Old Maud tottered after them into the road, and gazed in the direction they had taken. She shook the thin locks that hung about her temples, and wrung her hands, and looked up into the sky. The first stars were beginning to twinkle in the gray transparency of twilight.
"Woe's me!" muttered the old crone. "Woe's me! She is leading him to his doom."
And her wild look quite scared a little girl who waited on her, when she returned into the lodge.
We do not care to follow minutely the young couple's evening walk. There is little pleasure in watching the companionship of villany and innocence, even where the latter is triumphant. Fortunately for Mercy, she was well observed that evening. There was a narrow and secluded dell about a mile from Wilderness Lodge, made obscure in the day-time by over-shadowing trees; doubly gloomy, therefore, in the twilight. The brook from Pendarrel Park murmured along it, and a footpath, devious and unfrequented, followed the wanderings of the streamlet. To that sequestered spot, which might seem almost designed for the rambles of lovers, did Sinson guide the steps of her who trusted him with such unsuspecting fidelity. There in her own simple and homely manner she sought to persuade him to be at peace with the world, and to make atonement for any wrong he might have done. But she spoke to an angry and unrepenting nature, and the only answer to her remonstrances made her acquainted with the worthlessness of him in whom she had confided so long.
It was a rude and bitter lesson. "Better he were dead!" has been the exclamation of many a heart deceived like hers. Mercy could no longer hope that the imputations of the villagers were the offspring of rustic jealousy. She hardly knew what happened in the first pain of her discovery. She turned to leave him, for she could do no more. He had followed her, but the watchers interposed. They closed upon the spot in an instant. The maiden was rescued, and the betrayer fled. He glared savagely for one moment upon those who came to save, counted their number, and took to precipitate flight. And the rustics, who had followed the ill-matched maiden with, at least, as much spite as pity, now showed more of the better feeling, and brought her safe, though trembling, home to her mother's cottage.
A warm pursuit was then commenced in the track of her assailant. Summary justice the country-folk thought they would inflict upon the culprit, although he might escape the more regular doom of the law. Many an old ground of exasperation gave vigour to the chase. Many a motive of fear lent wings to its object. He fled over the moors, from carn to carn, and from cave to cave. They drove him at last to the precipices of the Lizard. He retained his strength and activity, and turned them to good account in baffling his pursuers among those beetling cliffs. But, after numerous disappointments, they at length hunted him to bay. They hemmed him in on a ledge from which the rock descended sheer into the sea. Certain that he could not escape, they were, perhaps, negligent in observing his movements. But no one could tell what had become of him, when it was suddenly found that he had disappeared. They looked eagerly into the waves which were dashing against the cliff below; but there they could see no sign. The steepness and height of the rock above utterly precluded the possibility of his having scaled it. Yet there was an unwillingness to believe that he had simply been drowned, and the folks told strange stories of his having been picked up by some boat, and got away to sea. All that was certain was, that he was never heard of again.
The night on which he was lost, his grandmother sat beside the hearth in Wilderness Lodge, swaying herself to and fro in her rocking-chair, and moaning to herself in an under tone. The little girl who attended her was seated opposite on a low stool, and watched her with a feeling of awe, frightened, yet unable to withdraw her eyes from those of her employer, which were fixed and unusually bright.
"Where's my boy?" old Maud might have been heard to mutter. "Where's my own Michael? What is it they tell me of shame? What is it they say he told of my winsome Margaret? Did I hear that the marriage was broken? Na, na, Randolph Trevethlan, thou canst not so sever the ties. Has she not come to claim her own? Let them cross her path that dare. Smiling, did he say? A sweet smiling face? That was my Margaret indeed, but she never smiled at Trevethlan. And would they tell me she went there to shame? Did my Michael speak against her? Na; 't was they that brought her to death; they that will not let her rest in her grave. And why has she woke from her sleep? What comes she back to seek? Why will she not come to me? I was afar when she died. Was it of my own choice? Were we not driven away? Me, and my Michael, and all? Was there one of her kindred left with her? But they are fallen. The dark hour of Trevethlan came. And will they still make us their sport? Where's my own Michael? She came for him the night: the white-faced thing from Trevethlan. What cries did I hear in the sky? What tale did they whisper in my ear?"
Her voice, which had risen occasionally while she spoke, now sank into an inarticulate murmur, and her head dropped, and the rocking of her chair nearly ceased. The little girl looked at her with increasing wonder and dread. Suddenly Maud raised her head, and after seeming to listen for a moment, cried, "Michael," in one wild and dissonant shriek.
"What voice was that on the wind?" she continued, rising abruptly from the chair. "Who hailed that name?—Michael," she called again, in the same unearthly tone—"didst hear? 'T was his own. Didst hear how it wailed on the wind?—Michael—The waters are sounding in my ears. Didst hear the name, girl?—Drowning.—Ay, it was he—it was he."