So thought Dr. Wade when he came in and saw them sitting there, and gave vent to his feeling in a grunt of dissatisfaction.
“It is like driving two pigs to market,” he muttered; “they won't go the way I want them to, out of pure contrariness.”
“It is all settled, Doctor,” Bathurst said, rising. “Come, shake hands; it is to you I owe my happiness chiefly.”
“Isobel, my dear, give me a kiss,” the Doctor exclaimed. “I am glad, my dear, I am glad with all my heart. And what have you settled besides that?”
“We have settled that I am to go home as soon as I can go down country, and he is going up with you and the others to Cawnpore.”
“That is right,” the Doctor said heartily. “I told you that was what he would decide upon; it is right that he should do so. No man ought to turn his face to the coast till Lucknow is relieved and Delhi is captured. I thank God it has all come right at last. I began to be afraid that Bathurst's wrong headedness was going to mar both your lives.”
The news had already come down that Havelock had found that it would be absolutely impossible with the small force at his command to fight his way into Lucknow through the multitude of foes that surrounded it, and that he must wait until reinforcements arrived. There was, therefore, no urgent hurry, and it was not until ten days later that a second troop of volunteer horse, composed of civilians unable to resume their duties, and officers whose regiments had mutinied, started for Cawnpore.
Half an hour before they mounted, Isobel Hannay and Ralph Bathurst were married by the chaplain in the fort. This was at Bathurst's earnest wish.
“I may not return, Isobel,” he had urged: “it is of no use to blink the fact that we have desperate fighting before us, and I should go into battle with my mind much more easy in the knowledge that, come what might, you were provided for. The Doctor tells me that he considers you his adopted daughter, and that he has already drawn up a will leaving his savings to you; but I should like your future to come from me, dear, even if I am not to share it with you. As you know, I have a fine estate at home, and I should like to think of you as its mistress.”
And Isobel of course had given way, though not without protest.