“Then I’ll have naught to do with it!” the landlady retorted with equal bluntness, pursing up her lips and speaking as drily as a file. “I’ve washed my hands of her.”
“But listen to me!” he replied. “Listen to me, Mrs. Gilson! Here’s a young lady——”
“That’s behaved bad from the beginning—bad!” the landlady answered, cutting him short. “As bad as woman could! A woman, indeed, would have had some heart, and not have left an innocent child in the hands of a parcel of murderous villains! No, no, my gentleman, you’ll not persuade me. An egg is good or bad, as you find it, and ’tis no good saying that the yolk is good when the white is tainted?”
“But see here, ma’am”—he was bursting with indignation—“you are entirely wrong! Entirely wrong!”
“Then your reverence had best speak to Captain Clyne, for it’s not my business!” Mrs. Gilson retorted crushingly. “I’m no scholar and don’t meddle with writings.” And she turned her broad back upon him and the book which he proffered her.
Mr. Sutton stood a moment in anger equal to his discomfiture. Then he went back slowly to his pacing in the road. After all the woman could do nothing, she was nothing. And the search parties would be returning soon. For night was falling. The last pale daylight was dying on the high fells towards Patterdale; the outlines of the low lands about the lake were fading into the blur of night. Here and there a tiny rushlight shone out, high up, and marked a hill-farm. Possibly the searchers had found the child. In that case, Mr. Sutton’s heart, which should have leapt at the thought, only mildly rejoiced; and that, rather on account of the favourable turn the discovery might give to Henrietta’s affairs, than for his patron’s sake. Not that he was not sorry for the child, and sorry for the father; he tried, indeed, to feel more sorry. But he was not a man of warm feelings, and his sensibilities were selfish. He could not be expected to blossom out in a moment in more directions than one. It was something if he had learned in the few days he had spent by the lake to think of any other than himself.
Had he been more anxious, had it been not he, but the father, who paced there in suspense, dwelling on what a moment might bring forth, he had been keener to notice things. He had traced, down the shoulder of Wansfell, the slow march of a dancing light that marked the descent of one of the parties. He had heard afar off the voices of the men, who announced from Calgarth that Mrs. Watson’s servants had searched the woods as far as Elleray, but without success—these, indeed, were the first to come in. Hard on them arrived a band, under Mr. Curwen’s bailiff, which had made the tour of the islands—Belle Isle, Lady Holm, Thompson’s Holm, and the rest—with the same result; and almost at the same moment rode in, with jaded horses, the troop of yeomen who had undertaken to traverse the broken country at the head of the lake, between the Brathay and the Rotha. Two parties, the Troutbeck contingent with which was Captain Clyne, and the riders who had chosen Stock Ghyll valley and the Kirkstone, were still out at seven; and as the others had met with no success, their return was eagerly awaited. For the road between the inn and the lake was astir with life. Ostlers’ lanthorns twinkled hither and thither, and the place was like a fair. A crowd of men, muffled in homespun plaids, blocked the doorway, and gabbling over their ale, stared now in one direction, now in the other; while the more highly favoured flocked into the snuggery and coffee-room and there discussed the chances in stentorian tones. The chaplain, with his feelings engaged elsewhere, wondered at the fury of some, and the heat of all; and was shocked by their oaths and threats of vengeance.
Clyne and his party came in about half-past seven; and as it chanced that the Stock Ghyll troop arrived at the same minute, the whole house turned out to meet the two, and learn their news. Alas, the downcast faces of the riders told it sufficiently; and every head was uncovered as Clyne, with stern and moody eyes, rode to the door and dismounted. He turned to the throng of faces, and the lanthorn-light falling on his features showed them pale and disturbed.
“My friends,” he said, “I thank you. I shall not forget this day. I shall never forget this day. I——” and then, though he was a practised speaker, he could not say more or go on. He made a gesture, at once pathetic and dignified, with his single arm, and turning from them went slowly up the stairs with his chin on his breast.