But by-and-by another sound roused him—the sound of a step crashing among the branches once more. With a vague recollection in his madness that some one else was coming, he rose, all bloody and horrible, and looked about him. Some man or other stood within a few feet of him on the other side of the little stream. Some one who called to him, who hurried forward, jumping the brook. The madman knew nothing, who it was, or what he wanted; but frenzy and fear are ever akin. He turned round wildly, faced to the hills, and fled like an arrow from the bow.
CHAPTER IX.
It was morning, and all the usual business was well begun; the cows were out in their pasture on the hillside; the chickens about the close vicinity of the house; nothing was audible except their busy cackle and the hum of the bees, which Elizabeth Murray kept, and which were one of her sources of income—and her own steps coming and going in her house. Before you came in sight of the house you could hear those brisk steps, stately and harmonious, giving a sign of life in the pleasant stillness. Dick was in the potato-field close by; there had been a fine crop, and he was digging them up for the market at Waterside. He was whistling as he worked, but Elizabeth, whose mind was full of many cares, did not sing snatches now of one song, now of another, as was her wont. How seldom it is that the mother of children has not occasion for anxiety about one or another! and it seemed to her that she had so much. Lily; what should she do with Lily if the girl grumbled at the loneliness, as she was likely to do, or pined for her friends, and for the admiration she had called forth? All that would be natural—quite natural. After half consenting to leave her daughter and to trust to her prudence, Elizabeth had been seized with a panic on her return home, and had sent instructions that Lily should return on Monday morning; and now again she was doubtful, as was also so natural, of the wisdom of the step she had taken. How would Lily bear the solitude? Up here among the hills, nothing except the household work and the mild vicissitudes of the chickens and the cows ever happened. Elizabeth herself did not mind, because, as she said to herself, she was old, and all that was likely to happen to her in this world had happened and was done with; and Dick did not mind, for he had not begun yet to think of anything beyond his work, and life was all before him, and he had been accustomed to the tranquillity all his days—but Lily!
And on the other hand, there was Abel to think of—the lost boy—who yet was so much greater and happier and better off than ever Elizabeth could have made him. She sighed, but took herself to task for it, declaring to herself with tears in her eyes that she did not grudge his grandeur—that it was for his happiness she cared, not for her happiness through him. "But oh, it cannot come to good that he should think shame of his own folks," she sighed in the depths of her heart. Yet it was so pleasant to think of him as "a gentleman." It seemed to Elizabeth that if she could but see him enjoying that high estate, courted and made much of by the great folks of the land, she would not want to speak to him or betray him. Oh, far from that! She would live in the house with him and never betray him.
Thus she was going on peacefully about her domestic work: the chickens cackling outside, Dick whistling in the fields, the brook trickling over the stones, the bees humming, everything full of the warmth and softness of the summer day. The air was such that unless you were ill or in trouble you gave God thanks, unenvious of other blessings, for nothing but the day; and Elizabeth was a woman subject to such influences, and, in spite of her cares, a softening of happiness stole into her mind. After all, was not everything well? However anxious she might be, there was no trouble in her family. Lily was not disobedient, and Abel, though he did not come to see his family, yet "took an interest" in them. There was no reason why she should not let the sunshine and the sweetness steal into her heart, and allow herself to acknowledge that all was well.
"Dick," she cried from the window, "lad, do you no hear a sound of somebody coming? I think I hear a step by times, and surely somebody cried to us, coming up the hill. Did you not hear?"
Dick stuck his spade into the soil, and, listening, said, "Mother, I heard nothing. But now I'm quiet, ay, that was a sound."
"It's maybe Lily," said the mother.
"Lily's foot's too light to sound so far. But we'll see soon enough when they come," said Dick, resuming his digging. He resumed his whistle too. He was not curious. Whoever it was, would not they show themselves soon enough? And in the meantime he had his work. Elizabeth, too, went in, and went to her dairy, accepting Dick's philosophy. To be sure! there was nothing so much to be expected but that when it appeared would be time enough. Time enough! And so their life went on tranquil for ten long sunny minutes more.
About that time both of them held their breath and stopped their work. Dick stuck his spade again in the half-dug row of potatoes. Elizabeth came out to the door. A hurrying, headlong step, coming on in mad haste, now ceasing for a moment as it reached the bog, coming nearer, rushing on—with other sounds, broken cries, gaspings and pantings, as of somebody hunted, came to their ears. While the mother and son listened in growing alarm, old Watch, the dog—most steady of dogs—suddenly raised his old black muzzle and gave vent to a long wailing bark of alarm, which echoed through the hills. Terror fell upon the minds of the mother and son. What was it? The light seemed to go out of the sky, the echoes to tingle all about them. These wild hurrying sounds did not come even by the usual path, but, as Dick perceived sooner than his mother, descended from the higher way, a way no one ever came. This was how it was that when the new-comer reached the place at last, Elizabeth did not see him. She knew nothing till he was close upon her. A terrible figure, bare-headed, bloody, his clothes hanging torn about him, his face ghastly and distorted, strange, harsh, broken sounds coming from his lips. She turned round only when he was within a few steps of her, when she saw him, and with a shriek of terror threw up her arms and started out of his way. Dick came rushing to her help; but the stranger heeded neither of them. He burst into the house, and threw himself, all convulsed and shivering, before the kitchen fire.