Part 61 (1/2)

So they agreed; and in half an hour were opposite the hut, and, riding across to it to ask a few questions, found the poor mother sitting on the door-step, with her ap.r.o.n over her head, rocking herself to and fro.

”We have come to help you, mistress,” said Sam. ”How do you think he is gone?”

She said, with frequent bursts of grief, that ”some days before he had mentioned having seen white children across the water, who beckoned him to cross and play; that she, knowing well that they were fairies, or perhaps worse, had warned him solemnly not to mind them; but that she had very little doubt that they had helped him over and carried him away to the forest; and that her husband would not believe in his having crossed the river.”

”Why, it is not knee-deep across the shallow,” said Cecil.

”Let us cross again,” said Sam: ”he MAY be drowned, but I don't think it.”

In a quarter of an hour from starting they found, slightly up the stream, one of the child's socks, which in his hurry to dress he had forgotten. Here brave Rover took up the trail like a bloodhound, and before evening stopped at the foot of a lofty cliff.

”Can he have gone up here?” said Sam, as they were brought up by the rock.

”Most likely,” said Cecil. ”Lost children always climb from height to height. I have heard it often remarked by old bush hands. Why they do so, G.o.d, who leads them, only knows; but the fact is beyond denial. Ask Rover what he thinks?”

The brave old dog was half-way up, looking back for them. It took them nearly till dark to get their horses up; and, as there was no moon, and the way was getting perilous, they determined to camp, and start again in the morning.

They spread their blankets and lay down side by side. Sam had thought, from Cecil's proposing to come with him in preference to the others, that he would speak of a subject nearly concerning them both; but Cecil went off to sleep and made no sign; and Sam, ere he dozed, said to himself, ”By Jove, if he don't speak this journey, I will. It is unbearable that we should not come to some understanding. Poor Cecil!”

At early dawn they caught up their horses, which had been hobbled with the stirrup leathers, and started afresh. Both were more silent than ever, and the dog, with his nose to the ground, led them slowly along the rocky rib of the mountain, ever going higher and higher.

”It is inconceivable,” said Sam, ”that the poor child can have come up here. There is Tuckerimbid close to our right, five thousand feet above the river. Don't you think we must be mistaken?”

”The dog disagrees with you,” said Cecil. ”He has something before him not very far off. Watch him.”

The trees had become dwarfed and scattered; they were getting out of the region of trees; the real forest zone was now below them, and they saw they were emerging towards a bald elevated down, and that a few hundred yards before them was a dead tree, on the highest branch of which sat an eagle.

”The dog has stopped,” said Cecil, ”the end is near.”

”See,” said Sam, ”there is a handkerchief under the tree.”

”That is the boy himself,” said Cecil.

They were up to him and off in a moment. There he lay, dead and stiff, one hand still grasping the flowers he had gathered on his last happy play-day, and the other laid as a pillow, between the soft cold cheek and the rough cold stone. His midsummer holiday was over, his long journey was ended. He had found out at last what lay beyond the s.h.i.+ning river he had watched so long.

Both the young men knelt beside him for a moment in silence. They had found only what they had expected to find, and yet, now that they had found it, they were far more touched and softened than they could have thought possible. They stayed in silence a few moments, and then Cecil, lifting up his head, said suddenly,--

”Sam Buckley! there can be no debate between us two, with this lying here between us. Let us speak now.”

”There has never been any debate, Cecil,” said he, ”and there never would be, though this little corpse was buried fathoms deep. It takes two to make a quarrel, Cecil, and I will not be one.”

”Sam,” said Cecil, ”I love Alice Brentwood better than all the world besides.”

”I know it.”

”And you love her too, as well, were it possible, as I do.”

”I know that too.”

”Why,” resumed Cecil hurriedly, ”has this come to pa.s.s? Why has it been my unlucky destiny, that the man I love and honour above all others should become my rival? Are there no other women in the world? Tell me, Sam, why is it forced on me to choose between my best friend and the woman I love dearer than life? Why has this terrible emergency come between us?”

”I will tell you why,” said Sam, speaking very quietly, as though fearing to awaken the dead: ”to teach us to behave like men of honour and gentlemen, though our hearts break. That is why, Cecil.”