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Volume Two – Chapter Twenty Three.
A Startling Visitation

“Fine night, master, but gashly dark,” said a gruff voice, as Vine was nearly at the bottom of the slope.

“Ah, Perrow! Yes, very dark,” said Vine quietly. “Not out with your boat to-night?”

“No, Master Vine, not to-night. Sea brimes. Why, if we cast a net to-night every mash would look as if it was a-fire. Best at home night like this. Going down town?”

“Yes, Perrow.”

“Ah, you’ll be going to see Master Van Heldre. You don’t know, sir, how glad my mates are as he’s better. Good-night, sir. You’ll ketch up to Master Leslie if you look sharp. He come up as far as here and went back.”

“Thank you. Good-night,” said Vine, and he walked on, but slackened his pace, for he felt that he could not meet Leslie then. The poor fellow would be suffering from his rebuff, and Vine shrank from listening to any appeal.

But he was fated to meet Leslie all the same, for at a turn of the steep path he encountered the young mine-owner coming towards him, and he appeared startled on finding who it was.

“Going out, Mr Vine?” he stammered. “I was coming up to the house, but – er – never mind; I can call some other time.”

“I would turn back with you, only I promised to go down to Mr Van Heldre’s to-night.”

“Ah, yes, to Van Heldre’s,” said Leslie confusedly. “I’ll walk with you if you will not mind.”

“I shall be glad of your company,” said Vine quietly; and they continued down to the town, Leslie very thoughtful, and Vine disinclined to converse.

“No, I am not going in, Mr Vine. Will you let me come and say a few words to you to-morrow?”

“Yes,” replied Vine gently.

He had meant to speak firmly and decisively, but a feeling of pity and sympathy for the young man, whose heart he seemed to read, changed his tone. It had been in his heart, too, to say, “It will be better if you do not come,” but he found it impossible, and they parted.

Leslie hesitated as soon as he was alone. What should he do? Go home? Home was a horrible desert to him now; and in his present frame of mind, the best thing he could do was to go right off for a long walk. By fatiguing the body he would make the brain ask for rest, instead of keeping up that whirl of anxious thought.

He felt that he must act. That was the only way to find oblivion and repose from the incessant thought which troubled him. He started off with the intention of wearying his muscles, so as to lie down that night and win the sleep to which he was often now a stranger.

His first intent was to go right up by the cliff-path, by Uncle Luke’s, and over the hill by his own place, but if he went that way there was the possibility of finding Uncle Luke leaning over the wall, gazing out at the starlit sea, and probably he would stop and question him.

That night his one thought was of being alone, and he took the opposite direction, went down to the ferry, hunted out the man from the inn hard by, and had himself rowed across the harbour, so as to walk along the cliff eastwards, and then strike in north and round by the head of the estuary, where he could recross by the old stone bridge, and reach home – a walk of a dozen miles.

At the end of a couple of miles along the rugged pathway, where in places the greatest care was needed to avoid going over some precipitous spot to the shore below, Leslie stopped short to listen to the hollow moaning sound of the waves, and he seated himself close to the cliff edge, in a dark nook, which formed one of the sheltered look-outs used by the coastguard in bad weather.

The sea glittered as if the surface were of polished jet, strewn with diamonds, and, impressed by the similarity of the scene to that of the night on which the search had been carried on after Harry Vine, Leslie’s thoughts went back to the various scenes which repeated themselves before his mental gaze from the beginning to that terrible finale when the remains lay stark and disfigured in the inn shed, and the saturated cards proclaimed who the dead man was.

“Poor girl!” he said half aloud, “and with all that trouble fresh upon her, and the feeling that she and her family are disgraced for ever, I go to her to press forward my selfish, egotistical love. God forgive me! What weak creatures we men are!”

He sat thinking, taking off his hat for the cool, moist sea air to fan his feverish temples, when the solemn silence of the starry night seemed to bring to him rest and repose such as he had not enjoyed since the hour when Aunt Marguerite planted that sharp, poisoned barb in his breast.

“It is not that,” he said to himself, with a sigh full of satisfaction. “She never felt the full force of love yet for any man, but if ever her gentle young nature turned towards any one, it was towards me. And, knowing this, I, in my impatience and want of consideration, contrived my own downfall. No, not my downfall; there is hope yet, and a few words rightly spoken will remove the past.”

The feverish sensation was passing away swiftly. The calm serenity of the night beneath the glorious dome of stars was bringing with it restfulness, and hope rose strongly, as, far away in the east, he saw a glittering point of light rise above the sea slowly higher and higher, a veritable star of hope to him.

“What’s that?” he said to himself, as above the boom of the waves which struck below and then filled some hollow and fell back with an angry hiss, he fancied he heard a sob.

There was no mistake; a woman was talking in a low, moaning way, and then there came another sob.

He rose quickly.

“Is anything the matter?” he said sharply.

“Ah! Why, how you frightened me! Is that you, Master Leslie?”

“Yes. Who is it? Poll Perrow?”

“Yes, Master Leslie, it’s me.”

“Why, what are you doing here?” said Leslie, as cynical old Uncle Luke’s hints about the smuggling flashed across his mind.

“Nothing to do with smuggling,” she said, as if divining his thoughts.

“Indeed, old lady! Well, it looks very suspicious.”

“No, it don’t, sir. D’you think if I wanted to carry any landed goods I should take ’em along the coastguard path?”

“A man would not,” said Leslie, “but I should say it’s just what a cunning old woman’s brain would suggest, as being the surest way to throw the revenue men off the scent.”

“Dessay you’re right, Master Leslie, but you may search me if you like. I’ve got nothing to-night.”

“I’m not going to search you, old lady. I’ll leave that to the revenue men. But what’s the matter?”

“Matter, Master Leslie?”

“Yes; I heard you sobbing. Are you in trouble?”

“Of course I am, sir. Aren’t I a lone widow?”

“So you have been these fifteen years.”

“Fourteen and three-quarters, sir.”

“Ah, well, I was near enough. But what is it, old lady? Want a little money?”

“No, no, no, Master Leslie, sir; and that’s very kind of you, sir; and if I don’t bring you up half-a-dozen of the finest mack’rel that come in these next days, my name aren’t Perrow.”

“Thank you. There, I don’t want to be inquisitive, but it seems strange for a woman like you to be crying away here on the cliff two miles from home on a dark night.”

“And it seems strange for a young gen’leman like you to be up here all alone and three miles from home. You was watching me, Master Leslie.”

“You’ll take my word, Poll Perrow,” said Leslie quietly. “I did not know you were here.”

“Yes, I’ll believe you, Master Leslie, sir. But you was watching some one else?”

“No, I came for a walk, my good woman, that’s all.”

“Then I won’t stop you, sir. Good-night, sir.”

“Good-night,” said Leslie; and feeling more content, he took out his cigar-case, and after selecting one by feeling, he went back into the coastguards’ station and struck a match.

He looked along the cliff-path as the match flashed, and caught sight faintly of the old woman.

“Watching me anyhow,” he said to himself, as he lit his cigar. “Now what can that old girl be doing here? She’s fifty-five if she’s a day, but if she is not courting and had a quarrel with her youthful lover, I’m what that old lady says that Van Heldre is – a Dutchman.”

He turned back along the path feeling comparatively light-hearted and restful. The long, dark, weary walk to tire himself was forgotten, and he went slowly back along the coastguard path, turning a little from time to time to gaze over his left shoulder at the brilliant planet which rose higher and higher over the glistening sea.

“Hope!” he said half aloud. “What a glorious word that is, and what a weary world this would be if there were none! Yes, I will hope.”

He walked slowly on, wondering whether Poll Perrow was watching and following him. Then he forgot all about her, for his thoughts were fixed upon the granite house across the estuary, and the sweet sad face of Louise half in shadow, half lit by the soft glow of the shaded lamp.

“Mr Vine will be back by now,” he said. “I might call in and ask how Van Heldre is to-night. It would be sociable, and I should see her, and let my manner show my sorrow for having grieved her and given her pain; and, is it possible to let her see that I am full of patient, abiding hope, that some day she will speak differently to the way in which she spoke to-day? Yes, a woman would read all that, and I will be patient and guarded now.”

It was astonishing how eager Duncan Leslie felt now to see what news George Vine, had brought from Van Heldre’s; and with the beautiful absurdity of young men in his position, he never allowed himself to think that when he crossed the ferry he would be within a stone’s throw of the merchant’s house, and that all he need do was to knock and ask old Crampton or Mrs Van Heldre for the latest bulletin, which would be gladly given.

It was so much easier to go by the house, make for the path which led up the steep slope, and go right to the home on the shelf of the cliff, and ask there.

Meanwhile, Louise Vine had seated herself by the dining-room table with the light of the shaded lamp falling athwart her glossy hair, and half throwing up her sweet pale face, just as Leslie had pictured it far away upon the cliff. Now and then her needle glittered, but only at rare intervals, for she was deep in thought.

At times her eyes closed, and as she sat there bending forward, it seemed as if she slept; but her lips moved, and a piteous sigh escaped her overladen breast.

The night seemed hot and oppressive, and she rose after a time and unhasped the casement window, beneath the old painted glass coat-of-arms; and, as she approached it, dimly seen by the light cast from behind her, she shuddered, for it struck her there was a black stain across the painting, and a shadowy dark mark obliterated the proud words of the old family motto.

As she threw back the casement she stood leaning her head against the window, gazing out into the starlit space, and listening to the faint whisper of the coming tide.

While she listened it seemed to her that the faint boom and rush of the water obliterated every other sound as she tried in vain to detect her father’s step slowly ascending the steep path.

“Too soon – too soon,” she said softly, and she returned to her seat to try and continue her work, but the attempt was vain. The light fell upon her motionless hands holding a piece of some black material, the thread was invisible, and only at times a keen thin gleam of light betrayed the whereabouts of the needle. Her sad eyes were fixed on the dark opening of the window through which she could see a scarcely defined patch of starry sky, while the soft night air gave her a feeling of rest, such as had come to the man who had told her that he loved.

“Never more,” she sighed at last; “that is all past. A foolish dream.”

Making an effort over herself, she resumed her work, drawing the needle through quickly for a few minutes, and trying hard to dismiss Duncan Leslie from her thoughts. As she worked, she pictured her father seated by Van Heldre’s side; and a feeling of thankfulness came over her as she thought of the warm friendship between her elders, and of how firm and staunch Van Heldre seemed to be. Then she thought of the home troubles with her Aunt Marguerite, and her father’s patient forbearance under circumstances which were a heavy trial to his patience.

“Poor Aunt Marguerite!” she sighed, as her hands dropped with her work, and she sat gazing across the table straight out at the starry heavens. “How she loved poor Harry in her way; and yet how soon he seems to have passed out of her mind!”

She sighed as the past came back with her brother’s wilfulness and folly; but, throwing these weaknesses into the shade, there were all his frank, good qualities, his tenderness to her before the troubles seemed to wrench them apart; the happy hours they had passed with Madelaine as boy and girls together; all happy days – gone for ever, but which seemed to stand out now as parts of Harry’s life which were to be remembered to the exclusion of all that was terrible and black.

“My brother!” she breathed, as she gazed straight out seaward, and a faint smile passed her lips; “he loved me, and I could always win him over to my side.”

The thought seemed frozen in her brain, her half-closed eyes opened widely, the pupils dilated, and her lips parted more and more, as she sat there fixed to her seat, the chilly drops gathering on her white brow, and a thrill of horror coursing through her veins.

For as she looked she seemed to have conjured up the countenance of her brother, to gaze in there by the open casement – the face as she had seen it last – when he escaped from her bedroom, but not flushed and excited; it was now pale, the eyes hollow, and his hair clinging unkempt about his brow.

Was she awake, or was this some evolution of her imagination, or were those old stories true that at certain times the forms of those we loved did return to visit the scenes where they had passed their lives? This then was such a vision of the form of the brother whom she loved; and she gazed wildly, with her eyes starting, excited more than fearing, in the strange exaltation which she felt.

Then she sank back in her chair with the chill of dread now emphasised, as she gazed fixedly at the ghastly face, for she saw the lips part as if to speak, and she uttered a low, gasping sound, for from the open window came in a quick hoarse whisper,

“Louie, why don’t you speak? Are you alone?”

End of Volume Two

Volume Three – Chapter One.
For Liberty and Life

Naturalists and students of animal life tell us that the hunted deer sheds tears in its agony and fear, and that the hare is ignorant of what is before it, for its eyes are strained back in its dread as it watches the stride of the pursuing hounds.

The reverse of the latter was the case with Harry Vine, who in his horror and shame could only see forward right into the future. For there before him was himself – handcuffed, in gaol, before the magistrates, taking his trial, sentenced, and then he, the scion of a good family, inflated by the false hopes placed before him by his aunt, dressed in the broad-arrow convict’s suit, drudging on in his debased and weary life – the shame, the disgrace of those who loved him, and whom, in those brief moments of agony, he knew he dearly loved.

“Better death!”

He muttered these words between his teeth, as, in a mad fit of cowardice and despair, he turned suddenly at the end of the rock pier and plunged headlong into the eddying tide.

Whatever the will may wish at such a time, instinct always seems to make a frantic effort to combat this mad will, and the struggle for life begins.

It was so here, for the sudden plunge into the cold dark water produced its instantaneous effect. The nerves and muscles grew tense, and after being borne for some distance straight out to sea, Harry Vine rose to the surface, and in obedience to the natural instinct of a good swimmer, struck out and turned to regain the pier.

But as he turned he hesitated. There were the police waiting for him when he landed, and his people were on the shore waiting to see him disgraced – for he was, of course, in utter ignorance of the efforts that had been made to enable him to escape. And even as he hesitated he knew that such a proceeding was impossible. Had he been tenfold the swimmer he could not have reached that point, for the current, after coming from the west and striking full against the rocks, was bearing him seaward at a tremendous rate. The voices that had been in a clamour of excitement and the shouts and orders were growing distant; the lights that were flashing over the water seemed minute by minute more faint, and as, almost without effort, he floated on he wondered at the feeling of calm, matter-of-fact reasoning which the cold plunge seemed to have aroused.

Always a clever swimmer from the days when the sturdy fisherman Perrow had tied a stout hake-line about his waist, and bid him leap into the sea from the lugger’s side, and taught him to feel confidence in the water, he had never felt so much at home as now. He was clothed, but the strong current bore him along, and the slightest movement of his limbs kept him with his nostrils clear of the golden-spangled water.

What should he do?

He looked seaward, and there, right off the harbour mouth, was a lantern. He could not make out the shape of the boat; but his guilty conscience suggested that it was one placed there by the police for his capture; shoreward he could see other moving lights, and he knew as well as if he were there that they were boat lanterns, and that people were putting off in pursuit.

It did not seem to occur to him that they would be essaying to save him; he had committed an offence against the law, and in his then frame of mind he could only admit one thought in connection with them into his brain, and that was that any boat’s crew which pushed off would have but one idea – to make every effort to capture him, and so he swam, letting the swift tide carry him where it would.

Shouts arose, sounding faint and strange as they came from where the lanterns gleamed faintly; and there was an answering hail from the light off the harbour – the light toward which he was being borne.

“They’ll see me,” he thought, and he made a few vigorous strokes to turn aside, but gave up directly, as he felt it possible that he might be carried by in the darkness.

To his horror, he found that he would be taken so close, that he could easily swim to and touch the boat. For one moment fear swayed him of another kind, and he felt that he must give up.

“Better be taken aboard to prison than drown,” he muttered; and he swam toward the boat.

“Better be drowned than taken off to prison,” he said the next moment; and then, “Why should I drown?”

His confidence returned as he was borne nearer and nearer to the lugger riding here to its buoy; and he could hear the voices of the men on board talking eagerly as they gazed shoreward.

“Keep a bright look-out,” said a rough voice; and Harry ceased swimming after turning over on his back, and let the current bear him swiftly and silently along.

The spangled water seemed hardly disturbed by his presence as he neared the light, then saw it eclipsed by the boat’s hull, just as he felt that he must be seen. Then he was past the boat, and in a few seconds the light reappeared from the other side, shining full upon his white face, but the men were looking in the other direction and he was not seen.

Once more the horror of drowning came upon him, and he turned on his face to swim back. It was only a momentary sensation, and as he swam and felt his power in the water he closed the lips firmly that had parted to hail, and swam on.

The shouts came and were answered from time to time, he could hear the regular rattle and beat of an oar, and then the blue light flashed out brilliantly, and as he raised himself at each long steady stroke he could see quite a crowd of figures had gathered on the pier, and he was startled to see how far he was from the shore. And all this time there upon his left was the bright red harbour-light, glaring at him like an eye, which seemed to be watching him and waiting to see him drown. At times it looked to be so lifelike that it appeared to blink at him, and as he swam on he ceased to gaze at the dull yellow light of the moving lanterns, and kept on watching that redder eye-like lamp.

The blue light blazed for a time like a brilliant star and then died out; the shouts of the men in the boat floated to him, and the lights of the town grew farther away as he still swam steadily on with a sea of stars above him, and another concave of stars apparently below; on his right the open sea, and on his left, where the dull land was, arose a jagged black line against the starry sky showing the surface of the cliff.

“What shall I do?” he said to himself, as he looked back at light after light moving slowly on the water, but all far behind him, for he was, as he well knew, in one of the swiftest currents running due east of the quay, and for a distance from that point due south. It was a hard question to answer. He might swim on for an hour – he felt as if he could swim for two – and what then?

He could not tell, but all the time the tide was bearing him beyond the reach of pursuit so fast that the hails grew more faint, and every minute now the roar of the surf grew plainer.

Should he swim ashore – land – and escape?

Where to?

“Hah!”

He uttered a faint cry, for just then his hand touched something cold and slimy, and for the moment he felt paralysed, as he recalled how often a shark had come in with the tide. For the object he had touched seemed to glide by him, and what felt like a slimy moving fin swept over his hand. He struck out now with all his strength, blindly, and moved solely by one impulse – that of escaping from a death so hideous – a chill of horror ran through him, and for the moment he felt half paralysed. The sensation was agonising, and the strokes he gave were quick, spasmodic, and of the kind given by a drowning man; but as he swam on and the moments passed without his being seized, the waning courage began to return strongly once more, he recovered his nerve, and ceasing his frantic efforts swam slowly on.

The efforts he had made had exhausted him, however, and he turned over on his back to rest and lie paddling gently, gazing straight up at the glorious stars which burned so brilliantly overhead. The change was restful, and conscious that the current swept him still swiftly along, he turned once more and began to swim.

That fit of excitement, probably from touching some old weed-grown piece of timber, must have lasted longer than he thought, for he had toiled on heedless of which direction he took, and this direction had been shoreward, the current had done the rest; and now that he swam it was into one of the back tidal eddies, and the regular dull roar and rush and the darkness ahead taught him that he was only a few hundred yards from the cliffs. He rose up as he swam and looked sharply from side to side, to see a faint lambent light where the phosphorescent waves broke, and before him the black jagged line which seemed to terminate the golden-spangled heavens, where the stars dipped down behind the shore.

He hesitated for a few moments – not for long. It was madness to strike out again into the swift current, when in a short time he could land or, if not, reach one of the detached masses of rock, and rest there till the tide went down. But what to do then? Those who searched for him would be certain to hunt along the shore, and to land and strike inland was, in his drenched condition, to invite capture.

He shuddered at the thought, and awaking now to the fact that he was rapidly growing exhausted, he swam on into the black band that seemed to stretch beneath the cliffs.

He was weaker than he realised, and, familiar as he was with this part of the coast, it now in the darkness assumed a weird, horrifying aspect; the sounds grew, in his strangely excited state, appalling, and there were moments when he felt as if the end had come. For as he swam on it was every now and then into some moving mass of anchored wrack, whose slimy fronds wrapped round and clung to his limbs, hampering his movements and calling forth a desperate struggle before he could get clear.

Then, as he reached the broken water, in spite of the lambent glare he struck himself severely again and again upon some piece of jagged rock, once so heavily that he uttered a moan of pain, and floated helplessly and half unnerved listening to the hissing rush and hollow gasping of the waves as they plunged in and out among the cavities and hollows of the rocks. A hundred yards out the sea was perfectly smooth, but here in-shore, as the tidal swell encountered the cliffs, the tide raced in and out through the chaos of fallen blocks like some shoal of mad creatures checked in their career and frightened in their frantic efforts to escape.

Then every now and then came a low hollow moan like a faint and distant explosion, followed by the rattling of stones, and a strange whispering, more than enough to appal the stoutest swimmer cast there in the darkness of the night.

Three times over was the fugitive thrown across a mass of slimy rock, to which, losing heart now, he frantically clung, but only to be swept off again, confused, blinded by the spray and with the water thundering in his ears. Once his feet touched bottom, and he essayed to stand for a moment to try and wade across, but he only stepped directly into a deep chasm, plunging over his head, to rise beating the waves wildly, half strangled; and in the strange numbed feeling of confusion which came over him, his efforts grew more feeble, his strokes more aimless, and as once more he went under and rose with the clinging weeds about his neck the fight seemed to be over, and he threw back his head gasping for breath.

Rush! A wave curled right over, swept him from among the clammy weed, and the next moment his head was driven against a mass of rock.

What followed seemed to take place in a feverish dream. He had some recollection afterward of trying to clamber up the rough limpet-bossed rock, and of sinking down with the water plunging about his eyes and leaping at intervals light up his chest, but some time elapsed before he thoroughly realised his position, and dazed and half helpless climbed higher up to lie where the rock was dry, listening with a shudder to the strange sounds of the hurrying tide, and gazing up from time to time at the watching stars.