CHAPTER XXII

Not until the afternoon had the storm moderated sufficiently to allow of Wesley and his companion returning to Porthawn. For a full hour after the fall of the rocking-stone they remained together in the shelter. They were both overcome by the horror of what they had witnessed. Happily the charred crown of branches which remained on the tree that had been struck down, after the rain had extinguished the blaze, was enough to hide the fallen stone, and that ghastly white thing that lay thrust out from beneath it like a splash of lichen frayed from the crag. But for another hour the tempest continued, only with brief intervals, when a dense and smoky greyness took the place of the blackness. It seemed as if the storm could not escape from the boundary of the natural amphitheatre in the centre of which was the mound which Wesley had used as his pulpit; and to that man whose imagination was never a moment inactive, the whole scene suggested a picture which he had once seen of the struggle of a thousand demons of the Pit, around a sanctified place, for the souls of those who were safe within the enclosure. There were the swirling black clouds every one of which let loose a fiery flying bolt, while the winds yelled horribly as any fiends that might be struggling with obscene tooth and claw, to crush the souls that were within the sacred circle. The picture had, he knew, been an allegory; he wondered if it were not possible that certain scenes in Nature might be equally allegorical. He hoped that he was not offending when he thought of this citadel of his faith—this pulpit from which he had first preached in Cornwall—being assailed by the emissaries of the Arch-enemy, and jet remaining unmoved as a tower built to withstand every assault of the foe.

The whole scene assumed in his imagination a series of fierce assaults, in all of which the enemy was worsted and sent flying over the plain; he could hear the shrieks of the disappointed fiends—the long wail of the wounded that followed every impulse; and then, after a brief interval, there came the renewed assault—the circling tumult seeking for a vulnerable point of entrance. But there it stood, that pulpit from whose height he had preached the Gospel to the thousands who had come to hear him, and had gone forth to join the forces that are evermore at conflict with the powers of evil in the world, There stood his pulpit unmoved in the midst of the tumult. He accepted the symbolism, and he was lifted up by the hope that his work sent forth from this place would live untouched by the many conflicts of time.

He was able to speak encouraging words to his companion every time the thunder passed away; and he was more than ever conscious of the happiness of having her near to him at this time. He knew that he had loved her truly; for his love had been true enough and strong enough to compel him to give her the advice that precluded his ever being able to tell her of his own feeling for her. The joy of her gracious companionship was not for him; but he would do all that in him lay to assure her happiness.

He knew that he was able to soothe her now that she had received a shock that would have been too much for most women. The horror of the mode of the man's death, quite apart from the terror of the tempest, was enough to prostrate any ordinary man or woman. It was very sweet to him to feel her cling to his arm when they crawled back to their shelter. He laid his hand tenderly upon the hand that clasped him, and he refrained from saying a word to her at that moment. When the storm had moderated in some measure he spoke to her; and he was too wise to make any attempt to turn her thoughts from the tragedy which, he knew, could not possibly fade from her mind even with the lapse of years.

“He predicted truly so far as he himself was concerned,” he said gravely. “The end came for him as he said. Poor wretch! He may have possessed all his life a curious sense beyond that allowed to others—an instinct—it may not have been finer than the instinct of a bird. I have read that one of the desert birds will fly an hundred miles to where a camel has fallen by the way. The camel itself has, we are told, an instinct that guides it to water. But I do not say that he was not an agent of evil. There is evidence to prove that sorcery can give the power to predict what seems to be the truth, but it is only a juggling of the actual truth. The manner of that poor wretch's death makes one feel suspicious. He predicted the end of the world; well, the world came to an end, so far as he was concerned. You perceive the jugglery? But his was a weak mind. He may have been lured on to his own destruction. However this may be, his end was a terrible one. I grieve that it was left for us to witness it.”

She shook her head.

“I shall never forget to-day,” she said. “I had a feeling more than once when the lightning was brighter than common, and the world seemed to shake under the rattle of the thunderclap, that the next moment would be the last.”

“There was no terror on your face—I saw it once under the fiercest flash,” said he.

“At first—ah, I scarce know how I felt,” said she. “But when I heard your words saying, 'Rock of Ages,' my fear seemed to vanish.”

“The lines ring with the true confidence that only the true Rock of Ages can inspire,” said he.

And thus he gradually led her thoughts away from the ghastly thing that she had seen, though he had begun talking to her about it. At this time the storm, which had been hurtling around the brim of the huge basin of the valley, had succeeded in its Titanic efforts to free itself from whatever influence it was held it fettered within the circle; and though the rain continued, there was only an occasional roll of thunder. The roar that now filled the valley was that of the sea. It came to them after the storm like the voice of an old friend shouting to them to be of good cheer.

And all that the preacher said to her was founded upon the text that the sea shouted for them to hear. For a time at least the horror that she had looked upon passed out of her mind; and when he pointed out to her that the rain had almost ceased, she suffered herself to be led away from their place of shelter by the further side of the central mound, without straining her eyes to see where the rocking-stone lay; she had not even a chance of noting the strangeness brought about by the disappearance of a landmark that she had seen since she was a child. But as they walked rapidly toward the little port, a cold fear took hold of her.

“Can a single cottage remain after such a storm—can anyone be left alive?” she cried, and he saw that the tears were on her face.

“Do not doubt it,” he said. “To doubt it were to doubt the goodness of God. Some men are coming toward us. I have faith that they bring us good news.”

Within a few minutes they saw that it was Mr. Hartwell and two of his men who had come in search of Wesley. Before they met, Nelly had asked how the port had fared—the boats, what of the boats?

“All's well,” was the response, and her hands clasped themselves in joy and gratitude.

Never had such a tempest been thrown on the coast, Hartwell said, but absolutely no damage had been done to building, boat, or human being. Some trees had been struck by the lighting in the outskirts of the park, and doubtless others had suffered further inland; but the fishing boats having had signs of the approach of the storm, had at once made for the shore, and happily were brought to the leeward of the little wharf before the first burst had come.

When he had told his tale he enquired if either of them had seen anything of Pritchard.

“He appeared suddenly where we saw him yesterday,” he continued, “and his cry was that we should join him in calling upon the rocks to fall on us. He would not be persuaded to take shelter, and he was seen to wander into what seemed to be the very heart of the storm.”

Wesley shook his head, and told his story.

The man whose prophecy of the end of the world had spread within certain limits a terror that was recalled by many firesides, and formed a landmark in the annals of two generations, was the only one who perished in the great thunderstorm, which undoubtedly took place within a day or two of the date assigned by him to see the destruction of the world.

John Wesley had no choice left him in the matter. His host insisted on his going into a bed that had been made as warm as his copper pan of charcoal could make it, after partaking of a spiced posset compounded in accordance with a recipe that was guaranteed to prevent the catching of a cold, no matter how definitely circumstances conspired in favour of a cold.

His garments had become sodden with rain from the waterspout at the outset of the storm, and he had been forced to sit for several hours in the same clothes. He could not hope to escape a cold unless by the help of this famous posset, the housekeeper affirmed; and she was amazed to find him absolutely docile in this matter. She had been voluble in her entreaties; but she came to the conclusion that she might have spared herself half her trouble; she had taken it for granted that she was talking to an ordinary man, who would scoff at the virtues of her posset, and then make all his friends miserable by his complaints when he awoke with a cold on him. Mr. Wesley was the only sensible man she had ever met, she declared to her master, with the sinister expression of a hope that his example of docility would not be neglected by others.

He went to bed, and after listening for some hours to the roaring of the sea, he fell asleep. The evening had scarcely come, but he had never felt wearier in all his life.

He slept for eight hours, and when he awoke he knew that he had done well to yield, without the need for persuasion, to the advice of the housekeeper. He felt refreshed in every way; and after lying awake for an hour, he arose, dressed himself, and left the house. This impulse to take a midnight walk was by no means unusual with him. He had frequently found himself the better for an hour or two spent in the darkness, especially beside the sea. Midnight was just past. If he were to remain in the air for some time, he might, he thought, be able to sleep until breakfast-time.

The night was cool, without being cold, and there was a sweet freshness in the air which had certainly been wanting when he had walked along the cliffs in the afternoon. The thunderstorm did not seem at that time to have cleared the atmosphere. He was rather surprised to find that there was such a high sea rolling at this time, and he came to the conclusion that there had been a gale while he was asleep. Clouds were still hiding the sky, but they held no rain.

He shunned the cliff track, going in the opposite direction, which led him past the village, and on to the steep sandy bay with its occasional little peninsulas of high rocks, the surfaces of which were not covered even by Spring tides. Very quiet the little port seemed at this hour. Not a light was in any window—not a sound came from any of the cottages. He stood for a long time on the little wharf looking at the silent row of cottages. That one which had the rose-bush trained over the porch was the home of the Polwheles, he knew, and he remained with his eyes fixed upon it. It seemed as if this had been the object of his walk—to stand thus in front of that house, as any youthful lover might stand beneath the lattice that he loved.

He had his thoughts to think, and he found that this was the time to think them. They were all about the girl who slept beyond that window. He wondered if he had ever loved her before this moment. If he had really loved her, how was it that he had never before been led to this place to watch the house where she lay asleep? Was it possible that he had fancied he knew her before he had passed those hours with her when the storm was raging around them? He felt that without this experience he could not possibly have known what manner of girl she was.

And now that he had come to know her the knowledge came to him with the thought that she was not for him.

He had set out in the morning feeling that perhaps he had been too hasty in coming to the conclusion that because, when far away from her he had been thinking a great deal of his own loneliness and the joy that her companionship would bring to him, he loved her. That was why he had wished to put himself to the test, and he had fancied that he was doing so when he had walked in the opposite direction to that in which the village lay so that he might avoid the chance of meeting her.

But in spite of his elaborate precautions—he actually thought that it had shown ingenuity on his part—he had met her, and he had learned without putting the question to her that she was not for him. He recalled what his feeling had been at that moment. He had fancied that he knew all that her words meant to him; but he had deceived himself; it was only now that he knew exactly the measure of what they meant to him. It seemed to him that he had known nothing of the girl before he had passed those dark hours by her side.

At that time it was as if all the world had been blotted out, only he and she being left alone.

This feeling he now knew was what was meant by loving—this feeling that there was nothing left in the world—that nothing mattered so long as he and she were together—that death itself would be welcome if only it did not sunder them.

And he had gained that knowledge only to know that they were to be sundered.

It was a bitter thought, and for a time, as he stood there with his eyes fixed upon the cottage, he felt as if so far as he was concerned the world had come to an end. The happiness which he had seen before him as plainly as if it had been a painted picture—a picture of the fireside in the home that he hoped for—had been blotted out from before his eyes, and in its stead there was a blank. It did not matter how that blank might be filled in, it would never contain the picture that had been torn away from before him when she had of her own free will told him the story of her love.

He felt the worst that any man can feel, for the worst comes only when a man cries out to himself:

“Too late—too late!”

He was tortured by that perpetual question of “Why? Why? Why?”

Why had he not come to Cornwall the previous year? Why had he not seen her before she had gone to Bristol and given her promise to the other man?

But this was only in the floodtide of his bitterness; after a space it subsided. More reasonable thoughts came to him. Who was he that he should rail against what had been ordered by that Heaven in whose ordering of things he had often expressed his perfect faith? What would he say of any man who should have such rebellious thoughts? Could this be the true love—this that made him rebel against the decree of an all-wise Providence? If it was true it would cause him to think not of his own happiness, but of hers.

Had he been thinking all the time of his own happiness? he asked himself. Had she been denied to him on this account? He feared that it was so. He recalled how he had been thinking of her, and he had many pangs of self-reproach when he remembered how in all the pictures of the future that his imagination had drawn he was the central figure. He felt that his aim had been an ignoble one. Selfishness had been the foundation of his love, and therefore he deserved the punishment that had fallen upon him.

'He continued his walk and went past the cottage on which his eyes had lingered. For a mile he strolled, lost in thought along the sandy bay, disturbing the sea birds that were wading about the shallow pools in search of shell fish. The tide was on the ebb and he walked down the little ridges of wet beach until he found himself at the edge of that broad grey sea that sent its whispering ripples to his feet. He had always liked to stand thus in winter as well as summer. Within an hour of dawn the sea seemed very patient. It was waiting for what was to come—for the uprising of the sun to turn its grey into gold.

He never failed to learn the lesson of the sea in all its moods; and now he felt strengthened by looking out to the eastern sky, though it was still devoid of light. He would have patience. He would wait and have faith. Light was coming to the world, and happy was the one to whom was given the mission of proclaiming that dawn—the coming of the Light of the World.

Even when he resumed his stroll after he had looked across the dun waters he became conscious of a change in the eastern sky. The clouds that still clung to that quarter were taking on to themselves the pallor of a pearl, and the sky edge of the sea was lined with the tender glaze that appears on the inner surface of a white shell, and its influence was felt upon the objects of the coast. The ridges of the peninsular rocks glimmered, and the outline of the whole coast became faintly seen. It was coming—the dawn for which the world was waiting was nigh. The doubts born of the night were ready to fly away as that great heron which rose in front of him fled with winnowing wings across the surface of the sea.