The next day, which was Saturday, Lady Arden, by means of an order from
the sheriff, obtained an interview with her son; but it was short and
unsatisfactory, and a turnkey was necessarily present.
It was her wish to have remained entirely in the prison, but the
permission could not be obtained. Yet her manner was not characterized
by the lingering of tenderness; instinct or desperation seemed at this
crisis to have awakened in her bosom a fierceness foreign to her
habitual nature. Her attitude, her countenance implied the frantic
conception, that she could afford personal protection to her son: and,
unconsciously directed by the same impulse, she even stood between
Alfred and the door of the prison. Shortly, however, she was obliged to
depart.
Mr. Edwards's visits were as late, as early, and as frequent as usage
would permit. His ingenuity was constantly employed; his vigilance on
the ceaseless watch; but the night of Saturday wore away, and the
morning of Sunday dawned, and no opportunity of making an attempt at
escape affording the slightest prospect of success, had offered. During
the long, wretched day of suspense and agony nothing could be done.
Another interview, if possible more heart-rending than the last, had
been granted to Lady Arden, and evening was again approaching, while no
accounts had yet come from Lord Darlingford. At length a letter did
arrive by express. It did not say, in so many words, that he had failed
in his mission; it even spoke of continued efforts: but it strenuously
recommended that the escape should be attempted at all hazards. Such a
letter, to the feelings of the parties interested, amounted to a
repetition of the sentence of condemnation.
There was now but the one solitary hope left for every thought to cling
around; while it appeared to be reduced in probability to the straw at
which the drowning man catches: for what the two preceding nights had
offered no opportunity of accomplishing, there seemed but little chance
should be compassed on this last remaining one. The evening, too, was
already gone, and the lock-up completed; nay, the night itself was on
the wane; so that now, all seemed to depend on Mr. Edwards's early visit
to the prison, the one last hour before dawn, on the thus fast
approaching morning of the Monday, the day fixed for the execution.
Some hours after midnight, a desperate storm of thunder, hail and rain
came on. And strange it was, that the roaring elements should thus seem,
as it were, to sanction the legendary belief, already mentioned, as
prevalent among the ignorant persons of the neighbourhood, that all
events disastrous to a member of the Arden family were accompanied, or
preceded, by terrible tempests. And, however irrational such an idea,
many inhabitants of Arden, as they lay in their beds that awful night,
and were suddenly awakened by the thunder, ere they slept again,
shuddered involuntarily at the thought, that the old superstition was
being at the very moment fulfilled.
The storm continued, and between five and six in the morning was still
raging. Rejoicing in the din, the confusion, and the prospect of
prolonged darkness it afforded, Mr. Edwards wended his way through its
fury towards the gates of the gaol. He entered, and proceeded to the
condemned cell. From his coming so early it was supposed that he meant
to pray and converse with the prisoner for some hours. In a much shorter
time, however, than was expected, the porter saw him, as he supposed,
approaching, with a somewhat hasty step, along the passage, to take his
departure. It was Alfred: but the disguise was perfect; and the porter
had no suspicion. A moment more and he must have passed safely out--when
a sudden cry was heard--"Stop the prisoner! Stop the prisoner!" And the
turnkeys, running and breathless, appeared in pursuit.