He knew each bend, each angle of the holly
hedge, each separate incident of ditch and stone. He could have plunged
blindfold down it at top speed. The familiar perfumes rushed at
him--dead leaves and mossy earth and ferns and dock leaves, bringing
the bewildering currents of strong emotion in him all together as in
a rising wave. He saw, then, the crumbling wall, the cedars topping
it with spreading branches, the chimneys of the rectory. On his right
bulked the outline of the old, grey church; the twisted, ancient yews,
the company of gravestones, upright and leaning, dotting the ground
like listening figures. But he looked at none of these. For, on his
left, he already saw the five rough steps of stone that led from the
lane towards a small, white garden gate. That gate at last shone before
him, rising through the misty air. He reached it. He stopped dead a moment. His heart, it seemed, stopped too, then took
to violent hammering in his brain. There was a roaring in his mind, and
yet a marvellous silence--just behind it. Then the roar of emotion died
away. There was utter stillness. This stillness, silence, was all about
him. The world seemed preternaturally quiet. But the pause was too brief to measure. For the tide of emotion had
receded only to come on again with redoubled power. He turned, leaped
forward, clambered impetuously up the rough stone steps, and flung
himself, breathless and exhausted, against the trivial barrier that
stood between his eyes and--hers. In his wild, half violent impatience,
however, he stumbled. That roaring, too, confused him. He fell forward,
it seemed, for twilight had merged in darkness, and he misjudged the
steps, the distances he yet knew so well. For a moment, certainly, he
lay at full length upon the uneven ground against the wall; the steps
had tripped him. And then he raised himself and knocked. His right hand
struck upon the small, white garden gate. Upon the two lost fingers he
felt the impact. "I am here," he cried, with a deep sound in his throat
as though utterance was choked and difficult. "I have come back--to
find you." For a fraction of a second he waited, while the world stood still and
waited with him. But there was no delay. Her answer came at once: "I am
well.... I am happy.... I am waiting." And the voice was dear and marvellous as of old. Though the words
were strange, reminding him of something dreamed, forgotten, lost,
it seemed, he did not take special note of them. He only wondered
that she did not open instantly that he might see her. Speech could
follow, but sight came surely first! There was this lightning-flash
of disappointment in him. Ah, she was lengthening out the marvellous
moment, as often and often she had done before. It was to tease him
that she made him wait. He knocked again; he pushed against the
unyielding surface. For he noticed that it was unyielding; and there
was a depth in the tender voice that he could not understand. "Open!" he cried again, but louder than before. "I have come back to
find you!" And as he said it the mist struck cold and thick against his
face. But her answer froze his blood. "I cannot open." And a sudden anguish of despair rose over him; the sound of her voice
was strange; in it was faintness, distance--as well as depth. It seemed
to echo. Something frantic seized him then--the panic sense. "Open, open! Come out to me!" he tried to shout. His voice failed
oddly; there was no power in it. Something appalling struck him between
the eyes. "For God's sake, open. I'm waiting here! Open, and come out
to me!" The reply was muffled by distance that already seemed increasing; he
was conscious of freezing cold about him--in his heart. "I cannot open. You must come in to me. I'm here and--waiting--always." He knew not exactly then what happened, for the cold grew deeper and
the icy mist was in his throat. No words would come. He rose to his
knees, and from his knees to his feet. He stooped. With all his force
he knocked again; in a blind frenzy of despair he hammered and beat
against the unyielding barrier of the small, white garden gate. He
battered it till the skin of his knuckles was torn and bleeding--the
first two fingers of a hand already mutilated. He remembers the torn
and broken skin, for he noticed in the gloom that stains upon the
gate bore witness to his violence; it was not till afterwards that
he remembered the other fact--that the hand had already suffered
mutilation, long, long years ago. The power of sound was feebly in
him; he called aloud; there was no answer. He tried to scream, but the
scream was muffled in his throat before it issued properly; it was a
nightmare scream. As a last resort he flung himself bodily upon the
unyielding gate, with such precipitate violence, moreover, that his
face struck against its surface. From the friction, then, along the whole length of his cheek he knew
that the surface was not smooth. Cold and rough that surface was; but
also--it was not of wood. Moreover, there was writing on it he had not
seen before. How he deciphered it in the gloom, he never knew. The
lettering was deeply cut. Perhaps he traced it with his fingers; his
right hand certainly lay stretched upon it. He made out a name, a date,
a broken verse from the Bible, and the words, "died peacefully." The
lettering was sharply cut with edges that were new. For the date was of
a week ago; the broken verse ran, "When the shadows flee away ..." and
the small, white garden gate was unyielding because it was of--stone. *       *       *       *       *

At the inn he found himself staring at a table from which the tea
things had not been cleared away. There was a railway time-table in
his hands, and his head was bent forwards over it, trying to decipher
the lettering in the growing twilight. Beside him, still fingering a
shilling, stood the serving-girl; her other hand held a brown tray
with a running dog painted upon its dented surface. It swung to and
fro a little as she spoke, evidently continuing a conversation her
customer had begun. For she was giving information--in the colourless,
disinterested voice such persons use:

"We all went to the funeral, sir, all the country people went. The
grave was her father's--the family grave...." Then, seeing that her
customer was too absorbed in the time-table to listen further, she said
no more but began to pile the tea things on to the tray with noisy
clatter. Ten minutes later, in the road, he stood hesitating. The signal at
the station just opposite was already down. The autumn mist was rising. He looked along the winding road that melted away into the distance,
then slowly turned and reached the platform just as the London train
came in. He felt very old--too old to walk six miles....




II

THE TOUCH OF PAN


1

An idiot, Heber understood, was a person in whom intelligence had been
arrested--instinct acted, but not reason.