XXXVII.
The Sudden Summons.
On the following morning Franks started before breakfast for a spot called Cliff Farm, to make arrangements with the owner of the place for the loan of his cart to carry the school-master's family, and what little luggage they possessed, to the station on the succeeding Thursday. The errand was not a pleasant one, but Franks had no longer the heavy weight on his heart which had oppressed him so long as he felt that, not being in charity with man, he could not be at peace with his God. Franks could now look calmly up at the clear blue sky, flecked with rosy morning clouds, with a spirit in harmony with the tranquil, holy beauty of nature.
Cliff Farm owed its name to its position. It stood on very high ground, and was approached by a road steep enough to try the breath and mettle of any horse drawing a conveyance. On one side, not a hundred yards to the right of the farm-house, there was an abrupt fall of the ground, forming a sheer perpendicular descent of some fifty or sixty feet, down which tumbled a light sparkling cascade. It was the joyous leap of the young stream which, not a mile lower down, turned the wheel of the mill, after winding its way past the village of Colme. The brook, rushing with a pleasant gurgling sound over its rocky bed, added to the charm of the spot, which was one of the loveliest in the county. Franks had often bent his steps towards Cliff Farm, and stood on the edge of that steep, rocky bank, to enjoy the extensive view which it commanded.
And there the school-master now lingered to gaze, perhaps for the last time, from that point on the beautiful landscape before him. There lay beneath him the village of Colme, the ivy-mantled church in which he had been married to Persis, and to which they had brought their first-born babe to offer him unto the Lord. There was the dear little school-house, at once the scene of Franks's earliest labors, and the home in which he had known more of pure happiness than falls to the lot of most men, even during the longest life. The eye of the school-master wandered along the high road leading towards the town; his gaze lingered on the cottage of Nancy Sands; never would he remember that dwelling and its inmates but with feelings of thankful joy. Then the glance of Franks fell on the chimneys of Stone's house; trees intervening hid the rest of the building from his view; there the one-armed sailor had sought faithfully, and not unsuccessfully, to open blinded eyes to the truth. Farther on—how well Franks knew its position!—lay the wooded dell in which Persis had dwelt when he wooed her, and where he had first met with Isaacs, then an unconverted Jew,—now, partly through his words, his prayers, his example, a consistent Christian believer. The little stream plunging over the cliff, which was almost at the feet of Ned Franks, was the same from which—by the mill in that same wooded dell—he had drawn the drowning Nancy at the imminent peril of his life. The pines on yon eastern hill looked down, as the school-master well knew, on the almshouses nestling in Wild Rose Hollow. How greatly would he be missed there! If that thought was sad, it also was sweet. There would be many a tear shed by aged eyes in those cottages which he had labored so hard to repair. Ned sighed to think that his work there must be left unfinished.
Still farther on roved the eye of Franks. On another hill, girdled with woods, stood the Hall; he could see its upper windows glancing in the light of the morning sun.
"O God! Thy blessing may yet rest on that dark place—as it seems to us," said the school-master half aloud. "Thou sendest thy sunshine to all, so may none be shut out from thy grace. It seems to me at this moment as if I could forgive from my soul even Sir Lacy Barton."
As Ned pursued his meditations, suddenly he was startled by a cry of "Stop him! stop him!" from behind, with the sound of the clattering hoofs of a horse rushing on in wild, frantic career down the steep slope just above the spot on which Franks was standing. Turning quickly round, he beheld a black hunter dashing towards him at a furious speed, which its rider, tugging at the rein, tried in vein to check, as his horse was carrying him direct towards the cliff and—unless it were possible to stop his career—to inevitable destruction! Franks had but an instant to calculate chances, to recognize the rider, to resolve to try to save him by catching at the rein as the maddened hunter rushed like a whirlwind by! Franks made the attempt, but failed, and was struck to the earth with violence! The hand of no single man would have sufficed to stop the furious and powerful animal which the baronet rode. Ned instantly sprang to his feet, and, as he did so, saw the fearful plunge over the cliff, and heard the wild cry for help from one beyond all human help. Then followed a terrible crash below!
"He's lost!" exclaimed the owner of Cliff Farm, who came panting up to the spot, followed by one of his men, who had also witnessed the frightful catastrophe, and Ned's gallant though fruitless effort to avert it.
"Let's make our way down without a moment's delay!" cried Ned; "he may be living still!"
The three men, Franks the foremost of the party, with all speed clambered to the bottom of the cliff, at a place where a little roughness in the ground, and a few bushes to hold by, enabled them to manage the descent. I will not dwell on the fearful sight which awaited them. The black horse lay dead, the rider apparently dying. Franks took the lead in doing all that could be done for the sufferer. One messenger was sent off to the Hall, another to the town for a surgeon. There was no difficulty in finding messengers, for country people, who had seen the horse when it first started off, now came running to the scene of the disaster.