Trevlyn Hold Part 54

They were being brought up pretty quickly now, and were laid on the ground beside him, to be recognised by the unhappy relatives. The men to whom Chattaway had spoken that morning were amongst them: he had ordered them down as he rode off, and one and all had obeyed the mandate. Did he regret their fate? Did he compa.s.sionate the weeping wives and children?

In a degree, perhaps, yes; but not as most men would have done.

A tall form interposed between him and the mouth of the pit--that of Meg Pennet. She had been watching for a body which had not yet been brought up. Suddenly she turned to Mr. Chattaway.

"You have killed him, master; you have made my children orphans. But for your coming in your hardness to drive him out when he warn't fit to go, we should ha' had somebody still to work for us. Happen you may have heered of a curse? I'd like to give ye one now."

"Somebody take this woman away," cried Chattaway. "She'll be better at home."

"Ay, take her away," retorted Meg; "don't let her plaints be heered, lest folk might say they be just. Send her home to her fatherless children, and send her dead man after her to lie among 'em till his burial. Happen, when you come to your death, Mr. Chattaway, you'll have us all afore your mind, to comfort you!"

She stopped. Another ill-fated man was being drawn up, and she turned to wait for it, her hands clenched, her face white and haggard in its intensity. The burden came, and was laid near the rest; but it was not the one for which she waited. Another woman darted forward; _she_ knew it too well; and she clasped her hands round it, and sobbed in agony.

Meg Pennet turned resolutely to the mouth of the pit again, watching still.

"Be they all dead? How many was down?"

The voice came from behind Meg Pennet, and she screamed and started.

There stood her husband. How had he escaped from the pit?

"I haven't been a-nigh it," he answered. "I couldn't get down to the pit, try as I would, without a rest, and I halted at Green's. Who's dead among 'em, and who's alive?"

"G.o.d be thanked!" exclaimed Meg Pennet, with a sob of emotion.

All Mr. Chattaway's faculties were strained on the mouth of that yawning pit, and what it might yield up. As body after body was brought to the surface--seven of them were up now--he cast his anxious looks upon it, expecting to recognise the fair face of Rupert Trevlyn. Expecting and yet dreading--don't think him worse than he was; with the frightened, half-shrinking dread ordinarily experienced by women, or by men of nervous and timid temperament. So utterly did this suspense absorb him as to make him almost oblivious to the painful features of the scene, the wails of woe and bursts of lamentation.

Happening for a minute to turn his eyes from the pit, he saw in the distance a pony-carriage approaching, which looked uncommonly like that of Miss Diana Trevlyn. Instinct told him that the two figures seated in it were his wife and Miss Diana, although as yet he could not see whether they were women or men. It was slowly winding down a distant hill, and would have to ascend another and come over the flat stretch of country ere it could reach them. He beckoned his clerk Ford to him in a sort of terror.

"Run, Ford! Make all speed. I think I see Miss Trevlyn's pony-carriage yonder with the ladies in it. Don't let them approach. Tell them to turn aside, to the office, and I'll come to them. Anywhere; anywhere but here."

Ford ran with all his might. He met the carriage just at the top of the nearest hill, and unceremoniously laid his hand upon the pony, giving Mr. Chattaway's message as well as his breathless state would allow--begging they would turn aside and not approach the pit.

It was evident that they were strangers as yet to the news, but the crowd and excitement round the pit had been causing them apprehension and a foreshadowing of the truth. Miss Diana, paying, as it appeared, little heed to the message, extended her whip in the direction of the scene.

"I see what it is, Ford. Don't beat about the bush. How many were down the shaft?"

"A great many, ma'am," was Ford's reply. "The pit was in full work to-day."

"Was it fire-damp?"

"I believe so."

"Mr. Chattaway's safe, you say? He was not down? I suppose he was not likely to be down?"

"No," answered Ford. But the thought of Mr. Chattaway's accident from another source, which he did not know whether to disclose or not, and the consciousness of a worse calamity, caused him to speak hesitatingly.

Miss Diana was quick of apprehension, and awoke it.

"Was any one down the shaft besides the men? Was--where's Rupert Trevlyn?"

Ford looked as if he dared not answer.

Mrs. Chattaway caught the alarm. She half rose in the low carriage, and stretched out her hands in a pleading att.i.tude; as though Ford held the issues of life and death.

"Oh, speak, speak! He was not down the shaft! Surely Rupert was not down the shaft!"

"He had gone down but a short time before," said the young man in a whisper--for where was the use of denying the fact, now that they had guessed it? "We shall all mourn him, ma'am. I had almost as soon it had been me."

"Gone down the shaft but a short time before!" mechanically repeated Miss Diana in her horror. But she was interrupted by a cry from Ford.

Mrs. Chattaway had fallen back on her seat in a fainting-fit.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

A SHOCK FOR MR. CHATTAWAY

The brightness of the day was turning to gloom, as if the heavens sympathised with the melancholy scene upon earth. Quietly pushing his way through the confusion, moans and lamentations, the ma.s.s of human beings surrounding the mouth of the pit, was a tall individual whose acquaintance you have made before. It was Mr. Daw with his red umbrella: the latter an unvarying appendage, whether the sun was shining or the clouds dropped rain. He went straight up to certain pale faces lying there in a row, and glanced at them one by one.

"They are saying that Rupert Trevlyn is amongst the sufferers," he observed to those nearest to him.

"So he is, master."

"I do not see him here."

"No; he ain't up yet."

"Is there no hope that he may be brought to the surface alive?"

They shook their heads. "Not now. He have been down too long. There's not a chance for him."

Something like emotion pa.s.sed over Mr. Daw's features.

"How came _he_ to be down the pit?" he asked. "Was it his business to go down?"

"Not in ord'nary. No: 'tworn't once in six months as there was aught to take him there."

"Then what took him there to-day?" was Mr. Daw's next question.

"The master sent him," replied the man, pointing towards Chattaway.

Apparently Mr. Daw had not observed Chattaway before, and he turned and walked towards him. Vexation at the loss of Rupert--it may surely be called vexation rather than grief, since he had not known Rupert sufficiently long to _love_ him--a loss so sudden and terrible, was rendering Mr. Daw unjust. Chattaway's worst enemy could not fairly blame him with reference to the fate of Rupert: but Mr. Daw was in a hasty mood.

"Is it true that you sent Rupert Trevlyn down the shaft only a few minutes before this calamity occurred?"

The address and the speaker equally took Mr. Chattaway by surprise. His attention was riveted on something then being raised from the shaft, and he had not noticed the stranger. Hastily turning his head, he saw, first the conspicuous red umbrella, next its obnoxious and dangerous owner.

Ah, but no longer dangerous now. That terrible fear was over for ever.

With the first glimpse, Mr. Chattaway's face had turned to a white heat, from the force of habit; but the next moment's reflection rea.s.sured him, and he retained his equanimity.