I was in no mood for lying down on the wretched pallet. I tore off my cravat and bound it about my broken head. I was sick and weary, but I feared to sleep, lest they come upon me silently in the dark, and make an end of me. And I knew that he, whose name they would not utter before me, but who was surely Charles Craike, was expected at the house that night; I determined to overcome my heavy weariness, and stay awake awaiting his coming. I heard their voices, as I stood by the bed. Roger growling yet, and Martin laughing his mocking laugh, while they sat waiting in the room below, whence came that thin smoke rising through the rotting floor. I knelt down then, and with my hands I widened the breach in the rotting wood, hoping to hear what passed between these rogues, and what they plotted against me. The light shone soon more clearly; a chink in the ceiling below was visible; surely I had only to lie down and press my ear against the breach to hear their very words.
I was deterred from my purpose by a sudden cry from the gate, and the loud baying of a hound at the rear of the house. Starting up, I stole to the window, and drawing back the sacking, set me to watch who came. I heard the doors below me open and clash; presently I saw the lantern shine through the dark, for the clouds held the moon, though it seemed rapidly to approach to a break between cloud and cloud. Overhead the wind went wailing; it beat against the house, as though to tumble it to ruins; I stood shivering, for the bitter cold of the night and for my terrors; the strip of sacking bellied out like a sail as I clung to it. And to the crying of the wind he came.
The moon broke through the clouds; the wet cobbles of the court below me gleamed like a pool of silver water. He came riding swiftly to the house, leaving Mother Mag to secure the gate; I saw him sitting stiffly upon a great black horse, a black cloak flapping all about him. A gust swept his hat from his head, but his hand caught it; his silver-white hair was blown out in disorder. He looked up, as he drew in before the door; momentarily I saw a proud and baleful face; cut like a piece of fine white ivory. I saw the very shining of his eyes, as moonlight and the lamplight from the house played fully on him; and on the instant, indeed, I understood from that cruel face—like, yet so much unlike, my father’s—none whom this man hated or feared might hope for mercy from him.
