way, being made by a gentleman's sword, and he either wild with liquor
or with rage. Never shall I forget hearing his horse's hoofs come
tearing over the road, as if some man was riding for his life. I was
abed, and started out of my sleep at the sound of it. 'Who's chased by
the devil at this time o' night through Wickben village?' says I, and
scarce were the words out of my mouth before the horse clatters up to
the house and stops. I could hear him panting and heaving as his rider
gets off and strides up to bang on the door. 'What dost thou want?'
says I, putting my head out of the window. 'Come down and let me in,'
answers he; 'I have no time to spare. You have a thing in your house I
would find.' 'Twas a gentleman's voice, and I saw 'twas a gentleman's
dress he wore, for 'twas fine cloth, and his sword had a silvered
scabbard, and his hat rich plumes. 'Come down,' says he, and bangs the
door again, so down I went."
"Who was he?" asked her Grace slowly, for he had stopped for breath.
She sat quite still as before, her round chin held in her hands, her
eyes fixed on him, but there was no longer any laughter in their
blackness. "Did he tell his name?"
"Not then," was the answer; "nor did he know I heard when he spoke it,
breaking forth in anger. But that is to come later"--with the air of
one who would have his tale heard to the most dramatic advantage. "Into
this room he strides and to the window straight and looks below the
sill. 'Four years ago,' says he, 'there was a hole here in the wall.
Was't so or was't not?' and he looks at me sharp and fierce as if he
would take me by the throat if I said there had been none. 'Ay, there
was a hole there long enough,' I answers him, 'but 'twas mended with
new plaster at last. Your lordship can see the patch, for 'twas but
roughly done.' Then he goes close to it and stares. 'Ay,' says he,
'there has been a hole mended. Old Chris did not lie.' And on that he
turns to me. 'Get out of the room,' he says, 'I have a search to make
here. Your wall will want another patch when I am done,' he says. 'But
'twill be made good. Go thy ways.' And he draws out his hanger, and
there was sweat on his brow and he breathed fast, as if he was wild
with his anxiousness to find what he sought."
"And didst leave him?" asked her Grace, as quiet as before. "For how
long?"
The old man grinned.
"Not for long," said he, "nor did I go far. I stood outside, where I
could see through the crack o' the door."
The Duchess nodded with an unmoved face.
"He was like a man in a frenzy," the host went on. "He dug at the
plaster till I thought his sword would break; he dug as if he were paid
for it by the minute. He made a hole bigger than had been there before,
and when 'twas made he thrusts his hand in and fumbles about, cursing
under his breath. And of a sudden he gives a start and stops and pants
for breath, and then draws his hand back, and it was bloody, being
scratched by the stone and plaster, but he held somewhat in it, a
little dusty package, and he clutches it to his breast and laughs
outright. Good Lord, 'twas like a devil's laugh, 'twas so wild and
joyful. 'Ha, ha!' cries he, shaking the thing in the air and stamping
his foot, 'Jack Oxon comes to his own again, to his own!'"
"Then," says her Grace, more slowly still, "that was his name? I have
heard it before."
"I heard it again," said the old story-teller, eager to reach his
climax. "And 'tis that ends the story so finely. 'Twas by chance talk
of travellers I heard it nigh six months later. The very day after he
stood here and searched for his package he disappeared from sight and
has not been heard of since. And the last who set eyes on him was my
Lady Dunstanwolde, who is now a Duchess at Camylott, where your camp
is. 'Twas her name brought the story back to me."
Her Grace rose, catching her breath with a laugh. She turned her face
towards the window, as if, of a sudden, attracted by somewhat to be
seen outside.
"'Tis a good story," she said, but for a moment the crimson roses on
her cheeks had shuddered to whiteness. Why, no man could tell. Her host
did not see her countenance--perhaps my lord Duke did not.
"'Tis a good story!" she laughed again.
"And well told," added my lord Duke.
Her Grace turned to them both once more. Through some wondrous exercise
of her will she looked herself again.
"As we are in luck to-day," she said, "and it has passed the time, let
us count it in the reckoning."
A new, almost wild, fantastic gayety seized her. She flung herself into
her playing of the part of a gipsy woman with a spirit which was a
marvel to behold. She searched his Grace's pockets and her own for
pence, and counted up the reckoning on the table, saying that they
could but afford this or that much, that they must save this coin for a
meal, that for a bed, this to pay toll on the road. She used such
phrases of the gipsy jargon as she had picked up, and made jokes and
bantering speeches which set their host cackling with laughter. Osmonde
had seen her play a fantastic part before on their whimsical holidays,
but never one which suited her so well, and in which she seemed so full
of fire and daring wit. She was no Duchess, a man might have sworn, but
a tall, splendid, black-eyed laughing gipsy woman, who, to the man who
was her partner, would be a fortune every day, and a fortune not of
luck alone, but of gay spirit and bravery and light-hearted love.
That night the moon shone white and clear, and in the mid hours my lord
Duke waked from his sleep suddenly, and saw the brightness streaming
full through the oriel window, and in the fair flood of it his love's
white figure kneeling.
"Gerald," she cried, clinging to him when he went to her. "'Twas I
awaked you. I called, though I did not speak."
"I heard, as I should hear if I lay dead," he answered low.
Her hair was all unbound for the night--her black, wondrous hair which
he so loved--and from its billowy cloud her face looked at him wild and
white, her mouth quivering.
"Gerald," she said, "look out with me."
Together they looked forth from the wide window into the beauty of the
night, up into the great vault of Heaven, where the large silver moon
sailed in the blue, the stars shining faintly before her soft
brilliance.
"We are Pagans," she said, "poor Pagans who oftenest seem to pray to a
cruel thing we do not know but only crouch before in terror, lest it
crush us. But when we look up into such a Heaven as this, its majesty
and stillness seem a presence, and we dare to utter what our hearts cry
out, and know we shall be heard." She caught his hand and held it to
her heart, which he felt leap beneath it. "There is no power would harm
a woman's child," she cried--"a little unborn thing which has not
breathed--because it would wreak vengeance on herself! There is none,
Gerald, is there?" And she clung to him, her uplifted face filled with
such lovely, passionate, woman's fear and pleading as made him sweep
her to his breast and hold her silently--because he could not speak.
"For I have learned to be afraid," she murmured brokenly, against his
breast. "And I was kneeling here to pray--to pray with all my
soul--that if there were so cruel a thing 'twould _kill_ me
now--blight me--take me from you--that I might die in torture--but not
bring suffering on my love, and on an innocent thing."
And her heart beat like some terrified caged eaglet against his own,
and her eyes were wild with woe. But the wondrous stillness of the deep
night enfolded them, as if Nature held them in her great arms which
comfort so. And her stars gazed calmly down, even as though their
calmness were answering speech.
_CHAPTER XXX_
_On Tyburn Hill_
There was none knew her as her husband did--none in the world--though
so many were her friends and worshippers. As he loved her he knew her,
the passion of his noble heart giving him clearer and more watchful
eyes than any other. Truth was, indeed, that she herself did not know
how much he saw and pondered on and how tender his watch upon her was.
The dark shadow in her eyes he had first noted, the look which would
pass over her face sometimes at a moment when 'twas brightest, when it
glowed with tenderest love for himself or with deepest yearning over
the children who were given to them as time passed, for there were born
to fill their home four sons who were like young gods for strength and
beauty, and two daughters as fair things as Nature ever made to promise
perfect womanhood.
And how she loved and tended them, and how they joyed in their young
lives and worshipped and revered her!
"When I was a child, Gerald," she said to their father, "I was
unhappy--and 'tis a hideous thing that a child should be so. I loved
none and none loved me, and though all feared my rage and gave me my
will, I was restless and savage and a rebel, though I knew not why.
There were hours--I did not know their meaning, and hated them--when I
was seized with fits of horrid loneliness and would hide myself in the
woods, and roll in the dead leaves, and curse myself and all things
because I was wretched. I used to think that I was angered at my dogs,
or my horse, or some servant, or my father, and would pour forth oaths
at them--but 'twas not they. Our children must be happy--they must be
happy, Gerald. I will have them happy!"
What a mother they had in her!--a creature who could be wild with play
and laughter with them, who was so beauteous that even in mere babyhood
they would sit upon her knee and stare at her for sheer infant pleasure
in her rich bloom and great, sweet eyes; who could lift and toss and
rock them in her strong, soft arms as if they were but flowers and she
a summer wind; whose voice was music, and whose black hair was a great
soft mantle 'twas their childish delight to coax her to loosen that it
might flow about her, billowing, she standing laughing beneath and
tossing it over them to hide their smallness under it as beneath a
veil. She was their heroine and their young pride, and among themselves
they made joyful little boasts that there was no other such lady in
all England. To behold her mount her tall horse and gallop and leap
hedges and gates, to hear her tell stories of the moorlands and woods,
and the game hiding in nests and warrens, of the ways of dogs and hawks
and horses, and soldiers and Kings and Queens, and of how their father
had fought in battles, and of how big the world was and how full of
wonders and of joys! What other children had such pleasures in their
lives?
But a few months after their Graces' visit to the Cow at Wickben, young
John, who was heir and Marquess of Roxholm, had been born; following
each other his two brothers, and later the child Daphne and her sister
Anne; last, the little Lord Cuthbert, who was told as he grew older
that he was to be the hero of his house in memory of Cuthbert de
Mertoun, who had lived centuries ago; and in the five villages 'twas
sworn that each son her Grace bore her husband was a finer creature
than the last, and that her girl children outbloomed their brothers
all.
Among these young human flowers Mistress Anne reigned gentle queen and
saint, but softly faded day by day, having been a fragile creature all
her life, but growing more so as time passed, despite the peace she
lived in and the happiness surrounding her.
In her eyes, too, his Grace had seen a look which held its mystery.
They were such soft eyes and so kind and timid he had always loved
them. In days gone by he had often observed them as they followed her
sister, and had been touched by the faithful tenderness of their look;
but after her marriage they seemed to follow her more tenderly still,
and sometimes with a vague, piteous wonder, as if the fond creature
asked herself in secret a question she knew not how to answer. More and
more devout she had grown, and, above all things, craved to aid her
Grace in the doing of her good deeds. To such work she gave herself
with the devotion of one who would strive to work out a penance.
Her own attendant was one of those whom her sister had aided, and was a
young creature with a piteous little story indeed--a pretty, rosy,
country child of but seventeen when, after her Grace's marriage, she
came to Camylott to serve Mistress Anne.
On her first coming my lord Duke had marked her and the sadness of her
innocent, childish face and blue eyes, and had spoken of her to Anne,
asking if she had met with some misfortune.
"A pretty, curly-headed creature such as she should be a village beauty
and dimpling with smiles," he said, "but the little thing looks
sometimes as if she had wept a year. Who has done her a wrong?"
Mistress Anne gave a little start and bent lower over her embroidery
frame, but her Grace, who was in the apartment, answered for her.
"'Twas Sir John Oxon," she answered, "who has wronged so many."
"What!" Osmonde cried, "wrought he the poor thing's ruin?"
"No," the Duchess replied; "but would have done it, and she, poor
child, all innocent, believing herself an honest wife. He had so
planned it, but Fate saved her!"
"A mock marriage," says the Duke, "and she saved from it! How?"
"Because the day she went to him to be married, as he had told her, he
was not at his lodgings, and did not return."
"'Twas the very day he disappeared--the day you saw him?" Osmonde
exclaimed.
"Yes," was the answer given, as her Grace crossed the room. "And 'twas
because I had seen him that the poor thing came to me with her
story--and I cared for her."
She, too, had been sitting at her embroidery frame, and had crossed the
room for silks, which lay upon the table near to Mistress Anne. As she
laid her hand upon them she looked down and uttered a low exclamation,
springing to her sister's side.
"Anne, love!" she cried. "Nay, Anne!"
Mistress Anne's small, worn face had dropped so low over her frame that
it at last lay upon it, showing white against the silken roses so gaily
broidered there. She was in a dead swoon.
Later Osmonde heard further details of this story--of how the poor
child, having no refuge in the great city, had dared at last to go to
Dunstanwolde House in the wild hope that her ladyship, who had last
seen Sir John, might tell her if he had let drop any word concerning
his journey--if he had made one. She had at first hung long about the
servants' entrance, watching the workmen who were that day walling in
the wing of black cellars my lady had wished to close before she left
the place, and at length, in desperation, had appealed to a young
stone-mason, with a good-humoured countenance, and he had interceded
for her with a lacquey passing by.
"But had I not spoke Sir John's name," the girl said when my lord Duke
spoke kindly to her of her story and her Grace's goodness; "had I not
spoke his name, the man would not have carried my message. But he said
she would see me if I had news of Sir John Oxon. He blundered, your
Grace, thinking I came from Sir John himself, and told her Grace 'twas
so. And she bade him bring me to her."
Her Grace she worshipped, and would break here into sobs each time she
told the story, describing her fright when she had been led to the
apartment where sate the great lady, who had spoke to her in a voice
like music and with such strange, deep pity of her grief, and in a
passion of tenderness had told the truth to her, taking her, after her
swoon, in her own strong, lovely arms, as if she had been no rich
Countess but a poor woman, such as she who wept, and one whose heart,
too, might have been broke by a cruel, deadly blow.
This poor simple child (who was in time cured of her wound and married
an honest fellow who loved her) was not the only one of Sir John Oxon's
victims whom her Grace protected. There were, indeed, many of them, and
'twas as though she had made it her curious duty to search them out.
When she and her lord lived sumptuously at Osmonde House in town,
shining at Court, entertaining Royalty itself at their home, envied and
courted by all as the happiest married lovers and the favourites of
Fortune, my lord Duke knew that many a day she cast her rich robes and,
clad in the dark garments and black hood, went forth to visit strange,
squalid places. Since the hour of his first meeting her on her return
from such an errand, when they had spoken together, he had never again
forbade her to follow the path 'twas plain she had chosen.
"Were I going forth to battle," he had said, "you would not seek to
hold me back; and in your battle, for it seems one to me, though I know
not what 'tis fought for, I will not restrain you."
"Ay, 'tis a battle," she had said, and seized his hands and kissed them
as if in passionate gratitude. "And 'tis a debt--a debt I swore to
pay--if that we call God would let me. Perhaps He will not, but were He
you--who know my soul--He would."
Yet but a few hours later, when he joined her in the Mall, where she
had descended from her coach to walk with the world of fashion and
moved among the wits and beaux and leaders of the mode, drawing all
round her by the marvel of her spirit and the brilliancy of her gayety
and bearing, he hearing her rich laughter and meeting the bright look
of her lovely, flashing eyes, wondered if she was the woman whose voice
still lingered in his ears and the memory of whose words would not
leave his fervent heart.
Their love was so perfect a thing that they had never denied each other
aught. Why should they; indeed, how could they? Each so understood and
trusted the other that they scarce had need for words in the deciding
of such questions as other pairs must reason gravely over. There was no
question, only one thought between them, and in his life a thing which
grew each hour as he had long since known it would. 'Twas this woman
whom he loved--this _one_--her looks, her ways, her laughter and her
tears, her very faults, if she should have them, her past, her present,
and her future which seemed all himself.
That--Duchess of Osmonde though she might be--she was known in dark
places and moved among the foul evil there, like the sun which strove
at rare hours to cleanse and dispel it; that she had in kennels and
noisome dens strange friends, was a thing at first vaguely rumoured
because the world had ever loved its stories of her, and been ready to
believe any it heard and invent new ones when it had tired of the old.
But there came a time when through a strange occurrence the rumour was
proved, most singularly, to be a truth.
Two gilt coaches, full of chattering fine ladies and gentlemen, were
being driven on a certain day through a part of the town not ordinarily
frequented by fashion, but the occupants of the coaches had been
entertaining themselves with a great and curious sight it had been
their delicate fancy to desire to behold as an exciting novelty. This
had been no less an exhibition than the hanging of two malefactors on
Tyburn Hill--the one a handsome young highwayman, the other a poor
woman executed for larceny.
The highwayman had been a favourite and had died gaily, and that he
should have been cut off in his prime had put the crowd (among which
were several of his yet uncaught companions) in an ill-humour; the poor
woman had wept and made a poor end, which had added to the anger of the
beholders.
'Twas an evil, squalid, malodorous mob, not of the better class of
thieves and tatterdemalions, but of the worst, being made up of
cutthroats out of luck, pickpockets, and poor wretches who were the
scourings of the town and the refuse of the kennel. 'Twas just the
crowd to be roused to some insensate frenzy, being hungry, bitter, and
vicious; and when, making ready to slouch back to its dens, its
attention was attracted by the gay coaches, with their liveries and
high-fed horses, and their burden of silks and velvets, and plumes
nodding over laughing, carefree, selfish faces, it fell into a sudden
fit of animal rage.
'Twas a woman who began it. (She had been a neighbour of the one who
had just met punishment, and in her own hovel at that moment lay hid
stolen goods.) She was a wild thing, with a battered face and unkempt
hair; her rags hung about her waving, and she had a bloodshot, fierce
eye.
"Look!" she screamed out suddenly, high and shrill; "look at them in
their goold coaches riding home from Tyburn, where they've seen their
betters swing!"
The ladies in the chariots, pretty, heartless fools, started affrighted
in their seats, and strove to draw back; their male companions, who
were as pretty, effeminate fools themselves and of as little spirit,
started also, and began to look pale about the gills.
"Look at them!" shrieked the virago, "shivering like rabbits. A pretty
end they would make if they were called to dance at a rope's end. Look
ye at them, with their white faces and their swords and periwigs!"
And she stood still, waving her arms, and poured forth a torrent of
curses.
'Twas enough. The woman beside her looked and began to shake her fist,
seized by the same frenzy; her neighbour caught up her cry, her
neighbour hers; a sodden-faced thief broke into a howling laugh,
another followed him, the madness spread from side to side, and in a
moment the big foul crowd surged about the coaches, shrieking
blasphemies and obscenities, shaking fists, howling cries of "Shame!"
and threats of vengeance.
"Turn over the coaches! Drag them out! Tear their finery from them!
Stuff their mincing mouths with mud!" rose all about them.
The servants were dragged from their seats and hauled from side to
side, their liveries were in ribbands, their terrified faces, ghastly
with terror and streaming with blood, might be seen one moment in one
place, the next in another, sometimes they seemed down on the ground.
The crowd roared with rage and laughter at their cries. One lady
swooned with terror, one or two crouched on the floor of the coach; the
dandies gesticulated and called for help.
"They will kill us! they will kill us!" screamed the finest beau among
them. "The watch! the watch! The constables!"
"'Tis worse than the Mohocks," cried another, but his hand so shook he
could not have drawn his sword if he had dared.
The next instant the glass of the first coach was smashed and its door
beaten open. A burly fellow seized upon a shrieking beauty and dragged
her forth laughing, dealing her gallant a mighty clout on the face as
he caught her. Blood spouted from the poor gentleman's delicate
aquiline nose, and the mob danced and yelled.
"Drag 'em all out!" was roared by the sodden-faced thief. "The women to
the women and the men to the men, and then change about." The creatures
were like wild beasts, and their prey would have been torn to pieces,
but at that moment, from a fellow at the edge of the crowd broke a
startled oath.
Someone had made way to him and laid a strong hand on his shoulder, and
there was that in his cry which made those nearest turn.
A tall figure in black draperies stood towering above him, and in truth
above all the rest of the crowd. 'Twas a woman, and she called out to
the mad creatures about her in command.
"Fools!" she cried; "have a care. Do you want to swing at a rope's end
yourselves?" 'Twas a fierce voice, the voice of a brave creature who
feared none of them; though 'twas a rich voice and a woman's, and so
rang with authority that it actually checked the tempest for a moment
and made the leaders turn to look.
She made her way nearer and threw back her hood from her face.
"I am Clorinda Mertoun, who is Duchess of Osmonde," she cried to them.
"There are many of you know me. Call back your senses, and hearken to
what I say."
The ladies afterwards in describing the scene used to quake as they
tried to paint this moment.
"There was a cry that was like a low howl," they said, "as if beasts
were baffled and robbed of their prey. Some of them knew her and some
did not, but they all stood and stared. Good Lord! 'twas her great
black eyes that held them; but I shall be affrighted when I think of
her, till my dying day."
'Twas her big black eyes and the steady flame in them that held the
poor frenzied fools, perchance as wolves are said to be held by the eye
of man sometimes; but 'twas another thing, and on that she counted.
She looked round from one face to the other.
"You know me," she said to one; "and you, and you, and you," nodding at
each. "I can pick out a dozen of you who know me, and should find more
if I marked you all. How many here are my friends and servants?"
There was a strange hoarse chorus of sounds; they were the voices of
women who were poor bedraggled drabs, men who were thieves and
cutthroats, a few shrill voices of lads who were pickpockets and ripe
for the gallows already.