Chapter XXXVI: Gone!

Morning dawned. The Grey Nunnery was like a fair. What with the doctors and their gigs, for two surgeons came from Stilborough, and the Sisters passing in and out on various errands, and the excited people who assembled in numbers round the gates, a stranger might have wondered at the commotion. More than once had Greylands been excited during the year now swiftly approaching its close, but never as much as now. A dreadful encounter between smugglers and the preventive men! and Harry Castlemaine shot down by one of their stray bullets! and Jane Hallet come to life again!

The Master of Greylands sat by the dying couch, giving vent now and again to his dire distress. There was no hope for his son; he knew it from the medical men: and his son had been the one only thing he had much cared for in life.

Of all the blows that had fallen on James Castlemaine, none had been like unto this. The shock alone was terrible. It reached him first through one of those Grey Sisters against whom he had been so prejudiced. Sister Ann had gone running over to knock up the Dolphin, lest cordials, or else, which the Nunnery lacked, might be required for the wounded man. After arousing John Bent and telling the news, she sped onwards under the night stars, to apprise the Master of Greylands. Greylands' Rest lay still and quiet; its doors and windows closed, the blinds drawn down. Sister Ann rang, and was immediately answered inside by the bark of a dog. "Cesar, Cesar!" she called out at the top of her voice, to assure the dog that it was a friend; and Cesar, recognising the tones, ceased his bark, which was impolitic on Sister Ann's part, for if he had kept on barking it would have aroused the inmates. Sister Ann waited and rang again; and then, terrified at the thought that the Master of Greylands might be too late to see his son, she retreated a few steps and shouted up to the windows. The Master heard it, and appeared looking out.

"Who is it?--what is it?" he asked, leaning from the window he had thrown up, and recognising with astonishment the dress of a Grey Sister.

"Oh, sir, it's bad news!" replied Sister Ann, "but I'm thankful to have awoke you. It's ill news about Mr. Harry, sir: and I've run all the way here, and am out of breath."

"What ill news about Mr. Harry?"

"He has been brought to the Nunnery wounded dreadfully. I've come up to ask you to make haste, sir, if you'd see him; for he may be bleeding to death."

"Wounded?--how?" gasped the Master, feeling as bewildered as a woman, and perhaps hard of belief.

"There has been a frightful fight to-night, they say, with smugglers, sir. Mr. Nettleby and two of the coastguardsmen brought him in. We don't know what to believe or think."

With a muttered word to the effect that he would go to the Nunnery directly, the Master of Greylands shut the window. Dressing in haste, he went forth on his errand. Of the two ways to the Nunnery, the Chapel Lane was somewhat the nearer one; and he took it. He bared his aching head to the night-air as he traversed it with fleet strides, wondering what extent of misery he might be entering upon. No very long space of time had elapsed since he sat in his room dwelling on the misfortunes and the deaths that the year had brought forth. Was there to be yet further misfortune?--another death? A death to him more cruel than any that had gone before it?

As he neared the turning to the Hutt, he dashed down the opening and tried the house-door and shouted--just as Sister Ann had tried and shouted at the door of Greylands' Rest some minutes before. The door was fast, and no response came: and the Master knocked at the little window that belonged to Teague's bedchamber. "Not back yet," he murmured to himself, after waiting barely a moment, and dashed back again and on towards the Nunnery. And there he fennel his worst fears as to Harry realised, and learnt from Mr. Parker that there was no hope of saving him.

The bleeding had been then stopped by Mr. Parker, but Harry had fainted. Before he revived and was collected enough to speak, or perhaps strong enough, the other surgeons came, and not one private word had been exchanged between father and son.

With the morning Harry was better. Better in so far as that he lay at tolerable ease and could converse at will. The surgeons had done for him what little could be done; but his life was only a question of hours. In a distress, the like of which he had never before experienced, sat the Master of Greylands. His handsome, noble, attractive son, of whom he had been so proud, whom he had so beloved in his heart, was passing away from his sight for ever. His chair was drawn close to the couch, his hand lay on Harry's, his aching eyes rested on the pale, changed face. The whole world combined could not have wrought for him a trial such as this: his own death would have been as nothing to it: and the blow unnerved him.

They were alone together: none intruded unnecessarily on these closing hours. Harry gave briefly the history of the scene of the past night, thanking heaven aloud that his father was not present at it.

"The two first boats had not long been in, and not half their packages were landed, when another boat glided quietly up," said Harry. "I thought it was from the vessel with more goods, till I heard a shout in Nettleby's tones 'In the King's name,' and found the revenue men were leaping out of her. I ran to close the passage to Teague's, and was coming back again when I found myself struck here," touching his side. "The pain was horrible: I knew what it meant--that I was shot, and useless--and I slipped into the vaults, intending to get up to the chapel ruins, and so away. I must have fainted there, and fallen; for I remember nothing more until Nettleby and the rest were bringing me here."

"They found you lying there?"

"Not they. Mary Ursula."

"Mary Ursula!"

"It seems so. She was there with a lantern, I gather. Father, you will, doubtless, learn all the explanation you wish; I cannot give it. You know what this shot has done for me?"

The Master did not answer.

"It is my death. I forced Croft to tell me. By to-night all will be over."

Mr. Castlemaine, striving and struggling to maintain composure, broke down helplessly at the last words, and sobbed aloud with an emotion never before betrayed by him to man. The distress to Harry was all too great; he had been truly attached to his indulgent father.

"For my sake, father!--for the little time I have to stay!" he said, imploringly. And the Master smothered his grief as he best might.

With his hand held between his father's, and his sad eyes beseeching pardon for the offence which in strong life he had dreaded to tell, Harry Castlemaine made his confession: Jane Hallet was his wife. It was somewhat of a shock, no doubt, to the Master of Greylands, but it fell with comparative lightness on his ear: beside the one vast trouble close at hand, others seemed as nothing. Jane might be his son's wife; but his son would not live to own her as such to the world.

"Do you forgive me, father? That it was wrong, I am aware; but only myself know how dearly I grew to love her. The place has been heaping scorn upon her, but she bore it all for my sake, knowing she would be cleared when I could declare it to you."

"She has not deserved the scorn, then?"

"Never. I would not have sought to hurt a hair of her head. Say you forgive me, father!--the moments are passing."

"Yes, yes, I forgive you; I forgive you. Oh, my boy, I forgive all. I wish I could die instead of you."

"And--will you set her right with the world?" continued Harry, holding his father's hand against his cheek caressingly. "It is only you who can effectually do it, I think. And allow her a little income to maintain her in comfort?"

"Harry, I will do all."

"She is my wife, you see, father, and it is what should be. Your promise will ease my soul in dying. Had I lived, she would have shared my state and fortune.

"All, all; I will do all," said the Master of Greylands.

"For the past, it is not she who is to blame," continued Harry, anxious that there should be no misapprehension of Jane's conduct. "She would have held out against the marriage on account of my family, always begging of me to wait. But I would have my way. Do not visit the blame upon her, father, for she does not deserve it."

"I understand: she shall have all justice, Harry. Be at peace."

But, in spite of this one absorbing grief for his son, there was another care that kept intruding itself in no minor degree on the Master of Greylands: and that was the business connected with the smugglers. How much of that was known?--how much had good fortune been enabled to keep concealed? While the doctors were again with Harry towards midday, Mr. Castlemaine snatched a moment to go out of doors.

How strange the broad glare of day appeared to him! Coming out of the darkened room with its hushed atmosphere, its overlying sadness, into the light of the sun, high in the heavens, the hum of the crowding people, the stir of health and busy life, the Master of Greylands seemed to have passed into another world. The room he had left was as the grave, where his son would soon be; this moving scene as some passing pageantry, very redolent of mundane earth.

Which Greylands was making the most of,--the strange accident to Harry Castlemaine (every whit as strange as the self-shooting that had temporarily disabled young Dance; nay, stranger); or the astounding news touching the smugglers, or the reappearance of Jane Hallet--it was hard to say. All kinds of reports were afloat; some true, some untrue, as usual. Mr. Superintendent, Nettleby, it appeared, had for a considerable time suspected that smuggling to an extraordinary extent was carried on somewhere along this line of coast. From information supplied to him, he had little doubt that valuable goods found their contraband entrance, somewhere; within, say, the length of a dozen miles. The difficulty was--how to hit upon the spot. Surmises were chiefly directed to the little place called Beeton, a mile or two higher up. It presented unusual facilities for running contraband goods; slight incidents occurred from time to time that seemed to bear out the superintendent's suspicions of it; and his chief attention was directed to that place. It was directed to any spot rather than Greylands. Greylands, in the estimation of the revenue-men, was exempt from suspicion, or nearly exempt. Save the open beach, there was no spot at Greylands where a cargo could be run--and the superintendent took care that the beach should be protected. Not an idea existed that the little strip of beach under the old Friar's Keep could be made available for anything of the kind, or that it had a passage of communication with Commodore Teague's Hutt, or with any other place in the world. Counting on his ten fingers, Mr. Nettleby could number up fifteen months during which he had beset Beeton like a watchdog, and nothing at all had come of it. The unsuspected Greylands had been left at ease, as usual, to do what it would.

Upon Greylands the news fell like a thunderbolt. Had one of those cloud-electric missives suddenly fallen and shattered the rocks to pieces, it would not have caused more intense astonishment. The Friar's Keep been used as a place of smuggling for untold years!--and Commodore Teague was the head smuggler!--who used to stow away the goods in his big cellar till he could take them away in his spring cart! Greylands knew not how to believe this: and on the Commodore's score somewhat resented it, for he was an immense favourite. One fact seemed indisputable--the Commodore was not to be seen this morning, and his place was shut up.

The version generally believed was this. Mr. Superintendent Nettleby, observing, after dark had fallen, a suspicious-looking vessel lying nearly close in shore, and having had his attention directed to this same vessel once or twice before, had collected his men and taken up his place in the revenue-boat, under cover of the walls of the Grey Nunnery, and there waited until it was time to drop upon the smugglers: which he did, catching them in the act. Most of the men he surprised were sailors; he knew it by their attire and language; but there was at least one other man (if not two men) who was muffled up for disguise; and there was, without any disguise, working openly, Commodore Teague. The Commodore and these other men--take them at two--had escaped to the ship, and neither the superintendent nor his subordinates knew who they were. The wounded sailor-prisoner was a foreigner, who could speak but a few words of English. He gave his name as Jacob Blum, and appeared to know little about the affair, declaring solemnly that he had joined the vessel in Holland only a month before, and was not apprised that she was in the contraband trade.

But Harry Castlemaine--what caused him to be so fatally mixed up with the fight? Lacking an authorised version, the following sprung up; and, spreading from one to another, was soon accepted as truth. Mr. Harry, promenading about late in the night with his sweetheart, Jane Hallet (and sly enough she must have been, to have stayed all this while at old Goody Dance's, and never shown herself!), had his ears saluted with the noise and shots going on below. He rushed into the Keep and down the staircase to the vaults beneath (instinct having discovered the stairs to him at the right moment, as was supposed), where he was met and struck down by a stray shot, the fighters not even knowing that he was there. Jane Hallet must have followed him. Sister Mary Ursula's appearance on the scene, as mentioned by the two coastguardsmen, was accounted for in the same natural manner. She had heard the disturbance from her chamber-window--for of course the noise penetrated as far as the Grey Nunnery--and had gone forth, like a brave, good woman, to ascertain its meaning and see if succour was needed.

All these several reports--which running from one to another, grew into assured facts, as just said, in men's minds--were listened to by Mr. Castlemaine. He found that, as yet, not a shade of suspicion was directed to him or his house: he fervently hoped that it might not be. That would be one sup taken out of his cup of bitterness. Commodore Teague was regarded as the sole offender, so far as Greylands was concerned.

"To think that we should have been so deceived in any man!" exclaimed the landlord of the Dolphin, standing outside his door with his wife, and addressing Mr. Castlemaine and the crowd together. "I'd have believed anybody in the place to be a cheat, sir, rather than Teague."

"We have not had Teague's defence yet," spoke the Master of Greylands. "It is not right to entirely condemn a man unheard."

"But the coastguardsmen saw him there at work, sir," retorted ready-tongued Mrs. Bent. "Henry Mann says he was hard at it with his shirt sleeves stripped up. He'd not be helping for love: he must have had his own interest there."

The Master of Greylands was wisely silent. To defend Teague too much might have turned suspicion on himself: at least, he fancied so in his self-consciousness: and the probability was that the Commodore would never return to ascertain how he stood with Greylands.

In the course of the morning, making rather more commotion with its sail than usual, Tom Dance's fishing-boat came sailing in. Tom and his son were on board her, and a fair haul of fish. The various items of strange news were shouted out to it by half a dozen tongues as soon as it was within hailing distance. Tom gave vent to sundry surprised ejaculations in return, as he found the cable and made the boat fast, and landed with a face of astonishment. The one item that seemed most to stagger him was the state of Mr. Harry Castlemaine.

"It can't be true!" he cried, standing still, while a change passed over his countenance. "Shot by smugglers!--dying! Mr. Harry Castlemaine!"

"Well, you see, Tom, it might ha' been them preventive-men,--'twarn't obliged to ha' been they smugglers," said Jack Tuff. "Both sides was firing off, by all account, as thick as thieves. Which ever 'twas, Mr. Harry have got his death-shot. How wet your jersey is!"

Tom Dance turned in at his own door, threw off the "jersey" and other articles of his fishing toggery, flung on dry things, and went up towards the throng round the Dolphin. Mr. Castlemaine was just crossing back to the Nunnery, and looked at him, some involuntary surprise in his eyes.

"Is it you, Dance?"

"It's me, sir: just got in with the tide. I be struck stupid, pretty nigh, hearing what they've been telling me, down there," added Tom, indicating the beach.

"Ay, no doubt," said the Master of Greylands, in a subdued tone. But he walked on, saying no more.

Tom Dance's confrères in the fishing trade had no idea but that he had sailed out in the ordinary way with the night tide. The reader knows that at midnight he was at least otherwise occupied. Tom had done a somewhat daring act. He and his son, alike uninjured in the fray, had escaped in the ship's boats; and Tom, flinging off his disguising cape and cap, his sea boots, and in fact most of his other attire, leaped into the water to swim to his fishing-boat, lying on the open beach. It was his one chance of non-discovery. He felt sure that neither he nor Walter had been recognized by Nettleby and his men; but, if they were to go off to Holland in the ship and so absent themselves from Greylands, it would at once be known that they were the two who had been seen taking part. No man in Greylands was so good a swimmer as Dance; and----he resolved to risk it. He succeeded. After somewhat of a battle, and the water was frightfully cold, he gained his boat. It had just floated with the incoming tide. By means of one of the ropes, of which there were several hanging over the side, he climbed on board, put on some of his sea-toggery that was there, and slipped the cable. The anchor was small, not at all difficult for one man to lift; but Tom Dance wanted to save both time and noise, and it was easiest to slip the cable. The moderate breeze was in his favour blowing off the land. He hoisted the staysail, and was soon nearing the ship, which was already spreading her canvas for flight. From the ship Dance took his son on board. They stayed out all night, fishing: it was necessary, to give a colouring to things and avert suspicion; and they had now, close upon midday, come in with a tolerable haul of fish. Walter had orders to stay on board, occupy himself there, and be still, while Tom landed to gather news and to see which way the wind lay.

But he had never thought to hear these sad tidings about Harry Castlemaine.

"It has a'most done me up," he said, returning on board again and speaking to his son. "He was the finest young fellow in the country, and the freest in heart and hand. And to be struck like this!"

"How much is known, father?" asked Walter, stopping in his employment of sorting the fish.

"Nothing's known that I can hear," growled Tom Dance, for he was feeling the crossness of affairs just then. "It's all laid on Teague's back--as Teague always good-naturedly said it would be, if a blow-up came."

"Can Teague ever come back, father?"

"Teague don't want to. Teague has said oftentimes that he'd as soon, or sooner, be over among the Dutch than here. He was always ready for the start, I expect. He'll be writing for us to go over and see him next summer."

"I know he liked them foreign towns: he's often been in 'em," observed Walter. "And he mist have feathered his nest pretty well."

"Yes; he won't need to look about him for his pipe and chop of a day. Our chief nest-egg is smashed though, lad. No more secret night-work for us ever again."

"Well, you must have feathered the nest too, father," returned Walter, privately glad that the said night-work was over, for he had never liked it in his heart.

"You just hold your tongue about the feathering of nests," sharply reprimanded Tom. "Once let folks fancy I've got more than fishing would bring in, and they might set on to ask where it come from. Your nest won't be feathered by me, I can tell ye, young man, unless you keep a still tongue in your head."

"There's no fear of me, father."

"And there'd better not be," concluded Tom Dance. "I'd ship ye off after Teague, short and quick, if I thought there was."

The afternoon was drawing to its close. On the rude couch, more exhausted than he had been in the morning, getting every minute now nearer to death, lay Harry Castlemaine. His stepmother, Flora, Ethel, good old Sister Mildred, and Mary Ursula, all had taken their last farewell of him. Mrs. Bent had contrived to get in, and had taken hers with some bitter tears. Mr. Parker had just gone out again: the Sister in attendance, perceiving what was at hand, had soon followed him. The poor wife, Jane, only acknowledged to be left, had gone through her last interview with her husband and said her last adieu. Nearly paralysed with grief, suffering from undue excitement which had been repressed so long, she had relapsed into a state of alarming prostration, that seemed worse than faintness. Mr. Parker administered an opiate, and she was now lying on her old bed above, cared for by Sister Mildred. And the sole watcher by the dying bed was Mr. Castlemaine.

Oh, what sorrow was his! The only living being he had greatly cared for in the world dying before his aching eyes. It was for him he had lived, had schemed, had planned and hoped. That nefarious smuggling had been only carried on in reference to Harry's prospective wealth. But for Harry's future position, that Mr. Castlemaine had so longed to establish on a high footing, he had thrown it up long before. It was all over now; the secret work, the hope, and the one cherished life.

"Father, don't!" panted Harry, as Mr. Castlemaine sat catching up ever and anon his breath in sobs, though his eyes were dry. "It may be better for me to go. I used to look forward, I've often done it, to being a good son to you in your old age: but it may be best as it is."

Mr. Castlemaine could not trust himself to answer.

"And you'll forgive me for all the trouble I've cost you! As I trust God has forgiven me. I have been thinking of Him all day, father."

A terrible sob now. Mr. Castlemaine knew not how to keep down his emotion. Oh, how bitter it was to him, this closing hour, his heart aching with its pain!

"It won't be so very long, father; you'll be coming, you know: and it is a journey that we must all take. What's the matter?--it's getting dark!"

Mr. Castlemaine raised his eyes to the window. The light was certainly fading on the panes; the dusk was stealing over the winter afternoon. Harry could only speak at intervals, and the words came out with long pauses between them. Mr. Castlemaine fancied he was beginning slightly to wander: but a great many of us are apt to fancy that when watching the dying.

"And you'll take care of Jane, father? Just a little help, you know, to keep her from being thrown on the world. It's not much she'll want I don't ask it."

The damp hand, lying in Mr. Castlemaine's was, pressed almost to pain; but there was no other answer. The aching heart was well-nigh unmanned.

"And don't be angry with Marston, father: he only did what I made him do. He is a better man than we have thought him. He was very good to me when he was here to-day, and left me comfort."

Mr. Castlemaine lodged his elbow on his knee, and bent his brow upon his hand. For some time there was silence. Harry, who had none of the restlessness sometimes characteristic of the final scene, lay quite still, his eyes closed.

A very long, deep breath disturbed the silence. It startled Mr. Castlemaine. He looked up, and for a moment loosed the hand he held.

"Harry!"

Harry Castlemaine, his eyes wide open now, raised his head from the pillow. He seemed to be staring at the windowpanes with a fixed look, as though he could see the sea that lay beyond, and found something strange in it.

"Father, dear father, it is she!" he burst out in his natural tones, and with a deep, exulting joy in them. "It is my mother: I know her well. Oh, yes, mother, I am coming!"

The Master of Greylands was startled. Harry had never seen his mother to remember her; he knew her only by her picture, which hung in one of the rooms, and was a speaking likeness of her. Harry had fallen back again, and lay with a smile upon his face. One more deep respiration came slowly forth from his lips: it was the last he had to take in this world.

The bereaved father saw what it was, and all his bitter sorrow rose up within him in one long overwhelming agony. He fell upon the unconscious face lying there; his trial seeming greater than he could bear.

"Oh, Harry, my son! my son Harry! would God I could have died for thee, my son, my son!"