“Will you stay here?” Carlyon asked, making a gesture with his hand down the hill.
“I hate it,” Andrews said. “It’s ugly.”
“Why did you come up here?” Carlyon asked suddenly.
“It’s all red brick down there. And a gravel playground. Every few yards there’s something in the way. Up here there’s nothing for miles and miles.”
Carlyon nodded. “I know,” he said. “Why don’t you come with me?”
That was all that passed before the decision was made. Andrews from that moment would have followed Carlyon to the ends of the world, and yet it was Carlyon who was ridiculously impetuous and desired simply to walk away then with no more said or done. It was Andrews who insisted that Carlyon must come down to the school and make arrangements.
That night Carlyon stayed at an inn in the town and Andrews, as he said good night, asked the question he had been longing to ask all the evening. “Do you want me to come?” “Yes,” Carlyon had answered. “We both love the same things. They do not love them at this school, and my men, fine men, mind you, do not love them. We are made to be friends.”
“Made to be friends,” Andrews laughed, walking over the downs. What a mess he had made of that friendship. He wondered whether if he had the power, he would undo what he had done; have back the covert jeers, his father’s example constantly thrown up, the hated, noisy sea, the danger, but also Carlyon’s friendship, the cabin, shut out from the eyes of the crew, Carlyon speaking, Carlyon reading, Carlyon’s clear, refreshing certainty of what he followed. He had not by his act destroyed his shame nor his fear, but had increased them both, and he had lost Carlyon. And yet if he was able to return through time he must leave behind Elizabeth and this reawakened, defeated, but persistent longing to raise himself from the dirt.
Absorbed in drifting thoughts of the past an hour had fled. The day had begun and a pale crocus yellow light had absorbed the first silver. The lights in the valley had again gone out save for a few which still burned not brightly but like dull, rusty blossoms of a wild bush. Coming to a rise Andrews was startled to see the cottage below him, small, barren of light or movement. The faint sunlight was unable to pierce the trees in whose shelter the cottage lay, so that while the world was bathed in a light shower of gold, the cottage was in shadow. But to Andrews watching from the down, his heart beating with the suddenness of the sight, it lay in the deeper shadow of danger and of death. He did not know in the confusion into which his heart had been thrown, when thus unexpectedly woken from the past, whether it was fear or love that made the beats. He gazed hard at the cottage as though by intensity he might force it to declare any secrets which it might hold. No smoke came from the chimney, no light from the windows. This absence of life signified nothing, for the hour could hardly be later than seven, yet it frightened Andrews. Suppose that Carlyon and his men had already visited the cottage and that it now hid their revenge. It was useless to tell himself that Carlyon would not allow a woman to be hurt. Hake and Joe were with him. He wondered where Carlyon had left the Good Chance. If he had lost the ship his leadership was over. It seemed to Andrews that centuries had passed since he had watched, with a heart exalted as compared with now, the smoke rise from the cottage chimneys.
Very slowly he walked to the brink of the down, his eyes fixed on the cottage. There was yet another possibility to fear, that inside the cottage the smugglers were waiting for him to fall into the trap set by Cockney Harry. But was it a trap? It was his duty to warn Elizabeth, but when had he ever done anything for the sake of duty? He might in opening that cottage door find himself face to face with Carlyon, Joe, Hake, and the rest of them. He remembered the vision he had seen in the yellow candle light in Lucy’s room. He stood there in what seemed even to himself a pitiable hesitation. If only he had not fallen to that woman, he thought, how easy it would have been to have gone swinging blindly down the hill. His duty fulfilled, he would have been clean, exultant, confident of the future, confident that he had risen once and for all from his past. He returned now defeated by his body, dispirited, hopeless, to give a warning and then go. Why not abandon this attempt to be better than I am and escape now and never give the warning? I’m only beginning over again this weary, hopeless business of attempting to rise. I shall be disappointed again. Why not save myself that bitterness? The cowardly suggestion drove in on him with too great a force. If it had come quietly, insidiously, it might have won, but this brazen confident attempt defeated its own purpose. His heart rose in revolt. He half ran down the hill, careless of cover, intent only on putting it out of his power to draw back.
As he reached the edge of the trees and the cottage appeared again before him, as it had appeared on his first arrival, caution returned. His eyes on the window, he ran on tiptoe across the bare space between the coppice and wall. Pressing his body hard against the wall, as though he hoped to be absorbed into its firmness, he put one eye to the corner of the window. The room within seemed empty. Surely all was well. He took three strides along the wall to the door and
