The Broad Highway, Jeffery Farnol [best ebook reader under 100 txt] 📗

same way that you and I are, and the Quack-salver yonder.”

“But was He divine?”

“Surely a mighty thinker—a great teacher whose hand points the higher way, whose words inspire Humanity to nobler ends and aims, is, of necessity, divine.”

“You are a very bold young man, and talk, I think, a little wildly.”

“Heterodoxy has been styled so before, sir.”

“And a very young, young man.”

“That, sir, will be amended by time.” Here, puffing at his pipe, and finding it gone out, he looked at me in surprise.

“Remarkable!” said he.

“What is, sir?”

“While I listened to you I have actually let my pipe go out—a thing which rarely happens with me.” As he spoke he thrust one hand into his pocket, when he glance slowly all round, and back once more to me. “Remarkable!” said he again.

“What now, sir?”

“My purse has gone again!”

“What!—gone!” I ejaculated.

“Vanished!” said he, and, to prove his words, turned inside out first one pocket and then the other.

“Come with me,” said I, springing up, “there is yet a chance that we may possibly recover it.” Forthwith I led him to where had stood a certain gayly-painted caravan, but it was gone—vanished as utterly as my companion’s purse.

“Most annoying!” said he, shaking his venerable head, “really most exasperating—I particularly wished to secure a sample of that fellow’s pills—the collection of quack remedies is a fad of mine—as it is—”

“My purse is entirely at your disposal, sir,” said I, “though, to be sure, a very—” But there I stopped, staring, in my turn, blankly at him.

“Ha?” he exclaimed, his eyes twinkling.

“Yes,” I nodded, “the rascal made off with my purse also; we are companions in misfortune.”

“Then as such, young sir, come and dine with me, my habitation is but a little way off.”

“Thank you, sir, but I am half expecting to meet with certain good friends of mine, though I am none the less honored by your offer.”

“So be it, young sir; then permit me to wish you a very, ‘Good day!’” and, touching the brim of his hat with the long stem of his pipe, the Venerable Man turned and left me.

Howbeit, though I looked diligently on all hands, I saw nothing of Simon or the Ancient; thus evening was falling as, bending my steps homeward, I came to a part of the Fair where drinking-booths had been set up, and where they were preparing to roast an ox whole, as is the immemorial custom. Drinking was going on, with its usual accompaniment of boisterous merriment and rough horseplay—the vulgarity of which ever annoys me. Two or three times I was rudely jostled as I made my way along, so that my temper was already something the worse, when, turning aside to avoid all this, I came full upon two fellows, well-to-do farmers, by their look, who held a struggling girl between them—to each of whom I reached out a hand, and, gripping them firmly by their collars, brought their two heads together with a sounding crack—and then I saw that the girl was Prudence. Next moment we were running, hand in hand, with the two fellows roaring in pursuit. But Prudence was wonderfully fleet and light of foot, wherefore, doubling and turning among carts, tents, and booths, we had soon outstripped our pursuers, and rid ourselves of them altogether. In spite of which Prudence still ran on till, catching her foot in some obstacle, she tripped, and would have fallen but for my arm.

And looking down into her flushed face, glowing through the sweet disorder of her glossy curls, I could not but think how lovely she was. But, as I watched, the color fled from her cheeks, her eyes dilated, and she started away from me.

Now, turning hastily, I saw that we were standing close by a certain small, dirty, and disreputable-looking tent, the canvas of which had been slit with a knife—and my movement had been quick enough to enable me to see a face vanish through the canvas. And, fleeting though the glimpse had been, yet, in the lowering brow, the baleful glare of the eye, and the set of the great jaw, I had seen Death.

And, after we had walked on a while together, looking at Prue, I noticed that she trembled.

“Oh, Mr. Peter,” she whispered, glancing back over her shoulder, “did ye see?”

“Yes, Prudence, I saw.” And, speaking, I also glanced back towards the villainous little tent, and though the face appeared no more, I was aware, nevertheless, of a sudden misgiving that was almost like a foreboding of evil to come; for in those features, disfigured though they were with black rage and passion, I had recognized the face of Black George.

A WORD TO THE READER

Remembering the very excellent advice of my friend the Tinker as to the writing of a good “nov-el,” I am perturbed, and not a little discouraged, upon looking over these pages, to find that I have, as yet, described no desperate hand-to-hand encounters, no hairbreadth escapes (unless a bullet through one’s hat may be justly so regarded), and, above all—not one word of LOVE!

You, sir, who have expectantly borne with me thus far, may be tempted to close the book in a huff, and, hurling it from you, with a deep-voiced anathema, clap on your hat, and sally forth into the sunshine.

Or you, madam, breathing a sigh o’er hopes deferred, may take up needle, and silk, and turn you, once again, to that embroidery which has engaged your dainty fingers this twelvemonth and more, yet which, like Penelope’s web, would seem no nearer completion.

Ah well, sir! exercise, especially walking, is highly beneficial to the liver, they tell me—and nothing, madam, believe me (unless it be playing the harp), can show off a pretty hand, or the delicate curves of a shapely wrist and arm to such advantage as that selfsame embroidery. But since needlework (like books and all sublunary things) is apt to grow monotonous, you may, perchance, for lack of better occupation, be driven to address yourself, once more, to this, my Narrative.

And since you, sir, no matter how far you walk, must, of necessity, return to your chair and chimney-corner, it is possible that, having dined adequately, and lighted your pipe (and being therefore in a more charitable and temperate frame of mind), you may lift my volume from the dusty corner where it has lain all this while, and (though probably with sundry grunts and snorts, indicative that the thing is done under protest, as it were) reopen these pages.

In the which hope, dear madam, and you, noble sir, I here commence this, my Second Book—which, as you see, is headed thus:

THE WOMAN

BOOK TWO

THE WOMAN

CHAPTER I

OF STORM, AND TEMPEST, AND OF THE COMING OF CHARMIAN

I was at sea in an open boat. Out of the pitch-black heaven there rushed a mighty wind, and the pitch-black seas above me rose high, and ever higher, flecked with hissing white; wherefore I cast me face downwards in my little boat, that I might not behold the horror of the waters; and above their ceaseless, surging thunder there rose a long-drawn cry:

“Charmian!”

I stood upon a desolate moor, and the pitiless rain lashed me, and the fierce wind buffeted me; and, out of the gloom where frowning earth and heaven met—there rose a long-drawn cry:

“Charmian.”

I started up in bed, broad awake, and listening; yet the tumult was all about me still—the hiss and beat of rain, and the sound of a rushing, mighty wind—a wind that seemed to fill the earth—a wind that screamed about me, that howled above me, and filled the woods, near and far, with a deep booming, pierced, now and then, by the splintering crash of snapping bough or falling tree. And yet, somewhere in this frightful pandemonium of sound, blended in with it, yet not of it, it seemed to me that the cry still faintly echoed:

“Charmian.”

So appalling was all this to my newly-awakened senses, that I remained, for a time, staring into the darkness as one dazed. Presently, however, I rose, and, donning some clothes, mended the fire which still smouldered upon the hearth, and, having filled and lighted my pipe, sat down to listen to the awful voices of the storm.

What brain could conceive—what pen describe that elemental chorus, like the mighty voice of persecuted Humanity, past and present, crying the woes and ills, the sorrows and torments, endured of all the ages? To-night, surely, the souls of the unnumbered dead rode within the storm, and this was the voice of their lamentation.

From the red mire of battlefields are they come, from the flame and ravishment of fair cities, from dim and reeking dungeons, from the rack, the stake, and the gibbet, to pierce the heavens once more with the voice of their agony.

Since the world was made, how many have lived and suffered, and died, unlettered and unsung—snatched by a tyrant’s whim from life to death, in the glory of the sun, in the gloom of night, in blood and flame, and torment? Indeed, their name is “Legion.”

But there is a great and awful Book, whose leaves are countless, yet every leaf of which is smirched with blood and fouled with nameless sins, a record, howsoever brief and inadequate, of human suffering, wherein as “through a glass, darkly,” we may behold horrors unimagined; where Murder stalks, and rampant Lust; where Treachery creeps with curving back, smiling mouth, and sudden, deadly hand; where Tyranny, fierce-eyed, and iron-lipped, grinds the nations beneath a bloody heel. Truly, man hath no enemy like man. And Christ is there, and Socrates, and Savonarola—and there, too, is a cross of agony, a bowl of hemlock, and a consuming fire.

Oh, noble martyrs! by whose blood and agony the world is become a purer and better place for us, and those who shall come after us —Oh glorious, innumerable host! thy poor, maimed bodies were dust ages since, but thy souls live on in paradise, and thy memory abides, and shall abide in the earth, forever.

Ye purblind, ye pessimists, existing with no hope of a resurrection, bethink you of these matters; go, open the great and awful Book, and read and behold these things for yourselves —for what student of history is there but must be persuaded of man’s immortality—that, though this poor flesh be mangled, torn asunder, burned to ashes, yet the soul, rising beyond the tyrant’s reach, soars triumphant above death and this sorry world, to the refuge of “the everlasting arms;” for God is a just God!

Now, in a while, becoming conscious that my pipe was smoked out and cold, I reached up my hand to my tobacco-box upon the mantelshelf. Yet I did not reach it down, for, even as my fingers closed upon it, above the wailing of the storm, above the hiss and patter of driven rain, there rose a long-drawn cry:

“Charmian!”

So, remembering the voice I had seemed to hear calling in my dream, I sat there with my hand stretched up to my tobacco-box, and my face screwed round to the casement behind me, that, as I watched, shook and rattled beneath each wind-gust, as if some hand strove to pluck it open.

How long I remained thus, with my hand stretched up to my tobacco-box, and my eyes upon this window, I am unable to