CHAPTER XXIX.—FOUND.

By some seeming irony of Fate, it is when our fortunes have ebbed to their lowest, and all seems cold, bleak, and dreary in the threatening horizon before us, that light begins to break in upon the oppressive darkness. That we are never so likely to fall as when we deem ourselves to stand in boastful security, proud of our seeming strength, is a truth which the historical student will not be slow to recognise. Down comes the thunderbolt from a clear sky, toppling over to shameful ruin the gilded image propped on feet of sorry clay. But there is a substratum of fact whereon is reared the homely proverb which declares that when things are at the worst they will mend.

For all that, we cannot wrap ourselves in a comfortable mantle of indolent fatalism, assured that our shortcomings will be compensated by some extraordinary turn of Fortune’s wheel. It so happens that we are often too dull of vision to know the heavenly messenger when we see him. Our deaf ears fail to catch the strain of hope. We miss the tide that offered to bear our argosy to port. The grass grows, but the steed, all unwitting of the green meadow hard by, starves within a stone’s throw of plenty. Chatterton was not the only one who, goaded by despair, has taken the leap in the dark at the very moment when kind hands were held out to lead the truant into the goodly fellowship of honest men. A great hush and stillness had fallen upon those who were shut up in the Hunger Hole. There was that in the situation which forbade useless words. It was getting late. There was every probability of spending the night and the morrow in that dismal place. That amount of imprisonment entailed cold and misery, perhaps an attack of marsh-fever, since the air from Bitternley Swamp was likely to be fraught with the seeds of ague. But twenty-four hours—thirty-six hours—might not see the end of the captivity of Ethel and Lady Alice, and in that case——

How strange that any one should run the risk of being starved to death, in this blatant nineteenth century of ours, when road and rail, gas and press, have opened up so many an old-world nook, and dragged so many an abuse into the killing light of day. Yet Dartmoor remains Dartmoor, and it is quite possible to be smothered in its snows, sunk in its swamps, or to wander among its blinding mists until the deadly chill of fatigue benumbs the wearied limbs, for there are wildernesses yet where Nature is more than a match for man.

The fickle beauty of the day had not lasted. Clouds went driving by; that much could be distinguished by gazing up through the narrow space which weeds and leaves left free. And presently it began to rain, and the moaning wind grew shrill, and rushed with strange and mournful dissonance through the recesses of the cavern. ‘It is all my fault—mine!’ sobbed Lady Alice, nestling at Ethel’s side. ‘I would not say a word, before starting, about the Hunger Hole, for fear the elders should object; and now I am caught in my own trap. It’s very hard on you though, Miss Gray.’

Ethel bore up bravely, but she was far from feeling the calm that she affected. Perhaps Lady Alice was too positive in her conviction of the hopelessness of their condition; but if the attention of the seekers was diverted into false channels, who could tell what might result before a happy accident should bring aid? It was for her pupil that she feared, not for herself. In the event of long detention in that wretched place, a large-eyed, excitable slip of a girl, of high spirit but delicate temperament, could scarcely be expected to endure hardships which Ethel, in the bloom of perfect health, might be able to support. It was growing late, and perceptibly colder. Night would be upon them soon, and then——

And then the morrow would dawn laggingly, and hope would leap up a little at the sight of welcome daylight, and flag and droop as the hours went by and relief came not. That Lady Alice could live through a second night in that chill atmosphere of the cave, and without sustenance, Ethel did not believe.

‘How cold it strikes!’ said the young girl almost peevishly, as she shivered and pressed closer to Ethel. ‘I am afraid though,’ she added, more gently after a while, ‘that we shall be colder yet before the end of this.’

As the moaning wind swept by, and the patter of the rain that lashed the outer walls of the grotto grew louder, Ethel listened, with a sense of hearing which her anxiety had sharpened, for any sound that might indicate that help was near. But no! There was nothing to be distinguished save the beating of the rain, the mournful cadence of the wind, and the dull regular drip of the water that trickled from the spring, and fell deep down, to the hidden waters at the bottom of the abyss.

Was that the tread of a horse? Fancy plays strange tricks with those who watch, but surely that sound resembled nothing so much as the quick beat of hoofs upon grass or heather. Then the sound ceased, and a long tantalising pause succeeded. Ethel began to imagine that her senses must have played her false. No; for the rattling of loose stones, disturbed by a human foot, at the outer portal of the Hunger Hole, came at last to confirm the first impression that a horse’s tramp had really sounded near, and then a man’s form darkened the doorway between the two caves.

‘Alice, look up! We are found!’ cried Ethel, starting from the rocky bench; and almost at the same instant a voice, the very sound of which sent the blood madly coursing through her veins, exclaimed: ‘There is some one here then. Alice—Miss Gray, can it be you? Ah! I see how it is,’ added the speaker, as his further progress was barred by the gaping chasm, while his foot struck against a fragment of the broken bridge, yet clinging to its rusted holdfast in the rock. The voice was Lord Harrogate’s.

‘What good angel sent you to our help, brother?’ said young Lady Alice, laughing and crying all at once, now that the tension of her overstrained nerves had slackened.

‘She is a moorland angel, and here she is to answer for herself,’ returned the young man, as Betty Mudge, hot and panting, appeared beside him in the entrance of the cavern. ‘This good girl must have wings, I think, as well as a sharp pair of eyes. She almost kept up with my horse as we crossed the moorland, avoiding Bitternley Swamp, where Bay Middleton could never have made his way over the treacherous peat-hags. I can guess now how this awkward business happened.’

‘But how to get at you, now I have found you!’ added Lord Harrogate in some perplexity, after a pause. It was provoking, to be baffled by the eleven feet of sheer black emptiness that lay between the wet outer grotto and the dry inner compartment of the cave.

‘Some one will perhaps arrive before long. A plank put across the gap would set us free,’ said Ethel, advancing to the edge of the chasm.

‘I wanted to jump it, but Miss Gray would not let me try,’ called out Lady Alice.

‘And Miss Gray was quite right, Miss Madcap,’ answered her brother, scanning the width of the abyss. ‘An uglier jump, or a less inviting, I never saw—at all events for a young lady to venture on. The worst of it is, that nobody excepting myself and this excellent Betty Mudge here, is in the secret of the Hunger Hole; so nobody is coming with ropes or planks or civilised contrivances of any sort. I have tied my horse to a bush below, just by the dead alder-tree; but I can’t well make a suspension-bridge out of reins and saddle-girths, after all.’

‘Please ye, my lord,’ put in Betty, who had by this time recovered her breath—‘please ye, I might run across to Farmer Fletcher’s town, and ask him to get chaise ready for the ladies, and send some of his men with things ’cross Swamp.’

This was a very sensible proposition, for Mr Fletcher was the farmer who dwelt on the ridge, and at whose ‘town’ or farm-house, clustered round by cottages for the labourers who tilled the fields of that little oasis in the desert, the pony and wagonette had been left. The pony and wagonette had long since returned to High Tor in charge of the lad in the Earl’s livery, who had sounded the first note of alarm as to the probable fate of the missing ones; but the farmer possessed a green chaise and a serviceable cob to draw it, and would of course send over all that was needed.

‘Better ask him then, from me, to send his chaise to the Crossroads, at the north end of the Heronmere. Bitternley Swamp will not be dry walking after the rain,’ said Lord Harrogate.

Betty vanished on her errand like a fog-wreath at sunrise.

‘Now let me see what I can do single-handed towards the good work,’ said Lord Harrogate. ‘It strikes me that the withered tree I spoke of, close to which my nag is tethered, might do good service now. There is something ignominious in being balked by a ditch like that.’

He went, and shortly returned, dragging after him the torn-up trunk of the alder of which he had spoken. Lady Alice clapped her hands. ‘I like a man to be strong!’ she said applaudingly. Ethel said nothing, but her colour heightened and her eyes grew bright. All women do admire the manly virtues in a man, and strength, like courage and truth and wit, takes rank among them.

The uprooted alder-tree bridged the chasm, with some two feet to spare on each bank, and Lord Harrogate tested it with his foot, and assured himself that it would bear a considerable weight. With his handkerchief he tied one end of it tightly to the iron holdfast belonging to the broken bridge, and crossing with a light and elastic step to the other side, with no trifling difficulty persuaded the two girls to follow his example.

‘I am afraid we were sad cowards,’ said Ethel, when at last the dreaded passage had been effected, not very promptly or easily, for the narrow tree afforded but a sorry and unsteady foothold, and there was that in the recollection of the ghastly depth below, and the remembrance of the narrowness and slippery roundness of the crackling tree-trunk beneath the feet, that was not unlikely to affect feminine nerves. Yet, propped by Lord Harrogate’s arm, and encouraged by Lord Harrogate’s voice, with shut eyes and scarcely throbbing hearts, the two girls did manage to get across.

Then came the hasty traversing of the damp outer cave, the emerging into the fresh free air from what had seemed a grave closing its hungry jaws upon the living, and then the long walk through the brooding twilight to the north end of Heronmere, where, thanks to the trusty Betty’s winged feet, Farmer Fletcher’s green chaise was in readiness to receive the two half-fainting girls, and where at length Lord Harrogate, who had hitherto led Bay Middleton by the bridle, as he walked beside the rescued prisoners of the Hunger Hole, was able to spring again into the saddle.

To Betty Mudge, as Lord Harrogate laughingly declared when he had escorted his sister and her governess safely back to High Tor, where the warmest welcome awaited those for whom the neighbourhood was already in full search, the whole credit of the rescue was due. Betty it was who, mushroom-gathering on the moor, had espied the signal of distress, Ethel’s handkerchief, fluttering from the slender top of the hazel-tree that rose like a thin flagstaff above the rocks. Betty it was who, divining mischief where duller eyes might have seen nothing but a hazard or a frolicsome prank, had been making her way towards the Hunger Hole, when she caught sight of Lord Harrogate spurring across the moor in aimless quest of the missing ones. And if there could be faith put in the word of as worthy an Earl and as estimable a Countess as any in the peerage, the wind of adversity should never more be suffered to blow too bitingly, for Betty’s sake, on any of the Mudge family.

‘I shall ask Morford, as a particular favour, not to repair that bridge,’ said Lord Harrogate jestingly. ‘No chance then that the Hunger Hole should turn again into a trap for catching young ladies.’

CHAPTER XXX.—MAN PROPOSES.

‘Harrogate is going, you know, to leave us so very soon,’ Lady Maud De Vere had said, in her kindly matter-of-fact way, in the course of conversation with Ethel Gray; and Ethel had turned away her face instinctively, lest the burning blush which rose there unbidden should betray her secret to her pupil’s sister and her own friend. Poor Ethel had communed with her heart in the still hours of more than one night since the evening that had witnessed her release from the Hunger Hole, and she could not but acknowledge to herself that she loved Lord Harrogate.

It was not a welcome conviction that forced itself gradually upon Ethel Gray. The attachment, hopeless as it perforce was, was a thing to be deplored, a misfortune; not a source of joy. Lord Harrogate could be nothing to her. He was almost as remote from her humble sphere of life as a Prince of the blood-royal would have been. There are girls who know, where their own personal vanity is at stake, no distinction of ranks, and would set their caps without compunction at an Emperor. Ethel was none of these. To fall in love, even with an object as hopelessly out of reach as one of the fixed stars would be, is a forlorn privilege which has been claimed in every age by very humble persons of either sex. But to Ethel’s proud, maidenly heart it was pain, not pleasure, to know that the future Earl, the future master of High Tor, had grown to be dearer to her than was well for her peace of mind. That she was in his eyes merely Miss Gray, his sister’s governess, was to her thinking a certainty. And she did not even wish that it were otherwise. Why should there be two persons unhappy, on such a subject, instead of one? It was much better as it was. She had begun to love him before, in that desolate cavern on the moor, he had appeared as the harbinger of safety. But she had not admitted to herself that this was so, until the whirl of strong feelings consequent on the danger and the deliverance had taught her to read her own heart, and to learn that his image was garnered in its innermost core. And now he was going away, going very soon. Well, it was better so. A young man such as he was could not always be expected to linger in a country-house. He was going, and she should see him no more. Doubtless it was for the best.

She was in the garden, and alone. A governess is seldom alone. But lessons were over for the day; and Lady Alice her pupil was up-stairs finishing a sketch, and Ethel had strayed out into what, from some household tradition of a foreign florist who had been invoked, when Anne was Queen, to shape and stock the flower-beds and to trim the luxuriant holly-hedge into Netherlandish neatness, was called the Dutch garden. A pleasant spot it was, with its wealth of fragrant old-fashioned roses and gorgeous display of variegated tulips, screened by the immemorial holly-hedge from the rude north-east wind.

Quite suddenly, as she reached the other end of the holly-hedge, Ethel looked up at the rustle of the crisp green leaves, against which some one or something had brushed in passing, and her eyes met those of Lord Harrogate. The latter lifted his hat, but did not immediately speak, while Ethel neither spoke nor stirred. When the thoughts have been busy in conjuring up the image of a particular person, and the original of the air-drawn portrait appears, a kind of dreamy appreciativeness, which is of all sensations the most unlike to surprise, is apt to result. It was so in this case; and for a few brief instants Ethel looked at Lord Harrogate as she would have looked at his picture on the wall.

‘I thought I might find you here,’ said Lord Harrogate, dissolving the spell by the sound of his voice. ‘I hoped I should,’ he added, in a lower and more meaning tone. Ethel murmured something, stooping as she did so to lift the drooping tendril of a standard rose-tree beaten down by the heavy rain of yesterday. ‘Can you guess at all, Miss Gray,’ continued the young man, with an evident effort to speak carelessly and confidently, ‘why I wanted to find you here—and alone?’

It was not quite a fair question. Ethel, in her simple honesty, not caring to enter on a course of that verbal fencing which comes so naturally to a woman whose heart has not yet learned to speak, made no reply. Her colour deepened, and she became very intent indeed upon the bruised trail of the rose-tree.

‘I am going away, as you know, and that very soon. My plans for the winter are quite undecided. I may not be back at High Tor for a good while,’ said the heir to that mansion.

Now there were to be certain autumn manoeuvres in the open country near Aldershot Camp, in which that regiment of militia in which Lord Harrogate was a captain, and towards the perfection of whose drill and discipline he was thought to have contributed more than most militia officers find it convenient to do, had been selected to figure among the auxiliary forces on that occasion.

‘Some friends want me,’ explained Lord Harrogate, ‘when our amateur soldiering is over, to go with them on a yacht-cruise in the Mediterranean, and so on to Egypt, and perhaps farther. What I choose will very much depend on you, Miss Gray.’

‘On me!’ She could not avoid answering this time, and her tone was one of genuine surprise. ‘On me, Lord Harrogate!’

‘On you. I should like all my plans to have some reference to you—Ethel!’ said the young man, trying to get a full view of the beautiful blushing face that was half averted. ‘I say again, can you guess why?’

‘Do not ask me to guess,’ returned Ethel, with a trembling lip. She was very much frightened. She had not the least experience in that science of flirtation in which the modern young lady graduates so early. But she divined that words had been said which rendered it necessary that other words should be spoken, and with what result! Could it be that the end of the interview would be the dashing down of the half-idolised image that her fancy had set up as the emblem of pure chivalry?

‘Only because I love you—love you very dearly, Ethel!’ said the heir of High Tor; and as he spoke he took her unresisting hand in his and drew her towards him. For a moment Ethel was spellbound, her whole faculties absorbed in the one fact that he had told her that he loved her. Come what might, those words—those dear delicious words had sunk into her ear, and the memory of them must remain to the end of what would very likely be a lonely, loveless life; a treasure, her very own, of which none could rob her! But in the next minute Ethel drew her hand away from the hand that held it, and the crimson of indignant anger mounted to her cheek.

‘My lord,’ she said, in a voice that all her wish to speak and act calmly could not render quite steady, ‘you should not have done this. I could not have believed it of you. It is not generous. It is not like yourself.’

‘Why not?’ Lord Harrogate blundered out the words awkwardly enough; but Ethel misunderstood him.

‘Because,’ she said firmly, ‘my position beneath your mother’s roof, in its very lowliness, ought to have been my protection from insult, which’——

‘Insult!’ flashed out Lord Harrogate, reddening too, and breaking almost roughly in on the girl’s half-uttered speech. ‘Can you deem that I mean to insult you when I tell you of my love—that I speak insolently, Miss Gray, when I ask you to be my wife?’

Ethel quivered from head to foot as her half-incredulous ears drank in the words. ‘You meant—that is’—— she faltered out feebly.

‘I meant this,’ said Lord Harrogate earnestly. ‘Miss Gray—Ethel, darling, I have learned during the time that I have known you, to love you with a true and honest love. I am a clumsy wooer, I daresay, but surely you cannot have deemed that I had any other thought than that of asking you, for weal and woe, to share my fortunes?’

He tried to take her hand; but she eluded his grasp, and covering her face, sobbed aloud.

‘Come, Ethel, come, my love! Let it be mine to dry those tears!’ said the young man, passing his arm round her waist; but gently and firmly she released herself.

‘You have made me very happy and very miserable all at once, my lord,’ she said, turning round and facing him; ‘but believe me, there must be no more of this. I thank you from my heart for the very great compliment of your preference for a girl so humbly born, without fortune or kindred. But I am your sister’s governess; and it shall never be said that Ethel Gray brought disunion and sorrow upon the noble family that had received her with so kindly a welcome. I have my own ideas of right and wrong, Lord Harrogate, and I know that I should be mean and base, even in my own eyes, were I to avail myself of—your great goodness.’

He was taken by surprise. He had made up his mind, and reckoned the difficulties of the step which he proposed to take. That he would meet with some opposition on the part of his family, he was of course aware. It might take much time and much persuasion to bring his parents, and especially the Countess, to consent to a match so little calculated to advance his worldly prospects. But he was no shallow boy to cry for his toy, and then forget the bauble that had been withheld from him. His offer of marriage would no doubt render Ethel’s position at High Tor for a time untenable. He had thought the matter over. There were relatives of the De Veres who, without being partisans of the match, would willingly offer a temporary home to such a girl as Ethel Gray, while his mother and Lady Gladys were in process of being converted to see the matter as he saw it.

Ethel’s unlooked-for opposition disconcerted all these projects. She was very grateful, gentle, and almost submissive in her bearing; but she was as steadfast as adamant on the point that it behoved her to return a respectful refusal to Lord Harrogate’s proposals.

‘Do not tempt me,’ she said more than once; ‘do not urge me to forfeit my self-respect, or be false to those who have put trust in me. I am no fit match for the future master of High Tor, the future Earl of Wolverhampton. Would the kind Countess have received me here, would Lady Maud have given me her friendship, had they dreamed of this?’

She was very firm. She let him infer, if he chose, that he was not indifferent to her; but to none of his instances would she yield her steady conviction that duty forbade her to say ‘Yes’ to his entreaties. He became—small blame to him for being so—almost angry, and tried if reproach would succeed where prayer and argument had failed. In vain. His reproaches brought the tears to Ethel’s eyes, but she never faltered in her resolve.

If he pressed her unduly on this point, she said simply that she must go away. Let him forget her, or learn, as she hoped he would, to regard her as a friend, and then she need not leave High Tor. And then——

And then Lady Alice, Ethel’s pupil, made her appearance, and there was no more opportunity for private conversation; and two days later, Lord Harrogate started for Aldershot.

(To be continued.)