Chapter 31

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_ CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

Three days passed, and the idea of losing her companion was so startling to Celia, that she made no further journey toward the cliffs, in spite of several efforts made by Grip to coax her in that direction. But on the fourth day there was so mean and unsatisfactory a dinner at the Hoze, of the paltry little rock fish caught by the labouring men, that, as Celia watched her mother partaking of the unsatisfactory fare, and thought how easily it might have been supplemented by a dish of mushrooms and a blackberry pudding, she made up her mind that the next day she would go.

"I could be very careful, and not go near any of the slopes running down to the cliff, and I could make Grip keep with me. Yes, I will go," she said.

The next morning she partook of her breakfast quite early--a simple enough meal, consisting of barley bread and a cup of fresh milk from the Shackles' farm, and, taking a basket, she called Grip, who came bounding about her in a state of the most exuberant delight.

The dog's satisfaction was a little damped as his mistress took her way toward the fir-wood, and he kept making rushes by another path. But it was of no use; Celia had made her own plans, and, as the dog could not coax her his way, and would not go alone, he had to follow her.

There was a reason for this route being chosen, for Celia did not care to be seen by Ram, or any of the men who might be pretending to work hard on Shackle's farm, which was ill tended, and consisted for the most part of cliff grazing land; but somehow seemed to need quite a large staff of labourers to keep it in such bad order.

By passing through the fir-wood, Celia meant to get out of sight of the cottages, and she went on, with the dog following sulkily behind, but reviving a little upon being given the basket to carry.

She trudged on for about a mile over the thin stony pastures, found a fair number of small, sweet, pink-gilled mushrooms where the turf was finest and richest, and gradually adding to her store of glistening bramble-berries till her finger-tips were purple with the stains.

The course she chose was down in the hollows between the hills, till at last she struck the one along which she had passed after leaving Ram and his companion, and turned down here, believing that, if the boy selected it, there would be good reason for his so doing. She walked steadily on, finding a button mushroom here and a bunch of blackberries there. For one minute she paused, struck by the peculiar sweet and sickly odour of a large-leaved herb which she had crushed, and admired its beautifully veined blossoms, in happy ignorance of the fact that it was the deadly poisonous henbane, and then all at once she missed Grip.

"Oh, how tiresome!" she cried excitedly; and she called him loudly, but there was no reply. A gull or two floated about and uttered their querulous calls, otherwise the silence was profound, and, though she swept the great curved sides of the hollow, whose end seemed filled up by the towering hill, all soft green slope toward her, but sheer scarped and projecting cliff toward the sea, there was not so much as a sheep in sight.

With a great horror coming upon her, she hurried along towards the cliff, thinking of what Dadd had said, and picturing in her mind's eye poor Grip racing along some seaward slope in chase of a rabbit, and going right over the cliff, she went on almost at a run, pausing, though, to call from time to time.

It was intensely hot in that hollow, for the sea breeze was completely shut off, but she did not pause, and rapidly neared the cliff now, her dread increasing, as she wondered whether Ram would be good enough to get a boat, and row along under the cliff to find the poor dog's body, so that she might bury it up in the fir-wood behind the house, in a particular spot close to where she had so often sat.

No sign of Grip: no sound. She called again, but there was no cheery bark in response, and with her despondent feeling on the increase, she began to climb the side of the hollow, passing unnoticed great clusters of blackberries, whose roots were fast in the stones, and the fruit looking like bunches of black grapes; past glistening white mushrooms, better than any she had yet seen, but they did not attract her; and at last she had climbed so high that she could see the blue waves spreading up and up to the horizon, and about a couple of miles out the white-sailed cutter, which was creeping slowly along the shore.

"I wonder where that midshipman is," she thought, forgetting the dog for the moment. "How strange that all was! Could it really have been a dream?"

"Yes, it must have been, or else he would have gone and told his captain, and they would have come and searched the cellar, and there would have been sad trouble."

She turned her eyes from the sea, and began to search the green slopes around, and then all at once she uttered a cry of joy as she could sight, on the highest slope right at the end of the valley, a white speck which suddenly appeared out of the earth, and then stood out clear on the green turf, and seemed to be looking about before turning and plunging down again.

It was quite half a mile away, and her call was in vain, and she began to descend diagonally into the hollow, the tears in her eyes, but a smile of content on her lips.

"Oh, you bad dog," she cried merrily, "how I will punish you!" and she stooped and picked a couple of mushrooms, quite happy again, and even sang a scrap of a country ditty in a pretty bird-like voice as she came to a bramble clump, and went on staining her fingers.

By degrees she passed the end of the hollow, leaving all the blackberries behind, and now, only pausing to pick a mushroom here and there, she began to ascend the slope toward where she had seen the dog.

"It is getting nearer the edge of the cliff," she said; "but it slopes up, and not down. Ah, I see you, sir. Come here directly! Grip! Grip!"

The dog had suddenly made his appearance about fifty yards in front, right as it were out of the grassy slope, to stand barking loudly for a few moments before turning tail and plunging down again.

"Oh, how tiresome!" she cried. "Grip! Grip!"

But, as the dog would not come to her, she went on, knowing perfectly well that he had gone down one of the old stone pits, and quite prepared to stand at last gazing into a hole which inclined rapidly into the hillside, but was as usual provided with rough stones placed step-wise, and leading the way into darkness beneath a fern-fringed arch, while the whole place was almost entirely choked-up with the luxuriantly growing brambles.

"He has found a rabbit," she thought to herself, as her eyes wandered about the sides of the pit, and brightened at the sight of the abundant clusters of blackberries, finer and riper than any she had yet secured.

"I wish I was not so frightened of these places," she said to herself. "Why, I could fill a basket here, and there can't be anything to mind, I know; it is only where they used to dig out the stone."

A sudden burst of barking took her attention to the dog, who came bounding up the rugged steps right to her feet, looked at her with his great intelligent eyes, and, before she could stop him, rushed down again, where she could hear him scratching, and there was a sound which she knew was caused by his moving a piece of stone such as she could see lying at the side in broken fragments, and of the kind dug in thin layers, and used in the neighbourhood instead of tiles.

"Oh, Grip, Grip! And you know you can't get at him. Come here."

"Ahoy!"

Celia was leaning over the rugged steps, gazing down into the darkness beneath the ferns, when, in a faint, smothered, distant way, there came this hail, making her nearly drop her basket as she started away from the pit.

The hail was followed by a sharp burst of barking, and the dog came bounding up again, to stand looking after her, barking again before once more descending.

Slowly, and with her eyes dilated and strained, the girl crept back step by step, as she withstood her desire to run away, for all at once the thought had come that perhaps some shepherd or labourer had fallen down to the bottom, and was perhaps lying here with a broken leg.

She had heard of such things, and it would be very terrible, but she must know now, and then go for help.

In this spirit she once more reached the entrance to the old quarry, and peered down, listening to the worrying sound made by the dog, who kept rattling one piece of stone over another, every now and then giving a short, snapping bark.

"Ahoy!" came again, as if from a distance, and a thrill ran through the girl, bringing with it a glow of courage.

"It is some poor fellow fallen down;" and, placing her basket by the side, she began to descend cautiously, with Grip rushing to meet her, barking now joyously, and uttering whine after whine.

The descent was not difficult, and after the first few steps the feeling of timidity began to wear off, and Celia descended more quickly till, about fifty feet from the top, some distance under where the fringe of ferns hung, and where it had seemed quite dark from above, but was really a pleasant greenish twilight, she found beneath her feet a few loose flat stones, part of a quantity lying before her in the archway that seemed to lead straight on into the quarry.

But here, right at her feet, the dog began to scratch, tossing one thin piece of stone over the others upon which it lay.

Celia looked before her wonderingly, for she had expected to see a fallen man at once, probably some one of the men whom she knew by sight; but, in spite of the dog's scratching, she could not imagine anything was there, and she was bending forward, gazing into the half choked-up level passage before her, when there came from under her feet the same smothered,--

"Ahoy!"

She started away, clinging to the side for support, and ready in her fear to rush back to the surface.

But the dog's action brought her to herself, as he began again to bark furiously, and tore at the stones.

"Hush! Quiet, Grip!" she said in an awe-stricken whisper, as she went down on her knees and listened, her heart beating wildly, and a horrible idea, all confused, of some one having been buried alive, making her face turn ashy pale.

"Ahoy! Any one there?" came in the same faint tones.

"Yes--yes," panted the girl. "What is it?"

"Help!"

And then, more loudly,--

"Let me out, pray."

"Oh," moaned the girl, "what does it mean?"

"Ahoy there!" came more plainly now. "Whoever you are, get a boat, and go off to the cutter _White Hawk_. Can you hear?"

"Yes, yes," said the girl huskily, as a horrible suspicion ran through her mind.

"Tell Lieutenant Brough that Mr Raystoke is a prisoner, kept by the smugglers, and then show his men the way here."

There was a pause, for Celia could make no reply; she knew who Mr Raystoke was, and it seemed horrible to her that the frank, good-looking young midshipman should be kept a prisoner in such a tomb-like place as that.

"Don't, don't say you will not go!" came up in the smothered tones. "You shall have a reward."

"As if I wanted a reward!" panted Celia. "What shall I do? What shall I do?"

"Help--pray help!" came from below; and Grip joined in.

"Yes, I will help you," cried Celia, placing her face close down to the stones.

"What!" came up. "I know you--the young--yes, Miss Graeme."

"Yes," she cried hastily.

"Pray help me."

"I want to," she said; "but--but you will go and--and tell--about what you have seen."

There was a pause, and then came faintly the words,--

"I--don't--want to; but--I must."

"But I cannot--I cannot help you if you are going to fetch the sailors here, perhaps to seize--Oh, what shall I do?"

There was a pause before the prisoner spoke again.

"Look here," he said; "I don't want to tell about your father being mixed up with the smugglers."

"You must not--you dare not!" cried Celia.

There was another pause, and then the prisoner's voice came again reproachfully.

"You ought to know it's my duty, and that I was sent ashore to find this out.--I say."

"Yes."

"Did you know I was shut up like this by those beasts?"

"Oh, no, no, no!"

"Your father did. He had me sent here, so that he should not get into trouble."

"Indeed no! He would not do so wicked a thing."

"But he is a smuggler."

"It is not true!" cried Celia passionately; "and if you dare to say such things of my dear, good, suffering father, I'll go away and never help you."

"I can't help saying it," said Archy sturdily. "I'd give anything to get out of this dreadful dark place; but I must speak."

"Not of him."

"I don't want to speak of him," said Archy, "but what can I do? I must tell about all those smuggled things there in the cellar that night when you found me in that room--out of uniform."

"Ah!" ejaculated Celia.

"I know it's hard on you, but I've been here a prisoner ever since, and it's enough to break one's heart."

The poor fellow's voice changed a little as he spoke, and he would have given way if he had seen Celia's head bowed down, and that she was crying bitterly.

"You will send for help?"

"I cannot," sobbed the girl, "unless you will promise not to tell."

There was a pause again.

"I can't promise," came up huskily, in faint smothered tones. "I say, is the door locked as well as bolted?"

"I cannot tell; it is covered with stones. Pray, pray promise me that you will not tell. I do want to help you to get away."

"I can't promise," said Archy at last, after a bitter struggle with self. "I must go straight to my officer and tell him as soon as I get out."

At that moment there was a sharp barking from the dog, who rushed up the steps to stand at the top for a few moments before coming down again.

"Won't you help me?"

"To send my poor innocent father to prison," said Celia in a low voice.

"I can't hear you," came from below.

"And I can't tell you," said Celia to herself. "What shall I do--what shall I do?"

She stole softly up the rugged steps, with her fingers in her ears, in dread lest she should be called upon to listen to the prisoner's piteous appeals for help; and, as soon as she reached the top, she set off running as hard as she could go, to find her father, tell him all, and appeal to him to try and save the poor fellow from the cruel trials he was called upon to bear.

Celia could hardly see the direction in which she was going, for her eyes were blinded with tears, and so it was that, when down in the lowest part of the hollow, as she hurried blindly along, she tripped over one of the many loose stones, fell heavily, striking her temple against a block projecting from the steep side of the little valley; and fell, to lie insensible for a time; and when she did come to her senses, it was to find Grip lying by her, with his head upon her chest, and his eyes looking inquiringly into hers, as if to ask what it all meant.

Her head ached, and she felt half stunned still, but she strove to rise to her feet, and sank back with a moan of pain.

For a worse trouble had discovered itself: her ankle was badly wrenched, so that she could not stand, and in the solitary place in which she had fallen, it was possible that she might lie for days and not be found, unless special search was made.

A sudden thought came--to tie her handkerchief about Grip's neck, and send him home.

The first was easily done, the latter impossible. Grip was an intelligent dog in his way, but nothing would make him leave his mistress there; and the poor girl lay all day in the hot sun, and at last saw that night was coming on, and that there was no help. _

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