COOP KERNAN HOLE
'The great and terrible Land
Of wilderness and drought
Lies in the shadows behind me--
For the Lord hath brought me out.
'The great and terrible river
I stood that night to view
Lies in the shadows before me--
But the Lord will bear me through.'--Poems by R. M.
Mildred felt a little giddy and confused when she opened her eyes.
'Is anything the matter? I suppose I have been a little faint; but it is
nothing,' she said, feebly. Her head was on a soft pillow; her face was
wet with cold, fragrant waters; Polly was hanging over her with a
distressed expression; Dr. Heriot's hand was on her wrist.
'Hush, you must not talk,' he said, with a grave, professional air, 'and
you must drink this,' so authoritatively that Mildred could not choose
but to obey. 'It is nothing of consequence,' he continued, noticing an
anxious look on her face; 'the room was hot, and our talk wearied you. I
noticed you were very pale when we came in.' And Mildred felt relieved,
and asked no more questions.
She was very thankful for the kindness that shielded her from all
questioning and comment. When Dr. Heriot had watched the reviving
effects of the cordial, and had satisfied himself that there would be no
return of the faintness, he quietly but peremptorily desired that Polly
should leave her. 'You would like to be perfectly alone for a little
while, would you not?' he said, as he adjusted the rug over her feet and
placed the screen between her and the firelight, and Mildred thanked him
with a grateful glance. How could he guess that silence was what her
exhausted nerves craved more than anything?
But Dr. Heriot was not so impervious as he seemed. He was aware that
some nervous malady, caused by secret anxiety or hidden care, was
wasting Mildred's fine constitution. The dilated pupils of the eyes, the
repressed irritability of manner, the quick change of colour, with other
signs of mental disturbance, had long ago attracted his professional
notice, and he had racked his brains to discover the cause.
'She has over-exerted herself, or else she has some trouble,' he said to
himself that night, as he sat beside his solitary fire. She had crept
away to her own room during the interval of peace that had been allowed
her, and he had not suffered them to disturb her. 'I will come and see
her to-morrow,' he had said to Olive; 'let her be kept perfectly quiet
until then;' and Olive, who knew from experience the soothing effects of
his prescription, mounted guard herself over Mildred's room, and forbade
Polly or Chriss to enter.
Dr. Heriot had plenty of food for meditation that night. In spite of his
acquiescence in Polly's decision, he felt chilled and saddened by the
girl's persistence.
For the first time he gravely asked himself, Had he made a mistake? Was
she too young to understand his need of sympathy? Would it come to this,
that after all she would disappoint him? As he looked round the empty
room a strange bitterness came over him.
'And it is to this loneliness that she will doom me for another year,'
he said, and there was a heavy cloud on his brow as he said it. 'If she
really loved me, would she abandon me to another twelvemonth of
miserable retrospection, with only Margaret's dead face to haunt me with
its strange beauty?' But even as the thought passed through him came the
remembrance of those clinging arms and the dark eyes shining through
their tears.
'I love you dearly--dearly--but I want to love you more.'
'Oh, Heartsease,' he groaned, 'I fear that the mistake is mine, and that
I have not yet won the whole of your innocent heart. I have taken it too
much as a matter of course. Perhaps I have not wooed you so earnestly as
I should have wooed an older woman, and yet I hardly think I have failed
in either devotion or reverence. Ah,' he continued, with an involuntary
sigh, 'what right have I to complain if she withhold her fresh young
love--am I giving her all that is in me to give?' But here he stopped,
as though the reflection pained him.
He remembered with what sympathy Mildred had advocated his cause. She
had looked excited--almost indignant--as Polly had uttered her piteous
protest for time. Had her clear eyes noticed any signs of vacillation or
reluctance? Could he speak to her on the subject? Would she answer him
frankly? And then, for the first time, he felt as though he could not so
speak to her.
'Every one takes their troubles to her, but she shall not be harassed by
me,' he thought. 'She is sinking now under the burdens which most likely
other people have laid upon her. I will not add to their weight.' And a
strange pity and longing seized him to know what ailed the generous
creature, who never thought of herself, but of others.
Mildred felt as though some ordeal awaited her when she woke the next
morning. She looked so ill and weak that Olive was in despair when she
insisted on rising and dressing herself. 'It will bring on the faintness
again to a certainty,' she said, in a tone of unusual remonstrance; but
Mildred was determined.
But she was glad of Olive's assistance before she had finished, and the
toilet was made very slowly and wearily. At the drawing-room door Dr.
Heriot met her with a reproachful face; he looked a little displeased.
'So you have cast my prescription to the wind,' he said, drily, 'and are
determined not to own yourself ill.' But Mildred coloured so painfully
that he cut short his lecture and assisted her to the couch in silence.
'There you may stop for the next two or three days,' he continued,
somewhat grimly. 'Mr. Lambert has desired me to look after you, and I
shall take good care that you do not disobey my orders again. I have
made Olive head nurse, and woe be to her if there be a single
infringement of my rules.'
Mildred looked up at him timidly. He had been so gentle with her the
preceding evening that this change of manner disturbed her. This was not
his usual professional gravity; on such occasions he had ever been
kindness itself. He must be put out--annoyed--the idea was absurd, but
could she have displeased him? She was too weak to bear the doubt.
'Have I vexed you, Dr. Heriot, by coming down?' she asked, gently. 'I
should be worse if I fancied myself ill. I--I have had these attacks
before; they are nothing.'
'That is your opinion, is it? I must say I thought better of your sense,
Miss Lambert,' still gruffly.
Mildred's eyes filled with tears.
'Yes, I am vexed,' he continued sitting down by her; but his tone was
more gentle now. 'I am vexed that you are hiding from us that you are
suffering. You keep us all in the dark; you deny you are ill. I think
you are treating us all very badly.'
'No--no,' she returned, with difficulty. 'I am not ill--you must not
tell me so.' And her cheek paled perceptibly.
'Have you turned coward suddenly?' he replied, with a keen look at her.
'I have heard you say more than once that the dread of illness was
unknown to you; that you could have walked a fever hospital without a
shudder. What has become of your courage, Miss Lambert?'
'I am not afraid, but I do not want to be ill,' she returned, faintly.
'That is more unlike you than ever. Impatience, want of submission, do
not certainly belong to your category of faults. Well, if you promise to
follow my prescription, I think I can undertake that you shall not be
ill.'
Mildred drew a long sigh of relief; the sigh of an oppressed heart was
not lost on Dr. Heriot.
'But you must get rid of what is on your mind,' he went on, quickly. 'If
other people's burdens lie heavily, you must shift them to their own
shoulders and think only of yourself. Now I want to ask you a few
questions.'
Mildred looked frightened again, but something in Dr. Heriot's manner
this morning constrained her to obey. His inquiries were put skilfully,
and needed only a yea and nay, as though he feared she would elude him.
Mildred found herself owning to loss of appetite and want of sleep; to
languor and depression, and a tendency to excessive irritation; noises
jarred on her; a latent excitement took the place of strength. She had
lost all pleasure in her duties, though she still fulfilled them.
'And now what does this miserable state of the nerves mean?' was his
next question. Mildred said nothing.
'You have suffered no shock--nothing has alarmed you?' She shook her
head.
'You cannot eat or sleep; when you speak you change colour with every
word; you are wasted, getting thinner every day, and yet there is no
disease. This must mean something, Miss Lambert--excuse me; but I am
your friend as well as your doctor. I cannot work in the dark.'
Mildred's lips quivered. 'I want change--rest. I have had anxieties--no
one can be free in this world. I am getting too weak for my work.' What
a confession from Mildred! At another time she would have died rather
than utter it; but his quiet strength of will was making evasion
impossible. She felt as though this friend of hers was reading her
through and through. She must escape in some measure by throwing herself
upon his mercy.
He looked uneasy at that; his eyes softened, then suffused.
'I thought as much,' he muttered; 'I could not be deceived by that
face.' And a great pity swelled up in his heart.
He would like to befriend this noble woman, who was always so ready to
sacrifice herself to the needs of others. He would ask her to impart her
trouble, whatever it was; he might be able to help her. But Mildred, who
read his purpose in his eyes, went on breathlessly--
'It is the rest I want, and the change; I am not ill. I knew you would
say so; but the nerves get strained sometimes, and then worries will
come.'
'Tell me your trouble,' he returned abruptly, but it was the abruptness
of deep feeling. 'I have not forgotten your kindness to me on more than
one occasion. I have debts of gratitude to pay, and they are heavy. Make
me your friend--your brother, if you will; you will find I am to be
trusted.' But the poor soul only shrank from him.
'It cannot be told--there are reasons against it. I have more than one
trouble--anxiety,' she faltered. 'Dr. Heriot, indeed--indeed, you are
very good, but there are some things that cannot be told.'
'As you will,' he returned, very gently; but Mildred saw he was
disappointed. In what a strange complication she was involved! She could
not even speak to him of her fear on Roy's behalf. He took his leave
soon after that, and Mildred fancied a slight reserve mingled with the
kindness with which he bade her good-bye.
He seemed conscious of it, for he came back again after putting on his
coat, thereby preventing a miserable afternoon of fanciful remorse on
Mildred's part.
'I will think what is to be done about the change,' he said, drawing on
his driving-gloves. 'I am likely to be busy all day, and shall not see
you again this evening. Keep your mind at rest as well as you can. You
don't need to be told in what spirit all trials must be borne--the
darker the cloud the more need of faith.' He held out his hand to her
again with one of his bright, genial smiles, and Mildred felt braced and
comforted.
Mildred was obliged to allow herself to be treated as an invalid for the
next few days; but when Dr. Heriot saw how the inaction and confinement
fretted her, he withdrew a few of his restrictions, even at times going
against his better judgment, when he saw how cruelly she chafed under
her own restlessness.
This was the case one chill, sunless afternoon, when he found her
standing by the window looking out over the fells, with a sad
wistfulness that went to his heart.
As he went up to her he was shocked to see the marks of recent tears
upon her face.
'What is this--you are not worse to-day?' he asked, in a tone of vexed
remonstrance.
'No--oh no,' she returned, holding out her hand to him with a misty
smile, the thin blue-veined hand, with its hot dry palm; 'you will think
me a poor creature, Dr. Heriot, but I could not help fretting over my
want of strength just now.'
'Rome was not built in a day,' he responded, cheerily; 'and people who
indulge in fainting fits cannot expect to feel like Hercules. Who would
have thought that such an inexorable nurse as Miss Lambert should prove
such a fractious invalid?' and there was a tone of reproof under the
light raillery.
'I do not mean to be impatient,' she answered, sighing; 'but I am so
weary of this room and my own thoughts, and then there are my poor
people.'
'Don't trouble your head about them; they will do very well without
you,' with pretended roughness.
She shook her head.
'You are wrong; they miss me dreadfully; Olive has brought me several
messages from them already.'
'Then Olive ought to be ashamed of herself, and shall be deposed from
her office of nurse, and Polly shall reign in her stead.'
But Mildred was too much depressed and in earnest to heed his banter.
'There is poor Rachel Sowerby up at Stenkrith; her mother has been down
this morning to say that she cannot last very much longer.'
'I am just going up to see her now. I fear it is only a question of
days,' he replied, gravely.
Mildred clasped her hands with an involuntary movement of pain.
'Rachel is very dear to me; she is the model girl and the favourite of
the whole school, and her mother says she is pining to see me. Oh, Dr.
Heriot--' but here she stopped.
'Well,' he returned, encouragingly; and for the second time he noticed
the exceeding beauty of Mildred's eyes, as she fixed them softly and
beseechingly on his face.
'Do you think it would hurt me to go that little distance, just to see
Rachel?'
'What, in this bitter wind!' he remonstrated. 'Wait until to-morrow, and
I will drive you over.'
'There may be no to-morrows for Rachel,' she returned, with gentle
persistence. 'I am afraid I shall fret sadly if I do not see her again;
she was my best Sunday scholar. The wind will not hurt me; if you knew
how I long to be out in it; just before you came in I was wishing I were
on the top of one of those fells, feeling it sweep over me.'
'Ministers of grace defend me from the soft pleading of a woman's
tongue!' exclaimed Dr. Heriot, impatiently, but he laughed too; 'you are
a most troublesome patient, Miss Lambert; but I suppose you must have
your way; but you must take the consequences of your own wilfulness.'
Mildred quietly seated herself.
'No, I am not wilful; I have no wish to disobey you,' she returned, in a
low voice.
He drew near and questioned her face; evidently it dissatisfied him.
'If I do not let you go, you will only worry yourself the whole day, and
your lungs are sound enough,' he continued, brusquely; but Mildred's
strange unreasonableness tried him. 'Wrap yourself up well. Polly is
going with me, but there is plenty of room for both. I will pay my
visit, and leave you with Rachel for an hour, while I get rid of some of
my other patients.'
Mildred lost no time in equipping herself, and though Dr. Heriot
pretended to growl the greater part of the way, he could not help
noticing how the wind--bleak and boisterous as it was--seemed to freshen
his patient, and bring back the delicate colour to her cheeks.
'What a hardy north-country woman you have become,' he said, as he
lifted her down from the phaeton, and they went up the path to the
house.
'I feel changed already; thank you for giving me my way in this,' was
the grateful answer.
When Dr. Heriot had taken his departure, she went up to the sickroom,
and sat for a long time beside her old favourite, reading and praying
with her, until Rachel had fallen into a doze.
'She will sleep maybe for an hour or two; she had a terrible night of
pain,' whispered Mrs. Sowerby, 'and she will sleep all the sweeter for
your reading to her. Poor thing! she was set on seeing her dear Miss
Lambert, as she always calls you.'
'I will come again and see her to-morrow, if Dr. Heriot permits it,' she
replied.
When Mrs. Sowerby had gone back to her daughter's room, she went and sat
by herself at a window looking over Stenkrith; the rocks and white
foaming pools were distinctly visible through the leafless trees; a
steep flight of steps led down to the stream and waterfall; the steps
were only a few yards from the Sowerbys' house. As Mildred looked, a
strange longing to see the place again took possession of her.
For a moment she hesitated, as Dr. Heriot's strictures on her imprudence
recurred to her memory, but she soon repelled them.
'He does not understand--how can he--that this confinement tries me,'
she thought, as she crept softly down the stairs, so as not to disturb
Rachel. 'The wind was delicious. I feel ten times better than I did in
that hot room; he will not mind when I tell him so.'
Mildred's feverish restlessness, fed by bitter thought, was getting the
better of her judgment; like the skeleton placed at Egyptian feasts to
remind the revellers that they were mortal, so Mildred fancied her
courage would be strengthened, her resolution confirmed, by a visit to
the very spot where her bitterest wound had been received; she
remembered how the dark churning waters had mingled audibly with her
pain, and for the moment she had wished the rushing force had hurried
her with it, with her sweet terrible secret undisturbed, to the bottom
of that deep sunless pool.
And now the yearning to see it again was too strong to be resisted.
Polly had accompanied Dr. Heriot. Mrs. Sowerby was in her daughter's
room; there was no one to raise a warning voice against her imprudence.
The whole place looked deserted and desolate; the sun had hidden its
face for days; a dark moisture clung to the stones, making them slippery
in places; the wind was more boisterous than ever, wrapping Mildred's
blue serge more closely round her feet, and entangling her in its folds,
blowing her hair wildly about her face, and rendering it difficult with
her feeble force to keep her footing on the slimy rocks.
'I shall feel it less when I get lower down,' she panted, as she
scrambled painfully from one rock to another, often stopping to take
breath. A curious mood--gentle, yet reckless--was on her. 'He would be
angry with her,' she thought Ah, well! his anger would only be sweet to
her; she would own her fault humbly, and then he would be constrained to
forgive her; but this longing for freedom, for the strong winds of
heaven, for the melody of rushing waters, was too intense to be
resisted; the restlessness that devoured her still led her on.
'I see something moving down there,' observed Polly, as Dr. Heriot's
phaeton rolled rapidly over the bridge--'down by the steps, I mean; it
looked almost like Aunt Mildred's blue serge dress.'
'Your eyes must have deceived you, then,' he returned coolly, as he
pulled up again at the little gate.
Polly made no answer, but as she quickened her steps towards the place,
he followed her, half vexed at her persistence.
'My dear child, as though your Aunt Milly would do anything so absurd,'
he remonstrated. 'Why, the rocks are quite unsafe after the rain, and
the wind is enough to cut one in halves.'
'It is Aunt Milly. I told you so,' returned Polly, triumphantly, as she
descended the step; 'there is her blue serge and her beaver hat. Look!
she sees us; she is waving her hand.'
Dr. Heriot suppressed the exclamation that rose to his lips.
'Take care, Polly, the steps are slippery; you had better not venture on
the stones,' he said, peremptorily. 'Keep where you are, and I will
bring Miss Lambert back.'
Mildred saw him coming; her heart palpitated a little.
'He will think me foolish, little better than a child,' she said to
herself; he will not know why I came here;' and her courage evaporated.
All at once she felt weak; the rocks were certainly terribly slippery.
'Wait for me; I will help you!' he shouted, seeing her indecision; but
either Mildred did not hear, or she misunderstood him; the stone was too
high for her unassisted efforts; she tried one lower; it was wet; her
foot slipped, she tried to recover herself, fell, and then, to the
unspeakable horror of the two watching her above, rolled from rock to
rock and disappeared.
Polly's wild shriek of dismay rang through the place, but Dr. Heriot
never lost his presence of mind for a moment.
'Stay where you are; on your peril disobey me!' he cried, in a voice of
thunder, to the affrighted girl; and then, though with difficulty, he
steered his way between the slippery stones, and over the dangerous
fissures. He could see her now; some merciful jag in the rocks had
caught part of her dress, and arrested her headlong progress. The
momentary obstacle had enabled her, as she slipped into one of the awful
fissures that open into Coop Kernan Hole, to snatch with frantic hands
at the slimy rock, her feet clinging desperately to the narrow slippery
ledge.
'John, save me!' she screamed, as she felt herself slipping into the
black abyss beneath.
'John!'
John Heriot heard her.
'Yes, I am coming, Mildred; hold on--hold on, another minute.' The drops
of mortal agony stood on his brow as he saw her awful peril, but he
dared not, for both their sakes, venture on reckless haste; already he
had slipped more than once, but had recovered himself. It seemed minutes
to both of them before Polly saw him kneeling on one knee beside the
hole, his feet hanging over the water.
'Hush! do not struggle so, Mildred,' he pleaded, as he got his arm with
difficulty round her, and she clung to him almost frantically; the poor
soul had become delirious from the shock, and thought she was being
dashed to pieces; her face elongated and sharpened with terror, as she
sank half fainting against his shoulder. The weight on his arm was
terrible.
'Good Heavens! what can I do?' he ejaculated, as he felt his strength
insufficient to lift her. His position was painful in the extreme; his
knee was slipping under him; and the dripping serge dress, heavy with
water, increased the strain on the left arm; a false movement, the
slightest change of posture, and they must both have gone. He remembered
how he had heard it said that Coop Kernan Hole was of unknown depth
under the bridge; the dark sluggish pool lay black and terrible between
the rocks; if she slipped from his hold into that cruel water, he knew
he could not save her, for he had ever been accounted a poor swimmer,
and yet her dead-weight was already numbing his arm.
'Mildred, if you faint we must both die!' he cried in despair.
His voice seemed to rouse her; some instinct of preservation prompted
her to renewed effort; and as he held her more firmly, she managed to
get one hand round his neck--the other still clutched at the rock; and
as Polly's cries for help reached a navvy working at some distance, she
saw Dr. Heriot slowly and painfully lift Mildred over the edge of the
rock.
'Thank God!' he panted, and then he could say no more; but as he felt
the agonised shuddering run through Mildred's frame, as, unconscious of
her safety, she still clung to him, he half-pityingly and
half-caressingly put back the unbound hair from the pale face, as he
would have done to a child.
But he looked almost as ghastly as Mildred did, when, aided by the
navvy's strong arms, they lifted her over the huge masses of rocks and
up the steep steps.
Polly ran to meet them; her lover's pale and disordered appearance
alarmed her almost as much as Mildred's did.
'Oh, Heriot!' cried the young girl, 'you are hurt; I am sure you are
hurt.'
'A strain, nothing else,' he returned, quickly; 'run on, dear Polly, and
open the door for us. Mrs. Sowerby must take us in for a little while.'
When Mildred perfectly recovered consciousness, she was lying on the
old-fashioned couch in Mrs. Sowerby's best room; but she was utterly
spent and broken, and could do nothing for a little while but weep
hysterically.
Polly lent over her, raining tears on her hands.
'Oh, Aunt Milly,' sobbed the faithful little creature, 'what should we
have done if we had lost you? Darling--darling, how dreadful it would
have been.'
'I wished to die,' murmured Mildred, half to herself; 'but I never knew
how terrible death could be. Oh, how sinful--how ungrateful I have
been.' And she covered her face with her hands.
'Oh, Heriot; ask her not to cry so,' pleaded poor Polly. 'I have never
seen her cry before, never--and it hurts me so.'
'It will do her good,' he returned, hastily; but he went and stood by
the window, until Polly joined him.
'She is better now,' she said, timidly glancing up into his absorbed
face.
Upon that he turned round.
'Then we must get her home, that she may change her wet things as soon
as possible. Do you feel as though you can move?' he continued, in his
ordinary manner, though perhaps it was a trifle grave. 'You are terribly
bruised, I fear, but I trust not otherwise injured.'
She looked up a little surprised at the calmness of his tone, and then
involuntarily she stretched out her hands to him--
'Let me thank you first--you have saved my life,' she whispered.
'No,' he returned, quietly. 'It is true your disobedience placed us both
in jeopardy; but it was your obedience at the last that really saved
your life. If you had fainted, you must inevitably have been lost. I
could not have supported you much longer in my cramped position.'
'Your arm--did I hurt it?' she asked, anxiously, noticing an expression
of pain pass over his face.
'I daresay I have strained it slightly,' he answered, indifferently;
'but it does not matter. The question is, do you think you can bear to
be moved?'
'Oh, I can walk. I am better now,' she replied, colouring slightly.
His coolness disappointed her; she was longing to thank him with the
full fervour of a grateful heart. It was sweet, it was good in spite of
everything to receive her life back through his hands. Never--never
would she dare to repine again, or murmur at the lot Providence had
appointed her; so much had the dark lesson of Coop Kernan Hole taught
her.
'Well, what is it?' he asked, reading but too truly the varying
expressions of her eloquent face.
'If you will only let me thank you,' she faltered, 'I shall never forget
this hour to my dying day.'
'Neither shall I,' he returned, abruptly, as he wrapped her up in his
dry plaid and assisted her to rise. His manner was as kind and
considerate as ever during their short drive, but Mildred felt as though
his reserve were imposing some barrier on her.
Consternation prevailed in the vicarage at the news of Mildred's danger.
Olive, who seldom shed tears, became pale and voiceless with emotion,
while Mr. Lambert pressed his sister to his heart with a whispered
thanksgiving that was audible to her alone.
It was good for Mildred's sore heart to feel how ardently she was
beloved. A great flood of gratitude and contrition swept over her as she
lay, bruised and shaken, with her hand in Arnold's, looking at the dear
faces round her. 'It has come to me not in the still, small voice, but
in the storm,' she thought. 'He has brought me out of the deep waters to
serve Him more faithfully--to give a truer account of the life restored
to me.'
The clear brightness of her eyes surprised Dr. Heriot as he came up to
her to take leave; they reminded him of the Mildred of old. 'You must
promise to sleep to-night. Some one must be with you--Olive or
Polly--you might get nervous alone,' he said, with his usual
thoughtfulness; but she shook her head.
'I think I am cured of my nervousness for ever,' she returned, in a
voice that was very sweet. The soft smiling eyes haunted him. Had an
angel gone down and troubled the pool? What healing virtues had steeped
the dark waters that her shuddering feet had pressed? Could faith,
full-formed, spring from such parentage of deadly anguish and fear?
Mildred could have answered in the verse she loved so well--
'He never smiled so sweet before
Save on the Sea of Sorrow, when the night
Was saddest on our heart. We followed him
At other times in sunshine. Summer days
And moonlight nights He led us over paths
Bordered with pleasant flowers; but when His steps
Were on the mighty waters, when we went
With trembling hearts through nights of pain and loss,
His smile was sweeter, and His love more dear;
And only Heaven is better than to walk
With Christ at midnight over moonless seas.'