“Patience, Eleanor, patience,” whispered Mr Trail. “God has His own means of bestowing happiness; you have been sorely tried, my poor child; but you are young, a long future may lie before you.”
And the invalid lifted up her large luminous eyes to Heaven with the most hopeless expression of despair.
Hark! horses are galloping past the dwelling—the rattle of accoutrements announces that soldiers are on their way. They soon go by; there are but few—it must be an express.
And the question passes along the tented line, “Is Lee taken?”
“Not yet; but the dispatches from Sir Adrian relate that a clue is obtained to his discovery.”
In a word, Hermanus the stutterer, who, rebel as he was, hated English traitors, succeeded in persuading his comrades that Lee and Brennard had never had any view but self-aggrandisement. It was therefore resolved in council to purchase their own pardon by delivering up the trader and the convict. Poor Gray had been carried off with the wounded to the hospital tent, and found to be seriously, though not mortally, hurt. He had not an enemy among the Boers; but it was proved that he had consented to serve a gun, and despite the decided step he had taken to avoid firing upon his countrymen, there was no evidence to show whether the act was the result of panic, or repentance.
He was, however, not to be condemned without a further hearing, when more evidence could be collected, and was sent to Sir John Manvers’s division, with other convalescents, after the action.
Perfectly passive and resigned to his impending fate, the young deserter met with compassion and solace at the kind hands of Mr Trail, who obtained permission to lodge him in his own little dwelling. Gray was, however, ironed whenever he passed the threshold; but, in spite of his bonds, the poor lad confessed himself happier than he had been for years.
Marion and Ormsby were, as in happier times, sitting, side by side, under the willows that bent over the rushing waters of the two rivers. They were not many paces from the house, and hearing the tramp of horses’ feet, hastened to learn the news brought by the express.
As they passed Mr Trail’s cottage, they saw Gray walking up and down, as he was permitted to do at certain hours of the day, between two sentries.