Urith - A Tale of Dartmoor by S. Baring-Gould

Author:S. Baring-Gould [Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anboco
Published: 2017-03-07T23:00:00+00:00

He raised his head and looked away to the east, at the ridge of moor and rock, black against the glittering orb. He remembered then how he had mounted her on his horse—how he had stood by her and looked into her eyes! He recalled the strange magic that had then come over him—a longing for her, mingled with a presentiment of evil—a fear lest she were drawing him on to destruction. That fear was verified—she had lured him on to his ruin. He was a ruined man; he had lost all that he valued—the esteem of his fellows, the comforts and luxuries of life. Then began again the odious and monotonous enumeration of the sacrifices he had made.

Why did Urith remind him of that ride? Did she want to find occasion to reproach him? Was it not enough that he was scourging himself with the whips of his own thoughts for his precipitate folly in marrying her?

But Urith was not at that moment thinking of reproach. She breathed moor air, was beyond hedges and enclosures, in the open, vast, uncultivated heather-land, and there her brain had cooled, and her heart had recovered composure. The atmosphere was other than that of a ball-room, which had filled her with intoxication, and had bred phantoms that had affrighted her.

As he rode on, with the light of the rising moon on his face, Anthony felt the pressure of Urith's hand below his heart. The pressure was slight, and yet it weighed heavy on him, and interfered with his breathing; that light hand, as it rose and fell with the motion of the horse, and at each inhalation, seemed to strike reproachfully against his side, to knock, and bid him open to better thoughts.

How was it that he was so changed—that he, who had forced himself on the reluctant Urith, had not let her alone till she had yielded to his persistency to precipitate the marriage—that he should be trying to shift the blame on her? If he had made sacrifices to win her, she had not invited him to do so; he had done it with his eyes open—he had done it moved by no other influence, urged by his own caprice solely.

It had never occurred to him that Urith had made sacrifices on her part; that he had demanded them of her, and given her no rest till they were made. He had made her marry him against her conscience and wishes, too quickly after her mother's death, and against her mother's dying orders. But he considered that what was done could not be undone, that as he had made his bed, so must he lie, as he had laden himself, so he must trudge. What then was the use of repining, and fretting over the past?

"Yet—it was the Lyke Way," he said, in a low tone, "the way of death, on which we set our feet together."

"No," she said, "not altogether." She released her hand from his heart, and placed it on the arm that held the bridle.

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