BY LANTERN-LIGHT.
WHEN Barbara had finished her needlework, the wonder which had for
some time been obtruding itself upon her—what had become of Eve—became
prominent, and awoke a fear in her lest she should have run off into
the wood to Martin. She did not wish to think that Eve would do such
a thing; but, if she were not in the house, and neither her step nor
her voice announced her presence, where was she? Eve was never able to
amuse herself, by herself, for long. She must be with someone—with a
maid if no one else were available. She had no resources in herself. If
she were with Jasper, it did not matter; but Barbara hardly thought Eve
was with him.
She laid aside her needlework, looked into her sister’s room, without
expecting to see Eve there, then descended and sought Jane, to inquire
whether her father had given signs of being awake by knocking. Jane,
however, was not in the pantry nor in the kitchen. Jane had not been
seen for some time. Then Barbara very softly stole through the hall
and tapped at her father’s door. No answer. She opened it and looked
in. The room was quite dark. She stood still and listened. She did not
hear her father breathe. In some surprise, but hardly yet in alarm,
she went for a candle, and returned with it to the room Mr. Jordan
occupied. To her amazement and alarm, she found it empty. She ran into
the parlour—no one was there. She sought through the house and garden,
and stables—not a sign of her father anywhere, and, strangely enough,
not of Eve, or of Jane either. Jasper, likewise, had not been seen
for some time. Then, in her distress, Barbara rang the alarm-bell,
long, hastily, and strongly. When, after the lapse of some while spent
in fruitless search, Barbara arrived at the Raven Rock, she was not
alone—two or three of the farm labourers and Joseph the policeman
were with her. Jane had found her sweetheart on his way to Morwell to
visit her. The light of the fire on the Rock, illumining the air above
the trees, had attracted the notice of one of the workmen, and now
the entire party came on to the Rock as Mr. Jordan had finished his
confession, and Jasper, sick at heart, horror-stricken, stood back,
speechless, not able to speak.
Barbara uttered a cry of dismay when she saw her father, and threw
herself on her knees at his side. He made a sign to her to keep back,
he did not want her; he beckoned to Jasper.
‘One word more,’ he said in a low tone. ‘My hours are nearly over. Lay
us all three together—my wife, my child, and me.’
‘Papa,’ said Barbara, ‘what do you mean? what is the matter?’
He paid no attention to her. ‘I have told you where _she_ lies. When
you have recovered my poor child——’
‘What child?’ asked Jasper.
‘Eve; what other?’
Jasper did not understand, and supposed he was wandering.
‘He—your brother—leaped off the precipice with her in his arms.’
‘Papa!’ cried Barbara.
‘She is dead—dashed to pieces—and he too.’
Barbara looked at Jasper, then, in terror ran to the edge. Nothing
whatever could be seen. That platform of rock might be the end of the
world, a cliff jutting forth into infinite space and descending into
infinite abysses of blackness. She leaned over and called, but received
no answer. Jasper could hardly believe in the truth of what had been
said. Turning to the policeman and servants, he spoke sternly: ‘Mr.
Jordan must be removed at once. Let him be lifted very carefully and
carried into the house. He has lain here already unsuccoured too long.’
‘I will not be removed,’ said the old man; ‘leave me here, I shall take
no further harm. Go—seek for the body of my poor Eve.’
‘John Westlake,’ called Barbara to one of the men, ‘give me the lantern
at once.’ The man was carrying one. Then, distracted between fear for
her sister and anxiety about her father, she ran back to Mr. Jordan to
know how he was.
‘You need be in no immediate anxiety about him,’ said Jasper. ‘It is
true that his wound has opened and bled, but I have tightly bandaged it
again.’
Joseph, the policeman, stood by helpless, staring blankly about him and
scratching his ear.
Then Barbara noticed a blanket lying in a heap on the rock—the blanket
Jasper had brought to his brother, but which had been refused. She
caught it up at once and tore it into shreds, knotted the ends
together, took the lantern from the man Westlake, and let the
light down the face of the crag. The lantern was of tin and horn,
and through the sides but a dull light was thrown. She could see
nothing—the lantern caught in ivy and heather bushes and turned on one
side; the candle-flame scorched the horn.
‘I can see nothing,’ she said despairingly. ‘What shall I do!’
Suddenly she grasped Jasper’s hand, as he knelt by her, looking down.
‘Do you hear?’
A faint moan was audible. Was it a human voice, or was a bough swayed
and groaning in the wind?
All crowded to the edge and held their breath. Mr. Jordan was
disregarded in the immediate interest attaching to the fate of Eve.
No other sound was heard.
Jasper ran and gathered fir and oak branches and grass, bound them into
a faggot, set it on fire, and threw it over the edge, so that it might
fall wide of the Rock and illumine its face. There was a glare for a
moment, but the faggot went down too swiftly to be of any avail.
Then Walter, whom none had hitherto observed, pushed through, and,
without saying a word to anyone, kicked off his shoes and went over the
edge.
‘Let him go,’ said Jasper as one of the men endeavoured to stay him;
‘the boy can climb like a squirrel. Let him take the lantern, Barbara,
that he may see where to plant his foot and what to hold.’ Then he took
the blanket rope from her hand, raised the light, and slowly lowered it
again beside the descending boy.
Watt went down nimbly yet cautiously, clinging to ivy and tufts of
grass, feeling every projection, and trying with his foot before
trusting his weight to it. He did not hurry himself. He did not regard
those who watched his advance. His descent was in zigzags. He crept
along ledges, found a cleft or a step of stone, or a tuft of heather,
or a stem of ivy. All at once he grasped the lantern.
‘I see something! Oh, Jasper, what can it be!’ gasped Barbara.
‘Be careful,’ he said; ‘do not overbalance yourself.’
‘I have found _her_,’ shouted Watt; ‘only her—not him.’
‘God be praised!’ whispered Barbara.
‘Is she alive?’ called Jasper.
‘I do not know, I do not care. Martin is not here.’
‘Now,’ said Jasper, ‘come on, you men—that is, all but one. We must go
below; not over the cliff, but round through the coppice. We can find
our way to the lantern. The boy must be at the bottom. She has fallen,’
he addressed Barbara now, ‘she has fallen, I trust, among bushes of oak
which have broken the force of the fall. Do not be discouraged. Trust
in God. Stay here and pray.’
‘Oh, Jasper, I cannot! I must go with you.’
‘You cannot. You must not. The coppice and brambles would tear your
clothes and hands and face. The scramble is difficult by day and
dangerous by night. You must remain here by your father. Trust me. I
will do all in my power for poor Eve. We cannot bring her up the way
we descend. We must force our way laterally into a path. You remain by
your father, and let a man run for another or two more lanterns.’
Then Jasper went down by way of the wood with the men scrambling,
falling, bursting through the brakes; some cursing when slashed across
the face by an oak bough or torn through cloth and skin by a braid
of bramble. They were quite invisible to Barbara, and to each other.
They went downward: fast they could not go, fearing at every moment
to fall over a face of rock; groping, struggling as with snakes, in
the coils of wood; slipping, falling, scrambling to their feet again,
calling each other, becoming bewildered, losing their direction. The
lantern that Watt held was quite invisible to them, buried above their
heads in the densest undergrowth. The only man of them who came unhurt
out of the coppice was Joseph, who, fearing for his face and hands
and uniform, unwilling that he should appear lacerated and disfigured
before Jane, instead of finding his way down through the brush,
descended leisurely by the path or road that made a long circuit to the
water’s edge, and then ascended by the same road again to the place
whence he had started.
Jasper, who had more intelligence than the rest, had taken his
bearings, before starting, by the red star on the side of Hingston
Hill, that shone out of a miner’s hut window. This he was able always
to see, and by it to steer his course; so that eventually he reached
the spot where was Watt with the lantern.
‘Where is she? What are you doing?’ he asked breathlessly. His hands
were torn and bleeding, his face bruised.
‘Oh, I do not know. I left her. I want to find Martin—he cannot be far
off.’
The boy was scrambling on a slope of fallen rubble.
‘I insist, Watt: tell me. Give me the lantern at once.’
‘I will not. She is up there. You can make out the ledge against the
sky, and by the light of the fire above; but Martin—whither is he gone?’
Then away farther down went the boy with his lantern. Instead of
following him, Jasper climbed up the rubble slope to the ledge. His
eyes had become accustomed to the dark. He distinguished the fluttering
end of a white or light-coloured dress. Then he swung himself up upon
the ledge, and saw, by the faint light that still lingered in the sky,
the figure of a woman—of Eve—lying on one side, with the hands clinging
to a broken branch of ivy. A thick bed of heather was on this ledge—so
thick that it had prevented Eve from rolling off it when she had fallen
into the bush.
He stooped over her. He felt her heart, he put his ear to her mouth.
Immediately he called up to Barbara, ‘She is alive, but insensible.’
Then he put his hands to his mouth and shouted to the men who had
started with him.
He was startled by seeing Watt with the lantern close to him: the light
was on the boy’s face. It was agitated with fear, rage, and distress.
His eyes were full of tears, sweat poured from his brow.
‘Why do you shout?’ he said, and shook his fist in Jasper’s face. ‘Have
you no care for Martin? I cannot find him yet, but he is near. Be
silent, and do not bring the men here. If he is alive I will get him
away in the boat. If he is dead——’ then his sobs burst forth. ‘Martin!
poor Martin! where can he be! Do not call: let no one come here. Oh,
Martin, Martin!’ and away went the boy down again. ‘Why is _she_ fallen
here and found at once, and _he_ is lost! Oh, Martin—poor Martin!’ the
edge of the rock came in the way of the light, and Jasper saw no more
of the boy and the lantern.
Unrestrained by what his youngest brother had said, Jasper called
repeatedly, till at last the men gathered where he was. Then, with
difficulty Eve was moved from where she lay and received in the arms of
the men below. She moaned and cried out with pain, but did not recover
consciousness.
Watt was travelling about farther down with his dull light, sometimes
obscured, sometimes visible. One of the men shouted to him to bring the
lantern up, but his call was disregarded, and next moment Watt and his
lantern were forgotten, as another came down the face of the cliff,
lowered by Barbara.
Then the men moved away with their burden, and one went before with the
light exploring the way. Barbara above knelt at the edge of the rock
and prayed, and as she prayed her tears fell over her cheeks.
At length the little cluster of men appeared with their light through
the trees, approaching the Rock from the wood; they had reached the
path and were coming along it. Jasper took the lantern and led the way.
‘Lay her here,’ he said, ‘near her father, where there is moss, till we
can get a couple of gates.’ Then, suddenly, as the men were about to
obey him, he uttered an exclamation of horror. He had put the lantern
down beside Mr. Jordan.
‘Stand back,’ he said to Barbara, who was coming up, ‘stand back, I
pray you!’
But there was no need for her to stand back: she had seen what he would
have hidden from her. In the darkness and loneliness, unobserved, Mr.
Jordan had torn away his bandages, and his blood had deluged the turf.
It had ceased to flow now—for he was dead.