'Twas wonderful to see her as she came in, stately and beautiful as
ever, betraying only in the pallor of her cheeks the terrible anguish
that possessed her.
She came and kissed me like a sister, and then, laying her hand in
Jeannette's, tears came to her eyes as she gave us joy of our happy
meeting, after so much peril.
"Maiden," said I, "we know no happiness while you stand thus desolate.
But Ludar lives. As sure as I lie here, you shall find him, and we
shall all thank Heaven together."
Her face brightened.
"You have said as much before," said she, "and it has come to pass.
Yes, I will hope still."
But her voice fell sadly with the words, and her face turned to the
window, seaward.
Then she bade me tell her what had passed since we parted in London, and
how Ludar and I came on the _Gerona_. And, hearing of all the chances
that had befallen us, I think she took a little hope that all this
buffetting and peril was not assuredly to end in loss.
But she said nothing. Only she kept her hand in Jeannette's; and when I
told her of the horrible scene on the bog by Killybegs, she shuddered,
and muttered what, I fear, was a prayer for the soul of a dead man.
"But how come you in Dunluce?" I asked again, presently.
'Twas Jeannette who answered me.
"'Tis easily told, dear Humphrey. After Sir Turlogh departed for
Dublin, leaving us in charge of this,"--here she shivered--"this Captain
Merriman, my mistress and I kept our chambers, and durst not so much as
venture beyond the door. Our good protectors--Heaven reward them!--had
been banished the place; and but for a few of the O'Neill's men, who
stood in the way, we had not been safe where we were for a day.
"At last, one day, there came suddenly a messenger, purporting to be
from the O'Neill, bidding the Captain send his daughter to him under an
escort to Dublin. On this the Captain rudely broke into our chambers,
and bade us there and then set out. What could two weak maids do? We
could read treachery in his wicked eye, yet naught we could say or
pretend could put him off; and there and then, without time so much as
to speak a word to one another, we were marched forth, like prisoners,
and mounted on our steeds.
"Just as we set forth, he came up to the leader of our party, and said
in a whisper I could overhear: 'Remember--the mistress to the house by
the wood, and the little one to Dublin--and hands-off.' Then all the
villainy of the thing flashed on me in a moment. 'Mistress,' cried I,
'we are betrayed!' But before the words were out, a rough hand was laid
across my mouth, and we were galloping. Nay, Humphrey," said she,
laying her hand gently on mine, "if thou start and toss like this, 'tis
a sign my story doeth thee harm, and I will cease."
"Would you have me lie still and hear all this?" cried I, in a fever.
"Yes, dear heart," said she, and that so sweetly that I was forced to
obey. "We were galloping away from Castleroe. For a whole day we
galloped, till we were faint and ready to drop. Then, as we came to a
wood, which I guessed to be the place where my mistress and I were to be
parted, our leader suddenly reined in and turned to give an order to the
man who held me. As he did so, four men sprang out from among the trees
and a horrible fight ensued. In the midst of it, one of the new-comers
advanced to me and said, 'You are safe!' and I knew it to be no other
than the soldier Gedge himself."
"And he who came to my side," put in the maiden, smiling amid her
heaviness, "said: 'Let Diana shake off her clouds. Apollo himself hath
come to lead her out into the Empyrean.'"
"God reward them both for this!" said I.
"Amen," said Jeannette. "Two of the villains they slew and the other
staggered away, as I fear, mortally wounded. 'Twas him you saw.
"As for us, our rescuers brought us here, where the McDonnell hath
welcomed us, and, as you know, loveth my mistress as his own daughter.
Yet, little thought we, as we looked out from the turret window at the
storm last night, and prayed side by side for those at sea, that you,
and--and Sir Ludar were coming to us on the wild waves!"
The day wore on, and still neither soldier nor poet nor any news came to
comfort us.
Then I demanded to be taken to Sorley Boy McDonnell, and the maiden led
my tottering steps to the great hall. There sat the old man, bare-
headed and motionless, at the head of the empty table, with his sword
laid out before him. "Is my son come?" demanded he, as we entered.
"Not yet, dear sire," said the maiden, going to him.
"He is not far away, sir," said I; "of that I am sure."
"I know that," said the old chief, half angrily. "The Banshee has been
dumb since Alexander McDonnell fell. Why comes not Ludar? I grow
impatient."
Even as he spoke there came a knocking on the door, and a Scot entered
hastily.
He brought news that in a hut a mile eastward of the castle a man had
been found, who had been brought up from the shore, dead; and that,
further east still, the bodies of--
Here Sorley Boy smote his fist on the table, and ordered the fellow to
hold his peace.
"I want no news of the dead," said he, wrathfully, "but of the living.
Where is my son Ludar?"
The man slunk off chapfallen.
The maiden knelt beside the old man's chair, and laid her white cheek on
his rough sleeve. Jeannette drew me gently to a bench at the far corner
of the hall, and bade me rest there beside her.
Thus, while the afternoon slowly wore into evening, and the storm
without moaned itself to sleep, we sat there in silence.
About sundown, just as--despite the sweet presence at my side--I was
growing drowsy with weariness and pain, Sorley Boy suddenly uttered an
exclamation and rose to his feet. The maiden rose too. And as she
stood, motionless but for the heaving of her bosom, the slanting rays of
the sun caught her and kindled her face into a wondrous glow.
Jeannette's gentle hand restrained me, as the old man, taking a step or
two down the room as far as the end of the table, stood there facing the
door. Then there fell on my ears a voice and the ring of a footstep in
the courtyard without. Next moment, the door swung open and Ludar
walked quietly in.
Jeannette led me softly from the place, and kept me cruelly pacing in
the outer darkness for half-an-hour before she said:
"Art thou not going in to welcome thy friend, Humphrey?"
Need I say what passed, when at last we stood all four together in that
great hall?
The old chief had taken his seat again at the table, and sat there
solemn and impassive, as if all that had passed had been but the
ordinary event of an afternoon. But the fire in his eye betrayed him,
as now and again he half turned his head to the window where Ludar and
the maiden stood gazing out across the waves.
"Humphrey, my brother," said Ludar, when at last Jeannette and I drew
near, "'tis worth a little storm to be thus in port at last, and to find
you there too."
"Ay, indeed," said I. "And, as you see, there are more than I here to
greet you."
Then he stepped up to Jeannette and gazed in her face a moment, and
kissed her on the brow.
"Thou art welcome to Dunluce, sister Jeannette," said he.
Jeannette told me afterwards that she never felt so proud in her life as
when Ludar's lips touched her forehead, and she heard him call her
sister.
'Twas not in me to complain that it should be so; for the ways of women
are beyond my understanding.
Presently the old man rose from his seat, and without a word left us to
ourselves. Ludar then narrated how, when the _Gerona_ broke up, he had
fallen near a broken oar, which held him up and enabled him to reach
land almost without a bruise. For a long while he lay in the darkness,
not knowing where he was; but when day broke, he found himself in the
deep cave that goes under the castle, a prisoner there by the rising
tide, and with no means of escape. For to stem the waves at the mouth
was hopeless, and by no manner of shouting and calling could he make his
presence known to anyone outside.
So all day, faint with hunger, he had perched on a ledge just beyond
reach of the tide, and not till evening, when the wind, and with it the
water, subsided, was he able to swim out and come to land at the foot of
the very path up which, long months ago, he had led the party who
recovered Dunluce for the McDonnells.
His story was scarce ended when a cheering without called us to the
courtyard, where the news of the return of Sir Ludar had gathered the
McDonnells, eager with shouts and music to welcome him.
But Ludar would by no means go out till his father arrived to command
it. Then it did us, who loved him, good to see him stand there, with
the maiden's hand in his, receiving the homage of his clansmen.
While thus we stood, there was an uproar at the gate, as two men fought
their way through the throng and approached us.
"Jove and the Muses grant their beloved son a soul to celebrate so
notable a festival in the strains which it deserves!" cried the poet,
shaking all over with emotion, and his eyes dim with tears. "Achilles
hath his Briseis; Odysseus his lost Penelope, and all four have to their
hand an Orpheus (woe's me! without his Eurydice), to chant their
fortunes. Oh! my noble son of a wolf, and thou, my Hollander, how I
rejoice to see you, and to hand to your arms the nymphs of whom one day,
perhaps, it shall be accounted to their honour that they were nourished
on the dews of Parnassus by the Muses' most unworthy disciple."
"A nice dry nurse you be!" said Jack Gedge. "'Tis a mercy the fair
ladies have their ear-drums sound after half-a-year of your noisy
buzzing in them. Sir Ludar, by your leave, captain, you hold in your
hand what you gave me in charge to keep for you; so I owe you nought but
my farewell."
"Nay," said Ludar. "By heaven, we are all debtors to you both, and
shall compel you to own it. And since you both and my comrade here be
Englishmen, let me tell you that, for your sakes, I shall salute your
Queen's ensign when I next see it."
That night the poet related to me with much embellishment and flourish
all that had passed since the maids left London, most of which I already
knew, yet was not loth to hear again from his lips.
"Thank me no thanks, my Hollander," said he, when once more I blessed
him for the service he had done. "The poet's glory cometh not from
earth. I have, while I waited here, written an excellent and notable
epic on the wars of the illustrious house of the McDonnells, the which I
will even now rehearse thee for thy delectation. And when once more
thou art returned to thy press, I reserve for thee the glory of
imprinting three noble copies of the same on paper of vellum, to be
bound after the manner of the Venetians, in white, with clasps of gold,
to be given, one to my lord Sorley Boy, one to Sir Ludar, and one to
thee, for thy private and particular delectation."
Again I thanked him, and begged he would reserve the reading till to-
morrow, when I should be more wakeful.
To which, marvelling much at my patience, he agreed.
"As for me," said he, "naught falleth ill to the favourites of the
Immortals. I owe no grudge to the day I took thee into my protection.
As a printer, count on me as thy patron. As a man, call me thy friend.
And if some day, at thy frugal fireside (for the which thou art already
provided with the chiefest ornament), thou shouldst have a spare chair
and platter, I will even deign to fill the one and empty the other now
and again, in memory of this, our time of fellowship. Therefore count
on me, my Hollander; and so, good-night."
There is little more to be told. Of the crew of the doomed _Gerona_,
the tide washed some hundreds, before many weeks were past, into a bay
near the Causeway Headlands, east of Dunluce. Amongst them, Ludar and I
discovered the body of Don Alonzo, calm and gentle in death, and buried
him with what honour, we could in holy ground near the tomb of the
McDonnells. A few cannon and guns we helped haul up and set on the
walls of Dunluce, where they are to this day, much to the wrath of my
Lord Deputy and his English Councillors.
Jack Gedge remains body servant to Sir Ludar McDonnell; where, if his
trust be not so great as it was (now that his master and mistress are
one), he is none the less faithful or joyous in his service.
As for the poet, he was true to his promise of visiting Jeannette and me
at our frugal fireside. But this was not for many years after the
promise was given.
As soon as my arm was healed and I could persuade Ludar to release me, I
returned to London, to find the house without Temple Bar still empty,
and Master Walgrave's name still a caution to evil-doers. Despairing of
seeing me and his type from Rochelle, he had sold himself to those
firebrands Masters Udal and Penry; and by means of his secret press had
given utterance to certain scandalous and seditious libels on the
bishops and clergy of the Church, known by the name of Marprelate, his
books. A merry chase he gave the beadle and pursuivants all over the
country, dropping libels wherever he went, till at last he suddenly
vanished and left them to whistle.
For Jeannette's sake as well as my own I wandered far for news of him,
and heard of him at last from Mistress Crane as having fled to Rochelle
with all his family. Thither I wrote him of my welfare, and had a
letter back bidding me, if I was still minded to serve him, meet him in
Edinburgh. Thither, then, I took sail, and presently found him; and
should you meet with any books imprinted by Robert Walgrave, Printer to
the King's Most Excellent Majesty in Edinburgh, know that the hand that
set them in type was the same which now writes this true history.
In due season Mistress Walgrave and the little ones came northward too;
and one glad day I wandered to the western coast, and there met Ludar
and his fair bride, and with them my own sweet Jeannette, from whom I
never parted more.
Ere this happy meeting took place, Sorley Boy McDonnell had ended his
stormy days and was gathered to his fathers, and Sir James McDonnell,
his son, became Lord of Dunluce.
Ludar dwelt quietly on his lands in Cantire, refusing allegiance to any
crowned monarch, but loyal to the end to his wife, his clan, his
comrade, and to the memory of those perils and chances which had made
him and me brothers.