II
That, in the heat of rage and of terror, we had gone farther than we hadat first designed, our gloom and our silence on the morrow attested. Truewe were quit of our incubus, but on such terms as not even the severityof the times could excuse. For the man had but chastised us to ourimprovement; and to destroy the scourge is not to condone the offence.For myself, as I bore up the little Margery to my shoulder on my way tothe reaping, I felt the burden of guilt so great as that I found myselfmuttering of an apology to the Lord that I durst put myself into touchwith innocence. "But the walk would fatigue her otherwise," I murmured;and, when we were come to the field, I took and carried her into theupper or little meadow, out of reach of the scythes, and placed her tosleep amongst the corn, and so left her with a groan.
But when I was come anew to my comrades, who stood at the lower extremityof the field--and this was the bottom of the hour-glass, so to speak--Iwas aware of a stir amongst them, and, advancing closer, that they wereall intent upon the neighbourhood of the field I had left, staring likedistraught creatures, and holding well together, as if in a panic.Therefore, following the direction of their eyes, and of one that pointedwith rigid finger, I turned me about, and looked whence I had come; andmy heart went with a somersault, and in a moment I was all sick anddazed.
For I saw, at the upper curve of the meadow, where the well lay in gloom,that a man had sprung out of the earth, as it seemed, and was startedreaping; and the face of this man was all in shadow, from which his beardran out and down like a stream of gall.
He reaped swiftly and steadily, swinging like a pendulum; but, though thesheaves fell to him right and left, no swish of the scythe came to us,nor any sound but the beating of our own hearts.
Now, from the first moment of my looking, no doubt was in my lost soulbut that this was him we had destroyed come back to verify his prophecyin ministering to the vengeance of the Lord of Hosts; and at the thoughta deep groan rent my bosom, and was echoed by those about me. Butscarcely was it issued when a second terror smote me as that I nearreeled. Margery--my babe! put to sleep there in the path of the BlackReaper!
At that, though they called to me, I sprang forward like a madman, andrunning along the meadow, through the neck of the glass, reached thelittle thing, and stooped and snatched her into my arms. She was soundand unfrighted, as I felt with a burst of thankfulness; but, lookingabout me, as I turned again to fly, I had near dropped in my tracks forthe sickness and horror I experienced in the nearer neighbourhood of theapparition. For, though it never raised its head, or changed the steadyswing of its shoulders, I knew that it was aware of and was reaping atme. Now, I tell you, it was ten yards away, yet the point of the scythecame gliding upon me silently, like a snake, through the stalks, and atthat I screamed out and ran for my life.
I escaped, sweating with terror; but when I was sped back to the men,there was all the village collected, and our Vicar to the front, prayingfrom a throat that rattled like a dead leaf in a draught. I know not whathe said, for the low cries of the women filled the air; but his face waswhite as a smock, and his fingers writhed in one another like a knot ofworms.
"The plague is upon us!" they wailed. "We shall be mowed down like ripecorn!"
And even as they shrieked the Black Reaper paused, and, putting away hisscythe, stooped and gathered up a sheaf in his arms and stood it on end.And, with the very act, a man--one that had been forward in yesterday'sbusiness--fell down amongst us yelling and foaming; and he rent hisbreast in his frenzy, revealing the purple blot thereon, and he passedblaspheming. And the reaper stooped and stooped again, and with everysheaf he gathered together one of us fell stricken and rolled in hisagony, while the rest stood by palsied.
But, when at length all that was cut was accounted for, and a dozen of uswere gone each to his judgment, and he had taken up his scythe to reapanew, a wild fury woke in the breasts of some of the more abandoned andreckless amongst us.
"It is not to be tolerated!" they cried. "Let us at once fire the cornand burn this sorcerer!"
And with that, some fire or six of them, emboldened by despair, ran upinto the little field, and, separating, had out each his flint and firedthe crop in his own place, and retreated to the narrow part for safety.
Now the reaper rested on his scythe, as if unexpectedly acquitted of apart of his labour; but the corn flamed up in these five or sixdirections, and was consumed in each to the compass of a single sheaf:whereat the fire died away. And with its dying the faces of those thathad ventured went black as coal; and they flung up their arms, screaming,and fell prone where they stood, and were hidden from our view.
Then, indeed, despair seized upon all of us that survived, and we made nodoubt but that we were to be exterminated and wiped from the earth forour sins, as were the men of Anathoth. And for an hour the Black Reapermowed and trussed, till he had cut all from the little upper field andwas approached to the neck of juncture with the lower and larger. Andbefore us that remained, and who were drawn back amongst the trees,weeping and praying, a fifth of our comrades lay foul, and dead, andsweltering, and all blotched over with the dreadful mark of thepestilence.
Now, as I say, the reaper was nearing the neck of juncture; and so weknew that if he should once pass into the great field towards us andcontinue his mowing, not one of us should be left to give earnest of ourrepentance.
Then, as it seemed, our Vicar came to a resolution, moving forward with aface all wrapt and entranced; and he strode up the meadow path andapproached the apparition, and stretched out his arms to it entreating.And we saw the other pause, awaiting him; and, as he came near, putforth his hand, and so, gently, on the good old head. But as we looked,catching at our breaths with a little pathos of hope, the priestly facewas thrown back radiant, and the figure of him that would give his lifefor us sank amongst the yet standing corn and disappeared from our sight.
So at last we yielded ourselves fully to our despair; for if our pastorshould find no mercy, what possibility of it could be for us!
It was in this moment of an uttermost grief and horror, when each stoodapart from his neighbour, fearing the contamination of his presence, thatthere was vouchsafed to me, of God's pity, a wild and sudden inspiration.Still to my neck fastened the little Margery--not frighted, it seemed,but mazed--and other babes there were in plenty, that clung to theirmothers' skirts and peeped out, wondering at the strange show.
I ran to the front and shrieked: "The children! the children! He will nottouch the little children! Bring them and set them in his path!" And socrying I sped to the neck of meadow, and loosened the soft arms from mythroat, and put the little one down within the corn.
Now at once the women saw what I would be at, and full a score of themsnatched up their babes and followed me. And here we were reckless forourselves; but we knelt the innocents in one close line across the neckof land, so that the Black Reaper should not find space between any ofthem to swing his scythe. And having done this, we fell back with ourhearts bubbling in our breasts, and we stood panting and watched.
He had paused over that one full sheaf of his reaping; but now, with thesound of the women's running, he seized his weapon again and set to uponthe narrow belt of corn that yet separated him from the children. Butpresently, coming out upon the tender array, his scythe stopped andtrailed in his hand, and for a full minute he stood like a figure ofstone. Then thrice he walked slowly backwards and forwards along theline, seeking for an interval whereby he might pass; and the childrenlaughed at him like silver bells, showing no fear, and perchance meetingthat of love in his eyes that was hidden from us.
Then of a sudden he came to before the midmost of the line, and, while wedrew our breath like dying souls, stooped and snapped his blade acrosshis knee, and, holding the two parts in his hand, turned and strode backinto the shadow of the dripping well. There arrived, he paused once more,and, twisting him about, waved his hand once to us and vanished into theblackness. But there were those who affirmed that in that instant of histur
ning, his face was revealed, and that it was a face radiant andbeautiful as an angel's.
Such is the history of the wild judgment that befell us, and by grace ofthe little children was foregone; and such was the stranger whose nameno man ever heard tell, but whom many have since sought to identify withthat spirit of the pestilence that entered into men's hearts andconfounded them, so that they saw visions and were afterwards confused intheir memories.
But this I may say, that when at last our courage would fetch us to thatlittle field of death, we found it to be all blackened and blasted, so asnothing would take root there then or ever since; and it was as if, afterall the golden sand of the hour-glass was run away and the lives of themost impious with it, the destroyer saw fit to stay his hand for sake ofthe babes that he had pronounced innocent, and for such as were spared towitness to His judgment. And this I do here, with a heart as contrite asif it were the morrow of the visitation, the which with me it ever hasremained.
At a Winter's Fire Page 16
