CHAPTER XXIX.
ALARM AND ANXIETY.
Time passed on—the mist and rain deepened around Earlshaugh, veiling coppice, glen, and field, and Roland did not appear.
He must have lost his way; but then every foot of the ground was so familiar to him that such seemed impossible; and the idea of an accident did not as yet occur to any one.
Thus none waited for him at the late luncheon table, and then, as in the smoke-room and over the billiard balls, Jack Elliot and others talked only of the events of the day—how the birds were flushed and knocked over—of hits and misses, of game clean-killed, and so forth; how one gorgeous old pheasant in particular came crashing down through the wiry branches of the dark firs in the agonies of death; and how deftly Roland killed his game, without requiring a keeper to give the coup de grâce—there were never many runners before him, and how 'he looked as fresh as a daisy after doing the ninety acre copse,' and so forth, till his protracted absence and the closing in of the darkness, with the ringing of the dressing-bell for dinner, made all conscious of the time, and led them to wonder "what on earth" had become of him—what had happened, and whither had he, or could he have gone!
Speculations were many and endless,
'Some fatality seems surely to attend the shooting here now!' said Mrs. Lindsay anxiously, as she nervously pressed her large white, ringed hands together.
To some of those present the stately dinner, served up in the lofty old dining-room, was a kind of mockery; and Maude and Hester, who dreaded they knew not what, made but a pretence of eating, while the presence of the servants proved a wholesome, if galling, restraint to them; but not so to the irrepressible Annot, who talked away as usual to the gentlemen present, and displayed all her pretty little tricks of manner as if no cause for surmise or anxiety was on the tapis.
The unusual pallor, silence, and abstraction of Mrs. Lindsay, as she sat at the head of the table, while Jack Elliot officiated as host, were painfully apparent to those who, like Hester, watched her.
But she had her own secret thoughts, in which none, as yet, shared!
An attempt had been made to injure Elliot, perhaps mortally, under cover of a blunder—a mishap. Had the same evil hand been at work again?
A cloud there was no dispelling began to settle over all; conversation became broken, disjointed, overstrained, and the cloud seemed deeper as a rising storm howled round the lofty old house, shook the wet ivy against the windows, and grew in force with the gathering gloom of night.
Annot's equanimity amid these influences grieved Maude and annoyed Hester, who recalled her twaddling grief when Roland had been but a few hours absent from her in Edinburgh.
'How can she bear herself so?' said Maude.
'Because she is heartless,' replied Hester; 'and to say the least of her, I never could imagine Annot, with all her prettiness and espièglerie, at the head of a household, or taking her place in society like a woman of sense.'
Hour succeeded hour, and still there was no appearance of Roland, and the clang of the great iron bell in the porte-cochère was listened for in vain.
So the night came undoubtedly on, but what a night it proved to be of storm and darkness!
The rain hissed on the swaying branches of the great trees now almost stripped and bare; it tore down the flowers from the rocks on which the house stood, and wrenched away the matted ivy from turret and chimney; the green turf of the lawn and meadows was soaked till it became a kind of bog; the winding walks that descended to the old fortalice became miniature cascades that shone through the gloom, while the wind wailed in the machicolations of the upper walls in weird and solemn gusts, to die away down the haugh below.
That a tempest had been coming some of the older people about the place, like Gavin Fowler, had foretold, as that loud and hollow noise like distant thunder that often precedes a storm among the Scottish mountains had been heard among the spurs of the Ochils, and from which in the regions farther North, the superstitious Highlanders, as General Stewart tells, presage many omens, when 'the Spirit of the Mountain shrieks.'
All night long the house-bell was clanged at intervals from the bartizan, to the alarm of the neighbourhood.
London-bred Annot was scared at last by the elemental war, by these strange sounds, and the pale faces of those about her, and with blanched visage she peered from the deeply embayed windows into the darkness without, with genuine alarm, now.
How often had she and Roland rambled in yonder green park, not a vestige of which could now be seen even between the flying glimpses of the moon, or crossed it together, talking of and planning out that future which he seemed to approach with such doubt and diffidence latterly; or as he went forth with his breechloader on his shoulder and she clinging with interlaced hands on his right arm—he tall, strong, and stalwart, with his dogs at his heels, and looking down lovingly and trustfully into her fair, smiling face.
Now they might never there and thus walk again, yet her tears seemed to be lodged very deep just then.
But softer Hester's thoughts were more acute. Had Roland perished in some unforeseen, mysterious, and terrible manner? Was this the last of her secret love-dream, and had all hope, sweetness, glamour and beauty gone out of her heart—out of her life altogether?
Oh, what had happened?
Could Hawkey Sharpe—no, she thrust even fear of him on one side; but, as the time stole on and the midnight hour passed without tidings, she tortured herself with questions, lay down without undressing, and wetted her pillow with tears for the doubly lost companion of her infancy, of her girlhood, and its riper years—thinking all the while that her sorrow, her longing, and passionate terrors were for the affianced of another—of the artful Annot Drummond.
Clinging to the supposition that he must have mistaken his way in the swiftly descending mist, Jack Elliot and other guests, with serving-men, keepers, and hunters, carrying lanterns and poles, set out more than once into the darkness, rack, and storm to search without avail, and to return wet and weary.
Hour after hour the circle at Earlshaugh watched and waited, trembling at every gust and listening to every sound—shaken and weakened by a suspense that grew intolerable.
From the windows nothing could be seen—not even the tossing trees close by, or the dark outline of the distant mountains. The listeners' hearts beat quick—gust after gust swept past, but brought no welcome sound with it, and they became familiarized with the idea that some catastrophe must have happened or tidings of the absent must have come by that time; and with each returning party of searchers, hope grew less and less, while those most vitally concerned in the absence of Roland began to shrink from questioning or consulting them, as they were already too much disposed by their nature to adopt the gloomiest and most morbid views; and still the storm gusts continued to shake the windows, and dash against them showers of leaves and the wet masses of overhanging foliage.
Without his cheerful presence and general bonhomie of manner, how empty and void the great old drawing-room—yea, the house itself—seemed now! All his occasional strange, abstracted, and thoughtful moods were forgotten, and now the hours of the dark autumnal morning wore inexorably on.
A few of the guests had retired to their rooms, but the majority passed the time on easy-chairs, watching and waiting for what might transpire. Now and then a dog whined mournfully, and cocked its ears as if to listen, adding to the eerie nature of the vigil.
'Three,' said Hester to Maude when the clocks were heard striking. Then followed 'four' and 'five.' The fires were made up anew.
'Oh, my God, what can have happened!' thought the two girls in their hearts, glancing at Annot, who, overcome by weariness, had dropped into a profound sleep; and ere long the red rays of the sun, as he rose from his bed in the German Sea, began to tinge the summits of the distant Ochils and the nearer Lomonds, and the storm was dying fast away.
It was impossible now to suppose that he could in any manner have lost himself, or taken shelter in the house of any friend or tenant, as no message came from him, and the last idea was completely dissipated by the final return of Gavin Fowler, who, with his staff of keepers and beaters, had been at every farm and house within miles making inquiries, but in vain.
Nothing had been seen or heard of the lost one.
Gavin, however, had seen something which, though he spoke not of it then, had given him cause for anxious thought and much speculation. This was Mr. Hawkey Sharpe (who for some time past had betaken him elsewhere) rapidly and furtively passing out by the Weird Yett, well muffled up, either to conceal his face or for warmth against the cold morning air; and by the path he had taken, he had evidently come by the back private door from the house of Earlshaugh!
'What's i' the wind noo?' muttered the old gamekeeper, with a glare in his dark gray eye, and with knitted brows, 'But there's nae hawk, Maister Hawkey Sharpe, flees sae high but he will fa' to some lure. They were gey scant o' bairns that brocht you up.'