Her beseeching eyes were full of eloquence, but still Biddy hesitated.
“Nothing can hurt you,” continued Mrs Roy in a pleading voice; “and I shall bless you all my life long. Oh, Biddy, you wouldn’t let Dulcie die!”
To go and meet the ghost, or to let Dulcie die—they were equally dreadful to Biddy. As she thought of the first, icy-cold water seemed to be trickling slowly down her back; and as she thought of the second, a great aching ball came into her throat and her eyes filled with tears.
“I’ll go, mum,” she gasped out. “Don’t you lose heart.”
Mrs Roy gave a trembling sigh of relief as Biddy’s sturdy form moved towards the door.
“Put on my thick grey shawl hanging in the passage,” she said; “and oh, Biddy, make him understand that he must come as quickly as ever he can.”
Biddy threw the heavy shawl over her head and shoulders, and stepped out through the dark porch into the darker field. Mrs Roy had said there was no moon that night, but there was—a small pale one, just enough to make everything look dimly awful. The wind was high, rattling the bare branches of the trees, and chasing the clouds hurriedly along; it blew coldly in Biddy’s face as she left the warm shelter of the house. She could see the track across the field and the white gate at the end of it, and the row of dark elms tossing their arms wildly. Towards these she set her face, and, bending down her head, ran steadily on. “Go back, go back!” the wind seemed to shout as it pressed against her with its strong outspread hands; “Go on, Biddy, for my sake!” whispered Mrs Roy’s pleading voice behind her. And these two sounds were so distinct that in the middle of the field she stopped uncertainly. But the little voice from Truslow Manor and the thought of Dulcie’s danger were stronger than the wind, and drove her on again till she stood with trembling knees close to the river, her hand touching the latch of the gate. What, oh! What was that, looming towards her, shapeless and awful, across the bridge! A cow, perhaps?—it was too low; a dog?—it was too large. On it came, slowly, nearer and nearer, and Biddy could see that where its head should have been there was something that napped about loosely; the rest of it was a formless, moving piece of darkness. Biddy could not stir—she clung in an agony to the gate-post and stared without making a sound. To run away would be impossible, even if her limbs had not been useless from terror: it would be far worse to feel this creature at her back than to face it. So she stood for a minute, which seemed a lifetime, and then, recovering her voice, uttered a shrill, despairing scream. At the sound the thing stopped, reared itself, as it were, on its hind-legs, and swayed about uncertainly in front of her. Still clinging to the gate, Biddy thought of her mother and began to say her evening prayers; her knees were giving way, and she felt she must soon sink upon the ground.
Then—oh, blessed moment!—there suddenly sounded out of the darkness, at the back of the awful figure, a cheerful human voice and a firm human footstep. Mr Roy’s lantern flashed in the surrounding gloom.
“What’s the matter? Who’s this?” he said in comfortable human accents, and held the light full in the ghost’s face. What did Biddy see? Not the spectral features of any strange old Truslow, but the earthly and familiar ones of—poor Crazy Sall!
Dulcie did not die. When, a little later, the curate came hastening back with the doctor, she was quite well and sleeping calmly in her cradle. It had not been croup, the doctor said, and Mrs Roy had alarmed herself without cause. Nevertheless Biddy had earned her mistress’s undying gratitude by her conduct that evening, and she was quite as much praised and thanked as if she really had saved the baby’s life.