A RIDE THROUGH THE SNOW.
Meanwhile the old Squire, with a troubled mind, kept talking and
walking about, and listening for the rumble of his sister's carriage,
the clank of horses' hoofs, and the ring of wheels upon the frozen
road. He could not believe that any one in the world would hurt his
darling Gracie. Everybody loved her so, and the whole parish was so
fond of her, and she had such a way of easing every one's
perplexities, that if any villain durst even think of touching a hair
of her blessed head--yet whose hair was it?--whose hair was it? And
such a quantity as never could have been cut with her consent!
"This is too much! I cannot bear it!" he said to himself, after many a
turn, and anxious search of the distance; "Joan's carriage should have
been here long ago. My darling would have made them keep their time. I
cannot stop here: I must go to meet them. But I need not startle any
one."
To provide for this, he just looked in at the kitchen door, and told
the old cook to keep the dinner back awhile; for the roads were so bad
that the ladies were almost sure to be behind their time; and then he
went quietly to the stable, where the horses were bedded down, and by
the light of an old horn lantern saddled and bridled his favourite
hack.
Heavy snow-clouds had been gathering all the afternoon; and now as he
passed through a side-gate into the lane, and turned his mare's head
eastward, the forward flakes were borne by the sharp wind into his
white whiskers. "We shall have a coarse night of it, I doubt," he said
to himself, as he buttoned his coat. At every turn of the lane he
hoped to meet his sister's chariot labouring up the slippery track
with the coal-black horses gray with snow, and somebody well wrapped
up inside, to make him laugh at his childish fears. But corner after
corner he turned, and met no carriage, no cart, no horse, nor even so
much as a man afoot; only the snow getting thicker and sharper, and
the wind beginning to wail to it. The ruts of the lane grew more
distinct, as their combs of frozen mud attracted and held the driving
whiteness; and the frogs of heavy cart-horses might be traced by the
hoary increment. Then in three or four minutes, a silvery greyness
(cast by the brown face of the roadway underlying the skin of snow)
glistened between steep hedgerows wherein the depth of darkness
rested. Soon even these showed traitor members, and began to hang the
white feather forth, where drooping spray or jutting thicket stopped
the course of the laden air. Every hoof of the horse fell softer than
it had fallen the step before, and the old man stooped to heed his
reins, as his hoary eyebrows crusted.
Fear struck colder to his heart than frost, as he turned the last
corner of his way, without meeting presence or token of his sister or
darling daughter. In the deepening snow he drew his horse up under the
two great yew-trees that overhung his sister's gate, and fumbled in
the dark for the handle. The close heavy gates were locked and barred;
and nothing had lately passed through them. Then he hoped that the
weather might have stopped the carriage, and he tugged out the heavy
bronze lion's-head in the pillar, which was the bell-pull. The bell in
the porch of the house clanged deeply, and the mastiff heavily bayed
at him; but he had to make the bell clang thrice before any servant
answered it.
"Who be you there?" at last a gruff voice asked, without stretch of
courtesy. "This sort of weather, come ringing like that! If 'ee say
much more, I'll let the big dog loose."
"Open the gate, you young oaf," cried the Squire. "I suppose you are
one of the new lot, eh? Not to know me, Worth Oglander!"
"Why couldn't you have said so then?" the surly fellow answered, as he
slowly opened one leaf of the gate, sweeping a fringe of snow back.
"Such a fellow wouldn't be with me half a day. Are you too big for
your work, sir? Run on before me, you piecrust in pumps, or you shall
taste my whip, sir."
The footman, for once in his life, took his feet up, and ran in a
bluster of rage and terror to the front door, which he had left wide
open to secure a retreat from violence. Mr. Oglander struck his mare,
and she started so that he scarcely pulled her head up under the
coigne of his sister's porch.
"What is all this, I would beg to know? If you think to frighten me,
you are mistaken. Oh, Worth is it? Worth, whatever do you mean by
making such a commotion?"
Three or four frightened maids were peeping, safe in the gloom of the
entrance-hall; while the lady of the house came forward bravely in the
lamp-light.
"I will speak to you presently, Joan," said the Squire, as he vainly
searched, with a falling heart, for some dear face behind her. "Here,
Bob, I know you at any rate; take the old mare to the stable."
Then, with a sign to his sister, he followed her softly into the
dining-room. At a glance he saw that she had dined alone, and he fell
into a chair, and could not speak.
"Have you brought back the stockings? Why, how ill you look? The cold
has been too much for you, brother. You should not have come out. What
was Grace doing to let----"
"Where is my daughter Grace?"
"Your daughter Grace! My niece Grace! Why, at home in her father's
house, to be sure! Worth, are your wits wandering?"
"When did Grace leave you?"
"At three o'clock, yesterday. How can you ask, when you sent in such
hot haste for her? You might be quite sure that she would not linger.
I thought it rather--let me tell you----"
"I never sent for Grace. I have not seen her!"
Mrs. Fermitage looked at her brother steadily, with one hand fencing
her forehead. She knew that he was of no drunken kind--yet once in a
way a man might take too much--especially in such weather. But he
answered her gaze with such eyes that she came up to him, and began to
tremble.
"I tell you, Joan, I never sent for Grace. If you don't know where she
is--none but God knows!"
"I have told you all," his sister answered, catching her breath at
every word almost--"a letter came from you, overruling the whole of
our arrangement--you were not ill; but you wanted her for some
particular purpose. She was to walk, and you would meet her; and walk
she did, poor darling! And I was so hurt that I would not send----"
"You let her go, Joan! You let her go! It was a piece of your proud
temper. Her death lies at your door. And so will mine!"
Mr. Oglander was very sorry, as soon as he had spoken thus unjustly;
but the deep pang of the heart devoured any qualms of conscience.
"Are you sure that you let her go? Are you sure that she is not in
this house now?" he cried, coming up to his sister, and taking both
hands to be sure of her. "She must be here; and you are joking with
me."
"Worth, she left this house at two o'clock by that timepiece
yesterday, instead of to-day, as we meant to do. She would not let any
one go with her, because you were coming down the hill to meet her.
Not expecting to go home that day, she had a pair of my silk stockings
on, because--well, I need not go into that--and knowing what a darling
little fidget she is, I thought she had sent you back with them, and
to make your peace for so flurrying me."
"Have you nothing more to tell me, Joan? I shall go mad while you
dwell on your stockings. Who brought that letter? What is become of
it? Did you see it? Can you think of anything? Oh, Joan, you women are
so quick-witted! Surely you can think of something!"
Mrs. Fermitage knew what her brother meant; but no sign would she show
of it. The Squire was thinking of a little touch of something that
might have grown up into love, if Grace had not been so shy about it,
and so full of doubts as to what she ought to do. Her aunt had been
anxious to help this forward; but not for the world to speak of it.
"Concerning the letter, I only just saw it. I was up--well, well, I
mean I happened to have something to do in my own room then. The dear
creature knocked at my door, and I could not let her in at the
moment----"
"You were doing your wig--well, well, go on."
"I was doing nothing of the kind--your anxiety need not make you rude,
Worth. However, she put the letter under the door, and I saw that it
was your handwriting, and so urgent that I was quite flurried, and she
was off in two minutes, without my even kissing her. Oh, poor dear! My
little dear! She said good-bye through the key-hole, and could not
wait for me even to kiss her!"
At this thought the elderly lady broke down, and could for the moment
do nothing but sob.
"Dear heart, dear heart!" cried the Squire, who was deeply attached to
his sister; "don't take on so, my dear good Joan! We know of no harm
as yet--that is"--for he thought of the coil of hair, but with strong
effort forbore to speak of it--"nothing I mean in any way positive, or
disastrous. She may have, you know--she may have taken it into her
head to--to leave us for awhile, Joan."
"To run away! To elope! Not she! She is the last girl in the world to
do it. Whatever may have happened, she has not done that. You ought to
know better than that, Worth."
"Perhaps I do; I have no more time to talk of that, or any other
thing. I shall hurry into Oxford, and see John Smith, and let
everybody know of it. What do I care what people think? Send a man on
horseback to Beckley at once. Have you any man worth a pinch of salt?
You are always changing so."
"I cannot keep cripples, or sots, dear brother. Take any one you
please of them."
"Any one who will deign to come, you should say. Deep snow tries the
mettle of new-comers."