XLVII
Of My Last Meeting with Rupert Watson
It was one of the most beautiful days I ever remember to have known, that Easter Sunday of 1649, for it was all sunshine and springing of flowers, and yet it went by surely in slower fashion than ever day did before. I was out and about early in the morning, and found the dew lying bright on the grass and the sunlight flooding the woods and meadows that stretch before my house. The trees were bursting into new leaf, and the garden—looking very smart and trim, thanks to Timothy Grass—was gay with primrose and crocus. I wandered about the fold and the buildings, thinking of what great happiness the morrow was to bring me, until the house door opened and Ben Tuckett came out and joined me.
“Heigho!” said Ben. “It seems a long time until tomorrow, Will. Would that old Father Time could jog on a little faster!”
“Have patience, Ben,” said I. “ ’Twill soon be noon, and soon it will be night, and then morning will dawn again and the great day will arrive.”
“Yea,” he answered, “but these last few hours seem exceeding long. I do not think I have slept three hours this night, and I am very sure I shall not sleep at all this coming night, for I shall lie awake considering of my new responsibilities. ’Tis a serious matter, this marrying business, Will.”
“Art thou afraid?”
“Marry, not I. But for all that ’tis, as I say, a serious thing. Thou seest, a man till he marries hath but himself to care for, but when he is wed he never knows to what extent his care will go. However, I am willing enough to offer myself a victim at the altar.”
“I believe you, Ben. You have been a faithful wooer.”
“Ever since I was a lad and used to come home with thee at holiday times. Yea, I have served my apprenticeship to this same love for as many years as Jacob served for Rachel. But the last days of the apprenticeship go very slowly, lad, and I would it were tomorrow, and Parson Drumbleforth had tied us up as securely as ring and book can do it.”
Not all the wishing in the world, however, could make the day go a whit faster, and we were fain to get it over in such patience as we could. For my own part, I would have spent it in wandering about my land, alone with my own thoughts, but Rose and Lucy were for going along the road to church, and insisted upon Ben and myself accompanying them. Now, Ben was not quite easy on this point, for it was the day of reading out the banns, and he was somewhat afraid of hearing his own name announced in such a pointed fashion amongst a congregation that would certainly be much interested. I was not without some dismay at the prospect myself, and had absented myself from Divine Service for two Sundays running on those very grounds. The girls, however, had no fears on this point, and would hear no objection that we could make.
“Not go to church indeed!” said Lucy. “Am I, then, going to marry a heathen? What would the Vicar say an he missed your face today, Master Benjamin? So go straightways and put on your best coat and lose no time, for I can hear the bells ringing now.”
“And what shall I do, and where shall I look,” said poor Ben, “when the parson reads out our names? I shall feel fit to drop through the floor. Everybody will look at me. I can stand a good deal, but to have a churchful of folk staring at me as if I were a prize bullock is more than a man ought to stand.”
“Will they not stare at you tomorrow?” cried Lucy. “Quick, I say, and make ready to go with us. Surely if we can stand hearing the banns read out, you ought to.”
So away we all went, and on coming into the village street at Darrington fell in with many of our acquaintance, who wished us joy and happiness so heartily that the girls blushed for pleasure, and Ben hung down his head and looked as if he were a criminal that had been caught in the commission of some awful deed. It was indeed very hard on Benjamin that the girls had insisted on his presence at church that morning, for the nave and aisles were filled with people, and we had no sooner got to our seats than everybody turned to look at us, so that Ben’s face glowed like a red rose, and I felt far from comfortable myself. Here, however, I could not but admire the wonderful self-possession of our sweethearts, who seemed to be wholly unconscious of the eyes turned upon them, but gave their attention entirely to the service, and looked as demure as cats that bask in front of a warm fire. So the service went on until the time came for reading out the banns of such folk as were to be married, and then indeed I felt that every eye in the church was upon us, and that the ploughboys in the dark corners under the belfry were smiling and the village girls laughing. As for me, I know not how I looked, but I professed to be mightily interested in Rose’s Prayerbook, while poor Ben, after turning red and then white, finally folded his arms and fixed his eyes desperately on a certain corner of the roof, until Parson Drumbleforth had made an end of our names for the third and last time, and went forward to the next part of the service.
Now, after morning prayer and sermon was over, and Holy Communion had been celebrated with such ceremonies as they use on Easter Day, we went out into the churchyard, and were there joined by Jack Drumbleforth, who brought us a message from his father to the effect that we must dine with him at the Vicarage, which invitation we straightway accepted. So Jack had us into the best parlour, where the Vicar kept his books, and his father shortly appearing in his cassock and gown made us heartily welcome and gave us good advice upon our future enterprises, until Mistress Deborah called us to dinner. After the meal was over we amused ourselves with various matters until the time for afternoon service, when we all went to church again, Ben this time looking as bold as brass, and carrying himself with exceeding great dignity. And towards the end of the afternoon we walked homewards across the fields with many good and holy thoughts in our minds, which had been prompted by the influences of that great day. And there was only one regret in my heart, namely, that my dear father and mother were not there to see our happiness, but were lying side by side in their quiet graves in the churchyard which we had just left.
So the day had passed well enough until then, and it went better in the evening, when Rose and I went for a long walk across our fields, and talked, as lovers will talk, of past and present and future. We were happy enough, and I doubt not Ben and Lucy were the same, for they seemed on good terms with themselves when we went back home. The girls went early to bed that night, for there were many matters to be attended to in the morning. Ben and I therefore were left to ourselves by nine o’clock, and for a good half-hour we sat staring at the fire with never a word to say.
“Heigho!” sighed Ben at last. “I wish it were tomorrow! I cannot rest for thinking of it. What are you going to do, Will?”
For I had risen and was going towards the door.
“I am going for a ride in the moonlight, Ben. ’Tis better than sitting over the fire and hearing thee sigh like a furnace.”
“Marry, and a good notion, too. Lend me a horse, and I will go with thee.”
We made fast the house-door, and, going to the stables, saddled and bridled our horses and rode away into the meadows. The moon had risen over the woods, and everything was filled with a silver radiance. Spring as it was, there was yet a slight touch of frost in the night air, and the keenness of it seemed delightful as we put the horses to a canter and went merrily across the land. Here and there a hare or a rabbit scudded out of our way; now a fox was roused from his couch and made off for the woods. Ben’s spirits rose as we dashed along, and he laughed and sang until the woods echoed back his voice. Presently we left the meadows, and went into the darkness of the long wood that stretches across country from Stapleton to Went Vale. There all was still and silent, save when some animal, fox, badger, or hare, broke cover and hurried away, or an owl, perched in a dead tree, uttered its dismal note. The trees were thick overhead, but here and there the moonlight flickered through some opening, and fell trembling on the bridle-path which we were traversing.
“Ah!” said Ben, “I am somewhat fond of my bed as a usual thing, but this is better than sleep. Come, let us spur up our steeds for another gallop.”
So away we went under the dark roof of the woods until we had passed two miles of them and found ourselves in the high-road that leads from Darrington to Smeaton. We drew rein and looked round us.
“There is Castle Hill,” said Ben.
I looked at the pile of buildings rising above us to our left. I had never set eyes on the place since the night when Philip Lisle and I visited it in search of Dennis and found him flown. I had desired nothing so much as to see it and its master when I rode away from Peterborough; nay, not even my own homestead and those it sheltered. But now my passion was dead, for Rupert Watson was beyond my reach. The Almighty vengeance had descended upon him in no scant measure.
“They say Rupert’s madness increaseth,” said Ben. “His nephew hath come to manage matters, and is doubtless whole and sole master now. They say, too, that—”
“My God, Ben!” I cried suddenly. “What is that? Look—by the gate of the fold.”
Out of the gate right before us came a figure all in white, leading a gray horse by the bridle. My blood turned chill as I watched it, it looked so ghostly in the moonlight. As we stood rooted to the spot the figure leaped to the horse’s back and came across the paddock in our direction.
“Will!” said Ben. “ ’Tis Rupert Watson! He hath risen from his bed—see, he hath his nightclothes on—and has come a-riding in his madness. A blind man riding! See, ’tis the old gray horse he used to ride to market.”
“And it is blind, too,” I whispered back. “It hath been blind this two years. Ben, what shall we do? Must we not stop him and rouse his friends?”
“Hush!” said Ben. “Make no sound—let us see what he is after.”
We stood silent and breathless at the roadside until that ghostly pair were close upon us. Then we saw that it was indeed Rupert Watson, clad in his nightclothes, with his white hair and beard falling about his face, and his sightless eyes burning with a fierce light. I shut my eyes and shivered, for the sight was a terrible one—a blind man riding a blind horse!
He passed us at a yard’s distance, chattering and muttering to himself and the horse. When he had got to a little distance we turned our horses and followed him on the soft grass. In this way we rode up the hill. When we reached the summit we found the blind horse and its blind, mad rider standing on the highest bit of road, with their heads turned across the land as if they could see. Perhaps they had been used in other days to come there and gaze at the view. For before them in the moonlight stretched a long, level piece of moorland, nearly a mile across, with neither wood nor hedge to bar their progress, and at its furthest limit a great drop of a hundred feet over Smeaton Crag.
“What are they doing—they can see naught?” whispered Ben fearfully, as we drew near. “Hark—how he raves, Will!”
Rupert Watson had risen in his saddle and was shouting and gesticulating with fierce words and motions.
“A last ride, good Greyfoot!” he shouted. “A last ride together across the land. Let all the ghosts, and the dead men, and the devils of hell follow us. On! on!”
He drove his spur into the blind horse’s side as he screamed out the last word. The horse neighed, rose on its hind feet, and then darted across the land like a mad thing, its rider shouting and yelling.
“Ride, Ben, ride!” I cried, and drove both spurs into Captain’s sides. “Ride, man! The Crag! They will be over the Crag!”
Never in all my life did I ride as I rode that night in the moonlight after the awful figures that went before, screaming and yelling like demons of hell. The wind flew by me and cut my face, the horse shivered and quivered as I drove the spurs again and again into his sides; Ben, urging his steed with voice and whip, was left behind and out of sight in a minute. But not a yard did we gain on the mad rider and his mad horse. On, on, on they went like the wind. I rose in my stirrups and shouted after them, and still they flew forward. And then suddenly they came to the smooth, broad surface of the Crag, and beyond it the deep blackness of the valley, and beyond that the village of Smeaton sleeping in the moonlight across the vale. The awful figures in front abated nothing of their speed, but were over the Crag like a flash of lightning and lost in the abyss below.
I pulled up my own panting and suffering beast, and, drawing near to the Crag, laid myself along the ground and looked over. Far beneath me lay the gray horse and its rider, and beyond them the tiny Went ran babbling by with the moonbeams dancing on its rippling waters.
Thus came Rupert Watson to his end.