“How! Lucia, wouldst them have me sink away
In pleasing dreams, and lose myself in love?”
_Cato_.
The reader must not imagine that the world stood still during the
occurrence of the scenes we have related. By the time the three seamen
were placed in as many different rooms, and a sentinel was stationed in
the gallery common to them all, in such a manner as to keep an eye on
his whole charge at once, the hour had run deep into the night. Captain
Borroughcliffe obeyed a summons from the colonel, who made him an
evasive apology for the change in their evening's amusement, and
challenged his guest to a renewal of the attack on the Madeira. This
was too grateful a theme to be lightly discussed by the captain; and the
abbey clock had given forth as many of its mournful remonstrances as the
division of the hours would permit, before they separated. In the mean
time, Mr. Dillon became invisible; though a servant, when questioned by
the host on the subject, announced that “he believed Mr. Christopher had
chosen to ride over to----, to be in readiness to join the hunt, on
the morning, with the dawn.” While the gentlemen were thus indulging
themselves in the dining-parlor, and laughing over the tales of other
times and hard campaigns, two very different scenes occurred in other
parts of the building.
When the quiet of the abbey was only interrupted by the howling of
the wind, or by the loud and prolonged laughs which echoed through the
passages from the joyous pair, who were thus comfortably established by
the side of the bottle, a door was gently opened on one of the galleries
of the “cloisters,” and Katherine Plowden issued from it, wrapped in a
close mantle, and holding in her hand a chamber-lamp, which threw its
dim light faintly along the gloomy walls in front, leaving all behind
her obscured in darkness. She was, however, soon followed by two other
female figures, clad in the same manner, and provided with similar
lights. When all were in the gallery, Katherine drew the door softly to,
and proceeded in front to lead the way.
“Hist!” said the low, tremulous voice of Cecilia, “they are yet up in
the other parts of the house; and if it be as you suspect, our visit
would betray them, and prove the means of their certain destruction.”
“Is the laugh of Colonel Howard in his cups so singular and unknown to
your ear, Cecilia, that you know it not?” said Katherine with a little
spirit; “or do you forget that on such occasions he seldom leaves
himself ears to hear, or eyes to see with? But follow me; it is as I
suspect--it must be as I suspect; and unless we do something to rescue
them, they are lost, unless they have laid a deeper scheme than is
apparent.”
“It is a dangerous road ye both journey,” added the placid tones of
Alice Dunscombe; “but ye are young, and ye are credulous.”
“If you disapprove of our visit,” said Cecilia, “it cannot be right, and
we had better return.”
“No, no: I have said nought to disapprove of your present errand. If
God has put the lives of those in your custody whom ye have taught
yourselves to look up to with love and reverence, such as woman is bound
to yield to one man, he has done it for no idle purpose. Lead us to
their doors, Katherine; let us relieve our doubts, at least.”
The ardent girl did not wait for a second bidding, but she led them,
with light and quick steps, along the gallery, until they reached its
termination, where they descended to the basement floor by a flight of
narrow steps; and carefully opening a small door, emerged into the open
air. They now stood on a small plat of grass, which lay between the
building and the ornamental garden, across which they moved rapidly,
concealing their lights, and bending their shrinking forms before the
shivering blasts that poured their fury upon them from the ocean. They
soon reached a large but rough addition to the buildings, that concealed
its plain architecture behind the more labored and highly finished parts
of the edifice, into which they entered through a massive door that
stood ajar, as if to admit them.
“Chloe has been true to my orders,” whispered Katherine, as they passed
out of the chilling air; “now, if all the servants are asleep, our
chance to escape unnoticed amounts to certainty.”
It became necessary to go through the servants' hall, which they
effected unobserved, as it had but one occupant, an aged black man, who,
being posted with his ear within two feet of a bell, in this attitude
had committed himself to a deep sleep. Gliding through this hall, they
entered divers long and intricate passages, all of which seemed as
familiar to Katherine as they were unknown to her companions, until they
reached another flight of steps, which they ascended. They were now near
their goal, and stopped to examine whether any or what difficulties were
likely to be opposed to their further progress.
“Now, indeed, our case seems hopeless,” whispered Katherine, as they
stood, concealed by the darkness, in one end of an extremely long,
narrow passage; “here is the sentinel in the building, instead of being,
as I had supposed, under the windows; what is to be done now?”
“Let us return,” said Cecilia, in the same manner; “my influence with
my uncle is great, even though he seems unkind to us at times. In the
morning I will use it to persuade him to free them, on receiving their
promise to abandon all such attempts in future.”
“In the morning it will be too late,” returned Katherine; “I saw that
demon, Kit Dillon, mount his horse, under the pretence of riding to the
great hunt of to-morrow, but I know his malicious eye too well to
be deceived in his errand. He is silent that he may be sure; and if
to-morrow comes, and finds Griffith within these walls, he will be
condemned to a scaffold.”
“Say no more,” said Alice Dunscombe, with singular emotion; “some lucky
circumstance may aid us with this sentinel.”
As she spoke, she advanced: they had not proceeded far, before the stern
voice of the soldier challenged the party.
“'Tis no time to hesitate,” whispered Katherine: “we are the ladies of
the abbey, looking to our domestic affairs,” she continued aloud, “and
think it a little remarkable that we are to encounter armed men, while
going through our own dwelling.”
The soldier respectfully presented his musket, and replied:
“My orders are to guard the doors of these three rooms, ladies; we have
prisoners in them, and as for anything else, my duty will be to serve
you all in my power.”
“Prisoners!” exclaimed Katherine, in affected surprise; “does Captain
Borroughcliffe make St. Ruth's Abbey a jail! Of what offences are the
poor men guilty?”
“I know not, my lady; but, as they are sailors, I suppose they have run
from his majesty's service.”
“This is singular, truly! and why are they not sent to the county
prison?”
“This must be examined into,” said Cecilia, dropping the mantle from
before her face. “As mistress of this house, I claim a right to know
whom its walls contain; you will oblige me by opening the doors, for I
see you have the keys suspended from your belt.”
The sentinel hesitated. He was greatly awed by the presence and beauty
of the speakers, but a still voice reminded him of his duty. A lucky
thought, however, interposed to relieve him from his dilemma, and at the
same time to comply with the request, or rather order, of the lady. As
he handed her the keys, he said:
“Here they are, my lady; my orders are to keep the prisoners in, not to
keep any one out. When you are done with them, you will please to return
them to me, if it be only to save a poor fellow's eye; for unless the
door is kept locked, I shall not dare to look about me for a moment.”
Cecilia promised to return the keys, and she had applied one of them to
a lock with a trembling hand, when Alice Dunscombe arrested her arm, and
addressed the soldier.
“Say you there are three?--are they men in years?”
“No, my lady, all good serviceable lads, who couldn't do better than
to serve his majesty, or, as it may prove, worse than to run from their
colors.”
“But are their years and appearance similar? I ask; for I have a friend
who has been guilty of some boyish tricks, and has tried the seas, I
hear, among other foolish hazards.”
“There is no boy here. In the far room on the left is a smart,
soldier-looking chap, of about thirty, who the captain thinks has
carried a musket before now; on him I am charged to keep a particular
eye. Next to him is as pretty a looking youth as eyes could wish to see,
and it makes one feel mournful to think what he must come to, if he
has really deserted his ship. In the room near you, is a smaller,
quiet little body, who might make a better preacher than a sailor, or a
soldier either, he has such a gentle way with him.”
Alice covered her eyes with her hand a moment, and then recovering
herself, proceeded:
“Gentleness may do more with the unfortunate men than fear; here is a
guinea; withdraw to the far end of the passage, where you can watch them
as well as here, while we enter, and endeavor to make them confess who
and what they really are.”
The soldier took the money, and after looking about him in a little
uncertainty, he at length complied, as it was obviously true they could
only escape by passing him, near the flight of steps. When he was beyond
hearing, Alice Dunscombe turned to her companions, and a slight glow
appeared in feverish spots on her cheeks, as she addressed them:
“It would be idle to attempt to hide from you, that I expect to meet the
individual whose voice I must have heard in reality to-night, instead
of only imaginary sounds, as I vainly, if not wickedly, supposed. I have
many reasons for changing my opinion, the chief of which is, that he is
leagued with the rebellious Americans in this unnatural war. Nay, chide
me not, Miss Plowden; you will remember that I found my being on this
island. I come here on no vain or weak errand, Miss Howard, but to spare
human blood.” She paused, as if struggling to speak calmly. “But no one
can witness the interview except our God.”
“Go, then,” said Katherine, secretly rejoicing at her determination,
“while we inquire into the characters of the others.”
Alice Dunscombe turned the key; and gently opening the door, she desired
her companions to tap for her, as they returned, and then instantly
disappeared in the apartment.
Cecilia and her cousin proceeded to the next door, which they opened in
silence, and entered cautiously into the room. Katherine Plowden had so
far examined into the arrangements of Colonel Howard, as to know that at
the same time he had ordered blankets to be provided for the prisoners,
he had not thought it necessary to administer any further to the
accommodations of men who had apparently made their beds and pillows of
planks for the greater part of their lives.
The ladies accordingly found the youthful sailor whom they sought, with
his body rolled in the shaggy covering, extended at his length along the
naked boards, and buried in a deep sleep. So timid were the steps of his
visitors, and so noiseless was their entrance, that they approached even
to his side without disturbing his slumbers. The head of the prisoner
lay rudely pillowed on a billet of wood, one hand protecting his face
from its rough surface, and the other thrust in his bosom, where it
rested, with a relaxed grasp, on the handle of a dirk. Although he
slept, and that heavily, yet his rest was unnatural and perturbed.
His breathing was hard and quick, and something like the low, rapid
murmurings of a confused utterance mingled with his respiration. The
moment had now arrived when the character of Cecilia Howard appeared to
undergo an entire change. Hitherto she had been led by her cousin, whose
activity and enterprise seemed to qualify her so well for the office of
guide; but now she advanced before Katherine, and, extending her lamp in
such a manner as to throw the light across the face of the sleeper, she
bent to examine his countenance, with keen and anxious eyes.
“Am I right?” whispered her cousin.
“May God, in His infinite compassion, pity and protect him!” murmured
Cecilia, her whole frame involuntarily shuddering, as the conviction
that she beheld Griffith flashed across her mind. “Yes, Katherine, it is
he, and presumptuous madness has driven him here. But time presses; he
must be awakened, and his escape effected at every hazard.”
“Nay, then, delay no longer, but rouse him from his sleep.”
“Griffith! Edward Griffith!” said the soft tones of Cecilia, “Griffith,
awake!”
“Your call is useless, for they sleep nightly among tempests and
boisterous sounds,” said Katherine; “but I have heard it said that the
smallest touch will generally cause one of them to stir.”
“Griffith!” repeated Cecilia, laying her fair hand timidly on his own.
The flash of lightning is not more nimble than the leap that the young
man made to his feet, which he no sooner gained, than his dirk gleamed
in the light of the lamps, as he brandished it fiercely with one hand,
while with the other he extended a pistol, in a menacing attitude,
towards his disturbers.
“Stand back!” he exclaimed; “I am your prisoner only as a corpse.”
The fierceness of his front, and the glaring eyeballs, that tolled
wildly around, him, appalled Cecilia, who shrank back in fear, dropping
her mantle from her person, but still keeping her mild eyes fastened on
his countenance with a confiding gaze, that contradicted her shrinking
attitude, as she replied:
“Edward, it is I; Cecilia Howard, come to save you from destruction; you
are known even through your ingenious disguise.”
The pistol and the dirk fell together on the blanket of the young
sailor, whose looks instantly lost their disturbed expression in a glow
of pleasure.
“Fortune at length favors me!” he cried. “This is kind, Cecilia; more
than I deserve, and much more than I expected. But you are not alone.”
“'Tis my cousin Kate; to her piercing eyes you owe your detection,
and she has kindly consented to accompany me, that we might urge you
to--nay, that we might, if necessary, assist you to fly. For 'tis cruel
folly, Griffith, thus to tempt your fate.”
“Have I tempted it, then, in vain! Miss Plowden, to you I must appeal
for an answer and a justification.”
Katherine looked displeased; but after a moment's hesitation she
replied:
“Your servant, Mr. Griffith; I perceive that the erudite Captain
Barnstable has not only succeeded in spelling through my scrawl, but he
has also given it to all hands for perusal.”
“Now you do both him and me injustice,” said Griffith; “it surely was
not treachery to show me a plan in which I was to be a principal actor.”
“Ah! doubtless your excuses are as obedient to your calls as your men,”
returned the young lady; “but how comes it that the hero of the Ariel
sends a deputy to perform a duty that is so peculiarly his own? Is he
wont to be second in rescues?”
“Heaven forbid that you should think so meanly of him for a moment! We
owe you much, Miss Plowden; but we may have other duties. You know that
we serve our common country, and have a superior with us, whose beck is
our law.”
“Return, then, Mr. Griffith, while you may, to the service of our
bleeding country,” said Cecilia, “and, after the joint efforts of her
brave children have expelled the intruders from her soil, let us hope
there shall come a time when Katherine and myself may be restored to our
native homes.”
“Think you, Miss Howard, to how long a period the mighty arm of the
British king may extend that time? We shall prevail; a nation fighting
for its dearest rights must ever prevail; but 'tis not the work of a
day, for a people, poor, scattered, and impoverished as we have been,
to beat down a power like that of England; surely you forget, that in
bidding me to leave you with such expectations, Miss Howard, you doom me
to an almost hopeless banishment!”
“We must trust to the will of God,” said Cecilia; “if he ordain that
America is to be free only after protracted sufferings, I can aid her
but with my prayers; but you have an arm and an experience, Griffith,
that might do her better service; waste not your usefulness, then, in
visionary schemes for private happiness, but seize the moments as they
offer, and return to your ship, if indeed it is yet in safety, and
endeavor to forget this mad undertaking, and, for a time, the being who
has led you to the adventure.”
“This is a reception that I had not anticipated,” returned Griffith;
“for though accident, and not intention, has thrown me into your
presence this evening, I did hope that, when I again saw the frigate, it
would be in your company, Cecilia.”
“You cannot justly reproach me, Mr. Griffith, with your disappointment;
for I have not uttered or authorized a syllable that could induce you or
any one to believe that I would consent to quit my uncle.”
“Miss Howard will not think me presumptuous, if I remind her that there
was a time when she did not think me unworthy to be entrusted with her
person and happiness.”
A rich bloom mantled on the face of Cecilia, as she replied:
“Nor do I now, Mr. Griffith; but you do well to remind me of my former
weakness, for the recollection of its folly and imprudence only adds to
my present strength.”
“Nay,” interrupted her eager lover, “if I intended a reproach, or
harbored a boastful thought, spurn me from you forever, as unworthy of
your favor.”
“I acquit you of both much easier than I can acquit myself of the charge
of weakness and folly,” continued Cecilia; “but there are many things
that have occurred, since we last met, to prevent a repetition of such
inconsiderate rashness on my part. One of them is,” she added, smiling
sweetly, “that I have numbered twelve additional months to my age, and a
hundred to my experience. Another, and perhaps a more important one, is,
that my uncle then continued among the friends of his youth, surrounded
by those whose blood mingles with his own; but here he lives a stranger;
and, though he finds some consolation in dwelling in a building where
his ancestors have dwelt before him, yet he walks as an alien through
its gloomy passages, and would find the empty honor but a miserable
compensation for the kindness and affection of one whom he has loved and
cherished from her infancy.”
“And yet he is opposed to you in your private wishes, Cecilia, unless
my besotted vanity has led me to believe what it would now be madness to
learn was false; and in your opinions of public things, you are quite
as widely separated. I should think there could be but little happiness
dependent on a connection where there is no one feeling entertained in
common.”
“There is, and an all-important one,” said Miss Howard; “'tis our love.
He is my kind, my affectionate, and, unless thwarted by some evil cause,
my indulgent uncle and guardian,--and I am his brother Harry's child.
This tie is not easily to be severed, Mr. Griffith; though, as I do not
wish to see you crazed, I shall not add, that your besotted vanity has
played you false; but surely, Edward, it is possible to feel a double
tie, and so to act as to discharge our duties to both. I never, never
can or will consent to desert my uncle, a stranger as he is in the land
whose rule he upholds so blindly. You know not this England, Griffith;
she receives her children from the colonies with cold and haughty
distrust, like a jealous stepmother, who is wary of the favors that she
bestows on her fictitious offspring.”
“I know her in peace, and I know her in war,” said the young sailor,
proudly, “and can add, that she is a haughty friend, and a stubborn foe;
but she grapples now with those who ask no more of her than an open sea
and an enemy's favors. But this determination will be melancholy tidings
for me to convey to Barnstable.”
“Nay,” said Cecilia, smiling, “I cannot vouch for others who have no
uncles, and who have an extra quantity of ill humor and spleen against
this country, its people, and its laws, although profoundly ignorant of
them all.”
“Is Miss Howard tired of seeing me under the tiles of St. Ruth?” asked
Katherine. “But hark! are there not footsteps approaching along the
gallery?”
They listened, in breathless silence, and soon heard distinctly the
approaching tread of more than one person. Voices were quite audible,
and before they had time to consult on what was best to be done, the
words of the speakers were distinctly heard at the door of their own
apartment.
“Ay! he has a military air about him, Peters, that will make him a
prize; come, open the door.”
“This is not his room, your honor,” said the alarmed soldier; “he
quarters in the last room in the gallery.”
“How know you that, fellow? come, produce the key, and open the way for
me; I care not who sleeps here; there is no saying but I may enlist them
all three.”
A single moment of dreadful incertitude succeeded, when the sentinel was
heard saying, in reply to this peremptory order:
“I thought your honor wanted to see the one with the black stock, and so
left the rest of the keys at the other end of the passage; but----”
“But nothing, you loon; a sentinel should always carry his keys about
him, like a jailer; follow, then, and let me see the lad who dresses so
well to the right.”
As the heart of Katherine began to beat less vehemently, she said:
“'Tis Borroughcliffe, and too drunk to see that we have left the key
in the door; but what is to be done? we have but a moment for
consultation.”
“As the day dawns,” said Cecilia, “quickly, I shall send here, under the
pretence of conveying you food, my own woman----”
“There is no need of risking anything for my safety,” interrupted
Griffith; “I hardly think we shall be detained, and if we are,
Barnstable is at hand with a force that would scatter these recruits to
the four winds of heaven.”
“Ah! that would lead to bloodshed, and scenes of horror!” exclaimed
Cecilia.
“Listen!” cried Katherine, “they approach again!”
A man now stopped, once more, at their door, which was opened softly,
and the face of the sentinel was thrust into the apartment.
“Captain Borroughcliffe is on his rounds, and for fifty of your guineas
I would not leave you here another minute.”
“But one word more,” said Cecilia.
“Not a syllable, my lady, for my life,” returned the man; “the lady from
the next room waits for you, and in mercy to a poor fellow go back where
you came from.”
The appeal was unanswerable, and they complied, Cecilia saying, as they
left the room:
“I shall send you food in the morning, young man, and directions how to
take the remedy necessary to your safety.”
In the passage they found Alice Dunscombe, with her face concealed in
her mantle; and, it would seem, by the heavy sighs that escaped from
her, deeply agitated by the interview which she had just encountered.
But as the reader may have some curiosity to know what occurred
to distress this unoffending lady so sensibly, we shall detain the
narrative, to relate the substance of that which passed between her and
the individual whom she sought.