第62章 THE LIT CHAMBER(2)

At first the fumes in his head raised him above the uncertainty of his road and the eternal downpour.His mind was far away in a select world of his own imagining.He saw himself in a privy chamber, to which he had been conducted by reverent lackeys, the door closed, the lamp lit, and the Duke's masterful eyes bright with expectation.He saw the fine thin lips, like a woman's, primmed in satisfaction.He heard words of compliment--"none so swift and certain as you"--"in truth, a master-hand"--"I know not where to look for your like." Delicious speeches seemed to soothe his ear.And gold, too, bags of it, the tale of which would never appear in any accompt-book.Nay, his fancy soared higher.He saw himself presented to Ministers as one of the country's saviours, and kissing the hand of Majesty.What Majesty and what Ministers he knew not, and did not greatly care--that was not his business.The rotundity of the Hanoverian and the lean darkness of the Stuart were one to him.Both could reward an adroit servant....His vanity, terribly starved and cribbed in his normal existence, now blossomed like a flower.His muddled head was fairly ravished with delectable pictures.He seemed to be set at a great height above mundane troubles, and to look down on men like a benignant God.His soul glowed with a happy warmth.

But somewhere he was devilish cold.His wretched body was beginning to cry out with discomfort.A loop of his hat was broken and the loose flap was a conduit for the rain down his back.His old ridingcoat was like a dish-clout, and he felt icy about the middle.Separate streams of water entered the tops of his ridingboots--they were a borrowed pair and too big for him--and his feet were in puddles.It was only by degrees that he realised this misery.Then in the boggy track his horse began to stumble.

The fourth or fifth peck woke irritation, and he jerked savagely at the bridle, and struck the beast's dripping flanks with his whip.The result was a jib and a flounder, and the shock squeezed out the water from his garments as from a sponge.Mr.Lovel descended from the heights of fancy to prosaic fact, and cursed.

The dregs of strong drink were still in him, and so soon as exhilaration ebbed they gave edge to his natural fears.He perceived that it had grown very dark and lonely.The rain, falling sheer, seemed to shut him into a queer wintry world.All around the land echoed with the steady drum of it, and the rumour of swollen runnels.A wild bird wailed out of the mist and startled Mr.Lovel like a ghost.He heard the sound of men talking and drew rein; it was only a larger burn foaming by the wayside.The sky was black above him, yet a faint grey light seemed to linger, for water glimmered and he passed what seemed to be the edge of a loch....At another time the London-bred citizen would have been only peevish, for Heaven knew he had faced ill weather before in ill places.But the fiery stuff he had swallowed had woke a feverish fancy.Exaltation suddenly changed to foreboding.

He halted and listened.Nothing but the noise of the weather, and the night dark around him like a shell.For a moment he fancied he caught the sound of horses, but it was not repeated.Where did this accursed track mean to lead him? Long ago he should have been in the valley and nearing Brampton.

He was as wet as if he had wallowed in a pool, cold, and very weary.Asudden disgust at his condition drove away his fears and he swore lustily at fortune.He longed for the warmth and the smells of his favourite haunts--Gilpin's with oysters frizzling in a dozen pans, and noble odours stealing from the tap-room, the Green Man with its tripe-suppers, Wanless's Coffee House, noted for its cuts of beef and its white puddings.He would give much to be in a chair by one of those hearths and in the thick of that blowsy fragrance.Now his nostrils were filled with rain and bog water and a sodden world.It smelt sour, like stale beer in a mouldy cellar.And cold! He crushed down his hat on his head and precipitated a new deluge.

A bird skirled again in his ear, and his fright returned.He felt small and alone in a vast inhospitable universe.And mingled with it all was self-pity, for drink had made him maudlin.He wanted so little--only a modest comfort, a little ease.He had forgotten that half an hour before he had been figuring in princes' cabinets.He would give up this business and be quit of danger and the high road.The Duke must give him a reasonable reward, and with it he and his child might dwell happily in some country place.He remembered a cottage at Guildford all hung with roses....But the Duke was reputed a miserly patron, and at the thought Mr.Lovel's eyes overflowed.There was that damned bird again, wailing like a lost soul.The eeriness of it struck a chill to his heart, so that if he had been able to think of any refuge he would have set spurs to his horse and galloped for it in blind terror.He was in the mood in which men compose poetry, for he felt himself a midget in the grip of immensities.He knew no poetry, save a few tavern songs; but in his youth he had had the Scriptures drubbed into him.He remembered ill-omened texts-- one especially about wandering through dry places seeking rest.Would to Heaven he were in a dry place now!...

The horse sprang aside and nearly threw him.It had blundered against the stone pillar of a gateway.It was now clear even to Mr.Lovel's confused wits that he was lost.This might be the road to Tophet, but it was no road to Brampton.He felt with numbed hands the face of the gateposts.Here was an entrance to some dwelling, and it stood open.The path led through it, and if he left the path he would without doubt perish in a bog-hole.In his desolation he longed for a human face.He might find a good fellow who would house him; at the worst he would get direction about the road.So he passed the gateway and entered an avenue.