Then I heard a slight movement and the sound of a yawn, and, looking towards the large settle by the side of the hearth, saw my old acquaintance, the innkeeper, evidently aroused by my knocking from a sound sleep, rubbing his eyes and stiffly getting to his feet.
Much astonished he looked when he saw who his visitor was, as he did not know I had come down to the yacht, and certainly was not accustomed to such early rising on my part.
His first words gave me a cold feeling of apprehension, for on recognising me he said--
"Oh, sir, I am glad you are here; perhaps you will be able to help us in this dreadful business."
"What dreadful business?" I said, sharply enough, for I feared his answer, and dared not ask a more direct question, for the thought of the sweet girl I had left behind in the _Thelma_, and the news it seemed I was to take back to her, was almost too much for me.
"Dear, dear, haven"t you heard, sir?" went on the old man, thoroughly awake now in his eagerness to impart the news. "There"s that poor, dear Miss Burfield, the sweetest young lady as ever I knew, gone floating down the river last night in the fog all alone, and goodness knows what has become of her, poor dear, by now--and her young brother, too, wet through as he was, gone off with the gentleman from yonder wherry in a boat to look for her, hours ago--and a poor chance of finding her, _I_ say, till the fog blows off, even if they don"t lose themselves as well as her. And the poor old squire, too, he be in a dreadful way, and sendin" messengers to all the coastguards for miles, he is, to look out for the lady----"
Here the old man paused for want of breath, and I--completely relieved by his rambling statement from my fear about the girl"s brother, hastened to relieve him with my astonishing news that Miss Burfield was safe and sound in my yacht, and had been so for some hours.
Eager as I was to get back to the _Thelma_ with my good news, I could not get away till I had told the good old fellow how it had happened that I had rescued her, and he in return told me how young Burfield had rushed, muddy and dripping, into the inn as they were all going to bed, and demanded help in the search for his sister. No boat was to be had at the moment, and so they had shouted till Mr. Small came ash.o.r.e in his own boat, and had at once rowed away with young Burfield down the river, in the thick darkness, with the faint hope of finding the missing girl before she drifted into the open sea.
"I told "em it warn"t much good," ended the old man, "and that they"d best wait till daylight, but they would go. As for me, I reckon I"ve done the best thing, for I druv" over at once to the coastguards down yonder, and told "em to keep a look out at the mouth o" the river. I ain"t been back long, and was just takin" a nap when you found me, as I hadn"t the "art to go to bed."
Having arranged with him to send the good news to all concerned, especially to the Hall, where old Mr. Burfield must doubtless be in a terrible state of anxiety, I hurried back along the towing-path, rejoicing in the thought that I should now be able to relieve my fair visitor"s mind of her anxiety.
I found her on deck, looking anxious, indeed, but so pretty and fresh in spite of her trying night"s experiences, that my impressions of the night were greatly intensified, and I began to bless the unusual circ.u.mstances that had brought us together and made us friends, as it were, from the first moment of our acquaintance; and I registered a mental vow that the bond thus created between us should never be broken, if it lay in my power to prevent it.
And when I had told her the good news, and we had at last an opportunity of friendly converse unclouded by forebodings and anxious thoughts, I for one thoroughly enjoyed the companionship, and allowed myself to hope that it was not altogether disagreeable to my charming visitor.
It did not seem long, therefore, to me before the arrival of Mr.
Burfield, who overwhelmed me with far more thanks and grat.i.tude than I deserved, and insisted on my spending the rest of that week-end at the Hall--an invitation backed up in irresistible fashion by his daughter.
To complete the general satisfaction, whilst we were talking we heard the sound of oars, and saw a boat approaching, containing two of the most weary and dispirited-looking men I ever saw.
They proved to be Mr. Small and Mr. Harold Burfield, returning dead-beat and miserable after a fruitless and wretched search for the missing boat, to get food and to make arrangements for a further expedition. How can I describe their intense relief and astonishment when--summoned by a mighty shout--they pulled to sh.o.r.e, and saw the girl they imagined drifting helplessly miles out at sea standing on sh.o.r.e, safe and sound, and in infinitely better case than themselves, and heard that she had never been farther than where she now was from the scene of the accident the night before?
Later on I asked Harold Burfield why he had not shouted as he rowed down the river after his sister in the darkness, when I might have heard and answered.
He said that at first he thought it no use, as he knew his sister"s boat must have had a long start of them; and later, when they had rowed some way, and considered they must have caught up with it, they had done so at intervals all night long, on the chance of her hearing.
So I suppose that, either they were past the _Thelma_ before they began to call, or else in the fog had got so far over on the other side of the channel that their voices had not reached me, as I was shut up in my cabin.
So all the little mysteries were cleared up, and everything had "come right in the end," as such things should.
I have spent many a happy week-end since then at the Hall and on board the _Thelma_, and to my dying day I shall bless the fog of that September night, for Lilian has promised shortly to fix the day of our wedding, and we have both decided that part of the honeymoon at least is to be spent on board the _Thelma_; and I really believe that we shall both be rather disappointed if we do not get a bit of foggy weather to remind us how we first made each other"s acquaintance, and made friends over "whiting and tea" in the little cabin at six o"clock in the morning.
XIII
THE DEFLECTED COMPa.s.s
The paddle-steamer _Queen of the Isles_ was alongside the quay at St.
Mary"s, and had already given one shrill intimation that she was prepared to leave the harbour. Sydney and I were ready, with our portmanteaux strapped and our caps on, but the Honourable John had not yet appeared. We were impatient. Very important was it that we should catch the mail out of Penzance that same evening, for the following morning we were all due in London. Any delay in our return would be taken from the holidays of the next batch, and we should never hear the last of it if we were late, to say nothing of the unfairness of reducing the well-earned rest of the next batch by our dilatoriness and lack of consideration. We had taken the precaution to settle the hotel accounts, because we knew the habits of the Honourable John, and we stood in the hall with the thunder gathering upon our brows, and threatening to peal forth in tones more loud than complimentary.
"If he isn"t down in two minutes, Syd, I"m off," said I, pulling out my watch, and nervously noting the jerky springs of the spidery second-hand that seemed to be in a much greater hurry than usual.
"John!" bawled Syd up the stairway. "Do you hear? You"ll miss the steamer."
"What"s the fellow doing?" I asked, with irritation, as I observed that half a minute had pa.s.sed.
"Waxing the ends of his ridiculous moustache," answered Syd; then, turning again to the foot of the stairs, "John! We"re going. Hurry up!"
A door opened on the landing, and a voice drawled, "I say, you chaps, have you paid the bill?"
"Certainly," said I. "Come along. We"ve barely time to catch the steamer. Didn"t you hear the whistle?"
"I heard something a little while ago, a sort of an ear-piercing shriek that startled me, and caused me to nick my chin with the razor. I shall have to put a bit of flesh-coloured plaster over it. Was that the whistle?" asked the Honourable John in the most tantalising, nonchalant way, as if he had all the day before him.
We looked up the stairway, and there he was on the landing, in his shirt-sleeves, slowly adjusting the ends of a salmon-coloured tie.
"The two minutes are up," said I, replacing my watch, and stooping for my portmanteau. At that moment the whistle sounded again, and I hurried away, followed by Syd, both of us muttering that the dawdler deserved to be left, but none the less hoping in our hearts that he would be in time.
The hotel was near the harbour, and we were soon aboard. On the bridge, between the paddle-boxes, the captain stood with the string attached to the syren in his hand; beside him, glancing at the compa.s.s-card, grasping the spokes of the wheel, and silently awaiting instructions, was one of the men; the mate was for"ard with his whistle; and two little knots of islanders were gathered about the moorings on the quay, ready to cast off the hawsers as soon as the paddles moved and the captain gave the word.
Loungers and holiday-makers were stirred into mild excitement by our expected departure. Exchanges of farewells, amid occasional shouts and a continuous ripple of laughter, were pa.s.sing between those on board and those ash.o.r.e. The usually quiet life of St. Mary"s was bubbling up in its periodical agitation. By the outgoing and incoming of the steamer the islanders touched the great world without, and thrilled at the touch and felt its importance.
It was a pleasant scene, or it would have been but for the inexcusable delay of the Honourable John. We began to fear that he would be left.
The captain pulled the string again, and the syren sounded, with a peculiar urgency, as it seemed to me, ending in a despairing wail; then, stepping to the indicator, he signalled to the engineer, and the paddles began to revolve. The forward hawser was thrown off and fell with a splash into the sea; astern we were yet alongside the quay.
The Honourable John appeared, resplendent in all the glory of a silk hat and frock coat, with a flower in his b.u.t.tonhole, his hands gloved in lemon-coloured kids, and his feet shiny with patent leather; the people parted to let him pa.s.s, and stared at him as if he were a marquis at the very least, but the porter flung his portmanteau over the bulwarks like that of any other common tourist; John himself, with more agility than I gave him credit for, sprang aboard only just in time, as the men shouted "All clear aft, sir."
Once more we heard the click of the bells in the engine-room, and away we went through the clear waters, with the white foam mingling in our wake and the other islands gliding rapidly into view.
"You donkey!" said I, surveying the delinquent from head to foot, and noticing particularly the round spot of plaster on his chin. "Why didn"t you come earlier?"
"Call him a parrakeet," said Syd. "That will better describe him."
"He"s both," I replied--"slow as the one and gay as the other. But we"ve got him, and we"ll see that he does not defraud young Clifton of a single minute of the holiday he"s waiting for--ay, and well deserves."
"You"re always in such a desperate hurry," observed the Honourable John, ignoring the epithets with which we a.s.sailed him. He was never offended, and never perturbed. When the vials of our wrath were poured upon him, as they had been pretty freely during the holiday, they ran off him like the proverbial water from the duck"s back. We simply could not have endured his foppishness and dandyism, combined with a temper always serene, if we had not known that at heart he was a very good fellow. "I was in time," said he.
"You were," returned Syd significantly--"nearly in time to be late."
"But I wasn"t late," drawled John, "so what"s the good of making a fuss about it. One of the pleasures of life is to take things easily; as my friend the Irishman once remarked, "If ye cannot be happy, be aisy; and if ye cannot be aisy, be as aisy as ye can." But, I say, I don"t call this a specially bright morning; do you? Look there! We"re running into a bank of fog."
So we were. A dense white barrier, clean and straight as a wall, rose from the sea to the sky, and in another minute we had plunged into it.
We did not antic.i.p.ate so sudden a change. Fog was far from our thoughts, for the morning had been bright and sunny all around the islands, and the air was very still. For two or three days scarcely a breath of wind had wandered across the brilliant summer atmosphere. Now, with the fog, came a softly moving breeze out of the north-east. The fog drifted before it in one immense ma.s.s; there was no ripple upon the sea.
Upon the pa.s.sengers the effect was very curious; where, a few moments before, there had been ready repartee, interspersed with laughter, now there was low-toned commonplace conversation, or a dead silence. We were wrapped in a cloud; moisture began to form in tiny drops upon the stanchions and the deck, upon the beards and moustaches of the male part of the voyagers, upon the woolly texture of the garments of all, even upon the smoothly brushed silk of the Honourable John"s top hat; save for the swish of the paddles and the running of the engines, with a whispered exclamation here and there, we could hear nothing; and we could scarcely see the length of the ship.
It was the first bit of objectionable weather we had experienced during the holiday. We had spent a fortnight in the "Delectable Duchy." From Looe to Sennen we had not missed a single place worth seeing, and we had finished up with a week in the Scilly Isles. Making St. Mary"s our centre, we had rowed and waded to St. Martin"s and St. Agnes", to Tresco and Bryer and Samson and Annet, to Great Ganilly and Great Arthur, to Gweal and Illiswilgis, and a host of other places in that shattered and scattered heap of granite which forms the outstanding sentinel of our far western coast. The weather had been perfect. But now, having cleared the road and rounded St. Mary"s, we were met by this thick mist, swaying down upon us like a vast curtain, and quickly enveloping us in its vapoury folds.
"You"ll want a new topper, John, when we reach Penzance," said Syd, as he noted how the moisture was ruffling the silk and dimming its gloss.