OUR FLIGHT FROM MARSTON COURT.
In the shadow of these elm trees two horses were standing, one equipped
for a lady. They tossed their heads as we came up and backed restively
from the light.
“They are fresh as larks, you see,” said Chaleco, patting the near horse
with his hand. “So, so, Jerald, is this the way you stand fire?” and he
swung the lantern full in the creature’s face, which made him rear and
plunge backward. “Come, Zana.”
I stepped forward, and with a laugh Chaleco lifted me to the saddle.
“There is the true blood again,” he muttered, smoothing down my skirt,
while I gathered up the bridle.
A pair of leathern saddle-bags, such as were often used by travellers in
those times, were swung across Chaleco’s saddle. They contained, he told
me, the clothes I had brought in one end, and the bronze coffer in the
other.
While he arranged these saddle-bags, I sat upon my horse looking
gloomily around. It was a dull, cloudy night. The dense masses of
foliage seemed like embankments of ebony. All around was still and dark
as chaos, save the elm-tree boughs overhead, that began to bend and
quake beneath the disturbed rooks that swept back and forth among them,
sending out their unearthly caws. They seemed like dark spirits calling
out from the blackness, “go, go, go!”
Chaleco took the candle from his lantern, extinguished it beneath his
foot, and flinging the lantern away, mounted. Thus, amid darkness and
silence, broken only by the hoarse rooks that seemed hooting us away, I
the only child of Clarence, Earl of Clare, left his domain and went
forth into the wide, wide world.
We rode fast and steadily on during the whole night, only pausing once
at a field of oats, from which Chaleco gathered food for our horses. The
day revealed a level and very beautiful country, embowered with
hop-fields, and rich with the most exuberant cultivation. With the
bright October air, the sunlight, and all the strange features of
scenery that presented themselves before me, my spirits began to revive.
The warmth and ardor of youthful curiosity, heightened, doubtless, by
the gipsy fire in my veins, a fire which finds its natural fuel in
adventures, rendered me almost happy. The strange world on which I
gazed, looking so broad, so brave in its morning beauty, the air at once
balmy and bracing, awoke all the exhilaration of my nature; and nothing
but pity for my tired horse kept me from breaking into a canter along
the highway.
We stopped at no public house, but ate the cold capon and bread which
Chaleco took from his saddle-bag, at the foot of an old oak growing out
alone on a broad heath or common which we were crossing at the time.
Close by our seat, upon the little mound of turf lifted up from the
level by the gnarled roots of the oak, a spring of the purest water
gushed over a shelf of rock nearly overlapped by rich moss, and with the
appetites a long ride had given, our breakfast was full of fresh
enjoyment.
Chaleco’s wandering habits had fitted him well for this out-door life.
When I asked for drink, he ran down to a thicket below the spring,
gathered some huge leaves, and, while walking leisurely back, converted
them into a drinking-cup with two or three dexterous turns of the hand.
I must have smiled as the leafy cup was presented, swelling out with the
most delicious water that sparkled in drops all over the outside.
“Oh, you smile,” said Chaleco; “this is our free-life, Zana. In Spain,
my girl, your drinking-cups shall be made of orange leaves, your sherbet
cooled with the snows of Sierra Nevada.”
I uttered a faint cry—the leafy cup fell from my hands—the snow
mountains seemed looming all around me. My mother—my poor mother—how
could that man bring you thus to my mind? Was it hatred of the gentile
blood in my veins? Did he wish to kill me also?
We mounted again, and rode on in silence. By his inadvertent mention of
the snow mountains, Chaleco had filled his own soul with gloom. I began
to pity him, for his face grew haggard with much thought.
We rested at noon and slept some hours; then on again all night, and
till dark the second day.
Not doubting Chaleco’s ability or sources of intelligence, I followed
him with hope and animation. Perhaps this search after my friend served
to keep my mind from dwelling upon the future—a future which my soul
ever refused to contemplate steadily; the refinements of life, all the
sweet blessings of civilization are not to be flung aside so readily.
Notwithstanding all the wrongs heaped upon me in that land, I could not
think of the barrancos of Granada without repugnance. There was
something of disgust in this remembrance. A purely savage people might
have aroused my enthusiasm, but this blending of savage and civilized
life found among the Spanish gipsies destroyed the dignity of both; they
had neither the vigor of savages, nor the refinements of civilization—no
religion, no hereafter. If I went among them, it must be to adopt their
habits, and abide by their laws. But I dared not reflect on this, and
our rapid journeying served to keep such thoughts in the background.