GEOFF left the cottage when the sun had just risen. He was half-giddy, half-stunned by the strange new light, unexpected up to the last moment, which had been thrown upon the whole question which he had undertaken to solve. He was giddy too with fatigue, the night’s watch, the long walk, the want of sleep. Besides all these confusing influences there is something in the atmosphere of the very early morning, the active stillness, the absence of human life, the pre-occupation of Nature with a hundred small (as it were) domestic cares such as she never exhibits to the eye of man, that moves the mind of an unaccustomed observer to a kind of rapture, bewildering in its solemn influence. To come out from the lonely little house folded among the hills, with all its miseries past and present, its sad story, its secret, the atmosphere of human suffering in it, to all the still glory of the summer morning, was of itself a bewilderment. The same world, and only a step between them: but one all pain and darkness, mortal anguish and confusion—the other all so clear, so sweet, so still, solemn with the serious beginning of the new day, and instinct with that great, still pressure of something more than what is seen, some soul of earth and sky which goes deeper than all belief, and which no sceptic of the higher kind, but only the gross and earthly, can disbelieve in. Young Geoff disbelieving nothing, his heart full of the faith and conviction of youth, came out into this wide purity and calm with an expansion of all his being. It was all he could do not to burst into sudden tears when he felt the sudden relief—the dew crept to his eyelids though it did not fall, his bosom contracted and expanded as with a sob. To this world of mountain and cloud—of rising sunshine and soft-breathing air, and serene delicious silence, pervaded by the soft indistinguishable hum of unseen water and rustling grasses, and minute living creatures unseen too beneath the mountain herbage—what is the noblest palace built with hands but a visible limitation and contraction of the world, an appropriation of a petty corner out of which human conceit makes its centre of the earth? Bampfylde, who had come out with him, and to whom the story Geoff had just heard was not new, felt the relief more simply. He drew a long breath of refreshment and ease, expanding his breast and stretching out his arms; and then this rough vagrant fellow, unconscious of literature, did what Virgil in the Purgatorio did in such a morning for his poet companion; he spread both his hands upon the fragrant grass, all heavy with the early dew, and bathed his face and weary eyes.
“That’s life,” said the man of woods and hills; the freshness of nature was all the help he had, all the support as well as all the poetry his maimed existence could possess.
Bampfylde went with his young companion round the shoulder of the hill to show him the way. It was a nearer and shorter road to the level country than that by which they had come, for Geoff was anxious to get home early. Bampfylde pointed out to him the line of road which twisted about and about like a ribbon, crossing now one slope, now another, till it disappeared upon the shadowed side of the green hill which presided over Penninghame, and beyond which the lake gleamed blue, not yet reached by the sunshine.
“It’s like the story,” he said; “it’s like a parable; ye come by Stanton, my young lord, and ye go by Penninghame. It’s your nearest way; and there, if you ask at John Armstrong’s in the village, ye’ll get a trap to take you home.”
Geoff was not sufficiently free in mind to be able to give any attention to the parable. Those fantastic symbolisms of accident or circumstance which so often would seem to be arranged like shadows of more important matters by some elfish secondary providence, need a spirit at rest to enter into them. He was glad to be alone, to realise all that he had heard, to compose the wonderful tangle of new information and new thoughts into something coherent, without troubling himself about the fact that he was now bending his steps direct, the representative of Walter Stanton who had been killed, towards the house from which John Musgrave had been wrongfully driven for having killed him. He did not even yet know all the particulars of the story, and as he endeavoured to disentangle them in his mind Geoff felt in his bewilderment that absolute want of control over his own intelligence and thoughts which is the common result of fatigue and overstrain. Instead of thinking out the imbroglio and deciding what was to be done, his mind, like a tired child, kept playing with the rising light which touched every moment a new peak and caught every moment a new reflection in some bit of mountain stream or waterfall, or even in a ditch or moorland cutting, so impartial is Heaven; or his ear was caught by that hum of mystic indistinguishable multitude—“the silence of the hills,” so called—the soft rapture of sound in which not one tone is distinct or anything audible; or his eye by the gradual unrolling of the landscape as he went on, one fold opening beyond another, the distant hills on one hand, the long stretch of Penninghame water with all its miniature bays and curves. Then for a little while he lost the lake by a doubling of the path, which seemed to reinclose him among the hollows of the hills, and which pleased his languid faculties with the complete change of its shade and greenness; until turning the next corner, he found the sun triumphant over all the landscape, and Penninghame water lying like a sheet of silver or palest gold, dazzling and flashing between its slopes. This wonderful glory so suddenly bursting upon him completed the discomfiture of young Geoff’s attempts at thought. He gave it up then, and went on with weary limbs and a mind full of languid soft delight in the air about him and the scene before his eyes, attempting no more deductions from what he had heard or arrangements as to what he should do. Emotion and exertion together had worn him out.
About the time he resigned himself (with the drowsy surprise we feel in dreams) to this incapable state, his eye was caught by a speck upon the road beneath advancing towards him, so small in the distance that Geoff’s languid imagination, capable of no more active exercise, began to wonder who the little pilgrim could be, so little and so lonely, and so early astir. Perhaps it was the distance that made the advancing passenger look so small. Little Lilias at the Castle would have satisfied her mind by the easy conclusion that it was some little fairy old woman, the traveller most naturally to be met with at such an hour and place. But Geoff, more artificial, did not think of that. He kept watching the little wayfarer, as the figure appeared and disappeared on the winding road. By and by he made out that it was either a very small woman or a little girl, coming on steadily to meet him, with now and then an occasional pause for breath, for the ascent was steep. Geoff’s mind got quite entangled with this little figure. Who could it be? who could she be? A little cottager bound on some early expedition, seeking some of the mountain fruits, blackberries, cranberries, wild strawberries, perhaps; but then she never turned aside to the rougher ground, but kept on the path;—or she might be going to some farmhouse to get milk for the family breakfast: but then there were no farmhouses in that direction. Altogether Geoff felt himself quite sufficiently occupied as he came gradually downwards watching this child, his limbs feeling heavy, and his head somewhat light. At last, after losing sight of the little figure which had given him for some time a sort of distant companionship, another turn brought him full in sight of her, and so near that he recognised her with the most curious and startling interest. He could not restrain an exclamation of surprise. It was the little girl whom he had met at the door of Penninghame Castle, John Musgrave’s child, the most appropriate, yet the most extraordinary, of all encounters he could have made. He stood still in his surprise, awaiting her: and as for little Lilias, she made a sudden spring towards him, holding out her hand with a cry of joy, her little pale face crimsoned over with relief and pleasure. Her heart and limbs were beginning to fail her; she had begun to grow frightened and discouraged by the loneliness; and to see a face that had been seen before, that had looked friendly, that recognised her—what a relief it was to the little wayfaring soul! She sprang forward to him, and then in the comfort of it fairly broke down, and sobbed and cried, trying to smile all the time, and to tell him that she was glad, and that he must not mind.
Geoff, however, minded very much. He was full of concern and sympathy. He took her hand, and putting his arm round her (for she was still a child), led her to the soft, mossy bank on the edge of the path, and placed her there to rest. He was not at all sorry to place himself beside her, notwithstanding his haste. He, too, was so young and so tired! though for the moment he forgot both his fatigue and his youth, and felt most fatherly, soothing the little girl, and entreating her to take comfort, and not to cry.
“Oh,” said little Lilias, when she recovered the power of speech, “I am not crying for trouble, now; I am crying for pleasure. It was so lonely. I thought everybody must be dead, and there was no one but only me in all the world.”
“That was exactly what I felt too,” said Geoff; “but what are you doing here, so far away, and all alone? Have you lost yourself? Has anything happened? When you have rested a little, you must come back with me, and I will take you home.”
The tears were still upon the child’s cheeks, and two great lucid pools in her eyes, which made their depths of light more unfathomable than ever. And after the sudden flush of excitement and pleasure, Lilias had paled again; her little countenance was strangely white; her dark hair hung, loosely curling, about her cheeks; her eyes were full of pathetic meaning. Geoff, who had thrown himself down beside her, with one arm half round her, and holding her small hand in his, felt his young breast swell with the tenderest sympathy. What was the child’s trouble that was so great? Poor little darling! How sweet it was to be able to fill up her world, and prove to her that there was not “only me.” One other made all the difference; and Geoff felt this as much as she did. Her face had gleamed so often across his imagination since he saw it: the most innocent visitant that could come and look a young man in the face in the midst of his dreams—only a child! He felt disposed to kiss the little hand in half fondness, half reverence; but did not, being restrained by something more reverent and tender still.
“I would like to go with you,” said Lilias, “but not home. I am not going home. I am going up there—up, I don’t know how far—where the old woman lives. I am trying to find something out, something about papa. Oh, I wonder if you know! Are you a friend of my papa? You look as if you had a friend’s face—but I don’t know your name.”
“My name—is Geoffrey Stanton—but most people call me Geoff. I should like you to call me Geoff—and I am a friend, little Lily. You are Lily too, are you not? I am a sworn friend to your papa.”
“Lilias,” said the child, with a sigh; “but I don’t think I am little any more. I was little when I came, but old; oh! much older than any one thought. They thought I was only ten because I was so little; but I was twelve! and that will soon be a year ago. I have always taken care of Nello as long as I can remember, and that makes one old, you know. And now here is this about papa, which I never knew, which I never heard of, which is not true, I know. I know it is not true. Papa kill any one! papa? Do you know what that means? It is as if—— the sky should kill some one, or the beautiful kind light, or a little child. All that, all that, sooner than papa! Me, I have often felt as if I could kill somebody; but he—— ” the tears were streaming in a torrent down the child’s cheeks, and got into her voice; but she went on, “he! people don’t know what they are saying. I do not know any words to tell you how different he is—that it is impossible, impossible! impossible!” she cried, her voice rising in intensity of emphasis. As for Geoff, he held her hand ever closer, and kept gazing at her with the tears coming to his own eyes.
“He did not do it,” he said. “Listen to me, Lilias, and if you write to him, you can tell him. Tell him Geoffrey Stanton knows everything, and will never rest till he is cleared. Do you know what I mean? You must tell him—— ”
“But I never write—we do not know where he is; but tell me over again for me, me. He did not do it! Do you think I do not know that? But Mr. Geoff (if that is your name), come with me up to the old woman, and take her to the tribunal, and make her tell what she knows. That is the right way, Martuccia says so, and I have read it in books. She must go to the judge, and she must say it all, and have it written down in a book. It is like that—I am not so ignorant. Come with me to the old woman, Mr. Geoff.”
“What old woman?” he asked. “And tell me how you heard of all this, Lilias? You did not know it when I saw you before.”
“Last night—only last night; there is a man, an unkind, disagreeable man, who is at the Castle now. Mary said he was my uncle Randolph. They were in the hall, and I heard them talking. That man said it all; but Mary did not say No as I do, she only cried. And then I rushed and asked Miss Brown what it meant. Miss Brown is Mary’s maid, and she knows everything. She told me about a gentleman, and then of some one who was mamma, and of an old woman who could tell it all, up, up on the mountain. I think, perhaps, it is the same old woman I saw.”
“Did you see her? When did you see her, Lily?”
“I was little then,” said Lilias, with mournful, childish dignity. “I had not begun to know. I thought, perhaps, it was a fairy. Yes, you will laugh. I was only not much better than a child. And when children are in the woods, don’t you know, fairies often come? I was ignorant, that was what I thought. She was very kind. She kissed me, and asked if I would call her granny. Poor old woman! She was very very sorry for something. I think that must be the old woman. She knows everything, Miss Brown says. Mr. Geoff,” said Lilias turning round upon him, putting her two clasped hands suddenly upon his shoulder, and fixing her eyes upon his face, “I am going to her, will you not come with me? It is dreadful, dreadful, to go away far alone—everything looks so big and so high, and one only, one is so small; and everything is singing altogether, and it is all so still; and then your heart beats and thumps, and you have no breath, and it is so far, far away. Mr. Geoff, oh! I would love you so much, I would thank you for ever, I would do anything for you, if you would only come with me! I am not really tired; only frightened. If I could have brought Nello, it would have been nothing. I should have had him to take care of,—but Nello is such a little fellow. He does not understand anything; he could not know about papa as I do, and as you seem to do. Mr. Geoff, when was it you saw papa? Oh! will you come up, up yonder, and go to the old woman with me?”
“Dear little Lily,” said Geoff, holding her in his arms, “you are not able to walk so far; it is too much for you; you must come with me, home.”
“I am able to go to the end of the world,” cried Lilias, proudly. “I am not tired. Oh, if you had never come I should have gone on, straight on! I was thinking, perhaps, you would go with me, that made me so stupid. No, never mind, since you do not choose to come. Good-bye, Mr. Geoff. No, I am not angry. Perhaps you are tired yourself:—and then,” said Lilias, her voice quivering, “you are not papa’s child, and it is not your business. Oh! I am quite able to go on. I am not tired—not at all tired; it was only,” she said, vehemently, the tears overpowering her voice, “only because I caught sight of you so suddenly, and I thought ‘he will come with me,’ and it made my heart so easy—but never mind, never mind!”
By this time she was struggling to escape from him, to go on drying her tears with a hasty hand. Her lips were quivering, scarcely able to form the words. The disappointment, after that little burst of hope, was almost more than Lilias could bear.
“Lily,” he said, holding her fast, despite her struggles, “listen first. I have just been there. I have seen the old woman. There is nothing more for you to do, dear. Won’t you listen to me,—won’t you believe me? Dear little Lily, I have found out everything. I know everything. I cannot tell it you all, out here on the hill-side; but it was another who did it, and your father was so kind, so good, that he allowed it to be supposed it was he, to save the other man—— ”
“Ah!” cried Lilias, ceasing to struggle, “ah! yes, that is like him. I know my papa, there! yes, that is what he would do. Oh, Mr. Geoff, dear Mr. Geoff, tell me more, more!”
“As we go home,” said Geoff. He was so tired that it was all he could do to raise himself again from the soft cushions of the mossy grass. He held Lilias still by the hand. And in this way the two wearied young creatures went down the rest of the long road together—she, eager, with her face raised to him; he stooping towards her. They leaned against each other in their weariness, walking on irregularly, now slow, now faster, hand in hand. And oh! how much shorter the way seemed to Lilias as she went back. She vowed never, never to tell any one; never to talk of it except to Mr. Geoff: while Geoff, on his part, promised that everything should be set right, that everybody should know her father to be capable of nothing evil, but of everything good; that all should be well with him; that he should come and live at home for ever, and that all good people should be made happy, and all evil ones confounded. The one was scarcely more confident than the other that all this was possible and likely, as the boy and the girl came sweetly down the hill together, tired but happy, with traces of tears about their eyes, but infinite relief in their hearts. The morning, now warm with the full glory of the sun, was sweet beyond all thought—the sky, fathomless blue, above them—the lake a dazzling sheet of silver at their feet. Here and there sounds began to stir of awakening in the little farmhouses, and under the thatched cottage eaves; but still they had the earth all to themselves like a younger Adam and Eve—nothing but blue space and distance, sweet sunshine warming and rising, breathing of odours and soft baptism of dew upon the new-created pair.