He saw himself in the glass as he said this; there was something in the expression of his face that alarmed him. He drew back.

“He is very like Lucy,” he muttered to himself, “and I’m glad he didn’t get out of bed.”

Meantime Winnington had a dream. He was on board a beautiful boat on the Isis. It seemed to move by its own force, as if it were a silver swan; and the ripple as it went on took the form of music, and he thought it was an old tune that he had listened to in his youth. He sat beside Ellen Warleigh, with his hand locked in hers, and they watched the beautiful scenery through which the boat was gliding—past the pretty Cherwell, past the level meadows, past the Newnham woods,—and still the melody went on. Then they were in a country he did not know; there were tents of gaudy colours on the shore; and wild-eyed men in turbans and loose tunics looked out upon them. One came on board; he was a tall dark Emir, with golden-sheathed scimitar, which clanked as he stept on the seat. Winnington stood up and asked what the stranger wanted: the chief answered in Arabic, but Winnington understood him perfectly. He said he had come to put him to death for having dared to look upon his bride. He laid his grasp on him as he spoke, and tore him from Ellen’s side. In the struggle Winnington fell over, and found himself many feet in front of the fairy boat. The Arab sat down beside Ellen, and put his arm round her waist, and then he suddenly took the shape of Arthur Hayning. The boat seemed to flutter its wings, and come faster on. Winnington tried to swim to one side, but could not. On came the boat, its glittering bows flashed before his eyes—they touched him—pressed him down; he felt the keel pass over his head; and down, down, still downward he went, and, on looking up, saw nothing but the boat above him; all was dark where he was, for the keel seemed constantly between him and the surface, and yet he heard the old tune still going on. It was a tune his cousin Lucy used to play; but at last, in his descent through the darkened water, he got out of hearing, and all was silent. The music had died away—and suddenly he heard a scream, and saw Ellen struggling in the water. He made a dart towards her with arms stretched out—and overturned the candle he had left on the table at the side of his bed.