“God forgive you, young man, if your reflections are unjust,” said the traveller, quitting the hold he had laid upon Mowbray's coat; “and God forgive me too, if I have done wrong while endeavouring to do for the best!—But may not Miss Mowbray have gone down to the Well? I will order my horses, and set off instantly.”
“Do, do,” said Mowbray, recklessly; “I thank you, I thank you;” and hastily traversing the garden, as if desirous to get rid at once of his visitor and his own thoughts, he took the shortest road to a little postern-gate, which led into the extensive copsewood, through some part of which Clara had caused a walk to be cut to a little summer-house built of rough shingles, covered with creeping shrubs.
As Mowbray hastened through the garden, he met the old man by whom it was kept, a native of the south country, and an old dependent on the family. “Have you seen my sister?” said Mowbray, hurrying his words on each other with the eagerness of terror.
“What's your wull, St. Ronan's?” answered the old man, at once dull of hearing, and slow of apprehension.
“Have you seen Miss Clara?” shouted Mowbray, and muttered an oath or two at the gardener's stupidity.
“In troth have I,” replied the gardener, deliberately; “what suld ail me to see Miss Clara, St. Ronan's?”
“When, and where?” eagerly demanded the querist.
“Ou, just yestreen, after tey-time—afore ye cam hame yoursell galloping sae fast,” said old Joseph.
“I am as stupid as he, to put off my time in speaking to such an old cabbage-stock!” said Mowbray, and hastened on to the postern-gate already mentioned, leading from the garden into what was usually called Miss Clara's walk. Two or three domestics, whispering to each other, and with countenances that showed grief, fear, and suspicion, followed their master, desirous to be employed, yet afraid to force their services on the fiery young man.
At the little postern he found some trace of her he sought. The pass-key of Clara was left in the lock. It was then plain that she must have passed that way; but at what hour, or for what purpose, Mowbray dared not conjecture. The path, after running a quarter of a mile or more through an open grove of oaks and sycamores, attained the verge of the large brook, and became there steep and rocky, difficult to the infirm, and alarming to the nervous; often approaching the brink of a precipitous ledge of rock, which in this place overhung the stream, in some places brawling and foaming in hasty current, and in others seeming to slumber in deep and circular eddies. The temptations which this dangerous scene must have offered an excited and desperate spirit, came on Mowbray like the blight of the Simoom, and he stood a moment to gather breath and overcome these horrible anticipations, ere he was able to proceed. His attendants felt the same apprehension. “Puir thing—puir thing!—O, God send she may not have been left to hersell!—God send she may have been upholden!” were whispered by Patrick to the maidens, and by them to each other.