Appalled by this sudden change of weather, Miss Wardour drew close to her father, and held his arm fast. "I wish," at length she said, but almost in a whisper, as if ashamed to express her increasing apprehensions, "I wish we had kept the road we intended, or waited at Monkbarns for the carriage."
Sir Arthur looked round, but did not see, or would not acknowledge, any signs of an immediate storm. They would reach Knockwinnock, he said, long before the tempest began. But the speed with which he walked, and with which Isabella could hardly keep pace, indicated a feeling that some exertion was necessary to accomplish his consolatory prediction.
They were now near the centre of a deep but narrow bay or recess, formed by two projecting capes of high and inaccessible rock, which shot out into the sea like the horns of a crescent;—and neither durst communicate the apprehension which each began to entertain, that, from the unusually rapid advance of the tide, they might be deprived of the power of proceeding by doubling the promontory which lay before them, or of retreating by the road which brought them thither.
As they thus pressed forward, longing doubtless to exchange the easy curving line, which the sinuosities of the bay compelled them to adopt, for a straighter and more expeditious path, Sir Arthur observed a human figure on the beach advancing to meet them. "Thank God," he exclaimed, "we shall get round Halket-head!—that person must have passed it;" thus giving vent to the feeling of hope, though he had suppressed that of apprehension.
"Thank God, indeed!" echoed his daughter, half audibly, half internally, as expressing the gratitude which she strongly felt.
The figure which advanced to meet them made many signs, which the haze of the atmosphere, now disturbed by wind and by a drizzling rain, prevented them from seeing or comprehending distinctly.—Some time before they met, Sir Arthur could recognise the old blue-gowned beggar, Edie Ochiltree. It is said that even the brute creation lay aside their animosities and antipathies when pressed by an instant and common danger. The beach under Halket-head, rapidly diminishing in extent by the encroachments of a spring-tide and a north-west wind, was in like manner a neutral field, where even a justice of peace and a strolling mendicant might meet upon terms of mutual forbearance.
"Turn back! turn back!" exclaimed the vagrant; "why did ye not turn when I waved to you?"
"We thought," replied Sir Arthur, in great agitation, "we thought we could get round Halket-head."
"Halket-head!—the tide will be running on Halket-head by this time like the Fall of Fyers!—it was a' I could do to get round it twenty minutes since—it was coming in three feet abreast. We will maybe get back by Bally-burgh Ness Point yet. The Lord help us!—it's our only chance. We can but try."
"My God, my child!"—"My father! my dear father!" exclaimed the parent and daughter, as, fear lending them strength and speed, they turned to retrace their steps, and endeavoured to double the point, the projection of which formed the southern extremity of the bay.