Chapter XIII A Sound of Suffering
Stapledon slept well, and, awakening with the light, found himself strengthened and refreshed. The stiffness consequent on a hard bed soon passed as he rose, stretched himself, strode sharply here and there to restore circulation, and drank of the morning air. Sunlight warmed him, and his thoughts turned homeward. He thought first of descending to Two Bridges and the hospitality that would there await him; but the day was so brilliant after the storm, and in his waking mood he felt so well furnished with strength, that he abandoned this project and determined to tramp back to Little Silver. He tightened his belt on his empty stomach, lighted a pipe, and set his face for home. It was nearly seven o’clock when he started, and, allowing for all reasonable interruptions of progress—incidents inevitable after the storm—he believed that it would be possible to make the shepherd’s cot at Teign Head under Watern Tor long before midday.
His road of the previous evening he found quite impassable, and it was nearly nine o’clock before he fairly escaped from the labyrinth of deep waters and greedy bog now spread about Fur Tor. The task of return indeed proved far more difficult than he had anticipated, for the present harmonious contentment of his mind, despite hunger, induced an optimism rare enough in Myles at any time. But experience came to his aid, and he set to work soberly to save his strength for a toilsome journey.
It is unnecessary to describe the many turnings of a tortuous way followed at mercy of the unloosened waters. Chance ultimately willed the man to Watern—a craggy fastness familiar enough to him, yet somewhat removed out of the direct course he had planned. But Teign’s birthplace was overflowing, and, to avoid morasses beneath Sittaford, he had tended northerly and so found himself not far from the tremendous and stratified granite ledges that approach the magnitude of cliffs on Watern’s crown.
Weary enough by this time, and surprised to find himself somewhat weakened from unusual exertions and lack of food, Myles paused to rest a little while on the northern side of the crags. Here was grateful shadow, and he reposed in the damp rushes, and felt his heart weary and his head aching. His dog similarly showed weariness, but knew the horizon-line easterly hid Bear Down, and marvelled why the master should call this halt, within three miles of home.
Then, pleasantly conscious that the worst of his difficult enterprise was over, Myles Stapledon suddenly heard a sound of suffering. There fell upon his ear reiterated and hollow meanings, that might be expressions of pain from man or beast. Some creature in an extremity of physical grief was certainly near at hand; so he rose hastily, that he might minister to the tortured thing, while his dog barked and ran before him.
And here it is necessary to leave the man for a period of brief hours, for ancillary matters now merge into our main theme at this—the climax of the record.