But in the meantime there was some time to wait, and the sun was growing warmer every moment, and the tide was in, and the little wavelets rippling along the shore. Baths were not luxuries known at the “Dun Cow,” and here was the bath he liked best, ready before him. It would be the last time he would ever bathe in his native waters. He slipped out of his clothes, laid them in a little heap, without even thinking how on one supreme occasion he had done that before, and plunging from the nearest rock launched himself into the sea and sunshine. It would brace him up for the journeys and troubles of the day.
Dalyell swam about for some time, and dived and sported in the water like a boy, with a curious sudden lightness of heart. He could not make up his mind to come out of the water. And the northern seas are cold at three o’clock (getting on for four) in the morning, with the sun not yet very strong, and but newly risen. What it was that happened there was no one to tell. Perhaps it was the shock of the night’s proceedings, though he had reasoned it away, which struck to his heart—perhaps it was the cold of the water—it might be a cramp, which, had there been any one near to help, would have been of little consequence. None of these things would any one ever know. It was said afterwards that a cry was heard, piercing the sober stillness of the morning, so that somebody woke and got up at the “Dun Cow,” but finding no sign of harm, went to bed again for another hour. And it is certainly true that the minister woke in his manse, which is near the shore, and got up and opened his window, and remarked upon the beauty of the morning, and the wonderful delightful calm and brightness of the Firth. He thought after that it must have been the drowning man’s cry that woke him, though he was not conscious of the sound itself.
Thus, with the strangest repetition, all the incidents of Dalyell’s fictitious drowning were reproduced; and it did not fail to be remarked in the papers that the accident up the Firth was singularly like the accident that had happened nearly two years before to Mr. Dalyell, of Yalton, on Portobello sands. It was a remarkable coincidence: but the sufferer in this case, it was added, was a stranger, who had arrived at the “Dun Cow” the night before, and was supposed to be a foreigner. The body was found among the rocks, as if he had made a despairing grip upon the seaweeds that covered them to save himself, from which it was judged that the misadventure was wholly accidental; but, naturally, all was conjecture, and this was a thing that never could be known.
CHAPTER IX.
Fred went to his mother’s room, about which an agitated crowd had already gathered, the two girls and their maid, and an anxious domestic or two from downstairs, besides Mrs. Dalyell’s own maid, who was with her mistress. Foggo stood outside on the staircase, anxious to know if he should go for the doctor, and still more anxious to know what had happened, for there was already a conviction in the house that it was not mere illness which had produced that shriek which startled everybody. Mrs. Dalyell was not the kind of woman to shriek from physical pain, and there had been a whisper in the house that the horseman had been heard in the avenue, which, naturally, was a preparation for trouble. Fred, however, was not admitted till some time later, of which the poor young fellow was glad: for he was in no condition to meet his mother in the nervous and excited state in which she must be, while he himself was so shaken and miserable from the same cause. He went to his own room and endeavoured there to calm himself, and thrust away the appalling question that was now before him. How lately he had said to himself that his father’s previsions had all been mistaken, and instead of having to take upon himself the anxieties and cares of the head of the house, to break off his studies and turn his thoughts to the grave side of life, he had only been more free, more independent, than before, since he had succeeded his father as Dalyell of Yalton. Ah! but who could have thought of this, this further chapter of disaster, unimaginable, incurable, which would involve the name of Dalyell of Yalton in dishonour and shame—the name his ancestors had borne in credit and pride, the name that poverty and ruin could not have stained, but which must now perish amid records of deceit and fraud. Fred’s very heart seemed to shrink and wither up within him when he thought of what he had now to do. It would be his to put the stamp of shame upon that name—to expose the whole disgraceful story, the dishonest means by which downfall had been staved off, only to fall more dreadfully upon the unhappy and innocent now. No, he must not palter with right and wrong, he must not allow any sentiment of pity either for the criminal or for himself to steal in. The criminal! Now that Fred had time to think, that criminal—whose very name he could not endure to think of—whom he had denounced and disowned with such force and almost hatred—had looked at him, oh, with such fatherly eyes! He had scarcely said anything, not a word in his own defence. Fred felt that if he had stayed another minute his courage would have failed him, and the old dear familiar image would have regained its power. The criminal!—worse than a fraudulent bankrupt, almost worse than a suicide, and yet so like—oh, so like——! Oh, he must not think, he must not allow himself to fail in his duty. In a week’s time—that was what he had said—to give full time for that fugitive to escape, that he might not be taken or injured, or brought to justice. In a week’s time! There must be no paltering with duty. It was clear before him what he had to do.
And then there began to pluck as it were at the skirts of Fred’s mind thoughts of what this thing was, of what it must have cost. Had not the man died, had he not more than died? It was not suicide, but it was worse. He had given his life while still a living man. Strange words crept into Fred’s mind, which did not come there of themselves, as if some one had thrown them into the surging sea of passion and pain which was within him. Greater love hath no man than this. Oh, silence, silence! these words were said of another, a greater—one Divine. Greater love hath no man than this: they came back and back: as if they could be applied to a man who was a sinner, who had committed a fraud, and deceived his fellow men! Had he deceived them? Had he not died? Died more terribly, more completely than the man in the family grave in Yalton churchyard, who was not Robert Dalyell. Which would one choose if one had to choose? Surely the home in the churchyard, the tablet on the wall—and not the life of an outcast, the death in life of a man who had no identity, who had neither name nor fame. Fred’s young soul was rent asunder by these thoughts. There had been no relenting in him, no pity. But now outraged nature avenged herself. Oh, how cruel he had been, how harsh!—not a word of kindness in him, not a softening touch. And he ought not to think of nature now, he ought not to be moved by kindness. He ought to subdue all relenting. In a week’s time! He must set his face like brass. He must think of nothing that could make him fail.
It was late when Fred was called to his mother, and he went down as timid as a child called to an interview of which it knows nothing, but that it must involve terrific consequences. He had looked at himself anxiously in the glass before he obeyed the summons, wishing that he knew some way of making himself look less pale, his eyes less excited. The girls knew ways of doing this, Fred believed, but he did not know. He plunged his head into cold water to relieve the heaviness and heat he felt, as of something bursting from his forehead; and then he went downstairs, slowly labouring to collect his thoughts to think what he should say. Mrs. Dalyell was in bed, her head with the background of the red curtains looking at the first glance almost ghastly, her face very pale, her eyes excited like his own. She grasped him by both hands and made him sit down by her. The candles were still burning, but a faint glimmer of blue showed between the curtains. She kept holding his hand, but it was a minute or two before she spoke.
“Fred, do you know if I said anything? What did I say? What did they tell you? Did they say that I——?” She gasped for breath, and could not finish the sentence, but did so with her eyes and with the pressure of her hand.
“I heard nothing, mother, but that you fainted.”
She pressed his hand tightly again and said, “I didn’t faint. I let them think so—to conceal—Though I was scarcely conscious of what I was doing, I felt it gleam through me that to let them think I was unconscious was best. But I never was unconscious for a moment, Fred—you understand what I am saying?—nor was I asleep, nor could I have been dreaming. You hear what I am saying, Fred?”