The Lost Viol

An excerpt from the beginning of:

CHAPTER I

"YES, a grand night," was the thought in Miss J. Kathleen Sheridan's mind, as she passed into A the west lodge-gates of Orrock Park on the evening of the 21st of November, '98: an evening of storm, with the roar of the sea in the ear. The young lady stopped at Embree Pond in the park to watch the sheet of water shivering to its dark heart under the flight of the squalls; then with her long-legged walk (she was a hunchback), went on her way, showing in her face her delight in this bleak mood of nature.

Some way further, however, on hearing the hoofs of a horse, her expression changed to one of very real fright, for she had a thought of one Sir Percy Orrock, beheaded by Cromwell, whose ghost gallops about on a headless horse in rough weather; but this turned out to be only Mr. Millings, the land-steward: for, on coming round to the manor-house, the young lady found Millings there talking to Sir Peter Orrock, who at a window was holding his ear forward to hear the land-steward's news.

"Good evening, Mr. Millings," called Miss Kathleen, laughing from ear to ear, with strings of black hair draping her face. "Well, uncle, I have been sketching it all on the heath — witches on broomsticks, 'strange screams of death in the air.' That silver lime of Farmer Carr's is blown flat. Uncle, if you ask me to stop and dine, I may consent."

"Hm," muttered Sir Peter to himself, "better stick to your own dinner. Go on, Millings — same old story, eh?"

" Same old story, Sir Peter," answered Mr. Millings: "there won't be any of Norfolk left soon, at this rate. Mrs. Dawe's cottage gone, and with it her son, James Dawe, and three of the boats —"

"Well, it is their own fault!" called out the little maid, "living on the edge of the cliffs, when they know — "

" Got nowhere else to live," muttered Sir Peter. " Dawe drowned, Millings ? "

"No, Sir Peter, but I'm afraid I must say rescued at an awful cost: he was rescued by Miss Langler, who has just been taken home to Woodside in a dying state."

" Hannah ? Hannah Langler ?" breathed Sir Peter, turning very pale.

"The lad was carried out two hundred yards," said Mr. Millings, "where he clung to the bottom of one of the three boats; on the cliffs I found a crowd watching him, including Pagan, the coast-guardsman, who told me that the lifeboat was coming round from Wardenham; but I thought from the first that it would come too late, for I could see Dawe nearer in every time the lighthouse beam swept over him: and so it proved, for, as the lifeboat-light appeared round the north headland, Dawe was thrown up by a breaker on a strip of sand — "

"But Hannah?" said the baronet.

"Miss Langler was in the crowd with her father," said Millings; "she had been holding up Dawe's mother, who was fainting, but when Dawe was all of a sudden lying on the strip of sand below us, I saw Miss Langler running among the fishermen, begging one and another to save him before the next wave. ' There's nothing like venturing,' I heard her say twice or thrice, but they answered that that would only mean two deaths instead of one, and I fully agreed with them. When the next breaker drew back from the cliffs we all looked to see Dawe gone with it: but there he still was, and I now heard Miss Langler cry out to Horsford, the lighthouse-keeper, 'Now, now, Hereford, venture now,' and then, all at once, I was aware that she herself was going down the cliff-side by that little foot-path near the church-tower."

" But, God's name, man, couldn't some of you stop her, a whole crowd of you there ?" said Sir Peter.

"It couldn't be done, Sir Peter, I regret to say. Two or three did make a try to hold her, but she was gone like the wind. Personally, I confess, I was rather paralyzed: she looked pretty small down there in the mouth of the sea, like a fly in an engine at work; it was rather painful. Old Farmer Langler fell on his knees; no one had a word to say. I don't suppose it lasted ten minutes on the whole, but I shouldn't care to live through it again. Dawe's a heavy lout, a head taller than she, and twice she was felled by the sea with him in her arms. When a wave withdrew, we saw them still there, and another wave coming. Two of the womenfolk fainted. I with some other men ran half-way down to see better, and got drenched. However, she won back to the path with her unwieldy prize, and there gave in. We then ran down and got them somehow to the top; Dawe was taken to the postmistress's cottage, and Miss Langler home to Woodside. Both are in a pretty bad way, they say."

"Well, it is her own fault!" called the quaint maid shrilly against the wind from the outer hall. " Hannah has a secret pride in her physical powers which stood in need of a ducking."

The baronet muttered something,...