A little before noon one gray day in September, 1746, a well-made young fellow, in appearance and fact a gentleman’s servant, rode up the High Street of a town in the North of England, and through the passageway of an inn to the yard. Having entrusted his sorrel nag to an ostler, he hastened to the kitchen, and proceeded to give orders to the landlady with an absence of deference which plainly showed that he spoke not for himself but for his master.
There are still a few English inns not unlike those of that time. This particular house was of dull red brick, its main part extending along the street and pierced in the middle by the passageway which led back to the yard. In the front, the ground floor had four wide windows, and these were matched by four above, while a fifth was over the passage entrance. The small panes and stone facings of the windows gave the inn that look of comfort so characteristic of eighteenth-century houses, and this was increased by the small dormer casements in the sloping roof. The passage itself, paved with stones worn comparatively smooth, was capacious enough to admit a stage-coach or a carrier’s covered wagon. As you entered it, you saw the yard beyond, which was bounded by a wing of the main building and by stables, sheds, and sundry out-houses. Half-way through this passage, you found at your left hand a door, which opened to a public parlour, wherein meals were served at a common table to stage-coach passengers and other outside guests. At the right-hand side of the passage was a wider doorway, giving access to a small entry, from which you might step forward into the kitchen, or rightward into the bar, or leftward to a narrow stairway that wound steeply to the floor above.
The kitchen was not the least attractive of these destinations,—with the ample fire in its spacious chimney-place, the shine of the pots and pans on its wall, the blackened beams across its low ceiling, its table devoted to culinary business, its greater table devoted to gastronomic business—for all guests of low station, including the servants of those of higher station, ate in the kitchen,—and the oaken settles and joint-stools so tempting to the tired, hungry, and thirsty traveller who might appear in the doorway.
“And lookye, ma’am, you’ll oblige by making haste,” said the gentleman’s servant, having communicated his orders, “for master is following so close he may be here in a quarter of an hour. I’ll eat my bite while he’s on the way; for he’ll be having me wait on him at table, and as soon as he’s finished his dinner we shall be off again,—there’s eight bad miles between here and home.”
He went to that end of the long table whereon certain cold viands stood exposed, while the landlady set the cook and scullery-maid upon preparations for the meal that had been ordered. She then called a chambermaid and bade her get the Rose—the best room in the house—ready for the meal to be served in. By this time the gentleman’s servant had helped himself to a good slice from the round of cold beef, and a plentiful supply of bread, had obtained a pot of beer from the tapster, and was seated in great comfort at the table. The landlady, a fat and tyrannical-looking creature, turned to him.
“When your master stopped here t’other day, on his way to the South,” said she, “he had nobody with him but you. But now that he’s coming home, he orders dinner for two in a private room, and for one in the kitchen besides yourself. How comes that?”
“Because he’s bringing home the young mistress and her waiting-woman.”
“Young mistress, d’ye say? What, then, has Mr. Foxwell been married? Is that what he went South for?”
“Oh, God forbid! No, ma’am, ’tis his niece, Miss Foxwell, he’s fetching home. She’s been reared by an aunt on her mother’s side, but now her education is finished, and, according to her grandfather’s will, she comes home to Foxwell Court.”
“Then Foxwell Court was left to her? It seems to me I did hear summat of that estate going to a gran’daughter.”
“’Twas left to master and her together in some way or other—my master being the younger son, d’ye see, and she being the orphan of the elder. They do say master would ’a’ got the most of the property but for the wicked life he led in London,—I’ve heard he was a terrible gay man afore he came to the country to live,—but I wasn’t with him in them days, so can’t speak from my own knowledge.” The youth uttered an unconscious sigh, doubtless of regret at possibilities he had missed.
“Well, from what I’ve heard now and again of goings on at Foxwell Court since your master came to live there,” said the landlady, “he didn’t leave all his gay ways behind him in London; but maybe report is a liar, as the saying is, Master Caleb.”
“Oh, no doubt there’s summat of drinking, when the master can get anybody to his mind to drink with—for, between us, Mrs. Betteridge, he doesn’t run well with the county gentlemen—as how should he, with his town breeding? And I don’t say there isn’t considerable gaming, and frolics with the fair sex; but the place has been bachelor’s hall, d’ye see,—till now the young mistress comes.”
“And now I dare say all those fine doings will have to stop,” said Mrs. Betteridge; “—the frolics with the fair seck, at least.”
“That’ll be a pity,” said a voice behind her, whereupon the landlady, turning indignantly, beheld the stout form and complacent ruddy visage of her husband.
“A pity!” she echoed, in wrath and contempt. “’Tis like you to say it, Betteridge! I hope the young lady will keep Foxwell Court clean of the trollops. You’d be up to the same tricks in your own house if all the maids didn’t scorn you.”
The landlord’s only reply being a placid puff of smoke from his long-stemmed pipe, his helpmate discharged an ejaculation of disgust and waddled away. He took her place as catechist of the serving-man, seating himself on the opposite bench.
“What news on the road, Caleb?”
“Nothing to make a song of, as the saying is. Except at York,—we stayed the night there. They’ve indicted a great parcel of rebels—seventy-five all told, I hear.”
“They did better than that in Carlisle last month,—found true bills against a hundred and nineteen. Their trials will be coming on soon.”
“Ay, before the trials at York, no doubt. Well, all I can say is, ’tis bad weather for Scotchmen.”
“So many of ’em have come over the border to make their fortunes, ’tis only fair some of ’em should come over to be hanged. Well, he laughs best that laughs last. To think what a fright their army gave us last year,—some of us, that is,—not me. Have you heard if the Pretender has been caught yet?”
“Not I. Some think he’ll never be caught,—that he’s been picked up by a vessel on the Scotch coast and got safe away for France.”
“A good riddance, then, say I. I don’t begrudge him his neck, seeing there’s no fear he’ll ever ockipy the English throne. The British Constitution is safe. Well, ’tis all over with the Jacobites; no more ‘Charlie over the Water’; they’ll have to make up their minds to drink to King George for good and all. ’Twill be a bitter pill to swallow, for some I could mention.”
“You can’t say that of us. My master has always been Hanoverian.”
“Ay, ay, being town bred, and a gentleman of fashion. ’Tis some of our country gentry I’m thinking of. Well, they are singing small at present. Lucky for them they didn’t rise and join the Pretender when he invaded us last year.”
“There were mighty few English in his army, that’s certain.”
“Mighty few. A parcel enlisted at Manchester. And, to be sure, there was the garrison at Carlisle that declared for him. And some had gone to Scotland before that to meet him,—madmen, I call them. But he had no English of any family, barring a few that came with him from France, I hear:—chips of the old block, they were, dyed-in-the-wool Jacobites, from the old breed, that lived abroad for their health, eh? Well, ’tis all over now—all over now.”
Mr. Betteridge looked gratified as he said it, but there was a suppressed sigh beneath his content. Had he, too, in his day, sometimes held his glass over a bowl of water in drinking the king’s health?
“Except the hangings and beheadings,” he added, as an afterthought.
Caleb made no reply, being busy with his food lest his master might arrive before he had satisfied his hunger. The post-chaise which bore that gentleman was now approaching the town from the South, under the guidance of a despondent-looking postilion. Within the chaise, beside the gentleman, sat a young lady, and on the seat improvised on the bar in front was a lady’s maid. Between the young lady and the gentleman, who was middle-aged, silence prevailed. They did not look at each other; and something in the air of both seemed to denote a lack of mutual sympathy.
When we describe the gentleman as middle-aged, we mean as ages went in the reign of George II., for it is a vulgar error to suppose that people generally lived as long in the “good” old days as they do now. Not to speak of the wars and the hangman, there were bad sanitation and medical ignorance to shorten the careers of a vast number, and “drink and the devil did for the rest.” This gentleman in the post-chaise, then, was not over forty. Drink and the devil had made good headway upon him: one could see that in his face, which was otherwise a face of good breeding, wit, and accomplishment; a handsome face, lighted by keen, gray eyes, but marred by the traces of riotous living and cynical thoughts, and by a rooted discontent. He was tall and gracefully formed. His dress betokened fallen fortunes. The worn velvet of his coat and breeches was faded from a deep colour resembling that of the wine he had too much indulged in. The embroidery of his satin waistcoat, the lace of his three-cornered hat, the buckles of his shoes, the handle of his sword, and the mounting of his pistols, were of silver, but badly tarnished. His white silk stockings were mended in more places than one; his linen, however, was immaculate. He wore his own hair, tied behind with a ribbon.
The young lady beside him was very young, indeed; and very pretty, indeed, having wide-open blue eyes, a delicately coloured face, a charming little nose, an equally charming mouth, and a full, shapely chin. Her look was at once sweet-tempered and high-spirited; for the time being, it contained something of disapproval and rebellion. As for this young lady’s clothes, the present historian’s admiration for handsome dress on women is equalled by his dislike of describing it—or hearing it described—in detail. Enough to say that her gown of dark crimson, with its high waist, seemed to belong by nature to the small, slender, and graceful figure it encased; and was free from the excess—deplored by good judges then as now—so dear to overdressed dowdiness. She had, too, the secret still lacked by some of her fair countryfolk, of poising a hat gracefully, thus not to look top-heavy; hers was a hat of darker shade than her gown, with a good sweep of brim.
As for the maid, on the seat in front, she, too, was rather a young thing,—slim and tall, with a wholesome complexion, longish features, and the artful-artless, variable-vacuous, consequential-conciliating expression of her tribe. An honest, unlettered, shallow, not ill-meaning creature; cast by circumstance for a super’s part in the drama of life, never to be anything more than an accessory.
But the pretty young lady, left to her own thoughts, of what was she thinking? Did her mind cling regretfully to the life she had just left?—to the small, well-ordered home of her widowed old aunt; the decorous society of the staid cathedral town in the South, with its regular and deliberate gaieties, its exceeding regard for “politeness”? Or did it concern itself with the home for which she was bound, the country-house she had not seen since childhood, but which she remembered vaguely as old and half-ruinous then?—with what manner of life she was to lead there in the society of this strange, profligate-seeming uncle, who manifestly did not like her any more than she could find it in her heart to like him? Or did she have some vague intimation of great things about to happen unexpectedly?—of matters of deep import to her future life, destined to result from the chance coming together of certain people at the inn ahead?
Probably Miss Georgiana Foxwell had no such thought; but ’tis a fact that at the very time when her post-chaise was coming into sight of the church-tower of this town, other conveyances were bringing other travellers to the same town, to the great though unintended influencing of her destiny. To begin at the top, for that was an age of arbitrary social distinctions, a private coach, drawn by six horses and followed by a mounted servant, was lumbering along slowly from the North. Then from the East cantered two well-fed horses, bearing, as anybody could see, their owner and his man servant. From the North again, but far behind and out of ken of the coach-and-six, came three post-horses under saddle, one of the riders being the custodian and guide. And lastly, somewhere between the private carriage and the hired horses, but not within sight of either, a stage-coach ground its way over the rugged eighteenth-century highway. Of all the vehicles and horses that raised the dust on English roads that day, only these—with the post-chaise—concern us.
The first to arrive at the inn, where Caleb had by this time stayed his stomach and stepped out to look things over in the yard, were the two well-fed horses. Their owner, a robust, red-faced, round-headed, important-looking country gentleman of about five and thirty, slid off his steed with agility, and, leaving the animals to the care of his man, was met at the entry door by the landlady.
“Welcome, Squire Thornby!—a welcome to your Worship! I hope I see your Worship very well, sir.”
He took her obsequiousness as his due, and, with no more reciprocation than a complacent grunt, he bade her lay a cloth in the Rose and let his man Bartholomew bring to that room a round of cold beef and a quart of her best ale. With his snub-nosed crimson visage, he looked the part he had been born to fill in life; and was suitably dressed for it, too, in his brown wig, green cloth coat, brown waistcoat and breeches, large riding-boots, and plain, three-cornered hat.
“For I’m in haste to get home,” he added, “where I’ll pay myself for a cold dinner by a hot supper. So bestir, Mrs. Betteridge, and don’t keep me waiting.”
“Certainly, your Worship, sir; by all means, Squire Thornby.” And she called to a chambermaid, “Moll, lay a cloth for the Squire in the Thistle, and be quick—”
“I said the Rose, Mrs. Betteridge. Didn’t you hear? Thistle be damned!—I never said Thistle.”
“The Rose, Squire? The Thistle is far the better room—far the better, your Worship.”
“Lea’ me be the judge o’ that, woman. I’ll dine in the Rose, and there’s an end.” Whereupon he turned toward the stairs.
“Your pardon, Squire,—I wouldn’t offend your Worship for anything,—but the Rose is bespoke already for dinner-time, and truly indeed most o’ the quality that stops here prefers the Thistle.”
“But I prefer the Rose, and the quality that stop here may be hanged, rat ’em.”
“I’m terrible sorry, your Worship. But all’s ready in the Rose for t’other party, sir; and the gentleman as sent orders was most particular about having the Rose—though for my part I can’t see why he should want that room when he might ’a’ had the Thistle, and so I thought to myself at the time, sir; and when I seed your Worship arrive just now, thinks I to myself, how lucky it is t’other gentleman bespoke the Rose, because now there’s the Thistle for his Worship. And sure indeed the cloth’s laid for t’other party, and their dinner a’most cooked, and we expect them every minute—”
Beaten down by this torrent of speech, the Squire waved his hand for silence, and said, with surly resignation: “Oh, well, then, the Thistle. Who is it has bespoke the Rose, drat ’em?”
“Mr. Foxwell, your Worship, a neighbour of yours, sir, if I may say so.”
The Squire gave a start, and the cloud on his brow deepened. “Foxwell!” he echoed. “A neighbour of mine!—H’m! Yes, there is a gentleman of that name living in my part of the county.” With a parenthetic “More’s the pity!” under his breath, he added, in a kind of dogged, grumbling way, “What the deuce is he dining here for?”
“Why, sir, he’s been to the South to fetch his niece home to Foxwell Court, and they’re coming in a po’shay, and stopping here for dinner. He sent his man Caleb ahead on horseback to order it cooked, so they shouldn’t be delayed, for they have eight bad miles yet from here to Foxwell Court.”
“Ecod!” said Squire Thornby, “I have the same bad miles to Thornby Hall—or five o’ them, at least,—and I ordered a cold dinner so I shouldn’t be delayed. But, damn it, now I come to think on’t, I’ll have something cooked, so I will! I presume my belly is as much to me as Mr. Foxwell’s is to him. I don’t see why I should eat cold while he eats hot. Have you got anything on the fire, Mrs. Betteridge?”
He strode into the kitchen to see for himself, followed by the landlady.
“That chicken is almost done,” said he.
“’Tis what Mr. Foxwell ordered, your Worship.”
“I might ’a’ known it! The leg o’ lamb, too, I suppose. Everything for Foxwell. Does the man think nobody else has a soul to save?”
“The leg o’ lamb isn’t his, sir. ’Tis roasting so as to be ready against the stage-coach arrives.”
“Then I’ll have the best cut o’ that. First come, first served:—let the stage-coach passengers take what’s left. A beggarly lot, or they’d have coaches o’ their own to ride in. And send up a bottle o’ the best wine you’ve got in the house. I’ll dine as well as Mr. Foxwell, rat him!”
Leaving Mrs. Betteridge to put his orders into execution, he went out to the passage and called his man Bartholomew, to whom he communicated his intentions.
“Very good, your Worship,” said Bartholomew, in the manner of a servant somewhat privileged. He was a lean, hardy fellow, of his master’s own age, with a long, astute-looking countenance. “I see Mr. Foxwell’s man Caleb in the yard, sir.”
“Ay, and Mr. Foxwell himself will be here presently. A sight for sore eyes, eh? If I’d ’a’ known he was coming here, I’d ’a’ stopped at the Crown. No, damme if I would, neither! I won’t be kept from going where I choose by any man, least of all a man I don’t like. What’s Foxwell to me?”
“It’s small blame to you for not liking him, sir, if you’ll pardon my saying it, after the way he acted about his gamekeeper trespassing.”
“A damned set of poachers he keeps on that place of his. ’Tis a pity for the county he ever came into it. The neighbourhood did well enough without him, I’m sure, all the years he was playing the rake in London and foreign parts.”
“It makes me sick, if I may say so,” replied the faithful servant, “the way I hear some folks sing his praises for a fine gentleman:—it does, indeed.”
“There are some folks who are asses, Bartholomew,” said the Squire, warmly. “Sing his praises for a fine jackanapes! Fine gentleman, d’ye say? How can anybody be a fine gentleman on a beggarly three hundred a year? Why, don’t you know, don’t all the county know, ’twas his poverty drove him down here to his estate to be a plague among us? Ecod, who are the rest of us, I wonder, solid country gentlemen of position in the county, to be come over by this town-bred fop with his Frenchified ways? Give me a plain, home-bred Englishman, and hang all these conceited pups that come among us trying to put us down in talk with their London wit and foreign manners!”
The extraordinary heat manifested by the Squire during this oration was a warning to his man to desist from the subject, lest he might himself become the victim of the wrath it engendered. Moreover, the outdoor passage of an inn was a rather public place for such exhibitions, though fortunately there was at the time no audience.
“Will you wait for dinner in your room, sir?” suggested Bartholomew, after a moment’s cooling pause.
“No, I won’t. Tom Thornby won’t beat a retreat, neither, for any man! I’ll stay till he comes, now that I’m here, and if he tries any of his London airs on me, I’ll give him as good as he sends.”
Bartholomew was too well acquainted with the obstinacy of this vain, grown-up child, his master, to oppose; and almost at that moment a post-chaise turned in from the street, requiring both Thornby and the man servant to stand close to the wall for safety.
The landlady came bouncing out, followed by her husband at a more dignified gait, to receive the newcomers. Indifferent to their salutations, Mr. Foxwell stepped quickly from the chaise and offered his hand to his niece, who scarcely more than touched it in alighting. Caleb meanwhile ran up to assist the maid, but was forestalled by Mr. Betteridge, who performed the office with a stately gallantry quite flustering to the young woman, causing her to blush, and her legs, stiff with the constraint of the journey, to stumble. Miss Foxwell and the maid followed the landlady immediately to the entry and up the stairs; but Mr. Foxwell, as he saw Squire Thornby gazing at him in sullen defiance, stopped to greet that gentleman in the suavest possible manner.
“Ah, Mr. Thornby, you here?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the Squire, in the shortest of tones, and as if determined to show himself proof against the other’s urbanity; “attending to my own business.”
“An unusual circumstance, I suppose,” said Foxwell, pleasantly, “as you think it worth mentioning. A dull sort of day.”
“I dare say,” was Thornby’s savage reply.
Not the least altering his amiable tone or half-smiling countenance, Foxwell continued: “Smooth roads—that is to say, for these remote parts.”
“Sir,” said Thornby, fiercely, conceiving himself and his county alike disparaged, “I find these parts quite good enough for me.”
“Indeed, I envy you,” said Foxwell, with a slight plaintiveness. “I wish from my heart I could say I find them good enough for me—since I am doomed to live in them.”
That anything good enough for Thomas Thornby could not be good enough for another man was not a proposition soothing to Thomas Thornby’s soul. Having no fit retort within present grasp of his tongue, however, and knowing that even if he had one, his adversary would find a better one to cap it with, the Squire contented himself with a fiery glare and an inward curse. Then saying abruptly to his servant, “See that my dinner is served the moment it’s ready, Bartholomew,” he entered the inn and tramped up the stairs with great weight of heel.
Foxwell laughed scarce audibly, and followed with a step as light as the other’s was heavy. Emerging from the stair-head to a passage that divided the rear from the front rooms, he went into one of the latter, where he found the table set, and his niece and her maid at the window, looking down at the street. Across the way were a baker’s shop, a draper’s, a rival inn with gables and a front of timber and plaster; and so forth. A butcher’s boy with a tray of meat, a townswoman with a child by the hand, and two dogs tumbling over each other, were the moving figures in the scene—until a clatter of horses and a rumble of wheels were heard, and then the maid exclaimed:
“Lor, mistress, what a handsome coach, to be sure! And see the man servant on the horse behind. People of great fashion, I’ll warrant. And they’re coming to this very inn!”
Miss Foxwell watched listlessly till the vehicle—the private coach already mentioned as approaching the town from the North—had disappeared beneath the window from which she looked.
Foxwell had been standing at the empty fireplace, heedless of what might be seen in the street. He now spoke, carelessly:
“You saw the amiable gentleman who stood below, Georgiana, and who passed this door with so fairy-like a tread as I came up?”
“I didn’t observe him,” replied Georgiana. “Somebody passed very noisily.”
“The same. I thought you might remember him from the days before you left home. But, to be sure, you were a child then, and he, too, was younger. He is one of our neighbours, Squire Thornby.”
“I remember the name, but I don’t think I ever knew the gentleman.”
“If you never did, you lost little; and you’ll count it no great privilege when you do know him,—unless you have a tenderness for rustical boobies.”
Georgiana making no answer, the maid said to her in a lowered voice, “Lor, m’lady, your uncle had needs know you better. I saw the gentleman, and a ojus-looking man servant he had with him. I never could abide such bumpkin fellows.” The waiting-woman came from the town in which her mistress had received her education; she had been promoted to her present post from that of housemaid to Miss Foxwell’s aunt, and naturally she brought superior notions with her to the North.
Foxwell, wondering why the dinner had not arrived, went impatiently to the door. Steps were heard ascending the stairs, accompanied by the voices of women.
“The party from the private coach, being shown to a room,” whispered the maid to her mistress.
At that moment Foxwell, in the doorway, called out in pleased surprise, “Why, as I live—certainly it is! Lady Strange, upon my soul!—and Mrs. Winter! and Rashleigh!—George Rashleigh, or I’m a saint!”
He seized the hand of her whom he called Lady Strange, and kissed it with a gallant fervour; treated the other lady in like manner, and then threw his arms around the gentleman who was third and last of the newcomers (not counting two servants) in an embrace such as was the fashion at the time.
“Why, upon my honour, ’tis Bob Foxwell,” said Lady Strange.
She was a fair woman in the thirties, of the opulent style of beauty, being of good height, and having a fine head, and a soft expression wherein good nature mingled with worldly nonchalance. She was dressed as a fashionable person of the town would dress for travelling, and her presence brought to the north country inn something of the atmosphere of St. James’s. As far as attire and manner went, this was true of her companions also. The gentleman, whom Foxwell had saluted as Rashleigh, was a good-looking man of medium age and size, retaining in face and carriage the air of youth; he was the elegant town gentleman, free from Foxwell’s discontent, easy-going and affable without apparently caring much for anything in the world. The second lady, Mrs. Winter, formed a contrast to Lady Strange: she was slight, though not angular; her eyes were gray, and her complexion clear, yet the impression she left was that of a dark beauty; and she had a cold incisiveness of glance.
“And your devoted slave as ever, Lady Strange,” said Foxwell, kissing that lady’s hand again. “But in heaven’s name, what are you doing in this part of the world? Come in, that I may see you better. Come, I am dining in this room.”
They entered the chamber, regardless of the landlady’s eagerness to show them to a room for their own use. Mrs. Betteridge would thereupon have ushered their man servant and lady’s maid to the room she had chosen, but these menials refused to proceed without orders, and so remained outside Foxwell’s door, laden with small impedimenta of various sizes and uses, from pistols to scent-bottles.
“One never knows who may turn up,” said Rashleigh. “I was thinking of you only yesterday, Bob, and wondering if I should ever see you again.”
“And what ill wind for you,” asked Foxwell, “blows this good to me?—for an ill wind it must be to any civilized person that blows him to these wilds.”
“I have the honour to be escorting these ladies back to London from Lady Strange’s country-seat by the Tweed, where they have been for the recovery of their health.”
“And our good looks,—tell the truth, Cousin Rashleigh,” said Lady Strange. “My dear Foxwell, we have rusticated till we are near dead of dulness,—is it not so, Isabella?”
“Dead and buried, Diana,” said Mrs. Winter, in a matter-of-fact tone. “And to think you are still alive, Foxwell? ’Tis so long since you disappeared from the town, I swear I had forgot you.”
“Cruel Mrs. Winter!” replied Foxwell. “But ’tis not for you to speak of being dead and buried. You know not what rustication is. You have passed, I suppose, a month or so out of the world, and are now going back to it; while I have been a recluse in this county these two years, and may be so for the rest of my life. The town, as you say, has forgot me, and God knows whether I shall ever return. See what poverty brings one to, and take warning.”
The reader is doubtless aware that country-house life did not occupy in the eighteenth century the place it does to-day in the routine of the “smart” world. People of fashion had their town houses and their country-seats then, of course; but many such were wont to pursue more exclusively the one life or the other,—to be town mice who sometimes went to the country, or country mice who sometimes came up to town. Those who preferred the gaiety of the town were more prone to count that time lost which they had to pass out of it, and to look down upon those who spent most of their days in the country. When the town mice left London by choice, it was to take the waters at Bath, or to make the “grand tour” of the Continent. Week-end house-parties had not come in, there were no seaside resorts, and the rich did not hie themselves in August to the moors of Scotland. “Beyond Hyde Park all is desert,” said the fop in the play; and Robert Foxwell and his friends were so far of Sir Fopling’s mind; they valued wit, and used “fox-hunter” as a name of scorn. No wonder, then, that Foxwell declared himself miserable in his exile.
“’Tis for your sins, Bob,” said Lady Strange. “You were a monstrously wicked man in London, as I remember.”
Mrs. Betteridge now contrived to insinuate herself into the notice of Rashleigh, addressing him as “my lord,” and begging to know the wishes of himself and their ladyships upon the matter of dinner and rooms.
He turned to Lady Strange. “What say you, Cousin Di? I suppose we shall be driving on as soon as we have dined—”
“You shall dine with me,” broke in Foxwell. “I’ll not lose sight of your faces. I don’t meet a civilized being once in an age.—You will set more places, landlady: my friends will dine here.” Without waiting for their assent, he motioned the landlady out to the passage, and there gave further orders.
The attention of the three Londoners now fell upon the two figures at the window. Miss Foxwell, quite ignored by her uncle since the arrival of his friends, had remained where she was, regarding the newcomers with a side glance in which there was no great joy at their advent. Now that she saw their looks directed to her, she turned her face again toward the street, with a slight blush at the scrutiny.
“What a pretty girl it is at the window,” whispered Lady Strange to her companions.
“And what is she doing here with Foxwell?” said Mrs. Winter, eying the young lady critically.
“The dog!—he is to be envied,” said Rashleigh.
Resentfully conscious of the cool gaze upon her, Miss Foxwell whispered to her maid, “How rudely those people stare at us!”
“They must be very great quality,” replied the maid, reverentially. “Their waiting-gentleman looks the height of fashion,—but their woman isn’t no great sights.” Miss Foxwell’s maid had been quick to inspect the attendants of the travellers, and the lackey had already put himself on ogling terms with her, a proceeding which the other maid regarded superciliously.
As soon as Foxwell returned to his friends, Rashleigh called him to account in an undertone: “I say, Foxwell, if this county produces such flowers as that at the window, ’tis not so barren a wilderness.”
“That?” said Foxwell, carelessly. “Oh, that’s my niece, Miss Foxwell. Come here, Georgiana.”
She obeyed without haste, and was introduced. She was not in the mood to affect for civility’s sake a cordiality she did not feel, nor was she conciliated by the easy graciousness of Lady Strange, the sharp, momentary smile of Mrs. Winter, or the unrestrained admiration of Mr. Rashleigh.
“You are a sweet child,” said Lady Strange, speaking in a sweet tone herself, “to have such a naughty uncle.”
“I dare say my uncle is not much worse than other people,” said Georgiana, coolly, with the intention, not of defending her relation, but of being pert.
“She means you, Cousin Rashleigh,” said Lady Strange, smiling gaily. “She sees your character in your face.—But, my dear, you can’t have known much of your uncle in London. I’ll tell you some tales!”
Instead of carrying out her threat immediately, however, the lady turned her attention to her maid, bidding her put down her burdens and go and dine in the kitchen.
The man servant and Georgiana’s attendant being dismissed for a like purpose, Foxwell and Rashleigh, to give the ladies that brief privacy from masculine eyes which a toilet-marring journey makes welcome, went down-stairs and paced the yard till dinner was ready.
“So this is the place of your retreat, Bob,” said Rashleigh; “or hereabouts, I mean.”
“An old house and some beggarly acres eight miles from here. ’Tis my last ditch. Perhaps I was lucky in having that to fall back into. Fortune was set upon driving me from the field in London.”
“But you might still have contrived to live there one way or another. Men do, who have lost their all.”
“By playing the parasite?—begging of people whom I scorn?—laughing at great men’s stupid jests, or enslaving myself to great ladies’ caprices? Not I. Neither could I play the common rook where I had once lived the gentleman. Nor had I any fancy for the debtors’ prison. I might have turned highwayman, but I am too old and indolent, and the risk is too great. No; for a gentleman who had made the figure I had, and who could no more keep up that figure,—curse the cards and the tables, the mercenary women and the swindling tradesmen!—there was nothing but self-banishment to the ancestral fields.”
“’Tis a wonder you’ve kept them. I should have thought, from your habits of old, you’d have converted the last inch into the ready by this time.”
“They are beyond my power to convert. The estate is mine only in part. I share the possession with that young person you saw up-stairs.”
“The pretty niece?”
Foxwell shrugged his shoulders. “She may be pretty—I really haven’t concerned myself enough to study her looks. I shall doubtless find her an intolerable drag upon me. Notwithstanding our relationship, we are new acquaintances. She is my brother’s orphan—the only child. She was born at Foxwell Court, the place of my retirement, and she spent her childhood there. Both her parents died when she was very young; my father survived them a year, and upon his death she was sent to be reared by her mother’s elder sister. During all this time,—from before my brother’s marriage till after this girl left Foxwell Court,—I never came near the place. Most of the time, indeed, I was abroad, but even when in England I preferred the South,—and my father perhaps was not sorry for that, for, to tell the truth, I had never agreed with him and my brother, and, as the old gentleman loved his peace, he could spare my presence. After his death and the departure of the girl, Foxwell Court was shut up for a long while,—that is to say, till I sought refuge there two years ago. My father left the place to me and my niece, on such terms that it cannot be divided till she marries, nor my share sold during my lifetime.”
“You speak of it as a few beggarly acres. Had he nothing else to leave?”
“Not a farthing. Ours was a family of decayed fortune. You are wondering how in that case I contrived to make the appearance I did in town and on the Continent. By the bounty of my Uncle Richard—you remember him, of course: the attorney who made a fortune in speculation. He looked upon life much as I did, and not with the puritanical eyes of my father and brother; so he provided for me while he lived, and left me half his shares when he died,—to prove, I make no doubt, that virtue does not always pay best. When I had melted his shares into pleasure, I resorted, as you know, to the cards, and the tables in Covent Gardens, thinking they might repay in my necessity what I had lost by them in my prosperity. ’Twas a fool’s hope! For a roof to cover my head, I came home to Foxwell Court. I have at least enjoyed liberty there. But now that this niece has finished her education, and comes home in accordance with my father’s plans, responsibility begins. I was never made to play the guardian, George. The affectionate, solicitous, didactic uncle is no part for me. And especially to a minx who has been taught to look upon the frivolities of the gay world with virtuous horror. We have known each other but four days, and we hate each other already. She hadn’t been in my society an hour till I perceived righteous disapproval written upon her face.”
“Oh, I think you mistake the girl altogether. From the glimpse I had of her, brief as it was, I could swear she is no prude. There is, indeed, a delicacy and sensibility in her face, but nothing the least sanctimonious. She seems to me a young lady of spirit, a little annoyed about something. No doubt you expected to find such a girl as you describe, and you behaved accordingly: she was quick to take offence, and now you mistake her natural resentment for self-righteous rebuke.”
“I know not what my expectations had to do with the matter, but I can see plainly enough her dislike. And, damme, George, can you imagine what a restraint upon my conduct the presence of a young unmarried female will be?”
“Then you have only to get her married off your hands as soon as may be,” said Rashleigh.
“Her marriage means the division of our estate, and my share then will not suffice to feed a horse upon. But I won’t balk at that, for the sake of freedom, if you’ll find me a man willing to take her with the little she’ll have.”
“I grant, gentlemen of any fashion want a good settlement with their wives, in this age. But consider her beauty:—that is an item on account of which I, for one, would vastly abate my demands—if I were fool enough to marry at all.”
“She wouldn’t have you, fool or no fool. I can see she will be as fastidious when it comes to mating as if she had ten thousand a year. I fear this region will not furnish a man to her liking—I can commend her good taste in that. So heaven knows when I may be rid of her! But enough of the chit: I’m saddled with her, and there’s an end. You must do something for me, George,—you and Lady Strange and her friend.”
“Speaking for myself, I’m entirely at your service.”
“You must make me a visit at Foxwell Court,—now. Yes, you must. Your time is your own, I am sure. It matters not whether you arrive in town this month or the next. While I have you, I will hold you. When we have dined, you will drive on with me, not to London, but to Foxwell Court. You’ll give me a week—nay, a fortnight, at least—of civilized company, for humanity’s sake.”
“Why,” said Rashleigh, “’tis rather a change of plan—though I see nothing against it, for my part. If the ladies are willing—”
“They must be willing,” cried Foxwell. “You must persuade them:—if naught else will do, you must be taken ill and be unable to go on to London. Egad, I’ll poison you all with the bad wine they keep here, ere I let you escape me!”
“Nay, let me try persuasion first. I can commend you to them as a host—I know of old that you’ll stop at nothing that has promise of amusement in it.”
“I’ll stop at nothing to amuse them as my guests—you may warrant that. As for my house, you will not find it entirely uninhabitable. Some of the company I have kept there of late, though it would amuse you well enough, would scarce be acceptable to my Lady Strange; but fortunately, in view of my niece’s home-coming, I have issued strict decrees of banishment,—so we shall find no rustic rake-hells, drinking parsons, or roaring trollops on the premises. ’Tis in such company I have found solace in my exile—and I’ll do them the justice to say, they are better lovers of wit and real mirth than the booby fox-chasing, dog-mongering, horse-talking, punch-guzzling gentry and their simpering, formal womankind.”
“You are beginning to practise self-denial, Bob,—driving your boon companions away,” said Rashleigh, smiling.
“As a gentleman I could not do otherwise, of course. Since Miss must needs come, they must go. I must learn to seek my amusements, such as they are, out of the house. But I sha’n’t think of that, or of anything to come, while you and these ladies are with me. You see I have set my heart on having you.”
They continued in this strain, walking to and fro between the street end of the passage and the rear of the inn yard, in which different vehicles were standing idle, until Caleb appeared with the announcement that dinner for the whole party was ready. Ascending, they found the ladies on terms of cool politeness as between Georgiana and the other two. During the course of the meal, it could be seen that Mrs. Winter had incurred the greater part of that disfavour which the girl evidently disdained to conceal. Good cause for this could be found, not only in the steeliness of nature suggested by the London lady’s voice and look, but by the great freedom of topic and remark she allowed herself. Time and again was a hot blush called to Georgiana’s cheek, and she was fain to fix her eyes upon her plate in indignation at the disregard of her modesty. That was an age when many young ladies were accustomed to liberties of speech from their elders in their presence—liberties nowadays incredible. How they contrived to ignore them while they were necessarily conscious of them, as it is certain they did, calls for admiration. Nothing that we know of that most delightful of young women, Sophia Western, makes us esteem and love her more than the way in which she endured the coarse talk of her father, never receiving from it the slightest taint herself, never seeming to notice the outrageous portions of it. But it was from men only, or chiefly, that tender ears were used to hearing conversation so free. Had she been subjected to it by one of her own sex, even Sophia Western would have made the protest of a blush. Not that Mrs. Winter’s anecdotes and observations were of the crude plainness of Squire Western’s language. The lady’s tongue was a rapier, not a bludgeon, and there would have been little if anything to reprove in the use she made of it on the present occasion, had Georgiana been absent or ten years older. As it was, besides the offence to her modesty itself, Georgiana felt that she was being treated with intentional lack of consideration. She thought the lady guilty of spite as well as license: she noted, too, and placed to her account against him, the lack of any protest on her uncle’s part on behalf of her innocence. He laughed and was merry, in his easy, fine-gentlemanly way; and the young lady, in her sense of careless outrage, could scarce restrain the tears of injury, loneliness, and revolt.
It was not till the dinner was nearly over, and a comfortable disinclination to resume their travels had been created in his friends, that Foxwell put his invitation before the ladies. At first they declared such a visit impossible, but as they could mention no respect wherein the impossibility lay, and as Foxwell knew how to mingle flattery with appeals to their compassion, they soon yielded.
Poor Georgiana! It may be imagined how far she shared the joy of her uncle at the prospect of playing hostess to these people, though, as he had called upon her openly to second his invitation, she had perfunctorily done so. This matter settled, the rest of the company became merrier, and Georgiana more miserable, than ever.
Meanwhile, though she knew it not, nor could have dreamt how deeply it would affect her life, the stage-coach had arrived and left a passenger; and the two horsemen from the North, guided by the postboy, were even now riding into the passage beneath the room in which she sat.
Squire Thornby, in the next room, had finished his dinner before the Foxwell party had well begun theirs. In the state of his temper he had attacked the roast lamb with a fierceness that made his usual voracity seem delicate in comparison. But, indeed, a good appetite had something to do with his gastronomic energy, for he had ridden that morning from his own house through this town to an estate some miles eastward, to look at some hounds that were to be offered for sale, and it was on his return that he had stopped at the inn. During his meal he sometimes gave his feelings vent in speech to the sympathizing Bartholomew, who remained for part of the time in attendance.
“If I ever catch that there gamekeeper of his alone without a gun,” said Bartholomew, “you shall have your revenge on that score, sir,—if I may be so bold as to say as much.”
“Oh, rat his gamekeeper!” cried Thornby, petulantly. “You harp and harp on the gamekeeper!—the rascal cut you out with a girl, didn’t he? When it comes to that, what the devil do I mind as to the poaching business and such like? Neighbourly quarrels will arise, upon trespass and boundaries and so forth. No, ’tis none o’ that, for all the trouble he’s put me to. I’ll tell the truth, Bartholomew, ’tis the smooth way he has of taking me down whenever we meet,—waving me back to second place, like,—coming over me with his damned fine airs and glib speeches. That’s what rubs me the wrong way. I was the fine gentleman in our neighbourhood till he came; and now—well, ecod, we shall see, we shall see!”
This, indeed, was the true secret of the squire’s animosity, as it is of many a bitter hatred. It is easier for some men to forget a material injury to their rights or interests than a sentimental hurt to their vanity, and when they have to expect a repetition of the latter in some new form at every future encounter, they must be greater philosophers than Squire Thornby if they do not rage. Indeed, had Foxwell’s offence not been partly wilful, his superiority in mind and manner would alone have drawn the Squire’s hate. Thornby’s envy was not of the admiring sort that would emulate the merits of its object: it was of that churlish kind which, with no desire to possess those merits for their own sake, fiercely resents the superiority they imply.
His dinner disposed of, he went down-stairs, treading heavily as he passed his enemy’s door, which was now closed. Bartholomew had told him of the company that had arrived, and he could hear their laughter as he went by. He peered into the kitchen to see what their servants looked like; and the magnificence of attire of their coachman, valet, and waiting-woman did not put him into any better humour. He then stepped into the yard and viewed their coach, and finally took notice of their horses feeding in the stalls. Seeing nothing he could disparage, he contented himself with a sniff of scorn at such extravagant fopperies, and betook himself to the public dining-room to wait while Bartholomew attended to his own appetite in the kitchen. The Squire had heard the arrival of the stage-coach some time before, and he now supposed there might be a congenial passenger or two with whom to exchange news.
He found a single passenger—a slim, discreet-looking man of less than medium height, with a smallish brown face beginning to wrinkle, a sharp nose and chin, a curious appearance of huddling himself together so as not to fill much space, and lead-coloured eyes that lifted their gaze without haste from their owner’s plate and rested intently for a moment upon Thornby. The eyes were then deferentially lowered. The man was decently dressed in brown and gray, and wore a wig of the latter colour. The Squire set him down as a tradesman in comfortable circumstances, or perhaps an attorney or attorney’s clerk, and a civil sort of fellow who knew how to drop his glance in the presence of his betters.
“Good day, friend,” began the Squire. “You arrived by the stage-coach from the North, I take it.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the other, briefly, but civilly.
“Travelled far?” pursued Thornby.
“From Edinburgh, though not all the way by that coach. And previous thereto, from Inverness-shire.”
“You’re not a Scotchman, though?”
“Oh, no, sir; not me, sir. Not so bad as that. I was with the Duke’s army in Scotland.”
“Oh, then, you helped to put down the rebellion?” said the Squire.
“In my humble capacity, sir. I was waiting-gentleman to an officer, sir.”
(“A mighty worthy fellow,” thought the Squire, while the stranger paused in his talk to dispose of a large mouthful of meat. “He might pass for a shopkeeper or a quill-driver, yet he owns at once to being a servant—though for my part, I don’t see why a gentleman’s valet shouldn’t rank above a rascal clerk or tradesman any day—he certainly sees better society.”)
“I did my small share of fighting,” continued the worthy fellow; “was wounded, sir, which is the reason I’m now going home to London.”
He put back one side of his wig, and disclosed an ear minus a good portion of its rim. Though he gave no further information on the point, and showed no sign of deafness, it was to be assumed that some internal injury had been caused, for it was difficult to see how the mere mutilation of the ear, damaging as it was to the man’s appearance, could be held sufficient reason for his retirement from service.
“Your health, sir,” said the man, raising a pot of ale to his lips.
“Thankye,—thankye, my good man,” said the Squire, approvingly.
“You live in these parts, sir, may I be so bold to ask?” said the good man, with a deferential mildness, having swallowed a great part of the contents of the pot.
“Yes, certainly. Why d’ye ask?”
“Because in that case you might be able, and so condescending, to direct me to a person I’m wishing to pay my respects to,—a gentleman of the name of Foxwell.”
“Foxwell! What do you want of him?”
The abruptness of the Squire’s speech, and the sudden clouding of his brow, would have attracted anybody’s notice, and were not lost on the man whose request had caused them.
“Robert Foxwell, Esquire,” added the man, quietly, “who came into this county from London about two years back, is the particular gentleman I mean.”
“Ay, there’s only one,” replied the Squire, gloomily, “only one Foxwell in this county now. He’s the last of the name.”
“Pardon me, sir,” said the other, delicately, “but if I dared take the liberty, I should judge from your manner that you’re not a friend of his.”
“By the lord, you’re a good judge!” said Thornby, without hesitation.
“Thank you very humbly, sir. If I might take the further liberty of asking whether he’s a man of—ah—any considerable wealth to speak of, nowadays—”
“He’s as poor as a church mouse, and I’m not sorry to say it.”
“I’m rather sorry to hear it,” said the man, looking gravely into his pot of ale. “Oh, not on his account, sir: on my own. I’m purely selfish in my sorrow, sir. The truth is, I had something to sell him.”
“Well, friend,” said the Squire, taking a seat near the table’s end where the traveller was, “if it’s something of any value that you have to sell, my advice is to look for another customer.”
“The trouble is,” replied the man, musingly, “this that I have to sell wouldn’t be of any value to anybody but Mr. Foxwell—unless to his enemies.”
The last words were spoken very softly, as if they represented a meditative afterthought of no practical utility. The man continued to keep his eyes lowered from meeting the Squire’s, and a thoughtful pause ensued.
“Enemies? What the devil—?” said the Squire in his mind. But presently he broke forth in his blunt manner, “Lookye, my man, you may speak freely to me if you be so minded. I’m all for plain-dealing, I am. My name is Thornby,—anybody can tell you how Thomas Thornby, of Thornby Hall, Justice of the Peace, stands in this county. Anybody can tell you whether he’s to be trusted or not. What’s all this here about Mr. Foxwell and his enemies? It concerns me, by the lord, for I’m at least no friend of his, I can tell you that much and not betray any secrets, neither.”
“Why, then, sir,” said the other, his face lighting up as though a happy idea had that instant occurred to him, “you might be a better customer for what I have to sell than Mr. Foxwell himself.”
“By the lord, I’m able to pay a better price,” said the Squire, with frank self-gratulation.
“Do you know anything of Mr. Foxwell’s history, sir?” asked the stranger.
“I know that he was born at Foxwell Court, the old seat of the family in this country; that he was sent away to school when young, and then to Oxford, and after that travelled in foreign parts. Fine way to bring up an Englishman! When he did come back to his own country, he thought best to live in London, and he never darkened his father’s door in those days: there wasn’t any love lost between him and his people here in their lifetime, I’ve heard. Howe’er that be, he wasn’t seen hereabouts, so I never set eyes on him till he came back to the Foxwell estate to live, about two years since, after squandering a fortune his uncle left him—so the story goes. That’s all the history I know of him.”
“I can vouch for the truth of one part, sir,—as to squandering his money in town. I had hoped perhaps his affairs had improved since he retired from fashionable life.”
“But what of his history? I’ve told you all I know. What do you know?”
The Squire leaned forward toward the traveller with an almost painful expression of eagerness on his face.
“Why, sir,” said the other, as if with some reluctance, “as you are good enough to take an interest, I see no reason why I shouldn’t tell you a little story. I dare say you remember the affair of Lord Hilby,—him that was murdered by footpads one night in Covent Garden.”
“I heard of it at the time,” said the Squire, “’twas two or three years ago.”
“Yes, sir. His lordship had been playing till a late hour in a gaming-house, you may remember, and had won very heavily. He was walking away from the house, his pockets full of gold. He was attended by a servant and a linkboy. It was a very dark night. No doubt, sir, you know the place,—what they call the piazza in Covent Garden, where the gaming-houses are.”
“I was there—once,” replied the Squire, with a glum look: no doubt he had reason to repent the experience.
“Ay, sir, once is enough for many a country gentleman,” said the other, sympathetically, “though the tables don’t always have the best of it. There’s been fortunes retrieved there, as well as fortunes lost. And certainly Lord Hilby had been in wonderful luck that night. Some think that word of his large winnings had been passed out to a person in the street, in the short time between his rising from the table and his leaving the house. Of course everybody in the room knew how great his winnings were, and saw where he put them. In any case, there was no chair to be had when he came out, and he started to walk to Pall Mall. But he hadn’t gone far when suddenly three ruffians sprang up from the foot of one of the pillars of the colonnade, where they had been crouching all in a heap. One of them knocked the link out of the boy’s hand, one attacked the servant with a bludgeon, and the third caught my lord by the throat and called for his money.”
“’Tis a wicked, dangerous place, London!” observed the Squire, in a low voice, shaking his head.
“The linkboy ran away, leaving his torch still burning on the ground. The fellow who had knocked it now joined him that was grappling with his lordship. All this the servant saw, and then he was felled to the earth, where he lay stunned for a little while. During that time, it must have been, the footpads struck my lord dead with a bludgeon.”
Thornby gave a shiver of discomfort.
“When the servant came to,” the narrator continued, “he found that the footpads had gone; and two gentlemen, who had left the same gaming-house soon after his master, were now examining him to see if he was alive, by the light of the torch, which one of them had picked up. They had seen the scuffle as they were coming from the gaming-house, and had run up with their swords drawn, making such a noise that maybe the footpads had imagined them to be a large party. In any case, the footpads had taken to their heels. The two gentlemen informed the servant they believed his master to be dead. He joined them in a further examination, and found that his lordship’s money was gone.”
“Ay, to be sure,” said Thornby. “The rascals got the money before they ran away.”
“A very natural supposition, sir,—in fact, the only probable one. The servant came to that at once, and the world accepted it afterwards,—that the footpads had succeeded in getting the money before the two gentlemen arrived. But, sir, do you know that in this world ’tis just as often that the probable supposition isn’t the true one?”
“What d’ye mean?”
“Why, sir, the truth is, as I’m a living man,—and this is entirely between us for the present, sir,—’tis a secret I’ve kept for a long time, and if I didn’t feel I could rely on you as a gentleman with a particular interest in Mr. Foxwell—”
“Certainly you can rely on me,—no fears on that score. But what the deuce has this to do with Foxwell? Come, out with it, man! I can keep a secret as well as the best.”
“Well, sir, thanking you kindly for your assurance, the truth is, the footpads hadn’t got the money before they ran away. At least they hadn’t got all of it, or so much but that a considerable amount was left.”
“How, then, if the servant found it was all gone?”
“Simply that those two gentlemen, having suffered heavy losses that night, being in all likelihood at their wits’ end for a further supply of the needful, and finding his lordship’s pockets lined with the same, had succumbed to the temptation of an instant, and transferred the shiners from his pockets to their own while the servant still lay senseless on the ground.”
“The devil you say?” exclaimed the Squire.
“A shocking thing, sir, no doubt,—robbery of the dead. It has a singularly bad sound when put that way, for some reason or other, has it not? So ungentlemanly a crime, if I may presume to offer an opinion, sir.”
“A devilish risky one, too, I should say.”
“Why, no, sir, I should think a particularly safe one on this occasion. The servant and the linkboy could both testify to the attack by the footpads, and it would be taken as certain—just as everybody did take it—that the footpads had succeeded in their purpose before they fled.”
“Ay, but the footpads themselves knew they hadn’t. They had only to come forward and say as much.”
“But by coming forward to say it, sir, they must needs have incriminated themselves of the murder. No, there was little reason to fear that, I should consider: as a matter of fact, they never did come forward. Nor I never heard of their even threatening to do so—in a way of extorting money, you understand. No, sir, a very safe crime on the part of the two gentlemen, if I may say so again. And, lookye, sir, how circumstances alter the appearance of things. Suppose my lord had lost the money in the gaming-house that night, and these two gentlemen had won it, as might very easily have happened. There would then have been no crime in their possessing it, no dishonour, no ungentlemanliness; they would have had no reason for concealment. But as matters were, if the truth ever got out, are there any bounds to the horror and ignominy with which the names of those gentlemen would be held by the great world they moved in?”
“But if it never got out, then how the devil do you know it? Answer me that, man?”
“In a moment, sir. I should have thought you would be curious as to who these gentlemen were?”
“Well, who were they? In course I’m curious.”
“One of them was a certain baronet, since deceased; the other, Robert Foxwell, Esquire.”
“Eh!”
“Robert Foxwell, Esquire,” repeated the stranger.
Mr. Thornby’s surprise, as depicted on his countenance, was as jubilant as if he had received sudden news of an unexpected bequest. He rose and snapped his fingers in the air, and seemed with difficulty to restrain a shout. But after a moment he sat down again, and eagerly demanded:
“But how do you know it?—how do you know it, man? How are you sure of it?”
“You shall see in a minute, sir. The baronet had excellent luck with the money he took, and was able to make as good a figure as ever. But the adage, sir, in regard to ill-gotten gains, though it failed in his case, was fulfilled in Mr. Foxwell’s. There does seem to be a partiality shown in the workings of Providence sometimes. Mr. Foxwell had the worst of luck, and soon the bailiffs were after him. He was taken to a sponging-house, and, after trying friend after friend in vain, he saw imprisonment for debt staring him in the face. I suppose his interest in the family estate hereabouts was tied up in some way.”
“Ay, he could touch nothing but his share of the income,” said the Squire.
“And on that, no doubt, he had already raised what he could. A mere drop in the bucket, I dare say. However it be, he was certainly in a desperate condition. I don’t know whether you’ve ever seen the inside of a debtors’ prison, sir,—”
“Ecod, man, not me!”
“Only as a matter of curiosity, sir, I meant. But you’ll take my word for it, I hope, that ’tis really no place for a gentleman. The fear of it would drive a man of Mr. Foxwell’s habits, I can well believe, to desperate measures. Well, sir, what did he do, when he saw everything failing him, but write a letter to the baronet—he had written three before, and got no answer—a letter to the baronet, from the sponging-house, in which he said that if the baronet didn’t come to his assistance immediately, he’d be damned if he wouldn’t confess all and let the world know who really got Lord Hilby’s money that night. Yes, sir, in black and white he wrote those words, which distinctly appear in the letter,—‘Confess all and let the world know who got Lord Hilby’s money that night.’ So the baronet obligingly went to his assistance.”
“And how did all this come to your ears?” queried the Squire.
“The baronet threw the letter, as he thought, into the fire. But he had a faithful servant, who hooked it out, as a matter of habit, read it in private, and filed it away for future reference. He didn’t see any occasion to refer to it, the faithful servant didn’t, for a long time. Meanwhile, Mr. Foxwell, after various ups and downs, finally left London; and the baronet died. The faithful servant became waiting-gentleman to a king’s officer, and went through the campaign in Scotland. Being wounded, and losing his place, he set out to return to London. He had heard what county Mr. Foxwell had sought retirement in, and, having to pass through that county on his way South, he thought it might be worth while to look the gentleman up and see whether he attached any value to an interesting specimen of his earlier handwriting.”
“So you are the baronet’s faithful servant?”
“Yes, your honour,—Jeremiah Filson, at your service. And here is the letter.”
He produced a pocket-book from the breast of his coat, and brought the document out of a double wrapper of soft paper. Holding it tightly with both hands, he placed it within reading distance of the Squire, having first drawn it back with a polite “Your pardon, sir,” when the latter made an involuntary reach for it.
“His hand, sure enough,” said the Squire, who had sufficient reason in the correspondence preceding their litigation to know his neighbour’s penmanship. He first examined the signature, “R. Foxwell,” and then carefully read the note—dashed off with a scratchy pen and complete disregard for appearance—from beginning to end. The sheet was slightly burnt at one side, and had in all respects the evidence of genuineness.
“Lookye, Jeremiah Filson,” said the Squire at last, as he eyed the letter covetously, “Foxwell can’t for his life give you twenty pounds ready money for that piece of paper. In any case you may be sure I can outbid him. Don’t you approach him at all, that’s my advice. ’Twould be time lost, if you expect to get anything worth while; and, besides that, he’s a shrewd fellow, is Mr. Foxwell, and he might bubble you out of the letter before ever you knew what you were at. You’d best deal with me, you had. Understand, I wouldn’t make any harmful use of it, though I do dislike the man. But I have the fancy to crow over him a little, d’ye see,—that’s all,—nothing harmful. Now what—”
At this critical moment the pair were interrupted by Bartholomew looking in and announcing that the horses were ready. Thornby bade him shut the door, wait outside, and be damned. The first and second of these items being complied with, the Squire entered into negotiations with Mr. Filson for the possession of the letter. That gentleman, having carefully put away the document in its former resting-place, seemed in no hurry to come to terms. He listened to the Squire with sedate civility, but was adamant upon the point of a good round sum in ready money. The end of their talk was that Filson agreed to call at Thornby Hall the next day, and not to dispose of the letter in the meantime. The Squire did not tell the man that Mr. Foxwell was even then under the same roof with them. If Filson found this out before Foxwell’s departure, a meeting might occur, though it was scarce likely that Foxwell would give opportunity for it at the inn. In any case, the Squire would have a chance to outbid his enemy. Having elicited the further promise that Filson would not at any time tell Foxwell that he, the Squire, was dealing for the letter, or knew of its existence, he took his leave.
Mr. Filson heard the Squire’s horses clatter out of the passage, and break into a trot in the High Street. As the sound died away, he drank the last of his ale, and indulged in a comfortable smile.
“A mighty fortunate meeting,” he mused. “This booby will buy the letter at my own price. He would give his brains, if he had any, for the means of getting the upper hand of his enemy. And a perfectly safe man to deal with, too. As for Foxwell, I could never be sure but he would cut my throat if I went to him with the letter. Now that difficulty is removed,—’tis certainly the hand of Providence.”
He yawned profoundly, and then resumed:
“I may find this Justice of the Peace a convenient friend if I have occasion to tarry in this neighbourhood. But I’ll get his money for the letter first: otherwise he might make his friendship a part of the price. A fool would have gone farther at this first interview,—but you’re no fool, Jeremiah; no, sir, a fool is what you certainly are not.”
He rang the bell and asked to be shown to a bedroom, saying he had not slept the previous night. Being informed by the landlady that a room would be ready in ten minutes, he strolled out to the yard to pass the intervening time there. He had taken a turn or two, when out from the kitchen came a young woman who seemed to be in a huff. She was very red in the face, and talked ostensibly to herself, but really for the benefit of all who might hear.
“The conversation of that London maid is truly scangelous!” quoth she.
“Eh, my dear,” said Mr. Filson, stopping in front of her, “has anybody been scandalizing those pretty ears of yours?”
Prudence—for it was Miss Foxwell’s maid—took note of the stranger with much artless affectation of surprise, exclaiming:
“Upon my word, sir—!” But before she got any further, she saw reason for real wonder. “Eh! speaking of ears, what has happened to yours?”
“Honourably sacrificed in war, miss,” replied Filson, readily; “slashed by a Jacobite officer at the battle of Culloden, four or five months ago.”
“Oh, how barbarious!” cried Prudence. “How could he ever have the heart to do such a thing?”
“Oh, I gave him as good as I got. If you happen to see a handsome young gentleman with his beauty improved by a mark like a heart on a playing-card, under his right eye, you may know that he owes that decoration to me. I did it with a bayonet, miss, and a very pretty job I made of it.”
“Lor, I’m not like ever to see any Jacobite officer.”
“Don’t be too sure. My gentleman is probably somewhere in this neighbourhood. So keep your pretty eyes open, my dear. His name is Everell—Charles Everell—so I was told by a prisoner we took, who had seen our little exchange of compliments: though ’tis scarce like he’ll be travelling under his real name just at present.”
“Ay, for I hear they’re going to hang all the Jacobites they catch.”
“So they are, except the great ones, and them they behead. They’ve already begun the good work in London, both ways. Whether this gentleman is high enough to be honoured with the axe, or whether his case will be served by a halter, I know not. He was in the Pretender’s body-guard, at any rate.”
“But how do you know he’s in this neighbourhood?”
“Because, sweetheart, I saw him yesterday on the road the first time since Culloden fight. Before I had a chance to lay information against him, he had given me the slip. I spent the whole night in trying to get on his track, at inns and other houses. I think he may still be in these parts, and if I can manage it he shall meet his just deserts.”
“How monstrous bitter you are against him, to be sure!”
“No. I’m not bitter, my dear. ’Tis only patriotism—loyalty;—’tis our duty, you know, to bring any of these rebels to justice when Providence puts it in our way. And then I’m a persistent man, too; when I once get on the scent of a thing, I can’t stop till I’ve run it down. And so, pretty miss,” he added, playfully, “if you happen to see such a gentleman, within the next day or two,—young and good-looking, and most likely travelling with a friend of about the same age, who’s also a handsome young man but summat heavier built,—why, if you see such a gentleman, with the ace of hearts on his cheek, hold your tongue, and send word to me in care of this inn—Jeremiah Filson—and I’ll see you get your share of the reward.”
Mr. Filson smiled tenderly; and then yawned. A moment later the landlady called from the entry that his room was ready.
“Remember, my dear, the ace of hearts, and Jeremiah Filson,” he said, with a parting grin and wink, and then followed the chambermaid, whom the landlady had ordered to show him his room. Prudence, at the entry door, watched him ascend the stairs till he disappeared at the turn, and heard him bestow a gallant “my dear” upon the chambermaid as he continued on his way, whereupon she tossed her head and became suddenly scornful.
“Poh! Quite a chivalarious gentleman!” said she. “Nasty scrub! He may whistle for his Jacobite with the ace of hearts on his face, for all the help he gets from me!” With that, Miss Prudence returned to the kitchen, but sat aloof from the other servants, who were making merry over their bread and cheese and beer. The worsting she had got in a passage of ironical compliments with Lady Strange’s maid, which had driven her from the company to the yard, was still sore in her mind, so that she sat in contemptuous silence, torn between the desire to tell the others of the Jacobite-hunting guest and the satisfaction of keeping them deprived of subject-matter so interesting. She flattered herself that she was the only person in the house whom Mr. Filson had taken into his confidence; and this was true, though on his arrival he had looked into all the public parts of the inn and questioned the landlord as to the guests up-stairs. His disclosure to her had followed naturally upon her notice of his ear.
Filson, being ushered into one of the back chambers, bade the maid have his portmanteau brought up from the public room. He then took off his shoes and threw himself on the bed. The boy who carried up the portmanteau, two minutes later, found him snoring.
Mr. Filson had not been asleep five minutes, when three horsemen—the three that have been mentioned more than once hitherto in the course of this history—turned in from the street, and came to a stop at the door to the public room. Two of the riders slid from their saddles, and the third,—the postboy in charge,—after dropping two cloak-bags beside the door, proceeded with the horses to the yard. The two gentlemen—for gentlemen they were, as was plain from every appearance, though their clothes had seen considerable service—stood for a moment glancing around. They were young and well favoured; both of average height; one stoutly made, the other of a slighter build. The slender fellow had a small red scar, which indeed was rather like a heart in shape, on his right cheek; but it did not apparently spoil the beauty of his face.
The slender young gentleman, after his swift survey of the surroundings, opened the door to the public dining-room.
“Come along, the place is empty,” he said, and, picking up one of the cloak-bags, stepped briskly into the room so recently vacated by Mr. Jeremiah Filson. “Thank God for a decent-looking inn!” he added, heartily, tossing his cloak-bag into a corner and dropping into a chair, where he began to hum:
“‘Charlie is my darling,
My darling, my darling;
Char—’”
“Hush!” exclaimed his companion, who had followed with the other bag and closed the door. “Heaven’s sake, Charles, none of those songs!”
But Charles finished:
“‘—lie is my darling,—
The young Chevaleer,’”
and then answered, gaily: “Why not? We’re alone here?”
The face of the young man—the slender one, addressed by his comrade as Charles—was not only handsome, but pleasant and animated, being lighted by soft blue eyes. The nose was slightly aquiline, the other features regular. He wore his own hair; his old suit of blue velvet carried an appearance of faded elegance; his three-cornered hat still boasted some remnants of silver lace; he was in riding-boots, and a sword hung at his side.
His comrade, more broadly and squarely made in face as in body, a man serious and resolute in aspect, was similarly dressed, in clothes now in their decline but of a darker shade.
“Ay, alone here,” said he, putting his bag with the other’s, “but ’tis as well to leave off habits that may be dangerous. You might as easily break out into one of the old ditties in company as alone. I dare say nobody finds any harm in the mere singing of them; but ’tis apt to set people’s minds on certain matters, and we’d best not have them think of those matters in relation to us. We excite curiosity enough, I make no doubt.”
“Only your fancy, Will. Why should we excite more curiosity than any other two travellers?” said Charles. “What is so extraordinary in our appearance? Come, I’ve asked you a hundred times, and you can’t answer. Your constitutional prudence, your natural cautiousness, which you know I vastly admire and try to emulate—”
Will smiled at this.
“Those excellent traits of thine, dear lad,” Charles went on, “cause you to magnify things, or rather to transfigure them altogether, so that, if anybody looks at us, you see suspicion where there is really nothing but the careless curiosity of a moment. Where he says in his mind, ‘Strangers,’ you can almost hear him saying with his lips, ‘Jacobites.’”
“Hush! You may laugh as you please, Charles: prudence and caution, even carried to excess, are likelier to serve our turn than carelessness and boldness, till we are safe out of England.”
“Why, there again! You are more apprehensive a thousand times since we have crossed the border than you were during all the time in Scotland, all the hiding time, and the time of dodging enemies on the alert for us in every direction.”
“I confess it. As one nears the end of a difficult or dangerous business, one should be the more fearful of disaster. Think how it may turn to naught all the toils that have brought one so far. Never relax because the goal is in sight: if you trip at the last, and through your own folly, too, ’tis the more to be regretted.”
“All true, my dear Roughwood; and yet, for our peace of mind, ’tis comforting to think how much safer we really are in England than we were across the border. Nobody expects to find Jacobites on the highroads of England.”
“There have been far too many seen on the highroads of England lately,” said Roughwood, with a gloomy smile.
“Ah, yes, the poor fellows now at Carlisle and York,” replied Charles; “but Jacobites uncaught are a different matter. They are all thought to be skulking in the Highlands, the Duke of Cumberland’s soldiers closing nearer and nearer round them. Heaven send that the Prince may escape! Would that his chances were as good as ours! ’Tis probable every mile of the Scottish coast is patrolled by government vessels, as every foot of the Highlands is hunted over by regulars and militia—or will be hunted over, ere all is done. ’Twas high time we left our quarters among the rocks and heather, and a miracle of good luck that we slipped through the enemy’s lines and across the border. England is the safer land for us, and vastly easier to escape from by sea.”
Their talk was interrupted by the entrance of the landlady, who took their orders for dinner, after which meal they intended to resume their journey. When they were again alone, Charles continued:
“So, my dear lad, as I was about to say, let us be easy in our minds, put away apprehensions, and avoid suspicion by showing no expectation of it. Your mad resolve to come to England and see the beloved lady before you flee the kingdom, turns out to be the wisest course we could have taken.”
“Wise or mad, my dear Everell,” said Will Roughwood, “I’d have taken it at any risk.”
“And wise or mad,” said Everell, gaily, “I’d have followed you at any risk—for company’s sake, to say no more. But indeed there’s less risk for me than you. Very few people in England know my face: ever since boyhood, my life has been spent abroad, until I joined the Prince. ’Tis different with you, who were brought up almost entirely within the two kingdoms. Egad, there’s the advantage I derive from my father having been the complete Jacobite—one of those who, for all their love of country, preferred exile in order to be at the centre of the plotting.” The young man smiled to think how all that plotting for a second Stuart restoration had come to naught.
“There’s chance of recognition for you, too,” said Roughwood. “Consider how many people saw you when we invaded these Northern counties last year. And consider those of our own party who have turned traitor, buying their lives by informing against their comrades. And we are in constant danger of encountering men who fought against us, like that fellow we dodged so narrowly yesterday.”
“Oh, he and I had our particular reasons for remembering each other,” said Everell, touching the scar on his cheek. “’Tis not in chance that we should run across him again. One such coincidence is remarkable enough.”
“Who can tell? In any case, he is not the only soldier of the enemy who would remember us. We are like to fall in with more; and ’tis of such, as all accounts agree, that most of the witnesses are, who have testified at Carlisle and York.”
“Well, then, such are to be looked for in Carlisle and York at present, except those who are in London for the like purpose. We have given Carlisle a wide berth, we will steer clear of York, and we’ll not go to London. And it may be that those of the enemy who remember us are still with the army in Scotland, hunting down our comrades.”
Roughwood smiled at his friend’s habitual power of seeing the favourable possibilities and ignoring the adverse; and could not help wondering that fortune had brought him unscathed through so many hazards in all the months of flight and concealment since that fatal day of defeat in the wind and snowfall on Culloden Moor.
“You’ll run into trouble yet, I’m fearing,” said Roughwood, with solicitude and affection in his smile.
“As for mere busybodies here in England,” Charles Everell continued, apparently bent upon disposing of every class from which discovery might be possible; “people to whom the idea of fugitive Jacobites might occur at this time, they will not look to find officers travelling openly as gentlemen. They will suppose that fugitives of our quality, if any fled into England at all, would come disguised. Going boldly in the dress and manner of gentlemen, wearing swords and showing no secrecy, how can we excite suspicion? We have nothing to fear but some unlucky chance meeting, like that we galloped away from yesterday; and the same accident is not like to befall us again.”
“But if that fellow who recognized you should have taken it into his head to hound us?”
“Is he likely to have put himself to the trouble? Doubtless he has his own affairs to pursue. Be that as it may, we got rid of him easily enough by spurring our horses and turning out of the road at the next byway; and, if forced to it, we can do so again.”
“We may not have the same advantage again. If there had been anybody at hand yesterday, I am sure he would have called out and denounced us. I don’t forget his look when he first saw us, as he stood in front of that wayside ale-house. He was about touching his hat to us as we rode up, when he beheld your face. His hand remained fixed in the air, and he stared as if you had been the devil. Then he glanced wildly around, and in at the ale-house door; he was certainly looking to see if help was in call.”
“’Twas a question for an instant whether I should run my sword through him,” said Everell, “but thank God such impulses never prevail with me. So I merely decided not to stop at that house of refreshment, and gave my horse the spur. And you were good enough to follow without question, which speaks well for your wisdom and my own, my dear Will. Always do so, and we shall always have similar good fortune in escaping the perils that beset us.”
“I would I knew what our guide thought of the incident, and of our bribing him to let his horses come so far out of the way.”
“He thought merely as I told him, no doubt:—in the first case, that my horse bolted, and that I took it as an omen against stopping there; in the second, that we really had a friend whose house we thought to find by turning out of the way. But whatever he may have thought, he was a mum fellow, and doubtless went to bed as soon as we arrived at last night’s inn; therefore he probably had no speech with the lad who took his place this morning.”
“Well, well,” said Roughwood, smilingly resigning himself to the other’s sense of security, “I hope your confidence will be justified to the end of the journey. But when we come to my own county, where I am well known, there indeed we must needs go warily.”
“Why, then, of course, we shall stir only by night,” said Everell. “And we shall not tarry long, if all goes well.”
“Only till I can see her,” replied his friend, in a voice low with sadness and tenderness. A brief silence fell between the two young men, till Roughwood added, “One last meeting! And then to part,—for how long, God knows!”
“Oh, you may come back to England safely in two or three years. When the government has made examples enough, there will be a general pardon; or at worst a Jacobite may slink back and his presence be winked at. So much if our cause be never revived; if it be revived, we may be able to come back openly enough.”
Roughwood shook his head. “’Twill never be revived to any purpose. We can never rally a larger force than we had this time; yet one can see plainly now how vain our hopes were from the first. No, ’twas a dream, a dream. The house of Hanover is firmly established in these kingdoms: the star of the Stuarts is set. If a general pardon is ever granted us, it will be for that reason,—because we can do no harm. But, meanwhile, ’tis the day of punishment, and we must look to our necks. After I have seen her, we have only to find Budge, and lie hid till he happens to be sailing.”
The arrival of a maid with their dinner put a stop for the time to this kind of conversation, in which they but reviewed their situation as they had done a score of times within the past few days. They had ordered frugally, out of respect to the state of their common purse, which they counted upon to carry them to the place near which lived both Roughwood’s affianced wife—with whom it was his hope to exchange assurances of faith and devotion ere he fled his native country—and the master of a certain vessel, upon whom he relied for their conveyance across the channel. Roughwood had relations at this place, but, as they sympathized not with his Jacobitism, which he had acquired through his Scottish kin, he considered it imprudent to seek a further supply of money from them. Once in France, however, he could communicate in safety with his sources of maintenance. As for Everell, the modest but sufficient fortune he inherited from his Jacobite father had long been placed in France, and would be at his command as soon as he reached Paris. The young men were now travelling upon the remainder of the gold with which both had fortunately been supplied a few days before the battle of Culloden. They had not had occasion to spend money during the months of concealment immediately following upon the total defeat of their cause at that contest, their hiding-place—first a “bothy” and afterwards a cave—having been on the estate of a Highland gentleman who shared in their seclusion, and by whose adherents he and they were fed.
To this comrade in defeat they owed also the clothes they now wore, as they had considered it better advised to appear as ordinary gentlemen in their journey through England, than to use a disguise which it would require some acting to carry off. Having lived a part of his time in the great world, this Highland laird was possessed of a considerable wardrobe besides that limited to the national dress, and in order to furnish out his two friends he had risked with them a secret visit by night to his own mansion, which was under the intermittent watch of government troops. The gentleman was of a build rather lighter than Roughwood and stouter than Everell, so that his loosest set of garments was not impossible of wear to the former, and his tightest did not hang too limply on the body of the latter. Discarding entirely their battle-worn and earth-soiled clothes for these, and otherwise altering and augmenting their equipment at their friend’s expense, the two fugitives had, by travelling at night and making a carefully planned dash at the most critical point, put themselves outside of the region surrounded by the Duke of Cumberland’s forces. Thereafter they had dared to move by day, hiring horses; and either Everell’s boldness or Roughwood’s caution, or both, had carried them so far without other adverse chance than the meeting with the man who remembered Everell from their encounter at Culloden. Being without passports, they had avoided every place where troops were said to be stationed, and in crossing the border they had kept to the moors instead of the roads: for their eccentric manner of travelling, their invention was equal to such pretexts as the curiosity of horse-boys and others might require.
When the servant left them to their dinner, they reverted to their former subject, talking as they ate.
“’Tis all plain sailing, to my sight,” said Everell, cheerfully, “until we entrust our precious bodies to the care of your friend the smuggler.”
“I’ll warrant Budge to be true stuff,” replied Roughwood, confidently. “He would risk his cutter to save my neck. We used to play with his children on the cliffs, he and I.—And now I shall be looking on those cliffs for the last time, perhaps,—and on England! Well, ’tis the fate of losers in the game of rebellion.” He made no attempt to restrain the sigh this melancholy reflection evoked.
“Tut, tut, lad!” protested Everell, with unfeigned lightness of heart; “take my word for it, a man can live out of England. What is it Shakespeare says, that my father used to quote when our fellow-countrymen visiting us would commiserate our exile? ‘There’s livers out of Britain.’ And that speech of Coriolanus, too: ‘I turned my back upon my native city and found a world elsewhere.’ ’Twould surprise some Englishmen to be convinced of it, I know, but indeed there is a world elsewhere. ’Tis a lovely country, Britain, I grant you, and would be my choice for living in, when all’s said and done, but—there’s livers out of it.”
“You talk as if ’twere only the leaving England,” said the other, with a sorrowful smile.
Everell was silent a moment, gazing at his friend as if to make out some sort of puzzle which had repeatedly baffled him. “Sure, ’tis more than I can understand,” he said, at last. “For that lady I have the profound respect and admiration which your own regard for her declares her due; for every lady who merits them I have respect and admiration: but this power of love, as I see it manifested in you! Give me leave, on the score of our friendship, to confide that it astonishes me. How a man can fret his soul over a woman, be miserable at the idea of parting from her, risk his life for a meeting with her—for though we find it the safer course now, it was risking our lives to make that dash through the enemy’s lines and across the lowlands—”
“Yet you risked yours readily enough for mere friendship’s sake,” said Roughwood, breaking in upon the parenthesis, and so wrecking the sentence for ever.
“For friendship’s sake, yes!—brave comradeship, good company!—indeed, yes, and who would not? But for love of a girl!—why, ’tis worthy of Don Quixote! Forgive me: I speak only my mind.”
“Lad, lad, what is friendship in comparison with love of a girl—real love of a girl? You’ll sing another tune some day.”
“Never! I can assure you, never. I know not what the disease is, of which you speak. Certainly I’m now old enough to have had it if I ever was to be attacked.—Not that I don’t admire the beauty of women, and commend them for their gentleness,—when they are gentle,—and compassionate their weakness as I do that of children, and find pleasure in their smiling faces, and soft eyes, and tender blushes. I can take joy enough in the society of a pretty creature when it falls my lot, and count it among the other amenities of life. I value the grace and goodness that high-minded women diffuse in this rough world. I can be happy with sensible women, and amuse myself with light ones. But as to being what you call in love, I have not fallen into that strange condition, and I can promise you I never shall. ’Tis not in my constitution.”
“The day will come, and the disease be all the worse for being late, as is the case with other ailments delayed beyond the usual time.”
“No, sir: and as for hazarding life for love of a woman, I must tell you I put a higher value upon life than that implies. You understand me—for love of a woman. To save a woman in danger, to serve a woman in any way, is a different matter. But merely to participate in the absurdities of love, to exchange assurances and go through the rest of the comedy,—will you have me believe ’tis worth staking such a gift as life for? Pretty odds, egad!—life against love! Love, which is at most an incident, against life, which is everything and includes all incidents! Love, against the possibilities of who knows how many years! My dear Will!—and yet you say I am rash.”
“I am glad to find you a convert to a sense of the value of life,” laughed Will.
“Why, you don’t think I have held life cheap because I have sometimes ventured it perhaps without much hesitation? Be sure I have always known what I was doing. There has always been, as there is now, a good chance of winning through. I have not lagged behind the boldest in a fight, ’tis true—”
“Except in a retreat.”
“Ah, well, it broke my heart to fly from the field at Culloden. When I thought of the Prince and his hopes—when I perceived that all was ended in the whirling snow of that bleak day—I forgot myself. For a moment life did seem of little worth; not that I ever had the cause so much at heart, but ’twas a sad end of a brave adventure, and I felt what was passing in the Prince’s mind. I tarried for a last stroke of protest, and a pity it is it fell on no better object than a dog whose only business on the field was plunder,—for I don’t think that fellow was a true soldier; ’twas by fool’s luck he pinked me with his bayonet.—But, deuce take it, where was I? Ah, yes. If I’ve been venturesome now and again, I have never felt that the danger was more than my arm and eye were equal to,—and that’s not rashness, Will. A man is a fool who doesn’t hold life precious. If it isn’t precious, what’s the merit in risking it for a good cause? There are so many fine things to see and do when one is alive, ’tis sheer lunacy to place them all in the balance against a trifle. As for the satisfaction of looking on a pretty face for a greater or less space of time,—no, ’tis not enough.”
“Wait till you see the right face, dear lad,” said Roughwood, quietly.
“When I do, dear lad, you shall hear of it.”
Upon this speech, blithely uttered, Everell filled their two glasses with wine from the single bottle they had ordered. The young men were about to pledge each other, when the sudden opening of the door caused them to look sharply in that direction, holding their glasses midway between table and lips. A young lady came in with quick steps. At sight of the gentlemen, she stopped at once, and looked sweetly embarrassed. Everell and Roughwood rose to their feet, and bowed.
“Your pardon, sirs,” said the intruder. “I was—I wanted to see Prudence.” Her confusion, to which was due the strangeness of this remark, became all the greater on her perceiving that strangeness, and she blushed deeply.
“Prudence?” echoed Everell, politely. “If you mean a lady of that name, we have not seen her here.”
“She is my waiting-woman,” explained Georgiana. “I didn’t expect to find her in this room. She is in the kitchen, no doubt, so I thought of coming to this room and ringing the bell. I thought there might be nobody here, but I see I intrude.”
“Not in the least,” said Everell, earnestly. “You arrive just in time to provide us with a toast. To those sweet eyes!”
He was about to drink, when the new wave of crimson that swept over her face at this tenderly spoken praise of her visual organs engendered a sudden abashment in Everell. “I have been too bold, perhaps,” he said, in a kind of vague alarm. “If so, I entreat your pardon, madam.”
She looked at him with undisguised interest, and said, slowly, “I know not. If you are bold, there seems a respect in your boldness,—a gentleness and a consideration—” She stopped short, as having gone too far. A slight quiver of the lip, and a certain note of resentment in her last words, combined with the words themselves, conveyed a message to his quick wit.
“Madam, some one has offended you,” he said, instantly setting down his wine, and walking toward her and the door. “Where is the person?”
She raised her hand to check him, frightened at having created the possibility of a scene. “Nay, ’tis nothing! Stay, I beg you, sir!”
“Who could be ungentle to one who is all gentleness?” cried Everell. “It must have occurred but now—they must be near—in this inn. In what room? Pray tell me.”
“’Twas nothing, sir, I assure you. I spoke in a moment of foolish vexation. I was merely annoyed at their talk. I had no right to be—no offence was meant.”
“People should be careful that offence is not given, as well as not meant. They should be chastised for their carelessness, if for nothing more.”
“Nay, it is not to be heard of. Two of them are of my own sex, and another is my relation. I had no real cause to be angry. The fault is all mine, indeed. I have been much in the wrong to leave them so rudely,—and more in the wrong to speak of the matter to a stranger. Pray forget all I have said, sir,—pray do, as you are a gentleman.”
He had been on the point of answering at the end of each sentence, but her rapidity of speech prevented. She stopped now, with a look that continued her appeal and besought an assurance.
“As I am a gentleman,” said Everell, “I will obey your least command—or your greatest. But as I am a gentleman, I would not have you consider me as a stranger. I grant we have never met before; but such true and gentle eyes as yours make friends of all who are privileged to see them. As for my own deserts, I can plead only the respect and tenderness your looks compel. Believe me, nothing in the suddenness of this meeting can make me act lightly toward you, or think lightly of you, if you will do me the honour to count me among your friends. My name is—”
A loud “hem” from Roughwood, who had been looking on with astonishment at his friend’s earnest and precipitate demonstration of regard, made Everell stop short. Georgiana, who had listened and gazed with a bewilderment that had something exceedingly novel and pleasant in it, was at a loss how to fill the pause with speech or act. She stood feeling quite incapable and delighted; but her face betrayed nothing unusual except wonder, which very well became it. Everell, however, did not leave her long suspended. With a smile at his own predicament, he resumed:
“Egad, I have a choice of names to tell, madam. For certain reasons, I don’t parade my true name at present.—And yet why not in this case? I wouldn’t deal in falsehood even so slight, with one whose looks declare—”
But Georgiana had suddenly recalled her wits to their duty, and they had promptly informed her how the world would expect a young lady to comport herself in such a situation. She quietly interrupted:
“Nay, sir, I haven’t asked your name, and there is no need you should tell it, as we are not likely to meet again. I thank you for your willingness to befriend me, and your offer of service.—There is one thing you may do for me, if you will.”
The dejected look that had come over Everell’s face flashed into eagerness, and he started forward. “Name it, madam!”
Georgiana smiled, but said as sweetly as possible, to compensate in some measure for the disappointment she foresaw too late, “If you will pull the bell-rope yonder, I shall be very grateful—most grateful.”
Everell’s looks groaned for him, and he was too far taken down to move. Roughwood laughed gently, and after a moment, as he was nearer the bell-rope, went toward it. This restored Everell to animation.
“Nay, Will, ’tis my affair!” he cried, and, stepping between his friend and the rope, gave it so earnest a pull, with such a flourish, that anybody must have marvelled to see how serious and magnificent a performance the pulling of a bell-rope could be made.
Georgiana thanked him, and stood smiling, with nothing more to say. Everell found himself afflicted with a similar lack, or confusion, of ideas, as well as from inability to take his eyes off the young lady. She sought relief from his gaze by walking to the window. Presently the maid appeared, in response to the bell.
“Tell my waiting-woman to come to me,” said Georgiana. The maid having gone, another space of embarrassment ensued, until Georgiana was fain to break the silence by an ill-simulated cough. This was followed by a profound sigh on the part of Everell, who had indeed never been so tongue-tied in his life. Roughwood meanwhile stood witnessing with amusement. He was not the sort of man to come to the rescue at such junctures in any case, being of a reserved disposition, and he was certainly not inclined to pity the discomposure of his gay and confident friend.
At last Prudence made her appearance, with officious haste and solicitude. “What is it, your la’ship?” Seeing the gentlemen, she turned her glance upon them before her mistress could answer. “Oh, lor!” she cried, and stood stock-still, staring open-mouthed at Everell.
“Prudence! what do you mean?” said Georgiana.
“Oh, lor!” repeated the girl. “The gentleman with the heart! Under his right eye, too! The very place!”
“Prudence, what impertinence! Have you lost your senses?—Sir, I beg pardon for the poor girl. I don’t know what she means, but no harm, I’m certain.”
“Oh, mistress, your la’ship, come away!” begged Prudence, and, taking hold of Georgiana’s sleeve, essayed to draw her from the room. In astonishment, and hope of learning the cause of this extraordinary conduct, Georgiana made a brief curtsey to the gentlemen, and followed the maid out to the passage, where she bade her explain herself. But Prudence was not content till she had led her mistress into the opposite entry and partly up the stairs, whither it was impossible for the gaze of the two gentlemen to reach them.
Everell, quite heedless of the maid’s behaviour, had started forward with a stifled exclamation of protest when Georgiana had moved to leave them. He had stopped before arriving at the door, of course; and now that she had disappeared from view across the passage, he turned to Roughwood with a forlorn countenance. Roughwood, however, was in no mood for either sympathy or rallying. Prudence’s demonstration had worked its full effect upon him, and his brow was now grave with concern.
“Did you ever see such angelic sweetness, such divine gentleness?” asked Everell.
“Did you attend to what her waiting-woman said?” replied Roughwood, rather sharply.
“Something about my heart, or my eye, was it not? Sure, my heart may well have been in my eyes, when they looked on that lovely creature.”
“She was noticing the scar on your face. She has heard you described, no doubt. News of us has travelled along the road. ’Tis the work of the fellow we saw yesterday, I dare say. How often did I beg you to cover that scar with a patch?”
“Pshaw, you always see the worst possibility. The boy with the horses has been talking of us in the kitchen, that’s all. He has invented some wild tale of us, as those people do of their masters and employers.”
“We had best order fresh horses, and pay the reckoning; and meanwhile finish our wine—it may be some time before we think it safe to stop long at another inn.”
He stepped toward the bell-rope, but Everell again intervened, with the words:
“Nay, if any report of us has gone about, a hasty departure is the very thing to confirm suspicion. Nothing in haste:—my dear Will, how often have I heard you give that good counsel.”
“There will be no apparent haste. We have dined without hurry.”
Everell sighed, and looked toward the door. His face brightened.
“But if we wait here awhile, we may—don’t you know—perhaps we can—we may learn why that waiting-woman cried out at the sight of my scar,—for, look you, if we should meet the mistress again, no doubt, if it is something harmless—”
“At least,” said Roughwood, firmly, “I will ring and give orders and pay. Even if you still feel inclined to tarry, there’s no harm in being ready to go.”
Everell could not reasonably dispute this, but he was so little inclined to take a hand in anything implying an immediate departure, that he left all to his friend, and sat looking through the open door while Roughwood gave orders and paid the landlady. Nothing occurred to reward his watch during the first few minutes that passed while horses were being made ready. He took up the glass that Roughwood gently pushed to his hand, and drank down the wine half-consciously. He dreaded to see the horses appear, knowing that his comrade must have his way, and that he should probably never again behold the vision that had suddenly gladdened his sight and warmed his heart.
But meanwhile there had been activity in the yard, and now there was a great stamping of hoofs and rattling of harness, accompanied by the ejaculations peculiar to men who have to do with horses. Roughwood went to the door and looked toward the yard.
“’Tis a coach-and-six making ready to depart,” he said. “And there’s a post-chaise, too. We are not the only people who are about to leave this inn.”
Everell was by his side in an instant. No doubt, then, the young lady would be leaving. A fat coachman was on the box of the private vehicle, and the postilion was in readiness to mount before the chaise, but the passengers of neither were yet visible. There came, however, from across the passage the sound of well-bred voices, in easy, half-jesting tones, and then appeared a sumptuously charming lady on the arm of a handsome, discontented-looking gentleman; a second couple, not as distinguished in appearance; and the young lady who had so fired Everell’s fancy. The party moved toward the conveyances, Georgiana having no share in their mirthful talk. She had cast a quick glance at the two young gentlemen while her face was toward them, but had given no sign of acquaintance. A second procession, consisting of the waiting-women and men servants with the smaller impedimenta, followed in the footsteps of the gentlefolk, and Georgiana’s figure was almost lost to view in the crowd about the carriages, which was now swelled by the people of the inn.
“Which way can they be going? Who is she? If I could but learn where she lives!” said Everell.
“The knowledge would serve you little at present, I fear,” replied Roughwood.
“Those are the people whose talk offended her. One is her relation, she said. By Jupiter, I must find out!”
Ere his friend could stop him Everell had started for the yard, as if upon his own business, with some general idea of questioning the inn folk. Going near the travellers, he heard the two strange ladies and one of the gentlemen discussing how the party should be divided between the coach and the chaise. The taller gentleman was speaking to the landlady. The word “baggage” caught Everell’s ear, and he stood still.
“There are three trunks following by the wagon,” the gentleman was saying, “to be left here. You will have Timmins the carter fetch them to Foxwell Court immediately.”
Everell needed to hear no more. The party was evidently bound for Foxwell Court, which must be near if the baggage following thus far by regular wagon was to be conveyed the rest of the way by a local carter. And of course the place must be off the route of the stage-wagons—that is to say, off the great highway. Three trunks would have been small luggage for so numerous a party of such quality; but Everell saw baggage on the coach, as well. This, in fact, belonged to Lady Strange and her party. That about which he had heard directions given was of Georgiana and her uncle.
Everell was on the edge of the little crowd, and he turned about to look toward the midst of it, where he had last caught a glimpse of the young lady. To his wonder, he now beheld her close in front of him, her eyes meeting his.
“‘SAVE YOURSELF,’ SHE WHISPERED, RAPIDLY. ‘YOU ARE IN DANGER HERE.’”
“Save yourself,” she whispered, rapidly. “You are in danger here. A man is up-stairs who is hunting you—one Jeremiah Filson. For heaven’s sake, fly while you may!”
Before he could answer, she had slipped back through the crowd, and was in her former place, near the two older ladies. The attention of the lesser folk was upon the London people, who were concerned only with one another, and the tall gentleman was still engaged with the woman of the inn. No one had observed Georgiana.
At last the tall gentleman turned to his friends. Everell saw Georgiana disappear into the coach with the older ladies; saw the two gentlemen spring into the chaise, after casting doles to the yard servants; saw the two maids established upon outside seats, the valets mounted, the postilion up before the chaise, the coachman gather his reins and whip; saw the procession move off, with Caleb at the head to show the way, the coach next, the chaise following, and the trim London lackey riding behind all the rest. Everell followed as far as to the door, where still stood Roughwood. The coach had already turned down the High Street.
“She’s gone,” said he. “But not far—only to Foxwell Court.”
“Pray, where and what is Foxwell Court?” asked Roughwood, leading him by the arm into the parlour.
“I know not, but ’tis easily learned.”
“No doubt, but we shall do better to restrain our curiosity. I trust we shall have nothing more to excite it—or to tempt you to mingle unnecessarily in miscellaneous crowds from inn kitchens.”
“My dear Will,” cried Everell, “my going among that crowd was a stroke of heaven-sent luck. I received a most valuable warning—and from her, too! Think of it, those sweet lips, those heavenly eyes, that—”
“Warning? What do you mean?”
Everell told him.
“H’m!” said Roughwood. “That explains her maid’s conduct. Somebody had described you to the maid—somebody now up-stairs.”
“Yes, and the maid no sooner tells her of it than she takes the first opportunity to put us on our guard, at the risk even of her good name. What divine compassion! What—”
“And the somebody up-stairs? No doubt your acquaintance of yesterday. Why, he may chance upon us at any moment, and give the alarm. And, if he has mentioned you to the maid, why not to a whole kitchenful of people? ’Tis high time indeed we were out of this place. How slow they are with the horses! We should be in another county by sunset.”
“Ay, dear Will, you should—and must.”
“I should? We should. Here are the horses at last. Come.” Roughwood seized the cloak-bags.
“Nay, Will, I—I will follow a little later,” said Everell, taking his own piece of luggage.
“Later? Are you mad?—Come, come, no nonsense, Charles. You will go with me, of course.”
“From this inn, certainly. But from this neighbourhood not for a—day or two. I mention it now, so that the boy need hear no discussion between us. I will ride with you a mile or so, then take my own way afoot. The boy, of course, must keep his horses together.—I will follow you, I say: I can find your man Budge. Let his house be our rendezvous,—I can find it from your description,—and of course I will appear thereabouts only at night. Instruct him to be on the watch for me. If he can sail before I arrive, make good your own escape, and bid him expect me on his return. That is all, I think; and now to horse.”
“But, my dear lad,—my dear, dear lad,—what folly is this? Hear reason; you must be guided by me. You know not what you would risk—”
“No more than I’ve risked before now, and for no such cause, either. ’Tis settled, Will, I intend to stay hereabouts till I’ve seen that young lady again. Come, the boy is waiting with the horses. ’Tis you now that delays our going.”
“Charles, listen to me!—Rash! foolish! mad!”
“No.—I said you should hear when I saw the right face, Will. I declare I’ve seen it—and must see it again, whatever be the cost or the consequence.”
In another minute they were on horseback, moving down the High Street. The coach and chaise had started in the same direction, but were now out of sight. Everell hoped to come nearly up to them, that he might see where they left the highroad. But even after he had cleared the town and beheld a straight stretch of road far ahead, he found no sign of the vehicles in which he was interested. He inferred that they must have turned off through one of the streets of the town, which was indeed the case.
Meanwhile, Roughwood, full of sadness and misgiving, had kept up his usual vigilance so far as to watch their guide for possible signs of having heard any such talk at the inn as had enabled the maid Prudence to identify Everell. But the boy did not regard either of the gentlemen at all suspiciously; he showed no curiosity or interest, and Roughwood was assured that, if Everell’s enemy had spoken of them at the inn, this lad had not been a listener. Such, as the reader knows, was the case, for Mr. Filson had thus far confided his story to nobody in the house but Prudence, and she had excluded herself from the conversation of the kitchen under a sense of affront, until summoned by her mistress. Georgiana, upon hearing the cause of her alarm at the sight of the young stranger, had put the girl under the strictest commands of secrecy, and had kept her in attendance afterward, quietly returning to Foxwell and his friends as they were making ready to depart.
While he still rode with his friend, Everell allowed no mention of his resolve or of Foxwell Court to escape him, for he knew that the guide, whom Roughwood would dismiss at the end of that stage, would be returning with the horses, and might be interrogated by their enemy, who by that time would probably have learned of their short stay at the inn. On the other hand, Everell devoted some conversation to the purpose of deceiving the boy as to his reasons and intentions in leaving his friend and his saddle as he was about to do. Observing a house among some trees upon a hill, he pointed it out to Roughwood as the residence of a friend whom he meant to surprise with a brief visit. Having spoken to this effect, as if the matter had been previously understood between them, he added that, in order to make the surprise complete, he would approach the house on foot among the trees, and would therefore take leave of Roughwood, for the time, in the road. He could depend upon the gentleman he was about to visit to furnish him with conveyance to the next town, whence he would follow Roughwood by post-horse. This much having been said in the guide’s hearing, Everell pulled up his horse, and, Roughwood doing likewise, the two fugitives held a whispered conference upon the details of their next reunion.
To the last, Roughwood tried, by voice and look, to dissuade his comrade from this rash and sudden deviation from their original plans, but vainly. They made a redivision of their money, for each in his heart felt that some time must elapse ere they should—if ever—be fellow travellers again. Then Everell slid from his horse, slung his cloak-bag over his shoulder, gave a quick pressure of his friend’s hand, and a whispered “God speed you, dear lad!” in exchange for a silent and protesting farewell in the other’s clouding eyes; and stood alone in the highway. He waited till the horses disappeared with a last wave of Roughwood’s hand, around a turning: he then faced directly about, and set off with long and rapid strides.
His pace very soon brought him back to the town he had so recently left. Instead of going as far as to their former inn, he sought out one of humbler appearance, near the beginning of the street. Here he left his cloak-bag, for already in his brief walk he had experienced the stares of wonder naturally drawn by a gentleman who carried at the same time a sword at his side and a cloak-bag at his shoulder. He went into a barber’s shop, where, as he had used his razor that morning, and very little sign of beard had become visible in the meantime, his order for shaving created in the barber’s mind an impression that he must be an extremely luxurious gentleman in spite of his threadbare clothes,—probably a lord in misfortune. Everell easily set the barber talking about all the estates in the neighbourhood, and thus, without seeming to have more design in regard to Foxwell Court than to a dozen other places, elicited the information that that house was eight miles away on the road to Burndale.
Returning to the inn where he had left his bag, he told the landlord he was bound for Burndale, and had made up his mind to accomplish part of the journey that afternoon, in order to arrive there betimes the next day. He bargained for a horse and guide to take him seven or eight miles on the way, and leave him at some place where he could pass the night and obtain conveyance on to Burndale in the morning. In this way, without mentioning Foxwell Court, he contrived that he should be set down in its vicinity and yet have it supposed that his destination was far beyond.
He had so far trusted to luck and his quickness of sight to avoid confrontation with the enemy who, as he could not doubt, was close enough at hand. But he breathed a sigh of relief when he at last rode out of the town in the direction of Burndale: he believed that, whatever inquiries might be made upon the discovery that he had passed through the town, his traces were sufficiently confused, one set leading southward after his friend, and the other leading to Burndale, a good distance beyond Foxwell Court. So he rode forward with his new guide, in as great security of mind as he had enjoyed in months.
The road lay at first between fields, and here and there great trees stretched their boughs shelteringly over it. Sometimes green banks rose on one hand or both, and at a certain place a stream joined the road and went singing along in its company for half a mile. Then the way emerged upon an open common, which undulated on one side in rounded waves of heather till the purple mass met the gray sky, and on the other side to the border of a wood. But presently Everell was again in cultivated country, with stone farm-buildings set now and then upon lawny slopes among the fields.
One great house, of which the chimneys rose in the midst of trees, and which was to be approached by a driveway of some hundreds of yards from a gate and lodge at the roadside, held Everell’s attention for a moment. The guide volunteered the information that this was Thornby Hall. Everell repeated the name carelessly, looked a second time, and thought no more of it. Had he been able to foresee the future, he would have given the place a longer inspection.
Two or three miles more brought them to a village. The guide said that here was the only public-house of entertainment in the near neighbourhood, and that if he went farther he was in danger of getting benighted on his return. Nothing could have suited Everell’s own plan better than this clear hint. He dissembled his content, however, and put on a frown of disappointment as he gazed at the mere ale-house—a low and longish building whose unevenness of line betokened its antiquity—before which the boy had drawn up. Everell feigned a reluctant yielding to necessity; dismounted peevishly, and showed a petulant resignation in asking the rustic-looking landlord who appeared at the door if a decent room was to be had for the night.
The landlord, a drowsy little old man, who was too dull, too humble-minded, or too philosophical to resent any doubt of the excellence of his house, replied that the best room was at his honour’s service. Whereupon Everell, for the hearing of his guide, inquired urgently about the possibility of getting a horse in the morning to carry him to Burndale. Being assured on this point, also, Everell dismissed the guide, and had his single piece of baggage taken into his room, which proved to be not merely the best room, but the only room, properly so-called, in addition to the long apartment which served as kitchen, bar, living-room of the family, and general clubroom of the village; the chambers up-stairs being mere lofts under the roof.
Everell ordered a supper of bacon and eggs, which were cooked by the landlord’s fat, middle-aged daughter, and served by the old man himself. Turning quite reconciled to his accommodations as soon as his guide had left the scene, Everell drew the host into conversation, and, as the old fellow proved to be an amiable and honest soul, even in the matter of his charges, the traveller was shortly in possession of as many facts, legends, and reports concerning the gentry of this and adjacent parishes as his host had accumulated in years. All this information went through Everell’s mind as through a sieve, with the exception of the circumstance that the old red-brick place, with the ivy and the gables, crowning the slope at the right, with a park behind it, which old red-brick place his honour would have seen had he ridden a little farther on, and would see when he rode that way in the morning, was Foxwell Court. This piece of news did not come out till Everell had finished his meal, and he might have learned a vast deal about the Foxwells, for the old man’s face brightened as if at the opening of a fresh and copious subject; but the young gentleman, with his usual precipitancy, rose and declared his intention of stretching his legs. Though he had cautiously refrained from being the first to mention Foxwell Court, he no sooner knew where it was, and how near, than he felt himself drawn as by enchantment in its direction.
As he stepped out upon the green space before the inn, a post-chaise came rattling by at a round speed. It was empty, and Everell recognized it as the one which had accompanied the coach from the inn yard that day: it was now returning from Foxwell Court, as it ought to have been doing sooner. The postilion, no doubt, had wasted time in the sociability of the servants’ hall, and was now making his horses fly to avoid belatement. He stared a moment at Everell, and was gone. Thinking nothing of this meeting, so brief and casual, Everell walked rapidly off toward Foxwell Court.
The sun had come out toward evening, and now shone bright on the weathercock and spire of the parish church that stood embowered some distance from the road, on Everett’s left, as he proceeded. A short walk brought him to the end of the village street of low gray cottages in their small gardens. Thence a little bridge bore him across a stream that came murmuring down through a large field from the wooded land Northward. Looking ahead on that side of the road, he perceived the curved gables of an old house of time-dulled brick partly clad in ivy. It stood rather proudly at the top of a broad slope and against a background of woods or park, its upper windows ablaze with the sunlight. The lower part of the building was hidden by the walls of a forecourt and by a dilapidated-looking gate-house which dominated them. At the near end of the mansion appeared a shapeless remnant of broken tower and wing, ruinous and abandoned: from these ruins a wall extended to the verge of a slight precipice and, there turning at a right angle, ran back to the wood. Over the top of this wall were visible the signs of a neglected garden or orchard.
The further, or Western, end of the house was flanked by trees and greenery, but the slope of rich green turf which descended in one long and gentle swell from the forecourt to the road was clear lawn. This great convex space of green was separated from the adjacent fields, and from the road, by a rude hedge of briar. Everell, having gazed a few moments from the bridge, walked on along the road, intending, if possible, to describe the circuit of the house at a respectful distance before attempting any near approach. He came to the barred opening in the hedge through which the private road led from the highway to the gate-house of the forecourt, but he let only his eyes travel up the curving way. As the hedge grew on lower ground beyond the roadside ditch, Everell had the house in full sight while he was passing. He came at length to where the hedge turned for its ascent, and here he found that a narrow lane ran between it and the field adjoining.
He was speedily over the barred gate that shut this lane from the road. Ascending toward the park behind the house, he frequently lost sight of the latter by reason of the height of the hedge, which was, moreover, accompanied on that side by a line of oaks. As it came to the level of the forecourt, the hedge was interrupted by a gate. Looking across the bars of this, Everell could see not only the house but, nearer to him, stables and other outbuildings skilfully concealed by shrubbery and trees. His observation from the gateway being rewarded by nothing to the purpose, and that he might make the most use of the remaining light, Everell went on through the lane toward the park, to which he now saw it gave access. Passing the trees which prevented his view of the Western end of the house, he came abreast of a terrace which lay between the North front and the park, and which he could see across the hedge when he stood on tiptoe. A few more steps, and a vault over a five-barred gate, took him into the park itself, from the shades of which—for it was not kept clear of small growth, and offered plentiful covert of bush and bracken and other brush—he gazed upon the house as he turned and strolled Eastward.
The balustrade of the terrace was broken here and there; and the mansion itself, where the ivy allowed its surface to be seen, was weather-worn and unrepaired. Yet, by virtue of its design and situation, the house had a magnificence. This, however, did not much affect Everell at the time, sensitive though he was to such impressions. What concerned him was, that he saw no face at any window, nor heard any voice from any part of the mansion except below stairs.
To complete the circuit of the place, in quest of any discovery to aid his purpose, he walked on till he came to a deep, thick-wooded glen that cut into the park from the grounds about the ruined Eastern end of the house. Through this ran the stream which, subsequently traversing the great field between the house and the village, crossed under the bridge. Everell turned along the crest of the glen-side, and thus in a few steps emerged, through a gate in the stone wall, upon the wild garden or orchard, of which he had seen signs from the road. It was a neglected place, evidently not now resorted to. Steps descended to it from the terrace, yet it was not so much lower but that Everell could glance along the terrace and the North front of the house. He leaned against a vacant stone pedestal to rest and consider.
The sun had set, and, far beyond the length of the terrace, the undulating fields and moorland, and the distant darkening mountains, was a sky of red and gold. But Everell had eyes for nothing but the old mansion, which was to him a case holding the loveliest jewel he had ever beheld. As the dusk came on, light appeared at some of the lower windows; a few notes of laughter and other vocal sounds gave evidence of life. But nobody came forth. Everell dared not hope to catch a glimpse of the admired one that evening. He was at last sensible that night had fallen. All the colour had gone out of the West, and stars had appeared.
He would have moved, to warm himself by walking, but that two of the upper windows began to glow. Were they her windows? He watched with a beating heart, stilling even the sound of his breath. But several minutes passed without any manifestation even of a shadow momentarily darkening the panes. The light vanished. No doubt she had gone to bed, fatigued with the journey of the day. Certainly they must be her windows, for the others of the party were less likely to retire so early. Everell heaved a sigh, and threw a kiss at the windows. Of a sudden he was uncomfortably chilly: he bestirred himself, wished he had thought of bringing his cloak, and started off, as much upon a feeling that he could better meditate a course of procedure while walking as upon the impulse to set his blood in motion. But so far was he from any desire of going back to his inn that, without much conscious choice in the matter, he took a quite different direction, and followed the top of the glen-side into the park.
He had been moving at a rapid pace for several minutes before he gave any heed to his whereabouts. He had been guided safely among bush, bracken, and the great trunks of the trees by that unconscious observation for which in those days there was no better name than instinct. He now saw—for in many places the trees were not too close together for the admission of some light from stars and sky—that he had penetrated a good distance into the park, and had left the course of the glen. As he stood gazing into the gloom, wondering how accurately he could retrace his steps, he heard the loud crack of a gun, fired seemingly about two furlongs away.
“Poachers,” said he, after a moment’s thought.
He stepped forward to the edge of an open place, which sloped down gradually to a stream—doubtless the same that threaded the glen, or a tributary. Beyond this water the corresponding ascent was clear of trees for perhaps a hundred yards. Down that side of the glade a dark figure was approaching so swiftly, and in such manner else, that Everell knew it as that of a man running for his life. There is a difference so pronounced as to be plain even in twilight and afar between the attitude of a man who runs in pursuit, and that of a man who runs from pursuit; and again, in either case, between that of one who runs in accordance with, and that of one who runs in opposition to, the law.
Having no desire to interfere with a rogue who had just fired at, or been fired at by, somebody’s gamekeeper, or at best had taken a forbidden shot at somebody’s game, Everell concealed himself among some bracken of a man’s height. He waited a few minutes, hoping to be informed by his ears when the man should have passed. But he heard neither footfall nor panting, nor any noise of pursuit.
Supposing that the fellow had changed his course at the stream, Everell stepped out from the bracken. He was just in time to confront a broad figure striding toward him. Ere Everell thought of self-defence, the newcomer uttered an ejaculation, and sprang aside with something upraised in the air. The next thing that Everell knew—for one rarely feels a knock-down blow on the head from such an instrument as the butt-end of a gun—he was lying among the bracken from which he had recently come forth.
At his side knelt the man who had felled him, and who was endeavouring to ascertain if he still breathed. Everell essayed to grasp his sword-hilt, but the other caught his wrist with a powerful hand.
“Softly, master,” said a gruff but apparently pacific voice. “’Tis all a mistake, belike, and, if so be it is, I ask your pardon humbly. I make you out to be a gentleman, sir, and in that case not what I supposed. But you appeared so sudden, I took it you’d been lying in wait for me. I struck out first, and thought afterwards, which was maybe the wrong way about. So I stayed to see what hurt was done, and lend a hand if need be.—Nay, you’ll find I haven’t touched your pockets, sir.”
Forgetting the injury in the chivalrous after-conduct—for nine men out of ten would have run away, whether the blow had been mistaken or not—Everell replied as heartily as he could:
“Why, friend, you seem a very brave fellow, and I forgive you the mistake. As for harm, I do begin to feel something like a cracked crown; but my wits are whole enough, so the damage can’t be very great. I can tell better if you will allow me to rise—which you can safely do, as I assure you I’m not your enemy, nor was I lying in wait.”
Everell then explained his concealment among the bracken, relating exactly what he had seen. “I thought you must have got far away, to judge from your speed down yonder slope.”
“Nay, sir,” said the man, stepping back so that Everell might rise, “I had no need to run further. I was already off the land of them that were chasing me—the boundary is just beyond the glade: you could see the fence among the trees if ’twere daylight—but I kept running lest they might send a shot after me. As soon as I found covert on this side the glade, I stopped to get my breath. Now, sir, I’ve been as frank with you as you’ve been with me; and I’m glad to see, by the way you stand and step, that no lasting injury is done, after all.”
Everell, whose hat had saved his skull, and who could feel only a little blood, and that already coagulating, was able to stand without other unpleasant symptoms than a thumping ache of the head. His new acquaintance seemed ready to go about his own business, but Everell was loth to part with him so soon. He was a short, thick-set, long-armed fellow, with a broad face, whose bold, rugged features would by ignorant people be termed ugly, and whose scowling, defiant look would by the same people be called wicked. But something in his speech or manner, or even in his appearance as far as could be made out in the comparative darkness, stamped him in Everell’s mind as an honest rascal, worthy of confidence.
“No injury, I assure you,” replied Everell. “Indeed I must thank you for a lesson. Henceforth I shall look before I leap, in any similar case; with my hand on my sword, too.”
“’Tis a wise resolve, master. Though I for one am glad your hand was not on your sword to-night: for then I should have felt sure you were in league with them yonder, and worse might have happened.”
“By ‘them yonder,’ I take it you mean gamekeepers.”
“Ay, sir, Squire Thornby’s men. ’Tis his wood, yon enclosure. Here on the Foxwell land a fellow is safe enough, so long as it be only a rabbit or pheasant now and then. Sure the more fool I for not thinking of that when you appeared—I might ’a’ known the Foxwell people would never stop a man them Thornby keepers was down upon.”
“Then the shot I heard awhile ago was fired at you by the Thornby keepers?”
“No need to speak of that, sir. If so be you heard a shot, why, you heard it, and there’s an end.” While he spoke, the man fingered with the flap of a well-stuffed pocket in his coat. “How I knew it was the Thornby people was by their voices, sir, whereby I saw fit to run. Not that I’m afeard of e’er a body of them all, but I hold it ’ud be fool’s work to shorten my own life or another man’s. And right glad I be to know I didn’t shorten your honour’s, especially now I see what sort of gentleman your honour is.”
“’Twould have been an odd twist of luck indeed,” returned Everell, good-humouredly. “I am much in your own case, friend: far from desiring to trip up another man, I must look to it that I’m not tripped up myself. My fellow-feeling at present is with the fox rather than the hounds.”
“Then belike you are seeking cover hereabouts?” inquired the poacher, in a tone of friendly interest.
“At all events, I wish to remain in this neighbourhood a few days, without encountering a great degree of publicity. I say as much to an honest rogue like yourself—I mightn’t be as free with a more respectable man.”
“You’re not far wrong there, sir,” replied the fellow, not at all displeased, but, on the contrary, gratified at the justice done him. “I don’t ask to know anything; I have secrets enough of my own. But if I can be of any small service, in the way of information about the lay o’ the land or such a matter—for I see you’re a stranger hereabouts, and I know these parts well—better than they know me, by a great deal—why, then, I’m your servant to command. But, if not, I’ll bid ye good night and safe lying wherever you may lodge.”
“Oh, as for that, I lodge at the ale-house in the village, for to-night, at least. I told the landlord I would ride on to-morrow; I shall have to find some pretext for staying.”
“Well, sir, you know your own wishes—but ’tis not the most private place, that there ale-house, and they be inquisitive folk, them in the village.”
“What other lodging would you recommend?” asked Everell, for the first time seriously awake to the curiosity that his presence must arouse in so remote a place. “I certainly desire to go and come unobserved: I have no mind that my motions should be watched and discussed.”
“Why, that’s a question,” said the other, frankly nonplussed.
“You ought to know the answer,” said Everell. “Surely you are able to go and come without witnesses, when upon such amusements as brought you out this evening.”
“Be sure I don’t live at the village ale-house, master. Nor at any village, neither; nor in sight of one.”
“Where, then, do you live?”
“I have my cottage, and my patch o’ ground that I contrive to coax a livin’ out of—with a little assistance from outside.” He scarce consciously laid his palm against the fat pocket. “’Tis a poor place, sir, but has the recommendation of privacy. ’Tis so lost in the woods, so to speak, and closed round by hillocks and thickets, I doubt you could ever find it if I told you the way.”
“Who lives with you?”
“Nobody at present, since my last son was took by the press-gang—he was in Newcastle to visit his brother, who’s a porter there. They would go out to see the world, them lads!”
“Then you have room for a lodger,” said Everell, tentatively.
“Fine lodgings for a gentleman like you, sir!”
“Never mind; I’ve had worse,” Everell replied, thinking of Scotland; “and not so long since, either.”
“And the food, sir,—with your tender stomach?”
“Man, I’ve lived two days on a wet oatcake.”
The poacher was not the sort of fellow to offer the same objections over again, nor to be upset by the novelty of the suggestion. The two being circumstanced as they were, and intuitively trusting each other, no proposal could have been more natural. So far from hemming and hawing, therefore, the man merely enumerated such further disadvantages as a gentleman must encounter in sharing his abode and larder, and, these being made light of, gave his assent. The question immediately arose as to how Everell should transfer his residence from the ale-house to the poacher’s cottage without leaving a trace. It was important that he should depart from the ale-house in regular fashion, lest it be supposed that he had met with foul play, and a search be made. Moreover, he must have his belongings—for the cloak-bag contained his clean linen, stockings, razor, and other necessaries of decent living: though he desired to be visible to but one person while in the neighbourhood, he desired that to her he should appear at no disadvantage. After some discussion, a course was planned, which Everell and his intended host—who gave his name as John Tarby—immediately set out upon.
John Tarby led the way through that part of the wood which Everell had lately traversed. They came, at length, to the verge of the glen; but, instead of keeping to the edge, the guide descended the bracken-covered side into the deeper gloom of the thickly timbered bottom. Here, indeed, Everell found what was to him complete darkness, and he had to clutch his companion’s coat-skirt for guidance. John Tarby, however, proceeded without hesitation or doubt, deviating this way or that to avoid tree or thicket, the music of the stream rising or falling as the two men moved more or less close to its border. At last they emerged from the glen’s mouth, at the foot of the steep incline that rose to the old sunken garden of Foxwell Court. Here John Tarby concealed his gun by laying it across the boughs of a young oak. Where the glen and the timber ceased, the walkers were encountered by the high palings which served to enclose the park on that side except where wooden bars spanned the stream. By using the bars as a bridge, Everell and his guide crossed the stream. Tarby led the way a few rods farther, stopped, and carefully removed a loose paling or two. They squeezed themselves through the opening, and stood in the field. Tarby replaced the palings in their former apparently secure position, and then the two rapidly skirted the field, keeping close to the fence so as to profit by the dark background it afforded their bodies. Turning at the angle of the field, and skulking along a rough stone wall, they finally reached the village end, meeting their former companion, the stream, just in time for a momentary greeting ere it passed under the bridge. Leaving the poacher to lie unseen in the shadowed corner of the field, Everell clambered over a wooden barrier and up a low bank, and, having thus gained the road, went on alone to the ale-house.
The village street was deserted, but the ale-house windows showed light; and the sound of slow, broad voices, mingled in chaffing disputation, indicated that ale was flowing in the general room. Everell went by way of the passage to his own chamber, where a lighted candle awaited him. He rang for the landlord.
“I’ve found a conveyance to Burndale to-night,” said Everell, when the old man appeared. “A belated carrier, I believe, whom I met at the bridge yonder, where he’s waiting for me. But as I took this room for the night, you must allow me to pay for it, and the price of breakfast, too.”
The landlord, whose face had lengthened at the first words, now resumed his serenity, and he amiably gathered in the silver that Everell had laid on the table. This seemed to warm him into solicitude for the departing guest’s convenience, and he expressed the hope that the wagoner was at the door to carry the bag.
“Nay, he wouldn’t turn back,” said Everell; “nor could he leave his horses. But ’tis not far to the bridge.” And he took up the bag to bear it himself.
“Nay, then, your pardon, sir, I’ll carry it,” interposed the landlord.
“My good man, I wouldn’t think of taking you from your house and customers.”
“’Tis not far, as you say, sir, and my daughter—”
But Everell had gone, and the obliging old fellow was left to scratch his head and wonder. The more he wondered, the more reason there seemed for doing so. He had not heard anything like a carrier’s wagon pass, as it must have done if it was now at the bridge and bound for Burndale. It was strange enough that a carrier’s wagon should travel that road at such an hour, and stranger still that it should do so without its custodian stopping for a cup of good cheer. And the gentleman’s unwillingness to have his baggage carried!
The ale-house keeper was not so old as to have outlived curiosity. He slipped out, crossed the green, and stood in the middle of the road, peering through the starlit night. Yes, there was the figure of the gentleman, truly enough, swiftly retreating down the village street that led to the bridge. The landlord slunk after him, keeping close to the walls and hedges, and stepping silently. He was soon sufficiently near the bridge to perceive that no conveyance waited there. The assurance of this acted so upon his mind as to make him stop and consider whether it was safe to go further. As he stood gaping, the form of the strange gentleman suddenly vanished. The old man stared for another moment: then, assailed with a feeling that here was mystery nothing short of devil’s work, he turned and fled in a panic to his ale-house.
Everell, who had not once looked back, had passed from the old man’s view by turning from the road to rejoin the waiting poacher. Without a word, Tarby arose, relieved Everell of the cloak-bag, and led the way over the route by which they had come from the park. The palings were again removed and replaced, the stream was again crossed by means of the bars. The two entered the blackness of the glen, Tarby repossessing himself of his fowling-piece. By the time they had ascended to the general level of the park, the moon had risen, and, as they proceeded in a Northwesterly direction, the more open spaces, whether clothed in green sward or in bracken of autumnal brown, wore a beauty which Everell associated in his mind with the young lady not far away, and thus the silent woods and glades seemed to him a forest of enchantment.
Tarby spoke only to call Everell’s attention to landmarks by which he might know the course again. He indicated the whereabouts of the keeper’s lodge without passing near it. They left the park by means of another such weak place in the barrier as had served them before, the poacher remarking that he preferred that kind of egress even when barred gates were near at hand. They now traversed a deserted bit of heath, covered with gorse, and plunged into a rough wood, much thicker and gloomier than the park behind them. Following a ditch, or bed of a dried-up stream, they emerged at last upon some partly clear, rugged land which rose gradually before them. This they ascended, and so came to a region of bare, rocky hills and deep wooded hollows. Tarby kept mainly to the hollows, until at last, having crossed a little ridge, he descended to a vale lying in the shape of a crescent, and seeming in the moonlight to be covered with timber; but a narrow patch of clearing ran diagonally across, watered by a little stream. Everell and his guide came into this clearing at the end by which the brook left it. Near the stream—so near, indeed, that they had barely room to walk between—was a thick mass of tall gorse bushes, threatening scratches to any intruder. Tarby turned in among these at a narrow opening, followed close by his wondering guest. In a moment Everell discovered that the bushes, instead of constituting a solid thicket, formed but a hollow circle, within which was a low cottage of timber and rough plaster.
“Here us be,” said John Tarby, dropping bag and gun to respond to the leaping caresses of a mongrel hound that had sprung up from the door-stone. “He won’t hurt you, sir; ’tis a ’bedient animal. When I tells him to stop here, ’tis here he stops, and won’t come out even to meet me, unless I call or whistle.”
The dog transferred his attentions to Everell on perceiving him to be an approved visitor, while the poacher opened the door and lighted a candle within. Entering, Everell found a combination of kitchen, sleeping-chamber, and living-room, the whole giving an impression of comfort far exceeding that of the bothy he had for a time inhabited in Scotland.
“So this is your castle,” said Everell, looking around with approbation.
“Ay, sir, with the gorse for wall and the brook for moat. And I don’t lack a postern to escape by, if so be I was ever hard pressed in front.” He opened a small square shutter in the back of the room. “’Tis all gorse out there, sir, and only me and the dog knows the path through to the rocks.”
There was at one end of the room a pallet bed, which Tarby assigned to his guest, saying he would shake down some heather for his own use at the opposite end. He went out, and returned with a sackful of this, having borrowed from the reserve supply of his cow, which he housed in a shed on the other side of the stream. He informed Everell that he kept a few fowls also, though the great part of his clearing was made to serve as a vegetable-garden. He asked what Everell would like for supper, and named three or four possibilities besides the rabbit he drew from his large pocket. But Everell had supped at the ale-house, and, as he was now quite fatigued, he went to bed, leaving his host to partake of bread and cheese, while the dog munched a cold bone in the corner.
When Everell awoke, bright day was shining in through the single window and the open doorway, and John Tarby was preparing a breakfast of eggs and bacon. Everell, despite his now eager appetite and his impatience to be about his purpose, dressed himself with care, performing his toilet with the aid of the stream, and putting on fresh linen and stockings. He then ate heartily, and, having given his host a sufficient idea of where he wished to spend his day, set forth in Tarby’s company, that the poacher might show him the way by daylight. Taking care to note every landmark, Everell arrived finally in that portion of the Foxwell park which lay near the mansion. Tarby here took his leave, to attend to his own affairs, making a rendezvous with his guest in case the latter should not have returned to the cottage by nightfall—for it was not certain that he could find his way after dark at the first attempt.
Everell strolled on till the gables of Foxwell Court appeared through the trees. He found a convenient spot where he could sit and observe the terrace that stretched between the house and the park. His highest hope was that the young lady would, sooner or later, come to take the air upon the terrace and extend her walk into the park.
He sat amidst bracken, peering out through countless small openings among the browning leaves and stems. A hundred times he changed his position, and a hundred sighs of impatience escaped him, before anything occurred to break the monotony of his watch. And when, toward noon, the great door of the house opened, and figures in feminine garb appeared, they proved to be only the two ladies in whom he was not interested. They sauntered along the terrace, arm in arm, talking and laughing, making a graceful picture against the broken balustrade, or on the wide steps between the moss-covered, crumbling flower-pots. They were joined presently by the stouter gentleman, and at last by the taller. Finally, after a half-hour of mirthful chatter, the four went indoors again, and left the terrace empty for another long time of waiting.
In the afternoon the same four appeared on horseback in the lane which served as the bridle-path from the courtyard side of the house to the park. Entering the park at some distance from Everett’s hiding-place, they were soon lost to his view among the trees. If she should appear now, while they were absent! As time lengthened, he meditated going boldly to the house and asking for her. But he forced himself to patience, only moving to another watching-place a few yards away. He had scarcely done so, and resumed his gaze, when he beheld her standing upon the steps of the house.
He sat perfectly still, as if the least alarm might frighten her away. She advanced slowly down the terrace, looked West, then East, then into the park. Would that those inviting shades might lure her!—would that she might feel and obey the beckoning of his heart! But she turned and walked to the Western end of the terrace, and stood for awhile in admiration of the soft landscape and distant mountains. Presently he saw her look sharply toward the park, as if her attention had been suddenly, and not pleasantly, drawn that way. He heard the riders, who were doubtless coming back, and would pass near her in going through the lane. She turned and moved toward the opposite end of the terrace—evidently to avoid them. She did not stop till she was looking on the neglected garden from the top of the steps descending to it. There she stood for a few moments, contemplating the scene; then passed down the steps, disappearing from view.
Everell took his resolution: sprang from his place, and, bending his body forward, dashed through bracken and behind trees to the glen-side. He darted along the crest, reached the gate in the wall, and saw the young lady sauntering amidst the trees and shrubbery. He glided swiftly forth, and was on his knee, pressing her hand to his lips, ere she could do more than utter a low cry of astonishment.
The surprise in her face was quickly followed by pleasure; but consciousness came a moment later, with a rush of scarlet to her cheeks and a look of faint reproof and vague apprehension to her eyes.
“Good heaven, sir,” she said, in a low voice, “I never dreamed of seeing you again!”
“Fear nothing,” he replied, in a tone as guarded as hers; “we cannot be observed here—the shrubbery is all around us.—I have come to thank you for the warning you gave me at the inn yesterday.”
“To thank me?” she repeated, round-eyed. “You mean that is what brings you here—to thank me for such a little thing?”
“Not such a little thing, either,” he replied with a smile, as he rose; “the saving, perhaps, of my life and my comrade’s.”
“Oh, indeed, yes—a very great thing!—but a little thing to do—so easily done. And to come all the way hither to thank—” She stopped short and looked at him steadily, then blushed deeper. “Oh!—you will think me a fool, sir:—for a moment I believed exactly what you said; I made no allowance for compliment; I am inexperienced, as you can see.”
“Nay, but upon my honour I spoke the truth,” he protested in surprise.
“Then you indeed came here only to thank me?”
“To thank you, but not only that. I came to see and hear you.”
“You mean—nothing else—brought you to this neighbourhood?”
“Nothing but you. Had I not met you at the inn yesterday, I should now be with my friend, far on the road Southward.”
The look of apprehension returned to her face.
“Oh, heaven, yes!—the danger you are in! How do you intend to save yourself? Are you not risking your life by remaining in England?”
“Pray don’t be alarmed on that score: I have the means of leaving England when the time comes.”
“When the time comes? When will that be? What is it that delays you?”
He was not prepared with an answer. “Why,—ah—you must know my friend has some matters to settle before he leaves;—we are to sail together, when he is ready.”
“Then you should have remained together. Why did you leave him? If what you said is true, you have interrupted your flight—to see me.”
“You are worthy of a far greater compliment than that,” said he, as gallantly as the confusion he felt in her presence allowed him to speak.
“But if danger came to you through this, how I should have to reproach myself! Oh, I beg you, follow your friend: overtake him. Lose no time: now that you have thanked me, go—go quickly!”
“And have you the heart to send me away when I have but just found you?”
“Nay, if your life were not at stake—no, I mean not that. I ought not to talk with you—I ought not to stay here.”
Trembling, she made to retreat, but he gently interposed.
“Nay,” he said, very tenderly, “the ‘oughts’ and ‘ought nots’ of custom do not apply to us, situated as we are. Are you not among people who make you unhappy? Am I not a man whose life you have saved, and who would do anything in the world for you? Can you not trust me as I trust you? Why then shouldn’t you talk with me? Tell me, what if my life were not at stake?”
“I have forgot what I was saying.”
“If my life were not at stake, you would not bid me go?”
“How can I tell?—Why shouldn’t I?”
“You were startled to see me here. Did you not think I might come?”
She could have truly answered that she had been without the slightest expectation of ever seeing him again. Yet she had permitted her imagination the indulgence of a vague scene of future meeting, not far unlike that which was now taking place. The consciousness of this added to the sweet embarrassment she felt, and she could only reply, foolishly, “Why should I have thought so?”
Everell sighed, realizing that, as far as speeches went, he was not making rapid progress. “At all events,” said he, rallying his powers of gaiety, “here I am, and in this neighbourhood I mean to stay for a time, so ’tis of no use bidding me go—”
“But are you safe in this neighbourhood?” she broke in, her eyes forgetting their shyness in searching his face to see if his confidence was real. “That man at the inn may have described you to many people.”
“I will take care none of them see me. I have a secure hiding-place in the wilderness, and a friend to supply my wants. I shall be visible to none but him—and you.”
“To me? How to me?”
“Even as I am at this moment: here, in this garden. ’Tis evidently a deserted place; the shrubbery and walls conceal us, and escape is easy to the glen yonder if we should hear anybody approach. No one, finding you here alone, would suspect you had had a visitor.”
“I must not risk that discovery,—for your sake, I must not. I shall be missed in the house, I’m afraid,—my uncle and his friends have returned.”
“Nay, don’t go yet. Pray, not yet! I have said nothing yet, accomplished nothing.”
“What would you say, then? Speak quickly.”
“A thousand things. I can’t unload my heart of a sudden at the cry, ‘Stand and deliver!’—you send my thoughts into confusion. Do not go yet!—’tis not so much saying what I would, as being with you.”
“But they will be inquiring for me—my maid will be seeking. My uncle—”
“Is your uncle so heedful of you that he must always know where you are?”
“Far from it. I am nothing to him and his friends. But if the whim should seize him—if by any chance they should find me talking with a stranger—Oh, really, sir, I must go.”
“Again you call me stranger!”
“Why, in their eyes you would be a stranger.”
“But not in yours? Ah, thank you for that much, at least. You acknowledge me as a friend?”
“Why, I suppose—since you declare yourself so, I must needs believe you. Heaven knows, I have felt some want of a friend, having none in this house. Were it otherwise, were this place my aunt’s, perhaps I should not have stayed a moment to hear you.”
“I must bless my fortune, then, that this house is not your aunt’s. I can even be glad you are not among friends here, since that leaves room in your heart for me. And yet I could slay any who were lacking in the friendship you had a right to expect of them. How can they be so, to you?”
His gaze had so much ardour that her own eyes softened in it, and the consequence of that melting was that he swiftly folded her in his arms and pressed a kiss obliquely upon her lips.
“Now I must go,” she whispered, after a moment, gently pushing him away.
“Now less than ever, sweet,” he replied, still clasping her.
“Oh, but I must—sure I beg—Prudence will be looking for me.”
Her insistence of manner was such that he dared not hold her longer without feeling guilty of violence. But he still retained her hand, to say:
“And when will you be here again?”
“I know not,” she answered, hurriedly. “How can I say?”
“Well, then, whenever you do come, you will find me waiting for you.”
“No, no; that will not be safe. I had forgotten the danger you are in. Do not come here at all—by daylight.—If you must, why, come after sunset. They will be at their cards and wine then.”
“And you?—you are sure to be here then?”
“’Tis the safest time. They will think me in my room—well, I may be here—to-morrow evening—if nothing prevents.”
“But why not this evening?”
“No. I will really go to my room this evening, as I did yesterday: they will take it as a matter of course afterwards. To-morrow evening, perhaps.”
“But ’tis so far away: so many hours must pass till then!” He still detained her hand, though she was at arm’s length to be gone.
“You will have the more time to reconsider—to resolve upon joining your friend, and not tarrying here longer at the risk of your life.”
“What, do you still wish me to go at once?”
“If you should be taken!—if you should have to meet the fate—oh, I dare not think of it! How can I wish you to stay, when I think of the danger?”
“’Tis for me to think of the danger; ’tis for you only to let me love you—and to meet me here as often as you will.”
“Well, I shall no doubt be here to-morrow after sunset. I must take my maid into confidence: she can keep watch at the terrace steps. Farewell, then!—and be careful—till to-morrow sunset!”
He stepped forward in hope of repeating the kiss, but she recovered her hand from his grasp and fled rapidly up the lane of shrubbery. Everell followed, and saw her ascend the steps, hasten along the terrace, and disappear without looking back. He stood and sighed, thinking how short had been the long-awaited meeting, how tedious would be the time till the next. But he had the kiss to comfort his reflections, at least,—the kiss and the compliant though startled manner in which she had submitted to it. His heart glowing at this recollection, he turned his steps to the seclusion of the glen.
Since she would not meet him before the end of the next day—what an interminable stretch of empty time the interval appeared!—he knew his best course was to return at once to John Tarby’s cottage. But he found it so hard to drag his legs farther from the Foxwell mansion, that he decided to remain concealed among the bracken, on the possibility that she might change her mind and revisit the garden that evening. In this hope he tarried till an hour after nightfall, without reward. He then betook himself reluctantly, with the pangs of hunger and the sighs of disappointment for company, to where his road left the park. At that place Tarby was waiting, and with little speech the two made their way homeward. Everell took the lead, that he might test his knowledge of the path; twice or thrice he had to fall back upon the poacher’s guidance, but on these occasions he made such note of landmarks as should assure him of going right in future.
When they arrived at the cot, Everell gave a different reception to his host’s mention of supper from that which he had given on the previous night. Though love had enabled him to go all the day without food, it did not weaken his appetite now that supper was to be had. John Tarby proved to be no mean cook, and the Jacobite officer, the rustic poacher, and the poacher’s dog partook together of a hearty though simple meal with manifest enjoyment. But love, not to be denied its proverbial effects in all things, asserted its presence by robbing Everell of some hours of sleep, and by directing his dreams when at last his eyes did close.
The next day was but a repetition of that which had gone before, save that the love-sick young gentleman, by taking the forethought to provide himself with bread and cheese, was able, as he reclined among the bracken, to pay some observance to dinner-time when it arrived. At last the slow sun descended upon the Westward hills. A bit of its rim still showed over the sky-line, when Everell glided into the garden, his heart beating faster than ever it had beat when he was going into battle.
Georgiana did not keep him waiting long. She came down the steps, with her finger on her lip, and with the maid Prudence, all excitement, at her heels. “Oh, lor!” whispered Prudence at first sight of Everell; “Oh, lor!” again, when, having taken her station near the steps, she saw Everell lead her mistress up the lane of shrubbery; and “Oh, lor!” a third time when the young man, not yet trusting himself to speech, raised Georgiana’s hand in his trembling fingers to his lips.
And now Everell had to learn that the second interview in a love-affair does not begin where the first left off. Whether it is that the ardour of expectation produces by reaction a chill that mutually benumbs; or whether each participant, still uncertain of the other’s heart, awaits some assurance before again committing his or her own; or whether it be due to any one or all of a dozen conceivable causes, the truth is that the second meeting usually begins with an embarrassment, or shyness, or other feeling, that seems to put the lovers farther apart than they were at the outset; and yet under this the craving for the tokens of love is as strong as ever. This was now Everell’s experience; he wondered why Georgiana was perversely cool, and then why he himself was tongue-tied, powerless to express what was in his heart.
When they had paced the more secluded walks of the garden some fifteen minutes, speaking of anything but that which was most in Everell’s mind, Georgiana suddenly reverted to the question of his safety. The anxious concern with which she regarded him served to break the spell he had suffered under. Making light of his danger, he showed himself so grateful for her solicitude that a still more encouraging tenderness appeared in her eyes. With love in his looks, and in the touch of his hand upon hers, he burst out with declarations of his happiness in her company, and of his misery in her absence. She made no verbal return for these tributes, but the sweet agitation visible in her face was enough. He was about to venture a similar embrace to that of the day before, when they heard Prudence call, in a low but excited voice, “Oh, mistress, mistress, we shall be discovered!” Georgiana, in alarm, whispered to Everell, “Conceal yourself!—good night!” and fled swiftly to where the maid was watching. Standing perfectly still, Everell heard the two women go up the steps, and soon the sound of their footfalls on the terrace died out. They had returned to the house, then; what had caused the maid to give the alarm, he knew not, for there was no sound to indicate any human presence.
Vexed at this abrupt termination of the interview at the very moment when it seemed about to reward him, he waited in the hope of Georgiana’s return. But the hope was vain, and after two or three hours of diminishing expectancy, he sadly—nay, with heart-burning, grievous sighing, and clenching of teeth—resigned himself to the prospect of another long night and another endless day ere the next meeting. And indeed there was no certainty of the meeting even after that vast interval, for no appointment had been made. But he trusted to her humanity, if he dared not count upon feelings fully reciprocal to his own, to bring her to the garden at the next sunset. If she did not come, he knew not what rash thing he might do.
His reliance upon her compassion was not in vain. She was prompt in appearance when at last the long night and the slow day had passed. Taking pity, perhaps, on his haggard countenance, she was kind from the outset of their interview. Prudence attended, as before, but with instructions to be more certain before crying danger than she had been on the previous evening, when, as Georgiana now told Everell, the maid, in the novelty of her duty, had given the alarm at the mere sound of laughter in the house—the laughter of Foxwell and his visitors over their wine and cards.
But though this, the third clandestine meeting of these two young people, was not marred by any preliminary chill or by any waste of time, it was soon over. Georgiana herself had set the limit of half an hour, and, whatever it may have cost her of inner reluctance, she showed her resolution by breaking away at the end of that time, silencing her lover’s protests with a voluntary kiss so swiftly bestowed that, in his delighted surprise, he let her slip from his grasp. Again he stood alone in the garden while the dusk came on. Again that weary blank of lagging hours faced him, with the promise of such brief joy to compensate him at the end. He lingered late in the garden, now reviewing in his memory the delectable scene of the evening—delectable but too fleeting!—and now repining at the conditions under which his love had to subsist. “Oh, to be with her one whole day—one day as long as those I pass in waiting for the sunset!” was the burden of his thought.
He stood near the terrace steps, taking his last look at the house for the night. The lateness of the hour, the comparative darkness, and perhaps the petulance of his feelings, made him less than usually cautious against observation. Suddenly he heard a patter of feet on the terrace, and the voice of a maid servant calling, “Puss! puss! come, puss!—Devil take the cat!” Everell remained motionless, lest any sound might attract the girl’s attention. In a moment, a cat appeared at the head of the steps, glided along the top of the bank, and plunged amidst the shrubbery of the garden. It had no sooner disappeared than the girl in chase arrived at the edge of the terrace, where she stopped and peered down into the garden, launching imprecations at the animal that had eluded her. Her eyes fell upon Everell, and her wrath died upon her lips.
She stood gaping as if rendered powerless by fright, and Everell could think of nothing better than to continue perfectly still. Wrapped in his cloak, and with his face turned toward the maid, he did not move even his eyes, but appeared not to be aware of her presence. His thought was that this unlifelike behaviour might cause the rustic wench to take him for an apparition, or a trick of her fancy, the more so as the darkness would give vagueness to his figure. After a few seconds of this silent confrontation, the maid, uttering a faint wail of terror, apparently at the back of her mouth, turned and took to her heels. Everell profited by her flight to leave the garden instantly, and made his best speed for John Tarby’s castle. If the girl told of what she had seen, and brought investigators to the spot, who could find nothing to verify her account, they would doubtless believe she had suffered from a delusion. As she herself, whether she came to their conclusion or not, was likely to avoid the place after dark in future, Everell considered that the garden was not the less safe as a meeting-place for this occurrence.
When he met Georgiana the next evening, he expected some allusion by her to the incident, as he supposed the maid servant must have spread the tale through the household. But Georgiana said nothing of the matter. She had indeed heard nothing of it, for the isolation in which she dwelt in the house was copied by her maid, partly in imitation and partly because, with her Southern ideas of propriety, Prudence found herself as much antagonized by the rude Northern servants of the house as by the affected London attendants of the visitors. Thus she spent as much of her time as possible in her mistress’s apartments, big with the secret entrusted to her of the clandestine meetings. Being thus on sniffing terms with her equals in the servants’ hall, and out of their gossip, she remained in ignorance of the kitchen-maid’s adventure. From Georgiana’s silence on the subject, Everell inferred that the occurrence had created no talk in the house; and he did not mention it himself, lest Georgiana, in her scruples as to his safety and her own conduct, might lessen the frequency of their meetings. His periods of longing were sufficiently endless, his tastes of joy sufficiently brief, as they were.
But the kitchen-maid’s adventure had not really gone without circulation. “You never told us your house was haunted, Foxwell,” said Lady Strange, meeting her host at the breakfast-table, from which Georgiana had already gone. Mrs. Winter and Rashleigh were yet to appear.
“I never knew it—till this moment, at least,” replied Foxwell, stifling a yawn which owed itself, perhaps, to the punch or primero of the previous night. “Though every crumbling old brick-heap like this has its ghost or so, no doubt. But what do you mean?”
“My waiting-woman has been telling me of a strange figure that appeared to your scullery-maid the other night. In the sunken garden, I believe it was: a man in a cloak, wearing a sword.”
“It must have been a ghost, indeed,” said Foxwell, smiling. “There is certainly no such living man whose appearance in that garden is probable—unless Rashleigh has taken to mooning outdoors after bedtime.”
“Not I,” said Rashleigh, who had just entered. “What are you talking of?”
“My lady has discovered, through the servants, that a ghost walks in the sunken garden—a man in a cloak, with a sword at his side. I say it must be a ghost indeed, and yet there is this difficulty: suppose there are ghosts of human beings, what of the clothes they appear in? What of this ghost’s cloak and sword?—are they real cloak and sword, or are they the ghosts of cloak and sword?—and do inanimate things have ghosts?”
“Why, certainly, ghosts always appear in clothes,” said Lady Strange, quite ignoring the dilemma, and not entering into Foxwell’s skeptical mirth.
“And pray what did the ghost do or say while the scullery-maid was present?”
“Merely gazed at her in a strange, supernatural manner till she ran away. But hadn’t you best question the maid?”
“By all means. One ought to be well informed about the ghosts that haunt one’s house—though I don’t consider my ancestors did so much for me that I need care a button if one of them does find his grave uneasy. I’ll have the girl up for interrogation after breakfast.”
But this promise was driven from Foxwell’s mind just as the time came to perform it. A visitor was announced, whose name caused him surprise: it was that of Mr. Thornby.
“What should bring him to see me?” said Foxwell, showing his astonishment to his guests. “’Tis my lubberly neighbour, of whom I have told you. He abominates me because I sometimes pit my powers of speech against his boorish arrogance, and show him what a bumpkin he is. I thought he was sworn never to cross my threshold.”
Ruled by courtesy and curiosity, Foxwell went immediately to the adjoining drawing-room, where he found his enemy standing on the hearth, his legs wide apart, and his burly figure clad in a riding costume neither well-fitting nor new.
Something confident and overbearing in Thornby’s look went to Foxwell’s intelligence at once, and checked for an instant the speech on his lips. But he quickly recovered his nonchalance, and began as if he noticed nothing unusual:
“Good morning, Mr. Thornby. I am much honoured. Pray be seated, sir.”
“I’d as lief stand, sir,” was the blunt answer. “Much honoured you feel, I dare say!”
“And why not?” said Foxwell, pleasantly. “You do yourself a great injustice, surely, if you don’t consider your visit an honour to the fortunate recipient. You must not undervalue yourself.”
“Well, sir, you’ll see how much honour I mean by coming here, when you’ve learnt what brings me.”
“That, I confess, I am impatient to know. But really, will you not sit?”
“No, sir! I sha’n’t stay long enough to tire my legs with standing. My visit will be short, I promise you.”
“I perceive you are in a mood of shortness.”
“I can choose my own moods, sir,” said the Squire, rendered more savage by every successive speech of his enemy. “And I choose short moods for my visits to you. Not that I meant to pay you a visit when I left home this morning. My business took me past your gate, and, as I have something for your ears, I thought I’d as well say it soon as late.”
“A very wise thought; for accidents will happen, and ’twould be a pity if anything so interesting should be left unsaid—for I know it must be interesting.”
“Maybe you’ll find it so, ecod! As for leaving things unsaid, lemme tell you, sir, that’s a policy I recommend to you in future, whenever you feel inclined to try your wit upon me. If a witty thing, as you consider it, comes into your head to say against me, leave it unsaid. That’s my commands, sir, and I look to see ’em obeyed.”
“Commands? Upon my soul, Mr. Thornby,—pardon my smiling,—but you are exceedingly amusing.”
“Smile your bellyfull; you may laugh, too: we’ll see which on us laughs last. Ecod, we’ll see that! Try some of your town wit upon me the next time we meet in company! Try it, and see what happens.”
“Can’t you spare my curiosity the suspense by telling me now?”
“Yes, I can. This is what’ll happen:—I’ll answer you back by asking what you think of a man who robs the dead.”
“Robs the dead?” quietly repeated Foxwell, puzzled.
“Ay, a dead body, in some such place as Covent Garden, for example.—Eh, that touches you, does it?”
Foxwell’s face had indeed undergone a change: for an instant he was quite pale and staring. But he recovered his outward equanimity.
“Please explain yourself,” he said, with composure.
“A word to the wise is enough, sir. If ever again you try to put me down afore company, or dare to take first place o’ me anywheres, I’ll tell the world who got Lord Hilby’s money that night in Covent Garden.”
Foxwell drew a deep breath, and then replied as calmly as before, “Are you walking in a dream, Mr. Thornby? Really, I don’t understand you. What is Lord Hilby’s money to me?”
“No use trying that game upon me, Foxwell. You know all, and I know all, and there’s an end. You’ve heard my commands: act as you think best.”
“Sir, I know nothing. Your words are gibberish to me, and I say but this: if you attempt to raise any slander against me, be sure I will make you answer—”
“And I’ll answer, ecod, by producing this here letter,” blurted Thornby, bringing from his pocket the document we have already seen in the hands of Jeremiah Filson, and holding it high, with the signed part in Foxwell’s view, “which you wrote in the sponging-house to Sir John Thisleford, and which anybody who knows your hand can swear to—as your face owns to it now. ‘If you don’t help me out of this, I will confess all, and let the world know who got Lord Hilby’s money that night,’ says you, in black and white. ‘Confess all,’ d’ye see? Signed ‘R. Foxwell.’ Your wit failed you that time, I’m a-thinking. What ’ud the county say if I exhibited this here bit o’ writing? Even your town friends, as I hear be a-visiting you, would find this more nor they could swallow, I dare say.”
“Let me see the letter—closer,” said Foxwell, in a hushed and quaking voice.
“I value it too much as a bit o’ your beloved handwritin’.” The Squire repocketed it carefully, with a grim chuckle at his own humour. “As to how I shall use it, that depends partly on how you use me. But I don’t promise anything. I hold it over your head, neighbour Foxwell,—like the sword of Dionassius in the story-book—over your head, ecod! Ha! Good day, Foxwell. Go back to your pleasures—I’ll show myself out.”
Foxwell made an effort to regain his self-possession. “’Tis a forgery—I defy you—this is a trumped-up tale—”
“We shall see. You’d go near killing to get the letter from me, I’ll warrant.” With this parting shot, his heavy features stretched in a leer of triumph, the Squire stalked from the room, leaving Foxwell—silent and shaken—to his thoughts.
The victorious Squire had to pass through the wide entrance-hall to reach the forecourt, where his man Bartholomew awaited with the horses. He stopped in the hall, which was for the moment deserted, in order to refold the precious letter and place it more securely. As he pocketed it once more, he turned his glance toward the closed door of the drawing-room, soliloquizing after this fashion, “I’ll make him play the whipped cur afore I’ve done with him. He shall come when I call, so he shall,—and go when I bid, and speak when I allow, and hold his tongue when I command. You fine beau of the town, you’ll make a jest of us country gentlemen, will you?—you’ll teach us manners, will you?—Eh, who’s this?”
The hall was panelled in oak, decorated with heads of stags and foxes, provided with a large fireplace, and furnished with chairs and settles. At one side, the stairway began which led to the upper floors, and the Squire’s ejaculation was caused by the appearance of somebody on those stairs—a young lady, rather slight, but well-shaped, with a very pretty face distinguished by a somewhat rebellious expression; and with a pair of eyes that set the Squire agape with the wonder of a new sensation, as they rested for an instant full upon him.
“Sure I suppose you be the niece that came home t’other day,” said the Squire, as she stepped from the lowest stair. He had not relaxed his gaze from his first sight of her, nor did he now.
Georgiana replied by making a curtsey, and was about to pass on. But Mr. Thornby, with as great politeness as he could put into his tone, detained her as much by an unconscious gesture as by speech.
“Sure I heard tell as Foxwell’s niece had come home, but I ne’er expected to see such a young lady! Why, miss, or mistress, begging your pardon if I make too free, but there bean’t your match in the county; that there bean’t—I’ll take my oath of it! I’m your neighbour, Thomas Thornby, at your service. Mayhap you’ve heard o’ me.”
“I have heard your name, Mr. Thornby,” said Georgiana, looking quite tolerantly upon him.
“But not heard much good o’ me, if you heard it from your uncle, I’ll warrant. You mustn’t believe all he has said against me, Miss Foxwell. ’Tis like he’ll give a different account o’ me after this: I’ve just had a talk with him, and he knows me a little better. Ecod, miss, I hope you and me can be good neighbours, at all events. Such a face!—excuse the freedom, mistress, but we don’t run across such faces every day hereabouts. There’ll be some, that think themselves beauties, will turn green when they see you at the assembly ball. Ecod, we shall have somebody worth a toast now; for between you and me, the beauties of this neighbourhood don’t muster enough good looks among ’em all to do credit to the punch we drink their healths in. At any rate, that’s my opinion, and explains why I’m still a bachelor. I’m not easy pleased, ma’am; no doubt I look a plain fellow in these here old clothes, but anybody’ll tell you how fastidious Tom Thornby is when it comes to dogs, horses, and women. ’Tis well known, ma’am.”
“I am the more obliged for your compliments, sir; and I wish you good morning,” said Georgiana, amiably, and, after another curtsey, performed with unexpected swiftness, she got away by the nearest door before her new admirer could summon an idea for another speech.
Thornby stared wistfully at the door by which she had left. Indeed he made a step or two toward it; but, thinking better, stopped and drew a ponderous sigh. A servant came into the hall from the forecourt, whereupon the Squire abruptly took his departure. As he rode mutely out of the courtyard, followed by Bartholomew, his countenance betokened thoughts quite other than those with which he had left Foxwell’s presence a minute or two earlier. When he had passed through the village, Thornby motioned his man to ride beside him, and began to converse upon Mr. Foxwell and his present habits. In the course of the talk, it came out, as Bartholomew had been informed by Caleb while waiting in the courtyard, that Foxwell and his guests were accustomed to make some excursion on horseback every day, leaving the niece at home. The consequence of this knowledge was that next day, soon after the party had sallied forth as usual, a servant came to Miss Foxwell in her own small parlour to say that Mr. Thornby waited upon her in the drawing-room.
Mystified, but desiring not to offend, she went to him immediately. He was sprucely dressed, beaming, and all deference. For two hours he sat and sustained the chief burden of a general conversation upon everything in the neighbourhood. While he was more moderate and indirect in his frequent compliments than he had been on the previous day, he maintained a steady gaze of admiration, no less overpowering. Georgiana, wearied to death, had finally to plead household duties in order to dislodge him.
The following day was Sunday, and Miss Foxwell, making her first appearance at the village church, found herself again the object of the Squire’s constant attention, as indeed of the whole congregation’s, although she divided the latter with the London ladies. That evening she was discussed at Thornby Hall by the cronies who happened to be sharing the Squire’s bachelor table; and such was the praise uttered by several gay dogs who considered themselves devilish good judges that Mr. Thornby was kept secretly alternating between elation and jealousy. It needed only this approval and covetousness on the part of others, to complete the Squire’s sense of the young lady’s surpassing excellence.
In the morning, to Bartholomew’s considerable wonder, Mr. Thornby again discovered business that took him past Foxwell Court. He had not the courage against appearing ridiculous, to repeat his visit so soon, but he rode very slowly in passing the place, both going and coming; and, welcoming a pretext for remaining as long as possible in the near vicinity, he no sooner saw, through the doorway of the village ale-house, a man who was now a guest there, than he drew up his horse with alacrity, saying to his attendant, “The very fellow I desired to see: we’ll tarry here awhile, Bartholomew.”
The man in the ale-house came forth as Mr. Thornby dismounted, and offered that respectful greeting which the Squire was so conscious of deserving and Jeremiah Filson so capable of bestowing.
“Good day, Filson; good day t’ye. I don’t wish to come indoors: we’ll walk to and fro here on the green.—I’ve been anxious to see you, Filson, to know how you’re faring in respect of your Jacobite.”
“Poorly, sir, poorly as yet; though I take it most kind of your Worship to be concerned upon the matter.”
“Concerned? In course—why the devil not? Ain’t I a magistrate? Didn’t I give you the warrant? D’ye think I dropped the matter there? I’m as keen upon punishing the rebels as any man in England. Once you discover where the fellow is, you’ll see how ready my officers are to help you take him.”
Filson was rather surprised at this sudden zeal, for the Squire, after purchasing the Foxwell letter and granting the Everell warrant, had not shown a desire for more of Filson’s society, so that Jeremiah had been forced to curry favour with the justice’s clerk, that he might rely upon the ready co?peration of the legal officers in apprehending the rebel. But he kept his surprise to himself.
“I’m quite sure of that, sir. I hope I shall track the man to his cover, with the aid of Providence. I hate to give a thing up, sir, once I’ve set myself to do it. When I start upon a chase, no matter what’s the game, I can’t leave it unfinished, and that’s why I still linger here, though at some little expense to myself. But we act as we’re made; and I’m made like that, your Worship.”
“It does you credit, Filson: I like a staying hound. But are you sure, now, the man is still in this neighbourhood?”
“I don’t presume to be sure of anything, sir; but I trace him to this neighbourhood and no farther. ’Twas on or about this very spot, your honour, that he was seen by the postilion whom I met that same night at the inn where I had the honour of first making your acquaintance. The next day, you’ll remember, I had the privilege of transacting some business with your Worship. I came directly from your house to this, but my gentleman had fled the night before. He told the landlord a cock-and-bull story of having found a wagon to take him on to Burndale. But the landlord spied on him, and saw no wagon at the place he said it was waiting. Furthermore, the landlord declares the gentleman disappeared from sight at that very place. It was night-time, and the truth must be, that the gentleman turned aside from the road. Howsoever, that’s the last account I can get of him—his disappearance at the bridge yonder. I’ve been to Burndale, but no such person has been seen there, or between here and there. Neither is there any trace of his doubling back over his course. And, besides, if he was bound for Burndale, or that side of the kingdom, why should he have come so far by the road I found him in?—there are shorter ways to Burndale from Scotland. No, sir, if I may express an opinion to your Honour, his business must have been in this neighbourhood, not beyond it; he has found snug hiding hereabouts, but I’ll have him out yet.”
“Trust you for a true terrier, eh, Filson.”
“Yes, sir, with your Worship’s approval and the forces of the law to support me. I failed in vigilance that day at the inn—allowed the corporeal desire of sleep to get the better of me, and was punished by the man slipping through my fingers. But Providence, after teaching me the lesson, sent the postilion to hear my belated inquiries, which I ought never to have postponed to the needs of the body. The question is, where could my gentleman have gone when he vanished under the nose of this old fool—begging your Worship’s pardon—that night?”
“There’s the Foxwell estate begins just beyond that bridge.”
“Yes, on one side of the road. And the Dornley on the other. I’ve quietly seen Mr. Dornley, after making sure of his loyalty in politics, and furnished him with a written description of my gentleman. I’ve hesitated to approach Mr. Foxwell, lest perhaps you might have told him how you came by that letter.”
“No fear o’ that; but, if he saw you, he’d soon enough guess, take my word on’t.”
“Why, scarcely, sir, if I may venture to say so. If you told him that Sir John Thisleford’s former valet was in the neighbourhood, and if you gave some notion of my present appearance, then he might indeed guess. But otherwise I’ll warrant he wouldn’t know me. You see, sir, we look different out of livery, and my name wasn’t Filson when I served Sir John; and in various ways my manners have altered—for the better, I trust. So if your Honour has given him no hint of the matter, I think I may safely go and solicit his interest in my quest.”
“Oh, do as you see fit, man. If he discovers you, ’tis your back must abide the cudgel, nobody else’s. Ecod, the letter will serve my purpose just as well, whether or not he knows how I came by it.”
Jeremiah Filson was not long in availing himself of the security with which he now felt he might interview Foxwell. He thanked Providence he had not been too late to stipulate against the Squire’s mentioning him in connection with the letter, which he had neglected to do at the time of their transaction. The afternoon of that same day saw him make his very civil and yet not obsequious approach, the manner of which rather recommended him to Foxwell, as being unmistakably of London. Learning that his business was of a private nature, Foxwell heard him in the drawing-room, where Filson introduced himself with a careful ambiguity as upon a business “in the interest of Government.” Foxwell listened with polite attention to the glib description of the “fugitive rebel, one Charles Everell, who was of the Pretender’s body-guard of gentlemen at Culloden,” and who was suspected of being now in hiding in the neighbourhood, possibly upon the Foxwell estate.
Filson, being satisfied by his hearer’s unconcerned manner that Foxwell neither knew nor cared anything about the Jacobite, explained that, while a justice’s warrant had been made out, upon his affidavit, to “take and apprehend” this Charles Everell, he was prosecuting the search quietly rather than by such public means as might give the refugee the alarm. He was, therefore, in this private manner soliciting the co?peration of the loyal gentlemen in the neighbourhood, and begging that, in the event of their discovering such a person, either by chance or as a result of investigations their loyalty might prompt, they would cause the man to be detained, and would send word to him, Jeremiah Filson, at the ale-house in the village. “For, d’ye see, sir, I’ve arranged matters that I can put my hand on the justice officers at short notice. I shall be the chief witness against the rebel, and I know where to find another, as two are required. The other, in fact, is at Carlisle, where the trials are now on.”
Foxwell, not at all interested, went as far as loyalty ordered, in saying that, if occasion arose for his services in the matter, he would act as duty required; and offering the spy the freedom of the estate in the prosecution of inquiries. Filson, after a profound bow of acknowledgment, handed Foxwell a written description of the rebel, calling attention to his own name and address at the bottom of the sheet; declared himself the other’s very humble servant, bowed as low as before, and took his leave.
Foxwell glanced carelessly over the written description, and then thrust it unfolded into his pocket. It had not power to drive from his mind the vexatious subject already lodged there. He frowned and sighed, and took an impatient turn up and down the room. Then, forcing his brow to smoothness and the corners of his mouth to pleasantness, he returned to his friends on the terrace.
“You laughed at me the other day, Foxwell,” said Lady Strange, as he approached, “for telling you the place was haunted. But what do you say now? The ghost has been seen again, in the old garden yonder; and not only that same ghost—a man in a cloak—but a female figure as well.”
“Two female figures, the girl said,” corrected Mrs. Winter.
“Wonderful, most wonderful!” exclaimed Foxwell, smiling. “And whence comes this news?”
“The keeper’s daughter has just told us,” said Rashleigh. “Her sweetheart, it appears, was coming last night from the village to see her, and took a short way through the fields into the park. ’Twas he saw the three figures in the garden; and one of them, it seems, was like that seen by the scullery-maid the other evening.”
“The scullery-maid?” said Foxwell. “I remember: I promised to question her, but something put it out of my mind. Well, ’tis not too late: we’ll catechize her now—and the keeper’s daughter, too.”
But the keeper’s daughter had gone home to the lodge, and the examination was confined to the kitchen girl, who came to the summons as much frightened as if she were brought, not to tell of a ghost, but to face one. Foxwell and his visitors seated themselves in the hall to hear her story, the other servants being excluded. By patient interrogation, Foxwell contrived to elicit an account hardly more circumstantial than Lady Strange had previously given him. The girl had pursued the cat with the intention of employing it against the mice in the dormitory of the maids. Drawn thus toward the garden, she had perceived the motionless cloaked figure, which had stared at her in a strange, death-like manner. It wore a sword, and she thought that in life “the gentleman might have been a king’s officer,” though she could not say what made her think so.
The word “officer” seemed to touch some association in Foxwell’s mind. His hand went to the pocket containing the paper Filson had given him, and he showed a faint increase of interest in the few answers the girl had yet to make. When he had dismissed her, he turned smilingly to his guests:
“Well, we must avail ourselves of this ghost while it is in the humour of haunting us. Kind fortune seems to have sent it for your entertainment. What say you to a ghost-hunt?”
“How are ghosts usually hunted?” asked Rashleigh; “with hounds? beagles? terriers?”
“No, that would not do,” said Foxwell, thoughtfully. “As we know where it appears—for it has been seen twice in the sunken garden, according to the evidence—we had best set a trap for it. What do you think, ladies? It may help enliven the night for us.”
“I should dearly love to see a ghost,” said Lady Strange; “but what manner of trap would you use? Sure such an insubstantial thing can’t be held by any machine of wood and iron.”
“A trap composed of three or four stout fellows armed with cudgels,” suggested Foxwell, “would doubtless serve to hold the creature till Rashleigh and I could arrive with our swords.”
“But a ghost is like air, is it not?” said Lady Strange. “It can’t be caught, or stopped, or even felt.”
“I have always suspected that a ghost that can be seen can be felt, especially if it wears clothes,” replied Foxwell. “However it be, here is an opportunity to settle the question,—if the ghost continues to haunt the same place. We will set our trap this evening; if we catch nothing, we’ll try again to-morrow; and so on, till something occurs, or we grow tired. We had best tell nobody of our purpose: the ghost may have accomplices. Pray let none of the servants know, but the men I employ in the affair.”
He bestirred himself at once in preparations, glad of having found fresh means, not only of distracting his own thoughts somewhat from the letter in Squire Thornby’s possession, but also of blinding his guests to the disturbance of mind which that matter still caused him.
His plans were simple. Choosing three men rather for stoutness of heart than for stoutness of body, though they were not deficient in the latter respect either, he instructed them to post themselves, while it was still day, in well-concealed places at different sides of the garden. Two, the gardener and the groom, were provided with cudgels, while the keeper took a fowling-piece, which he was not to fire except in extreme circumstances. At the appearance of the ghost in the garden, the keeper was to utter a signal, whereupon Foxwell and his guests—who were to pass the evening as usual at the card-table—would come forth as quietly as possible, the gentlemen with their swords ready to enforce the intruder’s surrender. Should the ghost attempt flight before the gentlemen could arrive, the three servants were to close round him, using their weapons only as a last resource, and after due warning—for the ghost was probably a gentleman, and Foxwell would have it treated as such. The three watchers were to go singly to their places of concealment, entering the garden directly from a postern in the ruinous eastern wing of the house, so that nobody outside of the garden itself could see them.
“And is not the pretty pouting niece to be admitted to this sport?” asked Rashleigh.
“By no means,” replied Foxwell, with a frown. “She has elected to keep out of all our amusements, we can spare her company in this. If the young prude finds satisfaction in holding aloof, for God’s sake let her do so. She disapproves of so many things we do and say, ’tis very like she would disapprove of this. Threatening a ghost with a cudgel, egad!—she might take it into her head to play the spoil-sport—you know the malice of excessive virtue.”
So nothing was spoken of the matter at dinner. This meal—which occurred at the London hour, in the late afternoon—was now the only regular occasion upon which Georgiana joined the company. For the passing of her days, she had her books, the care of her wardrobe and apartments, her music, drawing, embroidery, and walks—for she took these, though never on the side of the house toward the park, lest Everell might risk his safety by approaching her. She still met that gentleman each evening, at a later hour now than at first; and he it was that occupied her thoughts all the day, whatever the employment of her hands and feet. She acknowledged to herself her love for him, and wondered, sometimes with hope but oftener with deep misgiving, what the end would be. At times she had a poignant sense of the danger he was in by remaining near her, but she shrank even then from sending him away, for their separation must be long and might be eternal. As deeply as he, though less vehemently, did she lament the circumstances that compelled them to be secret and brief in their meetings. She was by no means of that romantic turn of mind which would have made the affair the more attractive for being clandestine. People who do romantic things are not necessarily people of romantic notions: it is a resolute fidelity to some cause or purpose, that leads many a generous but matter-of-fact hero or heroine into romantic situations. Indeed, is it ever otherwise with your true hero and your true heroine? Are not the others but shams, or at best poseurs? Georgiana followed courageously where love led; but because she really loved, and not because the conditions were romantic: she was no Lydia Languish—she would joyfully have dispensed with the romance.
On this particular evening, the conversation at dinner took a turn which gave it a disquieting significance to her, though she bore no part in it herself. Lady Strange had mentioned a certain young lord as having died because he preferred his love to his life. Foxwell had politely laughed. Lady Strange had somewhat offendedly stood by her assertion, whereupon Foxwell had declared the thing unknown in nature. Mrs. Winter supported him; but Rashleigh took his cousin’s side, saying, “What! no man ever died for love, then? Surely there have been cases, Bob.”
“Men have been brought to death by their love-affairs, I grant you,” said Foxwell, “but that is because circumstances arose which they had not foreseen, and from which they could not escape. They have even risked their lives to prosecute their amours, but risking one’s life upon fair odds is a vastly different thing from deliberately offering it in exchange for the indulgence of one’s love. That is what my lady’s words really mean: ‘preferring one’s love to one’s life.’ Such bargains are mentioned in ancient history—as of the youth who, being deeply in love with a queen, agreed to be slain at the end of a certain time if he might pass that time as her accepted lover. Only such an act can really be described as giving one’s life for love; and not the getting killed unintentionally in some matter incident to a love-affair.”
“But men have killed themselves at the loss of the women they loved,” urged Lady Strange. “There was Romeo, that Garrick plays so beautifully.”
“’Tis the work of a poet who says in another place, ‘Men have died from time to time, but not for love.’ When men kill themselves at the loss of a woman, you will find they have lost other things as well—fortune and reputation; or their wits, in drink.”
But Lady Strange held that a true lover would not hesitate to mortgage his life for a season of love, if the latter could not be obtained by any means at a lower price. “If he is young, and in love for the first time,” added Rashleigh. But Foxwell and Mrs. Winter remained cynical, and the latter became even derisive, so that the dispute grew warm on the part of the two ladies, who did not disdain to colour their remarks with sly personalities.
The discussion promised to be endless, and was still going on when Georgiana left the table. Not unaffected by the allusions to fatal consequences arising from dangerous love-affairs, she waited in her own rooms till dusk, and then, attended by the faithful Prudence, stole softly down the stairs, and along the terrace to the sunken garden.
As she passed below the room in which her uncle and his friends were, she heard their voices, and observed that one of the windows was open. But to this she attached no importance, unusual as the fact was at that hour, for she had other matters to think of. And indeed the night was not chill, though a slight breeze was stirring the leaves in the garden as she entered it. Leaving Prudence at the foot of the steps, Georgiana swiftly threaded the different alleys of shrubbery to make sure that no person chanced to be in the garden, a precaution she had adopted since the first meetings; but she did not peer under any of the bushes, or behind those that grew close to the wall, for she had not conceived that anybody might come into the garden to hide, or for other purpose than his own pleasure. She went and stood in the gateway near the glen-side. A moment later she saw the dark form of her lover approaching in the gloom of the park, and presently his arms were around her.
“How you tried my patience, sweet!” said he, leading her slowly toward the midst of the garden. “You are later than usual. I was beginning to think you must have appeared already, and that my eyes were so blurred watching the gateway they had failed to see you. Two minutes more, and I should have left my thicket and come to assure myself.”
“Never do that, I beg! Never come into the garden till you see me in the gateway—not even though you hear my voice. Promise me you will not—promise, Everell.”
“I would promise you anything in the world when you ask with that voice and those eyes—anything but to cease loving you or to leave you. But I do believe the goddess of love has this garden in her keeping, and reserves it wholly for us, we have been so safe from intrusion in it.”
“We have been very rash. I tremble to think how careless we were at first, when you were wont to come in before I saw that the coast was clear. But we are never perfectly safe here—as we found last night, when that country fellow stared in at the gateway.”
“I doubt if the yokel really saw us. But, if so, he would find nothing strange in your being here with your maid. If he saw me, he would suppose I was your uncle or some visitor. But I will take all precautions, dear, if only to make your mind easy. I wouldn’t have you suffer the least fear, not even for the sake of that look of solicitude in your eyes, which is certainly the tenderest, most heavenly look that a woman or an angel can bestow. It goes to my inmost heart, and binds me to you for ever. And yet I’d have you smile, for all that, if you’d be happier smiling.”
“I might be happier smiling, but I think I should not be as concerned for you then,” replied Georgiana, simply, and with a smile that had a little sadness in it.
“Ah, my dearest!” said Everell, softly, with a sudden tremor in his voice.
The silence that followed might have been longer but that the young man could not forget, for more than a few seconds at a time, how brief their interview was to be. He imagined, perhaps mistakenly, that the value of such meetings was to be measured in speeches rather than in silences, although he attached full worth to eloquent glances.
“When I feel how dull the hours are between these short glimpses of heaven,” said he, “I marvel to think how tedious the years must have been before I saw you, though I knew it not.—I never chafed at danger till now. Sometimes when I lie in the bracken yonder, or pace the dark bottom of the glen, I am tempted to ignore all risks, come boldly to your house, seek the acquaintance of your uncle, and measure my happiness by hours instead of minutes.”
“Oh, Everell!—do not think of it!”
“Nay, have no fear, sweet. Your commands are sacred with me—till you command me to leave you, or not to love you.”
“But if I commanded you earnestly to leave?—resolutely, so that you knew I meant it?”
“Could you have the heart to do that?”
“Would that I had! I ought to have. But would it be useless?”
“As useless as it would be cruel, sweet, I vow to you.”
“But ’tis cruel to let you stay. ’Tis a wonder your presence in the neighbourhood isn’t known already—a wonder the poacher hasn’t betrayed you.”
“Nay, he is true as steel. We are in the same galley—both rebels, he against the game laws and the world’s injustice, I against the present dynasty. You must know, we outlaws stand together.—You are again in the mood of fearing for my safety. But see how baseless your fears have been so far. Trust our stars, dearest: mine, at least, has ever been fortunate.”
“My fears are always returning. Sometimes I have the most poignant feeling of danger surrounding us, of reproach to myself that I was the cause of interrupting your flight. I have that feeling now. Oh, Everell, loth as I am to send you away, I feel in my soul that I ought! My heart, which would keep you here, at the same time urges you to fly: with one beat it calls to you, ‘Stay,’ and with the next cries, ‘Go!’ Oh, why did you not go on with your friend?”
“Indeed, ’tis better he and I are apart, since that fellow at the inn knew we travelled together,” replied Everell, trying to reassure her. “If the man really meant to continue dogging us, our separation was the best means of confusing him. Dismiss your fears, sweet. If your regard for me were love rather than compassion,—love such as I have for you,—the only impulse of your heart would be to keep me with you: beyond that, you would not think, either with hope or fear. And yet your compassion, so angelic,—nay, so womanly,—I would rather have than the love of any other woman.”
He said this honestly; for she had never in plain terms owned to him that she loved him, and he, in the humility of a man’s first love, saw himself unworthy of her by as much as he adored her, and therefore did not imagine himself capable of eliciting from her what he felt for her. Her indulgence he ascribed to the pity of a gentle heart for one whose situation, both as a refugee and as a lover, pleaded for him while his courtesy and honour gave assurance that her tenderness was safe from betrayal. If her heart desired him to stay near her, he supposed, ’twas because it hesitated to put him to the unhappiness of leaving her. That she might suffer on her own account in his absence, did not occur to him: she herself was all loveliness, and where she was, there would all loveliness be; what was he that she should find him necessary to make the world complete? Were his presence needful to her content, she would not limit their meetings to so few moments in a long day. Thus he thought, or, rather, thus he felt without analyzing the feeling.
“’Tis the duty of my compassion, then,” she answered, “to drive you away. I am more convinced of it now than ever. Such foreboding, such misgiving!—why do I feel so? I pray Heaven ’tis not yet too late.—Hark! what was that?”
“’Tis only the master and his guests a-laughing over their dissipations,” said Prudence, near whom the lovers happened at the moment to be standing. “They’ve left the window open, ma’am.”
“See how easily you are frightened without cause,” said Everell. “Come, has not the mood run its course?”
“Blame me not that I bid you go, Everell!” she replied, as if not to be reassured. “You may come to blame me that I ever stayed to hear you!”
“For that dear fault my heart will thank you while it moves.”
“It was a fault!—I see now that it was. I was so solitary, so rebellious against my uncle and his company, that when you came my heart seemed to know you as a friend; and I listened to you.”
“Ay, sweet listener that you were! What effect your listening had upon me! I had wished to return to France, which in exile I had grown up to love. This England, though I was born in it, was to me a strange country, but you have made it home!”
He raised both her hands to his lips, while she stood irresolute, her eyes searching his face for the secret of his confidence, which she would have rejoiced to think better warranted than her fears. The silence was suddenly broken by a slight, brief noise in the greenery near the steps.
“What’s that?” she said, quickly.
“The wind,” replied Everell; but the sudden straightening of his body, and fixity of his attention upon the place of the sound, betrayed his doubt.
“No,” whispered Georgiana, “’twas quite different.”
“Some animal moving among the shrubs,” said Everell. “I’ll go and see.”
With his hand upon his sword-hilt, he walked to the shrubbery growing along the foot of the bank which rose to the terrace. “’Twas hereabouts,” he said, and, drawing his weapon, thrust it downward into the thick leafy mass. From the further side of the mass came the loud hoot of an owl, followed by the noise of a man scrambling to his feet.
“Ah! come out, spy!” cried Everell, as the human character of the intruder was certified by a sound of husky breathing.
He darted his weapon swiftly here and there through the shrubbery, and then ran seeking the nearest opening by which he might get to the enemy. But the enemy spared him that trouble by appearing on the hither side of the barrier, from the very opening that Everell had sought. The strange man had a gun raised, to wield it as a club.
Everell, recalling his experience of John Tarby’s fowling-piece, nevertheless ran toward the fellow, hoping to dodge the blow, and disable the man by pinking him in the arm or shoulder, after which it might be possible to learn his purpose and come to terms. But just as the young gentleman went to meet his approaching foe, a sharp scream from Georgiana distracted him, so that, though he saved his head, he caught the gun-stroke on his right shoulder, and his sword-thrust passed wide of his adversary. He now heard other feet hastening toward him through the garden: it was, indeed, the appearance of the two other men, coming to the keeper’s aid upon his signal of the owl’s hoot, that had caused Georgiana to cry out. Everell, seeing his first opponent draw back to recover himself, turned swiftly to consider the newcomers, placing his back to the high shrubbery. One was approaching on his front, the other at his left. They both brandished cudgels; but, as they saw him dart his glance upon them in turn and hold his sword ready for a lunge in either direction, they stopped at safe distance.
“Oh, Everell, fly!” cried Georgiana, hastening to his side.
“What! and leave you to these rascals, sweet?” he answered.
“They’ll not harm me: they are servants here. Save yourself!—for my sake!”
He looked at her for an instant, read in her eyes the pleading of her heart, and said, softly, “For yours, yes!—we shall meet again.”
He then started toward the gateway leading to the park and glen. But the gardener and the groom swallowed their fear of steel, and made bravely to intercept him. He had confidence in his ability with the sword to deal with two men armed with cudgels. But he knew that his ultimate situation would be so much the worse if he killed either of these fellows. His thought, therefore, was to elude them by mere fleetness, or slightly to disable them. He soon abandoned the former hope, for at the first turn he tried they were swift to head him off. So he charged straight at the nearer, thrusting so fortunately as to prick the fellow’s shoulder, making him lower his cudgel with a howl. Everell now tried a similar lunge at the other cudgel-man, but the latter divined his purpose, and saved himself by tumbling over backward. The wounded man had instantly transferred his cudgel to his left hand, and now stood again in Everell’s way, while the fellow with the gun had come up to threaten him in the rear. Informed of this last danger by his hearing, the Jacobite sprang aside to the right in time to avoid a second blow. He turned swiftly upon the gun-wielder, whose fear of the sword made him thereupon flee toward the gateway. Everell’s three adversaries were now all in that part of the garden through which he had intended to escape.
“This way!” cried Georgiana, from behind him; “and by the terrace!”
Everell wheeled around and made a dash for the steps. His enemies were prompt to recover from their surprise and rush after him, the fallen man having speedily got on his feet again. But the clean-limbed Jacobite won to the steps by more than striking-distance. He thought to clear them in two bounds, then cross the terrace and gain the park.
“Eh! the deuce!” exclaimed a voice at the head of the steps, as a dark form, backed by several others, appeared there. Everell, who had just set his foot on the middle step, checked himself at the risk of his balance, and leaped back. The newcomer, who had a sword in his hand, thrust downward at Everell, at the same time calling out, “The light, Caleb!”
A lantern, which had been concealed under the coat of its bearer, now cast its rays over the scene from one side of the stair-top. Its help was more to those who arrived with it than to Everell, whose eyes had become used to the light shed by the stars alone. But he was now enabled to make sure that his new intercepter was Mr. Foxwell himself; that Rashleigh was at that gentleman’s side, with drawn sword; that the two London ladies stood close behind, peering forward and yet shrinking back, as curiosity disputed with fright; and that the man servant with the lantern carried also a coil of rope. All this was the observation of an instant. Even as he made it, Everell put his sword at guard, and looked a questioning defiance.
“A sturdy ghost, as I live!” cried Foxwell, motioning the three fellows at Everell’s back, who had come to a halt at the first intimation of their master’s arrival, to stay their hands. “My niece, too!—the guileless Georgiana!”
“Uncle!” she began, scarce able to speak, though her pale face and terrified eyes were eloquent enough; “this gentleman—”
“Is my prisoner, till he gives an account of himself. Do you surrender, sir?”
“No, sir,” replied Everell.
“Then I must reluctantly order these men to take you,” said Foxwell, politely.
“Then their deaths be on your head,” said Everell, and turned to make another dash for the gateway, determined this time to spare none who barred the way. To this direction of escape he was limited by his unwillingness to try fatal conclusions with Georgiana’s kinsman. But he was robbed of choice in the matter; for no sooner had he taken two strides than Foxwell, afraid of losing him, leaped down the steps, and shouted, “Turn and defend yourself!”
“THE TWO GENTLEMEN MADE THEIR SWORDS RING.”
Fearing that non-compliance might result in the indignity of being struck on the back with the sword while in flight, Everell obeyed. Ere he could think, his blade had crossed that of Foxwell, who a second time bade the three underlings hold off. The two gentlemen made their swords ring swiftly, in that part of the garden near the steps, Caleb moving the lantern so as to keep its light upon them. Georgiana watched in fearful silence, Prudence clinging to her and recurrently moaning, “Oh, lor!” Rashleigh stood on the steps, ready to interfere at call. The combatants seemed admirably matched, and each had reason to admire the other’s fencing. But, to Everell’s relief, it presently became apparent that the elder man’s arm was weakening. The Jacobite now indulged the hope of disarming him. But Foxwell, too, saw that possibility. He beckoned Rashleigh, who thereupon ran forward and struck up Everell’s sword, while the groom and the gardener, obeying a swift command of their master, seized the Jacobite’s elbows from behind. Everell made a violent effort to throw them off, but in sheer strength he was no match for them. Relinquishing the attempt, he said, quietly, to Foxwell, “’Twas scarcely fair.”
“For that I beg your pardon,” replied Foxwell, still panting for breath. “In a matter between us two alone as gentlemen, ’twould be dastardly. But I had to take you at all cost. You would not surrender; though you certainly owe me an explanation on one score, and are an object of suspicion on another.”
“Oh, Everell!” murmured Georgiana, who had fallen to weeping, and was heedful only of her lover’s plight and not at all of her uncle’s words.
“Everell, say you? Bring the lantern here, Caleb.” In the better light, Foxwell scrutinized his prisoner’s face. “The scar on the cheek, too. ’Tis as I thought. But how Miss Foxwell happens to participate—well, there will be time for explanations. Sir, if you will give me your parole d’honneur, I need not inflict upon you the restraint of—” He indicated the cords in Caleb’s possession.
“I thank you, but I prefer to retain my right of escape.”
“In that case, you will admit the necessity of the precautions I reluctantly take.” And Foxwell set about directing the servants in fastening the captive’s wrists behind him, and in tying his ankles so as to limit the length of his steps. With a courteous “Allow me, sir,” Foxwell disengaged the sword from Everell’s fingers and returned it to its own scabbard, which Everell had retained at his side. This act of grace the Jacobite acknowledged with a bow.
“Uncle, you will not detain this gentleman?” entreated Georgiana, conquering her tears. “He has done you no offence. As to our meeting here, I will tell you all; the fault is mine.”
“Not so!” said Everell, quickly. “If there be any fault in that, ’tis mine. Sir, it was not by Miss Foxwell’s desire that I came here; it was against her will that I spoke to her. My presence was forced upon her.”
“Well, well, you shall be heard presently. You have a more serious charge to face than making love clandestinely to young ladies.—As for you, Georgiana, I thought you were in your chamber, wrapped in the sleep of innocence. I’ll never trust prudery again. I beg you will go in immediately, miss.”
“Uncle, I will not go till you have set this gentleman free. You shall have all my gratitude and obedience: I’ll give you no cause of complaint. Be kind—generous—I pray—” Her voice failing her, she fell upon her knees, and essayed to take Foxwell’s hand.
“Nay, sweet, you go too far,” said Everell, tenderly.
“Too far, indeed,” said Foxwell. “No scenes of supplication, I beg,—they are sure to make me more severe. I advise you to go to your chamber, miss. You had best oblige me in this, else stubbornness on your part may awaken stubbornness on mine.”
“Go, dear, and trust all to me,” counseled Everell, who had been regarding her with eyes in which there was no attempt to belie his love. “Go—this is not the end.”
She looked at him a moment; then turned sorrowfully away, and went slowly up the steps and to the house, followed by her maid, to whose proffers of assistance she gave no more heed than if she had been walking in a dream.
“Sir,” said Everell, with a slight huskiness of voice, “let me assure you that I am a gentleman and a man of honour; and that I respect your niece, and have every reason to respect her, as I would a saint.”
“No assurance is needful to convince me you are a gentleman,” replied Foxwell. “I will lodge you in a manner as nearly befitting your quality as security and my poor means will allow. I must be your jailer for to-night, at least.—Caleb, go before with the lantern. To the hall first. And slowly.—I trust you can make shift to walk, sir.”
Placing the gardener and the groom at either side of the prisoner, and the keeper at his rear, Foxwell set the party in motion. The two gentlemen, following close, gave their arms to the ladies upon reaching the head of the steps, and the procession went on at the slow pace which Everell’s ankle-cords made imperative.
“A mighty pretty fellow, whatever he may be,” said Lady Strange, sotto voce.
“Georgiana is to be envied,” said Mrs. Winter. “Such are the rewards of virtue.”
“He is vastly in love with her,” declared Lady Strange. “Did you ever see such tender glances?”
“’Tis the kind of ghost you could find it in your heart to be haunted by, is it not, Di?” queried Mrs. Winter.
“The keeper must have been in some doubt whether the ghost was the ghost,” put in Rashleigh, “before he decided to give the alarm.”
There had indeed been indecision on the part of the keeper, but upon other ground than Rashleigh mentioned. As he sat with the gardener over their extra beer later that night, the keeper explained to his comrade:
“I were in a powerful state o’ uncertainty, and that’s the truth of it. For, in course, I knowed the young mistress and her maid as soon as ever they come into the garden. And when this here young captain,—for I take it, he can’t be no less, what with the air he have, and the way he handle his sword,—so when the young captain appeared, I soon see how the land lay. Though I couldn’t make out what they was a-sayin’, I could tell it were a matter o’ clandestine love. Now I were to give a owl’s hoot when the ghost appeared. Thinks I, ‘Devil a ghost this is, but yet ’tis the only ghost we’re like to behold. If I wait for a real ghost,’ thinks I, ‘we sha’n’t get to our beds this night; and yet I haven’t the heart to spoil the young lady’s love-affair.’”
“And small blame to you, David,” said Andrew the gardener. “Your thoughts was my thoughts, and I kep’ a-wondering to myself, ‘What will David do? If he doesn’t hoot, we shall have to stay out here all night, and then only get credit for going asleep and seeing nothing. And yet, if he does hoot, there’ll be a pretty kettle o’ fish for the young lady.’”
“Yes, Andrew, it were a great responsibility. I wished it had been left to you to do the hootin’, for, thinks I, ‘Andrew’s a wiser man than me, and he’d know the right thing.’”
“Maybe so, David, but not such a good hooter,” said Andrew, modestly. “I’ll admit I did a’most make up my mind that such kind of love-affairs comes to no good, and the master ought to know, so the best thing for all of us would be for you to consider the stranger a ghost, and hoot.”
“No doubt, no doubt, Andrew, now that I hear you say so. But I couldn’t muster up the heart, because I done my own love-makin’ in a clandestine manner, in my lovin’ days, and I had a sort o’ fellow-feelin’ with these young people, as you might say. So I couldn’t make up my mind. But I happened to move my leg, which were powerful cramped with sittin’ long in one position, an’ I made more noise nor I bargained for. And the first thing I knew, the young gentleman were a-proddin’ at me through the shrub’ry. So before I ever thought, the hoot come out, more as if there was a owl inside o’ me which hooted of its own accord, than if it was of my own free will.”
“It wasn’t of your own free will, man. Take my word for it, the matter was took out o’ your hands altogether. The moving of your leg was ordered from above, to bring about the end that was predestinated.”
“I believe it were, Andrew. At all events, once the hoot was out, the fat was in the fire. It weren’t a bad hoot, though, were it?”
“Better nor a real owl could do, David,” said Andrew, raising his beer to his mouth.
The conversation just related took place in a passage where the two men kept watch outside the room in which Everell was temporarily confined. It was a small chamber with an iron-barred window, and the Jacobite sat gazing into the flame of a candle on the mantelpiece, while his fate was being discussed in the drawing-room. He was still under the restraint of the cords, which, like that of lock and key, was warranted by his persistent refusal to give his word that he would not escape. The master of the house had personally seen, however, that the prisoner’s surroundings were made as endurable as the necessities of the case allowed.
“So this,” said Foxwell, as he then rejoined his guests in the drawing-room, “is what lay behind our Georgiana’s prudery. How the deuce could she have met the Jacobite?”
“The question is,” said Rashleigh, “what the deuce are you going to do with the Jacobite?”
“I wish I knew,” replied Foxwell, looking at the document presented to him by Jeremiah Filson. “’Tis clear enough what our duty is, as loyal subjects, and so forth.”
“’Twere a pity such a lovable fellow should be thrown to the hangman,” said Mrs. Winter.
“A thousand pities,” said Lady Strange. “And so loving a fellow, too! If ever a man had a true lover’s look!—well, to be sure, the little Georgiana is a pretty thing, but—”
“But the young blade might look higher if he had better taste—is that what you were thinking, Diana?” asked Mrs. Winter, with ironical artlessness.
“No such thing, neither!” said Lady Strange, indignantly. “I admire him for his constancy—for I warrant he is constant to her, and will be constant to her; and I wouldn’t have him else, not for the world. Thank Heaven, I am above envy.”
A slight emphasis upon the I—so slight as scarce to seem intended—was perhaps what drew from the other lady the answer:
“Don’t be too sure of the young fellow’s constancy. You know, Diana dear, you always have been somewhat credulous of men’s constancy—’tis your own fidelity makes you trustful, of course.”
“Doubt as much as you like, Isabella: we are all aware you have particular reasons to complain of men’s fickleness.”
Feeling that the preservation of the peace required an immediate diversion, Rashleigh broke in with the first remark that occurred to him as appropriate:
“Certainly this young man is a lover who has risked his life for the sake of love.”
“Ay, and that proves you and I were right at dinner, Cousin Rashleigh!” cried Lady Strange.
“Hardly so, my lady,” said Foxwell. “This young gentleman merely risked his life in coming to meet his beloved. He by no means counted surely upon losing it: his active endeavours to escape prove that. Mrs. Winter’s contention, which I supported, was that no man would deliberately give his life for the sake of love—by which I mean the passion of love, itself, apart from pity or duty or other consideration. Now, had this gentleman come to meet his beloved, knowing certainly that death awaited him in consequence, then indeed he would have proved your assertion.”
“Well, and how do you know he wouldn’t have done so, if the circumstances had required?” asked Lady Strange. “For my part, I believe he would.”
“Provided, of course,” added Rashleigh, “that by failing to meet her he might lose her for all time.”
“That is implied, certainly,” said Foxwell. “The alternative we are imagining is: Death for love gratified—life for love renounced.”
“Catch a fellow of his years and looks choosing death on any such terms, if the choice were offered him,” said Mrs. Winter, derisively.
“’Tis precisely his youth that would make him give all for love,” said Rashleigh; “the more so if this be his first serious love.—But what is to be his fate, Bob? If you hand him over to the authorities, he will certainly be hanged, unless that paper lies.”
“Egad, I was just thinking,” replied Foxwell, with the faint smile that comes with a piquant idea; “an Italian duke, a century or two ago, would have amused his visitors, and settled the point of our dispute, by putting this young gentleman to the test. I must say, experiments upon the human passions have an interest, though the loggish minds of our countrymen don’t often rise to such refinements of curiosity.”
“I see nothing in it to balk at,” said Rashleigh. “At the worst, the young man can but die, as he must if you do your plain duty as a loyal subject. ’Twould really be giving him a chance for his life. It seems an excellent way out of your own indecision as to what you should do with him: you transfer his fate from your will to his.”
“I believe he does love the girl,” said Foxwell, revolving the notion in his mind. “And certainly his life is in my power—we may let him go if we choose, and the government be none the wiser, or we may dutifully hand him over to the law. We can offer him, on the one hand, his life and freedom if he will give up his love upon the instant and for ever, not to set eyes upon the girl again: on the other hand, a brief period of grace, which he may pass with her on the footing of a favoured suitor, on condition of handing him over to the authorities at the end.”
“And if he decline to choose?” asked Rashleigh.
“Then I can send word straightway to Jeremiah Filson to fetch the officers. In that event, young Troilus will lose both life and love. Either choice will be a gain upon that.—But you may save your pity, Lady Strange: he will choose to live and go free, depend on it.”
“I will not depend on it. He will obey the dictates of his love, and choose death rather than never see her again.”
“Indeed, I shall not be surprised if he does so,” said Rashleigh. “You take too little account of his youth, Bob. When men are of his age, and of an ardent nature, their love shuts out everything else from their view. ’Tis their universe. Beyond it, or apart from it, there’s nothing.”
“Fudge and nonsense!” exclaimed Mrs. Winter. “He will prefer to run away and live to love another day.”
“We shall see,” cried Lady Strange, “if Bob will really put it to the test. I’m so sure of the man, I’ll lay five guineas he will choose love and death.”
“Well, my lady, I’ll take your wager,” said Foxwell. “Your five guineas will be a cheap price for the lesson, that we men are not such devoted creatures as you do us the honour to suppose.”
“Never fear my doing you that honour, Foxwell. But thank you for taking the wager. I’m dying of curiosity to see how the young fellow will receive the proposal.”
“There is no need you should linger in suspense,” replied Foxwell, pulling the bell. “Let us have the matter out now, while we’re in the humour.”
Taking up his sword, for use only in case of some desperate attempt on the prisoner’s part, Foxwell stationed himself at the door of the room, whence he could see across the hall and up the passage to the place of confinement. He then sent Caleb to request, in terms of great politeness, Mr. Everell’s company in the drawing-room, whither he was to be attended, of course, by the two men now guarding him.
While Caleb was upon this errand, it was possible for Foxwell both to keep eyes on the passage and to talk with his friends.
“Will you bet five guineas against me, too, Bob?” asked Rashleigh.
“Nay, I’ll do that,” put in Mrs. Winter, quickly, “and five more, if you like.”
“Done—ten guineas,” said Rashleigh.
“Good!” cried Mrs. Winter. “I believe I know how far a man is capable of going for love’s sake—even when young and of an ardent nature.”
“For all your talk,” answered Rashleigh, with barefaced affability, “you’ll not make me believe you’ve never found a man who would face death for love of you.”
“I may have found some who said they would,” replied Mrs. Winter, complacently swallowing the flattery despite all her sophistication, “but that’s a different thing. Let us see how this Romeo comes out of the test.”
“How are you going to put the matter to him, Foxwell?” asked Lady Strange.
“Leave it to me,” was the reply. “Either he shall go free and never see her again, or he shall be our guest here for a stipulated time, and then be given up. The only question is, how long shall that time be?”
“A day,” suggested Mrs. Winter.
“Cruel!—a month,” said Lady Strange.
“I cannot have him on my hands so long,” said Foxwell. “Say a week. Shall the wagers stand, on that condition?”
Rashleigh made no objection, and the two ladies were brought to a hasty acceptance of the compromise by Foxwell placing his finger on his lip in warning of the prisoner’s approach.
Everell came as rapidly as the restraint upon his motions would allow; and stopped as soon as he had entered the room, to avoid proceeding farther with his shuffling steps before the company. Foxwell had a chair placed for him. Caleb and the two other men were ordered to stand ready outside the door, which was then closed. Foxwell sat down near the ladies and Rashleigh, so that the Jacobite now found himself confronted by four pairs of eyes, which paid him the compliment of a well-bred regard vastly different in its effect from the rude stare of the vulgar. His own glance had swiftly informed him that Georgiana was not present.
He sat with undissembled curiosity as to what this interview might unfold. He had obeyed the summons with alacrity, eager to be informed of what was to come. He was neither defiant nor crushed; exhibited neither sullenness nor bravado. In the solitude of his place of detention, he had been tormented with the reproach of having brought trouble upon Georgiana; and he had been sobered and humbled by the knowledge that at last his rashness had laid him by the heels. What could he say to Roughwood now, if that wise friend were there to see the fulfilment of his warnings? But these feelings did not banish hope. Everell’s nature was still buoyant. He was, at least, under the same roof with Georgiana. Death seemed far away: he scarcely thought of it as the natural sequel to his situation. He now looked with frank inquiry at the face of his principal captor for enlightenment as to what was intended concerning him.
“Sir, I have solicited this meeting,” began Foxwell, “in order to discuss our positions—yours and my own. My friends were witnesses to the occurrence by which you fell into my—that is to say, by which you became my guest. They know why I felt bound to detain you, and they will share my confidence to the end of the affair. It would, of course, be their right—perhaps their duty as loyal subjects—to act independently in the interests of Government, if I chose not to act so. But they have agreed to abide by my course, whatever that shall be. So it is well, I think, that they should be present at this interview.”
“I am far from making the least objection, sir,” said Everell, bowing to the ladies and regarding the whole company with an amiable though expectant composure.
“You are aware, of course,” Foxwell continued, “of what will follow if I give you up to the nearest justice. Perhaps you may not know that one Jeremiah Filson is actively concerning himself about you in this neighbourhood on behalf of the Government. He has caused a warrant to be issued against you, he is circulating descriptions which show him to be an accurate and thorough observer.” Foxwell put his hand upon the paper which Rashleigh had laid on the table. “He waits only for news of your whereabouts, to bring the constables upon you. He will be one of the witnesses against you, and the other, I believe, is now at York or Carlisle—I know not which, but the judges have been trying and sentencing your unlucky comrades by the score, gentlemen as well as the lower orders.”
As Foxwell paused, Everell, for want of knowing what better reply to make, answered in a half-smiling manner, though his heart was beating rather faster than usual:
“Sir, I have nothing to say to this—except that ’tis a pity so many poor fellows should die for being on the losing side. Nor do I own that I am the man you think.”
“Too many circumstances leave me no doubt on that point, sir,” said Foxwell, with a serenity which showed the hopelessness of any contest on the ground of identity. “’Tis in your power and right certainly to deny and temporize; but, if you choose to tire me by those methods, I have only to deliver you up at once.”
There was something in the speaker’s quiet voice and cold eyes that gave the whole possibility—trial, sentence, the end—a reality and nearness it had never had in Everell’s mind before. He was startled into a gravity he had not previously felt.
“But,” Foxwell went on, “if you choose that we shall understand each other, there is a chance for your life—a condition upon which you may have immediate liberty.”
Everell looked frankly grateful. The form of death assigned to traitors and rebels, with its dismal preliminaries and circumstances, had not allured him the brief while he had contemplated it. It wore a vastly different aspect from that of a glorious end in the self-forgetfulness of battle. “Immediate liberty?” he repeated, with some eagerness.
“With my warranty,” continued Foxwell, “that neither my friends, nor myself, nor my servants shall pursue you, or give information against you, or in any manner hinder your departure from this country—”
“Sir,” Everell broke in, “I should be an ingrate not to be moved by such generosity—you are worthy to be her kinsman!—”
“Upon the single condition—” went on Foxwell, without any change of manner.
“Ah, yes; conditions are but reasonable,” said Everell.
“The single condition,” said Foxwell, “that you will never again, during the whole length of your life, see or communicate with my niece:—and for this you will give me your word of honour.”
“Never—see her—again?” said Everell, faintly, gazing at Foxwell as if unsure of having heard aright.
“Upon your word of honour,” replied Foxwell, who did not alter either his attitude of easy grace nor his tone of courteous nonchalance during the interview; “but, indeed, as a part of the condition, you will leave this neighbourhood at once. That will be for the comfort of all of us concerned, as well as for your own safety. If, after twenty-four hours, you are seen hereabouts, or in this county, I shall be freed of my obligation: in that event, beware of Jeremiah Filson and the justice’s men. And, in the meantime, my niece will be inaccessible. I will make it my care to see that she is soon married, so there will be no hope for you in that quarter. But as the old ballad says that love will find out the way,—though I greatly doubt the possibility in this case,—I must, nevertheless, make doubly sure by requiring, as I have said, your word of honour that you will never of your own intention see or address her, directly or indirectly, in this world. That is all, I think.”
“It is too much that you ask!” cried Everell. “Your condition is too hard—I can’t accept it—no, sir, I cannot.”
“Yet if I hand you over to the law straightway,” said Foxwell, quietly, “you will not see her again.”
“There will still be the possibility of escape,” replied Everell; “there will be no binding word of honour. But go free without one hope of ever meeting her again?—no, make the condition something else, I beg you, sir; or hand me over to the law, and let me retain my right of escape.”
Lady Strange’s eyes shone with applause, but Rashleigh and Mrs. Winter waited for the scene to continue. After a moment’s silence, Foxwell began anew:
“Well, sir, I must congratulate my niece upon your devotion. Rather than give her up for ever, you will risk death. You hazard all upon your chance of escape. ’Tis a slight chance enough: that you will own.”
“No doubt,” replied Everell, in a faltering voice; “but ’tis something.”
“Suppose it fails you. Then, in losing your life, you lose the lady, too. Your chance of seeing her again is even smaller than the small chance of your escape: you may be sure that special precautions will be taken with you—such that your chance will be hardly worth calling by that name.”
Everell sighed deeply, and it is no use denying that he looked plaintive and miserable.
“But what if I propose an alternative?” said Foxwell. “What if I offer to make you our guest here—for a week—as free as any other guest, except that you may not leave the grounds or put yourself in danger of discovery,—a guest with all the opportunities of meeting my niece that a recognized suitor might have?”
It was a moment before Everell could speak. “Sir, what does all this mean?” he cried. “Is it a jest? In God’s name, don’t hold out such a prospect merely to play with me.”
“’Tis a prospect in your power of realizing, upon my honour.”
“Then your generosity—but generosity is too mean a word—I know not how to describe your action, nor to express my gratitude.”
“Pray wait till you have heard the condition: to everything there is a price.”
“Whatever it be, ’twere cheap payment for such happiness. I won’t disguise my love for your niece, sir: why should I, when I began by confessing it? To be with her all the day, without anxiety or risk—”
“For a week, I said.”
“Such a week will be worth a lifetime!” Everell declared.
“’Tis well you count it so, for that is the price at which it is offered. At the end of the week, I mean, you shall be given up to the authorities. If you accept this proposal, you will engage upon your honour to surrender yourself at the appointed hour, and to forego all chance of escape—though at the same time every precaution will be taken to make sure of you.”
“At the end of the week—given up?” repeated Everell, again startled and open-eyed.
“Given up to the officers of justice, with advice to use special care against your escape—though, indeed, your word of honour will be the better security. As to what will follow—your conveyance to York, your trial, and the rest—” Foxwell gave a shrug in lieu of finishing the sentence.
“A week,” said Everell, rather to himself than to the company, “a week with her—to be absolutely sure of that!—”
“A week with her,” said Foxwell, “and then to face the judges. A few tedious days of imprisonment and trial—hardly to be reckoned as days of life—and ‘the rest is silence,’ as the play says. How many possible years of life is it you would forfeit to pay for this week? Two score, perhaps,—and some of them years of fine young manhood, too. Well, the choice is yours. You may give life for love, if you wish. Or love for life, if you will:—my first offer still holds—’tis still in your power to go from this neighbourhood at once, perfectly free, and to find your way abroad. Egad, when I think how many joyous days and merry nights lie between your age and mine!—Life is pleasant in France.”
“I well know that,” said Everell, whose thoughts had responded to the other’s words.
“There are friends, I dare say, who would not be sorry to see you again.”
“Friends, yes,—dear friends!” mused Everell.
“’Tis not fair, Foxwell,” Lady Strange put in; “you are influencing him.”
“I say no more. Those are the alternatives, sir. Once your choice is made, there shall be no going back upon it: Love, or life:—if you decline to choose, you are pretty certain to lose both.—Well, sir, take a few minutes to think upon it. I see these ladies are eager to hear your decision, but for once you may leave them to their impatience.”
Everell was not heedful of the ladies. Certain words were echoing in his mind, each accompanied by a rush of the ideas attached to it: life—love—friends—joyous days and merry nights—but never to see her again!—to fly from this neighbourhood, from the garden.—Ah, the dear garden! To be with the adored one for seven days—blissful days, with her by his side, her hand in his, her eyes softening to his, her voice—
“Sir, could you doubt a moment?” said the young lover. “I choose her!—a week with her! I hold you to your word—I’ll not shirk mine when the time comes.”
“Bravo! I knew it!” cried Lady Strange, clapping her hands.
“Lady Strange, I owe you five guineas,” said Foxwell, gallantly. “Mr. Everell, at this hour a week hence—ten o’clock, shall we call it?—you are my prisoner.” He rang the bell, and Caleb entered. “Cut this gentleman’s cords—there has been a mistake. And nothing is to be said of his presence here, or of what has occurred to-night—nay, I’ll give orders separately to all the servants.” He waited till Everell stood entirely freed; he then sent a message to Miss Foxwell, asking her to come to the drawing-room if she had not yet retired.
“I take it,” he explained to Everell, when Caleb had left the room, “you would have her know at once how matters have fallen out—as far as you would have her know at all for the present—that you are to be our guest for awhile, at least.”
“Certainly,—but”—and here Everell turned pale—“she must not know the condition.”
“I agree with you there,” said Foxwell, smiling. “For the comfort of both of us, she had best not know—till afterward, at least.”
“Afterward!” echoed Everell; “and what will be her feelings then? I hadn’t thought of that.”
“We have all overlooked that, I own. We have thought only of you and your feelings. But you need not be dismayed—the most devoted of women are not inconsolable.”
“’Tis not that I think she loves me much; but she is of so tender a nature, when she learns the price I shall have paid—yet how could I have chosen otherwise, even considering her feelings?—what would she have thought, had I preferred to renounce her? Or suppose I had declined to choose?”
“Why, then, her feelings would be the same, on your being handed over to justice at once, as they will be a week hence. Nay, indeed, in a week’s time she may not be as sorry to be rid of you. We shall see when the time comes: if need be, we can hide the truth from her then as now—when the week is over, you can take your leave upon some pretext, and trust time to efface your image from her heart. Take my advice, trouble yourself not about her feelings: be happy for a week, and don’t think of ‘afterward.’”
Everell sighed, but in truth he could not at that time see how her feelings could have been spared in any measure by either of the other courses open to him. Indeed, it seemed to him that fidelity to her required him to elect as he had done; that any other choice would have been a renunciation of her, a treason to love. So let him be happy for a week: at the end, it would be time to think how to save her feelings.
“Very well, sir,” he said to Foxwell; “let her know nothing but that I am to be your guest for the present.”
“So be it; and you will help us all to keep your presence here a secret from the outside world. Best never appear on the side of the house toward the road.—But we can talk of that to-morrow, at breakfast. I will lay the servants under the heaviest charges, that they will hardly dare mention you to one another. If you are discovered by Jeremiah Filson or any such, not only may I fall under suspicion, but your week may be cut short.”
“I will be cautious, sir, if I have never been so in my life before.”
“And you had best go by some other name in the household. Shall we call you—ah—Mr. Charlson?”
Everell signified his willingness, and the next moment Georgiana entered, still dressed as she had been in the garden. Her face was pale and anxious, but her eyes brightened as they fell upon Everell released from his bonds. She was close followed by Prudence, whose nose shone red with the weeping in which she had copiously indulged to the delight and self-approval of her romantic soul.
“Georgiana,” said Foxwell, before his niece could speak, “this gentleman, Mr. Charlson, will be our guest for a time. His visit must, for certain reasons, be kept secret; and you, I am sure, will not fail in the duties of a hostess. I am going now to give orders for his accommodation.—Await me here, if you please, Mr. Charlson. Ladies, I will join you presently—in the library—and you, Rashleigh.”
The three London visitors took the hint and sauntered into the adjoining room as Foxwell passed out to the hall.
“What does it mean, Everell?” asked Georgiana, in astonishment. “He has become your friend?”
“I am to be your guest, as he has said,” replied Everell, smiling as he took her hand. “I shall be near you all the long day—as many hours as you find it in your heart to give me. Sweet, ’tis too great happiness!” He put his arm gently around her.
“Happiness!” said she, looking up into his eyes. “’Tis more than I dare believe. My uncle shelters you and befriends you!—Then there is nothing to separate us—we may be happy together, day after day—for ever!”
He smiled, and summoned his wonted gaiety. “Well, not—quite—for ever, my darling!”
The smile and the gaiety had so nearly died out ere he finished those few words, that he was fain to draw her closer to him, that she might not see his face.