The Vicar's People Part 92

"And Mr Trethick told me not to let her go again!"

Bessie felt more troubled than she could express, and, recalling Madge's strange and excited ways, she felt now sure that there was something wrong.

"I might overtake her if she has gone along the cliff," she said to herself; and, without hesitation, she threw on her cloak and hat, and had gone to the door ready to run up to the cliff, when the little one began to remonstrate loudly about being left alone.

For the moment Bessie thought of calling up her father from his den down below, but as quickly she thought that if any desperate idea was in poor Madge's brain, the sight or touch of her child might act upon her more strongly than words; so, catching up the little one, she curled it up tightly in the cloak she wore, and started off, meeting John Tregenna, and in her surprise, and the suddenness of the attack, being hurled back helpless towards the brink of the old shaft, down which the next instant she was falling.

Even in the horror of those awful seconds, she clutched her burthen tightly, and, with her thoughts coming fast, and seeming to lengthen out the time, she felt herself falling--falling, as she had often dreamed of going down in some terrible nightmare.

Twice over she brushed against the side, and she knew that she had turned completely over in her descent. Then there was the shock of her plunge into the deep black water, and all seemed to be over.

She had some recollection of having shrieked, but it was faint. What she did realise the most distinctly was her plunge into the cold water, and then going down half stunned for some considerable time before she began to struggle wildly, and rose to the surface.

All was black around her, but she could for the moment breathe, and beat about with her hands, which touched the wall of rugged granite; and trying to cling to and thrust her fingers into its irregularities, she kept herself up for a few moments, during which the frantic feeling of fear which had mastered her seemed to die away; but the next minute her fingers had slipped from their frail hold, and she had again gone under.

She rose again directly, for Bessie was a stout swimmer and had been from a child; and as she struck out, panting and gasping, she swam now to the other side, and then, striking out with one hand, she kept beating the other against the wall of rock that formed the sides of the square shaft, and sent up a despairing cry for help.

Poor girl, she might have cried the night through and been unheard. She knew it, too, as she felt herself growing fainter, her clothes crippling her limbs as they clung to them, and in another few moments she knew that she would be exhausted.

"It is murder," she moaned. "Help, help!"

She had already swum along three sides of the shaft, when, as she reached the fourth, her hand and arm pa.s.sed in, and she uttered a cry of joy, striking out vigorously, and finding herself swimming in an opening for a few strokes, when she struck again against the rock, and the chill of the horror of impending death once more came upon her. After a few more vain struggles, she clung to the slimy rocks, feeling herself sink, and that life, now dearer than she could have believed, was ebbing away.

But as she felt this her limbs rested upon the bottom of the opening into which she had swum, and she knew now that she was in the adit or pa.s.sage that carried off the water from the old pit, when it reached a certain height.

It was some minutes before she could subdue the trembling that shook her limbs, and summon courage enough to move, lest in that hideous darkness she should go the wrong way, and sink back into the deep water; but, as she grew more collected, she felt that if she crawled onward she would be right; and so it proved, for, dragging herself on to the rock, she was the next minute on the rough floor of the adit, kneeling in an inch or two of water; and here, sinking lower, she covered her face with her hands, thrust back her streaming hair, and burst into a pa.s.sion of hysterical sobbing, as she prayed that she might be saved from this horrible death.

She was mad almost with terror for the time, but by degrees she grew calmer, and, putting out her hands, she touched the walls on either side, and just above her head.

"I know where I am," she said aloud, "only I'm frightened and confused, and--Oh, G.o.d of heaven, Madge's child!"

Her hands went down to her breast as if expecting to find it clinging there, and then, chilled once more with horror, she remained there in the horrible darkness, afraid to move, as she tried to realise whether the little thing had fallen with her.

She put her hands to her throat again.

The cloak was gone--it had broken away at the fastening in her frantic struggles for life.

She hesitated, but as she did so, she seemed to see the pale, white figure of Madge rising up before her, and saying to her, "Give me my child;" and, rousing herself to her terrible task, she slowly crept back into the water--in the shallow part within the adit--and waded step by step back three or four yards till, feeling cautiously with one foot before her, she found that she had reached the brink; another step, and she would be once more over the deep water, where it went down hundreds of feet into the bowels of the earth.

She dared not swim out, but, holding by the rugged wall of the adit, she thrust out her hand along the surface, feeling as far as she could reach again and again, here and there, but there was nothing; and she crossed to the other side, held on, and tried again, feeling giddy as she did so, and as if she dared do no more lest she should step back into that horrible pit.

Then her heart gave a wild throb, for her right hand touched something-- her cloak, and she drew it softly towards her, backing more and more into the adit, as she gathered the cloth into her hands, and uttered a cry of joy.

The babe was there, twisted in the folds of the great cloak which had floated with it, holding within its saturated cloth plenty of air to keep the little thing upon the surface.

With the water streaming from her, Bessie crept on to the rocky floor of the adit, and, panting and sobbing hysterically, she hastened to unwind the clinging covering from the helpless babe; but, in the darkness and confusion, it was some minutes before she got it free and held it to her dripping breast, kissing it, holding it to her lips to feel whether it breathed, forgetting her own terrible position as her thoughts all went to her little charge, and calling it by the most endearing names.

There was no response, no fretful cry, no shriek of pain or suffering; the little thing lay inert in her arms, and in her agony, as a fresh horror burst upon her, Bessie spoke to it angrily, and shook it.

"Cry!" she exclaimed. "Oh, if it would only cry! Baby, baby! Oh, heaven help me! it is dead--it is dead!"

She held it tightly to her breast for a moment or two as she knelt there, rocking herself to and fro. Then a thought struck her, and, changing her att.i.tude to a sitting position, she held the little thing in her lap, wrung out the cloak as well as she could, and wrapped the child in it once more to try and give some warmth to its little fast-chilling limbs. As she did so, Bessie felt how dearly she had grown to love the little helpless thing whose mother's illness had made it so dependent upon her.

"Oh, what shall I do--what shall I do?" she sobbed at last. "Will no one help me? Mr Trethick! Father! Help!"

"I might as well cry to the sea," she moaned at last, as she held the baby more tightly to her breast. "Now let me try and think, or I shall go mad."

She remained perfectly motionless, with her teeth set fast, for a few minutes, beating down the horror that threatened for the time to wreck her reason.

"I can think now," she said. "He threw me down the old shaft, and I got into the adit, where I'm kneeling. If I try, how can I get out?"

She thought again, but she was so confused by her fall that it was some time before she could realise the fact that she might creep through this old pa.s.sage hewn in the rock, and, if not stopped by a fall from the roof, come out upon the sh.o.r.e.

"But the winzes!" she said, with a shudder. "The winzes!"

It was well for her that, as a miner's daughter, she called to mind the fact that, in all probability, the pa.s.sage in which she knelt would have another parallel to it, some twenty or thirty feet below, and connected with it by one or two perpendicular well-like openings in the floor, openings which, like the pa.s.sage below, would, of course, be filled with water.

Knowing that there were such dangers in her path, she at last started, creeping along on her knees, and, with one hand, feeling the way.

It was no such great distance, but, under the circ.u.mstances, it was painful in the extreme. Still her spirits rose as she went on, for at the end of five minutes there came to her the peculiar sound of the waves das.h.i.+ng upon the sh.o.r.e; and creeping onward, with her burthen clasped to her breast, and her head at times striking against the roof, she began to be hopeful that her worst troubles were to be the mud, and slime, and water through which she crept; when, all at once, the cautiously extended hand which guided her way, feeling ceiling, wall, and floor, went down into deep water, and she knew that she was on the brink of a pit, full to the brim, and this had to be crossed.

Bessie's knowledge came to her aid, and, laying the baby tenderly down, she brought both hands to bear, feeling cautiously about to determine the width of the winze.

If it were across the adit it would be narrow, and she hoped to be able to step over; if it were cut in the other direction there might be a rocky shelf at the side giving sufficient room for her to pa.s.s.

It was cut across the adit, for she could feel the square edge of the rock from wall to wall; and rising and feeling about over it for a prominence in the wall by which she could hold on, she grasped it tightly, placed her right foot close to the edge, and leaned forward, trying with her left to reach the other side.

Yes, she was successful. They are economical of labour in digging through solid rock, and she found that the winze was but a yard across, so, drawing herself back, she caught up her burthen, hesitating for a moment, as she felt that a false step would plunge them both into the well-like opening. Then, bending low, she made as bold a stride as she could, crossed in safety, and once more resumed her cautious progress, till the sea-breeze fanned her cheek as she crept out amongst the rocks, and, falling upon her knees, she once more sobbed and prayed aloud.

Rousing herself, though, to a sense of her responsibility, she rose and hurried along the rugged sh.o.r.e beneath the cliff to the sloping path down which Madge had come some time before; and, climbing to the cliff path, she gave one frightened, unnerved look in the direction of the opening leading to the old shaft, and then ran painfully towards the cottage.

But Bessie's strength was gone. Her run soon became a walk, her walk a tottering crawl, and it was with blanched face she at last staggered into the cottage, where her father was now seated, keeping up a blazing fire with wreck-wood to save the candle.

"Why, Bess, my la.s.s!" he said.

"Oh, father, help!" she cried, in a hoa.r.s.e, piteous voice, as she threw herself upon her knees by the fire to try and restore life to the little clay-clad form she held.

"Wet--drenched!" he cried. "In the sea?"

"No, father," she moaned. "Quick--the doctor. Mr Trethick. He threw me down the old pit-shaft."

"Trethick did?" roared the old man.

"No, John Tregenna; and he has killed his child."

"As I will him," roared the old wrecker, raising his fists to heaven.

"So help me G.o.d?"