“I’m on the road now,” said Duncan; “a man cannot do everything at once.”
“The man may be drowned,” cried Glendochart, turning round quickly. “Run on, Duncan, for the Lord’s sake. I’m not so surefooted as the like of you, but I’ll follow ye by the road, as fast as I can. A man over the linn! Dear me, but that may be a very serious matter.”
“I was just saying that,” said Duncan plunging down upon the spongy grass. He slid and stumbled, tearing long strips of moss off the roots of the trees with which he came in heavy contact, striding over the fallen trunk which had played so great a part in the drama of that afternoon. There were signs of footsteps there, and Duncan slid on the slippery and trampled soil and came down on his back, but got up again at once and took no notice. This accident perhaps delayed him for a moment, and the need of precaution as he descended after such a warning. At all events Glendochart coming quickly by the roundabout of the road arrived only a moment after, and found Duncan dragging out upon the bank an inanimate figure which had apparently been lying half in half out of the stream. Duncan’s ruddy face had grown suddenly pale. “Lord keep us! Do ye think he’s dead, sir?”
“I hope not, Duncan,” said Glendochart, kneeling down by the body; but after a few minutes, both men scared and horror-stricken bending over the figure on the grass, “God preserve us,” he said, “I fear it is so. Do you know who it is?”—then a hoarse exclamation burst from them both. “It’s the young lord from the lodge on the hill—It’s Lord John! God preserve us!” cried Glendochart again. “What can this mean? But a man that’s drowned may be brought to life again,” he added. “How are we to get him home?”
Duncan, roused by the wonderful event which had thus come in a moment into the tranquil ordinary of his life, rushed along the road calling with a roar for help, which it was not easy to find in that lonely place. However there proved to be one or two people within call—the gamekeeper who lived at the lodge inhabited by Lord John, and the blacksmith from the clachan, who had been carrying some implement home to a distant mountain farm. They managed to tie some branches roughly together to make a sort of litter and thus carried the dead man to Drumcarro, which was the nearest house. The sound of the men’s feet and Glendochart’s call at the door, brought out every member of the household except the laird, who remained in his room with the door closed and took no notice. Glendochart and the gamekeeper had both some rude notion of what to do, and they acted upon their knowledge, roughly it is true, but with all the care they were capable of. Duncan on horseback, and less apt to spare his horse’s legs than his own, thundered off for a doctor. But the doctor was not easily found, and long before his arrival the rough methods of restoring animation had all been given up. Lord John lay on the mistress’s unoccupied bed to which he had been carried, like a marble image, with all the lines that a careless life had made showing still upon the whiteness of death, the darkness under the eyes, the curves about the mouth. His wet clothes, which had been cut from the limbs to which they clung, lay in a muddy heap smoking before the now blazing fire. They had piled blankets over him and done everything they knew to restore the vital heat—but without avail.
“How did it happen?” the doctor said—but this no man could tell. They gathered together in an excited yet awestricken group to consult together, to put their different guesses together, to collect what indications might be found. Duncan thought that the collar of the coat was torn as if some one had grasped the poor young man “by the scruff of the neck.” There was a bruise on his throat which might have come from the hand thus inserted—but his face had several bruises upon it from contact with the rocks, and his clothes had been so torn and cut up that they afforded little assistance in solving the problem. To send for some member of his family, and to make the sheriff aware of all the circumstances was evidently the only thing to do.
Jeanie had fled without a word, without a look behind her, when her lover’s arm loosened from her waist, and her father’s hoarse and angry voice broke in upon the scene. No thought of any tragedy to follow was in Jeanie’s mind. She had never seen her father take any violent action; his voice, his frowns, had always been enough, there had been no need for more. She thought of an angry altercation, a command to come near the house no more, so far as she thought at all. But she scarcely did think at all. She fled, afraid of her lover, afraid of her father, not sure, to tell the truth, which she feared most—glad that the situation was over, that she could escape by any means. She sped up the wooded bank, out of the shadow of the bare trees about the linn, like a frightened bird—flying, never looking behind. Pausing a moment to take breath before she ran round to the house door, she was thankful to hear no voices in anger, but all fallen into quiet again, nothing but the sound of the linn, louder she thought for the cessation of other sounds; and concluding rapidly in her mind that her father had reserved his anger for her, and let Lord John go—not a just, but according even to Jeanie’s small experience, a sufficiently usual turn of affairs—she went on more quietly to the house, that no hasty rush on her part, or self-disclosure of agitation, might call forth Mary’s remarks or the questions of Marg’ret. But the agitation of the moment was not over for Jeanie. She saw some one approaching the door from the road as she came within sight. It was too late to escape, and she instinctively put up her hand to smooth her hair, and drew a few long breaths to overcome altogether the panting of her heart, that the stranger, whoever he might be, might not perceive how disturbed she was. But when Jeanie had taken a step or two further, her heart suddenly made a leap again, which swept all her precautions away. “Oh!” she cried, with almost a shriek of agitated recognition, “now of all moments in the world—— That he should come now!”
“I am afraid,” he said, “I cannot think that cry means any pleasure to see me, though I am so glad to be here.”
Oh, to think he should be able to speak, to use common words, as if they had parted yesterday—as if nothing had happened since then!
“Oh, Captain Gordon,” she said, breathless; then added, not knowing what she said, “You’ve been long away.”