Elfride was still steadfast in her opinion that honour compelled her to meet him. Probably the very longing to avoid him lent additional weight to the conviction; for she was markedly one of those who sigh for the unattainable—to whom, superlatively, a hope is pleasing because not a possession. And she knew it so well that her intellect was inclined to exaggerate this defect in herself.
So during the day she looked her duty steadfastly in the face; read Wordsworth’s astringent yet depressing ode to that Deity; committed herself to her guidance; and still felt the weight of chance desires.
But she began to take a melancholy pleasure in contemplating the sacrifice of herself to the man whom a maidenly sense of propriety compelled her to regard as her only possible husband. She would meet him, and do all that lay in her power to marry him. To guard against a relapse, a note was at once despatched to his father’s cottage for Stephen on his arrival, fixing an hour for the interview.
XXI
“On thy cold grey stones, O sea!”
Stephen had said that he should come by way of Bristol, and thence by a steamer to Castle Boterel, in order to avoid the long journey over the hills from St. Launce’s. He did not know of the extension of the railway to Camelton.
During the afternoon a thought occurred to Elfride, that from any cliff along the shore it would be possible to see the steamer some hours before its arrival.
She had accumulated religious force enough to do an act of supererogation. The act was this—to go to some point of land and watch for the ship that brought her future husband home.
It was a cloudy afternoon. Elfride was often diverted from a purpose by a dull sky; and though she used to persuade herself that the weather was as fine as possible on the other side of the clouds, she could not bring about any practical result from this fancy. Now, her mood was such that the humid sky harmonized with it.
Having ascended and passed over a hill behind the house, Elfride came to a small stream. She used it as a guide to the coast. It was smaller than that in her own valley, and flowed altogether at a higher level. Bushes lined the slopes of its shallow trough; but at the bottom, where the water ran, was a soft green carpet, in a strip two or three yards wide.
In winter, the water flowed over the grass; in summer, as now, it trickled along a channel in the midst.
Elfride had a sensation of eyes regarding her from somewhere. She turned, and there was Mr. Knight. He had dropped into the valley from the side of the hill. She felt a thrill of pleasure, and rebelliously allowed it to exist.
“What utter loneliness to find you in!”
“I am going to the shore by tracking the stream. I believe it empties itself not far off, in a silver thread of water, over a cascade of great height.”
“Why do you load yourself with that heavy telescope?”
“To look over the sea with it,” she said faintly.
“I’ll carry it for you to your journey’s end.” And he took the glass from her unresisting hands. “It cannot be half a mile further. See, there is the water.” He pointed to a short fragment of level muddy-gray colour, cutting against the sky.
Elfride had already scanned the small surface of ocean visible, and had seen no ship.
They walked along in company, sometimes with the brook between them—for it was no wider than a man’s stride—sometimes close together. The green carpet grew swampy, and they kept higher up.
One of the two ridges between which they walked dwindled lower and became insignificant. That on the right hand rose with their advance, and terminated in a clearly defined edge against the light, as if it were abruptly sawn off. A little further, and the bed of the rivulet ended in the same fashion.
They had come to a bank breast-high, and over it the valley was no longer to be seen. It was withdrawn cleanly and completely. In its place was sky and boundless atmosphere; and perpendicularly down beneath them—small and far off—lay the corrugated surface of the Atlantic.
The small stream here found its death. Running over the precipice it was dispersed in spray before it was halfway down, and falling like rain upon projecting ledges, made minute grassy meadows of them. At the bottom the water-drops soaked away amid the debris of the cliff. This was the inglorious end of the river.
“What are you looking for?” said Knight, following the direction of her eyes.
She was gazing hard at a black object—nearer to the shore than to the horizon—from the summit of which came a nebulous haze, stretching like gauze over the sea.
“The Puffin, a little summer steamboat—from Bristol to Castle Boterel,” she said. “I think that is it—look. Will you give me the glass?”
Knight pulled open the old-fashioned but powerful telescope, and handed it to Elfride, who had looked on with heavy eyes.
“I can’t keep it up now,” she said.
“Rest it on my shoulder.”
“It is too high.”
“Under my arm.”
“Too low. You may look instead,” she murmured weakly.
Knight raised the glass to his eye, and swept the sea till the Puffin entered its field.
“Yes, it is the Puffin—a tiny craft. I can see her figurehead distinctly—a bird with a beak as big as its head.”
“Can you see the deck?”
“Wait a minute; yes, pretty clearly. And I can see the black forms of the passengers against its white surface. One of them has taken something from another—a glass, I think—yes, it is—and he is levelling it in this direction. Depend upon it we are conspicuous objects against the sky to them. Now, it seems to rain upon them, and they put on overcoats and open umbrellas. They vanish and go below—all but
