Walked up and down, and still walked up and down,
And I walked after, and one could not hear
A word the other said, for wind and sea
That raged and beat and thundered in the night.
_Brothers and a Sermon._
The door was flung wide open by Jane Gollop, who had been anxiously on
the alert.
"Miss Elaine! Well, to be sure! It's a good thing, that it is, as you
happened to meet Mr. Fowler! Why--you ain't got wet, not hardly a drop,
more you 'ave. But where's Master Godfrey?"
"I don't know," said Elsa, shortly.
"You don't know," said Jane, in accents of astonishment. "Why, where did
you leave him?"
"Hasn't he come in?" asked the girl, in a hard kind of way; and, as she
spoke, loosening her hat, she went to the mirror which hung against the
wall of the hall, and passed her hand lightly through the soft masses of
her hair, slightly dampened by the drenching shower. It was such a new
trait in her--this attention to appearances--that Mr. Fowler gazed at
her in sheer astonishment. Her beauty as she stood there was simply
wonderful. Claud, eyeing her with all his might, was at a loss for a
reason why he was not in love with her. Her style was not a common one
among English girls--it was too sumptuous, too splendid. Though
absolutely a blonde, the lashes which shaded her eyes were dark as
night. Her complexion was a miracle of warmth and creamy fairness; and
now that the final charm had come--that conscious life had permeated her
being--the slowness of her movements, the comparative rarity of her
speech, were charms of a most fascinating description. She was just
beginning to understand what power was hers. It seemed as if the thought
expressed itself in the faint smile, the regal grace with which the hand
was lifted to the golden coronal of hair. She was absolutely exquisite,
and yet Claud's only thought concerning her was an inward foreboding of
the mischief she would work in London.
"Did you and Godfrey go out together?" asked Mr. Fowler at length.
The shadow fell over the lovely face again.
"Yes," she answered shortly.
"And where did you part company?" he went on, somewhat anxiously.
"I--I don't know, quite--I forget."
"I expect they've a bin quarrelling again, sir," observed Jane, with
severity. "I do not know how it is as Miss Elaine can never get on with
her brother at all. I'm sure I never see nothing to complain so about--a
bit wild and rude, as most young gentlemen is, but----"
"Godfrey behaves exceedingly ill," said Mr. Fowler, shortly. "Did you
have a quarrel, Elsa?"
"Yes, we did. I will never go out with him again, as long as I live,"
said Elsa, quietly.
"And you parted company?"
"Yes. I ran away from him. My aunts have no right to send him out with
me." Her face worked, and tears sprang to her eyes. "He insults my
mother," she said, with a sob.
Her god-father's brow grew darker.
"Never mind, Elsa," he said, in a voice of much feeling. "Let us hope he
will grow better as he grows older; he is but a little chap."
"I wish I need never set eyes on him again, as long as I live," she
said, in a low voice, audible to him alone.
"Hush, child! But now, the fact remains that the storm is awful, and
that, as far as I can make out, the boy is out in it. What is to be
done? Come and let us tell the aunts."
They entered the dining-room, where tea was already spread out in
tempting guise. The Misses Willoughby turned to greet their guests, and
Miss Charlotte in some anxiety demanded,
"Where is Godfrey?"
Her perturbation was great when the situation was explained.
"My dear Mr. Fowler! That young child--so delicate too! Out in this
storm of rain! He will never find his way home, it will be dark
directly! What shall I do? Penton must be sent after him. Elsa, tell me
at once where you left him."
The crimson color mounted to Elsa's brow.
"I--I don't exactly remember--I wasn't taking much notice," she
faltered.
"But which direction did you take? At least you can inform me of that. I
am sure it is hard to believe that any girl of your age could be so
foolish; speak!"
"We went along the Quarry Road," said Elsa, slowly, her eyes fixed on
Claud, who stood looking at the ground.
"And where then?"
"We were going to Hooken for blackberries, but I thought it looked like
rain, so I turned back."
"And Godfrey did not accompany you?"
A pause.
"No."
"He must have gone on to Brent," said Miss Charlotte, with conviction.
Brent was the tiny fishing-village which lay in a curve of the cliff
between Edge Valley and Stanton.
"Does Godfrey know his way to Brent?" asked Mr. Fowler of Elsa.
"Oh, yes--he often goes there--to the 'Welcome Traveller,'" she
answered.
"I think he is most probably there now," said he, turning to Miss
Charlotte, "and, if so, you may be easy, they will not send him home in
this tempest."
"But he is very wilful, he may insist on trying to come home, and, if
so, he will be lost, he could never stand against the wind across the
top of Hooken," said Miss Charlotte, full of apprehension.
Her attachment to Godfrey was a forcible illustration of the
capriciousness of love. There had been every reason why she should
dislike him, she had been fully prepared to do so. She had never seen
one single trait in him to induce her to alter this preconceived
opinion; he had openly derided her and set her authority at naught ever
since their first meeting, yet she was fond of him.
Her looks testified the deepest concern. As the scream of the storm-wind
dashed against the window of the warm, comfortable room, she shivered.
"Elsa," she cried, "how dared you leave that child out by himself? You
are not to be trusted in the least! Where did you leave him--answer
me--was it on the cliffs?"
"No!" cried Elsa, sharply, "it was not. He would not be likely to go by
the cliffs, it is twice as long, you know it is. He went along the
Quarry Road, I tell you. He is gone to Brent."
"Make yourself easy, Miss Charlotte," said Mr. Fowler, "he is not likely
to try the cliff road home in weather like this. He will come by the
quarries, if they let him come at all. How long had you parted from him
when we met you, Elsa?"
"Oh, more than an hour, I should think."
"There, you see! He is as safely sheltered as we are by now!"
Miss Charlotte went restlessly to the window.
"I am anxious; he is so delicate, and so rash," she said. "I shall send
Penton out along the Quarry Road."
"I will walk to Brent and back for you, Miss Willoughby," said Claud, in
his quiet way.
"My dear fellow," said Henry Fowler, "you will scarcely keep your feet."
"Oh, nonsense about that. I'm all right--I have my mackintosh here. I
enjoy a good sou'-wester."
"I'll come with you," said Henry at once.
Of course the ladies protested, but the gentlemen were firm; and, having
first taken something to keep the cold out, they started forth into all
the excitement of a furious gale on the Devonshire coast.
Once fairly out in it, Claud felt that he would not have missed it for
worlds. There was such a stimulus in the seething motion of the
atmosphere, such a weird fascination in the screaming of the blast and
the hoarse roaring of the distant ocean.
"This is rather a wild-goose chase," yelled Henry in his companion's
ear.
"Never mind; what's the odds so long as we can set their minds at rest,"
bawled Claud in return.
"Naught comes to no harm--the young imp is all right enough," howled
Henry; and then, having strained their vocal chords to the utmost, any
further attempt at conversation was given up as impossible.
They passed the narrow gorge where the mouth of the quarries lay and
where the limekilns cast a weird gloom upon the night. The streaming
rain hissed and fizzed as it fell upon the glowing surface, and,
altogether, Claud thought, the whole scene was something like the last
act of the _Walkuere_--he almost felt as if he could hear the passionate
shiver of Wagnerian violins in the rush of the mighty tempest.
In the low, sheltered road, they could just manage to keep their feet.
Every now and then they paused, and shouted Godfrey's name at the utmost
pitch of their voices; but they heard no response; and at last staggered
down the little stony high street of Brent, without having met a single
soul.
Usually the narrow street was musical with the murmur of the stream that
flowed down its midst. To-night the storm-fiend overpowered all such
gentle sounds. Claud, blindly stumbling in the dark, managed to go over
his ankles in running water, but quickly regained his footing, and was
right glad when the lights of the "Welcome, Traveller," streamed out
upon the gloom.
They swung open the door. The bar was deserted, and Mr. Fowler's call
only brought a female servant from the kitchen. Every soul in the town,
she told them, was down at the quay--the word to haul up the boats had
been cried through the village at dusk, and now the gale had come, and
the fishing smacks had not come in.
Claud remembered how they had sat on the cliff black berrying only two
days before, and watched the fishermen start, how the boats with their
graceful red brown sails had danced and dipped on the sparkling blue
water, alive with diamond reflections of the broad sun.
And now--the cruel, crawling foam, the black abyss of howling
destruction, and the frantic wives assembled on the quay, watching "for
those who will never come back to the town."
The inn servant was positive that Master Brabourne had not been in Brent
that afternoon or evening, but Mr. Fowler, not quite relying on the
accuracy of her statement, determined to make his way down to the shore.
The village was congested with excitement, as they approached they could
dimly descry a dark crowd and tossing lanterns, and could hear the
terrific thunder of the billows as they burst upon the beach. Then,
suddenly, as they hurried on, up through the murky night rushed a
rocket, a streak of vivid light, that struck on the heart like the cry
of a human voice for help. Another--another--it was clear that some
frantic feeling agitated the swaying crowd. As Claud dashed forward, he
uttered a short exclamation.
"The yacht!"
"Good God, yes, it must be!" cried Henry Fowler in horror.
In a moment they were down in the thick of it all, seizing the arm of
one of the weatherbeaten fellows present, and asking what was amiss?
It was the yacht, as Claud had divined, and, when her exact situation
had been explained to him, he felt his heart fail at the thought of her
deadly peril, at the (to him) new sensation of standing within a few
yards of a band of living human beings hovering over the wide spread
jaws of death.
Brent lay in a break of the chalk cliffs which was more then
half-a-mile in width. Through this tunnel the unbroken might of the wind
rushed with terrific force, sweeping vehemently inland up the flat
river-valley, and seeming to carry the whole sea in its train. The very
violence of each wave, as it broke, made the bystanders stagger back a
few paces; the tide was rolling in with a rapidity which seemed
miraculous; already it had driven them back almost as far as the
market-place, and it was not yet high water.
There was but one hope for the strange vessel. Change of tide had been
known to bring change of wind; therein lay her solitary chance. If, with
the ebb, the wind shifted its quarter and kept her off shore, the sea
was not too heavy for her to live in; but if no change took place--if
the waves continued to roll in for another hour as they were rolling
now, with that screaming blast lashing them on as though the Eumenides
were behind them, no change of tide could avail--no ebb could save the
cutter from being driven on the sunken coast-rocks, and from being
steadily beaten to pieces.
Was there a chance? Would it happen, this change of wind for which
everyone was waiting in such an agony of expectation? In breathless
horror the young man watched, parting, as he did so, with a few
delusions he had previously cherished respecting the Devonshire climate.
He had held a vague belief that storm and tempest were the portion only
of "wild Tintagel on the Cornish coast," and that here, among the warm
red cliffs, no roaring billows lifted their heads. He had now to hear
how, once upon a time, the inhabitants of Brent built themselves a
harbor and a pier, and how in one night the sea tore them up, dashed
them to pieces, and bore the fragments far inland; and of how the
Spanish wrecks were hurled so frequently on the coast that the
fisher-folk intermarried with the refugees, which union resulted in the
lovely, dark-haired, blue-eyed race whose beauty had so struck Lady
Mabel Wynch-Frere.
Meanwhile, the lifeboat's crew stood with their boat all ready to
launch, if they could see the smallest hope of making any way in such a
sea. One old mariner watched the scarcely discernible movements of the
yacht with a telescope. She was under jib and trysail only, the
intention of the crew being evidently, if it were possible, to work her
to windward, and so keep her off shore.
"Them aboard of her knows what to du," said the old salt, with
approbation. "They ain't going daown without showing a bit o' fight
first."
"Why on earth don't they take in all their canvas?" cried the
inexperienced Claud.
"If they did, they'd come straight in, stem on, and be aground in five
minutes or less," was the response.
It was difficult, however, to see of what possible use any amount of
knowledge of navigation could be to the fated craft. Slowly she was
being borne to her doom by the remorseless gale. She pitched and rolled
every moment nearer and still nearer to the coast--to the low sunken
rocks which would grind her to powder, and where no lifeboat could reach
her.
The women prayed aloud, with sobs and shrieks of sympathy. To Claud it
was like a chapter in a novel, a scene in a play. He had never before
seen real people--people in whose midst he stood--go mad with pity and
terror. He had never before heard women cry out, as these did, straight
to the Great Father in their need.
"Oh, Lord Christ, save 'em! Have mercy on 'em, poor souls!" screamed an
old fishwife at his side, bent with age and infirmity.
It seemed as if he could hardly do better than silently echo her prayer:
"God save all poor souls lost in the dark!"
The moments of suspense lengthened. The knot of spectators held their
breath. It would be high water directly, and the gale was still driving
in the frantic sea, boiling and eddying. The night was cleft by the
momentary gleam of another rocket sent up from the yacht. Though
evidently terribly distressed, she did not seem disabled, and rose from
crest to crest of the mountainous rollers with a marvellous lightness.
It was easy to see that she surprised all the old salts who were
watching her. As she rolled nearer, her proportions were dimly to be
seen. In the gloom she seemed like a great quivering white bird,
palpitating and throbbing as if alive and sentient.
"Eh, what a beauty, what a beauty! What a cruel shame if she is lost,"
gasped one of the men in tones of real anguish.
Then, suddenly, from further along the crowd came a shout faintly heard
above the storm. Claud could not distinguish the words, but a vague
sense of atmospheric change came over him. A manifest sensation ran
through the assembly; and it seemed as if there were a momentary
cessation of the blinding gusts of spray which had drenched him.
A fresh stillness fell on the crowd, broken only by the sobbing
whistling of the wind, which faltered, died down, burst forth again, and
then seemed to go wailing off over the sea.
What had happened? Claud steadied his nerves and looked round
bewildered. Surely that wave which broke was not so high as the last. It
seemed at first as though the ocean had become a whirlpool, as though
conflicting currents were sucking and eddying among the coast-rocks till
the force of the tide was broken and divided. He turned to look for
Henry Fowler, but could not see him. Moving further along the wet track
left by one of the highest billows on the road, still clutching his cap
with both hands, he found him presently superintending the lifeboat men,
who were making a start at last.
There was a faint cheer as the boat was launched, and the receding wave
carried her down, down, with that ghastly sucking noise which sounds as
though the deep thirsted for its prey. Claud held his breath. He thought
the next wave would break over her; but no! The crew bent to their oars,
and up she rose, in full sight of the eager multitude, then again
disappeared, only to be seen once more on the summit of a further crest.
And now there was no question but that the wind was shifting. Silence
fell on the watchers; silence which lasted long. Breathlessly they eyed
the dim white yacht, which now did not seem to approach nearer the
coast.
In the long interval, memory returned to Mr. Cranmer, memory of the
purpose for which he had come there. Where was Godfrey? Nowhere to be
seen. Making his way up to Mr. Fowler, he remarked:
"Don't you see anything of the boy?"
Henry gave a start of recollection, and cast his eyes vaguely over the
crowd. A few minutes' search sufficed to show that Godfrey was not
there. By the light of a friendly lantern he looked at his watch. It was
past ten o'clock, and the thought of the anxiety at Edge Willoughby
smote his conscience.
"We must leave this," he said, reluctantly, "and go back over the top of
the cliff. It does not rain now, and thank God, the wind is falling."
"Will the yacht live?" asked Claud.
"Yes, please God, she'll do now," answered Henry. "But I daresay the
crew will come ashore; they have all been very near death; perhaps they
don't know, as well as I do, how near."
"Do you know the way over the cliff?"
"Know it? I think so. I could walk blindfold over most of the land near
here," returned the other, drily.
"I do wonder what can have become of the child," said Claud, dubiously.
"Little cur!" said the ordinary gentle Henry, viciously. "I am not at
all sorry if he has a fair good fright; it may read him a lesson."
Unwillingly they turned from the scene of interest, and began their
scramble up the chalky slopes, rendered as slippery as ice by the heavy
rains. Neither had dined that night, and both were feeling exhausted
after the tension of the last few hours. They walked silently forward,
each filled with vague forbodings respecting Godfrey.
The wind was still what, inland, would be called a gale, too high to
make conversation possible. Overhead, rifts in the night-black clouds
were beginning to appear; the waning moon must be by now above the
horizon, for the jagged edges of the vapors were silver.
Claud was deeply meditating over his night's experience; it seemed years
since he parted from Wynifred that afternoon. How much had happened
since!
His foot struck against something as he walked. Being tired, he was
walking carelessly, and, as the grass was intensely slippery, he came
down on his hands and knees, making use of a forcible expression.
Thus brought into the near neighborhood of the object which caused his
fall, he discovered that it was neither a stick nor a stone, but a
book--a book lying out on the cliff, and reduced to a pulp by the
torrents of rain which had soaked it.
"I say, Fowler, what's this?" he said eagerly, regaining his feet, the
whole of the front of his person plastered with a whitish slime. "Here's
a book! Does that help us--eh?"
Mr. Fowler turned quickly.
"Let me look," he said.
To look was easier than to see, by that light; but, by applying the dark
lantern which, they carried, they saw it was a book they knew--a copy of
the "Idylls of the King," which Osmond had given to Elsa, and which was
hardly ever out of her hands.
"Strange!" ejaculated Henry, "very strange! She said they had not been
on the cliffs--did she not say so, Cranmer?"
"Undoubtedly."
"She must have left it yesterday."
"We were all at Heriton Castle yesterday."
"Well--some time. Anyhow, it is her book--here is the name blotted and
blurred, in the title-page. Let us search round here a little," he
added, his voice betraying a sudden, nameless uneasiness.
The search was fruitless. They called till the rocks re-echoed, but in
vain. Up and down they walked, in and out among the drenched brambles,
slipping hither and thither in the chalky mire. At last they gave it up.
"We must go back and tell them we cannot find him," said Henry, wearily.
Standing side by side on the summit of the heights, they paused, and
gazed, as if by mutual consent, seawards.
A pale silver glow came stealing as they looked across the heaving
waters. The full dark clouds parted, and through the rift appeared a
reach of clear dark sky. Wider and wider grew the star-powdered space,
till at last the waning, misshapen-looking moon emerged, veiled only by
a passing scud of vapor.
Below them the turbid billows caught the light and glittered; and, among
them, riding proudly and in safety, was the beautiful yacht, like a
white swan brooding over the tumultuous sea, which was still running
high enough to make the noble little vessel roll and pitch considerably
at her anchor.