his orphan child!” said Dr. Melmoth, dropping the paper. “How shall we break the intelligence to her? Alas! her share of the affliction causes me to forget my own.”
“It is a heavy misfortune, doubtless; and Ellen will grieve as a daughter should,” replied Mrs. Melmoth, speaking with the good sense of which she had a competent share. “But she has never known her father; and her sorrow must arise from a sense of duty, more than from strong affection. I will go and inform her of her loss. It is late, and I wonder if she be still asleep.”
“Be cautious, dearest wife,” said the doctor. “Ellen has strong feelings, and a sudden shock might be dangerous.”
“I think I may be trusted, Dr. Melmoth,” replied the lady, who had a high opinion of her own abilities as a comforter, and was not averse to exercise them.
Her husband, after her departure, sat listlessly turning over the letters that yet remained unopened, feeling little curiosity, after such melancholy intelligence, respecting their contents. But, by the handwriting of the direction on one of them, his attention was gradually arrested, till he found himself gazing earnestly on those strong, firm, regular characters. They were perfectly familiar to his eye; but from what hand they came, he could not conjecture. Suddenly, however, the truth burst upon him; and after noticing the date, and reading a few lines, he rushed hastily in pursuit of his wife.
He had arrived at the top of his speed and at the middle of the staircase, when his course was arrested by the lady whom he sought, who came, with a velocity equal to his own, in an opposite direction. The consequence was a concussion between the two meeting masses, by which Mrs. Melmoth was seated securely on the stairs; while the doctor was only preserved from precipitation to the bottom by clinging desperately to the balustrade. As soon as the pair discovered that they had sustained no material injury by their contact, they began eagerly to explain the cause of their mutual haste, without those reproaches, which, on the lady’s part, would at another time have followed such an accident.
“You have not told her the bad news, I trust?” cried Dr. Melmoth, after each had communicated his and her intelligence, without obtaining audience of the other.
“Would you have me tell it to the bare walls?” inquired the lady in her shrillest tone. “Have I not just informed you that she has gone, fled, eloped? Her chamber is empty; and her bed has not been occupied.”
“Gone!” repeated the doctor. “And, when her father comes to demand his daughter of me, what answer shall I make?”
“Now, Heaven defend us from the visits of the dead and drowned!” cried Mrs. Melmoth. “This is a serious affair, doctor, but not, I trust, sufficient to raise a ghost.”
“Mr. Langton is yet no ghost,” answered he; “though this event will go near to make him one. He was fortunately prevented, after he had made every preparation, from taking passage in the vessel that was lost.”
“And where is he now?” she inquired.
“He is in New England. Perhaps he is at this moment on his way to us,” replied her husband. “His letter is dated nearly a fortnight back; and he expresses an intention of being with us in a few days.”
“Well, I thank Heaven for his safety,” said Mrs. Melmoth. “But truly the poor gentleman could not have chosen a better time to be drowned, nor a worse one to come to life, than this. What we shall do, doctor, I know not; but had you locked the doors, and fastened the windows, as I advised, the misfortune could not have happened.”
“Why, the whole country would have flouted us!” answered the doctor. “Is there a door in all the Province that is barred or bolted, night or day? Nevertheless it might have been advisable last night, had it occurred to me.”
“And why at that time more than at all times?” she inquired. “We had surely no reason to fear this event.”
Dr. Melmoth was silent; for his worldly wisdom was sufficient to deter him from giving his lady the opportunity, which she would not fail to use to the utmost, of laying the blame of the elopement at his door. He now proceeded, with a heavy heart, to Ellen’s chamber, to satisfy himself with his own eyes of the state of affairs. It was deserted too truly; and the wildflowers with which it was the maiden’s custom daily to decorate her premises were drooping, as if in sorrow for her who had placed them there. Mrs. Melmoth, on this second visit, discovered on the table a note addressed to her husband, and containing a few words of gratitude from Ellen, but no explanation of her mysterious flight. The doctor gazed long on the tiny letters, which had evidently been traced with a trembling hand, and blotted with many tears.
“There is a mystery in this, — a mystery that I cannot fathom,” he said.
“And now I would I knew what measures it would be proper to take.”
“Get you on horseback, Dr. Melmoth, and proceed as speedily as may be down the valley to the town,” said the dame, the influence of whose firmer mind was sometimes, as in the present case, most beneficially exerted over his own. “You must not spare for trouble, no, nor for danger. Now — Oh, if I were a man!” —
“Oh, that you were!” murmured the doctor, in a perfectly inaudible voice,
“Well — and when I reach the town, what then?”
“As I am a Christian woman, my patience cannot endure you!” exclaimed Mrs. Melmoth. “Oh, I love to see a man with the spirit of a man! but you” — And she turned away in utter scorn.
“But, dearest wife,” remonstrated the husband, who was really at a loss how to proceed, and anxious for her advice, “your worldly experience is greater than mine, and I desire to profit by it. What should be my next measure after arriving at the town?”
Mrs. Melmoth was appeased by the submission with which the doctor asked her counsel; though, if the truth must be told, she heartily despised him for needing it. She condescended, however, to instruct him in the proper method of pursuing the runaway maiden, and directed him, before his departure, to put strict inquiries to Hugh Crombie respecting any stranger who might lately have visited his inn. That there would be wisdom in this, Dr. Melmoth had his own reasons for believing; and still, without imparting them to his lady, he proceeded to do as he had been bid.
The veracious landlord acknowledged that a stranger had spent a night and day at his inn, and was missing that morning; but he utterly denied all acquaintance with his character, or privity to his purposes. Had Mrs. Melmoth, instead of her husband, conducted the examination, the result might have been different. As the case was, the doctor returned to his dwelling but little wiser than he went forth; and, ordering his steed to be saddled, he began a journey of which he knew not what would be the end.
In the mean time, the intelligence of Ellen’s disappearance circulated rapidly, and soon sent forth hunters more fit to follow the chase than Dr. Melmoth.
CHAPTER VII.
“There was racing and chasing o’er Cannobie Lee.”
WALTER SCOTT.
When Edward Walcott awoke the next morning from his deep slumber, his first consciousness was of a heavy weight upon his mind, the cause of which he was unable immediately to recollect. One by one, however, by means of the
