"If I employ every detective in Bow-street, I will find nim." "Wait, only wait, till the post comes in to-morrow. He will surely write, if not to her, wretch that he is! - at least to some of us." "If he be alive. No. I must go up to Pen-y-gwryd, where he was last seen, and find out what I can.' "They will be all in bed at this hour of the night; and if if anything has happened, it will be over by now," added she, with a shudder. "God forgive me! It will, indeed; but he may write perhaps to me. He is no coward, I believe; and he may send me a challenge. Yes, I will wait for the post." " Shall you accept it if he does?" Major Campbell smiled sadly. No, Miss St. Just; you may set your mind at rest upon that point. I have done quite enough harm already to your family. Now, good-by! I will wait for the post to-morrow; do you go to your sister." Valencia went, utterly bewildered. She had forgotten Frank, but Frank had not forgotten her. He had hurried to his room; lay till morning, sleepless with delight, and pouring out his pure spirit in thanks for this great and unexpected blessing. A new life had begun for him, even in the jaws of death. He would still go to the East. It seemed easy to him to go there in search of a grave; how much more now, when he felt so full of magic life, that fever, cholera, the chances of war, even, could not harm him! After this proof of God's love how could he doubt, how fear? Little he thought that, three doors off from him, Valencia was sitting up the whole night through, vainly trying to quiet Lucia, who refused to undress, and paced up and down her room, hour after hour, in wild misery, which I have no skill to detail. CHAPTER XXI. NATURE'S MELODRAMA. WHAT, then, had become of Elsley, and whence had he written the fatal letter? He had hurried up the high road for half an hour and more, till the valley on the left sloped upward more rapidly, in dark, dreary bogs, the moonlight shining on their runnels; while the mountain on his right sloped downwards more rapidly in dark, dreary down, strewn with rocks which stood out black against the sky. He was nearing the head of the watershed; soon he saw slate roofs glittering in the moonlight, and found himself at the little inn of Pen-y-gwryd, at the meeting of the three great valleys, the central heart of the mountains. And a genial, jovial little heart it is, and an honest, kindly little heart, too, with warm life-blood within. So it looked that night, with every window red with comfortable light, and a long stream of glare pouring across the road from the open door, gilding the fir-tree tops in front; but its geniality only made him shudder. He had been there more than once, and knew the place and the people; and knew, too, that, of all people in the world, they were the least like him. He hurried past the doorway, and caught one glimpse of the bright kitchen. A sudden thought struck him. He would go in and write his letter there. But not yet-he could not go in yet; for through the open door came some sweet Welsh air, so sweet that even he paused to listen. Men were singing in three parts, in that rich metallic temper of voice, and that perfect time and tune, which is the one gift still left to that strange Cymry race, worn out with the long burden of so many thousand years. He knew the air; it was "The Rising of the Lark." Heavens! what a bitter contrast to his own thoughts! But he stood rooted, as if spell-bound, to hear it to the end. The lark's upward flight was over; and Elsley heard him come quivering down from heaven's gate, fluttering, sinking, trilling self-compla cently, springing aloft in one bar, only to sink lower in the next, and call more softly to his brooding mate below; till, worn out with his ecstasy, he murmured one last sigh of joy, and sank into the nest. The picture flashed through Elsley's brain as swiftly as the notes did through his ears. He breathed more freely when it vanished with the sounds. He strode hastily in, and down the little passage to the kitchen. It was a low room, ceiled with dark beams, from which hung bacon and fishing-rods, harness and drying stockings, and all the miscellanea of a fishing-inn kept by a farmer, and beneath it the usual happy, hearty, honest group. There was Harry Owen, bland and stalwart, his baby in his arms, smiling upon the world in general; old Mrs. Pritchard, bending over the fire, putting the last touch to one of those miraculous soufflets, compact of clouds and nectar, which transport alike palate and fancy, at the first mouthful, from Snowdon to Belgrave Square. A sturdy, fair-haired Saxon Gourbannelig sat with his back to the door, and two of the beautiful children on his knee, their long locks flowing over the elbows of his shooting-jacket, as, with both arms round them, he made Punch for them with his handkerchief and his fingers, and chattered to them in English, while they chattered in Welsh. By him sat another Englishman, to whom the three tuneful Snowdon guides, their music-score upon their knees, sat listening approvingly, as he rolled out, with voice as of a jolly blackbird, or jollier monk of old, the good old Wessex song: "My dog he has his master's nose, To smell a knave through silken hose; "Of foreign tongues let scholars brag, And their wearers be my dog and I!" "That ought to be Harry's song, and the colly's, too, eh?" said he, pointing to the dear old dog, who sat with his head on Owen's knee; "eh, my men? Here's a health to the honest man and his dog!" And all laughed and drank; while Elsley's dark face looked in at the door-way, and half turned to escape. Handsome, lady-like Mrs Owen, bustling out of the kitchen with a supper-tray, ran full against him, and uttered a Welsh scream. 'Show me a room, and bring me a pen and paper," said ne, and then started in his turn, as all had started at him; for the two Englishmen looked round, and, behold, to his disgust, the singer was none other than Naylor; the actor of Punch was Wynd. To have found his bêtes noirs even here, and at such a moment! And, what was worse, to hear Mrs. Owen say, “We have no room, sir, unless these gentlemen -" "Of course," said Wynd, jumping up, a child under each "Mr. Vavasour! we shall be most happy to have for a week if you will!" arm. your company Ten minutes' solitude is all I ask, sir, if I am not intruding too far." "Two hours, if you like. We'll stay here, Mrs. Owen: the thicker the merrier." But Elsley had vanished into a chamber bestrewn with plaids, pipes, hob-nail boots, fishingtackle, mathematical books, scraps of ore, and the wild confusion of a gownsman's den. "The party is taken ill with a poem," said Wynd. Naylor stuck out his heavy under lip, and glanced sidelong at his friend. "With something worse, Ned. That man's eye and voice had something uncanny in them. Mellot said he would go crazed some day; and be hanged if I don't think he is so now." Another five minutes, and Elsley rang the bell violently for hot brandy and water. Mrs. Owen came back, looking a little startled, a letter in her hand. "The gentleman had drunk the liquor off at one draught, and ran out of the house like a wild man. Harry Owen must go down to Beddgelert instantly with the letter; and there was five shillings to pay for all." Harry Owen rises, like a strong and patient beast of bur den, ready for any amount of walking, at any hour in the twenty-four. He has been up Snowdon once to-day already. He is going up again at twelve to-night, with a German who wants to see the sun rise; he deputes that office to John Roberts, and strides out. "Which way did the gentleman go, Mrs. Owen?" asks Naylor. "Capel Curig road.” Naylor whispers to Wynd, who sets the two little girls on the table, and hurries out with him. They look up the road, and see no one; run a couple of hundred yards, where they catch a sight of the next turn, clear in the moonlight There is no one on the road. 66 Run to the bridge, Wynd," whispers Naylor. "He may have thrown himself over." "Tally ho!" whispers Wynd in return, laying his hand on Naylor's arm, and pointing to the left of the road. A hundred yards from them, over the boggy upland, among scattered boulders, a dark figure is moving. Now he stops short, gesticulating; turns right and left irresolutely. At last he hurries on and upward; he is running, springing from stone to stone. "There is but one thing, Wynd. drown himself in Llyn Cwm Fynnon." "No, he's striking to the right. the Glyder?" After him, or he'll Can he be going up "We'll see that in five minutes. All in the day's work, my boy! I could go up Mont Blanc with such a dinner The two gallant men run in, struggle into their wet boots again, and, provisioned with meat and bread, whiskey, tobacco, and plaids, are away upon Elsley's tracks, having left Mrs. Owen disconsolate by their announcement that a sudden fancy to sleep on the Glyder has seized them. Nothing more will they tell her, or any one; being gentlemen, however much slang they may talk in private. Elsley left the door of Pen-y-gwryd, careless whither he went, if he went only far enough. In front of him rose the Glyder Vawr, its head shrouded in soft mist, through which the moonlight gleamed upon the checkered quarries of that enormous desolation, the dead bones of the eldest-born of time. A wild longing seized him; he would escape up thither; up into those clouds, up anywhere to be alone alone with his miserable self. That was dreadful enough; but less dreadful than having a companion, ay, even a stone by him, which could remind him of the scene which he had left; even remind him that there was another human being on earth beside himself. Yes, to put that cliff between him and all the world! Away he plunged from the high road, splashing over boggy uplands, scrambling among scattered boulders, across a stony torrent bed, and then across another and another ;- when would he reach that dark marbled wall which rose into the infinite blank, looking within a stone-throw of him, and yet no nearer after he had walked a mile ? |