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.’