“It looks more like a sphinx than a lion today, doesn’t it, Miss Seldom? Oh, I should like to tear it up, bodily, from where it lies, and fling it into the sea! It blocks the horizon. It blocks the path of the west-wind. I tell you it is the burden that weighs upon us all! But I shall conquer it yet; I shall be master of it yet!” He was silent a few seconds, while a look of supreme disappointment clouded the face of his brother; and the two newcomers gazed at him in alarm.
“I must start at once,” he exclaimed abruptly. “I must get far, far off. It is air I need, air and the west-wind! No,” he cried imperiously, when Luke made a movement, as if to take leave of their companions. “I must go alone. Alone! That is what I must be today: alone — and on the hills!”
He turned impatiently as he spoke; and without another word strode off towards the level-crossing.
“Surely you will not let him go like that, Mr. Andersen?” cried Vennie, in great distress.
“It would do no good,” replied Luke, watching his brother pass through the gate and cross the track. “I should only make him much worse if I tried to follow him. Besides, he wouldn’t let me. I don’t think he’ll come to any harm. I should have a different instinct about it if there were real danger. Perhaps, as he says, a good long walk may really clear his brain.”
“I do pray your instinct is to be relied on,” said Vennie, anxiously watching the tall figure of the stone-carver, as he ascended the vicarage hill.
“Well, if you’re not going to do your duty, Andersen, I’m going to do mine!” exclaimed the vicar of Nevilton, setting off, without further parley, in pursuit of the fugitive.
“Stop! Mr. Clavering, I’ll come with you,” cried Vennie. And she followed her impulsive friend towards the gate.
As they ascended the hill together, keeping Andersen in sight, Clavering remarked to his companion, “I believe that dissolute young reprobate refused to look after his brother simply because he wanted to talk to those two girls.”
“What two girls?” enquired Vennie.
“Didn’t you see them?” muttered the clergyman crossly. “The Bristow girl and little Phyllis Santon. They were hanging about, waiting for him.”
“I’m sure you are quite wrong,” replied Vennie. “Luke may have his faults, but he is devoted — madly devoted — to his brother.”
“Not at all,” cried Clavering almost rudely. “I know the man better than you do. He is entirely selfish. He is a selfish, sensual pleasure-seeker! He may be fond of his brother in his fashion, just because he is his brother, and they have the same tastes; but his one great aim is his own pleasure. He has been the worst influence I have had to contend with, in this whole village, for some time back!”
His voice trembled with rage as he spoke. It was impossible, even for the guileless Vennie, not to help wondering in her mind whether the violence of her friend’s reprobation was not impelled by an emotion more personal than public. Her unlucky knowledge of what the nature of such an emotion might be did not induce her to yield meekly to his argument.
“I don’t believe he saw the people you speak of any more than I did,” she said.
“Saw them?” cried the priest wrathfully, quickening his pace, as Andersen disappeared round the corner of the road, so that Vennie had to trot by his side like a submissive child. “I saw the look he fixed on them. I know that look of his! I tell you he is the kind of man that does harm wherever he goes. He’s a lazy, sensual, young scoundrel. He ought to be kicked out of the place.”
Vennie sighed deeply. Life in the world of men was indeed a complicated and entangled matter. She had turned, in her agitation about the stone-carver, and in her reaction from Mr. Taxater’s reserve, straight to the person she loved best of all; and this was her reward, — a mere crude outburst of masculine jealousy!
They rounded the corner by her own gate, where the road to Athelston deviates at right angles. James Andersen was no longer in sight.
“Where the devil has the man got to?” cried the astonished clergyman, raging at himself for his ill-temper, and raging at Vennie for having been the witness of it.
The girl glanced up the Athelston road; and hastening, forward a few paces, scanned the stately slope of the Nevilton west drive. The unfortunate man was nowhere to be seen.
From where they now stood, the whole length of the village street was visible, almost as far as the Goat and Boy. It was full of holiday-making young people, but there was no sign of Andersen’s tall and unmistakable figure.
“Oh, this is dreadful!” cried Vennie. “What are we to do? Where can he have gone?”
Hugh Clavering looked angrily round. He was experiencing that curious sense, which comes to the best of men sometimes, of being the special and selected object of providential mockery.
“There are only two ways,” he said. “Either he’s slipped down through the orchards, along your wall, or he’s made off to Nevilton Mount! If that’s what he’s done, he must be now behind that hedge, over there. We should see him otherwise.”
Vennie gazed anxiously in the direction indicated. “He can’t have gone into our garden?” she said. “No, he’d never do that! He talked about air and hills. I expect he’s where you say. Shall we go on?”
They hurried down the road until they reached a gate, on the further side of the hedge which ran to the base of Nevilton Mount. Here they entered the field. There was no sign of the fugitive; but owing to certain inequalities in the ground, and the intervention of some large elm-trees, it was still quite possible that he was only a few hundred yards in front of them. They followed the line of the hedge with all the haste they could; trusting, at every turn it made, that they would discover him. In this manner they very soon arrived at the base of the hill.
“I feel sure he’s somewhere in front of us!” muttered Clavering. “How annoying it is! It was outrageous of that young scoundrel to let him go like this;—wandering about the country in that mad state! If he comes to any harm, I shall see to it that that young man is held responsible.”
“Quick!” sighed Vennie breathlessly, “we’d better climb straight to the top. We must find him there!”
They scrambled over the bank and proceeded to make their way as hurriedly as they could through the entangled undergrowth. Hot and exhausted they emerged at last upon the level summit. Here, the grotesque little tower mocked at them with its impassive grey surface. There was no sign of the man they sought; but seated on the grass with their backs to the edifice were the figures of the complacent Mr. Wone and one of his younger children, engaged in the agreeable occupation of devouring a water-melon. The mouth and chin of the Christian Candidate were bespattered with the luscious juice of this delectable fruit, and laid out carefully upon a magazine on his knees, was a pleasing arrangement of rind-peelings and well-sucked pips.
Mr. Wone waved his hand in polite acknowledgment of Clavering’s salute. He removed his hat to Vennie, but apologized for not rising. “Taking a little holiday, you observe!” he remarked with a satisfied smile. “I see you also are inclined to make the most of this lovely summer day.”