But it was no delirious delusion of Roland's that he had seen a human face, or heard a human voice respond mockingly to his despairing cry for aid.
It singularly chanced that about an hour before midnight, and during a lull in the storm, Mr. Hawkey Sharpe, who—as we have said—had been seen hovering about the vicinity of Earlshaugh, was betaking himself thither, intent on seeing his sister, the mistress thereof (whom he also deemed his banker) concerning some of his monetary affairs, and had been passing on foot by the narrow sheep-path that skirted the verge of the dangerous Cleugh, when the occasional cries of the sufferer reached his ear, and on peering down he had speedily discovered by his voice who that sufferer was.
He paused for a minute till quite assured of the fact, and though at a loss to conceive how the event had come to pass, he proceeded with quickened steps for some miles, till he reached the private entrance—for which he had a key—but not for the purpose of raising an alarm, or procuring or sending forth succour. Of that he had not the least intention, as we shall show. 'In the place where the tree falleth, there let it lie,' was the text of Mr. Hawkey Sharpe just then.
He found the entire household on the qui vive, and heard that Roland Lindsay was missing, thus corroborating to the fullest extent any detail that might be wanting, and obviating all doubt as to the episode at the Cleugh.
'What a fuss,' said he mockingly, 'about a storm of rain!'
It now rested with him, by the utterance of a single word, or little more, to save the missing one from a miserable and lingering death; but that word remained unuttered, and with a grim and mocking smile upon his coarse lips, and a gleam of fiendish joy in his watery gray eyes, he proceeded to his sanctum, up the old turret stair, without the sensation of his steps going downward according to the household tradition.
'Lindsay lost in this storm!' he thought. 'How came he to tumble or to be thrown down there—thrown, by whom?' he added mentally, for his mind was ever prone to evil. 'Then I am not wrong—it was his voice I heard at the bottom of the Kelpie's Cleugh! Ha! ha! let him lie there till the greedy gleds pick his bones to pieces! Well—come what may, I have had no hand in this!' he continued, thinking doubtless of the charge of No. 5 aimed at Captain Elliot.
Roland had often goaded Hawkey to the verge of madness by his cool, haughty bearing and unassailable scorn, even at times when the latter secretly amused him by the 'society' airs he strove to assume; but Hawkey's time for vengeance seemed to have come unexpectedly and all unsought for; and in fancy still he seemed to glare gloatingly down into the dark chasm where the pale sufferer lay in his peril, doubtless with many a bone broken, and the waters of the burn rising fast, for the rain was falling in torrents, and there was a spate in all the mountain streams.
Hawkey threw off his soaked coat, invested his figure in a loose, warm robe de chambre, and took a bottle of his favourite 'blend' from his private cellarette, after which he threw himself into an easy-chair, with his feet upon another, and strove to reflect.
'I always thought, if I could get rid of that fellow Lindsay by fair means or foul, this place would certainly be mine, unless Deb plays the fool—mine! The girl in my way is nothing, yet I may have her too, and if not, the other one with the yellow hair. After what I saw by a gleam of the Macfarlanes' lantern to-night, the way seems pretty clear now!'
He tugged his straw-coloured moustache, and after fixing his eyes with a self-satisfied glare on vacancy for a full minute, rang the bell for supper imperiously.
Mr. Hawkey Sharpe was one who never troubled himself about the past, and seldom about the future; his enjoyment was in the present, and the mere fact of living well and jollily without having work to do.
Just then he was pretty full of alcohol and exultant hope—two very good things in their way to lay in a stock of. He cared little what he did, but he dreaded greatly discovery in any of his little trickeries.
To him the world was divided into two portions, those who cheat and those who are cheated.
'Rid of Lindsay,' was the ever-recurring thought; 'rid of his presence, local influence, and d——d impudence, I shall have this place again more than ever to myself, if I can only throw a little dust in Deb's eyes, and have, perhaps, my choice of these two stunning girls when I choke off that other snob, Elliot.'
Excitement consequent on this most unlooked-for episode at the Cleugh had nearly driven out of his mind the object which had brought him that night to Earlshaugh, and his last potations of hot whisky toddy at The Thane of Fife, a tavern or roadside inn on the skirts of the park, had for a time rather clouded his intellect, without, however, spoiling his usually excellent appetite.
Thus when Tom Trotter arrived with a large silver tray—a racing trophy of the late laird's career—covered with a spotless white napkin, and having thereon curried lobster, mutton cutlets, devilled kidneys, and beef kabobs on silver skewers, with a bottle of Mumm, he drew in his chair and made a repast, all the more pleasantly perhaps that he heard at intervals the clang of the great house bell overhead, and saw the lanterns of the searchers like glow-worms amid the storm of rain and wind, as they set forth again on their bootless errand, and then a smile that Mephistopheles might have envied spread over his face.
'Lindsay lost!' he muttered jocularly. 'Well, there was mair lost at Shirramuir when the Hielandman lost his faither and mither, and a gude buff belt that was worth them baith.'
He had a habit, when liquor loosened his tongue, of soliloquizing, and he was in this mood to-night.
'Now, how to raise the ready!' he muttered, as he thrust the silver salver aside, and drew the decanter once more towards him, together with his briar-root and tobacco-pouch. 'The money I have lost must go to a fellow who is said to possess the power of turning everything he touches to gold—to gold! Gad, could I only do that, I wouldn't even sponge on old Deb in Earlshaugh, or wait for a dead woman's shoes. Besides, if I don't please her, she may hand over the whole place to the Free Kirk; and, d—n it, that's not to be thought of!—that body which, as she always says, seceded so nobly, and scorned the loaves and fishes. If I could only get hold of Deb's cheque-book; but she keeps everything so devilish close and secure! When a fellow comes to be as I am,' he continued, rolling his eyes about and lighting his pipe with infinite difficulty—'bravo!—there's a devil of a gust of wind—hope you like it, Lindsay—when a fellow, I say, comes to be as I am, with an infinitesimal balance at the banker's and not much credit with his tailor, he can't be particular to a shade what he does—and so about the cheque-book——'
'What have you been doing now?' asked a voice behind him.
His sister Deborah again! He grew very pale and nearly dropped his pipe. 'How much had she overhead?' was his first thought; 'curse this habit of thinking aloud!' was his second.
'You are always stealing on a fellow unawares, Deb,' said he, in a thick and uncertain voice; 'it is deuced unpleasant—startles one so.'
Her face was pale as usual; but her eyes and mouth expressed anger, pain, and a good deal of indignation and contempt too.
'What have you done?' she demanded categorically.
'Nothing,' said he, striving to collect his thoughts; 'but made my way here in a devil of a shower, for want of other shelter.'
'You know what has happened?'
'To Lindsay—yes.'
'You do?' she exclaimed, making a step forward, with a hand on her side, as if her usual pain was there.
'I know that he is absent—missing—that is all,' he replied doggedly.
'Nothing more?'
'Nothing more—and care little, as you may suppose,' he replied, avoiding her keen searching eye by carefully filling his pipe. 'There is always some row on,' he grumbled; 'what a petty world this is after all—I wonder if the fixed stars are inhabited.'
'That will not matter to you, I should think.'
'Why?'
'You will go some other way, I fear.'
'Deb, your surmise is unpleasant.'
The manner of Hawkey Sharpe to his sister had lost, just then, much of its general self-contained assurance. She detected the change, and it rendered her suspicious.
'Save this poor little dog Fifine,' said she, caressing the cur she carried under an arm, and which was greedily sniffing the débris of Mr. Hawkey's supper, 'I do not know a living creature who really cares for me!'
'Oh—come now, Deb—hang it!' said her brother in an expostulatory manner.
'You have some object in coming here to-night,' said she sternly; 'to the point at once, Hawkey?'
'Well, since you force me, Deb—I have been unfortunate in some speculations.'
'Is it thus you describe your losses on the race-course?'
'At the western meeting—yes—backed the wrong or losing horse—Scottish Patriot—devil of a mess, Deb!'
'And lost—how much? An unlucky name.'
'Two thousand pounds—must have the money somehow—I'm booked for it, and you know the adage—
"A horse kicking, a dog biting,
A gentleman's word without his writing,"
are none of them in my way.'
'I know nothing of the adage, but this I know—there are bounds to patience.'
'My dear Deb!' said he coaxingly.
'I have lost much—too much, indeed, through you—money that might be put to good and holy uses—and now shall lose no more!'
Turning abruptly, she swept away and left him.
He looked after her with absolutely a red glare of rage in his pale gray eyes.
'Good and holy uses—meaning the kirk of course!' he muttered with a savage malediction. 'We shall see—we shall see. She must have heard me muttering about her cheque-book—ass that I am; but that money I must have before three months are past if I rake Pandemonium for it!'
Again the clanging of the house bell fell upon his ear, and he heard the storm as it rose and died away to rise again. He took another glass of stiff grog and glared at the great antique clock on the mantel-shelf.
'Three in the morning,' he muttered. 'It must be all over with him by this time—all over now!'