When Ghost Meets Ghost. William De Morgan
covered the smokeless land, with the descendants of the herds that Cæsar's troops found in the Hercynian wilds? They are a fascinating subject for a wandering pen, but the one that writes this must not be led away from Lady Gwendolen on the terrace that looks across this cramped inheritance of beech and bracken. If she could always look like what the level sun makes her now, in the heart of a rainbow, few things the world can show would outbid her right to a record, or make the penning of it harder. For just at this moment she looks simply beautiful beyond belief. It is not all the doing of the sunrays, for she is a fine sample of nineteen, of a type which has kindled enthusiasm since the comparatively recent incursion of William the Norman, and will continue to do so till finally dynamited out of existence, ut supra.
She is looking out under her hand—to make sight possible against the blaze—at a man who is plodding across the nearest opening in the woodland. How drenched he must be! What can possess him, to choose a day like this to go afoot through an undergrowth of bracken a day's raindrift has left water-charged? She knows well what a deluge meets him at every step, and watches him, pressing through it as one who has felt the worst pure water can do, and is reckless. She watches him into a clear glade, with a sense of relief on his behalf. She does not feel officially called upon to resent a stranger with a dog—in a territory sacred to game!—for the half-overgrown track he seems to have followed is a world of fallow-deer and pheasants. She is the daughter of the house, and trespassers are the concern of Stephen Solmes the head gamekeeper.
The trespasser seems at a loss which way to go, and wavers this way and that. His dog stands at his feet looking up at him, wagging a slow tail; deferentially offering no suggestion, but ready with advice if called upon. The young lady's thought is:—"Why can't he let that sweet dog settle it for him? He would find the way." Because she is sure of the sweetness of that collie, even at this distance. Ultimately the trespasser leaves the matter to the dog, who appears gratified and starts straight for where she stands. Dogs always do, says she to herself. But there is the haw-haw fence between them.
The dog stops. Not because of the obstacle—what does he care for obstacles?—but because of the courtesies of life. The man that made this sunk fence did it to intercept any stray collie in the parkland from scouring across into the terraced garden, even to inaugurate communications between a strange young lady and the noblest of God's creatures, his owner. That is the dog's view. So he stands where the fence has stopped him, a beseeching explanatory look in his pathetic eyes; and a silky tail, that is nearly dry already, marking time slowly. A movement of permission would bring him across into the garden; but then—is he not too wet? Young Lady Gwendolen says "No, dear!" regretfully, and shakes her head as though he would understand the negative. Perhaps he does, for he trots back to his master, who, however—it must be admitted—has whistled for him.
The pedestrian turns to go, but sees the lady well, though not very near her yet. She knows he sees her, as he raises his hat. She has an impression of his personality from the action; which, it may be, guides her conduct in what follows.
He seems to have made up his mind to avoid the house, taking a visible path which skirts it, and possibly to strike away from it into the wider parkland, over yonder where the great oaks are. He is soon lost in a hazel coppice.
Then she thinks. That dog will be shot if Solmes catches sight of it. She knows old Stephen. Oh, for but one word with the dog's master! It might just make the whole difference.
She does not think long; in fact, there is no time to lose. The man and the dog must pass over Arthur's Bridge if they follow the path. She can intercept them there by taking a short cut through the Trings; a name with a forgotten origin, which hugs the spot unaccountably. "I wonder what a tring was, and when" says Gwendolen to herself, between those unsolved riddles and the bridge.
The bridge is a little stone bridge, just wide enough for a chaise to go through gently. Gwendolen has soaked her shoes to reach it. Still, she must save that dog from the Ranger's gun at any cost. A fig for the wet! She has to dress for dinner—indeed, her maid is waiting for her now—and dry stockings will be a negligible factor in that great total. There comes the pedestrian round by Swayne's Oak—another name whose origin no man knows.
The dog catches sight of her, and is off like a shot, his master trying vainly to whistle him back. The young lady is quite at ease—she is not afraid of dogs! She even laughs at this one's demonstrative salute, which leaves a paw-mark on either shoulder. For dogs do not scruple to kiss those they love, without making compliments.
His master is apologetic, coming up with a quickened pace. At a rebuke from him the collie becomes apologetic too; would be glad to explain, but is handicapped by language. He is, however, all repentance, and falls back behind his master, leaving matters in his hands. At the least—though the way of doing it may have been crude—he has brought about an introduction, of a sort.
There is no intrusive wish on the man's part to take undue advantage of it. His speech, "Achilles means well; it is only his cordiality," seems to express the speaker's feeling that somehow he is certain to be understood. His addendum—"I am really as sorry as I can be, all the same"—may be credited to ceremonial courtesy, flavoured with contrition. His wind-up has a sort of laugh behind it:—"Particularly because I have no business in this part of the Park at all. I can only remedy that by my absence."
"You will promise me one thing, if you please. … "
"Yes—whatever you wish."
"Lead your dog till you are outside the Park. If he is seen he may be shot. I could not bear that that dog should be shot." Something in the man's tone and manner has made it safe for the girl to overstep the boundaries of chance speech to an utter stranger.
He has no right—that he feels—to presume upon this semi-confidence of an impulsive girl, whoever she is. True, her beauty in that last glory of the sunset puts resolution to the test. But he has no right, and there's an end on't! "I will tie Achilles up," he says. "I should not like him to be shot."
"Oh!—is he Achilles?"
"His mother was Thetis."
"Then, of course, he is Achilles." At this point the boundaries of strangership seem insistent. After all, this man may be Tom or Dick or Harry. "You will excuse my speaking to you," says the young lady. "I had no one to send, and I saw you from the terrace. It was for the dog's sake."
In his chivalrous determination not to overdraw the blank cheque she has signed for him unawares, the stranger conceives that a few words of dry apology will meet the case, and leave him to go on his way. So, though powerfully ignoring the fact that that outcome will be an unwelcome one, he replies:—"I quite understand, and I am sincerely grateful for your caution." He gets at a dog-chain in the pocket of his waterproof overcoat, and at the click of it Achilles comes to be tied up. As he fastens the clasp to its collar, he adds:—"I should not have let him run loose like this, only that I am so sure of him. He is town-bred and a stranger to the chase. He can collect sheep, owing to his ancestry; but he never does it now, because he has been forbidden." While he speaks these last words he is examining something in the dog's leather collar. "It will hold, I think," says he. "A cut in the strap—it looks like." Then this oddly befallen colloquy ends and each gives the other a dry good-evening. The young lady's last sight of that acquaintance of five minutes shows him endeavouring to persuade the dog not to drag on his chain. For Achilles, for some dog-reason man will never know, is no sooner leashed than he makes restraint necessary by pulling against it with all his might.
"I hope that collar won't break," says the young lady as she goes back to dress for dinner. The sun's gleam is dead, and the black cloud-bank that hides it now is the rain that is coming soon. See!—it has begun already.
Old Mrs. Solmes at the Ranger's Lodge, a mile distant, said to her old husband:—"Thou'rt a bad ma-an, Stephen, to leave thy goon about lwoaded, and the vary yoong boy handy to any mischief. Can'st thou not bide till there coom time for the lwoadin' of it?"
Said old Stephen sharply, "Gwun, wench? There be no gwun. 'Tis a roifle! And as fower the little Seth, yander staaple where it hangs is well up beyond the reach of un. Let a' be, Granny!"
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