Shining Ferry Part 32

"Christ walked a little, a little Before the sun did rise; Christ mixed clay with spittle, And cured a blind man's eyes; This man, and that man, And likewise Bartimee-- What Christ did for these poor men I hope He'll do for me."

The charm, however, had not worked. Perhaps it needed time to operate, and the children had despaired too soon.

"Why didn't you come to me at once?" demanded Clem.

"I didn't dare." Myra trembled now, on the verge of putting her hopes to the touch. Though these were but pisky-lights, what bliss if Clem should behold them! "Besides, I saw a light across the yard in Archelaus Libby's garret. I believe he is awake there, with his telescope, and _he_ can't have tried the ointment. You won't be terribly disappointed, dear, if--"

He slid out of bed and took her hand.

He was a brave boy; and when she led him to her window and he saw nothing, his first thought was for her disappointment, to soothe it as well as he might.

"Tell me about it," he whispered, nestling down on the window-seat and drawing her head close to his shoulder; for after the pause that destroyed hope she had broken down, her body shaking with m.u.f.fled sobs, woeful to feel and to hear. Outside, the Northern Lights--the 'merry-dancers'--yet flickered over the snowy roof-ridges and the snowy uplands beyond.

"I am going to dress," she announced, as the gust of sobbing spent itself.

"If Archelaus Libby is awake, he will tell us what it means."

"Take me with you."

Though prepared to go alone, she had hoped he would ask this, being--to confess the truth--more than half afraid of the dark landing and pa.s.sages below. The two dressed themselves and crept downstairs. In the hall, remembering their former expedition, Myra felt the bolt of the front door cautiously; but this time it was shut. They stole down the side-pa.s.sage to the kitchen, where a fire burned all night in the great chimney-place on a bed of white wood ashes. Kneeling in the faint glow of it they drew on and laced their boots, then unlatched the kitchen window and dropped out upon the snow.

Archelaus Libby had been given a garret over the cider house, where he slept or studied in a perpetual odour of dried russet apples and Spanish onions. He was awake and dressed, and welcomed the children gaily by the light of a tallow candle. His simple mind found nothing to wonder at in this nocturnal visit. Was not the Aurora Borealis performing in all its splendour? Then naturally the whole world must be awake with him and excited.

He showed Myra its wonders through the telescope, discoursing on them with glee.

"But what does it _mean _?" she asked.

He told her how it was caused, and how a clever man had once made a toy with a bright lamp, a globe sprinkled with ground gla.s.s, and the vapour of a sponge pressed on hot iron, repeating the phenomenon on a tiny scale.

"We will try it ourselves to-morrow," he promised.

The ribbons of light were playing hide-and-seek behind a distant wooded hill, now and again so vividly that its outline stood up clear against them.

"That will be the moors above Damelioc," said Archelaus. "If you watch through the gla.s.s, you will see the monument there--the one on the battle-field, you know. I saw it, just now, plain as plain. And once I thought I saw the taller monument, over Bodmin."

"That's where they've put Uncle Vro in gaol."

"I was thinking of him just now, Miss Myra. It will be cold for him to-night over there in his cell."

"I wonder if Lady Killiow knows," said Myra musingly.

"They were talking about it in the kitchen to-night," said Archelaus, "and all agreed that she knew naught about it. Miss Susannah was saying that Peter Benny had been across here, bold as a lion, this afternoon, and spoke up to your uncle about it. Their voices were so loud that from the great parlour she heard every word; and Mr. Benny was threatening to tell Lady Killiow what he was doing in her name, and, what's more, to write up to his brother and get the whole story in the London papers."

"But _has_ he told her?"

Clem caught his sister suddenly by the arm. The child was shaking from head to foot. "Peter Benny has not told her! Come away, Myra, and leave Archelaus to his telescope. I want you, back at the house!"

"Why, whatever has taken you?" she asked, believing him ill. Having wished Archelaus good-night and hurried Clem down the garret stairs, she repeated her question anxiously. "Come back to bed, Clem; you're shaking like a leaf!"

"The lights!" stammered the child. "I saw them."

"You saw them!" Myra echoed slowly.

"Yes, yes--over Bodmin and over Damelioc. How far is it to Damelioc?"

"Four or five miles maybe. But, Clem, you don't mean--" She stared into his face by the wan light of the Aurora reflected from the snow.

Reading his resolve, she became practical at once. "Stay here and don't stir," she commanded, "while I creep back to the larder and forage."

Dawn overtook them at the lodge-gates of Damelioc; a still dawn, with a clear, steel-blue sky and the promise of a crisp, bright day. It had been freezing all night, and was freezing still; the snow as yet lay like a fine powder, and so impetuously had they hurried, hand in hand, that along the uplands they scarcely felt the edge of the windless air.

But here in the valley bottom, under the trees beside the stream, they pa.s.sed into a different atmosphere, and shivered. Here, too, for the first half-mile--road and sward being covered alike with snow--Myra had much ado to steer, and would certainly have missed her way but for the black tumbling stream on her right. She knew that the drive ran roughly parallel with it, and never more than a few paces distant from its brink.

Twice in her life she had journeyed with her grandmother in high June to Lady Killiow's rose-show, and she remembered being allowed to kneel on the cushions of the 'car' and wonder at the miniature bridges and cascades.

By keeping close beside the water she could not go wrong.

They halted by a bridge below the lake where the woods divided to right and left at the foot of the great home-park. A cold fog lay over the water and the reedy islands where the wild duck and moorhens were just beginning to stir, but above it a glint or two of sunshine touched the wintry boughs, and while it grew and ran along them and lit up their snowy upper surfaces as with diamonds, a full morning beam smote on the facade of the house itself, high above the slope, uplifted above the fog as it were a heavenly palace raised upon a base of cloud.

Daunted by the vision, Myra glanced at Clem. His face was lifted towards the sunlight.

"The house!" she whispered. "Oh, Clem, it's ever so much grander than I remembered!" She began to describe it to him, while they divided and munched the crusts she had fetched from Susannah's bread-pan.

"If her palace is as fine as that," said Clem, with great cheerfulness, "she must be a very great lady, and can easily do what we want."

They took hands again and mounted the curving drive to the terrace and the cavernous _porte-cochere_, where hung a bell-pull so huge that Myra had to clasp it in both hands and drag upon it with all her weight. Far in the bowels of the house a bell clanged, deep and hollow-voiced as for a funeral.

A footman answered it--a young giant in blue livery and powder.

Flinging wide the vast door, he stared down upon the visitors, and his Olympian haughtiness gave way to a broad grin.

"Well, I'm jiggered!" said the footman.

"You may be jiggered or not," answered Myra, with sudden _aplomb_ (a moment before, she had been ready to run), "but we wish to see Lady Killiow. Will you announce us, please?"

Two hours later, when the sun had risen above the trees, Sir George Dinham came riding up through Damelioc Park. He too came to right a wrong, having given his promise to Mr. Benny overnight. He rode slowly, pondering. On his way he noted the footprints of two children on the snow, except by them untrodden; marked how they wandered off here and there toward the stream, but ever returned, regained the way, and held on for Damelioc. He wondered what they might mean.

Lady Killiow received him in her morning-room. She wore a bonnet and a long cloak of sables, and was obviously dressed for a drive. She rose from before her writing-table, where she was sealing a letter.

"I interrupt you?" said Sir George as they shook hands, and glancing out of the window he had a glimpse of the heads of a pair of restless bays.

Unheard by him--the snow lying six inches deep before the porch--Lady Killiow's carriage had come round from the stables a minute after his arrival.

"But if I guess your errand," she said, "I was merely about to forestall it. I am driving to Bodmin."

"You knew nothing, then, of this poor old creature's case?"

"My friend, I hope that you too have only just discovered it, or you would have warned me."

"I heard of it last night for the first time. Rosewarne alone is responsible for the prosecution?"

"He only." She nodded towards the letter on the writing-table.

"I have asked him to attend here when I return, and explain himself.

Meanwhile--"