"Divil a lift will I give ye. It will do the master and young lady no good, and I'll not have your drownding on my conscience."
Harcourt soon found that he could not manage the large boat alone, and the matches he struck to guide him revealed that the man had spoken truly, and that the craft was in no condition for the service he proposed.
"Great God!" he cried, "is there no way to save her?"
He sprang upon the boat-house, and there, away to the south, was the dim light coming steadily up the stream. The moon had not yet risen; the sky was overcast with wildly flying clouds; the wind was rising, and would drive and grind the ice more fiercely. It was just the night for a tragedy, and he felt that if he saw that light disappear, as a sign that the boat had been crushed and its occupants swallowed up by the wintry tide, the saddest tragedy of the world would have taken place.
He groaned and clenched his hands in his impotent anguish.
"O God!" he cried, "what can I do to save her."
He clasped his throbbing temples, and tried to think. It soon occurred to him that Mrs. Marchmont's boat might be in better condition. Hemstead was strong and brave, and would assuredly join him in the effort to rescue them. Without a word he rushed up the bank, sprang into his cutter, gave his spirited horse a cut from the whip, which caused him at once to spring into a mad gallop, and so vanished from the eyes of the bewildered and terrified servants, who were left alone to their increasing fears.
"Save her,—save her," muttered the coachman, as, stiff and numb with cold, he followed Harcourt more slowly to the house. "It's kind o' queer how he forgits about the old man."