Part 37 (1/2)

Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow-- His mantle hairy and his bonnet sedge, Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe.

--Lycidas.

Miss Vanborough walked on; she seemed to know the way by some instinct; sometimes she looked at the water, but it gave her a sort of vertigo.

Tom looked at Dolly with some admiration as she pa.s.sed along the bank, with her clear-cut face and stately figure, following the narrow pathway. They came at last to a bend of the river where some boats were lying high and dry in the gra.s.s, and where a little boat-house stood upon a sort of jutting-out island among tall trees upspringing suddenly in the waste: tall sycamore, ivy-grown stumps, greens of every autumnal shade, golden leaves dropping in lazy showers on the gra.s.s or drifting into the sluggish stream, along which they floated back to Cambridge once more. It was a deserted-looking grove, melancholy and romantic. But few people came there. But there was a ferryman and a black boat-house, and a flat ferry-boat anch.o.r.ed to the sh.o.r.e. Some bird gave a cry and flew past, otherwise the place was still with that peculiar river silence of tall weeds straggling, of trees drooping their green branches, of water lapping on the brink.

'Is this the place you wanted?' said Tom, 'or was it the other boat-house after all?'

Dolly walked on, without answering him. She beckoned to the boatman; and then, as he came towards her, her heart began to beat so that she could scarcely speak or ask the question that she had in her mind to ask. 'Has my brother been here? Where is his letter? Is the _Wave_ safe in your little boat-house?' This was what she would have said, only she could not speak. Some strange fever had possessed her and brought her so far: now her strength and courage suddenly forsook her, and she stopped short, and stood holding to an old rotten post that stood by the river-side.

'Take care,' said Tom; 'that ain't safe. You might fall in, and the river is deep just here.'

She turned such a pale face to him that the young man suddenly began to wonder if there was more in it all than he had imagined.

'It's perfectly safe I mean,' he said. 'Why, you don't mean to say----'

He turned red; he wished with all his heart that he had never brought her there--that he could jump into the river--that he had stayed to dine in Hall. To his unspeakable relief unexpected help appeared.

'Why, there is Mr. Raban!' said Tom, as Raban came out of the boat-house, and walked across under the trees to meet them.

Dolly waited for the two men to come up to her, as she stood by her stump among the willow-trees. Raban did not seem surprised to see her.

He took no notice of Tom, but he walked straight up to Dolly.

'You have come,' he said; 'I had just sent you a telegraphic message.'

His manner was so kind and so gentle that it frightened her more than if he had spoken with his usual coldness.

'What is it?' she said, 'and why have you come here? Have you too heard...?'

She scanned his face anxiously.

Then she looked from him to the old boatman, who was standing a few steps off in his shabby red flannel-s.h.i.+rt, with a stolid brown face and white hair: a not unpicturesque figure standing by the edge of the stream. Winds and rain and long seasons had washed all expression out of old Miller's bronzed face.

'George came here on Tuesday,' said Raban to Dolly; 'I only heard of it this morning. Miller tells me he gave him a letter or a paper to keep.'

'I know it,' said Dolly, turning to the old boatman. 'I am Mr.

Vanborough's sister; I have come for the letter,' she said quickly, and she held out her hand.

'This gentleman come and asked me for the paper,' said the old man, solemnly, 'and he stands by to contradict me if I speak false; but if the right party as was expected to call should wish for to see it, my wish is to give satisfaction all round,' said the old man. 'I knows your brother well, Miss, and he know me, and my man too, for as steady a young man and all one could wish to see. The gentleman come up quite hearty one morning, and ask Bill and me as a favour to hisself to sign the contents of the paper; and he seal it up, and it is safe, as you see, with the seal compact;' and then from his pockets came poor George's packet, a thin blue paper folded over, and sealed with his ring. 'Mr. Vanbug he owe me two pound twelve and sixpence,' old Miller went on, still grasping his paper as if loth to give it up, 'and he said as how you would pay the money, Miss.'

Dolly's hands were fumbling at her purse in a moment.

'I don't want nothing for my trouble,' said the old fellow. 'I knows Mr.

Vanbug well, and I thank you, Miss, and you will find it all as the gentleman wished, and good-morning,' said old Miller, trudging hastily away, for a pa.s.senger had hailed him from the opposite sh.o.r.e.

'I know what it is,' said Dolly. 'See, he has written my name upon it, Mr. Raban: it is his will. He told me to come here. He is gone. I found his letter.' She began to quiver. 'I don't know what he means.'

'Don't be frightened,' said Raban smiling, and very kindly. 'He was seen at Southampton quite well and in good spirits. He has enlisted. That is what he means. You have interest, we must get him a commission; and if this makes him more happy, it is surely for the best.'