It was night again, nearly approaching to midnight, and the Earl of Danemore sat alone in the small dark wainscotted room immediately beneath the chamber which had been assigned to the prisoner. More than once he had called his attendants to ask impatiently if the lawyer had returned, and as the clock in the great hall struck eleven without his appearance, he ordered several of the servants to go out in different directions to seek him, forbidding them to return without bringing word of where he was, and what had been the result of his proceedings during the day.
Solitude, a quick imagination, violent passions, and dangerous designs, all combined to produce a state of anxiety and impatience bordering upon phrensy. Now he sat with his head leaning on his hand, gazing expectantly at the door; now he strode up and down with his arms crossed upon his chest, and his bosom full of deep but rapid thoughts; now he paused and listened either to the footsteps of the prisoner above, as with a calmer and less irregular stride, Langford paced up and down in the room above, or to the sighing of the strong wind as it whistled round and round the high tower in which both chambers were situated.
At length, after having listened to the steps for some time, and then gazed intently on the ground in deep meditation, he seemed to be seized by a sudden resolution, and advanced at once to the door which opened on the stairs leading to the apartments above.
"I will go up to him!" he said: "I will confront him boldly! I will speak over the whole theme! I will dare every painful subject! He shall not say that I feared to encounter anything, or to grapple with any enemy, amongst the living or the dead. He shall never say that I was a coward in thought, or word, or deed, or that I feared boldly to meet aught that could be urged against me. I will go, and brow to brow, tell him what he has brought upon his head."
His first steps up the stairs were rapid and vehement; those that followed were more slow; and at the door of Langford's room he paused once more and thought. As he did so pause, he could distinctly hear the prisoner cast himself somewhat heavily into a chair, hum a few words of an old ballad, and, as it were, seduced by the music, go on with the song in a louder tone, and with a clear, mellow, and not uncultivated voice. He sang one of the sweet and simple airs of Lulli, which had a touch of melancholy, mingling, one scarcely knew how or where, with the general cheerfulness of the strain; but the English words which were adapted to it were even more gay than the music.
Strange to say, however, Langford thought not at all of the words that he was singing; nay, nor of the music itself. While he did sing his thoughts were busy, deeply busy, upon other things; and the music was but a mechanical application of the animal part of his nature to the sweetest of all arts, in order to obtain some soothing and tranquillizing power to calm his spirit ere he lay down to rest.
SONG.The dew is on each leaf and flower,The sky is full of light;Beauty and brightness mark the hourThat parts the day and night.Wake up! wake up! my own sweet love!Raise up those beaming eyes,To find an answering look above--An image in the skies.The lark! the lark! thine own sweet lark.Pours forth his thrilling lay;And all that's cold, and all that's dark,Fly from the porch of day.Wake up! wake up! my own sweet love;Raise up those beaming eyes,To find an answering look above--An image in the skies.There's music ready for thine ear,There's perfume on the breeze;Wake up and add to all that's dear,What's dearer than all these.Wake up! wake up! my own sweet love!Raise up those beaming eyes,To find an answering look above--An image in the skies.
The dew is on each leaf and flower,
The sky is full of light;
Beauty and brightness mark the hour
That parts the day and night.
Wake up! wake up! my own sweet love!
Raise up those beaming eyes,
To find an answering look above--
An image in the skies.
The lark! the lark! thine own sweet lark.
Pours forth his thrilling lay;
And all that's cold, and all that's dark,
Fly from the porch of day.
Wake up! wake up! my own sweet love;
Raise up those beaming eyes,
To find an answering look above--
An image in the skies.
There's music ready for thine ear,
There's perfume on the breeze;
Wake up and add to all that's dear,
What's dearer than all these.
Wake up! wake up! my own sweet love!
Raise up those beaming eyes,
To find an answering look above--
An image in the skies.
According to the differences of our natures, there is for each man's heart a key, as it were, to be found in some one of the senses. With one man it is the grosser sense of the palate, and the things that he has tasted--the cup that he has drunk in particular lands and scenes, will, when again met with, carry back the mind to earlier days, and the feelings thereof, the affections, the hopes, the fears, will crowd upon him like phantoms from the grave, conjured up by objects that seem to have no apparent connexion with them.
To some, again, certain sweet odours, the perfume of a flower, or the mingled sweetness of the morning's breath, will have the same effect. While to a few, the sight of some peculiar effect of light and shade, and to others a strain of music, a tone of voice, the carol of a bird, or the living hum of morning, will call up scenes long past, reawaken memories and affections that have slumbered for years, and give us back the gentleness of our youth. But when the chord of association is thus struck, let the sensations produced be joyful or melancholy, there is something in the first bursting forth of the past upon the present--there is something in the rapid drawing back of the dim curtain of years from between our actual feelings and the feelings long lost, too thrilling to be experienced without deep emotion; and our natural impulse is to melt in tears.
The Earl stood and listened while Langford sang; and the deep mellow tone of his voice, the well-remembered air of Lulli--the words which, though he heard them not distinctly, he knew by heart--all served to unchain the long-fettered feelings of his better days; the stern heart was bent, the proud, impetuous, revengeful spirit was softened for the moment, and the old man's eyes glistened with unwonted dew. It lasted but for a moment. Habit and circumstance re-assumed their sway; and, with a slight stamp of the foot, he drew up his head, which had been bent down under the influence of manifold emotions, and entered the room in which the prisoner sat.
Langford turned in some surprise to discover who it was that came to visit him at so late an hour, and his astonishment was not diminished on perceiving the Earl, who advanced into the room with a brow contracted even more than usual, by the angry effort he had made to conquer what he believed to be the weakness of his own heart. He paused for a moment on the side of the table opposite to Langford, gazing at him sternly but silently, as if scarcely prepared to begin the explanation he had sought.
Langford returned his glance calmly and gently, flinching not the least beneath his eye, but gazing in return with a look expressive rather of inquiry than of any other feeling. At length, as the Earl still continued silent, he spoke, saying, "Your lordship, I conclude, has something to communicate to me, and I fear from your countenance that it is not of a pleasant nature. I am very glad, however, that you have come, as there is one subject on which it is necessary that I should speak to you, and I am led to believe that the moments in which I can do so are drawing to a close."
"You do well to believe so, sir," replied the Earl; "the moments in which any communication can take place between us are, as you say, drawing to a close; they are few and short. You are right also in supposing that I have something to tell you, otherwise I should not have sought you. What I have to tell, however, requires but few words; it is,that I know you."
"I am glad to hear it, my lord," replied Langford, with perfect calmness, "as, if you really do know me, you will know, as I believe you do know, that the charge brought against me is false, if not absurd. But in the first instance it will be better to show me that you really do know me."
The Earl gazed upon him with his keen large eyes full of meaning, and then demanded, "Before you ever entered these gates, have you not twice written to me?"
"I have," replied Langford.
"Twice," continued the Earl, "you have demanded that to which you have no right; and now the object of your coming hither is not less clearly known to me than all your former proceedings. But in a word, I ask you, is not your name of Langford a false one? Are you not he whom men call the Chevalier of Beaulieu?"
"I am," replied Langford; "but as your lordship has accused me of demanding that to which I have no right, let me reply at once that I have a right, the strongest and the greatest! Has not every member of a noble family a right, to demand that any unjust stain cast thereon should be removed? Have not I, especially, charged as I was by the dying breath of my noble relation, the Marquis of Beaulieu, never to cease my exertions to recover the means of taking a stain from our honour--have not I, especially, a right, I say, to demand those papers at your hands, which afford the only possible method of doing so?"
"I say no!" replied the Earl, sternly: "I say, no! Even if the papers whereof you speak existed, I say--"
But Langford interrupted him more vehemently than he had ever before spoken, "My lord," he said, "those papers do exist, or you have not only broken your most solemn vow, but your plighted word of honour as a gentleman. Your vow, my lord, you perhaps might break, for in one instance at least you did break it, and a noble heart along with it; but I would not believe you to be the being who would forfeit your plighted honour--no, not to gain a kingdom! Unsay those words which cast so foul a doubt, if not an imputation upon you! and let me know, that though in the current of your fiery passions you may not have scrupled to wring the hearts and destroy the hopes of others, do not leave me to believe that you have deliberately pledged your word and then have broken it. No, no! my lord, I know that those papers are not destroyed!"
The traces of contending passions came over the countenance of Lord Danemore like the shadows of dark clouds carried over the landscape by a rapid wind; and while Langford spoke, it seemed sometimes as if he felt inclined to strike him to the earth--sometimes as if a strange and unwilling admiration took possession of him, and restrained his anger. "You are a bold and daring man," he said, in reply; "but you have spoken the truth. The papers are not destroyed, though I do not admit their contents to be such as you may imagine."
"Thank you, my lord; thank you," replied Langford, earnestly; "thank you for clearing yourself from the painful doubt in which you involved your character. Though you may have bitterly wronged my family, still I take a deeper interest than you know in seeing your honour pure, in this respect at least. In regard to the papers," he continued, with a slight change of tone, "if they were not such as I believe, you could have no reasonable objection to give them to me. If they are such as I believe, they are necessary to the honour of my family; and, deputed as I am by every member of that family to claim them at your hands, I demand them--not as a concession, but as a right. But, at the same time, I offer now, as I offered before, to pledge myself, in order to remove all evil and dangerous consequences to yourself, that those papers shall never be made public in England--shall only be so far recorded in France as to clear the honour of our race, and then utterly destroyed."
A scornful and bitter smile came upon the lip of the Earl, as he whom we shall still call Langford, uttered these words. "You are mistaken," he replied, sternly; "you are altogether mistaken. I trust myself in the power of no one; and even the very words that you uttered yesterday have put between you and me a barrier which can never be passed."
"I know not to what words your lordship alludes," replied Langford. "Nothing that I have said, nothing that I have done, ought to put any such barrier between us. Most careful have I been, in no respect, either in conversation with yourself or others, to cast an imputation upon you."
"It may be so," replied the Earl; "it may be so; but nevertheless, clearly and distinctly, I refuse you those papers. Now, sir," he continued, with the same bitter smile; "now, sir, use your threats. Now, sir, let me know what tale you will tell if I do not accede to your demands. Now, sir, let me know whether you and yours will travel to Florida to seek for matter against me!"
"Your lordship is altogether wrong," replied Langford. "That I know your history well in every particular and in every point is true, but that I will divulge any part of it that might do you injury, except that part which it is necessary to the honour of our race should be divulged, is not only far from my intention, but never should take place, even if your lordship should continue your refusal to give up those papers, and to do the act of justice that is demanded at your hands."
"Indeed!" exclaimed the Earl, pondering; "indeed! then why did you refer to matters which should be buried in the deep silence of long-gone years?"
"Accident had some share in my so doing," replied Langford, "and a wish to lead your mind back to the past had also a part therein. But at once to show you, my lord, that I am inclined to take no advantage, and to pursue my course as uprightly and honourably as possible, let me now tell you that I not only know of the existence of those papers, but know also well where they are preserved, and could while here have made myself master of them at once, had I been inclined to take that by private means which I demand openly!"
As he spoke he pointed to the small carved door in the oak panelling, and the Earl's eyes followed the direction of his hand, but with no expression of surprise.
His lip, at the same time, curled with a bitter sneer, and he replied at once: "I am not inclined to believe in the communication of miraculous knowledge to any of us poor mortals now-a-days, and therefore doubt not that your information has been derived from some source less than supernatural. There is in this house, sir, a woman called Bertha, brought up by the family of Beaulieu from her youth, and retaining for them still a deep veneration and regard, although a quarrel with one of that race induced her to quit them and enter into my service. The attachment that she showed to myself and my family through many years have taught me to trust her deeply; but when I found that she placed, on the idle pretext of greater security, a stranger accused of dark crimes in a chamber reserved entirely for myself, I began to doubt her;--when, added to that, I found that she held frequent private conferences with him, my doubts increased: and when I found that she brought others to communicate with him contrary to my expressed will, my doubts grew into certainties."
"Under such circumstances," replied Langford, fixing his eyes inquiringly upon the Earl's countenance--"under such circumstances you have of course discharged that woman from your service?"
"Not so, sir," replied the Earl; "not so. It may be my purpose to punish as well as to dismiss; but ere I do either, I shall take care to learn in what degree she has betrayed me. But to turn, sir, from your idle affectation of insight into my secrets to your equally empty boast of power, let me tell you, that though you may have been placed in a room reserved for years to myself, and though in that room all my most private papers may be preserved, you are as impotent to get possession of them as a blind man to tell the hour by the sun-dial."
"My lord, you are mistaken," replied Langford, calmly; "I am not so powerless in that respect as you imagine. I have had them now for two days at my will and pleasure to take or to leave. I have them now at my disposal; but I had determined to use all gentle and reasonable means first, to urge you by every persuasion to do justice, and only in the end to do myself right in your presence, and before your face. You have come now most opportunely, and I will not suffer the occasion to pass; but in the first instance let me once more entreat you to do a tardy act of justice, ere you force me to things most unpleasant to me."
The Earl had gazed upon him as he spoke with an expression of some surprise and doubt; so tranquilly confident was the tone and manner of one whom he had believed to be entirely in his power. At the last words, however, his brow gathered again into a frown; and he replied, "I am not to be menaced sir; I tell you, you shall never have them; and such menace puts them further from your reach than ever."
"My lord, I use no menaces," replied Langford; "my wish, my only wish, is to persuade. Oh, consider, sir! Here you now stand at the verge of age, touching upon that cold season when the only consolation for declining years, the wintry sunshine of our being's close, is a clear conscience and the memory of good deeds. If, alas! you are deprived of the power of looking back upon many such actions--nay, hear me out. If there be in the past much that is painful, much that you would fain forget, much that can never be repaired, remember, oh remember! that what cannot be repaired may often be atoned. Thus, in one instance at least, the means of atonement are in your own power, and to seize upon them in every instance is the only way to bring back even a portion of that calm serenity of heart which once you knew in days of innocence, but which I feel too sure has long departed from your bosom."
"Sir, I never knew it," burst forth the Earl; "my life has been made up of passions and regrets; and as it began, so shall it close."
"Oh no, my lord! oh no!" cried Langford; "let it not be so! I must wring your heart, but I trust it may be in some degree to heal it. You lately had a son whom you loved deeply; for his sake, I believe you have persisted for years in a course of injustice which the nobler part of your nature, I am sure, disavowed. My lord, he has been taken from you. The inducement to remain in wrong has been removed by the will of God, who therein has at once punished and opened the way to atonement. Let me beseech you, let me entreat of you, not to suffer this opportunity to pass by unnoticed. Do tardy justice, and instead of hardening yourself to crush and to injure one who could love you well, and against whom you can never succeed, think of what a satisfaction it will be to you, when from your own death-bed you look back and see that you have done all to repair a great wrong that you committed."
"And do you make the assassination of my son," demanded the Earl, "a plea for my gratifying one who is accused of murdering him?"
"My lord, I have taken it for granted throughout," replied Langford, "that you know me to be perfectly innocent of that deed. What I demand of you also, I have a right to demand. I ask you not to gratify me, but to do an act of justice; I ask of you to do honour to yourself, by taking away a stain from an honourable house that you have wronged."
"Right!" exclaimed the Earl, with one of his dark sneers, as if the recollection of something he had before intended to say came suddenly back upon him; "in what consists your right? and how have you any connexion with the honour of the family of Beaulieu? Do you suppose that I am blind or stupid? Answer me! If you are so near and honourably akin to the dead Marquis of Beaulieu, how are you not the heir of his title and estates? What right has his bastard to prate of the honour of his family?"
The blood rushed rapidly into Langford's cheek; his eye flashed, and his brow contracted; but it was only for a moment. With what was evidently a great effort, he mastered his own passions immediately, and replied, "The coarse term you have used is inapplicable to me, Lord Danemore. Your other question, as to why I have not succeeded, I could answer by a single word if I so pleased; and, did I feel as much assured of your son's death as you do, I would so answer it."
"Doubtless, doubtless!" exclaimed the Earl, impatiently; "everything can doubtless be explained if certainifsandbutsbe removed. But I tell you, sir, till they are removed, I shall listen to you no further, nor shall I detain you long, for I came to tell you what may be told in but few words. Mark me, young man! There are certain memories called up by your looks and by your voice which might have moved me to the weakness of sparing you, had you not been foolish enough to show me, that, like a winged insect which we are forced to crush, you can sting as well as buzz. You have yet to learn that I live in the fear of no man, and that when once any one has shown me that he may be dangerous to me, the struggle commences between us, which ends but with the life of the one or the other. There is already sufficient proof against you to bring you to the gibbet; more will not be wanting, or I am mistaken; but I would have you know that your fate is of your own seeking, and that when you and yours spied out and investigated the actions of my early life, you raised up the scaffold for yourself. To-morrow you will be taken hence; a gaol will then receive you. A public trial and public execution will be the end which you have obtained by measuring yourself against one who never yet failed in the accomplishment of that for which he strove."
As the Earl spoke he turned, as if to quit the apartment, but Langford, who had listened calmly and attentively, exclaimed, ere he laid his hand upon the door, "Stay yet one moment, my lord; our conference is not finished yet. With regard to your urging against me an accusation which you know to be false, either from motives of hatred, revenge, or fear, you will reconcile that to your own conscience as you can. You will fail in your attempt: but if you did succeed, you would pile upon your head coals of fire which would consume your very heart to ashes! The matter on which I now detain you isthese papers!I am not accustomed to say I will do what I cannot do; therefore when I told you that if you did not do justice I would with my own hand right myself and my family, I made no vain boast."
The Earl turned and gazed upon him, both in surprise and anger, but his rage and his astonishment were doubled when the prisoner took from His pocket the key, the easily-recognised key, which had been given to him by Franklin Gray upon the moor. Prompt, however, and decided in all his determinations, the Earl instantly raised his voice, and shouted in a tone of thunder to the servants whom he had that morning ordered to remain without.
"My lord," said Langford, "you raise your voice in vain. I have every reason to believe that the persons you placed there have been gone for more than an hour; and even if they were there still, those bolts and that lock would prevent them from entering. Of that I have taken care."
Even while he spoke, the Earl had strode across the room towards the outer door, muttering, "They will soon return;" but the key of the door between the two rooms, which had been left in the inside, was now gone, and after gazing upon lock and bolt with impotent rage for a moment, he turned fiercely towards the other door which led by the stairs in the turret down to his apartments below. Langford, however, had seized the moment, and casting himself in the way, was in the act of locking that door also, when the Earl turned towards it.
Lord Danemore instantly drew his sword; but Langford was not unarmed, as he had supposed. His own blade, which had been restored to him by the half-witted man, John Graves, was in his hand in a moment; but it was only to show himself prepared that he used it, for, waving the Earl back with his hand, he exclaimed, "My lord, do nothing rashly! Remember, you have to deal with a younger, stronger, more active man than yourself, and with one long accustomed to perils and dangers. Stand back, and answer me. Will you or will you not give up those papers by fair means, or must I take them myself?"
"I will never give them," replied the Earl; "I will never give them; though that vile and treacherous woman has not only betrayed my trust, but stolen from my private cabinet the key that you now hold; I will never give them; and if you take them, you shall take my blood first, and die for spilling it."
As he spoke, he placed himself, with his drawn sword still in his hand, between Langford and the small door in the wainscot.
Langford advanced upon him, but with the same degree of calm determination which, except during one brief moment, he had displayed throughout their whole conference. "My lord," he said, "you do the woman, Bertha, wrong. This key was not obtained from her. I beseech you to give way, for I am determined to use it."
"Not while you and I both live'" replied the Earl; and as he spoke, he made a sharp quick lunge at Langford's bosom. The other was prepared, however; his sword met that of the Earl in a moment, and parrying the lunge, he grappled with his adversary, and at the same moment wrenched the weapon from his grasp, and by an exertion of his great strength removed him from between himself and the door.
He had cast the sword he had mastered to the other side of the room, and the Earl seemed to hesitate for an instant as to whether he should spring forward to recover his weapon, or struggle with the prisoner to prevent him from obtaining the papers. He felt while he hesitated that the very hesitation was undignified. He felt too, perhaps, that either attempt would be vain; that he was in the presence of one superior to himself in bodily power, in activity, in energy; one equal to himself in courage, determination, promptitude; one who was what he had been when a youth, but with the grand superiority of mental dignity and conscious rectitude. He felt himself reproved and degraded but not humbled; and the natural movement proceeding from such sensations was to cross his arms on his broad chest, and stand with a look of dark defiance gleaming from beneath his long grey eyebrows; while Langford, taking the key in his right hand, and changing the sword into his left, stood, about to open the door which covered all those mysterious points of his history which he had so long concealed.
But, even then, his young companion paused. "Oh! my lord," he said, "I would fain have these papers with your own will and consent. Again, again, I ask you, now that you see I have the power to take them, will you give them to me? will you grant me that which is my right to demand? Oh! Lord Danemore, if you ever loved the race from which I spring--if ever human affection and natural tenderness affected your bosom--if ever you had sympathy with others--if ever the strongest passion of our nature touched your heart--I adjure you now, by the memory of the past, by the dark and awful circumstances of the present, by the frowning future, by the inevitable, interminable hereafter of weal or woe, to do that which you know to be right!--at this last, this fatal moment between you and me, to render justice to those whom you have wronged; to cast from your soul the burden of old guilt, and to make atonement for one out of the many dark deeds of the past!"
He gazed upon him sternly, fixedly, earnestly; and strong passion called up in the face of each a strange likeness of expression; but the whirlwind of their emotions was too strong for either to mark the clouds and shadows, the light, or the lightning, that passed over the countenance of the other. Urged into fury, thwarted, disappointed, foiled, the Earl had no longer any command over himself, and the only dignity that he could assume was that of disappointed scorn.
"Never, bastard!" he replied; "never! Take that which you can; secure that which is in your power! Fly, if you can fly! Use your advantage to the utmost, if it can be used; but I swear by Heaven and by Hell, by all that is sacred and by all that is accursed, to follow you henceforth and for ever, unto the gates of death; to devote life, and soul, and being, mind, and thought, and energy, corporeal power and worldly wealth and temporal influence, to your destruction; and never, never to cease, till the dark, dread, interminable gulf have swallowed up one or both."
Langford gazed at him with deep and intense earnestness; and while he did so, a thousand varied emotions, each painful but each different, flitted in expression across his countenance, and caused wavering irresolution to take the place of high and strong determination. As the Earl ended, however, the other looked at him for a moment fixedly, while the peer stood with his arms still crossed upon his chest, and a look of resolute, unchangeable purpose marked in every line of that dark but splendid countenance.
Emotions strong, but new and strange, overpowered his youthful adversary; and casting from him the sword which had successfully opposed him, and the key of all the treasured secrets of his opponent's eventful life, he sprang forward, as if with a sudden impulse which he could not resist, cast himself at the Earl's feet, and, looking up in his face, embraced his knees. The stern determination of the old man was shaken. Feelings equally new and strange took possession of his bosom also, and he strained his eyes upon the noble form of him who knelt before him, with sensations different from any that he had ever known in life.
At that moment, however, strange and unusual sounds made themselves heard from without. There were cries and screams, and the noise of many feet. Still kneeling, Langford gazed upon the Earl, and the Earl upon him; but ere one could ask the other what this meant, there was a violent rush against the outer door, as if by people propelled by terror. The bolts, the bars, the fastenings gave way, and half torn from the hinges, it burst into the room.
We must go back for a few hours. The sky was without a star, and a dull heavy darkness brooded over the face of the earth, as a strong party of horsemen--whose numbers and appearance might well banish all fears, and laugh to scorn all the tales of highwaymen and footpads with which the county of ---- then rang, took its way down the road which first led from the county town towards Danemore Castle, and thence passing under the walls of the park, proceeded to the little borough of Moorhurst.
The part of the road on which they were at the moment when we must first speak of them, passed between two high banks of sand rock, overtopped with trees and shrubs, so that if there had been any light in the sky it would have been shut out from that spot; and the person who rode at their head, and seemed to act as their leader, chose the gloomiest point for the purpose of causing the line to halt, and speaking a few words in a low tone to each of his companions. They answered in a whisper, as if the deep darkness and silence around had its usual effect in producing awe; and when each had listened and replied, their leader once more advanced to the front, and they recommenced their journey two and two. Descending slowly from the moors, they emerged into a more open country; and any one who had been by the side of the road might have counted their number as eleven, notwithstanding the darkness of the night, and might also have observed that, generally speaking, they were tall and powerful men, and sat their horses with a degree of ease and composure only to be acquired by long acquaintance with the saddle.
We have remarked before, that the country in that district is famous for little greens of an acre or two in extent, generally shaded by some tall elms, and often adorned by a bright gleaming pond. To one of these the party that we speak of had advanced; and though there was a cottage at the further side of the green, all was silent and still, when the word to halt was suddenly given, and the voice of the leader was heard in a low tone, saying, "Spread out to the right and left, under the trees. I hear a horse's feet!"
The evolution that he commanded was executed in a moment, with the most profound silence, each horseman separating from his neighbour and taking ground some yards to the right and left, without any of that pawing and prancing which give pomp and circumstance to many a military man[oe]uvre. The proceedings of the leader himself, however, were even more remarkable; for, advancing perhaps twenty yards before the rest, he also quitted the road for the green turf, and then his dim figure was seen to dismount. The next moment, horse and man seemed to sink slowly down into the earth, and nothing but what appeared to be a small rise in the ground was seen through the darkness, marking the spot where they had stood.
While all this was taking place, the sound of a horse's feet beating the road with a quick trot was heard advancing from that side towards which the party had been going, and after a pause of about two minutes, a white horse, bearing his rider at a rapid rate, could be discerned entering upon the green. The horseman advanced some way, unconscious of the neighbourhood of so many others, but apparently not quite insensible to fear, as from time to time his head was turned to either side; and at length it would seem that he caught a glance of something unusual beneath the elm trees, for he suddenly pulled up his horse, and gazed anxiously into the gloom before him.
His eyes were keen, having been for some time habituated to the darkness; and becoming convinced that there was a considerable party assembled on either side, he was turning his bridle to gallop off on the same road by which he came, when suddenly what he had passed as a mere mound of earth and bushes started up into life, and his retreat was cut off by a man springing upon a horse which rose as if magically from the ground, and darting into the road before him.
"Stop!" cried a stern voice, while the gleam of something like a pistol in the hand of his opponent made the rider of the white horse recoil. He looked round, however, to see if there were no means of evading obedience to the command he had received; but by this time he found that he was surrounded, and that the way even to the low cottage by the side of the common was cut off. At the same time the command was repeated, "Stop, and give an account of yourself!"
The additional injunction, however, of "Give an account of yourself!" was rather satisfactory to the rider, who perceived therein a sort of police tone, rather than that generally employed by the worthies whom he most apprehended, and who to the word "stop!" usually added, "deliver!"
He replied, then, with a greater degree of confidence, saying, "I am a servant of the noble Earl of Danemore, and I am riding to the town of ----, by his orders, on particular business."
"Show me the badge upon your arm!" said the person who had first spoken; but the servant was obliged to acknowledge that he had come away in haste, and had not his livery coat on.
"You have some cords," said the same voice, addressing one of the other horsemen. "Tie him, and bring him along."
In a moment the unfortunate groom found himself seized, and his arms pinioned behind his back, while a still more disagreeable operation, that of tying his feet and legs tight to the stirrups, was performed by another of his captors, who dismounted for the purpose.
Not a word was spoken by any one but the leader of the party, and when he saw that the commands he had given were obeyed, he added, "Bring him up abreast with me?" and then riding on at the same glow pace in which they had been proceeding previous to the little episode which had taken place, he asked several questions of his captive in a low voice.
"We shall soon see," said he, "whether your account of yourself is true or not, for we are going to the Castle. Now tell me, how long do you say you have left it?"
"About half an hour, sir," replied the man, resuming a certain degree of courage on finding that he was not injured; "about half an hour, sir; and I can tell you that my lord will be mighty angry when he finds you have stopped me, and brought me back. He will make the house too hot to hold you, and the county too, that I'll warrant. You don't know whom you have got to deal with. He suffers no one to do anything but what he likes."
"Is the Earl of Danemore still up?" demanded the stranger, calmly, taking not the slightest heed of the other's intimation.
"Yes, that he is, and will not be in bed for these two hours, as you will find to your cost, perhaps, when he hears you have stopped me," answered the groom, firmly believing that what was awful to him must be equally so to every one else.
"Does he not usually go to rest sooner?" asked the stranger again. "I understood that the whole household were required to be in bed by eleven, and I was afraid that we might have to rouse the porter to give us admittance."
"Ay, he generally does go to bed at eleven," answered the groom, "but he has not done so to-night. You will have to rouse the porter, however, and most of the other servants too; for old John came out, growling and swearing at me, in his shirt, when I made him open the gates."
"He must not swear at us, though," replied the other quietly, but in a tone which moved the groom's astonishment even more than anything which had passed before, so little reverence did his captors show either for the awful name of the Earl of Danemore or any of his dependants. As the other ceased, however, and did not resume the conversation, he had no choice but to accompany him in silence; and, followed by the rest of the party, they proceeded slowly on the road, which was evidently well known to the leader, now winding in and out amongst the high banks and woods, now crossing scattered pieces of the heath and moor-land, till at length they arrived at that spot under the walls of the park where, as we have mentioned in describing the forced journey of Langford, Danemore Castle, with its wide extent of park and woods, became first visible to the eye of any one travelling on the road from Moorhurst to the county town.
There the leader of the party halted, and suffering his hands to drop thoughtfully upon the saddle-bow, he gazed up towards the spot where the Castle stood. At that dark hour, however, nothing was to be perceived but the masses of tall trees with which the building itself was confounded in undistinguished shade, except, indeed where a single spot of light was seen gleaming like a beacon, marking that there was the habitation of some human beings amongst the dark and awful-looking blackness which the scene otherwise presented.
After thus gazing for a few minutes, the leader of the party turned towards the groom, and while he reined back his horse to the other side of the road, said, with something of a sneer, "We will save old John the porter the trouble of opening the gate for us." At the same moment, the well-trained horse which he rode, feeling a touch of the spur, started forward towards the wall, cleared it with ease, and horse and rider stood within the boundaries of the park.
"I can't leap with my hands and legs tied!" cried the groom, whose first feelings were those of an equestrian; "that's impossible; I shall break my own neck and the horse's knees."
"You shan't be required to leap," was the reply of the leader, from the other side of the wall; and then, turning towards one of his companions, he added, "You must manage to pull it down, Harvey."
"I will leap it first, however!" replied his companion, and away went a second horse and man over the wall. No sooner was this done than several of the other horsemen dismounted, and with short bars of iron, which each of them appeared to have slung at their saddle-bow, they set to work upon the wall of the park, and in less than a quarter of an hour the space of three yards was laid level between the road and the park.
The whole of the troop then passed in, taking the groom along with them; and, riding slowly up to a clump of old chestnuts at the distance of about three hundred yards from the terrace on which the mansion stood, they gathered themselves together in a group under the boughs, and their leader, advancing a few steps, again gazed steadfastly upon the Castle, whose towers and pinnacles were now to be more clearly distinguished rising here and there above the trees, and marking, with the straight lines of the older architecture, or the light tracery of the more modern and ornamental parts, the sky beyond, over which a pale gleam cast by the rising moon was just beginning to spread itself.
Gradually, as he sat there on horseback, the beautiful orb of night rose up from behind the trees, and with her peculiar power of dispersing the clouds and shadows that obstruct her way, she was seen struggling with and overcoming the vapours of the night; sometimes, like a veiled but still lovely countenance, beaming through a thin film of white mist which grew radiant with her radiance; sometimes hidden for a single instant behind a dark mass which swept over her with gilded edges; sometimes bursting forth from a dark cloud, with pure effulgence, like sudden joy succeeding despair.
As he sat there, with the varying light of the moon falling upon him, now casting his long shadow upon the soft green turf of the park, now leaving him distinct, and as it were magnified by the dim misty light, the powerful form of that horseman was scanned eagerly and apprehensively by the groom, on whose mind but little doubt remained in regard to the character and propensities of the party whose unwilling companion he had become, he thought he had never seen a more powerful frame, and in so thinking he was right; but the imagination of terror had had a great deal to do with the business, when he called him in his heart "the most ruffian-like fellow that his eyes had ever rested on."
After about ten minutes' contemplation, during which not a word was spoken by any one, and not a sound was heard but the low sighing of the wind through the neighbouring trees, and the scream of the screech owls which nested themselves in the old ivy of the Castle, the leader returned to his party, saying, "I would fain have that light put out first; but, however, we cannot stay wasting all our time here. Now, my good fellow," he continued, turning to the groom, "I want one or two pieces of information from you; but before you answer, you had better take into consideration that you are speaking to a person not willing to be trifled with; that if you do not answer straightforwardly and at once, your life is not worth five minutes' purchase; and that if you give me false information you will be as surely a dead man within two hours as you are now a living one. In the first place, then, inform me, in what part of the house do the servants sleep?"
"Why, up at the top, to the westward," replied the man; "that is where the serving men sleep; but there are others, such as the sewers, and the grooms of the chambers, who sleep at the top of Hubert's Tower. Then there's my lord's own man sleeps in his ante-room; but to-night there are two or three who were ordered to stay in the outer room where the prisoner is, in the old tower; that is to say, in what they used to call the haunted rooms, for they were always shut up, and nobody went in but my lord and Mistress Bertha, so that folks said that the ghost of the Countess used to walk there."
"So there are three men appointed to sleep there, are there?" demanded the other; "you are sure of the fact?"
"Why, no," replied the groom; "if you mean whether I am sure they were ordered to sleep there, I'm sure enough of that; but I am quite as sure that not one of them will do it; for I heard Will Hudson say that the Earl might skin him alive first. No, no; they'll none of them stay there after twelve o'clock at night, I'll answer for it."
"That is sufficient on that score," said the interrogator; "now tell me further, now many men in all may there be in the Castle?"
The groom paused for a moment, as if in thought, but then answered, "Some fifteen or sixteen that sleep within doors; but then there are all the grooms and horse-boys, and my lord's three coachmen, and the running footmen, who sleep at the stables, which you know lie out by----"
"I know, I know," interrupted the other. "Not more than fifteen or sixteen; fifteen or sixteen lackeys!" he continued, turning with a sort of contemptuous laugh to his companions; "it is scarcely worth while priming our pistols. Are there none of them sleep below?"
"Why, no; not by rights," replied the man, "except the porter and his boy, but to-night there will be Willy Hudson and the rest, who, I dare say, will come down into the corridor and sleep in the armchairs; and then, too, there is Fat Frank, who has got Silly John in charge, shut up in the dark room at the bottom of Hubert's Tower."
"Silly John!" exclaimed the other; "what does he do there?"
"Why, he would not tell, I hear," answered the groom, "who were the people whom he had seen bury my young lord under the beech trees by Upwater Mere, so my lord ordered him to be shut up in the dark room, without either meat or drink, till he did; and if he don't tell, hang me if he don't starve to death, for my lord's not one to go back from what he has once said."
As the man spoke, the person who had been thus questioning him moved his hand with a rapid and impatient gesture to the holster at his saddle-bow, plunged it in, and pulling out a pistol, thrust it into his belt. He muttered also a few words in a hurried tone, which could only be heard by himself; but then again, appearing to recover from some impatient feelings, he continued, "One word more, my good fellow. Is not the small wicket door, at the back of the western wing, very often, if not always, left open all night?"
The man hesitated, and showed evident signs of a disinclination to reply.
"It is, sometimes," he said at length, "but not always."
"I ask you," continued the other, "did you ever know it shut?"
"Yes, I think so. I don't know. I can't tell," replied the groom, with manifest hesitation, at what he felt to be betraying the way into his lord's mansion.
"He prevaricates," said one of the men behind; "he prevaricates; shall I blow his brains out, Captain?"
"Not yet," replied their leader, calmly. "Do you intend to answer, or not? Did you ever in your life know that door shut?"
"No. I didn't; no, I didn't," answered the groom. "It's always open; that's the truth."
"Very well, then," continued the other. "If I remember right, when one goes straight forward from that door, and then turns along the first passage to the left, it leads to the little hall, out of which a passage takes to the foot of the great stairs. Now, there are two other doors, one of which leads to the private staircase going to the Earl's apartments. Which of those two doors is it; the right or the left; for I forget? Your life is at stake," he added, in a warning tone.
There was a sound like the clicking of a pistol-lock behind him, and the man replied without the loss of a single moment, "It is the door to the left. I tell you true, upon my word."
"I dare say you do," replied the other; "if you don't, so much the worse for you. You will remain here till I come back; and you know what will happen to you if you have made any mistake in this business. Harvey, learn from him exactly the way to the room where the poor silly man has been put. You and Hardcastle must undertake to set him free; then join me with all speed at the point you know. You, Williams and Erith, stay with this man and the horses; and if you should have such reason to believe that he has told me a falsehood as to induce you to leave the spot, give him a couple of ounces of lead in his head before you go. You understand me. I know a word is sufficient with you."
"But, Captain," exclaimed the man whom he called Erith, "why should I not go with you? Curse me if I like to be left here, holding the horses like a groom. Why must not I go?"
"Because I appoint you to a post of trust and danger," answered his leader; "there is more to be apprehended from without than from within; judgment of what intelligence it may be necessary to give me, too, is wanted, and, therefore, I choose you. But to end all in one word, Erith," he added, seeing the other about to reply, "you must stay here, because I direct you to do so; I, who never yet found you unwilling to obey at once, in moments of action and peril!"
"That's the way you always come over me, Captain," replied his companion; "however, I suppose I must do as you bid me, having stood by your side in many a moment of life and death work."
"And always acted like a lion, where it was needful," answered his leader, holding out to him his hand, which the other grasped eagerly. "God bless you, Erith!" he added; "there is something tells me we shall not be long together. If we part for the last time to-night, remember that I love you, and that I think even now of the watch-fire of Kaiser-lautern, when, wounded yourself, you brought cup after cup of cold water to your wounded Captain's lips."
Thus saying he dismounted from his horse, and eight of his comrades followed his example. The well-trained beasts were then ranged in a line, and a single rope run through the bridles seemed all that was necessary to keep them together till their riders' return. One end of the rope was tied to a tree, the other to the last horse's bit; and after gazing for one moment more at the light in the window of the tower, across which a dark figure was seen to pass twice, the leader gave a signal with his hand. The whole party then began silently to descend the hill, with the exception of the two who had been appointed to remain with the horses and the unhappy groom, whose terror had now grown to such a pitch, that, had it not been for the lashings with which he was attached to his horse, he could not have sat the animal, although it remained as quiet and passive as if it had never known any other stable than that of a farmer's mule.
With eager eyes and a beating heart the man marked the party descend the hill, emerge from the shadow of the trees, cross the dewy grass, which glistened like frost-work in the full beams of the moon, ascend the opposite rise, and then take their way amongst the trees behind, towards the back of the building where they proposed to effect their entrance. It was certain that the property of his lordly master was at stake at that moment, and perhaps also the lives of several of his comrades; but yet the worthy domestic felt little or no agitation upon that score. All that affected him, all he thought of, as would too naturally be the case with most of the human worms which crawl about in this state of being, was his own situation, his own danger. He knew, he felt, that any misunderstanding of the directions he had given, or that anything going wrong in the arrangements of those who had compelled him to afford them intelligence, might be attributed to intentional falsehood or mis-statement on his part, and that a life which he valued just in proportion to its worthlessness, its inactivity, and its want of fine perceptions, might be taken from him on the slightest notice.
He regarded the party of nine, then, as they descended the hill, with feelings most strangely mingled and apparently contradictory; there was a hope for their success, which he trusted would free him from the painful situation in which they had placed him; there were sensations of dislike and enmity towards those who had stopped and made him a prisoner; there were feelings of anger in regard to the degradation of the Earl of Danemore, who had so long ruled paramount throughout the country round; and there was that longing desire which brutes as well as man feel, to witness everything of importance that is passing around them, especially when they are prevented by any cause from so doing.
His feelings, I say, were so mingled, that his whole capability of wishing was concentrated in one earnest desire to know the result, and to have, if we may use such a colloquial expression, "the matter out at once." There are times and seasons, indeed, when ten minutes of the past, ten minutes of anything that is absolutely certain, are worth whole ages of doubt, even though that doubt may not be mingled with any degree of apprehension; but in the present instance, personal terror added immensely to all that the unhappy man felt; and his thoughts of every dear relation of life which might be sacrificed, had ample room to torture his heart, while, silent and inactive, he remained upon the hill, watching the progress of those on whom depended his whole afterfate.
When they approached the side of the wood that swept round the esplanade, the straining eye of the captive could no longer distinguish them; and he waited eagerly, with his eyes fixed upon the building, as if he could gather all that was passing within those walls from the dull unmeaning face of the stone. For some time, however, neither sight nor sound gave him the slightest indications of what he longed to learn. It was like the cold outside, which we too frequently see in the world, covering a heart all agitation, anxiety, bitterness, and pain.
At length his feelings became insurmountable. There are degrees of terror which give courage: he felt that it would be a thousand times preferable to be amongst his comrades at the Castle, sharing their fate and mingling in their danger, than sitting there in perfect inactivity, waiting a result which he had no power to change; and he writhed with the bonds that confined him. As he did so, he felt that the knot upon the cords which tied his arms gave way in a slight degree--that he could loosen it still further by a great but silent exertion of his strength; and as he made that exertion, it slipped down to his wrists, over which it was easily passed.
The two men who guarded him were gazing as eagerly upon the Castle as he had been; and their minds were too full of the progress of their comrades to allow them to take any note of the slight movement he had made, so that, before they were at all aware of what he was doing, his arms were free. As silently as he could, he slipped one hand into his pocket for a knife to cut the cords which tied his legs, and he had almost accomplished that purpose also, while they still continued gazing at the Castle, along the windows of which more than one light was now gleaming. He felt that he could do no more without calling attention; but he perceived that what remained to do would be speedily done, if he could get away, and would not impede his progress as he went; and he gazed round upon the two who remained beside him, with a beating heart, longing to gallop down to the Castle as fast as he could, yet terrified at the idea of making the attempt. His hesitation was soon brought to an end, however, for, giving way to the impulse of habit, he put forward his hand, without thinking of what he was doing, and patted his horse's neck. The gesture instantly drew the attention of those beside him.
"What are you about there?" cried Erith. "He has got his hands free!"
The groom stayed to hear no more, but snatching up the bridle, he struck his horse hard and galloped down the hill. The report of a pistol rang in his ear the next moment, and at the same time a feeling as if some one had run a hot iron along his right cheek, followed by the trickling of blood, showed him that the robber's aim had not been far amiss. The slight wound only added wings to his flight, however, and the sound of a horse's feet following, urged him on still faster. It was--and he knew it--a ride for life or death; but fortunately for him his beast felt that it was speeding to its longed-for stable, and though the hoofs of the pursuer sounded close behind, the groom rather gained than lost ground in that headlong race.