Starvecrow Farm Part 42

"Ay, he's more in his boots than on his knees most days," the landlady answered. "But what I've said, I'll do, that's flat. And here's the coach, so it's twelve noon."

She tugged at the cord of the yard bell, and its loud jangle in a twinkling roused the house to activity and the stables to frenzy. The fresh team were led jingling and prancing out of the yard, the ostlers running beside them. Modest Ann and her underling hastened to show themselves on the steps of the inn, and Mrs. Gilson herself pa.s.sed into the pa.s.sage ready to welcome any visitor of consequence.

Mr. Bishop and two Lancashire officers who had been pushing the quest in the Furness district descended from the outside of the coach. But they brought no news; and Sutton, as soon as he learned this, did not linger with them. The landlady's offer could not have any immediate result, since Clyne was not expected to return before two; and the chaplain, to kill time, went out at the back, and climbed the hill. He walked until he was tired, and then he turned, and at two made his way back to the inn, only to learn that Clyne had not yet arrived. None the less, the short day already showed signs of drawing in. There was snow in the sky. It hung heavy above Langdale Pikes and over the long ragged screes of Bow Fell. White cushions of cloud were piled one on the other to the northward, and earth and sky were alike depressing.

Weary and despondent, Sutton wandered into the house, and sitting down before the first fire he found, he fell fast asleep.

He awoke with a confused murmur of voices in his ears. The room was dark save for the firelight; and for a few seconds he fancied that he was still alone. The men whose talk he heard were in another part of the house, and soothed by their babble and barely conscious where he was, he was sinking away again when a harsh word and a touch on his sleeve awoke him. He sprang up, startled and surprised, and saw that Captain Clyne, his face fitfully revealed by the flame, was standing on the other side of the hearth. He was in his riding boots and was splashed to the waist.

His face was paler than usual, and his pose told of fatigue.

"Awake, man, awake!" he repeated. "Didn't you hear me?"

"No, I--I was dozing," the chaplain faltered, as he put back his chair.

"Just so," Clyne answered drily. "I wish I could sleep. Well, listen now. I have been back an hour, and I have read this." He laid his hand on an object on the table, and Sutton with joy saw that the object was the book which he had left with Mrs. Gilson. "I am sorry," Clyne continued in a constrained tone, "that I did not read it last evening.

I was wrong. But--G.o.d help me, I think I am almost mad! Anyway I have read it now, and I credit it, and I think that--she has been harshly treated. And I am here to tell you," a little more distinctly, "that you can arrange the matter to your satisfaction, sir."

Sutton stared. "Do you mean," he said, "that I may arrange for her release?"

"I have settled that," Clyne answered. "Mr. h.o.r.n.yold is not at home, but I have seen Mr. Le Fleming, and have given bail for her appearance when required; and here is Le Fleming's order for her release. I have ordered a postchaise to be ready and it will be at the door in ten minutes."

"But then--all is done?" the chaplain said.

"Except fetching her back," Clyne answered. "She must come here. There is nowhere else for her to go. But I leave that to you, since her release is due to you. I have done her an injustice, and done you one too. But G.o.d knows," he continued bitterly, "not without provocation.

Nor willingly, nor knowingly."

"I am sure of that," the chaplain answered meekly.

"Yes. Of course," Clyne continued, awkwardly, "I shall not consider what you said to me as said at all. On the contrary, I am obliged to you for doing your duty, Mr. Sutton, whatever the motive."

"The motive----"

"I do not say," stiffly, "that the motive was an improper one. Not at all. I cannot blame you for following up my own plan."

"I followed my feelings," Mr. Sutton replied, with a fresh stirring of resentment.

"Exactly. And therefore it seems to me that as she owes her release to your exertions, it is right that you should be the one to communicate the fact to her, and the one to bring her away."

The chaplain saw that his patron, persuaded that there was more between them than he had supposed, fell back on the old plan; that he was willing to give him the opportunity of pushing his suit. And the blood rushed to his face. If she could be brought--if she could be brought to look favourably on him! Ah, then indeed he was a happy man, and the dark night of despondency would be followed by a morn of joy.

But with the quickness of light his thoughts pa.s.sed over the various occasions--they were very few--on which he had addressed her. And--and an odd thing happened. It happened, perhaps, because with the chaplain the matter was no longer a question of ambition, but of love. "You have no news?" he said.

"None. And Nadin," with bitterness, "seems to be at the end of his resources."

"Then, Captain Clyne," Sutton replied impulsively, "there is but one way! There is but one thing to be done. It is not I, but you, who must bring Miss Damer back. She may still speak, but not for me!"

"And certainly not for me!" Clyne answered, his face flushing at the recollection of his violence.

"For you rather than for any one!"

"No, no!"

"Yes," the chaplain rejoined firmly. "I do not know how I know it," he continued with dignity, "but I know it. For one thing, I am not blind.

Miss Damer has never given me a word or a look of encouragement. If she thanks me," he spoke with something like a tear in his eye, "it will be much--the kind of thanks you, Captain Clyne, give the servant that lacquers your boots, or the dog that fetches your stick. But you--with you it will be different."

"She has no reason to thank me," Clyne declared.

"Yet she will."

"No."

"She will!" Sutton answered fervently--he was determined to carry out his impulsive act of unselfishness. "And, thank you or not thank you, she may speak. She will speak, when released, if ever! She is one who will do nothing under compulsion, nothing under durance. But she will do much--for love."

Clyne looked with astonishment at the chaplain. He, like Mrs. Gilson, was appraising him afresh, was finding something new in him, something unexpected. "How do you know?" he asked, his cheeks reddening.

There were for certain tears in Mr. Sutton's eyes now.

"I don't know how I know," he said, "but I do. I know! Go and fetch her; and I think, I think she will speak."

Clyne thought otherwise, and had good reason to think otherwise; a reason which he was ashamed to tell his chaplain. But in the face of his own view he was impressed by Sutton's belief. The suggestion was at least a straw to which he could cling. Failing other means--and the ardour of his a.s.sistants in the search was beginning to flag--why should he not try this? Why should he not, threats failing, throw himself at the girl's feet, abase himself, humble himself, try at least if he could not win by prayer and humility what she had refused to force.

It was a plan little to the man's taste; grievous to his pride. But for his son's sake, for the innocent boy's sake, he was willing to do even this. Moreover, with all his coldness, he had sufficient n.o.bility to feel that he owed the girl the fullest amends in his power. He had laid hands on her. He had treated her--no matter what the provocation--cruelly, improperly, in a manner degrading to her and disgraceful to himself. His face flushed as he recalled the scene and his violence. Now it was hers to triumph, hers to blame: nor his to withhold the opportunity.

"I will go," he said, after a brief perturbed silence. "I am obliged to you for your advice. You think that there is a chance she will speak?"

"I do," Sutton answered manfully. "I do." And he said more to the same purpose.

But later, when the hot fit ebbed, he wondered at himself. What had come over him? Why had he, who had so little while his patron had so much, given up his ewe lamb, his one chance? Reason answered, because he had no chance and it was wise to make a virtue of necessity. But he knew that, a day or two before, he would have snapped his fingers at reason, he would have clung to his forlorn hope, he would have made for his own advantage by the nearest road. What then had changed him?

What had caused him to set the girl's happiness before his own, and whispered to him that there was only one way by which, smirched and discredited as she was, she whom he loved could reach her happiness?

He did not answer the question, perhaps he did not know the answer.

But wandering in the darkness by the lake-side, with the first snowflakes falling on his shoulders, he cried again and again, "G.o.d bless her! G.o.d bless her!" with tears running down his pale, insignificant face.

CHAPTER XXV

PRISON EXPERIENCES

When Henrietta rose on the second morning of her imprisonment, and opened her door and looked out, she met with an unpleasant surprise.

Snow had fallen in the night, and lay almost an inch deep in the yard.

The sheet of dazzling white cast the dingy spiked wall and the mean cell-doors into grey relief. But it was not this contrast, nor the memory of childish winters with their pleasures--though that memory took her by the throat and promised to choke her--that filled her with immediate dismay. It was the difficulty of performing the prison duties, of going beyond her door, and refilling her water-pitcher at the pump. To cross the yard in sandaled shoes--such as she and the girls of that day wore--was to spoil her shoes and wet her feet. Yet she could not live without water; the more as she had an instinctive fear of losing, under the pressure of hardship, those refinements in which she had been bred. At length she was about to venture out at no matter what cost, when the door of the yard opened, and the jailor's wife came stumbling through the snow on a pair of pattens. She carried a second pair in her hand, and she seemed to be in anything but a pleasant humour.

"Here's a mess!" she said, throwing down the pattens and looking about her with disgust. "By rights, you should set to work to clear this away, before it's running all of a thaw into your room. But I dare say it will wait till midday--it don't get much sun here--and my good man will come and do it. Anyways, there are some pattens, so that you can get about--there's as good as you have gone on pattens before now! Ay, and mopped the floor in them! And by-and-by my girl will bring you some fire 'gainst you're ready for your breakfast."

"I'm ready whenever the breakfast is ready," Henrietta answered, as cheerfully as she could. She was shivering with cold.

"Ah, well, ah, well, my la.s.s!" the woman answered snappishly, "there's worse troubles in the world than waiting for your breakfast. For the Lord's sake, don't you get complaining."