Nearly half-an-hour had elapsed, and a dread that she, that I--that both of us--must now be missed, and the cause of surmise, roused an anger and pride in her breast, that kindled her eye and affected her manner, thus effectually crushing any attempt to intrude my own secret thoughts upon her.
"What _are_ we to do, Mr. Hardinge? Here we cannot stay; I dare not climb; not a boat is to be seen; the sun has almost set, and see, how dense a mist is coming on!"
I confess that I had not observed this before, so much had I been occupied by her own presence, by her beauty, and by entreating that she would "screw her courage to the sticking-point," and ascend where I had seen the two pretty Lloyds trip from step to step in their mere girlhood, to the horror, certainly, of their French governess; but knowing that a fog from the sea was rolling landward in dense masses, and that the evening would be a stormy one, I felt intense anxiety for Lady Estelle, and certainly left nothing unsaid to reassure her, firmly yet delicately--for good breeding becomes a second nature, and is not forgotten even in times of dire emergency; then how much less so when we love, and love as I did Estelle Cressingham?--but all my arguments were in vain. There was in her dark eyes a wild and startled brilliance, a hectic spot on each pale cheek. Her innate pride remained, but her courage was gone. She trembled, and her breath came short and quick as she said,
"Who would have dreamt that I--_I_ should have acted thus? More heedlessly even than Dora, for she is a Welsh girl, and, like a goat, is used to such places. And now there is no aid--not even the smallest boat in sight!"
"Of what have I been thinking!" I exclaimed. "The pleasure-boat which belongs to the grotto is moored yonder in the creek, where some visitor, who preferred the short cut up the cliff, has evidently left it. If you will permit me to place you in it, I can row across the mouth of the waterfall to the other side, where a Chinese bridge will enable us at once to reach the lawn."
"Why did you not think of this before?" she asked, with something of angry reproach almost flashing in her eyes.
"Will you make the attempt?"
"Of course. O, would that you had thought of it before!"
"Come, then, though the wind has risen certainly; and among so many guests, our absence may have been unnoticed yet."
I reached the boat--a gaudily-painted shallop, seated for four oars. There were but two, however; these were enough; but as ill-luck would have it, she was moored to a ring-bolt in the rocks by a padlock and chain, which I had neither the strength nor the means of breaking. This was a fresh source of delay, and Lady Estelle's whole frame seemed to quiver and vibrate with impatience, while every moment she raised her eyes to the cliff, by which she expected succour or searchers to come. What the deuce was she--were _we_--to say to all this? With a girl possessed of more nerve and firmness of mind this matter could never have taken such a turn, and the delay had never occurred. This _malheur_ or mishap--this variation from the strict rules laid down by such matrons as the Countess of Naseby--looked so like a scheme, that I felt we were in a thorough scrape, and knew there was not a moment to be lost in making our appearance at the Court. By a stone I smashed the padlock, and casting loose the boat, brought it to where Lady Estelle stood, beating the rock impatiently with her foot; and, handing her on board, seated her in the stern-sheets, but with some difficulty, as the west wind was rolling the waves with no small fury now past the headland, in which the black Bôd Mynach gaped.
"Pull with all your strength, Mr. Hardinge. Dear Mr. Hardinge, let us only be back in time, and I shall ever thank you!" she exclaimed.
"All that man can do I shall," was my enthusiastic reply.
I could pull a good stroke-oar, and had done so steadily in many a regimental and college boat-race and regatta; but now there ensued what I never could have calculated upon. Excited by the desire of pleasing Lady Estelle by landing her on the opposite side of the tiny bay with all speed--desirous, when seated opposite to her, face to face, of appearing to some advantage by an exhibition of strength and skill--at each successive stroke, as I shot the light boat seaward, I almost lifted it out of the water. I had to clear a rock, over which the water was foaming and gleaming in green and gold amid the sinking sunshine, ere I headed her due westward, and in doing so I cleared also the headland, which rose like a tower of rock from the sea, crowned by a clump of old elms, wherein some rooks had taken up their quarters in times long past.
"O, Mr. Hardinge," said Lady Estelle, while grasping the gunwale with both hands, and looking up, "how had I ever the courage to come down such a place? It looks fearful from this!"
Ere I could reply, the oar in my right hand broke in the iron rowlock with a crash. The wood had been faulty. By this mishap I lost my balance, and was nearly thrown into the sea, as the boat careered over on a wave. Thus the _other_ was torn from my grasp, and swept far beyond my reach. I was powerless now--powerless to aid either her or myself. The tide was ebbing fast. The strong west wind, and the current running eastward, influenced by the flow of the Clwyde, and even of the Dee, ten miles distant, swept the now useless boat past the abutting headland, and along the front of those cliffs which rise like a wall of rock from the sea, and where, as the mist gathered round us, our fate would be unseen, whether we were dashed against the iron shore or swept out into the ocean.
The red sunset was fading fast on distant Orme's Head, where myriads of sea-birds are ever revolving, like gnats in the light amid its grand and inaccessible crags. It was dying, too, though tipping them with flame, on Snowdon's peaks, the eyrie of the golden eagle and the peregrine falcon, and on the smaller range of Carneydd Llewellyn. Purple darkness was gathering in the grassy vales between, and blue and denser grew those shadows as the cold gray mist came on, and the sombre glow of a stormy sunset passed away. Soon the haze of the twilight blurred, softened, and blended land and sea to the eastward. The sharp edge of the new moon was rising from a dark and trembling horizon, whence the mist was coming faster and more fast, and the evening star, pale Hesperus, shone like a tiny lamp amid the opal tints of a sky that was turning fast to dun and darkness. The rolling mist soon hid the star and the land, too, and I only knew that we were drifting helplessly away.
CHAPTER XV.--WHAT THE MOON SAW.
The absence of the boat from its mooring-place was soon observed, and surmises were rife that we must infallibly have gone seaward. But why? It seemed unaccountable--and at such a time, too! The idea that Lady Estelle's heart should fail her in attempting to return by the cliff never occurred to any save Winifred, who knew more of her friend's temperament than the rest, and for a time, with others, the ardent and courageous girl searched the shore, and several boats were put forth into the mist; but in vain, and ere long the strength and violence of the wind drove even Sir Madoc and all his startled guests to the shelter of the house. Muffled in silk cloaks and warm shawls or otter-skin jackets, the ladies had lingered long on the terraces, on the lawn and avenues, while the lights of the searchers were visible, and while their hallooing could be heard at times from the rocks and ravines, where they swung their lanterns as signals, in hopes that the lost ones might see them.
Lord Pottersleigh snuffed and ejaculated from time to time, and ere long had betaken himself to his room. Caradoc, Guilfoyle--who seemed considerably bewildered by the affair--young Clavel of the 19th, and other gentlemen, with Gwyllim the butler, Morgan Roots the gardener, Bob Spurrit, and the whole male staff of the household, manfully continued their search by the shore. There the scene was wild and impressive. Before the violence of the bellowing wind, the mist was giving place to the pall-like masses of dark clouds, which rolled swiftly past the pale face of the new moon, imparting a weird-like aspect to the rocky coast, against which the sea was foaming in white and hurrying waves, while the sea-birds, scared alike by the shouts and the light of the searchers, quite as much as by the storm, screamed and wheeled in wild flights about their eyries. Moments there were when Caradoc thought the search was prosecuted in the wrong direction, and that, as there had probably been an elopement, this prowling along the seashore was absurd.
"Can it be," said he, inaudibly, "that the little boy who cried for the moon has made off with it bodily? If so, this will be rather a 'swell' affair for the mess of the Royal Welsh."
Slowly passed the time, and more anxious than all the rest--Lady Naseby of course excepted--the soft-hearted Winifred was full of dismay that any catastrophe should occur to two guests at Craigaderyn, and she listened like a startled fawn to every passing sound.