Part 3, Chapter X.

Part 3, Chapter X.Two, or Three?Godfrey had come to Waynflete Vicarage for a couple of nights, to make his final arrangements as to the timber. He was walking along the lane at the top of Flete Wood, in the dusk of this misty evening, when he heard an angry bark, and then a howl as of a dog in distress.“That’s surely Rawdie,” he thought. “What can bring Guy down there?”He hurried on to a point in the lane, where the fall of the ground made the river and the bridge visible, and looked down through the gathering dusk.He saw figures on the bridge; whose, and how many he could not tell; but there was evidently a struggle in the middle. Was it a fight—or was one dragging or guiding the other? Were there two—orthree? He gazed for a moment, puzzled and uncertain, then the bridge and the figures swung and reeled before his eyes, there was a noise of crashing timber, then a tremendous splash, and bridge and figures disappeared into the water.Godfrey gave a great shout and call, as he sprang over the wall, and dashed headlong down the slope, over rock and wood and thicket, till he came to the edge of the river.The great pool under the bridge was all stirred and seething with broken timber. Godfrey could see nothing else at first; but in a moment he caught sight of something like a human form. He jumped into the water. It was hardly out of his depth; but the floating, cracking timber made the greatest caution needful, and it was a minute or two before he could grip the collar of the man seen, and drag him towards the shore. It was Jem Outhwaite, dripping, shaking, choking with water, not absolutely senseless, but quite unable to help himself, as only by the exertion of all his great strength, the powerful Godfrey managed to tug him towards a shallow place, and pull him ashore.“Who else—who else?” gasped Godfrey, breathlessly; but Jem was quite incapable of speech, and only cried feebly.Godfrey pushed him on to a safe place, and stepped again into the pool. The water was very cold, and the planks and rails of the bridge were drifting and knocking about in the current, so that Godfrey had to be most careful in the uncertain light to feel his way among the timbers as he waded through the water. As it was, he tore his clothes and bruised his shoulders. He turned towards the relics of the bridge, and there, caught in the timbers, lay Guy, face upwards, swaying with the swaying piles.Godfrey pushed his way near, and got his arms round him; but he was afraid of bringing down the whole fabric by one incautious movement. He raised Guy’s head against his shoulder, when a voice close above him said, clearly—“I think I can help you. This first piece of plank is firm. Can we lift him on to it?”He looked up. Constancy was standing on the planks of the broken bridge. Her steady eyes were looking down, her firm hand was stretched out.Godfrey leant his shoulder against the still standing stake, and held Guy more firmly.“No,” he said, steadily. “I can’t lift him from below, and you couldn’t do it. Listen. Go back to the shore, cross over the pebbles where the water is shallow above, then run to the Dragon and get help.”She went without an instant’s delay, calling in loud clear tones as she went, tones that echoed through the wood and penetrated to the garden gate of old Peggy’s cottage, where Florella stood straining her eyes into the darkness. The next thing for her, when Guy left her, had been to go back to the old woman, to tell her cheerfully that Mr Guy was going to see Jem home, so that there was no need to worry herself about him.“Eh then, hinny,” groaned Peggy, “bide till they coom, and mak yersell a coop a tay, for it’s weary wark waiting, though they’ll noan be lang getting ower t’ brig.”Florella—such is life—looked at her watch to see how much time there remained before dinner, and, finding that she had an hour to spare, proceeded to boil the kettle and make the tea, while Peggy praised her handiness, and took her tea with pleasure, as she sat in her old wooden chair by the fire. She looked quite cheerful and absorbed in the present; while on Florella’s mind pressed a weight of fear. Her hands were cold, she could not swallow the tea. Yet what was there to be afraid of?“Eh,” said Peggy, with a chuckle, “t’ owd gen’leman’ll meet his match wi’ twa on em. Gae oot till t’ gate, honey, and see if they’re coomin’ up t’ path.”Florella went gladly. She stood at the gate, and strained her ears and eyes. Surely the water rushed noisily below, surely there were sounds of—something. Suddenly there was a loud, clear call, in a woman’s voice.“Cooey—cooey.”No one in Waynflete but Constancy could have uttered that call, and Florella answered it with another, then flew down the path towards the bridge, just as a man ran down the field from the opposite side. She saw this man plunge into the water, and fight his way towards the ruin of the bridge. Then in the dusk she saw him reach another figure staggering under a weight. Slowly and with difficulty they reached the shore, and laid their heavy burden down.“Eh!” cried the new-comer; “Eh—Lord a’ mercy on us. Eh! It’s Mr Guy, drooned dead!”Then Florella knew of what she had been afraid.She could never clearly recall what next happened. The news of the catastrophe suddenly spread, so that, as it seemed, a crowd came up. Constancy’s clear voice, self-possessed and resolute, sounded through the confusion.“He had better be carried to the Hall; it is much nearer than the Vicarage, and I will run on and make ready.”Rougher tones close by, as some one shook poor Jem by the shoulder.“Coom, man, coom; coom till mither. Nay, tha bain’t droonded yet.”Then Constancy again, as she went away.“Flo, you had better run on first, and prepare the poor old woman.”They had lifted Guy up, and were carrying him away, and the fleet-footed Constancy was far ahead, before her words had penetrated Florella’s brain. Then she climbed up the hill to the cottage, where she found neighbours gathering, and close behind her came Jem, hauled along by a friend, dripping and scared, but alive, and able to swallow, as a friendly neighbour poured hot drink down his throat.“T’ owd gen’leman’d a thrawed me in t’ watter, but Mr Guy thrawed ’un in instead, and t’ brig smashed,” was his story.“Eh, eh!” said Peggy; “he’s got ’is death, and Mr Guy, too. Eh! they can baith lig in t’ new kirkyard, and me alongside on ’em.”There was nothing for Florella to do, and she fled from this grotesque presentment of the mystic horror that haunted her. As she came up to the Hall, the doctor tore past her in his gig, having happily been caught close at hand. Guy had been carried upstairs, and Mrs John Palmer, flurried, but full of kindness, was saying—“Oh yes, Cosy; yes, you were quite right, my dear. So much more appropriate that he should die under this roof.”Florella came in, and sat down in the lamp-lit drawing-room.“Is he dead?” she said, in a slow, dull voice.“They don’t know,” said Constancy. “We’d better see that they have plenty of hot blankets, and what’s wanted.”She went off to the kitchen; but Florella sat, stupid and helpless, it seemed to her, for hours.Then there were voices in the hall, and then the sound of the gig driving off at full speed. Still Florella never moved, till Mrs Palmer came in.“The vicar’s gone in the gig to get dry things for Godfrey; he won’t leave his brother.”“Then Guy isn’t dead?” said Florella, composedly.“No; just breathing. He was caught in the timber so that his head was above water. It’s the shock to the heart that has done it. But he isn’t gone—yet.”Then Florella came to herself with a shock that was like the stab of a knife. The room swayed and darkened, and she barely kept her senses; but in a moment the life forces seemed to come back again with pain and anguish, but clear and ready for action.“I’ll go and help Cosy,” she said.Mrs Palmer had an effective maid, who was able to carry out the doctor’s directions, and the other women prepared what was needed, till the news came downstairs that the long fainting-fit had yielded at last, and Guy was able to swallow, and had moved and opened his eyes, though without any sign of recognition.“The doctor would stay for the night, and every one not wanted had better go to bed.”“Godfrey sits there, at the foot of the bed, like a big dog,” said the vicar, as he came downstairs. “He’s no earthly good, but he won’t stir.”When Godfrey, pale with that long, mute watch, and not daring to take hope from the mere fact that his brother still lived, at last went down to breakfast, there by the table sat Constancy, holding Rawdie on her knee, and feeding him with bits of chicken.“Oh,” she said, “this poor little darling must have been in the wood all night. See, his paw is hurt; he came crying to the door this morning.”“Let me take him to Guy,” said Godfrey, eagerly. “He might notice him—he has never come to himself.”“Not till you have had some breakfast,” said Cosy, with brisk decision. “The first principle of nursing is to take care of yourself.”Godfrey was not capable just then of going back to first principles; but to be taken care of by Constancy was something new, and his spirit revived as she poured out coffee for him, and cut bread, and insisted on his eating his breakfast. Presently the others came down, and the vicar, who had been out, came back, and the story of the accident was pieced together.Florella had to tell how Guy had gone to fetch Jem Outhwaite back to his mother.“So good-natured of him,” said Mrs Palmer.Godfrey had heard Rawdie howl before anything had happened, and Constancy, being out in the wood, had heard his shout for help when he came down to the river.“Old Cowperthwaite’s in a fright,” said the vicar. “He confesses that he had been used to keep ‘t’ owd brig’ repaired for his customers; but that since his notice, he’d let it alone. But I don’t see now why it smashed so completely.”“Nor I,” said Godfrey. “I looked, and saw two or three figures—I couldn’t count in the mist—struggling. Of course it was Guy dragging Jem over. But I thought I saw three.”“Jem is wandering, and off his head,” said the vicar. “He says ‘t’ owd Guy’ tried to throw him in.”Godfrey looked very much startled; his colour changed, but he did not speak; and soon the question rose as to what next.He must telegraph at once to Ingleby, and also he said, faltering, “If—if Guy—he would want Cuthbert Staunton.”Mrs Palmer begged him to telegraph at once, and the doctor’s view was that they had better wait a few hours, and—see how things went, before doing anything more.Florella heard, as in a dream. A numb dullness was on her spirit. Constancy came and told how Rawdie had been taken upstairs, and that Godfrey thought Guy had moved and touched him.“Poor little dog!” said Florella.Then Constancy, with unwonted confidence, told, in hushed accents, the story of her escape at Zwei-brücken, of her sense of the finality of death, and of Guy’s words, “There is something beyond.”“Heknewit,” Constancy said, in her strong, emphatic tones.But even this did not stir Florella’s soul; she wanted somethingnow.Late in the evening, Cuthbert Staunton arrived, full of anxious concern, and it fell to Florella to give him supper, and to answer his questions as to what had happened. She went through it all, in a matter-of-fact voice; but she knew that Cuthbert knew what it all implied.There was a little silence, and then she suddenly said—“It has been all in vain!”Then Cuthbert leant over the corner of the table, and laid his hand on hers; she seemed to him so young and lonely in her despair.“My dear,” he said, in his kind voice, “he would not think so Very strange things have passed; but though I don’t see them quite as he does, he has made as noble a struggle as man ever made. And hehasconquered. He has mastered his weakness, and risen above it. It is a thing never to be forgotten. Even if we lose him—as may be—as may be—I cannot think—I cannot think, Florella, that he will lose himself. And—I think you must not fail him now. The conditions of the fight are very mysterious, and I could not say that our courage may make no difference to him. His perceptions are keener than ours.”“I’llnotfail him,” said Florella, with a light in her eyes. “I’ll fight it out too.”She went up to her room, and knelt down by the bed, and fought as hard a fight with her own soul as ever Guy had waged with his.If her thoughts could affect his, if her will could share in the struggle, she must not will for him a lesser thing than he had willed for himself. She would not pray only that Guy might live and not die; but that, at all costs, his work might be carried through, his victory completed. She must give him as he gave himself. She prayed the prayer of faith with all her waking will; but when at last, exhausted, she fell asleep, in her dreams she prayed that he might be given back to life.

Godfrey had come to Waynflete Vicarage for a couple of nights, to make his final arrangements as to the timber. He was walking along the lane at the top of Flete Wood, in the dusk of this misty evening, when he heard an angry bark, and then a howl as of a dog in distress.

“That’s surely Rawdie,” he thought. “What can bring Guy down there?”

He hurried on to a point in the lane, where the fall of the ground made the river and the bridge visible, and looked down through the gathering dusk.

He saw figures on the bridge; whose, and how many he could not tell; but there was evidently a struggle in the middle. Was it a fight—or was one dragging or guiding the other? Were there two—orthree? He gazed for a moment, puzzled and uncertain, then the bridge and the figures swung and reeled before his eyes, there was a noise of crashing timber, then a tremendous splash, and bridge and figures disappeared into the water.

Godfrey gave a great shout and call, as he sprang over the wall, and dashed headlong down the slope, over rock and wood and thicket, till he came to the edge of the river.

The great pool under the bridge was all stirred and seething with broken timber. Godfrey could see nothing else at first; but in a moment he caught sight of something like a human form. He jumped into the water. It was hardly out of his depth; but the floating, cracking timber made the greatest caution needful, and it was a minute or two before he could grip the collar of the man seen, and drag him towards the shore. It was Jem Outhwaite, dripping, shaking, choking with water, not absolutely senseless, but quite unable to help himself, as only by the exertion of all his great strength, the powerful Godfrey managed to tug him towards a shallow place, and pull him ashore.

“Who else—who else?” gasped Godfrey, breathlessly; but Jem was quite incapable of speech, and only cried feebly.

Godfrey pushed him on to a safe place, and stepped again into the pool. The water was very cold, and the planks and rails of the bridge were drifting and knocking about in the current, so that Godfrey had to be most careful in the uncertain light to feel his way among the timbers as he waded through the water. As it was, he tore his clothes and bruised his shoulders. He turned towards the relics of the bridge, and there, caught in the timbers, lay Guy, face upwards, swaying with the swaying piles.

Godfrey pushed his way near, and got his arms round him; but he was afraid of bringing down the whole fabric by one incautious movement. He raised Guy’s head against his shoulder, when a voice close above him said, clearly—

“I think I can help you. This first piece of plank is firm. Can we lift him on to it?”

He looked up. Constancy was standing on the planks of the broken bridge. Her steady eyes were looking down, her firm hand was stretched out.

Godfrey leant his shoulder against the still standing stake, and held Guy more firmly.

“No,” he said, steadily. “I can’t lift him from below, and you couldn’t do it. Listen. Go back to the shore, cross over the pebbles where the water is shallow above, then run to the Dragon and get help.”

She went without an instant’s delay, calling in loud clear tones as she went, tones that echoed through the wood and penetrated to the garden gate of old Peggy’s cottage, where Florella stood straining her eyes into the darkness. The next thing for her, when Guy left her, had been to go back to the old woman, to tell her cheerfully that Mr Guy was going to see Jem home, so that there was no need to worry herself about him.

“Eh then, hinny,” groaned Peggy, “bide till they coom, and mak yersell a coop a tay, for it’s weary wark waiting, though they’ll noan be lang getting ower t’ brig.”

Florella—such is life—looked at her watch to see how much time there remained before dinner, and, finding that she had an hour to spare, proceeded to boil the kettle and make the tea, while Peggy praised her handiness, and took her tea with pleasure, as she sat in her old wooden chair by the fire. She looked quite cheerful and absorbed in the present; while on Florella’s mind pressed a weight of fear. Her hands were cold, she could not swallow the tea. Yet what was there to be afraid of?

“Eh,” said Peggy, with a chuckle, “t’ owd gen’leman’ll meet his match wi’ twa on em. Gae oot till t’ gate, honey, and see if they’re coomin’ up t’ path.”

Florella went gladly. She stood at the gate, and strained her ears and eyes. Surely the water rushed noisily below, surely there were sounds of—something. Suddenly there was a loud, clear call, in a woman’s voice.

“Cooey—cooey.”

No one in Waynflete but Constancy could have uttered that call, and Florella answered it with another, then flew down the path towards the bridge, just as a man ran down the field from the opposite side. She saw this man plunge into the water, and fight his way towards the ruin of the bridge. Then in the dusk she saw him reach another figure staggering under a weight. Slowly and with difficulty they reached the shore, and laid their heavy burden down.

“Eh!” cried the new-comer; “Eh—Lord a’ mercy on us. Eh! It’s Mr Guy, drooned dead!”

Then Florella knew of what she had been afraid.

She could never clearly recall what next happened. The news of the catastrophe suddenly spread, so that, as it seemed, a crowd came up. Constancy’s clear voice, self-possessed and resolute, sounded through the confusion.

“He had better be carried to the Hall; it is much nearer than the Vicarage, and I will run on and make ready.”

Rougher tones close by, as some one shook poor Jem by the shoulder.

“Coom, man, coom; coom till mither. Nay, tha bain’t droonded yet.”

Then Constancy again, as she went away.

“Flo, you had better run on first, and prepare the poor old woman.”

They had lifted Guy up, and were carrying him away, and the fleet-footed Constancy was far ahead, before her words had penetrated Florella’s brain. Then she climbed up the hill to the cottage, where she found neighbours gathering, and close behind her came Jem, hauled along by a friend, dripping and scared, but alive, and able to swallow, as a friendly neighbour poured hot drink down his throat.

“T’ owd gen’leman’d a thrawed me in t’ watter, but Mr Guy thrawed ’un in instead, and t’ brig smashed,” was his story.

“Eh, eh!” said Peggy; “he’s got ’is death, and Mr Guy, too. Eh! they can baith lig in t’ new kirkyard, and me alongside on ’em.”

There was nothing for Florella to do, and she fled from this grotesque presentment of the mystic horror that haunted her. As she came up to the Hall, the doctor tore past her in his gig, having happily been caught close at hand. Guy had been carried upstairs, and Mrs John Palmer, flurried, but full of kindness, was saying—

“Oh yes, Cosy; yes, you were quite right, my dear. So much more appropriate that he should die under this roof.”

Florella came in, and sat down in the lamp-lit drawing-room.

“Is he dead?” she said, in a slow, dull voice.

“They don’t know,” said Constancy. “We’d better see that they have plenty of hot blankets, and what’s wanted.”

She went off to the kitchen; but Florella sat, stupid and helpless, it seemed to her, for hours.

Then there were voices in the hall, and then the sound of the gig driving off at full speed. Still Florella never moved, till Mrs Palmer came in.

“The vicar’s gone in the gig to get dry things for Godfrey; he won’t leave his brother.”

“Then Guy isn’t dead?” said Florella, composedly.

“No; just breathing. He was caught in the timber so that his head was above water. It’s the shock to the heart that has done it. But he isn’t gone—yet.”

Then Florella came to herself with a shock that was like the stab of a knife. The room swayed and darkened, and she barely kept her senses; but in a moment the life forces seemed to come back again with pain and anguish, but clear and ready for action.

“I’ll go and help Cosy,” she said.

Mrs Palmer had an effective maid, who was able to carry out the doctor’s directions, and the other women prepared what was needed, till the news came downstairs that the long fainting-fit had yielded at last, and Guy was able to swallow, and had moved and opened his eyes, though without any sign of recognition.

“The doctor would stay for the night, and every one not wanted had better go to bed.”

“Godfrey sits there, at the foot of the bed, like a big dog,” said the vicar, as he came downstairs. “He’s no earthly good, but he won’t stir.”

When Godfrey, pale with that long, mute watch, and not daring to take hope from the mere fact that his brother still lived, at last went down to breakfast, there by the table sat Constancy, holding Rawdie on her knee, and feeding him with bits of chicken.

“Oh,” she said, “this poor little darling must have been in the wood all night. See, his paw is hurt; he came crying to the door this morning.”

“Let me take him to Guy,” said Godfrey, eagerly. “He might notice him—he has never come to himself.”

“Not till you have had some breakfast,” said Cosy, with brisk decision. “The first principle of nursing is to take care of yourself.”

Godfrey was not capable just then of going back to first principles; but to be taken care of by Constancy was something new, and his spirit revived as she poured out coffee for him, and cut bread, and insisted on his eating his breakfast. Presently the others came down, and the vicar, who had been out, came back, and the story of the accident was pieced together.

Florella had to tell how Guy had gone to fetch Jem Outhwaite back to his mother.

“So good-natured of him,” said Mrs Palmer.

Godfrey had heard Rawdie howl before anything had happened, and Constancy, being out in the wood, had heard his shout for help when he came down to the river.

“Old Cowperthwaite’s in a fright,” said the vicar. “He confesses that he had been used to keep ‘t’ owd brig’ repaired for his customers; but that since his notice, he’d let it alone. But I don’t see now why it smashed so completely.”

“Nor I,” said Godfrey. “I looked, and saw two or three figures—I couldn’t count in the mist—struggling. Of course it was Guy dragging Jem over. But I thought I saw three.”

“Jem is wandering, and off his head,” said the vicar. “He says ‘t’ owd Guy’ tried to throw him in.”

Godfrey looked very much startled; his colour changed, but he did not speak; and soon the question rose as to what next.

He must telegraph at once to Ingleby, and also he said, faltering, “If—if Guy—he would want Cuthbert Staunton.”

Mrs Palmer begged him to telegraph at once, and the doctor’s view was that they had better wait a few hours, and—see how things went, before doing anything more.

Florella heard, as in a dream. A numb dullness was on her spirit. Constancy came and told how Rawdie had been taken upstairs, and that Godfrey thought Guy had moved and touched him.

“Poor little dog!” said Florella.

Then Constancy, with unwonted confidence, told, in hushed accents, the story of her escape at Zwei-brücken, of her sense of the finality of death, and of Guy’s words, “There is something beyond.”

“Heknewit,” Constancy said, in her strong, emphatic tones.

But even this did not stir Florella’s soul; she wanted somethingnow.

Late in the evening, Cuthbert Staunton arrived, full of anxious concern, and it fell to Florella to give him supper, and to answer his questions as to what had happened. She went through it all, in a matter-of-fact voice; but she knew that Cuthbert knew what it all implied.

There was a little silence, and then she suddenly said—

“It has been all in vain!”

Then Cuthbert leant over the corner of the table, and laid his hand on hers; she seemed to him so young and lonely in her despair.

“My dear,” he said, in his kind voice, “he would not think so Very strange things have passed; but though I don’t see them quite as he does, he has made as noble a struggle as man ever made. And hehasconquered. He has mastered his weakness, and risen above it. It is a thing never to be forgotten. Even if we lose him—as may be—as may be—I cannot think—I cannot think, Florella, that he will lose himself. And—I think you must not fail him now. The conditions of the fight are very mysterious, and I could not say that our courage may make no difference to him. His perceptions are keener than ours.”

“I’llnotfail him,” said Florella, with a light in her eyes. “I’ll fight it out too.”

She went up to her room, and knelt down by the bed, and fought as hard a fight with her own soul as ever Guy had waged with his.

If her thoughts could affect his, if her will could share in the struggle, she must not will for him a lesser thing than he had willed for himself. She would not pray only that Guy might live and not die; but that, at all costs, his work might be carried through, his victory completed. She must give him as he gave himself. She prayed the prayer of faith with all her waking will; but when at last, exhausted, she fell asleep, in her dreams she prayed that he might be given back to life.

Part 3, Chapter XI.Waynflete of Waynflete.And Guy did not die. At first he lay in a state of collapse, hardly kept alive from hour to hour, silent, motionless, and apparently unconscious of all around him; but gradually there was some slight improvement, now and then a response by word or look, more power of taking food, and a stronger pulse.At last, about a week after the accident, on a calm sunny day, when Cuthbert was with him alone, he lay with open eyes, watching the window.“Cuthbert!” he said suddenly.“Yes,” said Cuthbert, quietly. “What is it? Want something?”“Help me up, please. I want to look out of the window.”They were the old imperative tones, and Cuthbert cautiously put his arm round him, and raised him a little. Guy looked out at the sunny garden, at the wooded hills, all round the room, and then up into Cuthbert’s face.“Yes!” he said, “I thought so. The spectre’sgone.”“That’s a good thing,” said Cuthbert; “but now you must be very still and quiet. Lie back again. You’re much better.”“How’s Jem?” said Guy, after a minute.“Well, he had a chill, you know; but he’s safe at home with his mother.”“Oh,” said Guy, with a long breath, “the room looks so nice and natural! I’ve been looking at it for hours!” Then, “Don’t have that bridge mended. It must be in a new place.”“You recollect all about its being broken?” said Cuthbert.“Oh yes; I recollect everything. But I had to rest. I’vereallyrested.”“Go on resting,” said Cuthbert, quietly.But Guy was always a surprising person. He came back to life with a suddenness and a vigour that, as the doctor said, showed “almost abnormal rallying power.” He was not allowed to move for fear of the least strain on his heart; but he was awake to everything, and soon made Godfrey lift him on to a sofa by the window, “to look at the world;” and his delight in so looking showed how the world had been recently spoiled for him. He was soon downstairs, in the garden, out for a drive; every step in recovery was achieved before any one thought he was ready for it, and each new enterprise seemed more enjoyable to him than the last.The tension which had held the whole household on the stretch, relaxed. Preparations for the ceremony on Michaelmas Day were pushed forward with cheerful alacrity, and Guy took his own presence at it as a matter of course.The wreck of the broken bridge was cleared away, and orders were given for a new one to be built of rough stone, nearer to the Dragon; while a different turn was to be given to the footpath.“It was,” said Guy, “more convenient.”Old Cooper, unable to endure his anxiety any longer, arrived one day in the Rilston fly to satisfy himself as to Mr Guy’s condition. He found Guy able to welcome him warmly, to ask searching questions as to what had been done during his illness, and to promise a speedy return to Ingleby.“That’s well, Mr Guy,” said the old man. “We’ve made a fair year’s work of it at the mill, and it would be a pity if ye were cut off just as the business is looking up again.”“I’ve got to thank you for giving me a start in the right direction,” said Guy, with meaning.“Eh, sir,” said Cooper; “ye’ve done more than your aunt expected of you, and we’ll all be glad to see you at work again. I’m glad to have seen the place that the old lady set her heart on; but it’s but a lonesome situation. And you seem to have been far from fortunate in crossing yon beck.”“Unlucky!” said Guy, as Godfrey went to show the old manager out, and left him alone with Staunton. “I can but wonder at my great good fortune. I was so sure that I was going to my death, that my life was the price I had to pay, that I can’t believe that I shall live; that I’ve come off scot-free for a ducking—so far.”“Why, my dear boy, it was touch and go,” said Cuthbert.“Ay. It was so queer to feel no contact myself with the terror, and to see poor Jem in the throes of the struggle. And he put me back, and went to face him first.” Here Guy faltered, and almost broke down. “He won the battle. But then, on the bridge—you’ll say I was faint, and felt the dead weight of Jem—there was nothing; but, well—people talk of the powers of the air. I could not stir—an inch. Then Jem yelled out, and I got loose, and the bridge cracked—no wonder!—I woke up here by degrees. I knew when you came and held my hand, and when Rawdie licked my face; but I couldn’t do a thing. I had tostop. And now to be alive—and alone!”“Thank God, my boy, it’s all over.”“Yes, I thank God,” said Guy. Then he added, quietly, “It doesn’t matter how much of it has been what you call natural, or what caused the horror that poor Jem burlesqued. I hadto fight. It’s true enough—all temptations are common to man. I might have been as he is. Now, Cuthbert, let the rest be silence. I shall never speak of these things again. Believe me, theyareall over. But, a thousand times I thank you.”He looked up, and Cuthbert saw the conflict and the victory, both in his face.The shadow, if shadow it could be called, was the fading out of life of poor Jem Outhwaite. Less ill at first than Guy, he had no vitality to resist the shock and chill he had received. He had one word more to say about the crossing of the bridge, when his poor feeble soul had put forth its one flower of courage, and he had tried to take the post of danger.“Ay, sir,” he said, in his cracked voice, to all the vicar’s words of comfort and hope.But, when Guy came at the very last to see him, he looked up in his face with a smile that was not foolish, and said—“We thrawed t’ owd gen’leman in to t’ watter,not he we.”His mother said that now her poor lad was safe, she could lie in her grave; but she never could have left him behind her. He was laid in the new churchyard, next to the grave of the old squire; and both, all barriers thrown down, awaited the consecrating words that would join their resting-places to those of their kindred and neighbours who rested in peace. Guy and Godfrey stood together at the head of his grave.Godfrey, through all the time of suspense, had fallen into the way of bringing all his hopes and fears to Constancy. She had hunted him out to take exercise, just as she trotted Rawdie, who had been a devoted nurse to his master, daily round the garden, and sacrificed the peace of the stable-cat’s life, that he might have the refreshment of chasing her up a tree. Now, after the funeral, as Guy lingered to look at the progress made in the church restoration since he had last seen it, Godfrey went back and found her, as he hoped, taking Rawdie for a walk on the lawn.It did not seem unusual when he began—“I’ve got something to ask you. Don’t you see how this place is like a part of Guy? Can’t you tell me how to make him see that that mere mistake must be undone? Itishis. If he would but call it so. It is never out of his thoughts.”“I think,” said Constancy, looking straight before her, “that it ought to be his. And I think you have done all you can to make up to him. And I think you are quite right to want to make up, and to care about it. And, I am ashamed of having said I did not think so. I was horrid and narrow and small. I always have been, ever since I played ghost for fun. I’m a ‘finished and finite clod, untroubled by a spark.’ That’s all.”“Oh, Constancy,” cried Godfrey, unheeding, if recognising, this apt quotation. “You know that I’ve been a brute to Guy, and an ass about myself. Thank Heaven, Jeanie threw me over; she’ll be married next month. I’m a mere duffer compared to you; but I love you with all my heart and soul, and if you would—”“Stop,” she said, with a kind of dignity; “you mustn’tmakeme.”She stood still, her face turned away. Once, when she had been asked what she would do with her life, she had answered, “Why,liveit, of course.” Would the life now offered her be really her own? The simple yielding of the ideal maiden, to whom the lover comes as a great god, with all the gifts of life in his hand, is not for such as she. She knew very well now, that it was “a big situation.”“Yes” was not easy to speak; but “No” was impossible.She turned towards him, pale, and with trembling lips.“I never thought I would,” she said; “but—but you’ve been somuchbetter than I have—all through—if you can’t be satisfied without me—we’d better try it—some day.”Rawdie was found, soon afterwards, sitting by himself in another part of the garden. He had retired with discretion.“And now, Guy,” said Godfrey, by-and-by, when his tale was told, and Guy, after more sympathetic congratulations, had dryly remarked that it was fortunate that Mr Van Brunt’s character and credit had proved above suspicion, “I want you to listen.“You know well enough which of us has carried on Aunt Waynflete’s purpose. You know what she really meant, and that this wretched will was a mere mistake. But for you, the business would have gone to the dogs, and this place to the hammer, or, perhaps, to the devil; for, remember, I’m your own flesh and blood, and I know what this last year has been as well as you. And I can be just as determined. I took an oath, and I’ll not break it. And, look here, that’s as much an inward prompting of my soul as ever you knew in yours. It’s my share of the work. Now, for once, you must give in.”“Yes, I will, Godfrey,” said Guy, “I’ll give in. And, my boy, I wouldn’t give the stoniest field in Waynflete for the finest estate in England; and I took it hard I hadn’t got it. I loved it from the first moment I saw it, and now—”For once Guy faltered, and could not finish, but by a great squeeze of Godfrey’s hand, though the next minute he said—“Mind, we’ll have to consider how to do it in a proper and legal manner. We’ll keep it quiet till that’s done.”“All right,” said Godfrey. “Aunt Waynflete would be satisfied now.”It was Michaelmas Eve, a lovely still day, without a leaf stirring. Florella was gathering Michaelmas daisies. Nobody thought much about her in these exciting days, and she did the odds and ends, and filled up the holes and corners. Suddenly a shadow fell on her flowers, and Guy’s voice said—“I want you to come with me to look at the picture.”“I’ll come,” she said, and they went slowly upstairs, and along the passage to the little octagon-room, flooded with autumn sunlight, and stood together in front of the picture.“How could I think it was like you?” she said.Guy smiled.“You know,” he said. “I think you know all. I owe you my very soul, and for that which you have done, no words are holy enough.”“It was not I!” she murmured.“It waswithyou, andthroughyou. God knows I could not have done without one help that came to me, Cuthbert Staunton—the hard work at the mill—even poor old Rawdie—I have been helped so much! And now, Florella, my body as well as my soul is free. I think that I shall never be a slave again. If my health holds out, if I can do man’s work in the world yet—when I have tested myself—will you let me come to you by-and-by? And, oh, Florella, my angel, my darling, will you be afraid to share my life then? Is it only pity you have for me? or is it— Can you love me, as well as help me?”“A great dealmore” said Florella, with half a sob. She stood for a moment, facing him with shining eyes. “I want you to take all myself—all there is of me,” she said, with a ring in her voice. “If—ifthatshould come again to you, it shall get throughmysoul first.”She hid her face on his breast; he held her in his arms, and, in the transfiguring sunlight, the sad eyes of the picture above their heads seemed at last to smile.When there is a Prologue to a story, it should have an Epilogue as well. Should this take the sound of wedding-bells, when Flete Dale smiled in the sunlight, when the murky woods were cut away, and the dreary noise of the restless horseman was heard no more, when friends filled the old house with rejoicing, and the good days of Waynflete were come?That would bring the story to a happy pause. But surely the true end of Guy Waynflete’s story, of the battle which every soul that is born into the world must fight, but which he waged under such strange conditions, is not here, but in that unseen world, where the souls of the old Waynfletes had gone before him, where the real issues of the battle are decided, where the real story began.There only, where the souls of the wicked, as well as of the righteous, are in the hand of God, can be gathered the fruits of Guy’s victory.The Epilogue of the story of Waynflete, as of all other stories, is elsewhere—is out of sight.The End.

And Guy did not die. At first he lay in a state of collapse, hardly kept alive from hour to hour, silent, motionless, and apparently unconscious of all around him; but gradually there was some slight improvement, now and then a response by word or look, more power of taking food, and a stronger pulse.

At last, about a week after the accident, on a calm sunny day, when Cuthbert was with him alone, he lay with open eyes, watching the window.

“Cuthbert!” he said suddenly.

“Yes,” said Cuthbert, quietly. “What is it? Want something?”

“Help me up, please. I want to look out of the window.”

They were the old imperative tones, and Cuthbert cautiously put his arm round him, and raised him a little. Guy looked out at the sunny garden, at the wooded hills, all round the room, and then up into Cuthbert’s face.

“Yes!” he said, “I thought so. The spectre’sgone.”

“That’s a good thing,” said Cuthbert; “but now you must be very still and quiet. Lie back again. You’re much better.”

“How’s Jem?” said Guy, after a minute.

“Well, he had a chill, you know; but he’s safe at home with his mother.”

“Oh,” said Guy, with a long breath, “the room looks so nice and natural! I’ve been looking at it for hours!” Then, “Don’t have that bridge mended. It must be in a new place.”

“You recollect all about its being broken?” said Cuthbert.

“Oh yes; I recollect everything. But I had to rest. I’vereallyrested.”

“Go on resting,” said Cuthbert, quietly.

But Guy was always a surprising person. He came back to life with a suddenness and a vigour that, as the doctor said, showed “almost abnormal rallying power.” He was not allowed to move for fear of the least strain on his heart; but he was awake to everything, and soon made Godfrey lift him on to a sofa by the window, “to look at the world;” and his delight in so looking showed how the world had been recently spoiled for him. He was soon downstairs, in the garden, out for a drive; every step in recovery was achieved before any one thought he was ready for it, and each new enterprise seemed more enjoyable to him than the last.

The tension which had held the whole household on the stretch, relaxed. Preparations for the ceremony on Michaelmas Day were pushed forward with cheerful alacrity, and Guy took his own presence at it as a matter of course.

The wreck of the broken bridge was cleared away, and orders were given for a new one to be built of rough stone, nearer to the Dragon; while a different turn was to be given to the footpath.

“It was,” said Guy, “more convenient.”

Old Cooper, unable to endure his anxiety any longer, arrived one day in the Rilston fly to satisfy himself as to Mr Guy’s condition. He found Guy able to welcome him warmly, to ask searching questions as to what had been done during his illness, and to promise a speedy return to Ingleby.

“That’s well, Mr Guy,” said the old man. “We’ve made a fair year’s work of it at the mill, and it would be a pity if ye were cut off just as the business is looking up again.”

“I’ve got to thank you for giving me a start in the right direction,” said Guy, with meaning.

“Eh, sir,” said Cooper; “ye’ve done more than your aunt expected of you, and we’ll all be glad to see you at work again. I’m glad to have seen the place that the old lady set her heart on; but it’s but a lonesome situation. And you seem to have been far from fortunate in crossing yon beck.”

“Unlucky!” said Guy, as Godfrey went to show the old manager out, and left him alone with Staunton. “I can but wonder at my great good fortune. I was so sure that I was going to my death, that my life was the price I had to pay, that I can’t believe that I shall live; that I’ve come off scot-free for a ducking—so far.”

“Why, my dear boy, it was touch and go,” said Cuthbert.

“Ay. It was so queer to feel no contact myself with the terror, and to see poor Jem in the throes of the struggle. And he put me back, and went to face him first.” Here Guy faltered, and almost broke down. “He won the battle. But then, on the bridge—you’ll say I was faint, and felt the dead weight of Jem—there was nothing; but, well—people talk of the powers of the air. I could not stir—an inch. Then Jem yelled out, and I got loose, and the bridge cracked—no wonder!—I woke up here by degrees. I knew when you came and held my hand, and when Rawdie licked my face; but I couldn’t do a thing. I had tostop. And now to be alive—and alone!”

“Thank God, my boy, it’s all over.”

“Yes, I thank God,” said Guy. Then he added, quietly, “It doesn’t matter how much of it has been what you call natural, or what caused the horror that poor Jem burlesqued. I hadto fight. It’s true enough—all temptations are common to man. I might have been as he is. Now, Cuthbert, let the rest be silence. I shall never speak of these things again. Believe me, theyareall over. But, a thousand times I thank you.”

He looked up, and Cuthbert saw the conflict and the victory, both in his face.

The shadow, if shadow it could be called, was the fading out of life of poor Jem Outhwaite. Less ill at first than Guy, he had no vitality to resist the shock and chill he had received. He had one word more to say about the crossing of the bridge, when his poor feeble soul had put forth its one flower of courage, and he had tried to take the post of danger.

“Ay, sir,” he said, in his cracked voice, to all the vicar’s words of comfort and hope.

But, when Guy came at the very last to see him, he looked up in his face with a smile that was not foolish, and said—

“We thrawed t’ owd gen’leman in to t’ watter,not he we.”

His mother said that now her poor lad was safe, she could lie in her grave; but she never could have left him behind her. He was laid in the new churchyard, next to the grave of the old squire; and both, all barriers thrown down, awaited the consecrating words that would join their resting-places to those of their kindred and neighbours who rested in peace. Guy and Godfrey stood together at the head of his grave.

Godfrey, through all the time of suspense, had fallen into the way of bringing all his hopes and fears to Constancy. She had hunted him out to take exercise, just as she trotted Rawdie, who had been a devoted nurse to his master, daily round the garden, and sacrificed the peace of the stable-cat’s life, that he might have the refreshment of chasing her up a tree. Now, after the funeral, as Guy lingered to look at the progress made in the church restoration since he had last seen it, Godfrey went back and found her, as he hoped, taking Rawdie for a walk on the lawn.

It did not seem unusual when he began—“I’ve got something to ask you. Don’t you see how this place is like a part of Guy? Can’t you tell me how to make him see that that mere mistake must be undone? Itishis. If he would but call it so. It is never out of his thoughts.”

“I think,” said Constancy, looking straight before her, “that it ought to be his. And I think you have done all you can to make up to him. And I think you are quite right to want to make up, and to care about it. And, I am ashamed of having said I did not think so. I was horrid and narrow and small. I always have been, ever since I played ghost for fun. I’m a ‘finished and finite clod, untroubled by a spark.’ That’s all.”

“Oh, Constancy,” cried Godfrey, unheeding, if recognising, this apt quotation. “You know that I’ve been a brute to Guy, and an ass about myself. Thank Heaven, Jeanie threw me over; she’ll be married next month. I’m a mere duffer compared to you; but I love you with all my heart and soul, and if you would—”

“Stop,” she said, with a kind of dignity; “you mustn’tmakeme.”

She stood still, her face turned away. Once, when she had been asked what she would do with her life, she had answered, “Why,liveit, of course.” Would the life now offered her be really her own? The simple yielding of the ideal maiden, to whom the lover comes as a great god, with all the gifts of life in his hand, is not for such as she. She knew very well now, that it was “a big situation.”

“Yes” was not easy to speak; but “No” was impossible.

She turned towards him, pale, and with trembling lips.

“I never thought I would,” she said; “but—but you’ve been somuchbetter than I have—all through—if you can’t be satisfied without me—we’d better try it—some day.”

Rawdie was found, soon afterwards, sitting by himself in another part of the garden. He had retired with discretion.

“And now, Guy,” said Godfrey, by-and-by, when his tale was told, and Guy, after more sympathetic congratulations, had dryly remarked that it was fortunate that Mr Van Brunt’s character and credit had proved above suspicion, “I want you to listen.

“You know well enough which of us has carried on Aunt Waynflete’s purpose. You know what she really meant, and that this wretched will was a mere mistake. But for you, the business would have gone to the dogs, and this place to the hammer, or, perhaps, to the devil; for, remember, I’m your own flesh and blood, and I know what this last year has been as well as you. And I can be just as determined. I took an oath, and I’ll not break it. And, look here, that’s as much an inward prompting of my soul as ever you knew in yours. It’s my share of the work. Now, for once, you must give in.”

“Yes, I will, Godfrey,” said Guy, “I’ll give in. And, my boy, I wouldn’t give the stoniest field in Waynflete for the finest estate in England; and I took it hard I hadn’t got it. I loved it from the first moment I saw it, and now—”

For once Guy faltered, and could not finish, but by a great squeeze of Godfrey’s hand, though the next minute he said—

“Mind, we’ll have to consider how to do it in a proper and legal manner. We’ll keep it quiet till that’s done.”

“All right,” said Godfrey. “Aunt Waynflete would be satisfied now.”

It was Michaelmas Eve, a lovely still day, without a leaf stirring. Florella was gathering Michaelmas daisies. Nobody thought much about her in these exciting days, and she did the odds and ends, and filled up the holes and corners. Suddenly a shadow fell on her flowers, and Guy’s voice said—

“I want you to come with me to look at the picture.”

“I’ll come,” she said, and they went slowly upstairs, and along the passage to the little octagon-room, flooded with autumn sunlight, and stood together in front of the picture.

“How could I think it was like you?” she said.

Guy smiled.

“You know,” he said. “I think you know all. I owe you my very soul, and for that which you have done, no words are holy enough.”

“It was not I!” she murmured.

“It waswithyou, andthroughyou. God knows I could not have done without one help that came to me, Cuthbert Staunton—the hard work at the mill—even poor old Rawdie—I have been helped so much! And now, Florella, my body as well as my soul is free. I think that I shall never be a slave again. If my health holds out, if I can do man’s work in the world yet—when I have tested myself—will you let me come to you by-and-by? And, oh, Florella, my angel, my darling, will you be afraid to share my life then? Is it only pity you have for me? or is it— Can you love me, as well as help me?”

“A great dealmore” said Florella, with half a sob. She stood for a moment, facing him with shining eyes. “I want you to take all myself—all there is of me,” she said, with a ring in her voice. “If—ifthatshould come again to you, it shall get throughmysoul first.”

She hid her face on his breast; he held her in his arms, and, in the transfiguring sunlight, the sad eyes of the picture above their heads seemed at last to smile.

When there is a Prologue to a story, it should have an Epilogue as well. Should this take the sound of wedding-bells, when Flete Dale smiled in the sunlight, when the murky woods were cut away, and the dreary noise of the restless horseman was heard no more, when friends filled the old house with rejoicing, and the good days of Waynflete were come?

That would bring the story to a happy pause. But surely the true end of Guy Waynflete’s story, of the battle which every soul that is born into the world must fight, but which he waged under such strange conditions, is not here, but in that unseen world, where the souls of the old Waynfletes had gone before him, where the real issues of the battle are decided, where the real story began.

There only, where the souls of the wicked, as well as of the righteous, are in the hand of God, can be gathered the fruits of Guy’s victory.

The Epilogue of the story of Waynflete, as of all other stories, is elsewhere—is out of sight.

The End.

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