"Hark! What is that?" cried Miss Fanny. "What a strange sound! Don't you hear it?"
"I hear something," answered the invalid, growing white, and grasping the sides of her couch with straining fingers.
It was a hoarse deep roar, which for a moment they took to be the wind or the sea, till, as it was repeated, and again yet louder, they knew it for a sound which neither of them had ever heard before—the shouting of an excited multitude. There is perhaps nothing else in the world which so stirs the pulses, or sends the blood so wildly coursing in the veins. Neither sister spoke a word. They held their breath, strained their eyes, and waited, while the roar swept nearer, and swelled in volume, and at last resolved itself into a tremendous "Hip—hip—hip—hurrah!"
Then, on the white stretch of road down the opposite hill, appeared a flying company of boys, madly waving caps in the air. These were but the forerunners of the great concourse behind. Edge Combe, albeit so apparently small, boasted a population of a thousand souls, and quite half of them were present that morning, besides a goodly sprinkling from Brent, Philmouth, and Stanton. On they came, moving forward like a huge, irregular wave, every hat waving, every throat yelling; and then there flashed into sight a dozen or so of stout fellows, who bore on their shoulders a young man, lifted high above the heads of the throng, a young man whose head was bare, and whose conspicuously fair head caught the light of every sunbeam.
"Fanny! Fanny!" gasped Miss Ellen, in the midst of hysterical tears and laughter, "it is Mr. Percivale, they are chairing him. Who could have believed such a thing, in our quiet village! And, Fanny—see—there is the carriage—our carriage! There is Elsa—God bless the child! God bless her, poor darling!... They have taken out the horses; they are dragging them home in triumph. Look! the carriage is full of flowers; the women and girls are throwing them—they all know what she has suffered, they all sympathise, they all rejoice with us ... and that wonderful young man has done it all. How shall we ever repay him?"
And now the crowd had come to the space opposite the smithy, and here their leader, none other than the redoubtable William Clapp, waved his arms frantically for a halt. The masses of hurrying people behind stopped suddenly; there was an expectant murmur, a pause of wonder as to what was now to happen. The whole thing was intensely dramatic; the slope of the steep hillside lined with eager faces, the carriage in the midst smothered in flowers, and in the foreground the figure of Percivale, held up in the arms of the village enthusiasts against a background of deep blue sky.
"Three cheers for Miss Willoughby!" yelled William, so loudly that his voice carried back to the hindmost limits of the throng, and up to where Miss Willoughby was seated. The cheer that arose in answer was deafening, and Miss Ellen was so overcome that it was with difficulty she could respond by waving her handkerchief.
Scarcely had the sounds died away, when out burst the bells in the church tower, the ringers having raced off to set them going as soon as ever the result was known. As if with one voice the crowd broke forth into "See the conquering hero comes;" and so, with stamping feet and shouting lungs, they wound their way up the hill in the sunshine towards the drive gates of Edge Willoughby.