CHAPTER V.

MISSING.

There was commotion next morning at Trennach, especially about the region of the Bare Plain and the cottages in Bleak Row. Josiah Bell had disappeared. Mrs. Bell had sat up half the night waiting for him; then, concluding he had taken too much liquor to be able to find his way home, and had either stayed at the Golden Shaft or found refuge with Andrew Float, she went to bed. Upon making inquiries this morning, this proved not to be the case. Nothing seemed to be known of Josiah Bell. His comrades professed ignorance as to his movements: the Golden Shaft had not taken him in; neither had Andrew Float.

Mrs. Bell rose early. People in a state of exasperation, lose sight of physical weakness: and this exactly expresses Dame Bell's state of mind. It was of course necessary that she should be up, in order to give Bell a proper lecture when he should make his appearance. Whilst dressing, she saw Nancy Tomson's husband outside, apparently starting for Trennach. Throwing a warm shawl over her shoulders, she opened the window.

"Tomson!" she called out. "Tomson!"

The man heard and looked up, his face leaden and his eyes red and inflamed. Last night's potations were not yet slept off.

"What was the reason my husband did not come home?"

Tomson took a few moments to digest the question. Apparently his recollection on the point did not quickly serve him.

"I doan't know," said he. "Didn't Bell come hoam?"

"No, he didn't."

"Baan't he come hoam?"

"No, he has not come. And I think it was a very unfriendly thing of the rest of you not to bring him. You had to come yourselves. Did you leave him at the Golden Shaft?"

"Bell warn't at tha Golden Shaaft," said Tomson.

"Now don't you tell me any of your untruths, Ben Tomson," returned the dame. "Not at the Golden Shaft! Where else was he?"

"I'll take my davy Bell were not weth us at tha Golden Shaaft last evening!" said the man. "He cleared out at dusk."

"But he went back to it later."

"He never did--not as I saw," persisted Tomson; who was always obstinate in maintaining his own opinion.

"Was Andrew Float there?" asked Mrs. Bell.

"Andrew Float? Yes, Float was there."

"Then I know Bell was there too. And don't you talk any more nonsense about it, Ben Tomson. Bell was too bad to get home by himself, and none of you chose to help him home; perhaps you were too bad yourselves to do it. And there he has stayed till now; either at the Golden Shaft, or with Float the miner: and you'd very much oblige me, Tomson, if you'd hunt him up."

She shut the casement, watched Tomson start on his way to Trennach, and, presently, went down to breakfast. Rosaline was getting it ready as usual, looking more dead than alive.

"We'll wait a bit, Rose, to see whether your father comes. Don't put the tea in yet."

Rose was kneeling before the fire at the moment. She turned at the words, a wild look in her eyes, and seemed about to say something; but checked herself.

Half-an-hour passed: Dame Bell growing more angry each minute, and rehearsing a sharper reception for Bell in her mind. At last they sat down to breakfast. Rose could not eat; she seemed ill: but her mother, taken up with the ill-doings of the truant, did not observe her as much as she would otherwise have done. Breakfast was at an end, although Mrs. Bell had lingered over it, when Tomson returned; and with him appeared the tall ungainly form of Float the miner.

"Well?" cried the dame, rising briskly from her chair in expectation, as Tomson raised the latch of the door.

"Well, 'tis as I said," said Tomson. "Bell didn't come back to the Golden Shaaft last night after he cleared out just afore dark. He ain't nowheres about as we can see."

Mrs. Bell looked from one to the other: at Tomson's rather sullen countenance, at Float's good-natured one. She might have thought the men were deceiving her, but she could see no motive for their doing so. Unless, indeed, Bell was lying somewhere in Trennach, so ill after his bout that they did not like to tell her.

"Where is he, then, I should like to know?" she retorted, in reply to Tomson.

"Caan't tell," said Tomson. "None o' they men heve seen him."

"Now this won't do," cried Dame Bell. "You must know where he is. Do you suppose he's lost? Don't stand simpering there on one leg, Andrew Float, but just tell me where he is hiding."

"I'd tell ye if I knew, ma'am," said Andrew, in his meek way. "I'd like to know where he is myself."

"But he was at the Golden Shaft last night: he must have been there," insisted the dame, unable to divest herself of this opinion. "What became of him when the place shut up? What state was he in?"

"No, ma'am, he was not there," said Andrew, mildly, for he never liked contradicting.

"Stuff!" said Mrs. Bell. "There was nowhere else for him to go to. What did you do with him, Andrew Float?"

"I heve done naught with him," rejoined Andrew. "He kep' I and they t'other soes awaiting all the evening for him at the Golden Shaft; but he didn't come back to't."

"I know he was at the Golden Shaft pretty nigh all yesterday," retorted Mrs. Bell, angrily.

"He were," acknowledged Andrew. "He come back after his dinner, and stayed there along o' the rest of us: but he was pewerly silent and glum; we couldna get a word from him. Just as they were a-lighting up, Bell he gets off the settle, and puts on his hat; and when we asked where he was going, he said to do his work. Upon that, one o' they sees--old Perkins, I think it were--wanted to know what work; but Bell wouldn't answer him. He'd be back by-and-by, he said; and went out."

"And he did not go back again?" reiterated Dame Bell.

"No, ma'am, he didn't. Though we aal stayed a bit later than usual on the strength of expecting him."

"It's very strange," said she. "He came home here about seven o'clock, or between that and half-past--I can't be sure as to the exact time. I thought he had come for good; he was three-parts tipsy then, and I advised him to sit down and make himself comfortable. Not a bit would he heed. After standing a minute or so, twirling his stick about, and asking where Rosaline was, and this and the other, he suddenly pushes his hat down over his eyes, and out he goes in a passion--as I could tell by his banging the door. Of course he was going back to the Golden Shaft. There can't be a doubt of it."

"He never came to the Golden Shaft, ma'am," said Float.

"I say," cried Tomson at this juncture, "what's amiss with Rosaline?"

During the above conversation, Rosaline had stood at the dresser, wiping the plates one by one, and keeping her back to the company, so that they did not see her face. But it chanced that Tomson went to the fire to light his pipe, just as Rosaline's work came to an end. As she crossed the kitchen to the staircase, Tomson met her and had full view of her. The man stared after her in surprise: even when she had disappeared up the stairs and shut the door behind her, he still stood staring; for he had never seen in all his life a face to equal it for terror. It was then that he put his question to Mrs. Bell.

"Didn't your wife tell you what it was that frightened her, Ben Tomson?" was the dame's query.

"My wife have said ne'er a word to me since yesterday dinnertime, save to call me a vool," confessed Tomson. "Her temper be up. Rosaline do look bad, though!"

"She heard the Seven Whistlers last night," explained Mrs. Bell. "It did fright her a'most to death.

"What!--they Whistlers here again laast night?" cried Tomson, his eyes opening with consternation.

Dame Bell nodded. "Your wife and me were sitting here, Ben Tomson, waiting for Rosaline to come in, and wondering why Granny Sandon kept her so late. I opened the door to see if I could see her coming across the Plain--or Bell, either, for the matter o' that--and there she was, leaning again' the wall outside with terror. We got her indoors, me and Nancy Tomson, and for some time could make nothing of her; she was too frighted to speak. At last she told us she had heard the Seven Whistlers as she was coming over the Plain."

But now this statement of Mrs. Bell's unconsciously deviated from the strict line of truth. Rosaline had not "told" them that she heard the Seven Whistlers on the Plain. When her mother suddenly accused her of having heard the Whistlers, and was backed in the suggestion by Nancy Tomson, poor Rosaline nodded an affirmative, but she gave it in sheer despair. She could not avow what had really frightened her; and the Seven Whistlers--which she had certainly _not_ heard--served excellently for an excuse. The two women of course adopted the explanation religiously, and they had no objection to talk about it.

"They Whistlers again!" resumed Tomson, in dismay. "Ross, he's raging just like a bear this morning, threatening us weth law and what not; but he _caan't_ expect us to go down and risk our lives while they boding Whistlers be glinting about."

"There, never mind they Whistlers," broke in Mrs. Bell, who sometimes fell into the native dialect. "Where's Bell got to? that's what I want to know."

Of course Tomson could not say. Neither could Float. The latter made the most sensible suggestion the circumstances admitted of--namely, that they should go and search for him. Mrs. Bell urged them to do so at once and to make haste about it. Bell would be found in Trennach fast enough, she said. As he had not taken refuge in Float's the miner's house, he had taken it in somebody else's, and was staying there till he grew sober.

On this day, Wednesday, Trennach was again taking holiday, and laying the blame on the Seven Whistlers. But this state of things could not last. The men knew that; and they now promised the overseer, Ross, whose rage had reached a culminating point, that the morrow should see them at work. One wise old miner avowed an opinion that three days would be enough to "break the spell o' they Whistlers and avert evil."

So the village street was filled with idlers, who really, apart from smoking and drinking, had nothing to do with themselves. It was a little early yet for the Golden Shaft: and when Andrew Float and Tomson arrived amongst them with the account that Josiah Bell had not been seen since the previous evening or been home all night, and that his wife (or as Tomson phrased it in the local vernacular, his woman) couldn't think where he had got to and had put a rod in pickle for him: the men listened. With one accord, they agreed to go and look for Bell: and they set about it heartily, for it gave them something to do.

But Josiah Bell could not be found. The miners' dwellings were searched, perhaps without a single exception, but he had not taken refuge in any one of them. Since quitting the Golden Shaft the previous evening at dusk, as testified to by the men who were there, only two persons, apart from his wife, could remember to have seen him: Blase Pellet, and the Rector of Trennach, the Reverend Thomas Pine. Mr. Pellet, standing at his shop-door for recreation at the twilight hour, had seen Bell pass down the street on his way from the inn, and noticed that he was tolerably far gone in liquor. The clergyman had seen and spoken to Bell a very few minutes later.

Chancing to meet the men on their search this morning, Mr. Pine learnt that Josiah Bell was missing. The clergyman always made himself at home with the men, whether they belonged to his flock or were Wesleyans. He never attempted to interfere in the slightest degree with their form of worship, but he constantly strove by friendly persuasion to lead them away from evil. The Wesleyan minister was obliged to him for it: he himself was lame, and could not be so active as he would have liked. Mr. Pine did much good, no doubt: but this last affair of the Whistlers, and the consequent idleness, had been too strong for him. Latterly Mr. Pine had also been in very indifferent health; the result of many years' hard work, and no holiday. Dr. Raynor had now told him that an entire rest of some months had become essential to him; without it he would inevitably break down. He was a tall, thin, middle-aged man with a worn face. Particularly worn, it looked, as he stood talking to the group of miners this morning.

"I saw Bell last evening myself," observed Mr. Pine. "And I was very sorry to see him as I did, for he could hardly walk straight. I was coming off the Plain and met him there. He had halted, and was gazing about, as if looking for some one: or, perhaps, in doubt--as it struck me--whether he should go on home, or, return whence he had come; which I supposed was from that favourite resort of yours, my men, the Golden Shaft. 'Better go straight home, Bell,' I said to him. 'I'm going that way, sir,' he answered. And he did go that way: for I watched him well on to the Plain."

"Well, we caan't find him nohow, sir," observed Andrew Float. "What time might that have been, sir, please?"

"Time? Something past seven. I should think it likely that Bell lay down somewhere to sleep the liquor off," added the clergyman, preparing to continue his way. "It is not often Bell exceeds as he did yesterday, and therefore it would take more effect upon him." The Bells, it may as well be remarked, were church people.

"Most likely he have faaled down, as tha paarson says; but he's a vool for lying there still," observed the men amongst themselves, as they turned off to pursue the search. Frank Raynor was out on his round this morning, as usual, and paid a visit to Molly Janes, whom he found going on satisfactorily. In passing Mrs. Bell's window, he saw Rosaline: hesitated, and then lifted the latch and went in. He stayed a minute or two talking with her alone, the mother being upstairs: and left her with the one word emphatically repeated: "Remember."

When Tomson went home to his midday meal, he opened Mrs. Bell's door to inform her that there were no tidings of her husband. Dame Bell received the information with incredulity. Much they had searched! she observed to her daughter, as Tomson disappeared: they had just sat themselves down again at the Golden Shaft; that was what they had done. Which accusation was this time a libel. She resolved to go and look after him herself when she had eaten her dinner. As to Rosaline, she did not know what to make of her. The girl looked frightfully ill, did not speak, and every now and then was seized with a fit of trembling.

"Such nonsense, child, to let the Whistlers frighten you into this state!" cried Mrs. Bell, tartly.

Retiring to her room after dinner, she came down by-and-by with her things on. Rosaline looked surprised.

"Where are you going, mother?"

"Into Trennach," said Dame Bell. "There's an old saying, 'If you want a thing done, do it yourself.' I shall find your father, I'll be bound, if he is to be found anywhere."

"You will be so tired, mother."

"Tired! Nonsense. Mind you have tea ready, Rosaline. I shall be sure to bring him back with me; I'm not going to stand any nonsense: and you might make a nice bit of buttered toast; he's fond of it, you know."

Stepping briskly across the Plain, Mrs. Bell went onwards. Nothing induces activity like a little access of temper, and she was boiling over with indignation at her husband. The illness from which she was suffering did not deprive her of exertion: and in truth it was not a serious illness as yet, though it might become so. Symptoms of a slow, inward complaint were manifesting themselves, and Dr. Raynor was doing his best to subdue them. Privately he feared the result; but Dame Bell did not suspect that yet.

Dr. Raynor and his nephew stood in the surgery after their midday dinner, the doctor with his back to the fire, Frank handing some prepared medicines, for delivery, to the boy who waited for them. As the latter went out with his basket, Blase Pellet ran across the road and came in, apron on, but minus his hat.

"Could you oblige us with a small quantity of one or two drugs, sir?" he asked of Dr. Raynor: mentioning those required. "We are out of them, and our traveller won't call before next week. Mr. Float's respects, sir, and he'll be much obliged if you can do it."

"I dare say we can," replied Dr. Raynor. "Just see, Frank, will you?"

As Frank was looking out the drugs, Mr. Pine came in. He was rather fond of running in for a chat with the doctor and Frank at leisure moments. Frank was an especial favourite of his, with his unaffected goodness of heart and his genial nature.

"A fine state of things, is it not!" cried the clergyman, alluding to the idlers in the streets. "Three days of it, we have had now."

"They will be at work to-morrow, I hear," said the doctor.

"Has Bell turned up yet?"

"No. The men have just told me they don't know where to look for him. They have searched everywhere. It seems strange where he can have got to."

Blase Pellet, standing before the table, waiting for the drugs, caught Frank's eye as the last words were spoken. A meaning look shot out from Pellet, and Frank Raynor's gaze fell as he met it. It plainly said, "_You_ know where he is:" or it seemed so to Frank's guilty conscience.

"The fellow must have seen all!" thought Frank. "What on earth will come of it?"

Some one pushed back the half-open door, and stepped in with a quick gait and rather a sharp tongue: sharp, at least, this afternoon. Dame Bell: in her Sunday Paisley shawl, and green strings to her bonnet.

"If you please, Dr. Raynor--I beg pardon, gentlefolk"--catching sight of the clergyman--"if you please, doctor, could you give me some little thing to quiet Rosaline's nerves. She heard the Seven Whistlers last night, and they have frightened her out of her senses."

"Heard the Seven Whistlers!" repeated the clergyman, a hearty smile crossing his face.

"She did, sir. And pretty nearly died of it. I'm sure last night I thought she would have died. I'd never have supposed Rosaline could be so foolish. But there; it is so; and to-day she's just like one dazed. Not an atom of colour in her face; cowed down so as hardly to be able to put one foot before the other; and every other minute has a fit of the shivers."

To hear this astounding account of the hitherto gay, light-hearted, and self-contained Rosaline Bell, surprised the surgery not a little. Dr. Raynor naturally asked for further particulars; and Dame Bell plunged into the history of the previous night, and went through with it.

"Yes, gentlefolk, those were her very words--almost all we could get out of her: 'Father heard them and they boded death.' I----"

"But you should have tried to reason her out of such nonsense," interrupted Dr. Raynor.

"_Me_ tried!" retorted Dame Bell, resenting the words. "Why, sir, it is what I did do. Me and Nancy Tomson both tried our best; but all she answered was just what I now tell you: 'Father heard the Whistlers, and they boded death.'"

Mr. Blase Pellet, standing with the small packet of drugs in his hand, ready to depart, but apparently unable to tear himself away, glanced up at Frank with the last words, and again momentarily met his eye. A slight shivering passed through Frank--caught perhaps from hearing of Rosaline's shiverings--and he bent his face over a deep drawer, where it could not be seen; as if searching for something missing.

"Well, it is a pity Rosaline should suffer herself to be alarmed by anything of the sort," observed Dr. Raynor; "but I will send her a composing draught. Are you going home now, Mrs. Bell?"

"As soon as I can find my husband, sir. I've come in to look for him. Tomson wanted to persuade me that he and Andrew Float and a lot more of them had been hunting for him all the morning; but I know better. Bell is inside one of their houses, sleeping off the effects of drink."

"The men have just told me they can't find him," said the clergyman. "I know they have been searching."

"There's an old saying, sir, 'If you want a thing well done, do it yourself.' I repeated it to Rose before I came out. Fine searching, I've no doubt it has been!--the best part of it inside the Golden Shaft. I'm going to look him up myself--and if you please, Dr. Raynor, I'll make bold to call in, as I go back, for the physic for Rosaline."

Unbelieving Mrs. Bell departed. Blase Pellet followed her. Dr. Raynor told Frank what to make up for Rosaline, and then he himself went out with Mr. Pine.

A few minutes afterwards, Edina softly opened the surgery-door, and glanced in. She generally came cautiously, not knowing whether patients might be in it or not. But there was only Frank. And Frank had his arms on the desk, and his head resting on them. The attitude certainly told of despondency, and Edina stood in astonishment: it was so unlike the gay-hearted young man.

"Why, Frank! What is the matter?"

He started up, and stared, bewildered, at Edina: as if his thoughts had been far away, and he could not in a moment bring them back again. Edina saw the trouble in his unguarded face, but he smoothed it away instantly.

"You have not seemed yourself since last night, Frank," said she in low tones, as she advanced further into the room. "Something or other has happened, I am sure. Is it anything that I can set right?--or help you in?"

"Now, Edina, don't run away with fancies," rejoined he, as gaily as though he had not a care in the world. "There's nothing at all the matter with me. I suppose I had dropped asleep over the physic. One does not stay out raking till three o'clock in the morning every day, you know."

"You cannot deceive me, Frank," rejoined Edina, her true, thoughtful eyes fixed earnestly upon him. "I--I cannot help fancying that it is in some way connected with Rosaline Bell," she added, lowering her voice. "I hope you are not getting into any entanglement: falling in love with her; or anything of that sort?"

"Not a bit of it," readily answered Frank.

"Well, Frank, if I can do anything to aid you in any way, you have only to ask me; you know that," concluded Edina, perceiving he was not inclined to speak out. "Always remember this, Frank: that in any trouble or perplexity, the best course is to look it straight in the face, freely and fully. Doing so takes away half its sting."

Meanwhile Dame Bell was pursuing her search. But she found that she could not do more than the miners had done towards discovering her husband. Into this house, out of that one, inquiring here, seeking there, went she, but all to no purpose. She was not uneasy, only exasperated: and she gave Mr. Blase Pellet a sharp reprimand upon his venturing to hint that there might exist cause for uneasiness.

The reprimand occurred as she was returning towards home. After her unsuccessful search, she was walking back down the street of Trennach in a state of much inward wonder as to where Bell could be hiding, and had nearly reached Dr. Raynor's, when she saw Float the druggist standing at his shop-door, and crossed over to enlarge upon the mystery to him. Mr. Blase Pellet came forward, as a matter of course, from his place behind the book-counter to assist at the conference.

"Bell is safe to turn up soon," remarked the druggist, who was a peaceable man, after listening to Mrs. Bell for a few minutes in silence.

"Turn up! of course he will turn up," replied the dame. "What's to hinder it? And he will have such a dressing from me that I don't think he'll be for hiding himself again in a hurry."

Upon that, Blase Pellet, partially sheltered behind the burly form of the druggist, spoke.

"Suppose he never does turn up? Suppose he is dead?--or something of that kind."

The suggestion angered Mrs. Bell.

"Are you a heathen, Blase Pellet, to invent such a thought as that?" she demanded in wrath. "What do you suppose Bell's likely to die from?--and where?"

Leaving Mr. Pellet to repent of his rashness, she marched over to Dr. Raynor's for the composing draught promised for Rosaline. And when Mrs. Bell went home with it she fully expected that by that time the truant would have made his appearance there.

But he had not done so. Rosaline had prepared the tea and toast, according to orders, but no Bell was there to partake of it. Nancy Tomson shared it instead. All the rest of the evening Dame Bell was looking out for him; and exchanging suggestions with her neighbours, who kept dropping in. Rosaline scarcely spoke: not at all unless she was spoken to. The same cold, white hue sat on her face, the same involuntary shiver at times momentarily shook her frame. The gossips gazed at her curiously--as a specimen of the fright those dreaded Whistlers had power to inflict.

They sat up again half the night, waiting for Bell, but waiting in vain; and then they went to rest. Mrs. Bell did not sleep as well as usual: she was disturbed with doubts as to where he could be, and by repeated fancyings that she heard his step outside. Once she got up, opened the casement, and looked out; but there was nothing to be seen; nothing except the great Bare Plain lying bleak and silent in the silver moonlight.