And yet such is human nature, the very next flash made him put his hands before his eyes and turn somewhat pale.
"It is awfully vivid," he said. "This artillery of heaven, men think, is sent to punish the guilty alone: the immediate retribution of the Almighty. If so, why does it choose its aim so lucklessly? I have seen the loveliest and the purest struck by it; the murderer, the villain, and the false prophet pass through it unscathed. But I will go, lest a worse fate than that of the lightning should reach me. Farewell, old man!" he continued, looking at the couch on which Sir Arthur Adelon was lying; "after many years' sojourn on this earth together, you and I may never meet again. If friendship unvarying, and services not to be doubted, and counsels ever for the best, could have done aught with you, you should have had them, nay, you have had them. But you were too weak and idle to profit even by experience. Instead of full trust, you gave half confidence; instead of full obedience, you gave nothing but a questioning support; and the church must triumph wherever it sets its foot, or the day of its destruction is arrived."
With this unvarying maxim of the Roman church, he turned away and left him, placing the papers he had brought farther on the table, with the claws of the inkstand to hold them safely down. He retired by the same means which had given him entrance; and without the slightest appearance of anxiety or haste, opened the first door and shut it behind him, then pulled back the private door which afforded a communication between his room and that of the baronet, and ascended a flight of steps which led to the chambers above.
All remained still and quiet below; and in a few minutes, proceeding into the stable-yard, Mr. Filmer had mounted, without the slightest opposition, a horse which had been set apart for his own use while at Brandon, and was riding away, but in a direction different to that which Edgar and his friend had taken.
CHAPTER XLIV.
They first paused at the park gates, Edgar Adelon and Captain M----, and asked, in a quiet, easy tone, if Mr. Filmer had lately passed. The answer, as the reader may anticipate, was, "No;" and separating, they rode round the whole extent of the wide space enclosed within the walls of Brandon Park--not less than four or five square miles--inquiring of every person whom they met, and at every cottage which they passed, but without receiving any intelligence whatever. After having made this circuit, they rode down to Clive Grange, where Edgar was received with the greatest joy by all the servants; but no information was afforded, till one of the maid-servants recollected having heard the ploughman say that he thought he had seen Father Peter walking over the downs towards Barhampton. Edgar, impetuous as usual, was for setting out immediately; but Captain M---- stopped to investigate the statement, and inquired when this vision was seen. That the maid could not tell, but informed him that the man had mentioned the fact when he came home to dinner, adding, however, that he had returned to his work. Finding that the spot where he was employed lay considerably out of the way, the two gentlemen set off again, taking the cottage of Daniel Connor as they went; but the door was locked, and nobody within.
At Barhampton their inquiries were equally vain, though every quarter was applied to where it was supposed that anything like information could be obtained; and after a fruitless search of nearly an hour, they turned their horses' heads back towards Brandon, conversing on what it might be expedient to do next.
By this time, however, the indications of an approaching storm were visible in the sky. Large clouds, not decked with the fleecy fringes of the soft spring, but hard, defined, and of a bluish black, were rising rapidly in the south; and as Edgar and his friend gazed over the wide scene which presented itself to the eye from the slope just out of the gates of Barhampton, a curious purple light spread over the whole, giving to field, and hill, and tree, those intense hues which are more frequently seen in southern lands.
"Does not that put you in mind of Australia?" asked Captain M----, as they rode on.
"In some degree," replied Edgar; "but we shall have a fierce storm soon, or I am much mistaken. We had better leave the downs on the right, and cross the river by Clive Grange again. It will save us a mile."