CHAPTER XIV.--THE UNFORESEEN.

In this world, events unthought of and unforeseen are always happening; so, as I have hinted, did it prove with me, on the epoch of Dora's birthday fête. It was not without considerable difficulty and care on my side, trepidation and much of annoyance at Dora on that of Lady Estelle, mingled with a display of courage which sprang from her pride, that I conducted her by the hand down the old and time-worn flight of narrow steps--which had been hewn, ages ago, by some old Celtic hermit in the face of the cliff--till at last we stood on the little plateau that lies between the mouth of his abode and the sea, which was chafing and surging there in green waves, that the wind was cresting with snowy foam.

On our right the headland receded away into a wooded dell, that formed part of Craigaderyn Park. There a little rhaidr or cascade came plashing down a fissure in the limestone rocks, and fell into a pool, where a pointed pleasure-boat, named the Winifred, was moored. On our left the headland, that towered some eighty feet above us, formed part of the bluffs or sea-wall that stretched away to the eastward, and, sheer as a rampart, met the waves of the wide Irish Sea. Before us opened the arched entrance of the monk's abode--a little cavern or cell, that had been hollowed by no mortal hand. Its echoes are alleged to be wonderful; and it has been of old used as a hiding-place in times of war and trouble, and by smugglers for storing goods, where the knights of Craigaderyn could find them without paying to the king's revenue. It has evidently been what its name imports--the chapel and abode of some forgotten recluse. A seat of stones goes round the interior, save at the entrance. A stone pillar or altar had stood in its centre. A font or stone basin is there, and from it there flows a spring of clear water, with which the follower of St. David was wont to baptise the little savages of Britannia Secunda; and where now, in a more pleasant and prosaic age, it has supplied the tea and coffee kettles of many a joyous party, who came hither boating or fishing from Craigaderyn Court; and above that stone basin the hermit's hand has carved the somewhat unpronounceable Welsh legend:

"Heb Dduw, heb ddim."[1]

"A wonderful old place! But I have seen caverns enough elsewhere, and this does not interest me. I am no arch?ologist," said Lady Estelle--"besides, where is Dora?" she added, looking somewhat blankly up the ladder of steps in the cliff, by which we were to return: and she speedily became much less alive to the beauty of the scenery than to a sense of danger and awkwardness in her position.

There was no appearance of Dora Lloyd, and we heard no sound in that secluded place, save the chafing of the surf, the equally monotonous pouring of the waterfall, and the voices of sea-birds as they skimmed about us.

I thought that Lady Estelle leant upon my arm a little heavier than usual, and remembered that, when I took her hand in mine to guide her down, she left it there firmly and confidingly.

"May I show you the grotto?" said I; and my heart beat tumultuously while I looked in her face, the rare beauty of which was now greatly enhanced by a flush, consequent on our descent and the sea-breeze.

"O no, no, thanks very much; but let us return to the park ere we be missed. Give me your hand, Mr. Hardinge. If we came down so quickly, surely we may as quickly ascend again."

"Shall I go first?"

"Please, do. The caves of Fingal, or Elephanta and Ellora to boot, were not worth this danger."

"I have come here many a time for a few sea-birds' eggs," said I, laughing, to reassure her.

But the ascent proved somehow beyond her power. The wind had risen fast, and was sweeping round the headland now, blowing her dress about her ankles, and impeding her motions. She had only ascended a little way when giddiness or terror came over her. She lost all presence of mind, and began to descend again. Thrice, with my assistance, she essayed to climb the winding steps that led to the summit, and then desisted. She was in tears at last. As all confidence had deserted her, I proposed to bind her eyes with a handkerchief; but she declined. I also offered, if she would permit me to leave her for a few minutes, to reach the summit and bring assistance; but she was too terrified to remain alone on the plateau of rock, between the cell and the water.

"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, when, like myself, perhaps she thought of Lady Naseby, "what shall I do? And all this has been brought about by the heedless suggestions of Dora Lloyd--by her folly and impulsiveness! Will she never return to advise us?"

Nearly half-an-hour had elapsed, and a dread that she, that I--that both of us--must now be missed, and the cause of surmise, roused an anger and pride in her breast, that kindled her eye and affected her manner, thus effectually crushing any attempt to intrude my own secret thoughts upon her.

"What are we to do, Mr. Hardinge? Here we cannot stay; I dare not climb; not a boat is to be seen; the sun has almost set, and see, how dense a mist is coming on!"

I confess that I had not observed this before, so much had I been occupied by her own presence, by her beauty, and by entreating that she would "screw her courage to the sticking-point," and ascend where I had seen the two pretty Lloyds trip from step to step in their mere girlhood, to the horror, certainly, of their French governess; but knowing that a fog from the sea was rolling landward in dense masses, and that the evening would be a stormy one, I felt intense anxiety for Lady Estelle, and certainly left nothing unsaid to reassure her, firmly yet delicately--for good breeding becomes a second nature, and is not forgotten even in times of dire emergency; then how much less so when we love, and love as I did Estelle Cressingham?--but all my arguments were in vain. There was in her dark eyes a wild and startled brilliance, a hectic spot on each pale cheek. Her innate pride remained, but her courage was gone. She trembled, and her breath came short and quick as she said,

"Who would have dreamt that I--I should have acted thus? More heedlessly even than Dora, for she is a Welsh girl, and, like a goat, is used to such places. And now there is no aid--not even the smallest boat in sight!"

"Of what have I been thinking!" I exclaimed. "The pleasure-boat which belongs to the grotto is moored yonder in the creek, where some visitor, who preferred the short cut up the cliff, has evidently left it. If you will permit me to place you in it, I can row across the mouth of the waterfall to the other side, where a Chinese bridge will enable us at once to reach the lawn."

"Why did you not think of this before?" she asked, with something of angry reproach almost flashing in her eyes.

"Will you make the attempt?"

"Of course. O, would that you had thought of it before!"

"Come, then, though the wind has risen certainly; and among so many guests, our absence may have been unnoticed yet."

I reached the boat--a gaudily-painted shallop, seated for four oars. There were but two, however; these were enough; but as ill-luck would have it, she was moored to a ring-bolt in the rocks by a padlock and chain, which I had neither the strength nor the means of breaking. This was a fresh source of delay, and Lady Estelle's whole frame seemed to quiver and vibrate with impatience, while every moment she raised her eyes to the cliff, by which she expected succour or searchers to come. What the deuce was she--were we--to say to all this? With a girl possessed of more nerve and firmness of mind this matter could never have taken such a turn, and the delay had never occurred. This malheur or mishap--this variation from the strict rules laid down by such matrons as the Countess of Naseby--looked so like a scheme, that I felt we were in a thorough scrape, and knew there was not a moment to be lost in making our appearance at the Court. By a stone I smashed the padlock, and casting loose the boat, brought it to where Lady Estelle stood, beating the rock impatiently with her foot; and, handing her on board, seated her in the stern-sheets, but with some difficulty, as the west wind was rolling the waves with no small fury now past the headland, in which the black B?d Mynach gaped.

"Pull with all your strength, Mr. Hardinge. Dear Mr. Hardinge, let us only be back in time, and I shall ever thank you!" she exclaimed.

"All that man can do I shall," was my enthusiastic reply.

I could pull a good stroke-oar, and had done so steadily in many a regimental and college boat-race and regatta; but now there ensued what I never could have calculated upon. Excited by the desire of pleasing Lady Estelle by landing her on the opposite side of the tiny bay with all speed--desirous, when seated opposite to her, face to face, of appearing to some advantage by an exhibition of strength and skill--at each successive stroke, as I shot the light boat seaward, I almost lifted it out of the water. I had to clear a rock, over which the water was foaming and gleaming in green and gold amid the sinking sunshine, ere I headed her due westward, and in doing so I cleared also the headland, which rose like a tower of rock from the sea, crowned by a clump of old elms, wherein some rooks had taken up their quarters in times long past.

"O, Mr. Hardinge," said Lady Estelle, while grasping the gunwale with both hands, and looking up, "how had I ever the courage to come down such a place? It looks fearful from this!"

Ere I could reply, the oar in my right hand broke in the iron rowlock with a crash. The wood had been faulty. By this mishap I lost my balance, and was nearly thrown into the sea, as the boat careered over on a wave. Thus the other was torn from my grasp, and swept far beyond my reach. I was powerless now--powerless to aid either her or myself. The tide was ebbing fast. The strong west wind, and the current running eastward, influenced by the flow of the Clwyde, and even of the Dee, ten miles distant, swept the now useless boat past the abutting headland, and along the front of those cliffs which rise like a wall of rock from the sea, and where, as the mist gathered round us, our fate would be unseen, whether we were dashed against the iron shore or swept out into the ocean.

The red sunset was fading fast on distant Orme's Head, where myriads of sea-birds are ever revolving, like gnats in the light amid its grand and inaccessible crags. It was dying, too, though tipping them with flame, on Snowdon's peaks, the eyrie of the golden eagle and the peregrine falcon, and on the smaller range of Carneydd Llewellyn. Purple darkness was gathering in the grassy vales between, and blue and denser grew those shadows as the cold gray mist came on, and the sombre glow of a stormy sunset passed away. Soon the haze of the twilight blurred, softened, and blended land and sea to the eastward. The sharp edge of the new moon was rising from a dark and trembling horizon, whence the mist was coming faster and more fast, and the evening star, pale Hesperus, shone like a tiny lamp amid the opal tints of a sky that was turning fast to dun and darkness. The rolling mist soon hid the star and the land, too, and I only knew that we were drifting helplessly away.