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Prelude To Adventure

<h2> CHAPTER VII — TERROR </h2> <h3> 1 </h3> That night the cold fell, like a plague, upon the town. It came, sweeping across the long low flats, crisping the dark canals with white frosted ice, stiffening the thin reeds at the river's edge, taking each blade of grass and holding it in its iron hand and then leaving it an independent thing of cold and shining beauty. At last it blew in wild gales down the narrow streets, throwing the colour of those grey walls against a sky of the sharpest blue, making of each glittering star a frozen eye, carrying in its arms a round red sun that it might fasten it, like a frosted orange, against its hard blue canopy. Already now, at half-past two of the afternoon, there were signs of the early dusk. The blue was slowly being drained from the sky, and against the low horizon a faint golden shadow soon to burn into the heart of the cold blue, was hovering. Olva Dune, turning into the King's Parade, was conscious of crowds of people, of a gaiety and life that filled the air with sound. He checked sternly with a furious exercise of self-control his impulse to creep back into the narrow streets that he had just left. "It's an Idea," he repeated over and over, as he stood there. "It's an Idea. . . . You are like any one else—you are as you were . . . before . . . everything. There is no mark—no one knows." For it seemed to him that above him, around him, always before him and behind him there was a grey shadow, and that as men approached him this shadow, bending, whispered, and, as they came to him, they flung at him a frightened glance . . . and passed. If only he might take the arm of any one of those bright and careless young men and say to him, "I killed Carfax—thus and thus it was." Oh! the relief! the lifting of the weight! For then—and only then—this pursuing Shadow, so strangely grave, not cruel, but only relentless, would step back. Because that confession—how clearly he knew it!—was the thing that God demanded. So long as he kept silence he resisted the Pursuer—so long as he resisted the Pursuer he must fly, he must escape—first into Silence, then into Sound, then back again to Silence. Somewhere, behind his actual consciousness: there was the knowledge that, did he once yield himself, life would be well, but that yielding meant Confession, Renunciation, Devotion. It was not because it was Carfax that he had killed, but it was because it was God that had spoken to him, that he fled. A fortnight ago he would have been already defeated—the Pursuer should have caught him, bound him, done with him as he would. But now—in that same instant that young Craven had looked at him with challenge in his eyes, in that instant also he, Olva, had looked at Margaret. In that silence, yesterday evening, in the dark drawing-room the two facts had together leapt at him—he loved Margaret Craven, he was suspected by Rupert Craven. Love had thus, terribly, grimly, and yet so wonderfully, sprung into his heart that had never, until now, known its lightest touch. Because of it—because Margaret Craven must never know what he had done—he must fight Craven, must lie and twist and turn. . . . His soul must belong to Margaret Craven, not to this terrible, unperturbed, pursuing God. All night he had fought for control. A very little more and he would rush crying his secret to the whole world; slowly he had summoned calm back to him. Rupert Craven should be defeated; he would, quietly, visit Sannet Wood, face it in its naked fact, stand before it and examine it—and fight down once and for all this imagination of God. Those glances that men flung upon him, that sudden raising of the eyes to his face . . . a man greeted him, another man waved his hand always this same suspicion . . . the great grey shadow that bent and whispered in their ears. He saw, too, another picture. High above him some great power was seated, and down to earth there bent a mighty Hand. Into this Hand very gently, very tenderly, certain figures were drawn—Mrs. Craven, Margaret, Rupert, Bunning, even Lawrence. Olva was dragging with him, into the heart of some terrible climax, these so diverse persons; he could not escape now—other lives were twisted into the fabric of his own. And yet with this certainty of the futility of it, he must still struggle . . . to the very end. On that cold day the world seemed to stand, as men gather about a coursing match, with hard eyes and jeering faces to watch the hopeless flight. . . . <h3> 2 </h3> He fetched Banker from the stable where he was kept and set off along the hard white road. He had behaved very badly to Bunker, a but the dog showed no signs of delight at his release. On other days when he had been kept in his stable for a considerable time he had gone mad with joy and jumped at his master, wagging his whole body in excitement. Now he walked very slowly by Olva's side, a little way behind him; when Olva spoke to him he wagged his tail, but as though it were duty that impelled it. The air grew colder aid colder—slowly now there had stolen on to the heart of the blue sky white pinnacles of cloud—a dazzling whiteness, but catching, mysteriously, the shadow of the gold light that heralded the setting sun. These clouds were charged with snow; as they hung there they seemed to radiate from their depths an even more piercing coldness. They hung above Olva like a vast mountain range and had in their outline so sharp and real an existence that they were part of the hard black horizon, rising, immediately, out of the long, low, shivering flats. There was no sound in all the world; behind him, sharply, the Cambridge towers bit the sky—before him like a clenched hand was the little wood. The silence seemed to have a rhythm and voice of its own so that if one listened, quite clearly the tramp of a marching army came over the level ground. Always an army marching—and when suddenly a bird rose from the canal with a sharp cry the tramping was caught, with the bird, for an instant, into the air, and then when the cry was ended sank down again. The wood enlarged; it lay upon the cold land now like a man's head; a man with a cap. Spaces between the trees were eyes and it seemed that he was lying behind the rim of the world and leaning his head upon the edge of it and gazing. . . . Bunker suddenly stopped and looked up at his master. "Come on," Olva turned on to him sharply. The dog looked at him, pleading. Then in Olva's dark stern face he seemed to see that there was no relenting—that wood must be faced. He moved forward again, but slowly, reluctantly. All this nonsense that Lawrence had talked about Druids. We will soon see what to make of that. And yet, in the wood, it did seem as though there were something waiting. It was now no longer a man's head—only a dark, melancholy band of trees, dead black now against the high white clouds. There had risen in Olva the fighting spirit. Fear was still there, ghastly fear, but also an anger, a rage. Why should he be thus tormented? What had he done? Who was Carfax that the slaying of him should be so unforgettable a sin? Moreover, had it been the mere vulgar hauntings of remorse, terrors of a frightened conscience, he could have turned upon himself the contempt that any Dune must deserve for so ignoble a submission. But here there were other things—some-thing that no human resolution could combat. He seized then eagerly on the things that he could conquer—the suspicions of Rupert Craven, the rivalry of Cardillac, the confidences of Bunning, . . . the grave tenderness of Margaret Craven . . . these things he would clutch and hold, let the Pursuing Spirits do what they would. As he entered the dark wood a few flakes of snow were falling. He knew where the Druid Stones lay. He had once been shown them by some undergraduate interested in such things. They lay a little to the right, below the little crooked path and above the Hollow. The wood was not dripping now—held in the iron hand of the frost the very leaves on the ground seemed to be made of metal; the bare twisted branches of the trees shone with frosty—the earth crackled beneath his foot and in the wood's silence, when he broke a twig with his boot the sound shot into the air and rang against the listening stillness. He looked at the Hollow, Bunker close at his heels. He could see the spot where he had first stood, talking to Carfax—there where the ferns now glistened with silver. There was the place where Carfax had fallen. Bunker was smelling with his head down at the ground. What did the dog remember? What had Craven meant when he said that Bunker had found the matchbox? He stood silently looking down at the Hollow. In his heart now there was no terror. When, during these last days, he had been fighting his fear it had always seemed to him that the heart of it lay in this Hollow. He had always seen the dripping fern, smelt the wet earth, heard the sound of the mist falling from the trees. Now the earth was clear and hard and cold. The great white mountains drove higher into the sky, very softly and gently a few white flakes were falling. With a great relief, almost a sigh of thank-fulness, he turned back to the Druids' Stones. There they were—two of them standing upright, stained with lichen, grey and weather-beaten, one lying flat, hollowed a little in the centre. The ferns stood above them and the bare branches of the trees crossed in strange shapes against the sky. Here, too, there was a peaceful, restful silence. No more was God in these quiet stones than He had been in that noisy theatrical Revival Meeting—Lawrence was wrong. Those old religions were dead. No more could the Greek Gods pass smiling into the temples of their worshippers, no more Wodin, Thor and the rest may demand their bloody sacrifice. These old stones are dead. The Gods are dead—but God? . . . He stayed there for a while and the snow fell more heavily. The golden light had faded, the high white clouds had swallowed the blue. There would soon be storm. In the wood—strangest of ironies—there had been peace. Now he started down the road again and was conscious, as the wood slipped back into distance, of some vague alarm. <h3> 3 </h3> The world was now rapidly transformed. There had been promised a blaze of glory, but the sun, red and angry, had been drowned by the thick grey clouds that now flooded the air—dimly seen for an instant outlined against the grey—then suddenly non-existent, leaving a world like a piece of crumpled paper white and dark to all its boundaries. The snow fell now more swiftly but always gently, imperturbably—almost it might seem with the whispering intention of some important message. Olva was intensely cold. He buttoned his coat tightly up to his ears, but nevertheless the air was so biting that it hurt. Bunker, with his head down, drove against the snow that was coming now ever more thickly. The peace that there had been in the little wood was now utterly gone. The air seemed full of voices. They came with the snow, and as the flakes blew more closely against his face and coat there seemed to press about him a multitude of persons. He drove forward, but this sense of oppression increased with every step. The wood had been swallowed by the storm. Olva felt like a man who has long been struggling with some vice; insidiously the temptation has grown in force and power—his brain, once so active in the struggle, is now dimmed and dulled. His power of resistance, once so vigorous, is now confused—confusion grows to paralysis—he can only now stare, distressed, at the dark temptation, there have swept over him such strong waters that struggle is no longer of avail—one last clutch at the vice, one last desperate and hateful pleasure, and he is gone. . . . Olva knew that behind him in the storm the Pursuit was again upon him. That brief respite in the wood had not been long granted him. The snow choked him, blinded him, his body was desperately cold, his soul trembling with fear. On every side he was surrounded—the world had vanished, only the thin grey body of his dog, panting at his side, could be dimly seen. God had not been in the wood, but God was in the storm. . . . A last desperate resistance held him. He stayed where he was and shouted against the blinding snow. "There is no God. . . . There is no God." Suddenly his voice sank to a whisper. "There is no God," he muttered. The dog was standing, his eyes wide with terror, his feet apart, his body quivering. Olva gazed into the storm. Then, desperately, he started to run. . . . <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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