Put Yourself in His Place Part 40

Call her slippery, if you don't like her; call her unhappy and wavering, if you do like her.

Mr. Coventry smiled now at this attempt to put off the inevitable, and complied at once.

But, before they had gone a hundred yards, the snow did really fall, and so heavily that the air was darkened.

"We had better go back to the shed till it is over," said Mr. Coventry.

"Do you think so?" said Grace, doubtfully. "Well."

And they went back.

But the snow did not abate, and the air got darker. So, by-and-by, Grace suggested that Mr. Coventry should run down the hill, and send George up to her with an umbrella.

"What, and leave you alone?" said he.

"Well, then, we had better go together."

They started together.

By this time the whole ground was covered about three inches deep; not enough to impede their progress; but it had the unfortunate effect of effacing the distinct features of the ground; and, as the declining sun could no longer struggle successfully through the atmosphere, which was half air, half snow, they were almost in darkness, and soon lost their way. They kept slanting unconsciously to the left, till they got over one of the forks of the mountain and into a ravine: they managed to get out of that, and continued to descend; for the great thing they had to do was to reach the valley, no matter where.

But, after a long laborious, and even dangerous descent, they found themselves beginning to ascend. Another mountain or hill barred their progress. Then they knew they must be all wrong, and began to feel rather anxious. They wished they had stayed up on the hill.

They consulted together, and agreed to go on for the present; it might be only a small rise in the ground.

And so it proved. After a while they found themselves descending again.

But now the path was full of pitfalls, hidden by the snow and the darkness.

Mr. Coventry insisted on going first.

In this order they moved cautiously on, often stumbling.

Suddenly Mr. Coventry disappeared with a sudden plunge, and rolled down a ravine, with a loud cry.

Grace stood transfixed with terror.

Then she called to him.

There was no answer.

She called again.

A faint voice replied that he was not much hurt, and would try to get back to her.

This, however, was impossible, and all he could do was to scramble along the bottom of the ravine.

Grace kept on the high ground, and they called to each other every moment. They seemed to be a long way from each other; yet they were never sixty yards apart. At last the descent moderated, and Grace rejoined him.

Then they kept in the hollow for some time, but at last found another acclivity to mount: they toiled up it, laden with snow, yet perspiring profusely with the exertion of toiling uphill through heather clogged with heavy snow.

They reached the summit, and began to descend again. But now their hearts began to quake. Men had been lost on Cairnhope before to-day, and never found alive: and they were lost on Cairnhope; buried in the sinuosities of the mountain, and in a tremendous snowstorm.

They wandered and staggered, sick at heart; since each step might be for the worse.

They wandered and staggered, miserably; and the man began to sigh, and the woman to cry.

At last they were so exhausted, they sat down in despair: and, in a few minutes, they were a couple of snow-heaps.

Mr. Coventry was the first to see all the danger they ran by this course.

"For G.o.d's sake, let us go on!" he said; "if we once get benumbed, we are lost. We MUST keep moving, till help comes to us."

Then they staggered, and stumbled on again, till they both sank into a deep snow-drift.

They extricated themselves, but, oh, when they felt that deep cold snow all round them, it was a foretaste of the grave.

The sun had set, it was bitterly cold, and still the enormous flakes fell, and doubled the darkness of the night.

They staggered and stumbled on, not now with any hope of extricating themselves from the fatal mountain, but merely to keep the blood alive in their veins. And, when they were exhausted, they sat down, and soon were heaps of snow.

While they sat thus, side by side, thinking no more of love, or any other thing but this: should they ever see the sun rise, or sit by a fireside again? suddenly they heard a sound in the air behind them, and, in a moment, what seemed a pack of hounds in full cry pa.s.sed close over their heads.

They uttered a loud cry.

"We are saved!" cried Grace. "Mr. Raby is hunting us with his dogs. That was the echo."

Coventry groaned. "What scent would lie?" said he. "Those hounds were in the air; a hundred strong."

Neither spoke for a moment, and then it was Grace who broke the terrible silence.

"THE GABRIEL HOUNDS!"

"The Gabriel hounds; that run before calamity! Mr. Coventry, there's nothing to be done now, but to make our peace with G.o.d. For you are a dead man, and I'm a dead woman. My poor papa! poor Mr. Little!"

She kneeled down on the snow, and prayed patiently, and prepared to deliver up her innocent soul to Him who gave it.

Not so her companion. He writhed away from death. He groaned, he sighed, he cursed, he complained. What was Raby thinking of, to let them perish?

Presently he shouted out--"I'll not die this dog's death, I will not.

I'll save myself, and come back for you."

The girl prayed on, and never heeded him.

But he was already on his feet, and set off to run: and he actually did go blundering on for a furlong and more, and fell into a mountain-stream, swollen by floods, which whirled him along with it like a feather, it was not deep enough to drown him by submersion, but it rolled him over and over again, and knocked him against rocks and stones, and would infallibly have destroyed him, but that a sudden sharp turn in the current drove him, at last, against a projecting tree, which he clutched, and drew himself out with infinite difficulty. But when he tried to walk, his limbs gave way; and he sank fainting on the ground, and the remorseless snow soon covered his prostrate body.

All this time, Grace Carden was kneeling on the snow, and was, literally a heap of snow. She was patient and composed now, and felt a gentle sleep stealing over.

That sleep would have been her death.