ELLEN'S FLIGHT.
After all the fatigues and adventures of the day before, Charles slept
well--long pleasant dreams of roaming in sunny places on summer days
fell to his happy lot--and so he was not pleased when he found himself
shaken by the shoulder.
It was William come to wake him. Charles was at once alarmed to see him
there, and started up, saying--
"Is anything the matter, Will? Is my father ill?"
"The Master's well, I trust, Master Charles. I want to tell you
something that I want others to find out for themselves."
"What is it?" said Charles, seriously alarmed, for he had had his
suspicions lately, though he had dreaded to give them a name.
"Ellen is gone!"
"My dear lad," said Charles, hurriedly, "what makes you think so? Since
when have you missed her?"
"Since yesterday afternoon."
"Have you been in her room?"
"Yes. She has not been to bed, and the window is open just as it was
yesterday morning at bed-making time."
"Hush--wait! There may be time yet. Go down and saddle two horses at
once. I will tell you what I know as we ride, but there is not time now.
Tell me only one thing, Is there any one she would be likely to go to at
Coombe?"
"No one that I know of."
William departed to get the horses. Charles had suddenly thought of the
solitary female figure he had seen passing along the dizzy sheep-path
the day before, and he determined to follow that till he lost sight of
it.
"For the poor dear girl's sake--for the honour of this old house--I
wonder who is at the bottom of all this? I must tell Marston," he said,
when he was out on the landing. "George, tell them to get me some coffee
instantly. I am going out hunting."
Marston thought as Charles did. The right thing to do would be to follow
her, see that she wanted for nothing, and leave her brother with her for
a time. "He won't quarrel with her now, you'll see. He is a good fellow,
mind you, Charles, though he did lose his temper with her that night."
So they rode forth side by side into the wild winter's morning. The rain
had ceased for a time, but the low dark clouds were hurrying swiftly
before the blast, and eddying among the loftier tors and summits. The
wind was behind them, and their way was east, across the lofty downs.
"William," said Charles, at last, "who is at the bottom of this?"
"I don't know, Master Charles. If I did there would be mischief, unless
it was one of two."
"Ay, Will, but it ain't. You don't think it is Cuthbert?"
"No, no! He, forsooth! Father Mackworth knows, I believe, more than we
do."
"You do not suspect him?"
"Certainly not. I did, but I don't now. I suspect he knows, as I said,
more than we do. He has been speaking harshly to her about it."
They had arrived at the hill round which Charles suspected he had seen
her pass the day before. It was impossible to pass round the promontory
on horseback in the best of weathers; now doubly so. They would have to
pass inland of it. They both pulled up their horses and looked. The
steep slope of turf, the top of which, close over head, was hid by
flying mists, trended suddenly downwards, and disappeared. Eight hundred
feet below was the raging sea.
As they stood there, the same thought came across both of them. It was a
dreadful place. They neither spoke at all, but spurred on faster, till
the little grey village of Coombe, down at their feet, sheltered from
the storm by the lofty hills around, opened to their view; and they
pushed on down the steep rocky path.
No. No one had seen her yesterday at such a time. The streets would have
been full of the miners coming from work; or, if she had come earlier,
there would have been plenty of people to see her. It was a small place,
and no stranger, they said, could ever pass through it unnoticed.
And, though they scoured the country far and wide, and though for months
after the fishermen fished among the quiet bays beneath the cliffs in
fear, lest they should find there something which should be carried in
silent awe up the village, and laid quietly in the old churchyard,
beneath the elm; yet Ellen was gone--gone from their ken like a summer
cloud. They thought it a pious fraud to tell Densil that she was
gone--with some excuse, I forget what, but which satisfied him. In a
conclave held over the matter, Cuthbert seemed only surprised and
shocked, but evidently knew nothing of the matter. Father Mackworth said
that he expected something of the kind for some little time, and William
held his peace. The gossips in the village laid their heads together,
and shook them. There was but one opinion there.
"Never again shall she put garland on;
Instead of it she'll wear sad cypress now,
And bitter elder broken from the bough."
Nora--poor old Nora--took to her bed. Father Mackworth was with her
continually, but she sank and sank. Father Mackworth was called away
across the moors, one afternoon, to an outlying Catholic tenant's
family; and, during his absence, William was sent to Charles to pray him
to come, in God's name, to his mother. Charles ran across at once, but
Nora was speechless. She had something to say to Charles; but the great
Sower, which shall sow us all in the ground, and tread us down, had His
hand heavy on her, and she could not speak. In the morning, when the
gale had broken, and the white sea-birds were soaring and skimming
between the blue sky and the noble green, rolling sea, and the ships
were running up channel, and the fishing-boats were putting out gaily
from the pier, and all nature was brilliant and beautiful, old Nora lay
dead, and her secret with her.
"Master Charles," said William, as they stood on the shore together,
"she knew something, and Ellen knows it too, I very much suspect. The
time will come, Master Charles, when we shall have to hunt her through
the world, and get the secret from her."
"William, I would go many weary journeys to bring poor Ellen back into
the ways of peace. The fact of her being your sister would be enough to
make me do that."