THE doctor and Don looked at each other as they stood over the boat, but neither of them spoke a word. The old man helped them to drag it out of reach of the waves.
‘I never thought I should see her again,’ he said; ‘let’s turn her over, and take her up under the cliffs. I can’t get her home tonight, because the oars are gone.’
They soon managed to right the boat, and were beginning to push it along the sand when Don suddenly called out—
‘Hullo! what’s that tied to the seat? Look, Norman!’
What was it that made every bit of color fade out of Forester’s face as he bent forward and looked at what Don had discovered? Something was knotted tightly round the seat; something that was soaked with salt water and hung down draggled and torn at the bottom of the boat; something that had once been green, but the color of which was now hardly discernible. It was a tie—Dick’s tie; he had worn it only the day before.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Forester.
‘Quite sure,’ said Don; ‘look, here’s the name of the shop; Carter Brothers, Leamington. That’s where the Sinclairs come from, you know.’
They unfastened the tie, and when old Treverton had secured his boat, they walked slowly back together. Still, they kept their eyes on the busy sea. Would it bring anything else home tonight? Would any other dark object be seen on the crest of the waves?
‘He may not come in here,’ said the old man; ‘he may be carried far away. I’ve known them toss about on the water for weeks, ay, for months sometimes. The sea’s a queer one to deal with; one never knows when he will send his goods home. Ay, dear, and a bonny lad, too. What a pity! What a pity!’
‘Norman,’ whispered Don, ‘I can’t stand this; let’s get rid of him somehow.’
The doctor soon after told the old sailor that they were going across the sandhills that they might find the rest of the party, and might tell them what had happened, and they left him to go home by the shore. Don was terribly upset as they walked on together.
‘Isn’t it ghastly, Norman?’ he said. ‘And to hear that old fellow talking about it like that! I couldn’t have stood it another minute.’
They walked on without speaking for a long time. Then Don was again the one to break the silence.
‘Norman.’
‘Yes, Don.’
‘Who’s going to tell the Sinclairs?’
Forester did not answer. He had been trying to face that question ever since he had seen the boat come ashore.
They must be told; but how much, and when, and who would break it to them best?
‘Would Jack go, do you think, Forester?’
Yes, Jack would go; he never shrank from any duty, however painful; but it was an awful thing to ask Jack to do.
‘I think I shall go to the Castle myself,’ said Forester presently.
In his great unselfishness he would not ask another to do what he shrank, oh, so terribly, from doing himself.
Don did not speak again. He walked on, thankful that Forester had undertaken to break the news, and yet wishing from the bottom of his heart that he could do anything to help him. As for the doctor, he was planning what he should say to the Sinclairs, and how he should say it.
‘Shall you tell them about that tie?’ asked Don at length.
‘I don’t know; I think not tonight. And yet if the next tide brings—You know what I mean, Don; they would be more prepared.’
‘Yes; but if after all he should be safe, picked up by a ship, or something of that kind?’
Don’s hopeful nature had asserted itself again, and the doctor caught a little comfort from his words, and tried to argue himself into believing that the case was not quite so hopeless as he had at first imagined.
It was getting dark when they reached the village, and the band of willing searchers was returning. Groups of men and lads were standing at the corner of the street discussing the sad event of the day.
‘No news, sir?’ they asked, as Forester and Don went by.
‘None of Master Sinclair. Treverton has found his boat.’
‘Where? How?’
But the two young men walked on up the hill, and did not stop to answer them. Treverton would bring the news quite soon enough.
‘Now, Don, had you not better go home and tell Jack? He might come up to the Castle later on, after I’ve told them; it might be a comfort to them to see him.’
Don agreed, and the doctor went on alone. As he went through the gate leading up to the ancient watchtower, he saw someone coming down the field from the Castle. It was Doris; she had been with Mrs. Sinclair all the evening, and was now returning home. She told him that Mr. Sinclair and the boys had just come in, and that she had persuaded Joyce to go to bed, and had left her sobbing herself to sleep.
‘You have found nothing, Dr. Forester, I suppose?’
‘Yes, we have found the boat.’
He told her where they had found it, and how it had come in bottom upwards, and then he showed her the tie.
‘This is terrible!’ she said.
‘Yes, and I have to tell them. I must go and get it over.’
‘Let me walk up the hill with you,’ she said; ‘may I?’
There was a world of sympathy in her tones as she said this.
‘Thank you, Miss Somerville; it is very kind of you.’
Neither of them spoke for some minutes after this, but it was a comfort to Forester to feel that she was there.
‘What a sad ending to our holiday!’ he said at length.
She did not answer, but he saw that her tears were falling fast.
They came at length to the stile leading into the Castle, and she told him that she must turn back.
‘It is so hard for you,’ she said gently, ‘so very hard; but I know you will be helped.’ She could say no more for crying, but went slowly down the hill; and Forester crossed the stile into the Castle courtyard.
How he told them the sad news he never knew. All the sentences he had prepared left him, but other words seemed to be given him at the moment. Had she not said, ‘I know you will be helped’? Was he not sure that she would pray for him?
It was very touching to the doctor to see how the Sinclairs all clung to him, how they seemed to lean upon him in their sorrow, and to feel it less hard to bear when he was with them. He could not understand it, for he had a very poor opinion of himself, and of his own power of showing sympathy; but he could not help noticing that they liked to have him there, and that they dreaded the thought of his leaving them.
Jack came and knelt with them and prayed for them, and they rose from their knees feeling that they were not alone in their sorrow; but long after Jack had gone Forester stayed on. It was late at night when he left them, and turned out in the darkness to go to his tent.
He was so worn out when he got there that he fell asleep almost immediately. It was a troubled, disturbed sleep; he dreamt that he was on the sea, being driven about by wind and tide, and yet trying with all his might to reach the shore. Once he was close to a rock, but, just as he was laying hold of it, a hand came out and pushed him back into the water, and he looked up, to see Clegg’s spiteful face above him mocking at his struggles. Now he was going down for the last time, the water was closing over his head; but at that moment another hand came and drew him out, and gently brought him to land, and he heard Doris’ voice say, ‘I knew you would be helped.’
He woke in the morning with the awful feeling upon him that something dreadful had happened, and that some painful duty awaited him. He could not at first remember what it was that came upon him like a terrible crushing weight. Then it flashed across him. He recalled the sad event of the day before, and realized that the hideous duty which awaited him was to go to the shore and watch the morning tide come in. He calculated that it would be high tide about six; but so restless was he that he was on the shore and pacing up and down long before that hour.
There were other watchers on the shore. Old Treverton was there wandering amongst the rocks, and so were many others of the villagers. There was no talking to be heard; all were silently watching the sea; all were waiting for what the tide might bring Some had walked far across the bay, to the place where the boat had come in the night before; others were standing on the rocks near the church. Old Treverton had brought his telescope, and was carefully scanning the water.
But the tide came in, and the tide went out, and the sea refused to give up her dead.
That day was a far more painful and trying one than the day before. Then they had had much to do, searching here and searching there; they had walked for miles over hill and dale, through wood and heather, along the stretches of sand, and over the tumbled masses of rock with which the shore was strewn. But now there was nothing to do but to sit still, face the sorrow that had befallen them, and wait for the next incoming tide. Then they had had hope; through all their anxiety they had clung to the possibility of Dick’s being alive and well. They had pictured to themselves and to each other all manner of causes that might have delayed his return, and each time that they had come back to the Castle they had done so with the hope that they might find him there. But now hope had given place to despair, fear to a terrible certainty.
The doctor, who the day before had had suspicions that Dick’s disappearance might be accounted for in quite a different way, had now become thoroughly convinced that the mystery was explained. Who could have taken out the boat but Dick? Was not the tie sufficient evidence of that? And inasmuch as the boat had come to land bottom upwards, what else but drowning could have befallen the one who took her out to sea?
Yet certain though he now was of poor Dick’s fate, he felt that he could not desert the Sinclairs in their time of need. If he could be of the slightest help or comfort to them, if he could in any way lighten, even in the very smallest degree, the heavy, overwhelming sorrow that had befallen them, he was persuaded that it was his clear duty to stay. So he sent another wire to his housekeeper, telling her that his return was indefinitely postponed; and he made up his mind that, in the meantime, he would not see more of Doris than was actually necessary, but would school himself to forget his own trouble, and to think only of the bereavement that had come as a heavy blow upon his friends.
Mrs. Sinclair was feeling so ill that she did not get up at all that day, but the others seemed glad to have him with them. Poor Val was terribly upset; he and Dick were devoted to each other, and to lose him thus suddenly seemed almost more than he could bear.
Joyce had cried till she could cry no more; the poor child was very young to have such a dark shadow brought into her life, and Forester was very sorry for her. He invited her to have tea with him in his tent. She brought her dogs with her, and forgot her trouble for a time, as she helped him to boil the kettle and to cut the bread and butter. Then she poured out tea, and Forester talked to her about her life at home, her school, her dogs—anything he could think of to turn her thoughts for a time from what had happened. She was a quaint child, and her opinion on various subjects much amused and interested him She asked him all manner of questions, some of which were not easy to answer. For instance, the doctor told her how glad he was to have someone to pour out tea for him—for he always had to pour out his own tea in London.
‘Why don’t you get married?’ she asked, after thinking over this for some time; ‘then your wife could pour out the tea.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Forester. ‘I haven’t found a wife yet, you see.’
She meditated a long time over this, and Forester’s thoughts had wandered on to another subject, when she said suddenly:
‘I don’t think Mab or Dolly would do.’
‘Do for what?’
‘To be your wife; they’re too young.’
‘Much too young. Have some more jam, Joyce; there’s plenty in the pot. You like strawberry jam, don’t you?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ But she was not to be turned from her point. ‘There’s Doris,’ she said; ‘why wouldn’t she do?’
The doctor did not answer at once, and she went on— ‘I think she is so nice. She put me to bed last night, and she was so kind. Don’t you like her?’
‘Yes, very much; but you see, Joyce, it doesn’t do to choose wives for other people. You must come and pour out tea for me in London the next time father brings you to town.’
It was some time before he could turn the conversation into a fresh channel; her kind little heart was so much distressed at the thought of his being lonely, and having no one to pour out tea for him. Then something reminded her of Dick, and she began to cry again, and he had once more to try to comfort her.
The evening tide came in and went out, but nothing was revealed by it. Old Treverton seemed to think that a current had carried the body far beyond the bay and a long way out to sea.