“Ay, plenty,” said the rough fellow with a great sigh, which was not sentiment but fatigue. “If that will not vex you, my young lord, saving your presence, I’ll sit down and rest my bones while I talk to you, for I’m near dead with tiredness. He’s given us the slip—I cannot tell you how. Many a fear we’ve had, but this time it’s come true. Tuesday was a week he got away, the day after I’d been to see about the little lad. We thought he was but hanging about the fells in corners that none but him and me know, as he once did before, and I got him back. But it’s worse than that. Lord! there’s many an honest man lost on the fells in the mists, that has a wife and bairns looking to him. Would it not be more natural to take the likes of him, and let the father of a family go free? I cannot touch him, but there’s no law to bind the Almighty. But all that’s little to the purpose. He’s loose ranging about the country and me on his heels. I’ve all but had him three or four times, but he’s aye given me the slip.”
“But this is terrible; it is a danger for the whole country,” said Geoff. “The children!” The young man shuddered, he did not realize that the children were at a distance. He thought of nothing more than perhaps an expedition among the fells for Lilias—and what if she should fall into the madman’s hands? “You should have help—you should rouse the country,” he said.
“I’ll no do that. Please God I’ll get him yet, and this will be the end,” said Bampfylde solemnly. “She cannot make up her mind to it even now. She’s infatuate with him. I thought it would have ended when you put your hand into the web, my young lord.”
“It is my fault,” said Geoff. “I should have done something more; but then Mr. Musgrave fell ill, and I have been waiting. If he dies, everything must be gone into. I was but waiting.”
“I am not blaming you. She cannot bide to hear a word, and so she’s been all this long time. Now and then her heart will speak for the others—them that suffer and have suffered—but it aye goes back to him. And I don’t blame her neither,” said Bampfylde. “Its aye her son to her, that was a gentleman and her pride.” He had placed himself not on the comfortable chair which Geoff had pushed forward for him, but on the hard seat formed by the library steps, where he sat with his elbows on his knees, and his head supported in his hands, thus reposing himself upon himself. “It’s good to rest,” he said, with something of the garrulousness of weakness, glad in his exhaustion to stretch himself out, as it were, body and soul, and ease his mind after long silence. He almost forgot even his mission in the charm of this momentary repose. “Poor woman!” he added, pathetically; “I’ve never blamed her. This was her one pride, and how it has ended—if it were but ended! No,” he went on after a pause, “please God there will be no harm. He’s no murdering-mad, like some poor criminals that have done less harm than him. It’s the solitary places he flees to, not the haunts o’ men; we’re brothers so far as that’s counting. And I drop a word of warning as I go. I tell the folks that I hear there’s a poor creature ranging the country that is bereft of his senses, and a man after him. I’m the man,” said Bampfylde, with a low laugh, “but I tell nobody that; and oh the dance he’s led me!” Then rousing himself with an effort, “But I’m losing time, and you’re losing time, my young lord. If you would be a help to them you should be away. Get out your horse or your trap to take you to the train.”
“Where has she gone—by the train?”
“Ay—and a long road. She’s away there last night, the atom, all by herself. That’s our blood,” said Bampfylde, with again the low laugh, which was near tears. “But I need not say our blood neither, for her father has suffered the most of all, poor gentleman—the most of all! Look here, my young lord,” he said, suddenly rising up, “if I sit there longer I’ll go to sleep, and forget everything; and we’ve no time for sleep, neither you nor me. Here’s the place. There’s a train at half-past eleven that gets there before dark. You cannot get back to-night; you’ll have to leave word that you cannot get back to-night. And go now; go, for the love of God!”
Geoff did not hesitate; he rang the bell hastily, and ordered his dog-cart to be ready at once, and wrote two or three lines of explanation to his mother. And he ordered the servant, who stared at his strange companion, to bring some food and wine. But Bampfylde shook his head. “Not so,” he said; “not so. Bit nor sup I could not take here. We that once made this house desolate, it’s not for us to eat in it or drink in it. You’re o’er good, o’er good, my young lord; but I’ll not forget the offer,” he added, the water rushing to his eyes. He stood in front of the light stretching his long limbs in the languor of exhaustion, a smile upon his face.
“You have overdone yourself, Bampfylde. You are not fit for any more exertion. What more can you do than you have done? I’ll send out all the men about the house, and—— ”
“Nay, but I’ll go to the last—as long as I can crawl. Mind you the young ones,” he said; “and for all you’re doing, and for your good heart, God bless you, my young lord!”