FOOTNOTES:
[6] "Boreen," Irish for a deep, stone-paved lane.
THE BITTER END
It was indeed a sad sight for those joyous riders, exulting but a moment before, in all the triumph and excitement of their gallop. Saddest and most pitiable for the General, thus to find and recognise the woman he had loved and lost. While they took her gently out from under the dead mare's carcase, she groaned feebly, and they said, "Thank God!" for at least there seemed left a faint spark of life. Assistance, too, was near at hand. As Norah observed, "'Twasn't like Kildare, where ye wouldn't have seen a shealing or may be so much as a potato-garden for miles! But every farm here was kept like a domain, and they'd built a dwelling-house almost in every field!" Within a short distance stood the comfortable mansion, surrounded by its well-stocked fold-yards, of a substantial yeoman; and Bill, with two falls, was there in two minutes! A few of the second flight also, persevering resolutely on the line the hounds had gone, straggled up and did good service. What became of the Field, and where the deer was taken, none of these had opportunity to ascertain. All their energies, all their sympathies, were engrossed by that helpless, motionless form, that beautiful rigid face, so wan and white, beneath its folds of glossy raven hair.
Carrying her softly and carefully on a gate to her place of shelter, it looked as if they formed a funeral procession, of which the General seemed chief-mourner.
His bearing was stern and composed, his step never faltered, nor did his hand shake; but he who wrestled with the angel of old, and prevailed against him, could scarcely have out-done this loving, longing heart in earnestness of purpose and passionate pleading of prayer.
"But once more!" was his petition. "Only that she may know me, and look on me once more!" and it was granted.
For two days Blanche Douglas never spoke nor stirred. Mrs. Walters constituted herself head-nurse, and never left her pillow. The General remained the whole time at the threshold of her chamber.
The surgeon, a country practitioner of high repute, who saw her within an hour of her accident, committed himself to no opinion by word or sign, but shook his head despondingly the moment he found himself alone. The famous London doctor, telegraphed for at once, preserved an ominous silence. He, too, getting into the fly that took him back to the station, looked grave and shook his head. The hospitable yeoman, who placed his house and all he had freely at the sufferer's disposal, packing off the very children to their aunt's, at the next farm, felt, as he described it, "Down-hearted—uncommon." His kindly wife went about softly and in tears. Daisy and Bill hurried to and fro, in every direction, as required, by night and day; while Norah, watching in the darkened room, tried to hope against hope, and pray for that which she dared not even think it possible could be granted.
The General looked the quietest and most composed of all. Calm and still, he seemed less to watch than to wait. Perhaps some subtler instinct than theirs taught him the disastrous certainty, revealed to him the inevitable truth.
Towards evening of the second day Norah came into the passage and laid her hand on his shoulder, as he sat gazing vacantly from the window, over the fields and orchards about the farm. They loomed hazy and indistinct in the early winter twilight, but the scene on which he looked was clear enough—a bright sunny slope, a golden gleam in the sky above, and on earth a dark heap, with a trailing habit, and a slender riding-whip clenched in a small gloved hand.
"She has just asked for you," whispered Norah. "Go to her—quick! God bless you, General! Try and bear it like a man!"
The room was very dark. He stole softly to her bedside, and felt his fingers clasped in the familiar clinging touch once more.
"My darling!" he murmured, and the strong man's tears welled up, thick and hot, like a child's.
Her voice came, very weak and low. "The poor mare!" she said; "is she much hurt? It was no fault of hers."
He must have answered, and told her the truth without knowing it; for she proceeded more feebly than before.
"Both of us! Then it's no use. I was going to give her to you, dear, and ask you to take care of her for my sake. Have you—have you forgiven?"
"Forgiven!" His failing accents were even less steady than her own.
"I vexed you dreadfully," she continued. "I was not good enough for you. I see it all; and, if it could come again, I would never leave you—never! But I did it for the best. I took great pains to hide myself away down here; but I'm glad. Yes, I'm very glad you found me out at last. How dark it is! Don't let go my hand. Kiss me, my own! I know now that I did love you dearly—far better than I thought."
The feeble grasp tightened, stronger, stronger, yet. The shadows fell, the night came down, and a pale moon threw its ghostly light into the chamber. But the face he loved was fixed and grey now, the hand he still clasped was stiff and cold in death.
The General carried to India a less sore heart, perhaps, than he had expected. There was no room left for the gnawing anxiety, the bitter sense of humiliation, the persistent struggle against self, that distressed and troubled him in his previous relations with her he had loved so dearly, and lost so cruelly even in the hour she became his own. He was grave and silent, no doubt, in feelings and appearance, many years beyond his real age; but every fresh grey hair, every additional symptom of decay, seemed only a milestone nearer home. Without speculating much on its locality, he cherished an ardent hope that soon he might follow to the place where she had gone before. None should come between them there, he thought, and they need never part again.
Soldier Bill and Daisy saw the last of him when he left England; the former rather envied every one who was bound for a sphere in which there seemed a possibility of seeing real service, the latter comparing his senior's lonely life and blighted hopes with his own happy lot, felt a humbler, a wiser, and a better man for the contrast.
Mrs. Walters, though losing none of her good nature and genial Irish humour, became more staid in manner, altogether more matronly; and though she went out hunting on occasion, certainly rode less boldly than before the catastrophe. Her sister Mary, however, who came over to stay with her about this time, kept up the family credit for daring, and would have taken Bill's heart by storm if she had not won it already with the fearlessness she displayed in following him over the most formidable obstacles. After a famous day on Boneen, when she bustled that lazy little gentleman along in a manner that perfectly electrified him, Bill could hold out no longer, but placed himself, his fortunes, Catamount, and Benjamin, at her disposal. All these she was good enough to accept but the badger; and that odorous animal was compelled to evacuate his quarters in the wardrobe for a more suitable residence out of barracks, at a livery-stable. So they were married in London, and inaugurated the first day of their honeymoon by a quick thing with the Windsor drag-hounds.
Of Mrs. Lushington there is little more to be said. The sad fate of her former friend she accepted with the resignation usually displayed by those of her particular set in the face of such afflictions as do not immediately effect themselves and their pleasures. She vowed it was very sad, talked of wearing black—but didn't! and went out to dinner much as usual. Even Bessie Gordon showed more feeling, for she did cry when she heard the news, and appeared that night at a ball with swollen eyelids and a red place under her nose. Many people asked what had become of Miss Douglas? The answer was usually something to this effect—
"Don't you remember? Painful business; shocking accident. Killed out hunting. Odd story; odd girl. Yes, handsome, but peculiar style!"
They buried the good black mare where she fell. Long before the grass was green over her grave, rider and horse had been very generally forgotten. Yet in their own circle both had created no small sensation in their time. But life is so far like the chase, that it admits of but little leisure for hesitation; none whatever for regret. How should we ever get to the finish if we must needs stop to pick up the fallen, or to mourn for the dead?
In certain kind and faithful hearts, however, it is but justice to say the memory of that hapless pair remains fresh and vivid as on the day of their fatal downfall.
There is a stern, grey-headed soldier in the East who sees Blanche Douglas nightly in his dreams; and Daisy Walters, in his highest state of exultation, when he has been well-carried, as often happens, through a run, heaves a sigh, and feels something aching at his heart, that recalls the black mare and her lovely wayward rider, while it reminds him in a ghostly whisper that "there never was one yet like Satanella!"
UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.
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LOVE MADE MANIFEST.
PHAROS, THE EGYPTIAN.
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BUSHIGRAMS.
THE FASCINATION OF THE KING.
DR. NIKOLA.
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