Chapter LVIII: Night and Morning

Scarcely an hour later than Sidney's arrival Margaret came to Brackenburn, with the large party of her companions and servants. It did not strike her or Philip that there could be much danger in a storm such as they had passed through coming from the south. But Dorothy and the servants belonging to Brackenburn looked grave. The men, huddled in the porch, held a consultation. It was impossible to do anything until the downfall abated. The giddy maze of snowflakes was more bewildering than the darkest night, for lanterns could be of no use in such a storm, as they would have been in utter darkness.

"Oh! Miss Dorothy," cried Mary, "you know this country's ways better than us from the south. Is there nothing we can do?"

"Nothing," she answered; "we must wait till the snow abates. Nobody could go out in a storm like this."

"Would not your St. Bernard track them?" asked Philip.

"No," she said, "none of the men could venture out now. Oh! you don't know what it is. You cannot go, Philip; you could not find your way for five minutes."

"They'll be frozen to death before morning," wailed Mary.

"No," answered Dorothy in a faltering voice; "Martin would get to his cave, and they are safe there. But there is your father, Philip."

"He hasn't been gone an hour," said Mary, "and the others have been out six hours or more."

They gathered round the fire, which had smoldered down upon the neglected hearth; but it was soon in a blaze again, and the cheerful light fell upon Margaret's pale and thoughtful face. Philip and Dorothy looked at her, and then glanced apprehensively at each other. For the moment Margaret, with her steadfast and simple air of tranquillity, seemed to belong to another world than theirs.

"God is also in the storm," she said softly, as if to herself. She drew Dorothy close to her, and laid her other hand on Philip's arm.

"Children," she said, "we are no safer than they are, for we are all alike in the hands of God. You must go and take food and rest, that you may be strong to help as soon as the storm is over. Philip must go to seek them as soon as it is possible to find them."

But Margaret herself could not take either rest or food. Under her habitual tranquillity, which had become almost a second nature to her, there was to-night a strange agitation, such as she had felt but once before. This breaking up of the deep spring of feeling differed from the storm that had shaken her soul to the center when she discovered Sidney's treachery; but it was not less intense. She had never known before how much she loved him as her husband, with what a passionate force her heart clung to him. It seemed to her as if she was actually out with him, out in the bewildering snow, weary, aching, stumbling from drift to drift, growing numb and torpid. Oh! if she were really by his side, speaking to him, and hearing his dear voice! It was right that he should go to seek Martin; she did not grudge the peril. She was glad that he should risk his life for the son whose life he had ruined. But if he should perish, her husband, just now, when he had attained a higher level, when the love of God had conquered his love of the world!

From time to time Margaret opened her casement and looked out on the baffling snow-fall, which filled all the contracted field of vision. Nothing else could she see, not even the sky; only the dancing motes against a background of dense gloom.

Soon after dawn the downfall ceased, and Dorothy led Philip up to an attic window from which there was the widest view of the moorland. Stretching before their dazzled eyes was an undulating plain of the purest white, with not a track or mark upon it. Here and there a line of the faintest primrose shining in the pale daylight showed the crest of a hillock or the margin of a hollow. But all landmarks were blotted out. The sky was still of a leaden hue, and there was a threatening of more snow on the northern horizon.

"We must find them before another night comes on," exclaimed Philip.

"I could find my way to Martin's cave with a compass," said Dorothy hesitatingly. "If the sun comes out I am sure I could find it."

"But you must not go, my darling," he answered. "I cannot let you go with us men."

"My dogs would be very little use without me," she said; "they will not follow anyone else so well. I don't think the dogs can track them, but Martin might hear their baying, and would make an effort to come to us, or let us know where they are."

"Let us start at once then," exclaimed Philip.

The men were scanning the threatened storm in the north, but Dorothy's appearance, ready to go with them, silenced all objections. The snow was too soft to walk on easily, and the dogs whined as she bade them follow her, but they obeyed.

"Only pray 'at the storm 'ill keep off till we are home again," said the old shepherd, who could estimate the danger of their undertaking better than anyone else. Margaret watched them from her window with a wistful tenderness in her eyes, which were heavy and dim with her sleepless night. It was not possible for her to go.

The sun shone faintly, and Dorothy, by its aid and that of her compass, could direct the course of the little troop of men and dogs to the point where the cave was. She fancied she could recognize, under the softly undulating surface, the outlines of one ridge after another, and the hollows where frozen tarns were lying. The men shouted, and the dogs bayed with their deep voices, filling the moorland with their cry, but there was no sign as yet that any of the lost men heard them. How swiftly the precious moments were passing by! and how slow was the progress which they made! The leaden snowclouds were slowly climbing up the sky, and had already covered the dim disk of the low lying sun.

"I feel sure the cave is over there," said Dorothy.

They had reached a more rugged part of the upland, strewn with masses of rock, which stood half buried in heather in the summer. Deep snowdrifts had gathered on the side of each of them. The cave lay under a rock at the head of a long, narrow dell, scarcely more than a cleft in the earth, down which a burn ran in summer; and above the margin of this cleft stood a shape which, as they drew near to it, took the form of a cross.

They hastened to the ravine, and looked down into it. It was half filled with a deep drift, which almost hid the mouth of the cave, but the wind had blown away most of the snow from the old Calvary, which had weathered so many wintry tempests in the Ampezzo Valley. The arms of the cross were pure white, and the crucified form upon it was swathed in a white shroud. But the foot of it was buried in the snow, and a human form lay there almost hidden by it, with arms outstretched, as if to clasp the cross. Who could it be?