During a night of such awful importance, fear and hope both, as its
hours advanced, mounting towards their climax, it will be readily
believed that Lady Arden had not attempted to seek repose.
Regardless of the searching wind and driving rain which beat against
her face and bosom, the blinding flashes of the lightning, and the
thunder's deafening roar, she leaned from the open window of her
sleeping-apartment, and though the darkness was still impenetrable,
continued to gaze with intense anxiety, now in the direction of the town
of Arden, and now in that of the ruined castle; while Mrs. Dorothea,
Lady Darlingford, and Madeline stood behind her, trembling with the
combined effect of fear and cold, and shrinking from each fresh
accession of the storm's fury, against which they were less defended by
the panoply of a fevered mind.
If Lady Arden was at all conscious of the raving of the tempest, it was
rather calculated to yield her satisfaction than otherwise, for it was
highly favourable to the attempt she knew was even then being made for
Alfred's escape.
The window at which she now stood, was the same from which, with an
almost prophetic melancholy, she had looked on the night of the festival
for the coming of age of her sons. "The pitiless pelting of the storm,"
too, was such as it had been on that night--but here the parallel
ceases: changed indeed was all beside!
From time to time she inquired the hour--waited--inquired again--again
waited--and again inquired. "Go, my dear child, go, at any rate," she
said at length, looking anxiously at Madeline, who immediately left the
room; but in about a quarter of an hour returned, accompanied by Mr.
Cameron. He was dripping with wet--covered with mud--and out of breath.
Madeline during her short absence, bad been watching for him at a glass
door which opened from a little boudoir into the lawn; she had just
admitted him, and led him up stairs by a back way. On his entering the
apartment, the door was cautiously closed by Mrs. Dorothea.
Lady Arden laid her hand on his arm and looked in his face.
"He is safe," he replied, "quite safe for the present."
She sank on her knees, and some seconds were devoted to silent, fervent
thanksgiving; when being still unable to articulate, she once more
looked up at Mr. Cameron and motioned him to proceed.
"The alarm was given," he continued, "before he was quite clear of the
gates; but the cry being, 'Stop the prisoner!' and his appearance being
that of Mr. Edwards, the porter did not interfere with his passing out.
The turnkeys, it would seem, had not the presence of mind to say at the
first, 'Stop Mr. Edwards!' and once outside the gate, the din of the
tempest and the darkness with which, though it was past six in the
morning, still exceeded that of most midnights, rendered it
comparatively easy to baffle pursuit. He soon joined me, where we had
appointed, beneath the great beech-tree; for had he been closely
followed, he was to have climbed the trunk and concealed himself among
the branches, while I was to have darted forward, and so led his
pursuers astray: but finding ourselves unmolested as soon as the coast
was clear, we proceeded with all speed to the castle. I have lodged him
safely in the eagle's nest, and am come from thence this moment."
"Thank heaven!" ejaculated from time to time, was the only interruption.
Mr. Cameron's account had met with, "He is so well wrapped up," he
added, good naturedly endeavouring to offer what consolation he could;
"and the turret is so small and the ivy so thick about it that he will
be perfectly dry, and I do not think he will even feel it cold."
"We can see the exact spot from this place," exclaimed Lady Arden,
rising eagerly and leaning from the window. "The eagle's nest looks this
way."
"Were it not so dark," replied Cameron, also leaning out, "I think you
might, the turret is certainly on this side of the building."
"There!" she cried, as a vivid flash gave the remarkable rock, with its
crown of towers to their view; while the flickering movement of the
lightning seemed, as it were, to lift this principal object from its
distant position in the landscape, hold it for a second close to their
sight, then drop it into the impenetrable abyss, over which the thunder
now rolled in darkness.
"That is it!" continued Lady Arden, her outstretched finger also for the
moment rendered visible; "you mean that small projecting tower, which is
called the eagle's nest, do you not?"
"Yes, that little turret, jutting-out from the side of the highest of
the great towers near the top, and appearing from here not larger than a
hand lantern. He must, I should think," he added, "from his present
position discern the light in this window."
"Ah, my poor Alfred!" exclaimed the anxious mother. Another flash made
the group of ruins and small projecting turret again for a second
visible; "if he could have been with us here!" she continued: but the
loud thunder rolled, and the hurricane, as her voice issued from her
lips, swept its sounds away unheard! The next moment of comparative
quiet Mr. Cameron said, in reply to the portion of the sentence he had
caught--
"It would have been unwise; for, had he been in this house, some of the
servants must have known, or at least have suspected the fact; now the
secret of his place of concealment is known only to ourselves."
"You are right--you are right! And we know that there is a fell tiger
couching for the prey."
"Perhaps we judge him harshly," replied Cameron. "I think, however," he
added, "that we have adopted altogether the very best possible course.
But for the extraordinary state of the atmosphere, there should be
already some daylight, so that any attempt to quit the neighbourhood
before evening again closes in would be madness. Nothing can be more
complete, nor at the same time more comfortable, than the place of
concealment we have selected; a spot, too, on which you can keep a
constant watch without causing any suspicion, the only accessible
approach to the ruins being visible from this very window."
While he yet spoke, the grey morning began to dawn. The storm was now
gradually lessening, for though the last flash of the lightning had been
vivid, the last roll of the thunder had been distant, and the rain had
fallen somewhere else. As the dim light increased, therefore, the park,
which in fact bounded the whole prospect, presented a most extraordinary
aspect; so dense a white, low laying, and still moving mist, covered
every ordinary object, that, as far as the eye could reach the landscape
resembled one vast ocean, terminated only by the horizon; while the
ruined castle crowning its rocky eminence, being by its great elevation
lifted above the fog, appeared alone on the surface of this seeming sea,
like the solitary Ark of the Covenant, riding on the waters of the
Deluge!
Such, at least, was the sublime idea it suggested to the imagination of
Lady Arden, while viewing it with the grateful feelings of the moment,
as the refuge of her child.