REPARATION.
But there was no time for interchange of sentiments, regretful or
otherwise, at such a crisis. Fin Cooper and Dick Boss had already
coasted round the coombe, and were hastening down its side to the fatal
spot. Katerfelto, carrying his rider's saddle, valise, and pistols,
galloped across them masterless, into the waste. John Garnet, dismounted
and disarmed, for even the short sword he wore had been jerked out of
its belt in his desperate ride, felt that he must surrender at
discretion. What chance had he against two resolute men on horseback,
who knew the moor, were provided with fire-arms, and had legal authority
to use them if required.
"The game's up, Waif," said he, "but you and I have played it out, my
lass, to the very last card! I was thinking of you only this morning at
daybreak when I stole away from Porlock, and my friends over yonder set
up a shout of rage to see my tracks not three minutes old in the snow!
If I had but known the country! Well, well! 'Twas a rare burst and a
noble leap! You showed me the only spot where it could be done, and I
understood with the first wave of your arm; but how came you to be here,
my pretty Waif, in the nick of time?"
Oh! the kind cruel voice! the kind cruel words! It was snowing fast,
and the wet Waif dashed from her eyelashes might not have been tears
after all.
"I knew they meant to kill you!" she sobbed. "I heard their vile, wicked
plot, and Fin kept me a prisoner in his tent lest I should warn you. Ah!
they little knew Waif, if they thought she could sit and count her
fingers when _you_ were in danger! I swore to save you, and I will!
Thank your God, if you Gorgios have one, for this snow-storm. No man
living can see twenty paces before him while it lasts. Take off your
boots!"
He stared, wondering if she had gone mad, but Waif was already on her
knees dragging at one of his feet with all her might.
She continued, in an eager, hurried whisper, without desisting for a
moment from her task: "Close by here, under the birch-tree, is a
sheep-track that will lead you safe to the bottom of the coombe. Keep in
the brushwood by the water-side, and follow the stream. A mile lower
down you will come to Red Rube's hut. They will never think of looking
for you there. Tell him Thyra Lovel sent you, and he will hide you for
my sake. Farewell, Master Garnet. I--I wish you good luck, and--do
not--do not quite forget Waif!"
Ere she had done speaking, his heavy riding-boots were drawn on her own
shapely limbs. Then she turned away to plunge through the snow without
another word.
He stretched his arms towards her. For one brief moment she stood
looking at him, less like a woman of real flesh and blood, than some
visionary phantom of the night. To his dying day, John Garnet never
forgot that figure of the gipsy-girl, her pale face, her raven hair, the
folds of her scarlet hood seen through the slanting downfall of the
storm. Those solemn eyes, with their yearning gaze, seemed still bent on
him, long after the slender shape had vanished in that grey and
thickening gloom; vanished for ever, to return no more but in his
dreams.
Shouts at no great distance warned him that he must attend to his own
safety, and, slipping cautiously into the coombe, he obeyed Waif's
directions to the letter, keeping studiously under cover in the
brushwood, and making his way along the bed of the stream, as nimbly as
lacerated feet, protected only by hose, would allow. Ere he reached Red
Rube's hut, where he found the harbourer at home and willing to give him
shelter, he had plenty of time to reflect on his future plans, and to
appreciate the devotion and self-sacrifice of the girl whose heart he
had won so lightly and cared so little to retain. Pangs he felt, no
doubt, of pity, regret, even remorse, but through them all, he could not
but admit, that one glance from Nelly Carew's blue eyes would be enough
to make him forget his own thoughtless frivolity, and the gipsy's
unreasoning, incontrollable affection that was now risking dear life for
his sake.
He could not but acknowledge the dangers she must incur toiling through
the snow in his heavy riding-boots, that she might draw his pursuers
from the path he actually followed. She might perish of cold and
exhaustion on the open moor. She might be buried in some snow-drift from
which she had not strength to extricate herself. Worse than all, when
overtaken and caught, what fatal penalty might not be exacted by the
vengeance of that half-savage husband whom she had deceived for the sake
of her Gentile love.
If Waif herself entertained any such misgivings, they were swallowed up
in the single consideration of out-witting his pursuers, to save John
Garnet from death.
So she plunged and laboured on, faint, breathless, weary, sustained only
by the one earnest aim of her brave and loving heart, listening eagerly
for the voices of those who were on her track, and exulting, with
fierce and bitter triumph, to lead them farther and farther from their
prey.
One more mile. If her strength would last but for one more mile, he must
have reached his refuge then, and she would be content to lie down and
die. Shrouded in a snow-drift on her wedding-day. (She laughed to
herself at the conceit) and married, like a Gorgio bride, all in white!
Fin Cooper and Dick Boss, galloping down to the spot at which the grey
horse fell, made sure of his rider at such a grievous disadvantage, and
laughed, while they pointed out to each other the heavy footmarks
printed off distinctly in the snow.
"He'll not travel far in them boots, wading through the drifts!"
remarked Dick Boss, who was little given to conversation at the best of
times.
"'Tis our hunted stag," answered Fin, showing his white teeth, with a
pitiless laugh; "he's beginning to weary already, I can tell, by the
slot!"
So they followed, with renewed ardour, upward, always upward into the
hill, and pointing for the wildest part of the moor.
But the horses were beginning to tire, toiling more than fetlock deep in
snow, and the blinding flakes that lashed the faces of their riders not
only shrouded everything from their view, but filled up and obliterated
the track on which they depended for guidance and success. "We are beat,
man!" said Dick, drawing rein, sulkily, and wringing the heavy snow from
his sleeves and holsters. "There's not a drop of blood left unfroze in
my body, and I shall give out!" turning his bridle at the same time
doggedly down hill, while the gipsy, trusting to his knowledge of the
country, declared his own intention of making a wide sweep forward,
hoping thus to catch a glimpse of the pedestrian, and ride him down, so
soon as the storm modified sufficiently to distinguish an object at ten
paces' distance.
Once parted, the two men had no chance of coming together again. The
sheriff's officer, through sheer good luck did eventually find his way
back to Porlock, but Fin Cooper wandered aimlessly on many a mile
further into the wilderness. He, too, was at last obliged to confess
himself defeated. Not only baffled in his search, but lost, like an
overfed Gorgio, on the moor.
The snow, falling and fallen, so completely effaced or altered every
familiar land-mark, that he rode blindly round and round, ashamed to
admit he was unable to find his way out of this weary, interminable,
undulating waste of white.
After a hundred mistakes, a hundred disappointments, he came to a
standstill perforce. Floundering through a deep snow-drift, he was
compelled to halt and take a survey of the misty surface, over which
every passing moment made it more unsafe to travel. The storm, that had
raged and lulled at intervals, now lifted for a time, disclosing at a
hundred paces' distance something that caused Fin to start in his
saddle, and brought a blasphemy of malice and exultation to his lips.
Yonder, almost within pistol-shot, lay a motionless heap half buried,
half revealed, and yes, his keen hawk's eye did not deceive him, a
horseman's heavy boot protruded from the snow!
With a cry of triumph he spurred eagerly to the spot, and leaped from
the saddle in such fierce and hungry hate as impels the pounce of a wild
cat--the swoop of a bird of prey.
[Illustration: THE GIPSY'S BRIDE.]
She lay dead--stone dead. The girl he had loved all these years. The
woman that to-day, this very day was to have been his wife! And he
thought it was John Garnet, whose life he had thirsted to take for a
reward of twenty guineas. Twenty guineas to spend in rioting and
drunkenness at his wedding feast! He burst into so wild a shriek of
laughter as startled the very horse, from which he had dismounted,
and fell on his knees beside the rigid form, that he had last seen
warm and supple, clothed with living grace and beauty in his tent.
It seemed impossible. She had not surely lain there many minutes, and
yet how stiff she had grown and cold! Against that fixed grey face he
laid his own, and tried hard in his agony to breathe life into those
pale parted lips, but it was hoping against hope, and while he swore
that it could not, should not be, his bursting heart told him the truth,
and he knew that Thyra Lovel's deep dark eyes would look on him again,
gladly or sadly, never more! Even in his utter misery he saw it all: the
ingenious shift, the false track, the artifice by which she had
outwitted him, and led him skilfully off the line of his pursuit, to
spend his wedding-day with her here, locked in each other's arms, the
only occupants of the frozen, desolate waste.
The gipsy's mood was very pitiful and tender while he sat and watched by
her corpse in the falling snow, waiting till his horse should be
sufficiently rested to carry a double burthen, thinking, more in sorrow
than in anger, of their two blighted lives, and the love he had given so
lavishly without return, wondering in his heathen reasonings why these
things were so, wishing in his despair that the storm would fall thicker
and thicker to wrap them for ever on this their marriage-bed in its
shroud of eternal white.
After a few days, however, all traces of winter again disappeared from
those smiling valleys and shaggy woodlands that border the Severn Sea.
Not a patch of white was left to spot the swarthy uplands where Dunkerry
Beacon lords it over the moor, and along the warm sheltered coast from
Watermouth to Watchet, summer seemed to have returned only softer and
kinder for her desertion. But the fairest flower in Devon languished and
faded in the genial sunshine, more obviously than she had drooped
beneath the storm. Nelly Carew, in deep mourning for her grandfather,
looking none the less beautiful in her sorrow, felt so lonely and
unprotected now, that in her moments of despondency she almost wished
she could die too, like the others, and be at rest.
Katerfelto vainly endeavoured to persuade her that by accompanying him
in his flight to the Continent she might probably join John Garnet, who
must surely have preceded them to some of the usual refuges for such
political outlaws, believing, no doubt, that, accompanied by so
beautiful an associate, he could ply his old trade with every prospect
of success; but the girl's own sense of right forbade her to think for
an instant of such a scheme, and he, too, went his way, after Master
Carew's funeral, leaving Nelly entirely forsaken and alone. The
neighbours, though liberal in expressions of sympathy, and offers of
help which was not required, shook their heads and whispered to each
other that there was something unlucky about the lass--things went wrong
with all who took a fancy to her. The old grandfather, who couldn't keep
his eyes off her, and thought gold wasn't good enough for her to eat
off, he died--well--a man in years certainly, but still very little over
eighty after all! Then there was that godless parson who broke his neck
just above the Witches' Wash-pot, and indeed every bone of his body, so
that they could scarce straighten him decently for burial. Was he not a
lover of Mistress Nelly's?
As to the young spark, a comely lad, forsooth, and a gallant, who came
and went with his grey horse like a flash of lightning, so that nobody
in Porlock ever knew what was gone with him, why it wasn't likely, was
it? that she would ever set eyes on _him_ again! Altogether, Nelly felt
very unhappy and despondent. It seemed hard, at her age, to be left so
friendless, so utterly alone in the world.
But one afternoon, when the days were at their shortest, came a letter
by the weekly post from Taunton, stamped with a French mark, tied in a
bright new ribbon, and directed in a bold masculine hand to Mistress
Nelly Carew.
From the date of its receipt the neighbours could not but observe how
the girl's eye grew brighter, and the colour returned to her cheek. The
hope that had nearly died out in her heart began to bloom once more, and
her trust came back in John Garnet, just as poor Waif's did, but with
better reason, and a happier result.
She learned that powerful friends had made interest for this proscribed
young gentleman at court. The king was a thorough Englishman, placable,
courageous, extremely averse to severity when an enemy was conquered and
under foot. John Garnet counted on a free pardon, and even hinted at the
possibility of the northern estates reverting hereafter to their
rightful owner. Lord Bellinger had made a famous speech on the Cider
Bill, which brought him into notice, and gave him, for the time,
considerable influence. This influence he had exerted in Master Garnet's
favour, reasoning, with characteristic inconsequence, that but for the
exploit attributed to Galloping Jack, of which his penetration had
discovered the real originator, he would have been buried alive in the
West at the very time when he seized his opportunity to distinguish
himself in the House of Lords. Nelly must be patient and constant, as
the writer vowed to be himself. There was a good time coming, and she
must wait.
That Nelly _did_ wait, I gather from a picture in the possession of the
Garnet family, representing a woman in the bloom of youth, with a pair
of outrageously beautiful blue eyes, smiling from under a mushroom hat,
on a child in a white frock and coral necklace at her feet. The whole
purporting, as set forth in gold letters on a corner of the canvas, to
be a portrait of Dame Elinor Garnet and her eldest son. If this be
indeed the Nelly Carew of his desperate expedition into Devon, I can
readily understand that sickness of heart which came over Waif, when
peering stealthily into the orchard at Porlock, she espied so comely a
damsel in affectionate converse with the man she loved.
But what became of the good grey horse? Tradition, on the authority of
Red Rube, affirms that he was never retaken after his bridle broke, but
passed on rejoicing, to life-long freedom in the moor. The harbourer was
wont to declare that as soon as he had forwarded his rider, whom he kept
in close hiding for a week, to the little coast town whence an escape
was arranged by sea, he himself set out in pursuit of the incomparable
stallion, determined to tax all his science and ingenuity for the
capture of such a valuable prize. The very first day of his search, he
came upon the saddle and furniture from which the horse had kicked
himself clear. And many a time afterwards, he followed the iron-shod
hoof marks till the iron too had dropped off, leaving only the print of
a smooth oval foot, with the patience and persistency of his trade; but
shyer, and warier than any red-deer, the animal never allowed him to
come within hearing, and seldom within sight. Doubtless he joined those
herds of wild horses and ponies, which to this day roam through the
remote coombes and moorland wastes of West Somerset and North Devon,
free and unrestrained as the very breeze that sweeps across the scanty
herbage on which they feed. Here it is to be presumed that he fulfilled
his destiny, doing good in his generation, for even now, when some bold
and reckless rider has been carried more gallantly than usual, in one of
those wild, glorious, but exhausting runs that seem peculiar to the
West, he lays a loving hand on the reeking neck of his favourite, and
observes, triumphantly, "It always tells at the finish. You never get to
the end of them when they've a strain of blood that goes back to old
Katerfelto!"
THE END.
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS
* * * * *
Transcriber's Note:
Punctuation has been standardised. Spelling and hyphenation have been
retained as they appear in the original publication.