Into the Highways and Hedges Part 13

"Hold on!" said a voice above her. "Don't move, I'll run for a rope."

She opened her eyes and tried to collect her wits.

"I can't hold on more than a minute more," she said a little indistinctly. "If you go I shall fall." While she spoke the root she was clinging to "gave" a little, and a light shower of chalk fell on her face.

"I'm falling! oh be quick!" she cried; and the next moment something blue dangled above her face.

"Let go those leaves, and catch hold of my jersey. I'll pull ye up by it," shouted the voice, the owner of which had flung himself full length on the cliff, his face and arms over the edge.

"Do it at once!" He called, this time as peremptorily as he could, for he was in momentary terror lest yellow poppy and girl should go together to the bottom.

To his relief she obeyed him.

"Both hands!" he cried encouragingly. "I can't pull you up by one."

"I can't move my right arm," she answered. "It's twisted somehow;" and he whistled in dismay.

Meg was as white as the chalk, but she showed some courage now that help was at hand, and she managed to pull herself into a sitting posture, holding tight to his jersey. Further than that he couldn't get her, and he did not dare to leave her lest she should turn giddy.

"I tell you what," he said at last. "There is only one way; I can't pull ye up, an' I doan't risk leaving ye on that narrow bit: ye must e'en come down to me. If I drop over the face o' the cliff there's a foothold close beside ye, now that you're sitting up, and a drop below that again, there's a broader ledge and a cave. Ye'll be safe enough there.

Will 'ee try? but we must, for there's naught else to be done. Can ye let go my jersey and sit quite still one minute? Doan't 'ee look, la.s.s, shut your eyes and put your hands down each side."

Meg nodded and held her breath. She felt him alight at her side, and then heard him shout from below.

"All right! There's room enough here," he cried. "Edge along sideways as far as ye can to the right. Don't be scared, ye won't fall! It's quite possible."

He spoke with a.s.surance, and his confident tone gave her courage as he intended it should; but, nevertheless, his own pulses were beating rather fast, albeit his nerves were good as a rule.

Would the girl do it, or would she slip before he could catch her? She was directly over him at last. "Now," he said, "your foot almost touches my shoulder. Ay--that's it, put your weight on it and--ah! that's right.

Thank G.o.d!" He held her in his arms now, and the next moment she was safe at his side.

Meg leant against the entrance of the cave, half laughing and half crying.

She was not in the least surprised to see that it was the preacher who had saved her, but the absurdity of the situation struck her with a sudden reaction.

The cave was dark, and very damp and ill-smelling; the ledge was just wide enough for them to stand quite safely on it. They were perched like two big birds on the face of the cliff, with a sheer descent that not even Barnabas could have swarmed down, below them.

"Yes, yes!" she gasped in answer to his e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of thankfulness.

"But--we shall never, never get up again!"

The preacher made no reply directly. Possibly the same idea had occurred to him.

She sat down in the entrance of the cave, and he tied up her bruised arm as well as he could, improvising a sling with the lace scarf she wore round her neck.

Fortunately, no bones were broken; and she a.s.sured him with a smile that he "hardly hurt her at all," though the muscles had been badly strained and her arm was still quite useless. He looked at her doubtfully, but could hardly gather from her face how much or how little she was suffering. He was not accustomed to women of Meg's cla.s.s, and was sorely puzzled as to what he had best do next.

"Look here!" he said at last. "It's not possible that ye should spend the night in this wet hole; ye'd be fairly starved wi' cold, and no one's likely to come by before morning. I'll climb up somehow and run to the coastguard for help. Ye won't be scared here, eh?"

He bent down and put his jersey between her and the wall of the cave.

"It's been an Irish way of helping ye up!"

Meg looked at him. Her face was very pale, but she had quite recovered her self-command now.

"Don't go," she said. "You might so easily be killed trying to climb in the dark. It is dark. I can hardly see the sea now. It would be my fault if you were to fall, and really I don't think I am worth it."

"If I am to die it 'ull happen the same whatever I do, an' if not, I'll be as safe as if I were in my bed," said Barnabas Thorpe. "But I doan't fancy ye need be scared, for I believe neither you nor I ha' come to an end o' things yet. It has been on my mind that I'd see ye again."

He turned, and began to swarm up the cliff as he spoke; and Meg stopped her ears, for the sound of the crumbling chalk sickened her, and waited in the dark.

The preacher shouted cheerfully when he scrambled to his feet at the top; and then, without further loss of time, started off towards the coastguard station. He was barefooted, having taken off his boots in order to climb; but that troubled him little, as he ran steadily across the night-curtained sleeping country.

Some hours later they stood together in the hall at Ravenshill, Mrs.

Russelthorpe facing them.

It was one o'clock; the short summer's night was nearly spent, but the big swinging lamp was still burning. To Meg and Barnabas, coming in from the sweet dark garden, the house seemed in a blaze of light.

The men were all out, searching far and wide for Meg. Only Mr.

Russelthorpe had not been told of her absence: he had gone early to bed, and locked the door on himself; giving orders that no one was to disturb him.

Mrs. Russelthorpe was white with pa.s.sion. Meg was quite silent.

Barnabas Thorpe stood looking from one woman to the other.

"You are a disgrace to the house! You have no shame left!" said Mrs.

Russelthorpe. Then the man's blue eyes flashed angrily.

"There's only one of us three has any cause for shame, an' it's not this maid nor me. It's not fit that any should say such things to her. Have ye no brother or father, la.s.s? If ye have, I would like to speak wi'

him."

Meg shook her head.

"Yes; but he is a very long way off; and I don't quite know where," she said; "and, perhaps, he'll believe Aunt Russelthorpe."

Mrs. Russelthorpe's face hardened; the preacher could not have done worse than appeal from her to Meg's father. She was a hard woman, and rather a coa.r.s.e one; but she would scarcely have said what she said that night, if the jealousy which always smouldered between her and her brother's child had not been fanned by his words.

"He will most certainly believe me," she said. "But it is almost a pity (for his sake) that, having stayed away so long, you ever came back at all."

Meg caught her breath with a low cry, as if she had been stabbed; but a sudden light broke over the preacher's face.

"Cast thy garments about thee, and follow me," he cried. "I did not understand before. My eyes were holden; but now it is made clear to us: it is the message from the Lord."

He made one stride forward and stretched out both his hands.

"Come _now_!" he cried. "I will s.n.a.t.c.h you like a brand from the burning. Come with me! Let us go out together and preach the Master in the Highways and Hedges. Your example shall be as a shining light to guide the feet of those who are snared by riches. Come! The world has called you on one side and the Master on the other, and you have hesitated; and now the call has been made clearer. Choose quickly, before it is too late. Let me take you from the evil that you feel too strong for you. No one can stay us. You shall go like Peter through the prison doors at the call of the Lord, an' in His strength I will hold ye safe."

Meg looked at him, one long earnest look, then away from him, at the familiar hall, where she had danced gaily three months ago. She thought of the portrait of the great-aunt whose eyes always followed her, and who had done something mysteriously "dreadful". Aunt Russelthorpe would say she was as bad, but she wasn't, she was following a call. She thought of her old uncle, who was sleeping through all this commotion; she thought of Laura and Kate; her aunt's words about her father had hurt her so much that she tried not to think of him; she saw again the preacher on the beach, ah! that was the beginning, and to-night only grew out of it; or was the beginning further back still in the days when her father had told her of Lazarus waiting "outside"?

"Choose while ye may," said Barnabas Thorpe. And she put her hand in his with an odd sense that very little "choice" was left.