by Thomas Hardy
‘That was all of it. Now, of course, I ought not to have gone, as it turned out, but that I did not think of then. I remembered his impetuous temper, and feared that something grievous was impending over his head, while he had not a friend in the world to help him, or anyone except myself to whom he would care to make his trouble known. So I wrapped myself up and went to Marlbury Downs at the time he had named. Don’t you think I was courageous?’
‘Very.’
‘When I got there — but shall we not walk on; it is getting cold?’ The Duke, however, did not move. ‘When I got there he came, of course, as a full grown man and officer, and not as the lad that I had known him. When I saw him I was sorry I had come. ‘I can hardly tell you how he behaved. What he wanted I don’t know even now; it seemed to be no more than the mere meeting with me. He held me by the hand and waist — O so tight — and would not let me go till I had promised to meet him again. His manner was so strange and passionate that I was afraid of him in such a lonely place, and I promised to come. Then I escaped — then I ran home — and that’s all. When the time drew on this evening for the appointment — which, of course, I never intended to keep — I felt uneasy, lest when he found I meant to disappoint him he would come on to the house; and that’s why I could not sleep. But you are so silent!’
‘I have had a long journey.
‘Then let us get into the house. Why did you come alone and unattended like this?
‘It was, my humour.’
After a moment’s silence, during which they moved on, she said, I have thought of something which I hardly like to suggest to you. He said that if I failed to come to-night he would wait again to-morrow night. Now, shall we to-morrow night go to the hill together — just to see if he is there; and if he is, read him a lesson on his foolishness in nourishing this old passion, and sending for me so oddly, instead of coming to the house?’
‘Why should we see if he’s there?’ said her husband moodily.
‘Because I think we ought to do something in it. Poor Fred! He would listen to you if you reasoned with him, and set our positions in their true light before him. It would be no more than Christian kindness to a man who unquestionably is very miserable from some cause or other. His head seems quite turned.’
By this time they had reached the door, rung the bell, and waited. All the house seemed to be asleep; but soon a man came to them, the horse was taken away, and the Duke and Duchess went in.
THIRD NIGHT
There was no help for it. Bill Mills was obliged to stay on duty, in the old shepherd’s absence, this evening as before, or give up his post and living. He thought as bravely as he could of what lay behind the Devil’s Door, but with no great success, and was therefore in a measure relieved, even if awe-stricken, when he saw the forms of the Duke and Duchess strolling across the frosted greensward. The Duchess was a few yards in front of her husband and tripped on lightly.
‘I tell you he has not thought it worth while to come again!’ the Duke insisted, as he stood still, reluctant to walk further.
‘He is more likely to come and wait all night; and it would be harsh treatment to let him do it a second time.’
‘He is not here; so turn and come home.’
‘He seems not to be here, certainly; I wonder if anything has happened to him. If it has, I shall never forgive myself!’
The Duke, uneasily, ‘O, no. He has some other engagement.’
‘That is very unlikely.’
‘Or perhaps he has found the distance too far.’
‘Nor is that probable.’
‘Then he may have thought better of it.’
‘Yes, he may have thought better of it; if, indeed, he is not here all the time — somewhere in the hollow behind the Devil’s Door. Let us go and see; it will serve him right to surprise him.’
‘O, he’s not there.’
‘He may be lying very quiet because of you,’ she said archly.
‘O, no — not because of me!’
‘Come, then. I declare, dearest, you lag like an unwilling schoolboy to-night, and there’s no responsiveness in you! You are jealous of that poor lad, and it is quite absurd of you.’
‘I’ll come! I’ll come! Say no more, Harriet!’ And they crossed over the green.
Wondering what they would do, the young shepherd left the hut, and doubled behind the belt of furze, intending to stand near the trilithon unperceived. But, in crossing the few yards of open ground he was for a moment exposed to view.
‘Ah, I see him at last !’ said the Duchess.
‘See him!’ said the Duke. ‘Where?’
‘By the Devil’s Door; don’t you notice a figure there? Ah, my poor lover-cousin, won’t you catch it now?’ And she laughed half-pityingly. ‘But what’s the matter?’ she asked, turning to her husband.
‘It is not he!’ said the Duke hoarsely.
‘It can’t be he!’
‘No, it is not he. It is too small for him. It is a boy.’
‘Ah, I thought so! Boy, come here.’
The youthful shepherd advanced with apprehension.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Keeping sheep, your Grace.’
‘Ah, you know me! Do you keep sheep here every night?’
‘Off and on, my Lord Duke.’
‘And what have you seen here to-night or last night?’ inquired the Duchess. ‘Any person waiting or walking about?’
The boy was silent.
‘He has seen nothing,’ interrupted her husband, his eyes so forbiddingly fixed on the boy that they seemed to shine like points of fire. ‘Come, let us go. The air is too keen to stand in long.’
When they were gone the boy retreated to the hut and sheep, less fearful now than at first — familiarity with the situation having gradually overpowered his thoughts of the buried man. But he was not to be left alone long. When an interval had elapsed of about sufficient length for walking to and from Shakeforest Towers, there appeared from that direction the heavy form of the Duke. He now came alone.
The nobleman, on his part, seemed to have eyes no less sharp than the boy’s, for he instantly recognized the latter among the ewes, and came straight towards him.
‘Are you the shepherd lad I spoke to a short time ago?’
‘I be, my Lord Duke.’
‘Now listen to me. Her Grace asked you what you had seen this last night or two up here, and you made no reply. I now ask the same thing, and you need not be afraid to answer. Have you seen anything strange these nights you have been watching here?’
‘My Lord Duke, I be a poor heedless boy, and what I see I don’t bear in mind.’
‘I ask you again,’ said the Duke, coming nearer, have you seen anything strange these nights you have been watching here?’
‘O, my Lord Duke! I be but the under-shepherd boy, and my father he was but your humble Grace’s hedger, and my mother only the cinder-woman in the back-yard! If all asleep when left alone, and I see nothing at all!’
The Duke grasped the boy by the shoulder, and, directly impending over him stared down into his face, ‘Did you see anything strange done here last night, I say?’
‘O, my Lord Duke, have mercy, and don’t stab me!’ cried the shepherd, falling on his knees. ‘I have never seen you walking here, or riding here, or lying-in-wait for a man, or dragging a heavy load!’
‘H’m!’ said his interrogator, grimly, relaxing his hold. It is well to know that you have never seen those things. Now, which would you rather — see me do those things now, or keep a secret all your life?’
‘Keep a secret, my Lord Duke!’
‘Sure you are able?’
‘O, your Grace, try me!’
‘Very well. And now, how do you like sheep keeping?’
‘Not at all. ‘Tis lonely work for them that think of spirits, and I’m badly used.’
‘I believe you. You are too young for it. I must do something to make you more comfortable. You shall change this smock-frock
for a real cloth jacket, and your thick boots for polished shoes. And you shall be taught what you have never yet heard of, and be put to school, and have bats and balls for the holidays, and be made a man of. But you must never say you have been a shepherd boy, and watched on the hills at night, for shepherd boys are not liked in good company.’
‘Trust me, my Lord Duke.’
‘The very moment you forget yourself, and speak of your shepherd days — this year, next year, in school, out of school, or riding in your carriage twenty years hence –at that moment my help will be withdrawn, and smash down you come to shepherding forthwith. You have parents, I think you say?’
‘A widowed mother only, my Lord Duke.’
‘I’ll provide for her, and make a comfortable woman of her, until you speak of — what?’
‘Of my shepherd days, and what I saw here.’
‘Good. If you do speak of it?’
‘Smash down she comes to widowing forthwith!’
‘That’s well — very well. But it’s not enough. Come here.’ He took the boy across to the trilithon, and made him kneel down.
‘Now, this was once a holy place,’ resumed the Duke. ‘An altar stood here, erected to a venerable family of gods, who were known and talked of long before the God we know now. So that an oath sworn here is doubly an oath. Say this after me: “May all the host above — angels and archangels, and principalities and powers — punish me; may I be tormented wherever I am — in the house or in the garden, in the fields or in the roads, in church or in chapel, at home or abroad, on land or at sea; may I be afflicted in eating and in drinking, in growing up and in growing old, in living and dying, inwardly and outwardly, and for always, if I ever speak of my life as a shepherd-boy, or of what I have seen done on this Marlbury Down. So be it, and so let it be. Amen and a men. “Now kiss the stone.’
The trembling boy repeated the words, and kissed the stone, as desired.
The Duke led him off by the hand. That night the junior shepherd slept in Shakeforest Towers, and the next day he was sent away for tuition to a remote village. Thence he went to a preparatory establishment, and in due course to a public school.
FOURTH NIGHT
On a winter evening many years subsequent to the above-mentioned occurrences, the ci-devant shepherd sat in a well-furnished office in the north wing of Shakeforest Towers in the guise of an ordinary educated man of business. He appeared at this time as a person of thirty-eight or forty, though actually he was several years younger. A worn and restless glance of the eye now and then, when he lifted his head to search for some letter or paper which had been mislaid, seemed to denote that his was not a mind so thoroughly at ease as his surroundings might have led an observer to expect. His pallor, too, was remarkable for a countryman. He was professedly engaged in writing, but he shaped not a word. He had sat there only a few minutes, when, laying down his pen and pushing back his chair, he rested a hand uneasily on each of the chair-arms and looked on the floor.
Soon he arose and left the room. His course was along a passage which ended in a central octagonal hall crossing this he knocked at a door. A faint, though deep, voice told him to come in. The room he entered was the library, and it was tenanted by a single person only — his patron the Duke.
During this long interval of years the Duke had lost all his heaviness of build. He was, indeed, almost a skeleton; his white hair was thin, and his hands were nearly transparent. ‘Oh — Mills?’ he murmured. ‘Sit down. What is it?’
‘Nothing new, your Grace. Nobody to speak of has written, and nobody has called.’
‘Ah — what then? ‘You look concerned.’
‘Old times have come to life, owing to something waking them.’
‘Old times be cursed — which old times are they?’
‘That Christmas week twenty-two years ago, when the late Duchess’s cousin Frederick implored her to meet him on Marlbury Downs. I saw the meeting — it was just such a night as this — and I, as you know, saw more. She met him once, but not the second time.’
‘Mills, shall I recall some words to you — the words of an oath taken on that hill by a shepherd-boy?’
‘It is unnecessary. He has strenuously kept that oath and promise. Since that night no sound of his shepherd life has crossed his lips — even to yourself. But do you wish to hear more, or do you not, your Grace?’
‘I wish to hear no more,’ said the Duke sullenly.
Very well; let it be so. But a time seems coming — may be quite near at hand — when, in spite of my lips, that episode will allow itself to go undivulged no longer.’
‘I wish to hear no more!’ repeated the Duke.
‘You need be under no fear of treachery from me,’ said the steward, somewhat bitterly. ‘I am a man to whom you have been kind — no patron could have been kinder. You have clothed and educated me; have installed me here; and I am not unmindful. But what of it — has your Grace gained much by my stanchness? I think not. There was great excitement about Captain Ogbourne’s disappearance, but I spoke not a word. And his body has never been found. For twenty-two years I have wondered what you did with him. Now I know. A circumstance that occurred this afternoon recalled the time tome most forcibly. To make it certain to myself that all was not a dream, I went up therewith a spade; I searched, and saw enough to know that something decays there in a closed badger’s hole.’
‘Mills, do you think the Duchess guessed?’
‘She never did, I am sure, to the day of her death.’
‘Did you leave all as you found it on the hill?’
‘I did.’
‘What made you think of going up there this particular afternoon?’’What your Grace says you don’t wish to be told.’ The Duke was silent; and the stillness of the evening was so marked that there reached their ears from the outer air the sound of a tolling bell.
‘What is that bell tolling for?’ asked the nobleman.
‘For what I came to tell you of, your Grace.’
‘You torment me — it is your way!’ said the Duke loudly. ‘Who’s dead in the village?’
‘The oldest man — the old shepherd.’
‘Dead at last — how old is he?’
‘Ninety-four.’’And I am only seventy. I have four-and-twenty years to the good!’
‘I served under that old man when I kept sheep on Marlbury Downs. And he was on the hill that second night, when I first exchanged words with your Grace. He was on the hill all the time; but I did not know he was there — nor did you.’
‘Ah!’ said the Duke, starting up. ‘Go on — I yield the point — you may tell!’
‘I heard this afternoon that he was at the point of death. It was that which set me thinking of that past time — and induced me to search on the hill for what I have told you. Coming back I heard that he wished to see the Vicar to confess to him a secret he had kept for more than twenty years — ”out of respect to my Lord the Duke” — something that he had seen committed on Marlbury Downs when returning to the flock on a December night twenty-two years ago. I have thought it over. He had left me in charge that evening; but he was in the habit of coming back suddenly, lest I should have fallen asleep. That night I saw nothing of him, though he had promised to return. He must have returned, and — found reason to keep in hiding. It is all plain. The next thing is that the Vicar went to him two hours ago. Further than that I have not heard.’
‘It is quite enough. l will see the vicar at daybreak to-morrow.’
‘What to do?’
‘Stop his tongue for four-and-twenty years — till I am dead at ninety-four, like the shepherd.’
‘Your Grace — while you impose silence on me, I will not speak, even though my neck should pay the penalty. I promised to be yours, and I am yours. But is this persistence of any avail?’
‘I’ll stop his tongue, I say!’ cried the Duke with some of his old rugged force. ‘Now, you go home to bed, Mills, and leave me to manage him.’
The interview end
ed, and the steward withdrew. The night, as he had said was just such an one as the night of twenty-two years before, and the events of the evening destroyed in him all regard for the season as one of cheerfulness and goodwill. He went off to his own house on the further verge of the park, where he led a lonely life, scarcely calling any man friend. At eleven he prepared to retire to bed — but did not retire. He sat down and reflected. Twelve o’clock struck; he looked out at the colourless moon, and, prompted by he knew not what, put on his hat and emerged into the air. Here William Mills strolled on and on, till he reached the top of Marlbury Downs, a spot he had not visited at this hour of the night during the whole score-and-odd years.
He placed himself, as nearly as he could guess the spot where the shepherd’s hut had stood. No lambing was in progress there now, and the old shepherd who had used him so roughly had ceased from his labours that very day. But the trilithon stood up white as ever; and, crossing the intervening sward, the steward fancifully placed his mouth against the stone. Restless and self-reproachful as he was, he could not resist a smile as he thought of the terrifying oath of compact, sealed by a kiss upon the stones of a Pagan temple. But he had kept his word, rather as a promise than as a formal vow, with much worldly advantage to himself, though not much happiness; till increase of years had bred reactionary feelings which led him to receive the news of to-night with emotions akin to relief.
While leaning against the Devil’s Door and thinking on these things, he became conscious that he was not the only inhabitant of the down. A figure in white was moving across his front with long, noiseless strides. Mills stood motionless, and when the form drew quite near he perceived it to be that of the Duke himself in his nightshirt — apparently walking in his sleep. Not to alarm the old man, Mills clung close to the shadow of the stone. The Duke went straight on into the hollow. There he knelt down, and began scratching the earth with his hands like a badger. After a few minutes he arose, sighed heavily, and retraced his steps as he had come.
