Under the Mendips Part 16

"Do not be frightened,' he said; we shall get on very well if you will let me carry you."

"Oh! no, no," she said, trying to spring up with her accustomed energy.

"I will push on again."

But although she summoned all her courage, she was obliged to let Gilbert put his arm round her and support her, and finally she was lifted in his strong arms and carried whether she wished it or not.

"I shall tire you so dreadfully," Joyce whispered.

"If you do, it is the sweetest tiredness I ever knew; you know that, Joyce."

Then they went on in silence. Gilbert was still suffering from the treatment he had received at Bob Priday's hands, and they made slow progress.

"Just raise your head," he said, after ten minutes' tramp through the narrow track, which he lost at times through the thick tangle of heath and gorse and low-growing bracken. "Raise your head and tell me if you can see the shepherd's cottage. It is getting very dark."

Joyce did as he told her, but, after straining her eyes for a few moments, she said:

"I can't see anything, it is so dark. I don't know where we are. Oh, I don't know!"

"You are safe with me," Gilbert said; and then added, fervently: "I am not afraid for G.o.d is with us."

It was so unusual for Joyce to hear that Name spoken. She did not respond, but let her head fall upon his shoulder again.

Presently he said:

"There is a tiny light now--two lights--they must be in the shepherd's cottage. Take heart, my darling. We shall soon be home."

The word had slipped from his lips unawares.

"I am going away early to-morrow. You will not forget me?"

Once more she raised her face, and in the dim light he saw her beautiful eyes gazing at him with an expression which was half wonder and half joy. But she said, simply:

"No, I will never forget you."

The light was close to them now, and there was a sound of men's feet drawing nearer and then Duke came bounding up.

With a cry of "Father! father!" Joyce struggled to her feet, and threw herself into her father's arms.

"Why, Joyce, my Sunshine, where have you been? We have been very anxious, your mother on thorns, and poor Piers imagining all kinds of disasters. Why did you not keep up with the boys? They had been at home an hour before I started. What has happened sir?" the squire said, turning a little sharply on Gilbert Arundel.

"It is too long a story to tell now, sir," Gilbert said. "Miss Falconer and I fell into bad hands, and we may thank G.o.d nothing worse has happened."

"Some of the miners, eh?"

"One of them, sir, who is a host in himself; he blocked our way, and threatened us; but I would rather not go over it all now. She is so overwrought, though she has been so splendidly brave."

"Oh! father, dearest dad! take me home," Joyce said. "Is it far; is it far?"

"Some two miles, my Sunshine; but I can carry you. Now for it, be brave, my sweet one, and we shall soon be home. Now, then, Sam and Thomas, march on."

"I think I can walk, father now," Joyce said; "and here is Duke, dear Duke!"

"Why, of course, I brought Duke. He is cleverer at finding his way than I am. He soon snuffed you out, good old fellow."

The two other men now turned towards home, with the big lanthorns in their hands, which served for guiding stars. Duke paced slowly between the men, and his master and young mistress, and Gilbert brought up the rear.

The lights of the village were a welcome sight, and the hall door of Fair Acres was open as they came up the road, showing a group of dark, expectant figures, thrown out by the blaze of a wood fire.

"The mistress has lit a fire that we might have a welcome; that is like her wisdom," the squire said. "A few tallow candles would not have been half as cheerful."

"Here we are; here we are!" the squire called out; and then there was a rush of boyish feet, and a great chorus of rejoicing, and a host of questions.

"We have been so anxious, _dying_ of anxiety," exclaimed Charlotte, thinking it necessary to begin to cry.

"What fools you were to walk over that rough, lonely country," Melville said. While Piers could only hover round Joyce, who, seated on a bench or old-fashioned settle by the side of the wide open hearth, held her mother in a tight embrace.

"The boys ought never to have left you," Piers said. "How could Mr.

Arundel find the way?"

"Joyce knew it," said Bunny. "Joyce knew it. We have been over that track several times."

"Yes," echoed Harry, "several times; only Joyce and Mr. Arundel were talking so much, they never thought where they were going."

"'All's well that ends well,'" said the squire. "She had better go to bed, my dear; and this young gentleman looks white enough. You must get him a good hot gla.s.s of negus; and I hope supper is ready; but take the poor child to bed first."

Mrs. Falconer had not said much beyond a few words in Joyce's ear, which no one else heard. Her usual vivacity and quick, sharp words seemed to have suddenly failed her.

"Yes; I'll take her to bed, and there she will have to lie all to-morrow, I expect. It's the last time I'll allow her to separate from the rest of us, when we are out on an excursion. Order the supper in, boys; and Melville, look after your friend; he is as white as a ghost; perhaps he has seen one!"

The tone was a little bitter and satirical. Mrs. Falconer resented the hours' keen anxiety she had endured, and was inclined to lay the fault on Gilbert.

He certainly did look exhausted, and leaned back with his head against the wall, over which a large stag's head with spreading antlers gazed down upon him with liquid, meaningless eyes.

"Mother," Joyce said, as, with her brother's arm round her, she rose to go upstairs; "mother, Mr. Arundel was so very brave; he was thrown down by that dreadful man and nearly stunned; he carried me till we met father; he was--he was--so good to me. Do pray thank him." Then disengaging herself from her mother's grasp, Joyce tottered across to the old oak chair, on which Gilbert had sunk. "Good-night, and good-bye," she said; "and don't think them ungrateful. Good-bye."

He stood upright, and took one of her hands in his, raised it reverently to his lips; and so they parted.

He was off the next morning early to catch the coach at Wells. Not this time in a post-chaise with scarlet-clad post-boy, but driven by the squire himself, in a high gig, his portmanteau strapped behind. Melville roused himself to come down in a magnificent flowered dressing-gown, to see him off; and the boys were all there. Just as the gig was starting, Mrs. Falconer appeared. It was unusual for her to be later than her household, but she had a good reason, for Joyce had pa.s.sed a restless night, and she had not liked to leave her. She was asleep now, she said, and a day's rest would restore her.

"I hope we shall see you here again," Mrs. Falconer added, "before long.

But you won't be trusted on the Mendips again, I can tell you!"

"Let bygones be bygones, that's my motto," said the squire, as the gig went swinging out through the white gates near the house, and turned into the road which led through the village.

"And 'all's well that ends well,'" Gilbert said, as he waved his hat in token of farewell.

That evening, when the squire and his wife were alone together, Mrs.

Falconer said: