Each member of the household took the news of the escape differently.
Cecil jumped for joy. Father White betook himself to solitude and prayer in his oratory. Mary Brent made few comments, but went about with her mouth pursed up as though she feared to relax the muscles lest they betray her into rash words. Her light lashes too were cast down and her eyes carefully discharged of all expression.
Such silence has more power to irritate than reproaches or curses.
Elinor felt this irritation so keenly that she could not stay in the house with her cousin, but took refuge in the woods beneath the calm sky, in that silence of Nature which holds only balm for wounded hearts.
Brent too thought it well to give his sister a wide berth. His own irritation found vent in an honest volley of oaths directed impartially at himself and each member of the household except perhaps Ralph Ingle, to whom he turned for that comfort which a strong and autocratic nature finds in a pliant one. With such a man as Brent, to concur is to conquer.
Ingle in return gave him sympathy and silence. Silences differ as widely as speech, and Ingle's silence was no more like that of Mary Brent than the calm of a sunny day is like the electric stillness preceding storm. Ingle's silence was full of delicate suggestions of assent, of a sympathy too subtle to be put into words, of comradeship and support to that self-esteem which just now felt itself sadly shaken.
No wonder his company was desired! We succeed with others as we comprehend them. We value others as they comprehend us.
Giles Brent was a man of action, and lost no time in locking and double barring the stable door after the horse was stolen.
Two messengers he despatched to St. Mary's to learn, if they could, whether any news had reached the town of Neville's escape. The other available men he divided into parties of four, and sent them to scour the woods in all directions. Then, taking Ralph Ingle with him, he buckled on his sword, lifted two guns from the rack in the hall, and marched grimly down the little path to the wharf.
"You have a keen eye, Ingle, and are a mariner born and bred. Therefore have I brought you with me, for it seems far likelier that Neville has made his escape by sea than by land. I will take the helm, and do you go before the mast and keep a sharp lookout for any small boat, especially one that may seem to hug the wooded points at the mouth of the river."