The Prelude to Adventure Part 11

And yet with this certainty of the futility of it, he must still struggle . . . to the very end.

On that cold day the world seemed to stand, as men gather about a coursing match, with hard eyes and jeering faces to watch the hopeless flight. . . .

2

He fetched Banker from the stable where he was kept and set off along the hard white road. He had behaved very badly to Bunker, a but the dog showed no signs of delight at his release. On other days when he had been kept in his stable for a considerable time he had gone mad with joy and jumped at his master, wagging his whole body in excitement. Now he walked very slowly by Olva's side, a little way behind him; when Olva spoke to him he wagged his tail, but as though it were duty that impelled it.

The air grew colder aid colder--slowly now there had stolen on to the heart of the blue sky white pinnacles of cloud--a dazzling whiteness, but catching, mysteriously, the shadow of the gold light that heralded the setting sun. These clouds were charged with snow; as they hung there they seemed to radiate from their depths an even more piercing coldness.

They hung above Olva like a vast mountain range and had in their outline so sharp and real an existence that they were part of the hard black horizon, rising, immediately, out of the long, low, s.h.i.+vering flats.

There was no sound in all the world; behind him, sharply, the Cambridge towers bit the sky--before him like a clenched hand was the little wood.

The silence seemed to have a rhythm and voice of its own so that if one listened, quite clearly the tramp of a marching army came over the level ground. Always an army marching--and when suddenly a bird rose from the ca.n.a.l with a sharp cry the tramping was caught, with the bird, for an instant, into the air, and then when the cry was ended sank down again.

The wood enlarged; it lay upon the cold land now like a man's head; a man with a cap. s.p.a.ces between the trees were eyes and it seemed that he was lying behind the rim of the world and leaning his head upon the edge of it and gazing. . . .

Bunker suddenly stopped and looked up at his master.

"Come on," Olva turned on to him sharply.

The dog looked at him, pleading. Then in Olva's dark stern face he seemed to see that there was no relenting--that wood must be faced. He moved forward again, but slowly, reluctantly. All this nonsense that Lawrence had talked about Druids. We will soon see what to make of that. And yet, in the wood, it did seem as though there were something waiting. It was now no longer a man's head--only a dark, melancholy band of trees, dead black now against the high white clouds.

There had risen in Olva the fighting spirit. Fear was still there, ghastly fear, but also an anger, a rage. Why should he be thus tormented? What had he done? Who was Carfax that the slaying of him should be so unforgettable a sin? Moreover, had it been the mere vulgar hauntings of remorse, terrors of a frightened conscience, he could have turned upon himself the contempt that any Dune must deserve for so ign.o.ble a submission.

But here there were other things--some-thing that no human resolution could combat. He seized then eagerly on the things that he could conquer--the suspicions of Rupert Craven, the rivalry of Cardillac, the confidences of Bunning, . . . the grave tenderness of Margaret Craven . . . these things he would clutch and hold, let the Pursuing Spirits do what they would.

As he entered the dark wood a few flakes of snow were falling. He knew where the Druid Stones lay. He had once been shown them by some undergraduate interested in such things. They lay a little to the right, below the little crooked path and above the Hollow.

The wood was not dripping now--held in the iron hand of the frost the very leaves on the ground seemed to be made of metal; the bare twisted branches of the trees shone with frosty--the earth crackled beneath his foot and in the wood's silence, when he broke a twig with his boot the sound shot into the air and rang against the listening stillness.

He looked at the Hollow, Bunker close at his heels. He could see the spot where he had first stood, talking to Carfax--there where the ferns now glistened with silver. There was the place where Carfax had fallen.

Bunker was smelling with his head down at the ground. What did the dog remember? What had Craven meant when he said that Bunker had found the matchbox?

He stood silently looking down at the Hollow. In his heart now there was no terror. When, during these last days, he had been fighting his fear it had always seemed to him that the heart of it lay in this Hollow. He had always seen the dripping fern, smelt the wet earth, heard the sound of the mist falling from the trees. Now the earth was clear and hard and cold. The great white mountains drove higher into the sky, very softly and gently a few white flakes were falling.

With a great relief, almost a sigh of thank-fulness, he turned back to the Druids' Stones. There they were--two of them standing upright, stained with lichen, grey and weather-beaten, one lying flat, hollowed a little in the centre. The ferns stood above them and the bare branches of the trees crossed in strange shapes against the sky.

Here, too, there was a peaceful, restful silence. No more was G.o.d in these quiet stones than He had been in that noisy theatrical Revival Meeting--Lawrence was wrong. Those old religions were dead. No more could the Greek G.o.ds pa.s.s smiling into the temples of their wors.h.i.+ppers, no more Wodin, Thor and the rest may demand their b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice.

These old stones are dead. The G.o.ds are dead--but G.o.d? . . .

He stayed there for a while and the snow fell more heavily. The golden light had faded, the high white clouds had swallowed the blue. There would soon be storm.

In the wood--strangest of ironies--there had been peace.

Now he started down the road again and was conscious, as the wood slipped back into distance, of some vague alarm.

3

The world was now rapidly transformed. There had been promised a blaze of glory, but the sun, red and angry, had been drowned by the thick grey clouds that now flooded the air--dimly seen for an instant outlined against the grey--then suddenly non-existent, leaving a world like a piece of crumpled paper white and dark to all its boundaries.

The snow fell now more swiftly but always gently, imperturbably--almost it might seem with the whispering intention of some important message.

Olva was intensely cold. He b.u.t.toned his coat tightly up to his ears, but nevertheless the air was so biting that it hurt. Bunker, with his head down, drove against the snow that was coming now ever more thickly.

The peace that there had been in the little wood was now utterly gone.

The air seemed full of voices. They came with the snow, and as the flakes blew more closely against his face and coat there seemed to press about him a mult.i.tude of persons.

He drove forward, but this sense of oppression increased with every step. The wood had been swallowed by the storm. Olva felt like a man who has long been struggling with some vice; insidiously the temptation has grown in force and power--his brain, once so active in the struggle, is now dimmed and dulled. His power of resistance, once so vigorous, is now confused--confusion grows to paralysis--he can only now stare, distressed, at the dark temptation, there have swept over him such strong waters that struggle is no longer of avail--one last clutch at the vice, one last desperate and hateful pleasure, and he is gone. . . .

Olva knew that behind him in the storm the Pursuit was again upon him.

That brief respite in the wood had not been long granted him. The snow choked him, blinded him, his body was desperately cold, his soul trembling with fear. On every side he was surrounded--the world had vanished, only the thin grey body of his dog, panting at his side, could be dimly seen.

G.o.d had not been in the wood, but G.o.d was in the storm. . . .

A last desperate resistance held him. He stayed where he was and shouted against the blinding snow.

"There _is_ no G.o.d. . . . There _is_ no G.o.d."

Suddenly his voice sank to a whisper. "There _is_ no G.o.d," he muttered.

The dog was standing, his eyes wide with terror, his feet apart, his body quivering.

Olva gazed into the storm. Then, desperately, he started to run. . . .

CHAPTER VIII

REVELATION OF BUNNING (I)

1

On that evening the College Debating Society exercised its mind over the question of Naval Defence.

One gentleman, timid of voice, uncertain in wit, easily dismayed by the derisive laughter of the opposite party, a.s.serted that "This House considers the Naval policy of the present Government fatal to the country's best interests." An eager politician, with a shrill voice and a torrent of words, denied this statement. The College, with the exception of certain gentlemen destined for the Church (they had been told by their parents to speak on every possible public occasion in order to be ready for a prospective pulpit), displayed a sublime and somnolent indifference. The four gentlemen on the paper had prepared their speeches beforehand and were armed with notes and a certain nervous fluency. For the rest, the question was but slightly a.s.sisted.

The prospective members of the Church thought of many things to say until they rose to their feet when they could only remember "that the last gentleman's speech bad been the most preposterous thing they had ever had the pleasure of listening to--and that, er--er--the Navy was all right, and, er--if the gentleman who had spoken last but two thought it wasn't, well, all they--er--could say was that it reminded them--er--of a story they had once heard (here follows story without point, conclusion or brevity)--and--er--in fact the Navy was all right.

The Debate, in short, was languis.h.i.+ng when Dune and Cardillac entered the room together. Here was an amazing thing.

It was well known that only last night Cardillac and Dune had both been proposed for the office of President of the Wolves. The Wolves, a society of twelve founded for the purpose of dining well and dressing beautifully, was by far the smartest thing that Saul's possessed. It was famous throughout the University for the noise and extravagance of its dinners, and you might not belong to it unless you had played for the University on at least one occasion in some game or another and unless, be it understood, you were, in yourself, quite immensely desirable.

Towards the end of every Christmas term a President for the ensuing year was elected; he must be a second year man, and it was considered by the whole college that this was the highest honour that the G.o.ds could possibly, during your stay at Cambridge, confer upon you. Even the members of the Christian Union, horrified though they were by the amount of wine that was drunk on dining occasions and the consequent peril to their own goods and chattels, bowed to the s.h.i.+ning splendour of the fortunate hero. It had never yet been known that a President of the Wolves should also be a member of the Christian Union, but one must never despair, and nets, the most attractive and genial of nets, were flung to catch the great man.

On the present occasion it had been generally understood that Cardillac would be elected without any possible opposition. Dune had not for a moment occurred to any one. He had; during his first term, when his football prowess had pa.s.sed, swinging through the University, been elected to the Wolves, but he had only attended one dinner and had then remained severely and unpleasantly sober. There was no other possible rival to Cardillac, to his distinction, his power of witty and malicious after-dinner speaking, his wonderful clothes, his admirable football, his haughty indifference. He would of course be elected.

And then, some three weeks ago, this wonderful, unexpected development of Olva Dune had startled the world. His football, his sudden geniality (he had been seen, it was a.s.serted, at one of Med-Tetloe's revival meetings with, of all people in the world, Bunning), his air of being able to do anything whatever if he wished to exert himself, here was a character indeed--so wonderful that it was felt, even by the most patriotic of Saulines, that he ought, in reality, to have belonged to St. Martin's.