Poll Miles

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BY

THE LADY MARGARET MAJENDIE.

Chapter VI

Days passed on, and the cold increased more and more. The frost seemed to have bound the very wind in its grasp, for it was so wondrously still. And every day the ice deepened and thickened, and a light fall of snow froze on the surface of the earth into a white iron hardness, and as the days passed men wondered what would happen. On the rivers of England bonfires were lighted, and torch-lit dances were danced on the ice, and the young amused themselves well, and the old and the ailing shivered and died.

All that white frozen world was strangely beautiful for a while, but there were times when the utter silence, the pale sheet-like sky, unbroken by clouds, became terrible; it was as though the reign of warmth and sun were over, and that other mightly attribute of God, cold justice, reigned alone. Isaac was gone: he had taken all his small store, and, still trying to cling to hope, had gone in search of Poll Miles. He went to her old mother's old home, and there the bitter cold laid its hand upon him, and for weeks he lay between life and death. 

Joe Scott lived on in Isaac's home; he dared not go home. The villagers shook their head over his altered looks. Céleste, seeing that he no longer noticed her, turned her thoughts to another. The young horsekeeper lost all his bright smartness, his clothes were unbrushed and awry, his eyes were haggard, he never lost from his face an expression of deadly fear, and the least unexpected sound made him start like a timid child.

So weeks went by. One day Isaac Holmes came back; he crept feebly into his own door in the evening. Joe sat by the hearth, his arms on the table, his face buried upon them. Isaac touched him, but he did not move, and he heard by his breathing that he was in a profound sleep. 

Isaac would not waken the weary man, but moved silently about, untying his bundle and putting on the kettle. He was weak and tired, and looked greatly aged. It was long before Joe Scott awoke, and Isaac's heart contracted with a pang of sorrow when he saw the sudden scared look come over his face as he sprang to his feet.

"Have you found her? Tell me you have found her!"

Isaac shook his head sadly. 

"No, my poor lad, she is not there, and I have no further clue."

Joe sat down again with his hands on his knees.

"I knew it would be so," he said hoarsely. 

Isaac rose feebly and began looking for food: the young man raised himself.

"You are ill, you are worn out," he said.

"Yes, I have been hard at death's door."

"I thought you would never come home, Master Holmes What a weary long time it has been -"

"Eleven weeks to-day since the frost set in," said Isaac. 

"Master Holmes," said Joe in a low voice, "I dread more than I can say the end of the frost. I dread the secrets the earth will disclose."

"We must trust, we must pray," said Isaac.

By-and-by the old man began to get together his materials as though he would resume his old trade. 

"Leave working now, Master Holmes," said Joe gently. 

"I have no money left."

"I have enough for both; leave working, dear master, and rest."

Isaac put away his work and came back to the fire. 

"You were not wont to sleep in the daytime, Joe?" said he tenderly, looking at the young man's haggard face. 

"I have such terrible nights," he said. "I dare not go to bed until after the Christmas bells have ceased ringing."

"The Christmas bells?"

"They ring in my ears every night, and then I do not hear her mocking laugh; they are all fancies and dreams, but sometimes I think they will drive me mad."

"They will cease now that I have come home."

"Hark! Hark! What is that?" 

Outside the door came a succession of slight sounds, clinking, clanking, and a dripping as of water. Master Holmes opened the door and looked out, the sky was all overcast.

"'Tis the icicles falling," he said; "the thaw has begun," and he drew back shivering. 

Two neighbours were passing each other in the road outside; they heard their loud cheery voices.

"Whither out so late, Dame Basham?"

"I have been to beg a drop of water from Jacobs to fill the kettle."

"Ah! The Lord be praised, the icicles are falling, at last the thaw has begun."

The next day the surface of the earth was all wet, hard as stone underneath, and clouds were driving rapidly over the sky. At night a cold sleet fell, now rattling like hail, now changing into driving rain, and the next morning the world was green. Still the wells and the Canal were deep frozen. On the fourth day the rain set in steadily, and the roads became one deep mire.

Then with a loud crack the ice broke from the sides of the Canal and floated on the water. It was Sunday morning, and Joe had not yet left the house when Isaac came in from the pump, his face ashy pale, his lips quivering, and took him by both arms. 

"Joe! Joe!" he gasped, "they have found something there, there in the lake!"

The strong young man shook from head to foot. He said nothing, only drew Isaac's hand through his arm to support him, then went up the avenue. 

There were gathered some twenty or thirty people round the water's edge, one or two men knee-deep in the water with ropes, and the clang of a hatchet told that they were still breaking up the strong ice. 

One or two women came up and would have persuaded them to turn back, but Joe put them aside silently and drew his companion on.

There on the banks they stood and looked; from under the bending ice with a boat hook the men were drawing out something that had been scarlet. Joe staggered and put his hand to his brow staring wildly for what would follow.

It came at last, and from among rushes and reeds they drew out the dead maiden. Then Joe rushed forward and fell on his knees and gazed on her wildly, and with a cry which echoed for years in their hearts.

Tradition says, and it has been handed down to me, that she was all unchanged, the faint colour still in her lips, the smile she had worn when she laid down her life; the long, long dripping hair fell back into the water from her pale brow, and the weeds clung to her dress, and tangled her feet in her scarlet cloak. 

They forced him away, still staring wildly - among them they overcame his resistance, and forced him away from that sight.

There is a spot among the green lanes of Castle Vere where four cross roads meet. They call it in local parlance a road's deleet, and there in an unhallowed grave they laid her, for she had chosen death wilfully.

For a long time Joe Scott lay ill of a nervous fever, and Master Holmes nursed him tenderly. When he was sufficiently recovered in body, an intense longing seized him to escape from a place so haunted by terrible memories, so he persuaded Isaac to accompany him to another county, where he soon found employment again. 

Old Miles still lived on in Castle Vere; his daughter's fate seemed to have but a short-lived effect on his apathetic nature. Caring for no one and uncared for, he went on with his daily work. 

And there where the four roads meet was the mound of green grass which marked the last resting place of Poll Miles; and still in Castle Vere they speak of her as a witch, and at night the villagers will go a long way round to avoid passing the Road's Deleet. 
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