The Story of a Lost Soul. A novel

Front matter

A NOVEL BY HUGH COLEMAN DAVIDSON AUTHOR OF "THE GREEN HILLS BY THE SEA," ''NOT A MOMENT TO SPARE," "THE OLD ADAM," ETC, ETC. IN ONE V 0 I UME Jtraf ©Mtton LONDON SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LIMITED A 11 Rights Reserved PRINTED BY TILLOTSON AND SON, MEALHOUSE LANE, BOLT ON. CONTENTS CHAPTER pAGE I. — MY SIN II. — SUSPENSE ------ . ... i^ III. — CREMATED 22 IV. — AT CUSHLABEG 38 V. — THE PENALTY 49 VI. — MY FATHER PARTS FROM OLD FRIENDS - - 67 VII. GOOD-BYE 86 VIII. — THE OLD HOME AND THE NEW 97 IX. — GEORGE AND THE DRAGON (MODERN VERSION) - 109 X. — THE BARBER CUTS AND RUNS - 120 XI. — "STAND THERE, YOU DOG ! " I 31 XII. — THE END OF THAT NIGHT 140 XIII. — AMONG THE NETTLES 151 XIV. - A CHANCE FOR GEORGE - - - - 163 XV. — A SCENE IN A DARK SHED - - - 176 XVI. — HIS FATHER'S SON 188 XVII. — HATTIE'S CONSPIRACY' - - - IQQ XVIII. — ON THE BRINK 210 XIX.— THE TUMULT IN THE MARKET-PLACE - - 223 XX. — THE COUNCIL OF WAR 236 XXI. — HATTIE SENDS HER FATHER ON AN ERRAND - 246 XXII. — THE DEFENCE OF GORRAGH GLEN - - - 256 XXIIf.

THE FLIGHT ..._... 268 XXIV. — HATTIE GOES TO GORRAGH HAY - - - 281 XXV. — MY FATHER'S HEIR 290 XXVI. — HOLDING ON CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XXVII. — THE OLD KING IS DEAD - - - - 312 XXVIII. — TOWN TALK - - .... 322 XXIX. — GROVE IN AN AWKWARD FIX - - 334 XXX — ADVENTURES OF TWO SHIPWRECKED MARINERS 345 XXXI. — "THAT CREATURE GROVE " ... - 358 XXXII.— MASTER OF THE SITUATION .... 371 XXXIII. — THE BOTTLE OF POISON .... 384 XXXIV. — FROM THE MOUTH OF THE GRAVE - - 395 XXXV. — IN THE MATTER OF MAJOR JOHN HEYWOOD - 407 XXXVI. — AFTER THE BATTLE - 418 XXXVII. — MARRYING FOR HATRED ----- 430 XXXVIII. — MY GUILT IS MADE KNOWN - - - - 440 XXXIX. — FREE ! - - 452 XL. — THE FINAL STRUGGLE - - - -

Chapter I. MV Sin

It was upon an autumn afternoon, in the garden of Cushlabeg, that this terrible business began. We were gathered there for tennis, but the sultry heat had made our play a labour, and the blackness of the thunderclouds, which hung down in heavy festoons, had added to our depression. So, while the gnats buzzed about us venomously, we stood listlessly beneath the trees, the others in a group around Rachel, but I by myself some distance away. At the drawing-room window sat Mrs. Vane, Rachel's mother, her white cap nodding over her knitting. Sometimes the old lady glanced at us across the lawn, and then, never dreaming of the evil passions which were seething in the breast of at least one of that little party, she smiled, and went on with her work. Rachel was the most fascinating little creature that ever alighted on this earth.

B She had hair so fair that in some aspects it seemed almost white, and eyes so blue that the sky itself could not excel them ; her delicate features were singularly beautiful, but their chief charm was in their expression; when she laughed, shaking her pretty head in that merry, mischievous way of hers, she was irresistible. It is no wonder that Alistair Grove and Henry Willmott loved her, but their love had begotten in me a hatred which burned like a consuming fire. Rachel and I had quarrelled as usual, and though pretending to be exceedingly happy, she had been venting her ill-humour upon her two other lovers. Unable to hold her attention, they had taken to teasing George Vane, a bright, fair-haired lad not unlike his sister. Although Willmott took the more active part, it was Grove who urged him on.

George was in a furious temper. His face was flushed, his eyes glittered, he gripped tightly the stick he carried, a stout ash stick with a big knob. If he had broken Willmott's head then and there, as he threatened to do, the act would have afforded me, personally, the utmost gratification. But he was Rachel's brother, and I could not see that she was vexed, so I went up to him, drew him aside, and tried to soothe him. It was, however, a difficult task. MY SIN 3 " The cowardly bully ! " cried George, quivering with rage. '' I asked him to fight me — a fair fight with fists — but he wouldn't. Because he is older than me, he thinks he can insult me and get off scot free. If Rachel hadn't been there, I'd have broken this stick across his back. By Jove, I would," said the lad, turning back to shake his big stick at the group beneath the trees.

" What good would that have clone you ?" I asked, taking the stick from him, on the pretext that I wished to look at it. " I should have had satisfaction," said he. " Don't you want satisfaction when a fellow insults you ? I'll be bound you do. And so do I." ' " Most atrocious sentiments, my dear George," said I, feeling myself to be such a confounded hypocrite that I could not speak quite seriously. "It was only a joke — a very poor joke, of course — but if anything of the sort is attempted again, you should treat it with contempt." " I thought you had more spirit," said George, and marched off, angry with me now. After he had gone I loitered about, hoping that Rachel would come after me, and beg me to return. But, instead of doing that, she seemed bent upon showing me how little she cared about my company.

She threw more energy into her gaiety and laughed more loudly, so that the sound of her voice might reach the spot where I stood afar off. At the moment I hated her almost as much as the two men who were with her. I vowed between my clenched teeth that I would never speak to her, never even see her again, and striking savagely at the buttercups with George's stick, I strode hastily away. At the gate I hesitated, stopped, and looked back ; Rachel was still laughing. " This is the end of it, then," I muttered ; and passed out into the road. Yet, although I would not have admitted this at the time, I meant her brother's stick to serve as an excuse for calling again. Cushlabeg being situated on a short cross road just outside the little seaport of Scadden, two ways home lay open to me. I could have turned into the Gorragh Road on the left, and in a quarter of a mile have reached the lodge gates of Cronkvash, my father's property ; or I could have turned into the Dhoon Road on the right, then into a path along two sides of a cornfield, and after passing the dilapidated little turret — the Watch-tower we called it — at the northern extremity of the garden, have entered the grounds by means of a door in the wall.

MY SIN 5 The latter was the route I chose, because it was the more secluded, and I was in no humour for meeting anybody I knew. Once again, within the space of a few hours, my feet were to tread that grassy path worn into deep ruts by the cart wheels, and then never, never more. In the lives of men there are certain landmarks, not always very sightly, at which they look back and wonder how things would have gone with them had they turned aside there. I often look back at that tempestuous walk, when I felt at war with all mankind. The awful events which happened afterwards I attribute in part to it. For it was merely the force of association that led me, between nine and ten o'clock, to take the same route, instead of the shorter way to Cushlabeg by the Gorragh Road. I had George Vane's stick in my hand.

I was in a calmer mood and meant to call upon Rachel and make friends with her — perhaps even, if she showed signs of being sorry, to say that I was sorry also. On the way through the garden I had to pass the Watch tower, a favourite haunt of mine, and without any definite purpose I ascended the broken stone steps and gazed across the surrounding country. The storm seemed to be passing away. The heavy clouds had been rent by the wind, and the tattered remnants were flying before the south-westerly breeze towards the distant mountains. Among these black masses of cloud the yellow harvest moon was floating, now flooding the earth with light and now plunging into almost complete darkness. In one of these brighter intervals, as I gazed across the waving surface of the corn, I saw at a corner of the field two figures, a man and a girl.

The next moment the moon disappeared and they were swallowed up in the night. Brief as that glimpse had been, I had recognised Rachel Vane and Henry Willmott, and my brain seemed to be on fire. Although I afterwards learned that their meeting was accidental, I could not believe this at the time. When they came into view again it was as if the next slide had been inserted in a magic lantern. In the act of parting, Rachel had slipped, and Willmott had flung his arms around her waist to support her. At that sight my fury burst all bonds. I was like one possessed with devils. My only thought was to get at the man and strangle him, and my fingers tightened on the stick as though they were made of steel. I could not spare the time to go out by the door, but climbed up the wall and sprang down into the field, where I rolled headlong MY SIN 7 into the corn.

The fall would have stunned most men ; it only increased my frenzy. I was on my feet in an instant, tearing down the path with long leaps, gasping in the effort to make the next still longer. Willmott was alone when I turned the corner. He was advancing slowly, smiling at his own thoughts, until he saw me. Then he stopped and stared in amazement. " Scoundrel ! " I shouted at him. " My dear Heywood, are you mad ? " he asked, in that superior way of his which I always found so intensely irritating. wTake that, you scoundrel!" I shouted. " Let that teach you a lesson." And I struck at him with all the fury of the hatred which was in me. He threw up his arms to defend himself, but was too llate. The heavy stick crashed down upon his head, protected only by a cloth helmet. With a groan he fell to the ground, and the red blood spurted over the grass, and even dyed the corn-stalks, while I stared stupidly at my handiwork.

He lay so still, and his face looked so ghastly white in the moonlight, that I was frightened. I hurled the stick from me as though it were an accursed thing, and it fell among the nettles in the ditch. Then I knelt by his side, and begged and implored him to speak to me. But his lips never moved ; his eyes had a ghastly stare ; his hand, when I raised it, dropped back like a lifeless thing. And now a great black cloud which had come up from the sea covered up the moon and the stars, and left me alone in the darkness with the dead man. For he was dead, although I would not believe it. I bent over him, and brought my face close to his, but the breath had gone from his nostrils. Frantically I tore open his waistcoat, and laid my hand upon his heart, but .could not detect the faintest beat. "Oh, God!"

I cried, in my agony, as I knelt on the path by the dead man's side, " take my life but give back his." No voice answered me out of the darkness. But with the cloud had come a wind which set the trees shivering, and filled the night with strange noises, so that all pity was swept away by fear for myself. The thing which I had done could never be undone. As soon as I realised that — and how hard it was to realise, none but myself can ever tell — I hastened with trembling limbs to hide it away, to prevent its being known, to save myself from the horrible con sequences. As a preliminary measure, I dragged the body some distance into the MY SIN 9 corn, but it did not seem safe there, so I went on and on, finally stopping at a slight depression in the hill which I knew was the centre of the field.

And there I left my burden. In order not to arouse suspicion, should anyone discover and follow my track, I went in the opposite direction to the Watch-tower, and, creeping along with bent head, arrived at the edge of the field near the stile. But I was afraid to leave the corn lest I should be seen. I crouched down among it, trying to nerve myself for a rush, and of a sudden was driven almost frantic with terror, for the lightning leaped from the clouds and darted to and fro ere il fell, as if searching for the exact spot where I had concealed myself. Then the thunder crashed and boomed, rumbling away among the mountains ; flash followed flash so rapidly that there was no darkness to hide it ; the rain fell in torrents. Drenched to the skin, I crawled out on to the path, and went scurrying away up the hill, never pausing until I was inside the garden.

I was mad that night. I must have been, and it pleases me to think so. Did not Willmott say, " My dear Heywood, are you mad ? " No sane man would have spent hours roaming about the grounds during such a storm. The lightning, which at first I had dreaded, I came to regard with very different feelings. I stood beneath the tallest trees, and, with hands stretched up to heaven, prayed that it might descend upon me. For why should I live ? The brand of Cain was upon my forehead ; I was an out cast among men ; I was cut off for ever from Rachel. Better die a thousand times than live such a life as remained to me, if it should be my fortune to escape the gallows. One tree I saw struck, and ran to it breathlessly, and caught it in my arms, but even the lightning would not touch me. It was not until the storm had passed away that I went indoors, and lighting the candle left for me on the hall table, slunk up to my room.

Then I saw, with a shudder, that my hands and clothes were smeared with blood. I washed it off as best I could, shutting my eyes so as not to see the hideous liquid in the basin, and after rolling up the clothes in a bundle, I hid them in a cupboard. There were several shelves in the cupboard, and upon them were ranged a number of phials containing chemicals which I used in my medical studies. One of them was labelled " Poison." The word caught my eye and rivetted it. When at length I had torn myself away and closed the MY SIN 11 cupboard door, strange voices whispered it in my ear, and though I lay down upon the bed and tried to sleep and to forget for a little while, they remained with me until daybreak. This was madness, surely ! Before the servants were astir I rose, and taking with me the bundle of clothes, stole out into the garden.

Among the berberis bushes at the base of the Watch-tower, a neglected corner seldom visited by anyone except myself, I buried it, so that it might never rise up in evidence against me. At this spot, when night came, I meant to dig a grave for the man I had murdered. Had he lain quietly, I wondered fearfully, during the storm ? So I ascended the tower and looked across the field, and then started back shuddering and gasping. The corn, beaten down by the rain in some places, was not a uniform golden colour as I had expected. Around the hollow in the centre there was a ruddy stain, which flowed towards the four corners of the field, spreading out in all directions, yet following in a stronger tide the track which I had made. The stain was, in reality, caused by a multitude of poppies ; by most persons it would have been considered beautiful ; but to my disordered vision it was the most ghastly sight that mortal eye had ever looked upon.

I could not disassociate it from the blood of my victim, and although when I had partly recovered from the shock I tried to argue myself into a more reasonable mood, the impression never left me. So strong was the fascination of that field with its horrible stain, that nothing but necessity would have induced me to quit the spot where I stood, tormenting myself with doubts as to whether the body was still where I had left it. But my absence from the breakfast table would have provoked comment, and that, under the circumstances, would have been dangerous, if not fatal. So I dragged myself indoors and sat down to a meal in which I could not share. I had to answer my mother's anxious questions as to my doings on the previous night, my health, and so on ; I had to parry her searching gaze with looks as false as my words ; I even forced myself to smile at a time-worn joke of my father's. And all the time I knew I was a murderer.

My very hands had become a source of torment. I held them as much as possible beneath the table, and kept glancing at them incessantly to satisfy myself that they were no longer stained with blood. At the earliest moment I hastened back to the ruined tower, and once more fastened my gaze upon the spot where the body lay. MY SIN 13 Time went by — how long I do not know. There was a corncrake in the field, keeping watch over its nestlings, as I was over my dead victim. I had heard its harsh note many times, and was wondering whether I should be alive to hear it on the morrow, when the sound of voices in the garden made me turn sharply, and spring to the opposite side of the tower.

Chapter II. Suspense

By the old sun-dial, with the bee-hives clustering round it, under the shelter of a low privet fence, stood two military-looking men, with grizzled moustaches and bronzed faces, one of the two tall, thin, and stiff, the other shorter, rounder, and not quite so up right. The latter was my father, Major Heywood, the owner of Cronkvash, and of considerable property round about, the latter was Captain Willmott, the father of the man I had murdered. They had caught sight of me before I had noticed them, and through a breach in the wall of the tower they could see me still. My father was beckoning. With a dread which drove out every other feeling, I stumbled down the broken steps and advanced towards them. "What has become of Henry, do you know ? " demanded Captain Willmott. He fired the question at me like a bullet, and if a bullet really had whistled past my ears, it could not have startled me more.

At first I did not know what to say, but I remembered Cain, the first murderer, and answered much as he had done. "Why do you ask me, Captain Willmott? What should I know about your son ? " His brows contracted. He looked at me sternly in silence. " You don't understand, Charlie," my father hastened to explain. " Henry has not been home all night, and w-e thought — I thought — that perhaps you might have heard something about his intentions. When did you see him last ? " " Oh, not for days," said I, in my agitation Captain Willmott came down upon that lie in his own grim way. "What," said he, "were not you at Cushlabeg yesterday afternoon ? " " Oh, yes — I forgot — he was there too," I stammered. "But I came away early. When he left I do not know." "And you did not see him again?" said my father.

" No, not again. Of that I am certain. Perhaps he went out fishing — to set a long line, I mean — and " SUSPENSE. 15 "And what, sir?" inquired Captain Willmott, tugging fiercely at his moustache. " And got caught in the storm," I replied. " A pleasant suggestion," said he ; and he turned on his heel as if he had had enough of me. It was only his peculiarly disagreeable manner, and at any other time I should not have attached any importance to it. But now it filled me with deadly terror. I felt sure that he had his suspicions, and I longed for the coming of night when I could conceal the evidence of my guilt. Let me hurry on to that time. I went to my bedroom at eleven o'clock as usual, but, as soon as it seemed safe, crept downstairs and out of the house, fetched pick and spade from the tool shed, and hastened to the lonely corner by the Watch-tower.

How loudly the berberis leaves rustled in the stillness of the night, as I pushed my way among them ! How brightly the moon shone ! There was not a cloud in the sky. Though I chose the darkest spot, the light streamed down upon me through the black network of branches overhead. The first part of my task was comparatively easy, the soil being largely composed of leaf mould, but beneath was a tangle of the roots of shrubs and trees twisted about like snakes, as thick as my arm many of them, and these had to be cut and torn away. In spite of them, however, the grave grew deeper and deeper, for I toiled at it with frantic energy. Sometimes, while the great drops ran down my face and fell into the pit in which I stood, I stopped and listened, straining my eyes through the dense foliage of the berberis ; sometimes the. pick struck against a stone, and the noise so terrified me that my heart almost ceased to beat.

At long intervals I could hear the grating cry of the corncrake, still keeping guard over its nest. I thought that the bird and I were the only living creatures about, until the spade turned out of the earth a slimy thing which uttered a hoarse sound at being disturbed. It was a toad, no doubt one which my father had placed in the garden years before to keep down the slugs, and had never seen again. At the sight of it a great fear fell upon me, for I thought if this creature could come out of the earth and give voice after all those years, what was the use of my digging ? Unwilling to hurt the toad, loathsome though it was, I raised it on the spade, and placed it on the edge of the grave. But it would not go away. It lay on its belly, its glistening eyes fixed upon my face, and its SUSPENSE. 17 arms stretched out as if they would claw me.

I flung a spadeful of soil over it, but it crawled out again, and renewed its former attitude. After watching it for a time, I returned to my task with a growing feeling of despair, and when, to my dismay, the brightening of the eastern sky showed the approach of day-break, it was still unfinished. In order to avoid detection, I had to leave it for another night. That breakfast was even a more trying ordeal than the previous one. My mother was anxious because I would not eat. She said I looked ill and haggard, and she pressed various delicacies upon me. It was an unspeakable relief to get away, and yet the fact that this was so — that I was glad to escape from my mother's company — made me feel a more utterly abandoned wretch than I had yet done. God help the man who for his sins is driven to flee from his mother !

The only place which had any attraction for me was the Watch-tower, with the un finished grave among the shrubs at its base, and the corn-field sloping down to the road. Yet when I had mounted the steps and looked out, I staggered back overwhelmed with horror. For a broad track had been cleared round the four sides of the field, and c along it lay sheaves of corn, some already arranged in stocks, while a reaping machine was going slowly round the solid square in the centre. Would that the darkness which swept over me had continued to all eternity ! For a time I saw nothing and knew nothing. I was a thing of stone. But presently out of the darkness came that appalling scene again, at first dim, yet growing in distinctness, until all its details seemed burnt into my brain. Upon the glittering blade the corn — that which was stained, as well as the rest— was falling in waves ; the gleaners and binders who followed were pouncing upon it, and tossing it aside in sheaves ; at the far corner by the stile stood the farmer, a broad-brimmed straw hat upon his head, his feet wide apart, his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat ; behind, in the road, a cart had stopped.

These are trifles, yet I noticed them all. And as the machine went forward on its pitiless errand, the man who sat upon it cracked his whip and laughed, while the women were singing joyously, thinking as little of the nameless thing lying but a few yards away as of the livid face glued to an embrasure in the ruined tower. No idea of flight entered my mind. Hour after hour, with chattering teeth, I remained SUSPENSE. 19 at my post, shivering in the heat of the autumn sun, watching until my eyes seemed starting from my head. I heard my mother calling for me in the garden, but would not answer her. If my life had depended upon the effort, I could not have dragged myself away until the end came. There was a pause at mid-day, but no hope for me, no break in my suspense. Instead of going to their homes, the reapers sat down beneath the fence and had their dinners there.

Although the heavy rain which fell during the thunderstorm had obliterated all traces of the deed, it seemed to me that they had selected for their meal the very spot where I had killed Henry Willmott. It could not have been many feet away ; yet there they ate and drank, passing great jars of beer to and fro, talking, shouting, and laughing, so entirely unconscious of the tragedy which had lately been enacted there — which, in my eyes, was being enacted there now — that I began to wonder whether they were real men and women, with the power of seeing and feeling. When the church clock struck the hour they arose and returned to their grim work. The wide track grew wider ; it bristled with stooks ; huge slices fell from the sides of the solid square in the centre ; a little while — and then !

In my torment I implored help of heaven, and would not have rejected it even from hell. But neither angel nor devil came to stay the relentless progress of the reapers. The machine went on and on, round and round, up one side and down another. The line it took was shorter every time, and the centre was nearer — that was the only difference. About five o'clock there was a sudden stoppage, and I heard aery. If astonishment had been possible in my condition, I should have been astonished, but that was not the place where I had laid the body. As I peered through the embrasure I saw a man raise something from the ground. It was the corncrake which had been cut to pieces as it sat on its nest. And then it was my turn. The farmer shouted and gesticulated to his men to hurry on ; the driver of the machine cracked his whip ; once more the blade was in motion.

On and on again, round and round— it was dizzy, awful work watching — up one side and down another, the reapers singing, sometimes dancing round the red hollow where the dead man lay. When the solid square of corn was scarcely larger than the tower in which I clung to the walls for support, a woman SUSPENSE. 21 pointed at some object just within its margin. Then an awed hush fell upon all. The others hastily gathered round her, and gazed at what she had found. It was all over. I could have shrieked in my wild despair, but had no power for even that. Until the last terrible moment some sort of frenzied hope had sustained me. That was gone now. Nothing stood between me and death — and hell. I saw no more, and remember no more until I found myself in my own room, the cupboard door open, the phial labelled "Poison" staring me in the face.