‘Don’t cry, Betty; don’t cry. Something–I know not what–tells me that we shall get through this safely yet,’ said Ethel, as she too took her seat upon the rock, and laid her hand kindly on that of her young companion. But Betty only blubbered the more furiously.
‘’Tain’t so much for me, miss!’ she said. ‘It be my fault, every bit on’t. I brought you here. And Lenny–and mother’–– The train of ideas thus conjured up acted so strongly on the untutored imagination of Betty Mudge, that she wept so loudly and dolefully that her wails re-echoed through the solitary waste.
What was that? Surely a human voice calling aloud at some distance through the fog, as if in answer to Betty’s inarticulate plaint. Yes, there was no mistake this time. It was the hearty halloo of a deep voice, and the words were: ‘Ho! I say, there! What ails you? Anything wrong?’
‘We be lost in fog!’ called out the girl by way of answer.
‘It’s a woman or a child,’ exclaimed another voice from the mist. ‘Push on, Bates! The cry came from this direction to the left.’ And presently, bursting through the floating wreaths of vapour, appeared the figures of two men, the shorter and sturdier of whom, a gamekeeper by his velveteen coat and leathern gaiters, and the metal dog-whistle at his button-hole, led a pony with a creel strapped to the saddle-bow.
‘Here they are, my Lord!’ ejaculated this functionary, as he caught sight of the forlorn two upon the rock. The gentleman to whom he spoke came hurrying up across the stony ground, a fishing-rod in his hand.
‘Don’t be frightened, my little maid,’ he called out cheerily to Betty, who wept more unrestrainedly than ever, now that help was near; and then, catching a glimpse of Ethel’s pale beautiful face as she looked up, he exclaimed: ‘Why, this is a lady–here!’ and instinctively he raised his hat. ‘Stop! It is Miss Gray from the village, if I am not mistaken.–You must let me see you safely off the moor. I live near, at High Tor; though I daresay you do not know me, Miss Gray. I have seen you at church.’
‘Yes, I know you, Lord Harrogate,’ returned Ethel, trying to rise, but sinking back fainting and giddy on her rocky seat. ‘I am sorry to give you trouble, but’–– Her voice failed her, and her eyes seemed to be darkened. The quick revulsion of feeling, from what was all but sheer despair to the consciousness of being saved, had intensified the effects of great physical fatigue. She heard the young man’s voice addressing herself, but could not distinguish the words because of the low droning sound that filled her ears as she sat passive on the rock. Who he was she quite well knew. It was not possible for the member of a small congregation such as that in High Tor church to be ignorant of the features of so notable an occupant of Lord Wolverhampton’s pew as the Earl’s son and heir. Tall, handsome, and manly, Lord Harrogate was worth looking at for his own sake; but Ethel had never thus looked upon him until she found herself thus confronted with him in the mist, as her rescuer from certain suffering, perhaps from death.
‘If you are able to walk, Miss Gray,’ said Lord Harrogate earnestly, ‘will you take my arm and lean on me? My servant will charge himself with the child here; indeed I do not think he can do better than to set her on the pony, as she seems so tired. We must all of us rely on Bates’s guidance to get clear of the waste. Happily, he is a thorough moorman, and can pick his way where I should be at fault.’
‘Ay, ay, my Lord,’ returned Bates, flattered by the compliment, but honestly unwilling to be pranked in borrowed plumage. ‘But if we were t’ other side o’ Pinkney Ridge or Cranmere way, I’d not be so gey ready to take the lead in a fog like this one. I’ve heard of moormen straying round and round, and lying down to die in a drift within gunshot o’ their own house-door. But we were on the hard path just now, so if we can but strike it again, we’re safe.’