The World's Great Snare by E. Phillips Oppenheim

Author:E. Phillips Oppenheim [Oppenheim, E. Phillips]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-4427-9
Publisher: F+W Media
Published: 2012-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER II

THE JUDGMENT OF FORTUNE

BRYAN left the farmyard by the gate in the ordinary way, but once in the fields, he strode along regardless of footpaths or stiles, with the set, white face of a man suddenly bereft of his senses. As a matter of fact, he was utterly without knowledge of where he was going to, but he kept his face resolutely turned towards the setting sun, and in about half an hour he had reached a slight elevation of the country from which a lonely tract of moorland rolled away to the horizon. Here he paused, and stood with tightly-clenched hands, gazing away at the far-distant line where the winter’s sun seemed sinking into the bosom of the earth. For a moment his face worked spasmodically. Then he commenced to mutter to himself, his voice deep and low, scarcely rising above a whisper.

“Curse her! How she scorns me — me, the vagabond poacher, the country yokel! No education, no — what was that word she used? — no culture! My God! how beautiful she is — so fair and stately and proud! She is like a princess. There is not another woman in the world like her! When she looks at me, I am on fire! When she scoffs at me, I go mad! Lord! what a fool I am! What a d—d fool!”

He was standing near a rude gray stone wall. He stepped forward and leaned upon it, gazing steadfastly at the long line of yellow light where the sun had gone down. A damp, gray twilight was commencing to fall, and the landscape faded away almost before his eyes. But he did not move; he was thinking. Presently he began to mutter to himself again. He was the only living creature in the midst of a great solitude, and it was a relief to let his fiery, disjointed thoughts escape him.

“A boor! I was always a boor to her! She was always an aristocrat, even before she put on the silks and satins of young ladyhood. God! how beautiful she is! Curse her beauty! Curse her pride! How her bitter words send the hot blood racing through my veins to my heart! Oh, my God! if it were possible — if it were only possible to hold her in my arms but for a little while — and die! Ay, it would be worth dying for!”

The light of his great desire gleamed out of his eyes, lit up his bronzed face, and even showed itself in that sudden yearning movement, and outstretching of his hands towards the gray rolling mists amongst which, in fancy, he had seen for a moment, the face of this fair, proud girl. Perhaps at that moment, more than at any previous time in his life, he tasted alike the bitterest and the sweetest depths of his passion. It had come to him on the threshold of manhood, had become an indissoluble part of his sensations, a part of the man himself. He was the boor who loved a princess.

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