There was a long silence when Lucy Dart came to the end of her story. There were parts of it that struck home to Lady Eleanor, for was not she also the widow of a soldier who had been killed in action? But what moved her and Colonel George above all was the change in the woman's face. While she was talking of her young days her features were softer; but as she neared the end of her story they grew harder and harder until they assumed an expression of worn, dogged despair, as though she still felt the stress of those terrible days in the retreat to Corunna. She was ghastly pale also, and seemed quite exhausted when she came to the last word; and both of her visitors recalled her words, that she had carried her son, a grown man, most of the many miles from Bracefort to the hut where he now lay.
Colonel George broke the silence by telling Lucy that she must take care to keep up her own strength as well as her son's, and that he would come back the next day with a fresh store of provisions for them both. He begged at the same time to be allowed to bring the doctor with him, but Lucy positively refused. A doctor could do no good, she said; and she begged that the colonel would not come again until the day after to-morrow, as she wished to be left alone.
So with a heavy heart Lady Eleanor bade her good-bye, and they left her bent over the body of her son; Colonel George saying that he could find his way back over the bog without help. And so indeed he did, with a skill which to Lady Eleanor seemed marvellous; but she said not a word to him until they reached the high ridge, on a point of which she had once rested while the searching parties were scouring the moor for her lost children, as weary with watching and misery as the woman from whom she had just parted. And then for the first time there occurred to her the readiness, quickness and foresight with which Colonel George had arranged everything, not only for the finding of the children, but for letting her know by signal what had happened, for better or worse, as early as possible. Involuntarily she quickened her horse's pace a little as she thought of her race home to the children, after they were found; and then came the chilling remembrance that, when she reached home, Dick would not be there. She pulled up, and looked round for Colonel George, who had dropped somewhat behind her, and was gazing at the glorious prospect of moor and valley and woodland that was spread out before him. Instantly he was at her side.
"I am afraid that we have not the same excuse for scampering home to-day," he said, divining her thoughts; "poor old Dick is well on his way by now. Well, the Corporal will be back in a few days to tell us all about him; and I hope to see him myself before long, as he will be close to London."
"Then you are going?" said Lady Eleanor, "for how long?"
"For a long time," he said, "I am going abroad again. Three months is not very long leave after a six months' voyage perhaps, but I am a soldier and must go where I am told. But I don't start for another month," he added, "so I hope to clear up this little trouble for you before I go."
Lady Eleanor stifled a little cry. "Going away again so soon?" she said. "Surely you are not wanted already?" But she checked herself and went on calmly. "Then you think there is nothing very serious the matter with that poor idiot after all?"
Colonel George shook his head. "I am not a doctor," he answered, "but I confess that I think very badly of him, and I believe that the woman is right, and that a doctor would be useless."
They rode on silently for a time, when Colonel George said, "That poor woman looked nearly as ill as her son. She went through terrible things before Corunna, but the last few days must have been almost worse. The strain of carrying him all that distance from Bracefort must have been more than she could really stand. She has no one except him in the world, and if he be taken from her, I cannot think how she will struggle on alone."
"Yes," said Lady Eleanor, as if talking to herself, "it is terrible to be left alone."
Colonel George glanced at her quickly, but she was looking sadly straight in front of her, and he rode on for some way further in silence before he broke out almost fiercely, "When I lost my best friend at Salamanca, my first thought was for her who by his death was left alone. When I came back after the peace I should have asked her, if I had dared, to live alone no longer, but to come and live with me. But I dared not, and went away again, dreading every day lest I might no longer find her alone when I came back. And now I am about accepting an appointment at the Cape and leaving her alone again, when God knows, all I care for in this world is to throw up my commission and stay with her—always, if she will let me. Eleanor, it is true—you are more than all the world to me. Tell me, shall I go or stay?"
Lady Eleanor flushed deeply but rode on in silence; and Colonel George added very gently:
"One word more; whatever your answer, remember that you can count upon me always for your faithful friend."
So they rode on without a word for some way further till they came to two rough tracks, of which one led to Fitzdenys Court and the other to Bracefort, where Colonel George pulled up and looked at her straight in the face.
"Is it go or stay?" he asked.
"Go now," she said with some difficulty; "come back,—not to-morrow, but when you return from visiting the hut on the day after."
"If I come back to you, I shall stay," he answered.
"Come back," she repeated, "but leave me for to-morrow; and now good-bye."
So she gave him her hand, and they went their different ways; but both stopped and looked back after they had gone a hundred yards, to the great surprise and disgust of their horses, who were impatient to get home.
But next morning Colonel George received a hurried note from Lady Eleanor saying she had been disturbed in the night by the sound of footsteps on the gravel by the house; and that, though she could see nothing at the time, the maids on opening the door had found the drummer's coat lying on the step. She therefore feared that something was gone wrong and begged Colonel Fitzdenys, despite his promise, to ride up to the hut on the moor without delay.
Of course the colonel started off at once, and when he caught sight of the hut he noticed that the goats were unmilked and bleating pitifully round the door. As he drew nearer, the jackdaw and magpie came hopping out, cawing with mouths wide open; and then he jumped off his horse, tied him up, and knocked with his whip against the pole which formed the door-post. There was no answer, and he went in. The idiot was lying as he had seen him on the previous day, but the troubled look was gone from his face; and across him with her head close to his lay his mother, while the squirrel with his little bright eyes was sitting up by the heads of both. The woman's skirts were dripping wet, as though she had walked through dewy grass, and she lay quite still. The colonel laid his hand on the man's forehead; and it was quite cold. Then he took the woman's hand and that also was cold. He had seen such sights too often in the wars to be dismayed at finding himself alone with the dead. "He must have died at sunset," he said to himself, "and she walked over to Bracefort in the night in distraction and came back to die before sunrise. No wonder, after such a strain as carrying him all those miles." He left the two where they lay, and was about to put the door in its place and go; but the goats clamoured so loud that he stopped to milk them, which he had learned to do in India, and finding the meat that he had brought on the previous day untouched in the basket, he gave some scraps to the magpie and the jackdaw, and ferreted about till he had discovered some nuts in the hut for the squirrel. Then he set the door in its place and rode straight for Bracefort.
When he reached the hill-top he saw some one riding upward; and galloping down soon found himself face to face with Lady Eleanor. In spite of what she had said on the day before she seemed very happy to see him twenty-four hours earlier than she had appointed, and it was not for some minutes that they came to the matter which had brought them together again. Then Colonel George told her what he had seen at the hut, though he found it hard to tell her anything so sad at such a time. She listened with many tears, but when she had recovered herself somewhat, she told Colonel George that there was one person more who must hear the story of Lucy Dart at once.
So when they came to Bracefort they went to see old Sally Dart, who had become weaker again in the last few days, and had taken to her bed. She brightened up as they came in, and before either of them could say a word, bade them, as if she knew for what they were come, to tell them about her Jan. So they told her how he had fallen in fair fight with the French, among the rear-guard, which had covered itself with glory in the retreat; and she said that it was well. And they told her how Lucy his wife had stuck to him faithfully through all the hardship of war, that she had carried his boy to the end, when men were dying all round of fatigue and despair, and had brought him out alive, by her patience and courage, though injured for life; and that she had devoted herself wholly to him in the years that followed and died from grief when he died. They kept back from her any more than this lest they should grieve her, but old Sally was satisfied without asking questions, for which indeed she had little strength, but said that it was well, and that she would now go in peace. Then she wished them both good-bye and hoped they might live long and happily together, though they had told her nothing of what had passed between themselves; and those were the last words that she spoke, for she was stricken for the second time that evening and after lingering for a day and a night departed in peace, as she had said.
So there were three graves dug in the little churchyard; and grandmother, mother and son were buried together, so that the mourners for old Sally did honour also to the two whom they had treated as outcasts. The goats, the old pony, the magpie, the jackdaw and the squirrel were all brought down at the same time and made over to Elsie; and the little drummer's coat still lies in the glass case at Bracefort Hall.
But it was all many, many years ago; and there are few now living in Ashacombe village who remember to have heard from their parents the story of the witch of Cossacombe. There are many more monuments now in the churches both at Ashacombe and Fitzdenys than there were then; but those who read from them of George, Lord Fitzdenys, who fought in the Peninsula, at Waterloo, and at Maheidpore, and of Eleanor his beloved wife, think little or know nothing of the manner in which they were brought together. Still less do they know of the part played in the matter by John Brimacott, sometime of the Light Dragoons, who died in their household after forty years of good and faithful service. Those again who read an inscription to the memory of General Sir Richard Bracefort, Colonel of the 116th Lancers, who fought in the Punjaub, cannot tell that this was once little Dick, who was lost on the moor, nor that Elizabeth his widowed sister, whose memory also is preserved in Ashacombe church, was once little Elsie who was lost with him. But folks still pause to look at the tablet which records the death of Private John Dart in the retreat to Corunna, and of Lucy his wife, who after his fall carried her son of nine years old to the British ships, and having devoted the rest of her life to the care of him, who by God's visitation could take no care for himself, was found dead upon his body when he died.
THE END