[The Moorland Cottage by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell]@TWC D-Link book
The Moorland Cottage

CHAPTER XI
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The road soon lay high up on the cliffs along the coast.

They looked down on the sea rocking below.

At every village they stopped, and Frank inquired, and made the driver inquire in Welsh; but no tidings gained they of Edward; though here and there Maggie watched Frank into some cottage or other, going to see a dead body, beloved by some one: and when he came out, solemn and grave, their sad eyes met, and she knew it was not he they sought, without needing words.
At Abergele they stopped to rest; and because, being a larger place, it would need a longer search, Maggie lay down on the sofa, for she was very weak, and shut her eyes, and tried not to see forever and ever that mad struggling crowd lighted by the red flames.
Frank came back in an hour or so; and soft behind him--laboriously treading on tiptoe--Mr.Buxton followed.

He was evidently choking down his sobs; but when he saw the white wan figure of Maggie, he held out his arms.
"My dear! my daughter!" he said, "God bless you!" He could not speak more--he was fairly crying; but he put her hand in Frank's and kept holding them both.
"My father," said Frank, speaking in a husky voice, while his eyes filled with tears, "had heard of it before he received my letter.

I might have known that the lighthouse signals would take it fast to Liverpool.


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