They all turned round to where Mr. Douglas sat; the afternoon light was by this time waning, and they had difficulty in seeing each other’s faces. Drumcarro after a moment resumed again. The want of light and the deep sound of his voice, and the scene from which they had just come, made a strange horror of impression upon the men. He asked, “Is he dead?”
“Yes, he is dead. And that minds me it was you that gave the alarm. What did you see, Drumcarro?”
“I heard a rumbling as if the linn rose up to meet him, like hell in the Scriptures to meet that king—and a thud here and there upon the rocks—that’s all I heard.”
Nobody made any reply. No suspicion of the truth had occurred to any mind, but something in the voice, and the language not familiar to the man gave a vague sensation of solemnity and horror. The darkness seemed to deepen round them, while this pause lasted. And Drumcarro said no more, but leant his head upon his hands again. The silence was broken by the doctor who said in a subdued tone: “We’ll better leave Mr. Douglas quiet. It is a time of trouble—and the shock of this accident on the top of all the rest—”
Drumcarro did not move, but he said between the two hands that supported his head, “That man has nothing to do with it. I saw him come. And now ye can let him go his way.”
They filed out of the room in silence with a vague dread upon them all. Something strange was in the air. The dark figure by the table never moved, his head on his hands, his big frame looking colossal in the quivering twilight. The fire in the grate behind burned up suddenly and threw a little flickering flame into the gloom relieving still more that, motionless shadow. “It has been too much for the old gentleman,” the doctor said in a whisper, as he closed the door.
“He’s none so old,” said Glendochart with a little irritation, mindful of the fact that he was not himself much younger, and feeling the thrill of nervous discomfort and alarm.
“I doubt if he’ll live to be much older. I do not like the looks of him,” the doctor said.
It seemed to have become almost night when they came out into the hall. The blacksmith and the gamekeeper and Duncan were standing in a group about the door, the sky full of a twilight clearness behind them, and one star in it, like a messenger sent out to see what dreadful thing had happened. The air blew cold through the house from the open door, and Mary crying and nervous stood at the door of the parlour behind. The mother’s death which she had taken with such calm propriety was in the course of nature, but the dreadful suddenness of this, the mystery about it affected even her calm nerves. A second death in the house, and the Duke’s son! It comforted Mary when Gordon left the group of men whose meaning he did not even yet comprehend and joined her, to hear the whole story, and yet not all.
The other men still stood consulting when the Glendochart carriage arrived at the door; everybody had forgotten that the departure of the visitors had been settled for that afternoon, Glendochart seized the opportunity at once. “I will send the ladies away; this is no place for them with all these new troubles,” he said, “and the express to the Duke can travel so far with them.” It had occurred to Glendochart that the less that could be made of Lord John’s intercourse with the family at Drumcarro the better. He had not discouraged it himself; had it come to a marriage which would have allied himself and his children so much more nearly with the ducal family, it would have been no bad thing; but now that there could be no marriage it was clear that it was neither for Jeanie’s advantage, nor indeed for his own, to give any more publicity than was necessary to the cause of Lord John’s presence here. And thus it was that Jeanie without knowing why, yet willing enough to be carried off at such a crisis even to Glendochart, found herself within half an hour seated by her sister’s side driving off, with the darkness of night behind her, and the clearness in the west reflected in her startled eyes. Jeanie neither knew nor suspected that anything dreadful had happened; but to escape her father’s eye and his questions after the discovery he had made was relief enough to make her forget the bustle and haste with which she was carried away. They were to give Major Gordon “a lift as far as the town,” but Jeanie did not know this until he followed her into the carriage, and then her heart so jumped up and choked her with its beating that she thought no more of Drumcarro’s wrath, nor of the deliverance from Lord John which she knew her father’s interposition would make final.