For her figure haunted him. It rose before him in the most troublesome fashion and at the most improper times; at sessions when he sat among his peers, or at his dinner-table in the middle of a tirade against the radicals and Cobbett. It touched him in the least expected and most tender points; awaking the strongest doubts of himself, and his conduct, and his wisdom that he had ever entertained. It barbed the dart of “It might have been” with the rankling suspicion that he had himself to thank for failure. And where at first he had said in his haste that she deserved two dozen, he now remembered her defence, and added gloomily, “Or I! Or I!” The thought of her fate—as of a thing for which he was responsible—thrust itself upon him in season and out of season. He could not put her out of his mind, he could not refrain from dwelling on her. And thinking in this way he grew every day less content with the scheme of life which he had framed for her in his first contempt for her. The notion of her union with Mr. Sutton, good, worthy man as he deemed the chaplain, now jarred on him unpleasantly. And more and more the scheme showed itself in another light than that in which he had first viewed it.
Such was his state of mind, unsettled if not unhappy, and harassed if not remorseful, when a second thunderclap burst above his head, and in a moment destroyed even the memory of these minor troubles. He loved his child with the love of the proud and lonely man who loves more jealously where others pity, and clings more closely where others look askance. A fig for their pity! he cried in his heart. He would so rear his child, he would so cherish him, he would so foster his mind, that in spite of bodily defect this latest of the Clynes should be also the greatest. And while he foresaw this future in the child and loved him for the hope, he loved him immeasurably more for his weakness, his helplessness, his frailty in the present. All that was strong in the man of firm will and stiff prejudice went out to the child in a passionate yearning to protect it; to shield it from unfriendly looks, even from pity; to cover it from the storms of the world and of life.
Personally a brave man Clyne feared nothing for himself. The hatred in which he was held by a certain class came to his ears from time to time in threatening murmurs, but though those who knew best were loudest in warning, he paid no heed. He continued to do what he held to be his duty. Yet if anything had had power to turn him from his path it had been fear on his son’s account; it had been the very, very small share which the boy must take in his peril. And so, at the first hint he had removed the child from the zone of trouble, and sent him to a place which he fancied safe; a place which the boy loved, and in the quiet of which health as well as safety might be gained. If the name of Clyne was hated where spindles whirled and shuttles flew, and men lived their lives under a pall of black smoke, it was loved in Cartmel by farmer and shepherd alike; and not less by the rude charcoal-burners who plied their craft in the depths of the woods about Staveley and Broughton in Furness.
On that side he thought himself secure. And so the blow fell with all the force of the unexpected. The summons of the panic-stricken servants found him in his bed; and it was a man who hardly contained himself, who hardly contained his fury and his threats, who without breaking his fast rode north. It was a hard-faced, stern man who crossed the sands at Cartmel at great risk—but he had known them all his life—and won at Carter’s Green the first spark of comfort and hope which he had had since rising. Nadin was before him. Nadin was in pursuit,—Nadin, by whom all that was Tory in Lancashire swore. Surely an accident so opportune, a stroke of mercy and providence so unlikely—for the odds against the officer’s presence were immense—could not be unmeant, could not be for nothing! It seemed, it must be of good augury! But when Clyne reached his house in Cartmel, and the terrified nurse who knew the depth of his love for the boy grovelled before him, the household had no added hope to give him, no news or clue. And he could but go forward. His horse was spent, but they brought him a tenant’s colt, and after eating a few mouthfuls he pressed on up the lake side towards Bowness, attended by a handful of farmers’ sons who had not followed on the first alarm.
Even now, hours after the awakening, and when any moment might end his suspense, any turn in the road bring him face to face with the issue—good or bad, joy or sorrow—he dared not think of the child. He dared not let his mind run on its fear or its suffering, its terrors in the villains’ hands, or the hardships which its helplessness might bring upon it. To do so were to try his self-control too far. And so he thought the more of the men, the more of vengeance, the more of the hour which would see him face to face with them, and see them face to face with punishment. He rejoiced to think that abduction was one of the two hundred crimes which were punishable with death: and he swore that if he devoted his life to the capture of these wretches they should be taken. And when taken, when they had been dealt with by judge and jury, they should be hanged without benefit of clergy. There should be no talk of respite. His services to the party had earned so much as that—even in these days when radicals were listened to over much, and fanatics like Wolseley and Burdett flung their wealth into the wrong scale.
At Bowness there was no news except a word from Nadin bidding him ride on. And without alighting he pressed on, sternly silent, but with eyes that tirelessly searched the bleak, bare fells for some movement, some hint of flight or chase. He topped the hill beyond Bowness, and drew rein an instant to scan the islets set here and there on the sullen water. Then, after marking carefully the three or four boats which were afloat, he trotted down through Calgarth woods. And on turning the corner that revealed the long gabled house at the Low Wood landing he had a gleam of hope. Here at last was something, some stir, some adequate movement. In the road were a number of men, twenty or thirty, on foot or horseback. A few were standing, others were moving to and fro. Half of them carried Brown Besses, blunderbusses, or old horse-pistols, and three or four were girt with ancient swords lugged for the purpose from bacon-rack or oak chest. The horses of the men matched as ill as their arms, being of all heights and all degrees of shagginess, and some riders had one spur, and some none. But the troop meant business, it was clear, and Anthony Clyne’s heart went out to them in gratitude. Hitherto he had ridden through a country-side heedless or ignorant of his loss, and of what was afoot; and the tardy intelligence, the slow answer, had tried him sorely. Here at last was an end of that. As the honest dalesmen, gathered before the inn, hauled their hard-mouthed beasts to the edge of the road to make way for him, and doffed their hats in silent sympathy, he thanked them with his eyes.
In spite of his empty sleeve he was off his horse in a moment.
“Have they learned anything?” he asked, his voice harsh with suppressed emotion.
The nearest man began to explain in the slow northern fashion. “No, not as yet, your honour. But we shall, no doubt, i’ good time. We know that they landed here in a boat.”
“Ay, your honour, have no fear!” cried a second. “We’ll get him back!”