After a slow progress of between two or three hours, along roads, which in those days frequently tossed the heavy carriage wheels high in air over some large unbroken stone, and still more frequently suffered them to repose in deep beds of sand or mud, till the efforts of four strong Flanders horses had dragged them forth--the vehicle which contained Henry Langford gained the brow of Danemore Hill, and came within sight of the building, which in that part of the country was known under the name of the Castle.
This view was obtained from the side of the park which lay in front, and which was separated from the road merely by a low park paling crowned with open palisading at the top. A part of the park itself lay between the mansion and the road, which were at the distance of about three quarters of a mile from each other, the ground sloping with a thousand fanciful undulations, and covered with short turf of a rich bright green in all the dells and hollows, though becoming slightly brown upon the tops of the knolls, where the fierce summer sun, like the withering glare of the great world, had already taken off the freshness of the vegetation.
Scattered here and there were groups of old hawthorns, contorted into many a strange and rugged form; while on either hand appeared clumps of fine old trees, the chestnut, the beech, and the oak. The latter were seen gradually deepening and clustering together to the right and left of the house till they joined a thick wood, through which every here and there stood forth, dark and defined amidst the tender green of the other plants, the sombre masses of the pine and fir; like some of those stern memories of sorrow, of sin, or of privation, which are to be found in almost every human heart, and which still make themselves known in gloomy distinctness, amidst the freshest scenes and brightest occupations of life.
In the midst, backed by that thick wood, stood the house, or Castle, as it was called, and the name was not ill deserved. It was an irregular pile of building, erected in different ages by its different lords, and showing the taste of the various individuals who had possessed it, as well as of the various ages in which it had been constructed. On the left was an old unornamented tower, in the simplest style of the old Norman architecture. It was like one of the plain towers of some of the Kentish churches, with square cut windows, or rather loop-holes, under a semicircular arch, which denoted the original form. It was crowned by a plain parapet with a high conical roof.
Then came a long range of buildings in a much later style of architecture, with oriel windows, and a good deal of rich stone carving and ornamental work; then two massive towers, projecting considerably before the rest of the façade, and joined to it by two corridors, through each of which was pierced a gateway, under a pointed arch; and then again, as the building sunk into the wood, upon the right, were more towers and masses of heavy masonry, united in general by long lines of building of a lighter and more graceful character. On the older parts the ivy had been suffered to grow, though not very luxuriantly. The space in front, too, was kept clear of trees; and even as the carriage passed along, at the distance of nearly a mile, the wide esplanade on which the Castle stood, with a part of the barbican, which had been suffered to remain, was distinctly visible.
The constables who sat with Langford in the carriage of Sir Thomas Waller, gazed up, with feelings of awe and reverence, towards an edifice, which the people of the country but seldom approached. The eyes of Langford, too, were fixed upon it, but with sensations which they little understood. All that they remarked was, that he kept his eyes fixed upon the Castle steadfastly during the whole time that it was visible as they passed along in front; that he looked at it calmly, though gravely; and that, when he had done, he raised his head as if waking from a reverie, and then suddenly turned and gazed from the other window, where a wide and beautiful view was seen, spread out below, reaching to the old Manor House, and the wooded banks and hills beyond.
The carriage then rolled on, and, winding round under the park, entered by a castellated lodge, and drove slowly up to the mansion, the vehicles passing under the arches of the two large towers, which projected from the centre of the building. A loud-tongued bell gave notice of their coming, and three or four servants, fat, pampered, and saucy, made their appearance to answer its noisy summons.
Sir Thomas Waller was the first to speak, and, with an air of importance, he demanded immediately to see the Earl. One servant looked at another, and he, who seemed to be the chief porter, replied shortly that that was impossible, for the Earl had gone out.
"Gone out!" cried Sir Thomas, in surprise. "How? where?"
"He is gone out on horseback," replied the man, "that is how, sir; and as to where, I fancy he is gone to the moor, where my young lord was killed."
"But we must, at least we ought, to see my lord the Earl," said Sir Matthew Scrope, "for we have brought up a prisoner for him to examine."
"I can't say anything about that," replied the man, with a sort of sullen incivility; "my lord is out, but I will go and ask Mistress Bertha, if you like."
"I do not know what Mistress Bertha can do in the matter," said Sir Thomas Waller.
"Oh! she can do anything she likes," replied the man with a sneer, to which he did not dare to give full expression.
"Well, ask her--ask her, then," said Sir Matthew; "you know who I am; you know I was with the Earl three or four hours this morning. You know I am a justice of the peace, and one of the quorum."
Sir Matthew did not seem by this announcement to raise his dignity greatly in the eyes of the servant, who walked away, with slow and measured steps, to make the proposed application. He returned in about five minutes, saying, that Mistress Bertha's reply was, that, as it might be a long time before the Earl returned, the magistrates had better leave the prisoner locked up there, and come back in the evening about the hour of his lordship's supper.
Sir Matthew Scrope and Sir Thomas Waller looked at each other. There were some points in this suggestion which they did not much like; but then, again, the magical words, "His lordship's supper," which were coupled in their imagination with fine and exquisite wines from foreign lands, fat haunches, rich sauces, and many another delicacy and luxury, which rumour declared to be prevalent in Danemore Castle, rapidly removed all objections from their minds; and after a few minutes' consultation they determined to obey to the letter.
The next object of consideration was, how to secure their prisoner, and in what room to place him; but their conference on that point was soon cut short by the porter, who interrupted them by saying, "You had better leave all that to Mistress Bertha; for, depend upon it she will put him where she likes herself, and most likely has settled it already. The best way will be to bring him in, and go to her. She is in the long gallery."
Although the two magistrates did not at all approve of the whole business being taken out of their hands by a woman, they nevertheless yielded with some symptoms of displeasure; and Langford, being made to descend from the carriage, was escorted by the two constables through a long dim entrance passage, which led into a handsome vestibule beyond. He offered no resistance to their will; he made no observation; he asked no question; but with a calm and thoughtful dignity, which had its effect even upon the pampered servants of the castle, he walked on, looking casually at the different objects he passed, as if almost indifferent to the part he was himself acting in the scene.
From the vestibule a handsome flight of stone stairs, lighted by a tall painted window, led up to a gallery extending on either side for about seventy yards; and up these stairs Langford was led, following the two magistrates, who went on with slow steps, preparing to give Mistress Bertha, the housekeeper, a just notion of their dignity and importance. At the top of the stairs they were met by that personage herself, dressed as we have before described her, except that her broad white coif was no longer surmounted by the black veil with which she covered her head when she went abroad. Her thin aquiline features might have gained an additional degree of sharpness; her sallow skin was, if anything, more sallow; and the cold severe expression, which always reigned in her countenance, was now increased to a degree of stern bitterness which somewhat humbled the tone of the two magistrates.
They approached her, however, with a very tolerable degree of pomposity; and Sir Thomas Waller introduced himself and then presented Sir Matthew Scrope, announcing to her that they were magistrates of the county, and two of the quorum. As he spoke, the attention of the housekeeper wandered beyond the two worshipful gentlemen altogether, and was attracted to the prisoner, who followed them. There was something in his good looks, his calm and dignified demeanour, his apparel, or his expression of countenance, which made the thin eyelids of Mistress Bertha's eyes expand from the bright dark orbs they covered at the first moment they lighted on him, and she demanded, "Is that the prisoner?"
Sir Thomas Waller replied that it was; and then recapitulated what he had been saying in regard to the dignity of himself and Sir Matthew Scrope.
"Yes, yes," replied Mistress Bertha, with her slight foreign accent, "I know who you are, both of you; and now you have nothing to do but to leave the prisoner here till the Earl comes home. You can return at his supper hour. I do not know that he will eat with you himself, but if he do not, meat shall be provided for you."
"There can be no reason, madam," said Sir Matthew Scrope, "why the Earl should not sup with us; we have supped with men of as high rank, I trow."
"When a man has lost his only son," said the housekeeper, sharply, "is that no reason why he should not sup with two fat country knights, to whom his sorrow and his presence would only bring gloom and stiffness? Better sup by yourselves, and eat, and drink, and make merry, as you are accustomed to do."
"Gadzooks!" said Sir Thomas Waller, in a low voice to his companion, "I think the old lady is right; but madam," he added in a louder tone, "we must be made sure of the safety of our prisoner."
"Leave that to me, leave that to me," replied the housekeeper, shortly. "Follow me, Williams and Hanbury, to guard the prisoner; and you, John Porter, come on too. Come with me, young gentleman," she added, speaking to Langford in a more benign tone. "You do not look as if you would commit a murder; but, God knows, looks are deceitful things. Come with me."
"But, madam, we have no authority," interrupted Sir Matthew Scrope.
"Authority!" exclaimed the housekeeper, fiercely raising up her tall thin person to its utmost height, "who talks of authority in this house? You may well say you have no authority, for you lost it all the moment you crossed that threshold. No one has authority here but the Earl; and, when he is absent, myself--now that that poor boy is gone," she added, while a bright drop rose into her eyes, sparkled upon the black lashes that fringed them, and then fell upon the sallow skin beneath. "I trust in God you did not kill him, young gentleman; for if you did, you committed a great crime."
"Indeed I did not, madam," replied Langford; "I should sooner have thought of killing myself."
"I believe you, I believe you," replied the housekeeper; "but yet I must have you as safely guarded as if you had. If you want to see where I put him," she continued, speaking to the magistrates in a somewhat gentler tone than she had hitherto used, "you may come with me: there is a room which no one even enters but my lord and myself: it is high up in the oldest tower; and even if he could get through the windows--which he cannot--there is a fall of sixty feet below, clear down. But come and see it if you will, and you shall have some refreshment after."
Carrying a large key which she had held in her hand from the beginning of the conversation, she led the way to the end of the gallery in which they stood. Then, passing through another handsome corridor, she ascended a staircase in the older part of the building, which brought them to an ante-room, opening into a large bed-chamber, with windows on each side; whilst through the western window, and close to it, might be seen projecting the heavy mass of the large square tower that we have mentioned in describing the building. A small low door was exactly opposite to them as they entered, and to the lock of this Mistress Bertha applied the key. It turned heavily, and with difficulty, as if not often used; and the door moving back, gave entrance into a lofty and cheerful chamber, lighted by four small windows.
The strength of the door and the height of the windows showed at once that escape from that chamber was impossible; and the magistrates, holding in remembrance the refreshments which their somewhat ungracious companion had promised them, expressed themselves perfectly satisfied with the security of their prisoner. Langford was accordingly desired to enter the place of his confinement, and did so at once, merely turning to address the housekeeper as he passed. "Madam," he said, "I am sure you will be good enough to give my compliments to Lord Danemore whenever he returns, and to inform him, first that I assert my perfect innocence of the charge which these two worthy persons have somewhat too hastily brought against me; and, secondly, that I beg he will take the most prompt and immediate means for investigating the whole affair, as it will be unpleasant for me to submit to this treatment long; and there are plenty of persons in the neighbourhood who will see that justice is done me."
The housekeeper made no other reply than bowing her head; but when Langford had entered, and she had shut and locked the door, she turned sharply and contemptuously upon the magistrates, saying, "He did not do it! he never did it! you will make yourselves a laughing-stock in the country."
Sir Thomas Waller was about to reply, but she silenced him at once by ordering one of the servants who followed her to have the cold meats laid out in the little hall, and find the butler for a stoup of Burgundy. A proposal made by Sir Matthew Scrope to leave two of the constables behind in the ante-room, she cut short, less pleasantly, telling him that she would have no constables in her master's house except such as were intended to be thrown out of the window.
By this time both magistrates began to find out that it was to no purpose to contest matters in Danemore Castle with this imperious dame; and they accordingly followed her in silence back to the head of the great stairs. There she made them over to the care of one of the men servants, who in turn led them to the lesser hall, where a collation was set before them, which well repaid them for all their patient endurance.
In the meanwhile, Langford had remained in the solitary chamber which had been assigned to him. As soon as the door was closed, he took nine or ten turns up and down the room, in a state of much agitation, then gazed out for a moment from each of the windows by which it was lighted, and then sat down at the table, and placed his hands for several minutes before his eyes. It is not needful to enter into any detailed account of his feelings; his situation was particularly painful in every respect; and though he was not one of those who give way to each transient emotion, something might well be allowed for discomfort, anxiety, and indignation. When he had thus paused for a few minutes, thinking over his fate? he lifted his eyes and gazed round the chamber which served as his place of confinement, seeming to take accurate note of all it contained.
The room itself was a cheerful and a pleasant room, with a vaulted ceiling richly ornamented; while the thick walls of the tower were lined with oak, very deep in hue, and finely carved with Gothic tracery. The form of the chamber was perfectly square, and its extent might be four-and-twenty feet each way. The furniture, too, was good though ancient, and of the same carved oak as the panelling. It consisted of a large table, and a smaller one, eight or nine large high-backed chairs, and several curious carved cabinets. But the objects which most attracted the attention of Langford were two small panels, distinct from the rest of the wainscotting, and ornamented in such a way as to show that they were not all intended to be concealed, with a small pointed ogee canopy above each, similar to that which surmounted the door by which he had entered, but only smaller in size. In each of these panels was a key-hole surrounded by an intricate steel guard; and it was evident that each covered the entrance of one of those cupboards in the wall, in which our remote ancestors took so much delight.
Besides the door by which he had entered, there was a smaller one on the opposite side of the room, leading, as Langford conceived, to a staircase in one of the large buttresses; and as he had been a prisoner before, and had found it useful to know all the outlets of his temporary abode, his first action, after gazing round the room, was to approach that second door and try whether it was or was not locked. It was firmly closed, however; and he took his way back towards his seat, pausing by the way to examine the two small closets, and murmuring to himself, as he did so, "This is very strange!"
As he spoke, he drew forth from his breast the key which had been given him on the preceding night by Franklin Gray, and put it in the lock, but did not turn it, though it fitted exactly. He withdrew it again almost instantly, and replaced it in his bosom, then folded his arms upon his chest, and took one or two turns up and down the room, pausing at every second step, and gazing thoughtfully upon the floor.
By the time he had been half-an-hour in this state of confinement, he heard a key placed in the lock of the door by which he had entered. In another moment it opened, and the tall, stately figure of Mistress Bertha appeared. In one hand she carried several books, and in the other some writing paper, with a small inkhorn suspended on her finger. She shut the door after her, but did not attempt to lock it; and then laying down the books and implements for writing on the table, she turned round and gazed fixedly in Langford's face.
"Have we ever met before?" she said at length, "Your face is familiar to me. It comes back like something seen in a dream. Have we ever met before?"
"If we have," replied Langford, "it must have been many years ago, when the face of the child was very different from the face of the man."
She still gazed at him, and after a considerable pause said, "I have brought you some books that you may read, and wherewithal to write if you like it. In return for this write me down your name."
Langford smiled, and, taking up the pen, wrote down his name in a bold free hand. The woman gazed at him as he did so, then carried her eye rapidly to the writing. A bright and intelligent smile shone for a moment upon her thin pale lip; and she said, "Enough! enough! that is quite enough. You have been taught to believe that I have wronged you more than I really have; and although I have given you much good counsel and much true information, you have doubted and have not fully trusted me. I tell you now, and I tell you truly, that I have not wronged you, at least as far as my knowledge of right and wrong goes, and therefore I am still willing to do all that I can to serve you. The history of the past I may tell you at some future time, and I will show you that I wronged others less than they thought I did. But there is one whom I will not name, who has wronged you and yours deeply; and I know his nature--I know human nature too well not to be sure that implacable hatred and constant persecution is the offspring of such acts, rather than sorrow, remorse, and atonement. It was on that account that I bade you never come here. It was on that account that I bade you fly his presence. Fate, however, has brought you here at a moment when the mortal agony at losing the only creature he really loved may yet tame his fierce heart and bend his iron will. I can do but little for you, for I am bound by an oath--an oath which has bound me for many years; but fate, which has brought you here, and has wrought an extraordinary thing in your behalf, may yet do much. I will leave it to its course. But with regard to your own conduct, beware! I warn you to beware. Choose well your moment, and of all things be not hasty. But hark, what is that I hear below? There are his horses' feet, and I must leave you. Thank God, those idiot justices are gone."
"Yet one moment," said Langford, as she turned to depart: "I may have thought that you wronged me and mine, but I have not doubted--I have not suspected you, as you suppose. On the contrary, in many things, as you may have seen, I have followed your advice--in others, that of one whom I was more strictly bound to confide in."
"Ay, and it was she who taught you to believe--it was she who was weak enough to believe herself, that I had been guilty of that which I would scorn."
"No!" exclaimed Langford--"No! You mistake: she never did believe you guilty. She owned, that once, in a moment of anger, she implied so; but she did you justice in that respect through the whole of her life. She told me more than once, too, that she had herself seen you, and assured you, that she did not doubt you, as you imagined--that anger, having passed away, justice and right judgment had returned."
"But all her words were cold," said Bertha, "and all her letters had something of restraint in them."
"Consider her situation," said Langford in return; "and remember that she had some cause to blame, as yourself acknowledged; though, in regard to other things, she might have done you injustice."
"She did bitter injustice to herself," replied the woman, "and drove me to attach myself to others, though I would fain have attached myself to her; and, having done so, would have served her with my heart's blood;--but I must not linger; I will see you again, ere long--farewell!" and thus saying, she left him, locking the door behind her.
Langford had not been left five minutes alone ere the sound of voices of persons rapidly approaching caught his ear. At first he imagined that they proceeded from the side by which he himself had entered; but the moment after he became convinced that they came from the direction of the other door, which, as he justly supposed, communicated with a staircase in one of the large buttresses. At first, of course, the sounds were indistinct, but, a moment after, a key was placed in the lock, and a loud, deep voice was heard exclaiming, "I will stop for nothing till I have seen him face to face! Where is this murderer of my son?"
The door was thrown violently open before these words were fully spoken, and the Earl of Danemore himself stood before the prisoner.
He was a tall, handsome, powerful man, wide-chested, broad-shouldered, and still very muscular, without being at all corpulent. He might be sixty-three or sixty-four years of age, and his hair was snowy white. His eyebrows, however, and his eyelashes, both of which were long and full, were as black as night. There was many a long, deep furrow on his brow, and a sort of scornful, but habitual wrinkle between the nostril of the strong aquiline nose and the corner of his mouth. On his right cheek appeared a deep scar, round, and of about the size of a pistol-ball; and on the chin, was a longer scar, cutting nearly from the lip down into the throat and neck. He was dressed in a suit of plain black velvet, with the large riding boots and heavy sword, which were common about fifteen or sixteen years before the period of which we now speak, but which were beginning by this time to go out of fashion.
On entering the room, his teeth were hard set together, his brow contracted till the large thick eyebrows almost met, and his whole air fierce and agitated. His quick eyes darted round the room in a moment, and alighted upon Langford, who turned and faced him at once.
The moment, however, that their looks met, a strange and sudden change came over the whole appearance of Lord Danemore. He paused abruptly, and stood still in the middle of the room, gazing in Langford's face, while the frown departed from his brow, and he raised his hand towards his head, passing it twice before his eyes, as if he fancied that some delusion had affected his sight. His lips opened as if he would have spoken, but for a moment or two no sounds issued forth; and the calm, quiet, steady gaze with which Langford regarded him seemed to trouble and agitate him.
"What is your name? what is your name?" he exclaimed rapidly, when he could speak. "Who brought you here?"
"My name is Henry Langford," replied the prisoner--"an officer, in the service of his majesty; and if you seriously ask, my lord--for I suppose, I have the honour of speaking to the Earl of Danemore--if you seriously ask who brought me hither, I have only to reply two very silly persons calling themselves magistrates, who have entertained or rather manufactured, amongst themselves a charge against me for which there is not the slightest foundation."
"Henry Langford! Henry Langford!" repeated the Earl, casting his eyes on the ground, and then raising them again to Langford's face, every line and feature of which he seemed to scan with anxious care. "Pray of what family are you?"
"My father," replied Langford, "was a gentleman of some property in England, of which property, however, I have been unjustly deprived;" and as he spoke, he fixed his eyes steadfastly upon the Earl; but that nobleman's countenance underwent no change, and he proceeded--"My mother was also a lady of some property----"
"Where were you born?" demanded the Earl, quickly.
"Though your questions are rather unceremonious, my lord, for a perfect stranger," Langford replied, "I will not scruple to answer them. I was born in a small town in this country."
"Not in France?" demanded the Earl, quickly. "I do not ask without a motive--not in France? Are you certain it was not in France?"
"Perfectly certain," replied Langford. "My mother's family, however, were French--related to the illustrious family of Beaulieu."
"So," said the Earl, "so! How nearly are you related to that family?--are you sure not in France?"
"Quite certain," replied Langford. "I have lived much in France, which may have given me some slight foreign accent; and as to my relationship to the Beaulieus, I can really hardly tell how near. I have only heard my mother say that she was nearly related to them."
"It cannot be! It cannot be!" said the Earl, drooping his head, and looking down upon the ground. "Is your mother living?"
A cloud came over Langford's brow: "She is not," he said.
The Earl again seemed interested. "How long has she been dead?" he asked.
"About two years," Langford replied, and thereupon the Earl once more shook his head, saying, "It cannot be. You are very like the late Marquis of Beaulieu," he added--"extremely like; and though circumstances have compelled me to discontinue my acquaintance with that family, I knew the Marquis once, and loved him well. I could have almost fancied that you were his son, and for his sake I cannot regard you with any other eyes than those of kindness. But yet what do I say?" he continued, while his brow again grew dark. "They tell me you have murdered my son, my only son. How strange, if the son of the man who had so nearly killed the father, should, five-and-twenty years after, have slain the son!"
"You forget, my lord, and you mistake altogether," replied Langford. "In the first place, I am not the son of the Marquis of Beaulieu; and, in the next place, I assure you most solemnly by all I hold dear--I pledge you my honour as a gentleman and a soldier, and my oath as a Christian and a man--that I have had no more share in this unfortunate event than you have."
"I would willingly believe you," answered the Earl, "most willingly, for yours is a countenance from which I have been accustomed to expect nothing but truth and honour. Yet why do these men accuse you? Why, if there be not proof as strong as truth itself why do they dare to bring an accusation against one of your high house? Oh, young man! young man! if you have slain him by fraud or villany, I will take vengeance of you by making you the public spectacle, and giving you up to the rope and scaffold: chains shall hang about you even in your death, and your bones shall whiten in the wind. But, if you have slain him foot to foot and hand to hand, you shall meet a father's vengeance in another way. Ay! old as I am, I will take your heart's blood, and you shall find that this arm has lost nothing of its skill and but little of its strength. You shall learn what a father's arm can do when heavy with the sword of the avenger!"
"Once more, my lord," replied Langford, calmly, "I assure you that I am perfectly innocent. I assure you that, neither fairly and openly, nor covertly and treacherously, have I had aught to do with your son's death. The sole ground for suspicion against me has been what I will not conceal from you, my lord, that, upon a slight quarrel between us, he drew his sword upon me, in the park of Sir Walter Herbert."
"Ay, Sir Walter Herbert!" exclaimed the peer, with a bitter sneer; "the pitiful old fool! He and his fair dainty daughter, Mistress Alice, they would none of my son, would they not? He shall pay for it in prison, and she shall see him rot before her eyes. Ay, now I guess how it all is. She has found a lover in fair Master Henry Langford, has she? and he has murdered a rival who might have proved troublesome. They shall answer for it, they shall answer for it! Ho! below there!" he continued, approaching the door. "Bring me up the papers which those two knights left!"
Langford suffered him to proceed with the wild and rapid starts to which the vehemence of his passions led him; but when he paused, the prisoner took up the conversation, saying, "I was about to tell you, my lord, that your son did seek a quarrel with me; did draw his sword upon me; did try to induce me to follow his example, but in vain."
"What!" interrupted the peer, "did you refuse to fight him? How was that? a soldier, and a man of your race?"
"I did refuse to fight him, my lord," replied Langford, "for particular reasons of my own. I have had many opportunities of showing that fear forms no part of my nature, and I am not at all apprehensive of ever being mistaken for a coward."
He spoke with a calm and easy dignity, slightly throwing back his head, while the fine formed nostril expanded with a sense of honourable pride. The Earl gazed upon him attentively, the angry fire that had been in his eyes gradually subsiding as he did so, and he repeated more than once, in a low voice, "So like! So strangely like!"
At that moment, with the rapidity of one accustomed to obey the orders of a quick and imperious master, a servant appeared bringing in the bundle of papers which contained the evidence collected against Langford at Moorhurst. The Earl cast himself into a chair, spread the papers out upon the table, and ran his eye rapidly over them, one after another. Langford had also seated himself, and watched the proceedings of the Earl attentively, though neither of them spoke for some minutes.
When the Earl had done, he looked up in the prisoner's face, and, after pausing with a thoughtful air for several moments, he said, "This is a case of suspicion against you, but nothing more. I, myself, the person most interested, cannot make more of it; and from what I see of you, from your face and from your family, I will add that I do not believe you guilty."
"My lord, you do me justice," replied Langford, "and it makes me right glad to see you so inclined. There was an old custom which was not without its value, for human nature cannot be wholly mastered even by the most consummate art; and I am now willing to recur to that old custom, to give you further proof that you judge rightly of me. Let me be taken to the room where your poor son lies. I will place my hand upon his heart, and swear to my innocence. I do not suppose, my lord, that the blood would flow again, if I were culpable; but I do believe, that no man conscious of such a crime as murder, could perform that act without betraying by his countenance the guilty secret within him. I am ready to perform it before any persons that you choose to appoint."
"Are you not aware," demanded the Earl, sternly, "that the body has not been found?"
"Good God:" exclaimed Langford, his whole face brightening in a moment, "then, perhaps he is living yet. This is the most extraordinary tale that ever yet was told--a man arrested--accused--well nigh condemned for the murder of another who is probably alive. A thousand to one he is still alive! Oh, my lord be comforted, be comforted!"
"You deceive yourself, young man," replied the Earl, with a melancholy shake of the head, "you deceive yourself. His death is but too clearly proved. His white horse returned last night alone, with his own neck and the saddle stained with blood. The road by Upwater Mere was found drenched with gore--with my child's gore! and his cloak was found amongst the beeches hard by, pierced on the left side with a pistol shot, which must have been fired close to his bosom, for the wadding had burnt the silk. It, too, was stiff with blood. There were traces of several horses' feet about, but no trace of where the body had been carried, though I myself--I, his father--have spent several hours in seeking the slightest vestige that might direct me. Doubtless it is thrown into the mere," and as he spoke he covered his eyes with his hands, and remained for several minutes evidently overpowered with deep emotion, against which he struggled strongly but in vain.
Langford, too, was moved, and after having waited in silence for several minutes, in the hope that the agitation which his companion suffered would pass away, he ventured to address some words of comfort to Lord Danemore; saying "I am deeply grieved, my lord, that you have such cause for apprehension, but still I cannot help hoping that all these causes for believing the worst may prove fallacious, and that your son may yet be restored to you."
"No, no, sir, no!" replied the Earl, "I will not deceive myself, nor do I wish to be deceived. Such evidence is too clear. I am not a child or a woman, that I cannot bear any lot assigned to me. I can look my fate in the face, however dark and frowning its brow may be, and say to it, 'Thou has but power to a certain degree, over my mind thou canst not triumph, and even whilst thou wringest my heart and leavest my old age desolate, I can defy thee still!'"
Langford bent down his eyes upon the ground, and did not reply for several minutes. He did not approve the spirit in which those words were spoken, but yet it was not his task to rebuke or to admonish, and when he did reply, he again sought to instil hope.
"Your lordship says," he observed at length, "that the evidence is too clear. It is certainly clear enough to justify great and serious apprehensions, but not to take away hope, or to impede exertion. I remember having heard of an instance which occurred in far distant climates, where the causes for supposing a person dead were much more conclusive than in the present instance. A sailor had left the ship to which he belonged, and wandered on shore in a place infested with pirates. He did not return. Boats were sent after him, and in tracing the course of one of the rivers up which he was supposed to have taken his way, his clothes were found bloody, torn, and cut with the blows of a sword: a leathern purse, which he was known to have carried full of money, was found further on, devoid of its contents; and further still, a mangled and mutilated body, in which almost all his comrades declared they recognised his corpse; and yet, three years after that, he rejoined the ship to which he belonged, having made his escape from the party of robbers by whom he had been taken. The body which had been found was that of another man, though the clothes and the purse undoubtedly were his own."
While he spoke, the Earl turned deadly pale, gazed upon him for a moment or two with a straining eye, then suddenly started up, and without a word of reply quitted the room.
Langford at first seemed surprised, but smiled slightly as he saw him go: then calmly sat down at the table, took up the papers which the Earl had left behind him, read over the evidence against himself, and wrote in the margin a number of observations, wherever any strained or unjust conclusion seemed to have been drawn by the magistrates. He had been occupied in this manner about an hour, when the Earl again made his appearance. His manner was very different from what it had been on the previous occasion. There was a want of that fierce energy which had before characterised it; there was a doubtfulness, a hesitation, and a vagueness, quite opposed to the keen, sharp decision of his former demeanour. He treated Langford more as an acquaintance, more even as a friend, than as a prisoner. Two or three times he spoke of the chances of his son being still alive, and referred vaguely to the story which Langford had told him, but then darted off suddenly to something else.
At length, however, he took up the papers on which the other had commented, and, without noticing the observations that he had written, said it was unjust, upon a case where there was nothing made out against him but suspicion, that he should be detained as a close prisoner. "If, therefore," he said, "you will give me your word not to attempt to make your escape, the doors shall be thrown open to you; this chamber and the next shall be your abode for the time, though they should have put you somewhere else, for this room is appropriated to me. Here," he continued, in a thoughtful and abstracted tone, "when I wish to think over all the crowded acts of a long, eventful, and constantly changing life, I come and sit, where no sound interrupts me but the twittering of the swallow, as it skims past my windows. Here I can people the air with the things, and beings, and deeds of the past, without the empty crowd of the insignificant living breaking in upon my solitude, and sweeping away the thinner but more thrilling creations called up by memory. I know not how it is, young gentleman, that there is scarcely any one but you whom I could have borne patiently to see in this chamber; but your countenance seems connected with those days to which this room is dedicated. There is a resemblance, a strong and touching resemblance, to several persons long dead; and that likeness calls up again to my mind many a vision of my youthful days--days, between which and the dark present, lies a gulf of fiery passions, sorrows, and regrets. I know not wherefore they put you here, or who dared to do it, but it is strange that, being here, you seem to my eyes the only fit tenant of this chamber except myself. Here I sit and read the letters of dead friends--here I sit and ponder over the affections and the hatreds, the hopes, the fears, the wrath, the enjoyment, the sorrow, the remorse of the past; here often do I sit and gaze upon the pictures of those I loved in former times--of the dead, and the changed, and the alienated; of persons who, when those pictures were painted, never thought that there could come a change upon them, or upon me, either in the bodily or the mental frame; never dreamed of the mattock, and the grave, and the coffin, and the slow curling worm that has long since revelled in their hearts; no, nor of fierce and fiery contention, envy, jealousy, rivalry, hatred, the death of bright affection, and the burial of every warm and once living hope. Here am I still wont to gaze upon their pictures, and I know not how it is, but it seems to me as if your face were amongst them."
"I fear me, my lord," said Langford, "that those endowed with strong feelings and strong passions are most frequently like children with a box of jewels, squandering precious things without knowing their value, and gaining in exchange but gauds and baubles, the paint and tinsel of which is soon brushed off, leaving us nothing but regret. There is no time of life, however, I believe, at which we may not recover some of the jewels which we have cast away, if we but seek for them rightly; and I know no means likely to be more successful than that which you take in tracing back your steps through the past."
"It is a painful contemplation," said Lord Danemore, "and I fear that in the dim twilight of age, let me trace back my steps as closely as I will, I am not likely to find again many of the jewels that I scattered from me in the full daylight of youth."
"Perhaps, my lord," replied Langford, "you might, if you were to take a light. However," he added, seeing a look of impatience coming upon the Earl, "I am much obliged to you for your offer of a partial kind of freedom. I never loved to have a door locked between me and the rest of the world; and I willingly promise you to make no attempt to escape during the whole of this day, for of course my promise must have a limit. In the course of that day, you will most likely be able to procure further information in regard to this sad affair; and I do trust and hope that it may be such as may relieve your bosom from the apprehensions which now oppress you."
"I must exact your promise for two days," said the Earl; "for I have sent to tell those two foolish men who brought you here, that I cannot deal with them to-day, and have bidden them, in consequence of what you have said, though with but little hope, to cause search of every kind to be made through the country round. There are one or two questions, also, which I would fain ask you, but I will not do it now; yet I know not why I should not; but no, not now! Have I your promise?"
"You have," replied Langford.
And the Earl, after pausing and hesitating a moment or two longer, quitted him by the chief entrance, leaving the doors open behind him. "There is but one thing I ask of you," added the Earl, as he turned to depart; "should you leave these two rooms, lock the door of the one in which you now are till you return, for I do not suffer the feet of ordinary servants to profane it."
When Langford was alone, he paused for a moment or two to think over his situation; and then, with a natural desire to use the freedom that had been given him, opened the door of the chamber in which he had been placed, and proceeded through the bed-room beyond, to the head of the staircase. Remembering the Earl's request to lock the door, he turned back to do so, and when he again approached the stairs, the voice of some one singing below rose to his ear. The tone in which the singer poured forth his ditty was low, but after listening for a moment, Langford recognised the voice of the poor half-witted man, John Graves, and a sudden hope of finding means of clearing himself by the aid of that very person struck him. He descended the stairs slowly, and at the bottom of the first flight found the wanderer sitting on the lower step, with his head hanging down in an attitude of dejection; laying his hand upon his shoulder, Langford caused him to start up suddenly and turn round.
"Ah, Master Harry!" cried the man, in one of his saner moods, "is that you? It is you I came to see. I heard they had taken you up, and locked you up here, and I came to see if I could help you, for you have always been kind and generous to me; and then, if I could not help you, I could sing you a song, and that would do you good, you know; I always said you ought to have your rights, you know; but I must not say so here, or they will scold me, as they did before."
"Come up hither with me, John," said Langford; "I believe that you can help me, if you will. But how came you here? Do they suffer you knowingly to wander about the house in this manner?"
"Not as far as this," replied the man, laughing; "not as far as this. They would soon drive me down if they saw me above the grand stairs. But about the passages below they never mind me. Only I sometimes creep up, and find my way about all the rooms, and if I hear a step, hide behind a window-curtain. It is no later than last night that I and another--but I must not speak of that. Never you mind, Master Harry, you will have your rights still."
"Perhaps so, John," answered Langford, "though I do not think you well know what my rights are. However, now follow me up here." Thus saying, he led the way to the apartments which had been assigned to him, followed quickly by the madman, whose step was as noiseless and stealthy as if he had been going to murder the sleeping. When he saw Langford approach the door of the inner room, he cast an anxious and furtive glance towards the top of the stairs, and listened, and as soon as the lock was turned and the entrance free, he ran in and closed it after him, looking straight towards one of the small cupboards in the wall, saying, "There! there! Be quick, for fear some one should come!"
Langford gazed on him with some surprise, and then replied, "You know more of these matters than I thought you did. However, you mistake. I want you merely to bear a letter and a message for me."
"But the papers! the papers!" exclaimed the other. "Are you not going to take the papers?"
"No!" exclaimed Langford. "Certainly not by stealth, John."
"Then it is you that are mad," replied his companion; "and they have mistaken me for you. I will go and make affidavit of it."
"I should not hold myself justified in taking them stealthily," replied Langford. "Perhaps ere I quit this house I may claim them boldly; and some time or another I must make you tell me how you know so much of matters I thought secret; but time is wanting now, and we may be interrupted. I have some reason to think that, if you will, you can find out for me a person called Franklin Gray."
"Can I find him out?" said the madman. "Ay, that I can; in two hours I can be with him."
"Will you bear a message from me to him?" demanded Langford, "without forgetting a word of it, and without telling a word to any one else?"
"That I will joyfully," replied the other; "I never forget--I wish I could--it is that turns me mad--I remember too well; and I will tell nothing though they should put me to the torture. I always tell truth if I tell anything; but I can hold my tongue."
"Well then," said Langford, "tell Franklin Gray for me, that I am kept a prisoner here on a charge of shooting poor Lord Harold. If he be shot, I entertain but few doubts in regard to who it was that did it: and I ask Franklin Gray, in honour and in memory of our old companionship, to give me the means of clearing and delivering myself."
"Franklin Gray shot him not," replied the madman; "that I know full well. Franklin and I are friends; don't you know that, Master Harry? For a fox, he is the best of foxes! But I'll do as you tell me, however."
"I know he did not shoot him," answered Langford: "I am as sure of that as you are. Nevertheless, carry him my message. But hold," he said, seeing the man turning abruptly to depart, "I will write a few lines to good Sir Walter Herbert, which I shall be glad if you will give into his hands, or into the hands of his daughter."
The half-witted man signified his willingness to do anything that Langford told him; and sitting down at the table, that gentleman wrote a few lines to Sir Walter Herbert, briefly explaining to him his situation, and begging him, in case of his being detained beyond the close of the subsequent day, to take measures to ensure that justice was done him. This epistle he had no means of sealing, and merely folding it up in the form of a letter, he put it into the hands of his hair-brained messenger, and suffered him to depart.