urmur of water poured over stones, gurgling against
the old misshapen roots of trees, and running clear in a deep channel. He
passed into the chill breath of the brook, and almost fancied he heard
two voices speaking in its murmur; there seemed a ceaseless utterance of
words, an endless argument. With a mood of horror pressing on him, he
listened to the noise of waters, and the wild fancy seized him that he
was not deceived, that two unknown beings stood together there in the
darkness and tried the balances of his life, and spoke his doom. The hour
in the matted thicket rushed over the great bridge of years to his
thought; he had sinned against the earth, and the earth trembled and
shook for vengeance. He stayed still for a moment, quivering with fear,
and at last went on blindly, no longer caring for the path, if only he
might escape from the toils of that dismal shuddering hollow. As he
plunged through the hedges the bristling thorns tore his face and hands;
he fell amongst stinging-nettles and was pricked as he beat out his way
amidst the gorse. He raced headlong, his head over his shoulder, through
a windy wood, bare of undergrowth; there lay about the ground moldering
stumps, the relics of trees that had thundered to their fall, crashing
and tearing to earth, long ago; and from these remains there flowed out a
pale thin radiance, filling the spaces of the sounding wood with a dream
of light. He had lost all count of the track; he felt he had fled for
hours, climbing and descending, and yet not advancing; it was as if he
stood still and the shadows of the land went by, in a vision. But at last
a hedge, high and straggling, rose before him, and as he broke through
it, his feet slipped, and he fell headlong down a steep bank into a lane.
He lay still, half-stunned, for a moment, and then rising unsteadily, he
looked desperately into the darkness before him, uncertain and
bewildered. In front it was black as a midnight cellar, and he turned
about, and saw a glint in the distance, as if a candle were flickering in
a farm-house window. He began to walk with trembling feet towards the
light, when suddenly something pale started out from the shadows before
him, and seemed to swim and float down the air. He was going down hill,
and he hastened onwards, and he could see the bars of a stile framed
dimly against the sky, and the figure still advanced with that gliding
motion. Then, as the road declined to the valley, the landmark