HOPELESS.
BETWEEN Killalochie and Halko’s Head the road was of the loneliest.
On his morning journey Eustace Thorburn had encountered about three
people, sturdy mountaineers, who gave him friendly greeting as they
passed him. For the first few miles of his return he met no one; and
when he seated himself to rest on a rough block of stone near the
junction of two roads, the wide expanse of land and sea which the spot
commanded was as solitary as if he had been the first man, and the
world newly-created for his habitation.
It is not to be supposed that even on this day every thought of Helen
de Bergerac had been banished from the wanderer’s mind. He had too
long and too habitually indulged himself with tender memories of the
pleasant hours they had spent together. Thoughts of her were interwoven
with all other thoughts and all other memories.
Upon that lonely road he had found ample leisure for meditation; and
now, as he sat alone amidst the solitary grandeur of that mountain
district, it was of Helen and of the future he thought. Nor were his
meditations hopeful. Alone, nameless, his task well-nigh finished for
the one kindly patron whom fortune had sent him, with nothing but a
manuscript poem and a publisher’s half-promise between him and poverty,
was he a fitting suitor for Theodore de Bergerac’s only daughter?
By what right could he demand her father’s confidence? What promise
could he make? what hopes advance? None. To sum up his best claim, his
brightest aspiration, would be only to say, “Sometimes, when the demon
of self-doubt ceases for the moment to torment me, I believe I am a
poet. Of my chances of winning the world to believe as much, I know
nothing. Assured income in the present or expectation in the future, I
have none.”
He considered his position with a gloomy hopelessness that was almost
despair. What could he do but despair? He knew that his patron liked
him; nay, indeed, had honoured him with a warm regard; but would that
regard stand him in good stead should he presume to offer himself as
a husband for his patron’s only daughter? Mr. Jerningham’s influence
would, he knew, be exercised against him, since, for some mysterious
reason, that gentleman had chosen to regard him with a malignant eye.
And he knew that Mr. Jerningham’s counsel would not be disregarded by
his old friend.
“No; there is no ray of hope on the dark horizon of my life,” thought
the young man. “Better for me that I should never see Helen again.”
The sound of carriage-wheels startled him from his reverie. He looked
up, and saw a landau and pair approaching him by the cross-road. The
apparition of such an equipage in that rugged district surprised him.
He stood up and looked at the advancing carriage, and in the same
moment recognized its occupants.
They were M. de Bergerac, his daughter, and Mr. Jerningham.
The Frenchman was quick to recognize his secretary.
“_Holà!_ Stop, then!” he cried to the coachman; and then to
Eustace, “Come hither, young wanderer. To see the ghost of the
Chevalier--your hapless Charles Edward--standing by that stone, would
not more have surprised me. Jump in, then. There is no objection to his
taking the fourth place, I suppose, Harold?”
Mr. Jerningham bowed, with an air which implied that, upon a subject so
utterly indifferent to him as the secretary’s movements, he could have
no opinion but that of his friend.
“Why, how bewildered you look, Eustace!” exclaimed M. de Bergerac, as
the young man took his place in the carriage with the manner of a
sleep-walker. “And yet you must have expected to see us. You followed
me down here with your papers. What foolish devotion!--Tell your man to
drive on, Harold.”
Eustace had recovered himself a little by this time, and had shaken
hands with Helen, whose too expressive face betrayed an emotion no
less profound than his own. Nor were those eloquent glances lost upon
Mr. Jerningham, who watched the young people closely, from beneath
thoughtful brows.
“And so you thought your French documents worth a pilgrimage to
Scotland?” said M. de Bergerac.
“No, indeed, sir. This meeting is only a happy accident for me. I knew
you were in Scotland. They told me as much in Greenlands; but they
could tell me no more.”
“But in that case, what brings you here?” cried the Frenchman.
“I am here with my uncle--on business.”
“On business!” exclaimed M. de Bergerac, looking at his secretary, in
amazement.
Harold Jerningham also regarded the young man, with a new sharpness of
scrutiny.
“On business!” repeated M. de Bergerac. “But what business could
possibly bring you into these remote wilds?--to the utmost limits of
your civilization.”
“Perhaps it can scarcely be called business,” replied Eustace. “It
would be nearer the mark to call it a voyage of discovery. I came from
Paris when my work was done, and found Greenlands deserted. My time was
my own, awaiting your return. My uncle and I had a fancy for a holiday,
and we came here.”
“It is, at least, a remarkable coincidence.”
“Very remarkable,” said Mr. Jerningham, with a suspicious look.
He was not inclined to regard the meeting as a coincidence. The young
adventurer had, no doubt, been informed as to their whereabouts, and
had followed them. And yet of their _precise_ whereabouts he could
not have been informed, for beyond the border of Aberdeenshire neither
Mr. Jerningham’s steward nor any one else had been apprised of their
movements.
“Unless there were secret communications between Helen and him,”
thought Harold Jerningham. And this seemed utterly impossible. To
suspect Helen--to suspect the girl whom he had learned to adore as the
very type of all feminine excellence, the incarnate ideal of womanly
innocence! Great heaven, to discover deceit _there_!
“It would be a fitting end to my career,” he thought, bitterly.
“Your uncle is travelling with you, then?” said M. de Bergerac.
“Yes; he is now at the inn yonder, at Killalochie, where I must rejoin
him; so I must ask you not to take me too far off the right road.”
“But is it imperative that you rejoin him to-day? Do you think I am not
eager to question you about the work you have done for me in Paris? Can
you not dine with us? Mr. Jerningham will, I know, be charmed to have
you.” That gentleman bowed an icy assent. “Can’t you spare us this
evening?”
To refuse this invitation Eustace Thorburn must have been something
more than mortal. Happily for his honour he had told his uncle that it
was just possible he might find his explorations at Halko’s Head too
much for one day’s work, and might sleep at that village. He was thus
free.
“We dine and sleep at a village ten miles from here,” said M. de
Bergerac. “The people of the inn can give you a bed, no doubt; and you
can get back to Killalochie to-morrow.”
Eustace accepted the invitation, and was then favoured with some
account of his employer’s wanderings.
“We have rested nowhere, but have seen everything worth seeing between
the Tweed and these mountains,” said M. de Bergerac. “I begin to think
that Jerningham is the original Wandering Jew. He knows everything,
every trace of Pictish camp, and every relic of the early convents,
from St. Columba to St. Margaret. There is a cave on this coast
which we are to see before we leave the neighbourhood; a cave cut in
the face of the cliff, with outer and inner chamber, in which one of
the Scottish saints spent the evening of his pious days, among the
sea-gulls.”
“Yes; I heard of that cave at Halko’s Head,” said Eustace.
“You have been to Halko’s Head?” asked Mr. Jerningham.
“I was returning from that place when your carriage picked me up.”
“Why do we not go to Halko’s Head, if it is worth seeing?” asked M. de
Bergerac.
“It is not worth seeing. A mere handful of fishermen’s cottages, on a
craggy headland;” replied Mr. Jerningham.
“And yet Mr. Thorburn goes there?”
“I cannot help Mr. Thorburn’s bad taste; but we can drive to Halko’s
Head to-morrow, if you please. I told you, when we came into this part
of the country, that there was little calculated to interest any one
but a sportsman.”
“But I was determined to see Aberdeenshire,” replied M. de Bergerac,
with playful insistence. “Why not Aberdeenshire? Why should we explore
all other shires of Scotland, and neglect Aberdeenshire? I had read of
the Cairn-gorm mountains, and wanted to behold them.”
“You know Halko’s Head, Mr. Jerningham?” said Eustace, thoughtfully.
“I know every inch of Scotland.”
“Did you know Halko’s Head four-and-twenty years ago?”
For some reason the question startled Harold Jerningham more than he
was wont to be moved for any insignificant cause.
“No,” he answered, shortly. “But what motive had you for such a
question?”
“I want to find some one who knew that place four-and-twenty years ago.”
“Why?”
“Because a person very dear to me was living there at that time.”
“An insufficient reason for such curiosity about the place, I should
think,” replied Mr. Jerningham, coldly. “But you are a poet, Mr.
Thorburn, and are not bound by the laws of reason.”
Helen interposed here, and began to question Eustace about his Parisian
experiences. She had felt that Mr. Jerningham’s tone was unfriendly,
and was eager to turn the current of the conversation.
The two young people talked together during the rest of the drive, and
Mr. Jerningham listened and looked on. He had fancied himself gaining
ground rapidly during this northern tour; and now it seemed to him all
at once as if he had gained no ground, as if he were no nearer to the
one dear object of his desires. What delight these two seemed to find
in their frivolous discourse! To listen and look on,--was that to be
his lot for the rest of his weary days?
“O God, am I an old man?” he asked himself, with passionate
self-abasement.
The consciousness that his days of hope and pride are over,--the
wretched revelation that for him there are to be no more roses, no
more spring-time, no more of the brightness and glory of life,--will
come upon a man suddenly like this, in brief, bitter gusts, like the
breath of an east wind blowing in the face of midsummer.
M. de Bergerac had watched his old friend and his daughter with
pleasure during this Scottish tour. It seemed to him also as if Harold
Jerningham was gaining ground, and it pleased him that it should be so.
To him the master of Greenlands appeared no ineligible suitor, for of
the darker side of his friend’s life and character he knew nothing.
The ten miles’ drive upon a very indifferent road, uphill and downhill,
occupied more than two hours, and it was seven o’clock when the
carriage entered the little town where the travellers were to dine. At
the inn all was prepared for them. They dined in a room commanding a
noble view of the sea, and having a half-glass door which opened on a
rude kind of terrace-walk.
Here M. de Bergerac and his secretary strolled after dinner, talking of
Oriental manuscripts in the spring moonlight, while Harold Jerningham
and Helen played chess, upon a little board which the travellers
carried, in the room within.
“And when we return to Greenlands, which we are to do in a week, shall
I find you at your post?” asked M. de Bergerac, kindly. “A great deal
of work remains to be done before my first two volumes will be ready
for publication. Jerningham strongly recommends my publishing the first
two volumes as soon as they are ready. We shall have plenty to do in
giving them the final polish. Much that I have now in the form of notes
must be interwoven with the text. The frivolous reader recoils from
small type. You are not tired of your work, I hope?”
On this Eustace spoke. He felt that the time had come, and that he dare
not longer keep silence.
“Tired of my work! Oh, if you knew how delightful my service has been
to me!” he exclaimed; and then in the next breath added, “but I fear I
shall never again inhabit Greenlands.”
And then he made full confession of his offence. He told how this mad
folly had grown upon him in the happy days of the previous year.
“I was counting my chances as you drove up to me to-day,” he said,
“little thinking I was so soon to see your daughter’s sweet face. I was
fighting with despair as I sat by the mountain-road. Speak plainly,
dear sir, you cannot say harder things to me than I have said to
myself.”
“Why should I say anything hard? It is no sin to love my daughter.
I ought to have known that it was impossible to live near her, and
refrain from loving her. But do not talk to me of despair. What is a
young man’s love but a fancy which is blown to the end of the earth
by the first blast of Fame’s mighty trumpet. My dear young friend,
I am not afraid that you will break your heart, or, at least, that
the heart-break will kill you. I broke my heart at your age. It is an
affair of six weeks; and for a poet a broken heart is inspiration.”
“Oh, sir, for God’s sake, do not trifle with me!”
“My dear friend, I am telling you the truth, I thank you for your
candour, and in return will be as candid. I admire and love you, almost
as I could have loved a son. If you could give my daughter a secure
position--a safe and certain home, however unpretending--I would be
the last to oppose your suit. But you cannot do this. You are young,
hopeful, ambitious. The world--as your poet says--is your oyster, which
with your sword you’ll open. But the oyster is sometimes impenetrable.
I have seen the brightest swords blunted. I am an old man and an exile;
my sole possession in the form of _rentes viagères_. You would
promise my child a home in the future. I cannot wait for the future. I
am an old man, and I must see my darling provided with a safe shelter
before I die, so that, when death crosses my threshold, I may be able
to say, ‘Welcome, inevitable guest. The play is finished. _Vale et
plaudite._”
“God grant you may live to see your grandchildren’s children.”
“I will not gainsay your prayer. But when it is a question of
grandchildren, a man is bound to be doubly circumspect. What is the
meaning of an imprudent marriage, of which the world talks so lightly?
It is not my daughter only whom I doom to care and poverty, but how
many unborn innocents do I devote to misfortune? Forgive me if, upon
this subject, I seem hard and worldly. I would do much to prove my
regard for you; but my child’s future is the one thing that I cannot
afford to hazard.”
“You are all goodness, sir,” replied Eustace, with the gentle gravity
of resignation. “I scarcely hoped for a more favourable sentence.”
He said no more. He had, indeed, cherished little hope; but the
agony of this utter despair was none the less acute. M. de Bergerac
compassionated this natural sorrow, and was conscious that he was in
some wise to blame for having brought the two young people together.
“If she, too, should suffer!” he thought. “I have seen her interest in
this young man--her regret when he left us. Great heaven! how am I to
choose wisely for the child I love so well?”
He looked to the window of the room where Harold Jerningham and Helen
sat together in the dim light of two candles. The man’s patrician
face and the girl’s fresh young beauty made a charming picture. M.
de Bergerac had no sense of incongruity in the union of these two.
The accomplishments and graces of middle age harmonized well with the
innocent beauty of youth, and it seemed to him a fitting thing that
these two should marry.
“Not for worlds would I sacrifice her to a father’s ambition,” he said
to himself; “but to see her mistress of Greenlands, to know that her
life would be sheltered from all the storms of fate, would comfort me
in the hour of parting.”
Eustace bade his patron good-night presently, making some lame excuse
for not returning to the sitting-room. In vain did the kindly Frenchman
essay to comfort him in this bitter hour.
“I thank you a thousand times for your goodness to me on this and every
other occasion,” the young man said, as they shook hands. “Believe me,
I am grateful. I shall be proud and happy to go on working for you in
London, if you will allow me; but I cannot return to Greenlands--I
cannot see your daughter again.”
“No, it is better not. Ah, if you only knew how short-lived these
sorrows are!”
“I cannot believe that mine will be short-lived. But I do not want to
complain. Once more, good night, and God bless you! I shall leave this
place at daybreak to-morrow.”
“And when shall you return to London?”
“That will rest with my uncle. I will write to you at Greenlands
directly I do return. Good night, sir.”
“Good night, and God bless you!”
Thus they parted. Eustace did not go back to the house immediately,
but wandered out into the little town, and thence to the open country,
where he indulged his grief in solitude. It was late when he went back
to the inn, and made his way stealthily to the humble garret-chamber
which had been allotted to him.
Here he lay, sleepless, till the cock’s hoarse crow blent shrilly
with the thunderous roll of the waves. At the first faint streak of
daylight he rose, dressed, and went softly down stairs, where he
found a bare-footed servant-girl opening the doors of the house. By
one of these open doors he departed unobserved, while the bare-footed
damsel was sweeping in some mysterious locality which she called
“Ben.” The morning was dull and drizzling; but what recks despair of
such small inconveniences? The young man set out on his lonely walk,
breakfastless and hopeless, scarce knowing where his steps led him.
After walking about a mile, he took the trouble to inquire his
whereabouts from the first person he encountered, who informed him that
he was fifteen miles from Killalochie, and fourteen from Halko’s Head.
On this he determined to walk to Halko’s Head. He wanted to see that
place once more, and to visit the little classic temple on the cliff,
which on the previous day he had omitted to examine. He was in no
humour for even his uncle’s society, and dreaded a return to the little
inn at Killalochie, where genial Dan would question him about his
adventures, and where he must perhaps reveal his disappointment, if
that could be called a disappointment which had annihilated so frail a
hope.
“A day’s solitude will do me good,” he thought, as he turned his face
towards Halko’s Head. “I can get back to Killalochie by nightfall,
before my uncle can alarm himself about my absence.”
The walk occupied some hours, and when the traveller entered the little
fishing village nature asserted itself in spite of despair, and he was
fain to order breakfast at the humble hostelry where he had lunched the
day before.
The same woman waited upon him: she was the mistress of the house, and
again he questioned her about the lady and gentleman who occupied Lord
Pendarvoch’s house four-and-twenty years ago; but she could tell him
no more to-day than yesterday. No new facts had returned to her memory
during the interval.
As Eustace Thorburn sat alone after this unprofitable conversation,
the first anguish of despair yielded to the sweet whispers of hope.
Was his case indeed utterly hopeless? M. de Bergerac asked security
for the future. That he could not now offer; but if his poem should
win recognition, the pathway of literary success would be opened to
him, and on his industry and perseverance alone would depend his speedy
achievement of a secure position in the world of letters. Such an
income as his Uncle Daniel earned with ease, and squandered with even
greater facility, would support a home which M. de Bergerac’s simple
taste would not despise.
“Why should I not win her as fair a home as she has at Greenlands,” he
said, “and if she loves me she will wait. Ah, if I had only seen her,
if I had but told her how devotedly she is loved!”
And then he reproached himself for his precipitancy. In his desire to
act honourably, he had played too much the part of a little boy who
asks a boon of his schoolmaster. He had at least the right to plead his
own cause with Helen de Bergerac.
He told himself that if his poem should be a success, he could go to
Greenlands once more to entreat permission to speak to his divinity.
Armed with the talisman of success, he could ask as much. And then he
thought of Helen’s youth. What might he not achieve in a few years?
He remembered what his uncle had said to him--“If her love is worth
winning, she will wait.”
He took a manuscript volume from his pocket, and turned the leaves
thoughtfully. It was the fair copy of his _magnum opus_, which he
had brought with him on this journey for leisurely revision, but on
which he had as yet worked little. From these manuscript pages he tried
to obtain comfort. If the world would only listen! He measured his
strength against the minor poets of his day. Surely there was something
in these verses that should win him a place among the younger singers.
He left the inn by and by, and walked slowly along the cliff to the
little classic temple. The April day had brightened, and the sun shone
upon the waves, though there were ugly black clouds to windward.
The temple on the cliff could tell him nothing. But it was the scene
of his mother’s loneliest hours, and he contemplated it with a tender
interest. The mountain weeds--such wild flowers as flourish in the
breath of the sea, had clustered thickly round the bases of the slim
Ionian pillars; gray moss and lichen defaced the marble, white as it
looked from the distance. Eustace seated himself on the crumbling
stone bench, and lingered for some time, looking out over the sea, and
thinking now of his mother, now of Helen de Bergerac, anon of that
unknown father whose sin had made him nameless.
From this long reverie he was disturbed by the soft thud of hoofs upon
the short turf, and looking landwards, he saw a horseman trotting
towards the temple. Within a few yards of the spot he dismounted,
and came to the temple, leading his horse. Before this Eustace had
recognized Mr. Jerningham, the man who had surprised him reading
_The Disappointments of Dion_, the man who bore some resemblance
to himself, and must therefore resemble his father--the man who, by a
series of coincidences, seemed involved in that mystery of the past
which he was so eager to penetrate.
If Mr. Jerningham’s appearance here was surprising to Eustace, the
presence of Eustace at this spot seemed no less astounding to Mr.
Jerningham.
“They told me you had returned to Killalochie,” he said.
“No; I wanted to see this place before I left this part of Scotland.”
“I cannot imagine what interest you can possibly have in a spot so
remote.”
“The interest of association,” Eustace answered. “But have I not as
much reason to wonder what should bring you here, Mr. Jerningham?”
“That question is easily answered. A proprietor is generally anxious to
examine his newly acquired possessions. This summer-house comes to me
with the rest of my kinsman Pendarvoch’s property.”
“Lord Pendarvoch was related to you!” exclaimed Eustace.
“He was.”
“Strange!”
“What is there so strange in such a relationship?”
“Nothing strange except to me. It is only one more in a sequence of
coincidences which concern me alone. I came to this part of Scotland
to discover a secret of the past, Mr. Jerningham, and perhaps you can
help me to penetrate that mystery. Four-and-twenty years ago, Lord
Pendarvoch lent his shooting-box yonder to a gentleman whose name
I want to know. Can you tell me if I shall find any old servant at
Pendarvoch likely to be able to answer this question for me, or do you
yourself know enough of your kinsman’s friends at that period, as to be
able to give me the information I seek.”
To these inquiries Mr. Jerningham had listened gravely, with his face
somewhat averted from the speaker.
“No,” he replied, coldly, “I knew very few of Pendarvoch’s friends. I
cannot help you to identify the person who may have borrowed his house
a quarter of a century ago. Every man makes a _tabula rasa_ of
his memory half a dozen times within such a period. Existence would be
unbearable if our memories wore so well as you seem to suppose they
do. As to my cousin’s old servants, they are all dead or imbecile. If
you want information, you may spare yourself the trouble of going to
Pendarvoch, and question these marble columns. They will tell you as
much as the Pendarvoch servants.”
“Do not think me obstinate if I put that to the test. I have determined
not to leave a stone unturned.”
“I cannot understand your eagerness to pry into the secrets of the
past. I begin to fancy you are hunting some lost estate--perhaps
plotting to dispossess me.”
“No, Mr. Jerningham, it is not an estate I am hunting; it is a lost
name.”
“You appear to delight in enigmas. I do not.”
“I will not bore you with any further talk of my affairs. And this
temple is yours, Mr. Jerningham. I may never see it again. Forgive me
if I ask you not to pull it down. Let it stand. For me it is sacred as
a tomb.”
Harold Jerningham stared aghast at the speaker. A question rose to his
lips, but his voice failed him, and it remained unspoken. He stood
pale, breathless, watching the young man as he bent his knee upon one
of the steps of the temple, and gathered a handful of the wild flowers
that clustered about the stone.
“Your friends and I are to dine at Killalochie,” he said, presently,
while Eustace’s head was still bent over the flowers; “we both return
by the same road, I suppose?”
“I think not; the tide is low, and I have set my heart upon going back
by the sands.”
“Do you think it quite safe to venture?”
“I should imagine so. At Halko’s Head they told me the way was safe at
low tide.”
“But are you sure the tide is on the ebb?”
“It looks like it.”
“I would warn you to be cautious. The tide upon this part of the coast
is dangerous, at least I have heard people say as much.”
“I am not afraid,” answered Eustace, with some touch of bitterness. “A
man whose life is hardly worth keeping may defy fortune.”
“Life at five-and-twenty is always worth keeping. Take my advice, Mr.
Thorburn, and ask advice from the fisher-folk before you set out on
your walk.”
“Thanks; you are very good; I will take your advice. And M. de Bergerac
and his daughter are to dine at the Killalochie Inn, where I am pledged
to rejoin my uncle to-day. I did not think I should see them again
before I left Scotland.”
After this, Eustace Thorburn bade Mr. Jerningham good morning, and
departed in the direction of that rough flight of steps known as “The
Devil’s Staircase.” Harold Jerningham tied his horse’s bridle to one of
the marble columns, and paced to and fro upon the short grass, darkly
meditative.
“What does it mean?” he asked himself, “this young man’s appearance
at this spot--his searching inquiries about the people who occupied
Pendarvoch’s house four-and-twenty years ago? The very time! A spot so
remote, so rarely visited--a house so seldom inhabited! Can he be any
relation of--_hers_? A nephew, perhaps. And yet, is that likely?
Her father and mother died more than twenty years ago. Who should
have set this man upon the track? And he gathered those wild flowers,
and put them in his breast, with the air of a man whose associations
with the spot were of the closest and most tender. And in Berkshire
I came upon him reading _that_ book--that wretched record of
heartlessness and folly. Yes, it is the spot. When I last stood here I
was young and beloved. I, who now hang upon the looks of a girl less
lovely than she who gave me a kind of worship. Nothing that I possess,
nothing that I can do, will win me such a love as that I spurned. O
God! the bitterness of late remorse! I let her go, broken-hearted,
and I know not how long she lived or how she died. I cannot think a
creature so tender could long survive sorrow and ignominy, such as
I made her suffer. Here we have sat side by side, and I have grown
weary of her company. If she could arise before me now--pale, faded,
in rags--I would fall upon my knees before her, and claim her as my
redeeming angel. ‘Welcome back, sweet spirit!’ I would cry. ‘In all
these years I have sought for happiness, and found none so pure and
perfect as that you offered me. In all these years I have sought the
love of women, and have never been loved as you loved me.’”
Alas! that the dead cannot return! To her whose fate had been so
dreary, what warm welcome, what atoning tears, might have been given if
she could have come to claim them! A cold gust of wind swept along the
cliff as Mr. Jerningham invoked the departed spirit. It seemed to him
like a breath from the grave.
“She is dead,” he said to himself; “I call her in vain.”
He, too, stooped to gather a few of the yellow hill-flowers, and put
them in his breast. Then, after one long, mournful look at the deserted
summer-house, he mounted his horse, and rode slowly to the dilapidated
shooting-box which had come to him with the rest of his kinsman’s
estate. At the gate of this humble domain he dismounted again, and
left his horse cropping the rank grass in the neglected garden, while
he made his way into the house, very much after the manner in which
Eustace Thorburn had penetrated it upon the previous day.
He walked quickly through the rooms, and left the house hurriedly. To
him the gloom of the dust-whitened chambers was almost intolerable.
“Why do I grope among dry bones and dead men’s skulls?” he asked
himself. “Can any man afford to retrace his steps over the ground he
trod in his youth? Shall I, above all men, dare the phantoms of the
Past?”
He mounted his horse, and rode away without a glance behind him, as
if he had, indeed, encountered some ghostly presence in that empty
dwelling-place.
“I will have it rased to the ground next week,” he said to himself.
“Why should it stand for ever as a monument of my faults and follies?
And that young man, de Bergerac’s _protégé_, entreated me to spare
the summer-house yonder, because it is sacred to him! To him? What
should make it sacred in his eyes? What connexion can he have with
_that_ dark story! And they say he is like me--indeed, I have
myself perceived the resemblance. I will question him closely to-night
at Killalochie.”
At Halko’s Head Mr. Jerningham stopped to refresh his horse, and
ordered refreshment for himself, for the benefit of the humble hostelry
where he stopped. Here he dawdled away an hour and a half very
drearily, for the repose of his steed. The weather had changed for
the worse when he emerged from the little inn. Ominous black clouds
obscured the horizon, and a shrill east wind whistled across the
barren hills. Looking seaward from the lofty headland, Mr. Jerningham
saw that the tide had risen considerably since he had last looked at
the sands.
“When did the tide turn, my man?” he asked, of the lad who brought him
his horse.
“Above two hours ago, sir.”
“Two hours ago! It was turning then when Thorburn went down to the
sands,” thought Mr. Jerningham. And then he again questioned the boy:
“I suppose any one setting off by the sands for Killalochie at turn of
tide would get there safely?” he asked.
The boy shook his head with a doubtful grin.
“I dinna ken, sir. Folks fra’ Halko’s Head mun start when the tide
wants an hour o’ turning, if they’d get to Killalochie dry-shod.”
“Great heaven!” cried Harold Jerningham, “and that young man is a
stranger to the coast.”
He left his horse in the care of the lad, and went to consult a little
group of idle fishermen congregated before one of the cottages. From
these men he received the most dismal confirmation of his fears. The
walk from Halko’s Head to Killalochie could not be done between the
turning of the tide and its full. Between the two places there was no
way of getting from the sands to the cliffs, or only points so perilous
and difficult of ascent, as to be impossible to any but the hardiest
samphire-gatherer, or boldest hunter of eaglets, bred on those rough
coasts. What was just possible for a Highland fisherman, would be, of
course, impossible to a literary Londoner.
“Do you tell me that the distance cannot be walked in the time?” asked
Mr. Jerningham, desperately.
The answer was decisive. Captain Barclay himself could not have walked
from Halko’s Head to Killalochie within the given period. The hardiest
of these villagers were careful, at this time of year, to start an hour
before the turn of the tide. The more cautious among these good folks
left Halko’s Head as soon as the ebbing waves left a dry path upon the
sand.
“Then he is doomed!” Mr. Jerningham said to himself. “But what is his
doom to me? I am not his keeper.”
He did his uttermost, however, towards the rescue of the unwary
pedestrian from the peril he had tempted. To the fishermen he offered a
noble reward should they succeed in saving the imprudent stranger. The
men ran to their boats, and in five minutes had pushed off, and were
making all the way they could against a heavy sea. But those who stayed
behind told Mr. Jerningham that the chances were against the boats
overtaking the pedestrian, if he were anything of a walker. They told
him there was a stiff wind blowing from the land, and it was as much as
the rowers could do to make any way against it. This, indeed, he could
see for himself, and those dark clouds in the windward quarter boded
ill. Mr. Jerningham lingered for some time, talking with the two men
who had stayed on shore. He questioned them closely as to the measures
to be taken for the rescue of the stranger; and they assured him that
in sending the boats he had done all that mortal aid could do.
With this assurance he was obliged to be satisfied. What could it
matter to him whether Eustace Thorburn lived or died; or would not the
young man’s untimely end be for his advantage? He had seen, the day
before, only too plainly, that all his patient devotion, his watchful
anxiety to please her, had not made him as dear to Helen de Bergerac
as this hired secretary had become without an effort. And all the old
envy, and the old anger had returned to Harold Jerningham’s breast as
he made this discovery.
“Will she lament his death?” he asked himself, “or is her love for
him only a girlish fancy, that will perish with its object. She
seemed tolerably happy in his absence, and I hoped she had completely
forgotten him, and was learning to love me. Why should I not win her
love? And he comes back, and in the first moment of his return I
discover that I have been building on sand. The divine attraction of
youth is with my rival, and all my dreams and all my hopes are so much
foolishness and self-delusion.”
This is what Mr. Jerningham thought as he rode across the barren
hills towards Killalochie, whither he went as fast as his horse could
carry him, but not faster than the dark storm-clouds which overtook
him half-way, and drenched him with heavy rain. The sky grew black as
Erebus, and looking seaward every now and then, he saw the breakers
leap and whiten as they rolled in.
That common humanity which prompts a man to help his direst foe in
extreme peril, made Mr. Jerningham eager to reach Killalochie. There,
perhaps, he might find he had been deceived by the gloomy presages of
the fishermen, or thence he might send other means to help the missing
traveller. He rode up to the little inn an hour after leaving Halko’s
Head. M. de Bergerac and his daughter had arrived some time before, and
Mr. Jerningham was informed that dinner would be served immediately.
“Put it off for a quarter of an hour,” he said to the servant, “and do
not let my friend or his daughter know of my arrival. I want to see the
landlord on most urgent business.”
The landlord was in the bar, talking to a portly, middle-aged
gentleman, who was lounging against an angle of the wall, smoking a
cigar.
“I really wish my nephew were safe in this house,” said this person,
“for I think we are in for a rough night.”
Mr. Jerningham told the landlord of his fears, and asked whether the
walk from Halko’s Head to Killalochie by the sands were indeed as
perilous as it had been represented by the fisherman.
The landlord confirmed all he had heard.
“Is there anything to be done?” cried Mr. Jerningham; “a gentleman,
whom I met at Halko’s Head, set out to walk here at the turn of the
tide. I sent boats after him, but the men seemed to fear the result.”
“From Halko’s Head,” exclaimed the lounger, taking his cigar from his
mouth, and staring aghast at Harold Jerningham. “I expect my nephew
from Halko’s Head. Do you know the name of the man you met there?”
“He is my friend’s secretary, Mr. Thorburn.”
“O God,” cried Daniel, “it’s my boy!”
For a few moments he leant against the wall, helpless, and white as
death. In the next instant he called upon them hoarsely to help him, to
follow him, and ran bare-headed from the house.
“Who is that man?” asked Mr. Jerningham.
“He’s fra the south, sir; Mayfield by name.”
“Mayfield!” muttered the questioner. “Of _her_ blood.”
Daniel Mayfield came back to the inn. “Is no one going to help me?” he
cried. “Are you going to let my sister’s son perish, and not stir a
foot to save him?”
The landlord caught Daniel’s strong arm in his own muscular grip.
“You joost keep y’rsel quiet,” he said. “It’s no guid to fash y’rsel.
Whatever mon can dee, I’ll dee. It is’na runnin’ wild in the street
as’ll save y’r nevy. I ken the place, and I ken what to be doin’. Leave
it to me.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Jerningham, huskily; “you can do nothing. Let the good
man manage things his own way. And mind, my friend, I will guarantee
fifty pounds to the man who saves Eustace Thorburn. I want to speak
to you, Mr. Mayfield. Come in here.” He opened the door of a little
sitting-room, and would have led Daniel in; but Daniel shook off his
grasp roughly.
“Do you think I can talk of anything while _his_ life is in
peril?” he cried.
“Yes, you can--you must talk of _him_. I tell you that your help
is not wanted. You can do nothing. The men, who know the coast, will do
their utmost. Come! I must and will be answered.”
He half led, half dragged, Daniel Mayfield into the little room. The
journalist was much the stronger man of the two, but at this moment he
was helpless as a child.
“Your name is Mayfield? You do not know what feelings _that_ name
awakens in my mind, heard in this place, and after my meeting that
young man where I did meet him this morning. For God’s sake tell me if
you are in any way related to a Mr. Mayfield who----”
“My father kept a circulating library at Bayham,” answered Daniel, with
angry abruptness. “I am a journalist, and get my bread by scribbling
for newspapers and reviews.”
“And that young man--Eustace Thorburn--is your sister’s son? You must
have had more than one sister?”
“No, I had but one.”
“And she is dead?”
“She is.”
“And this young man--Eustace Thorburn--is the son of your sister, Mrs.
Thorburn?”
“He is the son of my only sister, Celia Mayfield.”
“His father--Mr. Thorburn--is dead, I suppose?”
“I can answer no questions about his father,” answered Daniel, sternly;
“nor do I care to be catechized in this manner at such a time.”
“Pardon me. Your name has painful associations for me, and I thought it
possible you might be related to----One question more, and I have done.
In what year was your nephew born?”
“He was born on the 14th November, 1844.”
“Then he is not twenty-four years of age. You are quite sure of the
date?”
“I am; and if you care to verify it, you may find the registry of his
baptism in St. Ann’s Church, Soho.”
“Thanks. That is all I have to ask. Forgive me if I seem impertinent.
And now let us go to the jetty together; and God grant this young man
may come back to us in safety.”
Daniel uttered no pious aspiration. There are terrors too profound for
words--periods of anguish in which a man cannot even pray. He followed
Harold Jerningham out of the house, both men pale as death, and with
an awful quiet fallen upon them. They went silently down to the little
wooden jetty where the fishing boats were moored.
The tide was at the flood, the rain driving against their pale,
awe-stricken faces, the waters leaping and plunging against the timbers
of the jetty. Nothing could be more hopeless than the outlook.
The landlord of the inn was there. He had sent off a boat’s crew in
search of the missing stranger.
“How do we know that he has not returned by some other way?” asked Mr.
Jerningham; while Daniel Mayfield stood, statue-like, staring seaward.
The men pointed significantly to the perpendicular cliffs on each side
of the jetty. The only cleft in these grim barriers, for miles along
the coast, was that opening in which the little harbour and jetty had
been made. Only by this way could the traveller have approached the
village, and no traveller had come this way since the turning of the
tide. This was the gist of what the men told Harold Jerningham, in
cautious undertones, while Daniel Mayfield still stood, statue-like and
unlistening, staring out at the roaring waste of waves.
There the two men waited for upwards of an hour. The rain fell
throughout that dreary interval. Mr. Jerningham paced slowly to and fro
the little jetty. He could scarcely have recalled another occasion upon
which he had exposed himself thus to the assaults of those persistent
levellers the elements, but he was barely conscious of the rain that
drifted in his face, and drenched his garments. The greatest mental
shock that had ever befallen this man had come upon him to-day. A
revelation the most startling had been made to him: and with that
strange revealment bitter regret, vain remorse, had taken possession
of his mind. He had borne himself with sufficient calmness in his
interview with Daniel Mayfield, but the tempest within was not easily
to be stilled. As he paced the jetty, he tried to reason with himself,
to take a calm survey of the day’s events, but he tried in vain. All
his thoughts travelled in a circle, and perpetually returned to the
same point.
“I have a son,” he said to himself; and then, with a sudden shudder,
and a glance of horror towards the pitiless sea, he told himself, “I
_had_ a son.”
While he walked thus to and fro, oblivious alike of Daniel Mayfield and
of the patient, lounging fishermen, Daniel came suddenly to him, and
laid a strong hand upon his shoulder.
“Where is my nephew?” he asked. “Where is my only sister’s only child?
You saw him at Halko’s Head this morning, and parted from him there.
Why did you let him return by the perilous route, while you travelled
safely?”
“I did not know the danger of the road. I took prompt measures enough
when I discovered the hazard. I sent two boats from Halko’s Head, in
search of your nephew. Please God, he may return in one of them!”
“Amen!” cried Daniel, solemnly; and then, for the first time, he seemed
to awake from the stupor that had come upon him with the dread horror
of his kinsman’s peril. He began to question the men closely as to the
distance between the two places, and the time in which the boats might
be expected to make the voyage. By the showing of the fishermen, the
boats were already due.
After these questions and calculations, the watchers relapsed into
silence. Daniel still stood looking seaward, but no longer with
the blank stare of stupefaction. He watched the waves now with
eagerness--nay, even with hope.
The night closed in, cold, wet, and stormy, while he watched; and by
and by, through the thick darkness, and above the roar of the waves,
came the voices of the boatmen, calling to the men on the jetty.
One of these men had lighted a lantern, and swung it aloft to a mast,
at the end of the rough landing-place. By the red glimmer of this
light Daniel Mayfield saw the boats coming in, and the faces of the men
looking upward, but no face he knew. The wonder is that humanity can
survive such anguish. He called to the men hoarsely--
“Is he found?”
“No.”
Short phrases best fit such announcements.
“There is the boat that set out from here,” murmured Mr. Jerningham;
“he may be picked up by that.”
“Not if these have failed to find him. These men had the start by an
hour and a half, and have come close along the shore. Oh, damnable,
ravenous waves, roar your loudest for evermore, and overwhelm this
miserable earth!--You have swallowed up my boy!”
He fell on his knees, and beat his forehead against the rough timber
rail of the jetty. In broad daylight he would, perhaps, have shown
himself a stoic; but in the darkness, and amidst the thunder of the
stormy sea, he abandoned himself to his despair.
Nor did Mr. Jerningham attempt to console him. To him also the return
of the boats had brought despair, but he betrayed his grief by no
passionate word or gesture.
“I had a son,” he said to himself; “a son borne to me by the only
woman who ever loved me with completely pure and disinterested love;
and I never looked upon his infant sleep; I never shared his boyish
confidence; and I met him in the pride of his manhood and hated him
because he was bright, and young, hopeful, and like myself at my best.
And I put myself between him and the girl who loved him,--I, his
father,--and tried to steal her heart away from him. O God! to think
of his uncherished childhood, his uncared-for boyhood, his friendless
manhood! My only son! And I have squandered thousands on old coins,
I have locked up the cost of half a dozen university educations in
doubtful intaglios. My son! made after my own image--my very self--the
reproduction of my youth at its brightest--the incarnation of my hopes
and dreams when they were purest! O Celia! this is the vengeance which
Fate exacts for the wrongs of the forgiving. Here, on this dreary
shore, which that poor girl fled from in her despair--here, after
four-and-twenty years, the hour of retribution sounds, and the penalty
is exacted!”
Thus ran Harold Jerningham’s thoughts as he waited for the return of
the boat that was still away on its vain, desperate errand. It came
back too soon, a lantern at the prow gleaming bright through the
rainy darkness. No, the men had found no one--no trace of the missing
wanderer.
“What if he went back to Halko’s Head by the sands, and is kept there
by stress of weather?” cried Daniel, suddenly; “there is that one
chance left. O God! it is but a chance. What vehicle can I get to take
me to that place? I must go at once!”
“There is the horse I rode this morning,” said Mr. Jerningham. “I will
go to Halko’s Head.”
“Why should you do my duty?” asked Daniel, angrily. “Do you think I
am afraid of a strange road or a shower of rain, when I have to go in
search of my dead sister’s son?”
To this Mr. Jerningham made no reply. He would fain have gone himself
to the fishing village on the headland, to see if, by any happy chance,
Eustace had returned thither. But he, Harold Jerningham, had no right
to put himself forward in this search. Acknowledged tie between him and
the missing man there was none. He could only submit to the natural
desire of Daniel Mayfield.
Upon inquiry, it appeared that the landlord of the “William Wallace”
inn possessed a vehicle, which he spoke of vaguely, as a “wee bit
giggy,” and which, with the sturdy steed that drew it, was very much
at the service of Mr. Mayfield. A hanger-on of the inn could drive
the gentleman to Halko’s Head, and would guarantee his safe conduct
thither, and safe return to Killalochie, despite of the darkness and
foul weather.
Daniel was only too glad to accept the offer, and in ten minutes the
gig--a lumbering, obsolete vehicle of the hooded species, on two
gigantic wheels--was ready for departure. The driver clambered into his
seat, Daniel followed, and the big, bony horse, and clumsy carriage
went splashing and plunging through the night.
Mr. Jerningham stood at the inn-door, watching its departure. Then, for
the first time since his arrival at the humble hostelry, he thought of
the dinner that had been prepared for him, and the friends with whom he
was to have eaten it.
He went up to the sitting-room, where he found Helen alone, waiting the
return of her father, who had gone down to the harbour. She sat in a
meditative attitude, anxious and dispirited. Some hint of the ghastly
truth had reached this room, in spite of Mr. Jerningham’s precautions,
and Theodore de Bergerac had gone out to ascertain the extent of the
calamity.
“Oh, I am so glad you have come!” cried Helen, eagerly, as he entered
the room. “You can tell us the truth about this dreadful rumour. The
people here say that there has been some one--a stranger--lost on the
sands to-night. Is it true?”
“My dear Helen, I----” Mr. Jerningham began, but the girl stopped him,
with a faint shriek of horror.
“Yes, it is true,” she cried; “your face tells me that. It is deadly
white. Is there no hope? Is the traveller really lost?”
“It would be too soon to suppose that,” answered Mr. Jerningham, with
calmness that cost him no small effort. “The whole business may be
only a false alarm. The young man may have chosen another path. After
all, no one _saw_ him go down to the sands. There is no cause for
despair.”
M. de Bergerac came into the room at this moment. He, too, was ghastly
pale.
“This is dreadful, Jerningham,” he said. “There is every reason to fear
this poor young fellow has been drowned. I have been talking to the men
on the jetty--men who know every foot of the coast--and they tell me,
if he went by the sands, there is no hope. Poor fellow!”
“Papa, in what a tone you speak of him!” cried Helen. “It is natural
you should be sorry for a stranger, but you speak as if you had
known this young man--and there are so few travellers in this part
of Scotland. Oh, for pity’s sake, tell me!” she exclaimed, looking
piteously from one to the other, with clasped hands. “Did you know him?
did we know him? Your secretary was in this neighbourhood yesterday,
papa, and was to meet his uncle here at Killalochie. Oh, no, no, no! it
cannot be him. It cannot be Eustace Thorburn!”
“Dear child, for God’s sake restrain yourself. There is no
certainty--there is always hope until the worst is known.”
“It _is_ Eustace Thorburn,” cried Helen. “Neither of you will deny
that.”
A stifled shriek broke from her lips, and she fell senseless, stretched
at the feet of her father and Harold Jerningham.
“How she loves him!” murmured Mr. Jerningham, as he bent over her, and
assisted her father in carrying her to the adjoining room. “So ends my
dream!”
At midnight the lumbering, hooded gig returned with Daniel
Mayfield--and despair. He had been into every dwelling-place at Halko’s
Head, had roused drowsy fishermen from their beds, but no trace or
tidings of Eustace Thorburn had reached that lonely village. He came
back when all possible means of finding the lost had been exhausted.
Mr. Jerningham was up, and watching for him. More than this had he
done. He had hired a couple of men, provided with lanterns, who were
ready in the inn, prepared to accompany Harold Jerningham and Daniel
Mayfield on an exploration of the coast, for the tide was now out. The
rain had ceased, and faint stars glimmered here and there on the cloudy
sky.
“Will you go down to the sands with these men and me?” asked Mr.
Jerningham, when Daniel had described his bootless errand.
To this proposal Daniel assented, almost mechanically. In his utter
despair he had ceased to wonder why Harold Jerningham should take so
keen an interest in his nephew’s peril. He was glad to do anything--he
knew not, cared not what. That seemed like action. But since his
useless journey to Halko’s Head hope had left him.
They went down to the sands and wandered there for hours, examining
every turn and angle of the rugged cliff that towered above them, dark
and gloomy as the wall of some fortress-prison. The exploration only
strengthened their despair. Against that iron-bound coast how many a
helpless wretch must have been crushed to death! Between the swift
advancing wall of waters, and that perpendicular boundary what was
there for the traveller but a grave! They pored upon the sand, lighted
by the fitful glare of the lanterns, looking for some trace of the
lost--a handkerchief, a glove, a purse, a scrap of paper--but they
found no such token.
Harold Jerningham remembered the yellow wild flowers which the young
man had put in his breast. With those poor memorials of his mother’s
youth he had gone to his untimely death.
“If the superstitions of priests have any foundation, and my son and I
shall meet before the judgment-throne, surely I shall see those wild
flowers in his hand,” thought Mr. Jerningham, as he remembered the last
look of the bright young face which had been said to resemble his own.
He thought also of such a night as this four-and-twenty years ago, when
he had searched the same coast, with terror in his mind. Then his fears
had been wasted. Oh, that it might be so now!
They paced the dreary sands until daybreak, and for an hour after
daybreak; and by that time the tide was rolling in again, and they
had to hasten back to the little harbour. As the fierce waves dashed
shorewards with a hoarse roar, each of the explorers thought how
the missing traveller had been thus overtaken by the same devouring
monsters, savagely bent upon destruction to mankind. In that hour
Daniel Mayfield conceived a detestation of the sea--a horror and hatred
of those black, rolling waves, as ministers of death and desolation,
deadliest foes to human weakness and human love.
With daybreak, and the beginning of a new day, came a despair even
more terrible than that of the long, dark night. Blank and chill was
the dawn of that miserable day. All had been done. Human love, human
effort, could do no more, except to repeat again and again the same
plan of action that had proved so hopeless.
If Eustace Thorburn had taken that fatal path under the cliffs, he had
inevitably gone to his death. Of that the people who knew the coast
said there could be no doubt. If he had changed his mind at the last
moment, and set off in some other direction, why did he not return
to Killalochie? Was it likely that he, at all times so thoughtful of
others, would show himself on this occasion utterly indifferent to his
uncle’s feelings, reckless what anxiety he caused him?
Upon that dreary day there was nothing but watching and waiting for
the little party at the “William Wallace” inn. Helen, and her father
sat alone in their room, the girl pale as marble, but very calm, and
with a sweet resignation of manner, which seemed to indicate her regret
for that outbreak of passionate sorrow on the previous night. Little
was said between the father and daughter, but Theodore de Bergerac’s
affection showed itself on this bitter day by a supreme tenderness of
tone and manner. Once only did they speak of the subject that filled
the minds of both.
“My darling,” said Theodore, “it is too soon to abandon hope.”
“Oh, papa! I cannot hope, but I have prayed. All through the long night
I prayed for my old companion and friend. You think I have no right
to be so sorry for him. You do not know how good he was to me all the
time we were together. No brother could have been kinder to a favourite
sister.”
“And you shall weep for him and pray for him, as you would for a
brother,” answered the father, tenderly, “with grief as pure, with
prayers as holy. Happy the man who has such an intercessor!”
After this they sat in pensive silence, unconscious of the progress
of time, but with the feeling that the day was prolonged to infinite
duration. It was like the day of a funeral; and yet, a lurking sense
of tremulous expectancy fluttered the hearts of those silent mourners.
A step on the stair, the sudden sound of voices at the inn-door,
threw Helen into a fever. Sometimes she half rose from her chair,
pale, breathless, listening. The cry almost broke from her lips, “He
is here!” But the footstep passed by--the voice that for the moment
sounded familiar grew strange--and she knew that her hopes had deluded
her. It is so difficult for youth not to hope. The waves could not have
devoured so much genius, so much goodness. Even pitiless ocean must
needs be too merciful to destroy Eustace Thorburn. Some such thought as
this lurked in Helen’s mind.
While Theodore de Bergerac and his daughter sat alone, absorbed in this
one bitter anxiety, Daniel Mayfield wandered helplessly to and fro
between the “William Wallace” and the harbour, or the road to Halko’s
Head--now going one way, now another, but continually returning to the
inn-door, to ask, with a countenance that was piteous in its assumed
tranquillity, if anything had been heard of the missing man.
The answer was always the same--nothing had been heard. The landlord,
and some of the hangers-on of the inn, tried to comfort Daniel with
feeble suggestions as to what the young man might have done with
himself. Others made no attempt to hide their gloomy convictions.
“It isn’t the first time a stranger has lost his life on those sands,”
they said, in their northern patois. “Folks that have gone to see St.
Kentigern’s Cave, and would go without a guide, have paid dearly for
their folly.”
Daniel Mayfield scarcely heard this remark about the cave. The fears,
or indeed the certainties, of these people could scarcely be darker
than his own. He told himself that he should never look upon his
nephew’s living face again.
“Dead I may see him--the dear, bright face beaten and bruised against
those hellish cliffs; but living, never more; oh, never more! my more
than son--my pride--my hope--my love!”
And then he remembered how he had hoped to hold his nephew’s children
in his arms. He had almost felt the soft, clinging hands upon his neck.
“I was created to end my days as old Uncle Dan,” he had said to himself.
Now the day-dream was gone. This brighter life, in which he had found
it so easy to renew his own youth, was broken off untimely--this dear
companionship, which had made him a boy, was taken from him. Down to
dusty death he must tramp alone, between a lane of printer’s devils
clamorous for copy, and insatiable editors for ever demanding that each
denunciatory leader, or scathing review, or Juvenalistic onslaught on
the social vices of his day, should be racier and more trenchant than
the last.
His nephew taken from him, there remained to Daniel nothing but tavern
friends, and the dull round of daily labour, and old age, cheerless,
lonely, creeping towards him apace, athwart the dust and turmoil of his
life.
While Daniel walked, purposeless, on the dreary road, or stood
listless, and hopeless, on the quiet jetty, Harold Jerningham sat alone
in his own apartment, and pondered on the events that had befallen him.
A son, found and lost--found only in the very hour of his loss. What
chastisement of offended God--or blind, unconscious destiny, gigantic
Nemesis, with mighty, brazen arms, revolving, machine-like, on its
pivot, striking at random into space, and striking _sometimes_
strangely to the purpose--what chastisement could have seemed more
fitting than this?
“I would have bartered half my fortune, or twenty years of my life, for
a son,” he said to himself. “How often I have envied the field-labourer
his troop of rosy brats--the gipsy tramp her brown-faced baby! Fate put
a barren sceptre in my hand. If my wife had given me a son, I think I
should have loved her. And I had a son all the time--a son whom I might
have legitimated, since his mother lived as my acknowledged wife on
this Scottish ground. Yes, I would have set the lawyers to work, and
we would have made him heir of Greenlands, and Ripley, and Pendarvoch.
I would have given him the girl who loves him--whom I have loved. It
would be no shame to resign her to my son--my younger, better self.
And we met--that unknown son and I--and we held scornfully aloof from
each other, with instinctive dislike. Dislike? It was dislike which
needed but a word to melt into love. In a stranger, this reflection of
my youth was an impertinence--a plagiarism. In my son it must be the
strongest claim upon my love. My son! It needs not the agreement of
dates to confirm his kindred. His paternity is written upon his face.”
And then to Mr. Jerningham also there came the thought that had come
to Daniel Mayfield. That face in life he was never more to see. Should
he even look upon it in death--changed, disfigured by the fierce
destruction of the waves. Even to see it thus was almost too much to
hope. To reclaim the dead, so lost, would be well nigh as impossible as
it had been to save the living.