Into the Highways and Hedges Part 14

"You say it is a message?" she said. "Very well. Let it be so--I will go with you."

Mrs. Russelthorpe had stood with lips compressed, rigidly still, during the preacher's extraordinary proposal; she made one faint attempt to stop them now--but it was too late.

Barnabas Thorpe put her aside as easily as he would have brushed away a fly. "You ha' said your say. It was a cruel one," he said. "You ha' done wi' this maid." And they went out together into the night.

The men who had been sent out to search for Meg returned in the early morning. Their mistress met them in the hall; she had evidently taken no rest, and her face in the pitiless daylight looked haggard and worn.

It had been known in the household that Mrs. Russelthorpe and Miss Margaret didn't get on; but the servants whispered to each other now, that Mrs. Russelthorpe took it harder than might have been expected.

Later in the day, the coastguard from the station on the downs brought news of Miss Deane, and told how Barnabas Thorpe had come to his cottage for ropes, and of how they had gone together to the young lady's a.s.sistance.

The coastguard would hardly believe that the preacher had not brought his charge safely home. "I would have trusted my own daughter with him anywhere," he kept repeating. Of that strange scene in the hall, no one but the three concerned ever knew.

Later still they heard of Meg's marriage;--the bare announcement and no more. Mrs. Russelthorpe handed the missive to her husband.

"The girl is crazy," she said. "There is no other explanation."

Mr. Russelthorpe laid down his book--they were in the library--with a groan.

"I can't face Charles. I shall go away when he comes back," was the only comment he made.

"Why? It wasn't your fault," said his wife impatiently. "You had nothing to do with the unhappy child."

"Nothing, nothing!" muttered the old man. "She told me she was desperate, and I did nothing."

Mrs. Russelthorpe turned on him sharply; her face was hard and drawn.

"Margaret told you that? Then hold your tongue about it, Joseph. It is better she should be mad, than that she should have taken this scamp of her own free will."

Mr. Russelthorpe shook his head.

"You have never liked the girl," he said. "But she is no more mad than you are. She was in our charge, and we have been bad guardians; and when your brother comes----"

"When he comes _I_ will meet him," said Mrs. Russelthorpe; "it is between him and me."

The old man gave her a quick furtive glance.

"You have never wanted any one else to come between you and him," he said; and Mrs. Russelthorpe winced.

"We'll talk of it no more," she cried. "Meg is dead to us."

"Yes," said Uncle Russelthorpe, "but that won't prevent there being the devil to pay."

There is--or rather there was when Margaret Deane was young--a fishing hamlet on the Kentish coast that consisted of just one line of tarred wooden huts, and a square-towered chapel.

The women would put their candles in the windows after the sun had dipped, that the twinkling friendly eyes of their houses might guide the fishermen home; but whether it was day or night Sheerhaven had always the air of a watcher by the sea.

The glow of dawn was just warming the grey water when a boat grated on Sheerhaven beach, and a man and a woman climbed slowly up the yellow shelving bank. When they had gone a few steps the man turned and held out his hand. "You are over weary, an' it's no wonder," he said. "Best let me help you."

A fisherman who was pushing off his boat paused and marvelled, as well he might.

"That's Barnabas Thorpe. But who is the girl?"

They walked along the queer old street, that was bounded on one side by the shingle, and was often wave- as well as wind-swept, in the high spring-tides.

Barnabas knocked at a door. His mind was still running on St. Peter and the angel. "It 'ull be the mistress not the maid who will open to us here," he remarked.

The smell of a clover field was blown to them, and a c.o.c.k crew l.u.s.tily while they waited.

"The new day has begun," said the girl in a low voice.

The woman who opened the door, a muscular large-featured fish-wife, started when she saw them.

"Dear heart! it's the preacher,--and wet through," she cried. "Now step in, Barnabas, and I'll have a fire in a minute. Eh! what's this? What do you say? A maid as wants shelter?" her good-natured face fell. She had little doubt that it was some "unfortunate" the preacher had rescued.

"We--el--yes; let her come along, she'll do us no harm."

She took them into the parlour, and began to lay the sticks.

"Ran down with the tide from Dover, eh? Well, you've given the la.s.s a salt baptism; she's not got a dry st.i.tch on her. Come nearer, my woman; the fire will blaze up in a minute. Why!" with a sudden change of voice as Meg obeyed her. "The Lord have mercy on us, Barnabas! What have you been about?"

"I'll tell ye by-and-by when she is a bit dryer," said the preacher; but Mrs. Cuxton's eyes did not wait for his telling. She took one more long stare at her strange visitor, who had taken off the rough coat Barnabas had wrapped round her in the boat, and who stood shivering a little by the fire.

Her glance fell from the delicate refined face to the small nervous hands, and the dainty shoes soaked in salt water.

"You belong to gentlefolk, missy?" she said. "Ah, yes! I can see----"

"I don't belong to them any more," said the girl, speaking for the first time with a thrill of excitement, but with an intonation and accent which belied her words; and their hostess shook her head, and looked again at Barnabas, who was staring thoughtfully at the flames.

"I'd as lief speak a word to 'ee," he said gravely; and she followed him out of the room with the liveliest interest depicted on her face.

When she returned alone she found her guest sleeping from sheer exhaustion, her head on the seat of the wooden chair, her slim girlish form on the sanded floor.

Mrs. Cuxton bent over her, her gratified curiosity giving place to a protective motherly compunction; Meg's fair hair was wet with the sea, and shone in the firelight like a halo, her lips were just parted, she looked less than her twenty-one years.

"Poor lamb! to think what I thought of her! Eh! but it's a bad enough business as it is!" muttered the woman; and even while she watched her heart went out to the girl.

Meg awake might possibly have aroused criticism or disapproval; Meg sleeping took her unawares.

Mrs. Cuxton made up a bed on the settle, and drew it to the fire and then took off the wet shoes and stockings, warming the cold feet between her hands. Meg woke up and remonstrated faintly, but was too utterly worn out to care much what happened. The reaction from the tremendous excitement of the night was telling on her, and she was almost too weary to stand, though she felt a sort of comfort in this rough woman's tenderness.

"How kind you are, and what a deal of trouble I am giving you!" she said, as Mrs. Cuxton made her lie down in the improvised bed, and tucked her in with a motherly admonition to "put sleep betwixt her and her sorrows".

"I can't think whatever your people were about to let you do such a thing, and you only a slip of a girl. Trouble? you're no trouble in the world, missy; but your mother must be breaking her heart to-night for you!" cried Mrs. Cuxton; and there were actually tears in her eyes.