CHAPTER XV THE TERROR OF THE MIST

IT was a raw, damp morning and the day struggled up with difficulty. Ian was very tired as it was long since he had made any continuous physical effort and, anxious as he was to make progress, he felt that he must rest. He sat down by a stream and opened his wallet and broke his fast, while he thought out what would be the best road for him to take. So far he had been sure of the way from Audry’s description, but he was a little more doubtful about his ability to find the route further on and yet, if possible, he did not wish to ask questions of any one he met. He was just able to distinguish the sun rising through the mist and hoped that the day would brighten. From this he calculated that the wind which was very steady was from the northwest.

He knew that, when they were hunting him before, a description of him had been sent as far as Alston and Kirkoswald; so he determined to try and reach Carlisle without going through these places. In Carlisle people had more things to think about; and the incident of his escape, even if news of it had travelled so far, would by this time be forgotten. Moreover a stranger in the great border town would not arouse any curiosity.

He therefore decided that he would keep along by the highest ground following the ridge of summits. This he knew would ultimately bring him to Cold Fell,190 where the drop on every side is very marked and whence, if he had not seen Carlisle itself before, he could drop down by Naworth or Brampton.

After a long rest he turned up the steep. Unfortunately the mist, instead of lifting, grew thicker until he had nothing to guide him but the wind and the general lie of the ground. Used as he was to the hills, he always felt the eeriness of the mist seething and curling and scurrying over the heather. It was bitterly cold as the wind was strong and the mist grew so thick that he could only see the ground for a few paces. He was afraid of coming suddenly upon the precipice of some corrie or cross-gully. He had heard too of the terrible “pot” holes in the limestone district, and pictured himself falling down into one of those black bottomless chimneys, where even his body would never be seen again.

He decided to strike straight up for the top, even though it was more fatiguing, and he followed the steepest line of the ground, scrambling over the rocks where necessary. He started violently as he suddenly heard the scream of an eagle somewhere near him in the mist, and later on he was surprised actually to come upon one tearing the body of a grouse. The great bird rose and hit him, whether intentionally or not he was not sure, but he shrank involuntarily and the sight of the small mangled victim stirred his heart. “Why was the world of birds and men so essentially cruel?” “Poor little Aline,” he thought, as he looked at the little bird.

When at last he reached the height he was met by an icy wind of tremendous force from the weather side191 of the hill and it was only with extreme difficulty that he could keep his footing. Using the wind as his guide he decided on a place where the gradient was less and the direction right as far as he could judge and trusted that this would be the col between the summits.

It was anxious work and at last he began to feel that he had descended too far. He had missed the col. He was lost. Although better in health his nerves were still shaken. For a moment he half broke down. “Oh, if I could only see you once again, Aline,” he cried, “and you will never know that months afterwards the shepherds found the remains of an unknown man upon the hills.” He peered into the mist as though by strength of will he would force its secret. It was vain, the mist was blankly impenetrable. Under ordinary circumstances he was too good a hillsman to mind and would simply, worse come to the worst, have followed down stream till he came to the haunts of men, but it was a matter of life and death to him now not to come down the wrong valley. Moreover, there were the precious papers, for which he had already risked so much.

Gradually he recovered, but what was he to do? Which side had he gone wrong? He stood and reflected for a moment. The direction of the wind seemed all right, but it was very much less in force. Surely then he was to the east of the col. Oh, if only the mist would lift, but it still raced past, with its white swirling, cruel fingers. The wind sighed sadly in the rank, red tinted grass, and away below he heard the falling of many waters and the endless bleating of sheep. Every now and then some gigantic menacing forms192 would seem to shape themselves out of the mist;—they danced round him, they pointed at him, they mocked him. They were trolls, they were the spirits of death, the lost souls of the sons of men. A brooding horror seemed to sweep over the desolate hillside, chilling him with a nameless dread. He turned a little further into the wind and the ground grew more wet and mossy. This must surely be somewhere below the middle of the col, he argued, and he struck still more to the left.

Suddenly he came upon a sight that froze his marrow. It was the skeleton of a child,—some poor little wanderer who, like himself, had been lost and who never had returned home. The wind whistled through the small slender bones. They were quite clean, save for a little hair clinging to the skull, from which Ian guessed that it was a boy. He might have been ten or twelve years old. How had he come there? What had brought him to his fate? The clothes had entirely gone save one little shoe. Ian picked it up, looked at it and shivered. Oh, the horror of it! Then the mood changed and he found himself filled with unutterable pity. “Poor child, poor child,” he said; “another victim of a heartless world.” He knelt down and laid his hand on the small skull and his emotion overcame him. Then he gathered the bones together and carried them to a small hollow under a great rock. As he was doing this, his fingers came across something in the grass. It was a small wallet or purse. When he had taken all the bones he managed with some difficulty to cover them with earth and then he built up a little cairn of stones. The small shoe he put with the bones, but the wallet he took with him.

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With very mingled feelings he struggled up the slope and at last to his great relief he felt the icy blast of the northwest wind, with the ground sloping upward in the right direction. He decided to make for the very summit, the better to check his position, and at last he reached the point and then cautiously made his way in the same manner to what he believed was Cross Fell.

It was very slow work and the ground was very wet and heavy; he was footsore and stiff from lack of practice and when the evening began to close in he had made absurdly little headway.

At last he felt he could go no further and must spend the night upon the hills. He climbed over the ridge to the leeward side and dropped until he came to the heather line, where he found a dry hollow between some rocks. Tearing up a quantity of heather he made himself a bed to lie on and sat down on the soft extemporised couch. Then he opened the little wallet or pouch that he had found by the skeleton. It contained some knuckle bones and a piece of cord; but with them was a wonderful bracelet of peculiar workmanship. Ian judged it to be Keltic of a very remote date as it somewhat resembled work that a friend had found in the Culbin sands. An inscription and other alterations had been made at a later date.

The design was in bold curving shapes that expressed the very spirit of metal. Most remarkable were three large bosses of a strange stone of marvellous hue; they were a deep sky-blue, brilliantly clear and transparent, but with a slight yet most mysterious opalescence in the colour. He had never heard of such a stone and there was something almost uncanny about the way they shone194 in the dim light. Whether they were original or substitutes for enamel or amber he could not tell.

The inscription ran:—
WOE TO WHO STEALETH ME
PEACE TO WHO FINDETH ME
BUT WEAL WHERE I COME AS A GIFT OF LOVE.

It was a marvellously beautiful thing and Ian could not help speculating how the boy had come by it. “If these charms and amulets really had any power, he might well have stolen it,” he thought, shuddering at what he had seen. “But that is a thing we shall never know. However, it would be a pleasing gift for Aline, and some day I will clasp it myself on that little white wrist.”

He pictured Aline to himself wearing the bracelet and then rolling his cloak about him went to sleep.

For a few hours he slept well and then he woke with the cold. He was very tired and sleepy but unable to sleep again for the pains which shot through him. The miserable night seemed endless, he tossed and dozed and tossed again, but at last the dawn broke. It was still misty but he was anxious to get on. He opened his wallet and found it was getting low; there was enough for two fair meals, but he divided it into three portions and took one.

The wind had dropped but he had taken the precaution of marking its direction on the ground before he slept. However, that would not avail him long. He wondered what Aline was doing. He was sure that somehow Providence had intended him to help her. Suppose he had done wrongly and should meet his death and deprive her of his aid! Why was life so continually perplexing?

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When he started to move, his swollen blistered feet made every step painful, but gradually he became more used to it and struggled on mechanically.

He was going very slowly, although it was down hill, and it was with joy that in rather less than four hours he came across a mountain track running according to his guess east and west. “This must surely be the road from Alston to Kirkoswald,” he said, and feeling more or less reassured he sat down. But he was so worn out from fatigue and lack of sleep that he almost at once fell into a deep slumber.

When he awoke he found a shepherd-boy looking at him. “You sleep soundly, Master,” he said; “whither are you bound?”

“I am going to Carlisle,” he answered.

“I have been in Carlisle once,” said the boy. “It’s a fine town, with bonnie sights; but that was not yesterday. I spend all my time with the sheep and it is rarely that I get a chance for such things. No, it’s not much pleasure that they let come my way,” he added dolefully.

Ian looked at the boy, who had a fine face and was well proportioned in length of limbs and figure, but thin and ill nourished, with hollow cheeks and angular shoulders. “I am afraid they do not feed you over well,” he remarked.

“Not they,” said the lad,—“I get my brose in the morning and none too much of that and then generally I get some more brose in the evening.”

“Do you get nothing all day?” said Ian.

“Why, no,” he replied.

“Would you like something to eat now?”

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The boy’s eyes lit up as Ian undid his wallet. “Surely,” he said.

Ian gave him all that the wallet contained and smiled with pleasure as he watched the boy ravenously devour every morsel. It was the first glow of satisfaction that Ian had had since he left Holwick.

As the boy munched away Ian thought he might get what information he could; at least he would know how much more road there was before him, which was advisable now that he had nothing whatever left to eat.

“Do you know the names of the hills?” he asked casually, as though hunting for a topic of conversation.

“Why, of course,” said the boy. “Black Fell is up that way and Cross Fell is over there. If it was a clear day you could see the hills in the west too, Skiddaw and Blencathara and Helvellyn, and all the rest of them.

“I wish I was going with you to Carlisle,” he added somewhat wistfully; “a city is better than the hills; not that I do not love the hills,” he continued, “but an apprentice gets more to fill his stomach than a shepherd lad, leastways than one who has no father and mother and who works for Farmer Harrington.”

Ian’s heart always went out to children and this gaunt but rather handsome boy interested him not a little. “How old are you,” he asked, “and what is your name?”

“My name is Wilfred Johnstone and I shall be twelve come Martinmas.”

“Would you like to be apprenticed in the city and do you know anything about it?”

“That should I,” he answered; “I should like to be197 a carpenter like Johnnie o’ the Biggins, whom they sent to Thirsk last year. Some day he will be a master carpenter and be building roofs and houses and sic like bonnie things.”

“But, Wilfred, what would Farmer Harrington say if you left him?”

“Well, I cannot tell but he would not have cause to say much, for the way that he treats the men and the lads that work for him. I very nearly left him and tramped into Carlisle last week; but it’s hard to become an apprentice if you cannot pay your footing.”

Ian had two or three gold pieces left, so he took out one and gave it to the boy. “That will enable you to get to Carlisle, and back again if need be, and stay a while anyway to see if you can find a place. I might be able to help you if you can find me. See the sheep are all right to-night and then come along. I shall be about the market cross most days at noon, and if you do not find me the money will take you back.”

The boy’s eyes grew round with astonishment. He took the money and tried incoherently to express his thanks, and then after a pause he asked, “What’s your name?”

“Oh, call me James Mitchell; but look you,” Ian added, “do not tell a soul about meeting me or ask for me by name in Carlisle. I cannot help you if you do. Promise me.”

The boy looked Ian squarely in the face and held out his hand. “I promise,” he said.

Ian grasped the hand and felt the magnetism of a mutual understanding, the boy was clearly honest and true and would keep to his word. “Well, good-bye and God198 be wi’ ye,” said Ian, and turned away northward.

After they parted Ian kept along in the same manner as before and to his great gladness the mist towards evening began to lift. But he was faint and famished and felt weak from want of food. The sleep had done him some good, but he had slept too long and lost most of the day. He felt a little less melancholy after he had seen the boy, but he was still very depressed. His mind ran on old Moll and her talk about the spirits of darkness. Consequently it was a distinct shock when he caught sight of a gigantic figure looming through the mist and striding along a little below him as though seeking a place so as to come up on his level. It was many times larger than himself and in the dim curlings of the mist had a most terrifying aspect.

Ian began to run but the figure started running also. At last he stood still and the figure stopped and turned towards him. For a moment his brain, dizzy with hunger, contemplated a fight with this supernatural being. He mechanically grasped his staff and raised it, and the figure did the same.

Then the tension relaxed and Ian laughed. It was the brocken, the strange spectre of the hills formed by the distorted shadow of his own figure on the mist! In all his hill-travelling this was the first time he had ever seen it; and, although he laughed, the little incident had not helped to steady his nerves. “It has, however, one advantage,” he said; “I now know my direction from the position of the sun.”

Then suddenly the mist broke and there before him was revealed a glorious view. The sun was setting in a crimson glory and the hills of Cumberland, still cloud199 capped, were flushed with delicate colours. He was below Blacklaw Hill, and Cold Fell blocked the view to the north. Immediately in front was the great plain of Carlisle and beyond that the waters of the Solway. Far on the left a silver glitter showed the position of Ulleswater. It was radiantly beautiful and the more so, because of the contrast with the cold and darkness of the mist.

He decided that on the whole he had better keep to the hills, but it grew dark and he had to spend another cheerless night on the high ground, which was made worse by the gnawing hunger; but somehow his spirit seemed brighter, and in spite of the cold and pain he did not feel so unhappy.

When the morning broke, he set off with a light heart to Brampton, where he secured food without being asked any question and in the evening he found himself in Carlisle.