Legend of Moulin Huet | Page 9

as everything was for sometime quite unavailing, a more miserable pair it would have been difficult to discover.
Hirzel now came in. He was running upstairs to the granary when his Father called him in to see if he could do anything for his poor sister.
"A pretty night's work this," he said, when he came into the room and saw his sister lying there.
At this moment she opened her eyes, and he went close to her and raised her in his arms. With an expression of deep thankfulness, Marguerite's first words were to send that murderer, Jacques Gaultier, away out of her sight. Hirzel ordered him to leave the room, with more fierceness in his tone than anyone had heard there before.
"Oh! Hirzel, what shall I do without Charlie? Stay with me, only you, and I will tell you all."
Hearing this her Father left the room, and Hirzel bent down and whispered to her---
"Charlie is alive and well. He told me to tell you this himself."
"Oh! Hirzel, you are deceiving me. How could he be alive after such a dreadful fall? It was terrible."
Here Marguerite's fortitude gave way, and she indulged in a flood of tears, while Hirzel looked at her with the masculine helplessness usual on such occasions, and indeed it seemed to cost the fine tender-hearted fellow an effort to keep from joining in them too. At last he said, "Well Marguerite, if you don't stop, I'll go off, and tell Charlie you only cried after you heard he was alive and well."
"Ah! Hirzel, is that not the way with our sex. Sometimes, to cry over the best and happiest times while the worst is bravely borne?"
Hirzel then told Marguerite how he had met Charlie just outside at the foot of the lane, considerably bruised and knocked about, though without any internal injuries. How he escaped was nothing short of a miracle, one of those things which occasionally happen, perhaps, to show what can be done when there is the will to do it.
There was an iron loop which projected about a foot from the walls, this Charlie made a spring at after the manner of a gymnast; he caught it, and although it came away in his grasp, yet it broke his fall, and what was of more importance, changed the direction of his course to the brickwork alongside the wheel, instead of the water under it. Once on the brickwork he jumped down into the garden, and went out into the lane, where he met Hirzel.
Charlie did not for a moment suspect that there was anything but pure accident in what had happened, and as he met Hirzel just at that moment he judged it wisest not to return near the house in case he should get Marguerite into trouble; but after telling Hirzel to assure his sister that he was safe, he set off to the fortress, little thinking he was supposed to be lying dead at the foot of the Moulin Hu��t cliffs, carried there by the mill stream.
Marguerite now told to her brother, her suspicions of how all had happened. He wished to go immediately and tax Jacques with the crime; but, in deference to his sister's wishes, remained where he was. The noise of the mill wheel turning round suddenly ceased, and on Hirzel's going up to ascertain the cause, he found his Father tying up the rope in the room behind the granary. This rope passed out of a small round hole in the wall of this room, and round the corner of the house where it was attached to the wheel. The window through which Charlie and Marguerite had been talking was rather a large one, but had some iron bars across which had prevented Marguerite leaning out to see what had become of Charlie. This perhaps was as well, for at best his descent would have been extremely trying to look at.
The next morning did not bring Jacques to finish his work, but in the evening he appeared, after vainly trying to induce Marguerite to speak to him, which naturally she was very loath to do, went and commenced his work, which he went steadily on with, though he was very much fatigued by having no rest the preceding night, and now had been out fishing all day. He sat down to rest for a few minutes when he fell asleep. After dark old Pierre came round to lock all the doors, as was his nightly custom. Looking in and not seeing Jacques he supposed he had gone and locked that door also. Pierre then went to rest himself, and all were buried in slumber, with the exception of Hirzel, who had gone over to Jerbourg to acquaint Charlie with all that had happened. About 9 o'clock, as Charlie and