ALARM AND ANXIETY.
Time passed on--the mist and rain deepened around Earlshaugh, veiling
coppice, glen, and field, and Roland did not appear.
He must have lost his way; but then every foot of the ground was so
familiar to him that such seemed impossible; and the idea of an
accident did not as yet occur to any one.
Thus none waited for him at the late luncheon table, and then, as in
the smoke-room and over the billiard balls, Jack Elliot and others
talked only of the events of the day--how the birds were flushed and
knocked over--of hits and misses, of game clean-killed, and so forth;
how one gorgeous old pheasant in particular came crashing down
through the wiry branches of the dark firs in the agonies of death;
and how deftly Roland killed his game, without requiring a keeper to
give the _coup de grâce_--there were never many runners before him,
and how 'he looked as fresh as a daisy after doing the ninety acre
copse,' and so forth, till his protracted absence and the closing in
of the darkness, with the ringing of the dressing-bell for dinner,
made all conscious of the time, and led them to wonder "what on
earth" had become of him--what had happened, and whither had he, or
could he have gone!
Speculations were many and endless,
'Some fatality seems surely to attend the shooting here now!' said
Mrs. Lindsay anxiously, as she nervously pressed her large white,
ringed hands together.
To some of those present the stately dinner, served up in the lofty
old dining-room, was a kind of mockery; and Maude and Hester, who
dreaded they knew not what, made but a pretence of eating, while the
presence of the servants proved a wholesome, if galling, restraint to
them; but not so to the irrepressible Annot, who talked away as usual
to the gentlemen present, and displayed all her pretty little tricks
of manner as if no cause for surmise or anxiety was on the tapis.
The unusual pallor, silence, and abstraction of Mrs. Lindsay, as she
sat at the head of the table, while Jack Elliot officiated as host,
were painfully apparent to those who, like Hester, watched her.
But she had her own secret thoughts, in which none, as yet, shared!
An attempt had been made to injure Elliot, perhaps mortally, under
cover of a blunder--a mishap. Had the same evil hand been at work
again?
A cloud there was no dispelling began to settle over all;
conversation became broken, disjointed, overstrained, and the cloud
seemed deeper as a rising storm howled round the lofty old house,
shook the wet ivy against the windows, and grew in force with the
gathering gloom of night.
Annot's equanimity amid these influences grieved Maude and annoyed
Hester, who recalled her twaddling grief when Roland had been but a
few hours absent from her in Edinburgh.
'How can she bear herself so?' said Maude.
'Because she is heartless,' replied Hester; 'and to say the least of
her, I never could imagine Annot, with all her prettiness and
_espièglerie_, at the head of a household, or taking her place in
society like a woman of sense.'
Hour succeeded hour, and still there was no appearance of Roland, and
the clang of the great iron bell in the _porte-cochère_ was listened
for in vain.
So the night came undoubtedly on, but what a night it proved to be of
storm and darkness!
The rain hissed on the swaying branches of the great trees now almost
stripped and bare; it tore down the flowers from the rocks on which
the house stood, and wrenched away the matted ivy from turret and
chimney; the green turf of the lawn and meadows was soaked till it
became a kind of bog; the winding walks that descended to the old
fortalice became miniature cascades that shone through the gloom,
while the wind wailed in the machicolations of the upper walls in
weird and solemn gusts, to die away down the haugh below.
That a tempest had been coming some of the older people about the
place, like Gavin Fowler, had foretold, as that loud and hollow noise
like distant thunder that often precedes a storm among the Scottish
mountains had been heard among the spurs of the Ochils, and from
which in the regions farther North, the superstitious Highlanders, as
General Stewart tells, presage many omens, when 'the Spirit of the
Mountain shrieks.'
All night long the house-bell was clanged at intervals from the
bartizan, to the alarm of the neighbourhood.
London-bred Annot was scared at last by the elemental war, by these
strange sounds, and the pale faces of those about her, and with
blanched visage she peered from the deeply embayed windows into the
darkness without, with genuine alarm, now.
How often had she and Roland rambled in yonder green park, not a
vestige of which could now be seen even between the flying glimpses
of the moon, or crossed it together, talking of and planning out that
future which he seemed to approach with such doubt and diffidence
latterly; or as he went forth with his breechloader on his shoulder
and she clinging with interlaced hands on his right arm--he tall,
strong, and stalwart, with his dogs at his heels, and looking down
lovingly and trustfully into her fair, smiling face.
Now they might never there and thus walk again, yet her tears seemed
to be lodged very deep just then.
But softer Hester's thoughts were more acute. Had Roland perished in
some unforeseen, mysterious, and terrible manner? Was this the last
of _her_ secret love-dream, and had all hope, sweetness, glamour and
beauty gone out of her heart--out of her life altogether?
Oh, what had happened?
Could Hawkey Sharpe--no, she thrust even fear of him on one side;
but, as the time stole on and the midnight hour passed without
tidings, she tortured herself with questions, lay down without
undressing, and wetted her pillow with tears for the doubly lost
companion of her infancy, of her girlhood, and its riper
years--thinking all the while that her sorrow, her longing, and
passionate terrors were for the affianced of another--of the artful
Annot Drummond.
Clinging to the supposition that he must have mistaken his way in the
swiftly descending mist, Jack Elliot and other guests, with
serving-men, keepers, and hunters, carrying lanterns and poles, set
out more than once into the darkness, rack, and storm to search
without avail, and to return wet and weary.
Hour after hour the circle at Earlshaugh watched and waited,
trembling at every gust and listening to every sound--shaken and
weakened by a suspense that grew intolerable.
From the windows nothing could be seen--not even the tossing trees
close by, or the dark outline of the distant mountains. The
listeners' hearts beat quick--gust after gust swept past, but brought
no welcome sound with it, and they became familiarized with the idea
that some catastrophe must have happened or tidings of the absent
must have come by that time; and with each returning party of
searchers, hope grew less and less, while those most vitally
concerned in the absence of Roland began to shrink from questioning
or consulting them, as they were already too much disposed by their
nature to adopt the gloomiest and most morbid views; and still the
storm gusts continued to shake the windows, and dash against them
showers of leaves and the wet masses of overhanging foliage.
Without his cheerful presence and general _bonhomie_ of manner, how
empty and void the great old drawing-room--yea, the house
itself--seemed now! All his occasional strange, abstracted, and
thoughtful moods were forgotten, and now the hours of the dark
autumnal morning wore inexorably on.
A few of the guests had retired to their rooms, but the majority
passed the time on easy-chairs, watching and waiting for what might
transpire. Now and then a dog whined mournfully, and cocked its ears
as if to listen, adding to the eerie nature of the vigil.
'Three,' said Hester to Maude when the clocks were heard striking.
Then followed 'four' and 'five.' The fires were made up anew.
'Oh, my God, what _can_ have happened!' thought the two girls in
their hearts, glancing at Annot, who, overcome by weariness, had
dropped into a profound sleep; and ere long the red rays of the sun,
as he rose from his bed in the German Sea, began to tinge the summits
of the distant Ochils and the nearer Lomonds, and the storm was dying
fast away.
It was impossible now to suppose that he could in any manner have
lost himself, or taken shelter in the house of any friend or tenant,
as no message came from him, and the last idea was completely
dissipated by the final return of Gavin Fowler, who, with his staff
of keepers and beaters, had been at every farm and house within miles
making inquiries, but in vain.
Nothing had been seen or heard of the lost one.
Gavin, however, had seen something which, though he spoke not of it
then, had given him cause for anxious thought and much speculation.
This was Mr. Hawkey Sharpe (who for some time past had betaken him
elsewhere) rapidly and furtively passing out by the Weird Yett, well
muffled up, either to conceal his face or for warmth against the cold
morning air; and by the path he had taken, he had evidently come by
the back private door from the house of Earlshaugh!
'What's i' the wind noo?' muttered the old gamekeeper, with a glare
in his dark gray eye, and with knitted brows, 'But there's nae hawk,
Maister Hawkey Sharpe, flees sae high but he will fa' to some lure.
They were gey scant o' bairns that brocht you up.'