Leaving the fugitives in that period of their flight with which the
last chapter closes, I must, with the benevolent reader's good leave,
return to personages whom I have left somewhat too long, and for whom
I own a deep interest.
Annie Walton--sweet Annie Walton--stood, as the reader may recollect,
conversing with her worthy aunt, Lady Margaret Langley, and had just
announced that amongst the voices she heard below was one, the tones
of which recalled a person who ought to have been over the sea long
before. Now, it may be supposed, and, considering all things, not
unnaturally, that she alluded thus vaguely to the Earl of Beverley.
Such, however, was not the case; for the voice of Lord Beverley was
rich and musical, while the sounds she heard were far from being
particularly harmonious; and an oath or two, pronounced in a somewhat
loud tone, and intermixed with laughter, were certainly not of the
vocabulary which he was most accustomed to employ.
At the same time, the stag-hound which followed them along the
passages pricked up his ears with a sharp growl, and took two or three
quick steps in advance, as if to spring forward on the first occasion.
Lady Margaret chid him back, however. "Who is it, child?" she asked.
"Who do you fancy it is? I expect no one."
"I think the voice is that of a certain Captain Barecolt," replied
Miss Walton; "not a very pleasing personage, dear aunt, but one who
once did us very good service--a brave man and a good soldier, my
brother says, but sadly given to gasconade."
"If he be a brave man and a good soldier, a loyal subject, and have
done you and Charles good service, he shall be right welcome, Annie,"
replied the old lady; "and he may gasconade to the moon if he pleases.
Down, sir! down! Will you show your white teeth when I forbid you? But
what can they be about, Annie? Never did I hear such a bustle. Hark!
there is Charles's voice as loud as the other. Come quickly! let us
see."
"Quick! out with the horses!" tried the voice of Lord Walton below.
"See them out like lightning. Lie there, Francis, for a moment. Call
my aunt--call my sister! By heaven, they shall rue it! Which way did
they seem to take?"
"They halted before the house," said a faint voice, which made Miss
Walton's cheek turn pale; "flushed with their success, they may dare
to attack it. Captain, I owe you my life."
"Nothing, nothing, my lord!" rejoined the voice of Barecolt. "But we
must be quick, Lord Walton, or their courage may fail, and they may
run away, taking her with them. Can I get any better arms? for we had
nothing but our swords--'twas that which ruined us."
"There are plenty in the hall," exclaimed Lady Margaret Langley, who
was now entering the room in which she had left her nephew. At the
same moment, one of Lord Walton's servants appeared at the other door,
saying, "The horses are ready, my lord. The people seem going up the
lane."
The scene the room presented was very different from that which it had
displayed when Annie Walton and Lady Margaret left it. Lying on some
cushions which had been cast down upon the ground, was the graceful
form of the Earl of Beverley, evidently wounded, and somewhat faint.
By his side stood Lord Walton, holding a light in his hand, and gazing
down upon his friend's countenance, while two stout countrymen, one
with a drawn sword in his hand, appeared a little behind, and the tall
figure of Captain Barecolt was seen through the open door in the
vestibule beyond, reaching down some arms from the wall.
"Dear Annie--dear aunt--look to the earl," cried Charles Walton. "He
is shot through the leg; I cannot stop to tell you more; I must pursue
them. Ha! see, he is bleeding terribly--'tis that which makes him
faint."
"Go, Charles! go!" exclaimed the earl. "I shall do well enough. The
wound is nothing; 'tis but the loss of blood. Quick, quick! away, or
you will not catch them."
Lord Walton gave one more look to his friend, and a sign to his sister
to attend to the earl immediately, and then quitted the room. The
sound of prancing hoofs and jingling arms was heard without, then the
creaking of the drawbridge as it was lowered, and then the fierce
galloping of horse along the lane. Lady Margaret and Miss Walton knelt
by the wounded man's side and asked him regarding his wound; but the
voice of Annie was faint and low, and her hand trembled so that she
could hardly hold the light while her aunt endeavoured to staunch the
blood. More effectual assistance, however, was rendered by the servant
William, who ran in the moment he had secured the bridge, and with his
aid the wound was soon discovered, pouring forth a torrent of blood
from some large vessel cut by the ball, which had passed quite through
the leg a few inches below the knee. Lady Margaret, however, had some
skill in leechcraft, and William was by no means an inexperienced
assistant. Bandages were speedily procured, and with little trouble
and no loss of time the wound was bound up and the bleeding stopped.
But few words were spoken while this took place, for good Lady
Margaret, feeling herself in a position of authority, imposed silence
upon all around her. She was too much occupied herself in her surgical
operations to remark the pale countenance and anxious eyes of her
niece, or the smile of confidence and encouragement with which the
earl strove to quiet her apprehensions.
Just as the old lady had finished her task, however, through the doors
of the vestibule and hall, which had been left open, was heard the
sharp report of pistol-shots, and a confused murmur as of distant
tumult. Lady Margaret started and looked round, murmuring, "Ay,
strife, strife! This is the world thereof."
Miss Walton pressed her hand upon her heart, but said nothing, and the
earl, giving a glance to the servant William, exclaimed--
"For God's sake, run out and see! Have the drawbridge ready, too. If
we could have got in at once, the worst part of the mischief would
have been spared."
"I must go--indeed I must," said Annie Walton. "Oh, poor Charles!
heaven protect him!" And running out of the room, she crossed the
stone court, and bending over the low wall at the further angle, she
gazed down the road in the direction from which the sounds appeared to
come. Night had now set in, but yet the darkness was not very
profound, and Miss Walton fancied that she beheld several moving
figures at some distance up the long straight avenue. The next moment
there was a flash, followed by a sharp report--then another and
another; and on each occasion the sudden light showed her for an
instant a number of men and horses, all grouped together in wild and
confused strife. The instant after, a horseman came down the road at
headlong speed, and Annie Walton exclaimed, "Oh! the drawbridge!
William, let down the drawbridge."
"Wait a minute, my lady," replied the servant; "it is not every man
that gallops who is coming here."
He calculated more accurately in his coolness than the lady had done
in her apprehensions, for the fugitive passed without drawing a rein,
and William turned round to give her comfort, saying, "That's a sign
my young lord has won the day--or rather the night I should call it.
Hark! there are some more coming. It is he this time, for their pace
is more quiet."
Annie Walton approached nearer to the bridge, murmuring a prayer to
God for her brother's safety, and straining her eyes upon the
advancing body of horsemen, who came on at an easy trot down the road.
At their head was a figure which she felt sure was that of her
brother, but yet she could not be satisfied till she exclaimed--
"Charles, is that you? Are you safe?"
"Yes, yes; all safe," replied the voice of Lord Walton; "some of us a
little hurt, but not seriously, I hope. We have made them pay dearly
for their daring. Run in, Annie; run in, and I will join you in a
minute."
While William and old Dixon unhooked the chains of the drawbridge from
the posts and let it slowly down, Miss Walton returned to her room,
where she had left her aunt and the Earl of Beverley, exclaiming with
a heart relieved--
"He is safe! he is safe!"
Lord Beverley took her hand as she approached his side, gazing
earnestly in her face, and saying, "Thank God!"
Annie Walton felt his look and his words almost as a reproach for
having forgotten him in her anxiety for her brother; though, in truth,
such was far from the earl's meaning, his only thought at that moment
being, what might have been the fate of that sweet girl, had she lost
both her brother and her lover in one night.
"And how are you, Francis?" said Annie Walton, wishing, with all the
frankness of her heart, to make up for her absence by giving him the
name she knew he would love the best upon her lips. "Forgive me for
leaving you; but, oh! I was terrified for Charles."
Before the earl could reply, there was the sound of many persons' feet
in the hall and the vestibule, and the voice of Lord Walton was heard
giving various orders, and making inquiries concerning the wounds
which his followers had received. It seemed that they were but slight,
or at all events that the men made light of them, for they all
protested that there was no harm done, and the only one who seemed to
complain was the gallant Captain Barecolt, who replied to the young
nobleman's inquiries--
"It is the most unfortunate thing in the world, my lord. I had rather
the fellow had run me through the body."
"But it is not serious, surely, captain," said Lord Walton. "Let me
see."
"Serious, my lord! it is ruin!" replied Barecolt. "It is right across
my nose. I am marked for life, so that I shall never be able to
conceal myself or pass for Captain Jersval any more."
Lord Walton laughed, replying--
"You will do so better than ever, captain; for you are so well known
without the mark that no one will know you with it."
"That is true, too," replied Captain Barecolt; and the next moment
Lord Walton, advancing through the vestibule, pushed open the door,
which his sister had left ajar, and entered Lady Margaret's
sitting-room.
He was not alone, however; for by the hand he led poor Arrah Neil,
somewhat pale, and with her hair dishevelled, but perhaps only looking
the more exquisitely beautiful, as the large chesnut curls fell wildly
round her fair brow, and over her soft rounded cheek.
With a cry of joy and surprise, Annie Walton sprang forward and took
the poor girl in her arms, exclaiming--
"Ah, dear Arrah! this is a glad sight indeed!"
But the effect of this sudden apparition upon Lady Margaret Langley
was even greater than upon her niece. She gazed upon Arrah Neil with a
look expressive of more than wonder; and then hurrying forward, she
took her by the hand, fixing her eyes upon her countenance, and asked
in a tremulous voice--
"Who is this?"
"It is Arrah Neil, a much-valued friend of ours," replied Annie
Walton, unwilling to enter into any explanation of the poor girl's
history and circumstances in her presence.
"Arrah Neill," repeated Lady Margaret, in a thoughtful and even
melancholy tone, and then, waving her head sadly to and fro, she let
go Arrah's hand, retreated to the other side of the room, and, casting
herself into her usual chair, fell into a deep fit of thought. At the
same time Lord Walton led Arrah to a seat, and bending down spoke few
words to her in a low voice, to tranquillize her and make her feel at
ease. But, while he was still speaking, the large stag-hound rose up
from the side of Lady Margaret's chair, walked slowly across the room,
and laid his huge muzzle on Arrah's knee. She showed no fear, and
indeed took little heed, only gently patting the dog's head, as he
fixed his keen, bright eyes on her face. The next moment, however, he
raised himself a little and licked her hand, and Lady Margaret
Langley, moved by emotions which she explained to no one, pressed her
handkerchief upon her eyes and burst into tears.
Neither Lord Walton nor his sister judged it right to take any notice
of the good old lady's agitation; but, while Miss Walton stood beside
poor Arrah Neil and conversed with her quietly, making her own remarks
meanwhile upon the great change which had taken place in her manners
and appearance, the young nobleman crossed the room to the side of his
wounded friend, and inquired how he felt himself.
"Oh! better, better!" replied the earl. "It was but loss of blood,
Charles: the shot that passed through my leg and killed my charger
must have cut some large blood-vessel, and I, not knowing that, went
on fighting on foot by the side of that poor young lady, whose
horse----"
"I know, I know!" said Lord Walton. "It fell with her. She told me;
but what happened then?"
"Why, after a time," replied the earl, "a sort of giddiness came over
me, and I fell. The scoundrel Batten had just got his sword to my
throat, when that gallant fellow Barecolt, after having despatched
another, sprang to the ground beside me and threw the Roundhead back.
Two of them were then upon him at once; but, on my honour, we have
done him injustice in thinking all his strange stories mere
rhodomontade; for hand to hand with them he kept up the fight, giving
them blow for blow on either side, with a skill in the use of his arms
such as I have seldom seen, till at length I got upon my feet again,
and, though staggering like a drunken man, contrived to call one of
them off, while he put an end to Batten, sending his sword through and
through him, cuirass and all. We then got the lady on horseback, for
the other man turned for a moment and ran, and catching Batten's
horse, I mounted, and we began our retreat hither. The fellows who had
been driven off, rallied however, and charged us just as we got to the
gates, for the bridge was up and we could not pass; but Barecolt
plunged through the stream, clambered over the wall, and unhooked the
chains. We were all by this time in confusion and disarray--I so faint
that I could scarcely strike a blow, and the rest scattered about,
fighting as they could. We made a stand at the bridge till I thought
all had entered, and then raised it. When in the court, however, I
found that the poor girl was left behind. That discovery, together
with the loss of blood, made me fall as I was dismounting, and they
carried me in hither, where I have lain, as you know, ever since. But,
hark you, Charles! ask your good aunt if she have not some cordial, as
these good ladies sometimes have, which will bring back my strength
speedily, for on my life I must go forward tomorrow morning early."
"Impossible, Francis!" replied Lord Walton; "quite impossible. At the
best, you cannot travel for a week or more."
"Good faith! but I must," replied the earl. "I have tidings of the
utmost importance for the king."
"Then you must trust them to me," replied Lord Walton; "for the
journey to York would cost you your life. If it be absolutely
necessary for you to see the king yourself; I will send a litter for
you and an escort from York; but, if the tidings be immediate, you had
better trust them to me."
"It is but weakness--it is but weakness," said the earl. "To-morrow I
shall be better. Ask your aunt, Charles, if she have not some of those
strength-giving balms that poets and doctors talk of. But what has
affected her thus? She has been weeping."
"Indeed, I know not," answered Lord Walton. "I will go and speak to
her;" and, moving quietly across the room, he seated himself by the
side of Lady Margaret, who by this time had taken the handkerchief
from her eyes, and was gazing sadly and steadfastly upon the floor.
"What is the matter, my dear aunt?" he said, in a low tone, "What has
affected you thus?"
"A dream, Charles," replied the old lady; "a dream of the past. But it
is gone. I will no more give way to such visions." And rising from her
chair she advanced directly towards Arrah Neil, and again taking her
hand, she kissed her tenderly, saying, "You are so like one that is
gone and who was very dear, that I was overcome, sweet child. But I
shall love you well, and you must love me too."
"Oh! that I will," replied Arrah Neil; "I always love those that are
good to me; and because they have been few I love them the better."
"Right, right!" exclaimed Lady Margaret. "Love few, and love well.
But, now to other things. Charles, this noble friend of yours must be
carried to bed, there to lie till we are sure the wound will not burst
forth again."
"Why, my dear aunt," replied Lord Walton, "his rash lordship tells me
he would fain go on to York to-morrow."
"Madness!" answered Lady Margaret; "but all his family were mad before
him," she added, in a lower voice. "His father thought to win honour
and gratitude by doing good; his mother died of grief. Madness, you
see, on both parts. He has told me who he is, so I wonder not at any
insanity. Now, I will answer for it, he thinks it a duty to go on; but
I will tell him it cannot be. My lord the earl, you are a prisoner
here till further orders. It is vain to think to move me. For your
dear mother's sake, I will be your jailer, let the business that calls
you hence be what it will. So now to bed, my lord: you shall have that
which will restore your strength as quickly as may safely be, but we
must have no fever if we can help it; and I will tell you plainly,
that, were you to attempt to reach York tomorrow, you would go no
farther. I will have the people in to carry you to the room prepared
for Charles: it is close at hand. He must shift with another."
"Nay, nay!" said the earl; "I can walk quite well, dear lady. I am
better now; I am stronger. Charles will lend me his arm."
"Take care, then," replied Lady Margaret, "and do not bend your knee,
or we shall have it gushing forth again. Here, tall man, whoever you
are," she continued, turning to Captain Barecolt, who entered the room
at the moment, "put your hand under the earl's arm, while my nephew
aids him on the other side. There--that will do; now, gently. I will
go before. Call some of the people, Annie."
Thus aided and escorted, the Earl of Beverley moved easily to the room
which had been prepared for Lord Walton on the same floor, while Miss
Walton followed anxiously, and paused for a moment while her aunt
examined the bandages round his knee. Her lover marked the look of
painful expectation with which she gazed; and perhaps no balm in all
Lady Margaret's stores could have tended so much to restore health and
strength as the deep interest that shone in her eyes.
"Do not be alarmed," he said, holding out his hand to her; "this is a
mere nothing, and they are all making more of it than it deserves. Go
and comfort your fair companion, for she needs it much; but I shall
see you tomorrow--shall I not, Annie?"
The last word was uttered in a low tone, as if he almost feared to
speak it; but there are moments when a woman's heart grows bold, and
those moments are especially when it is necessary to cheer and to
console.
"Oh, certainly, Francis!" replied Miss Walton. "I will see you, beyond
doubt: my aunt and I will be your nurses. For the present, then,
farewell. I will go and comfort poor Arrah, as you say."
When Annie Walton returned to the room where she had left Arrah Neil,
she found her still seated, but with the great stag-hound, now with
one paw upon her knee, looking up in her face as if he would fain have
held some conversation with her, had he but possessed the gift of
speech. Arrah, too, was bending down and talking to him--smoothing his
rough head with her hand, and seeming as much delighted with his
notice as he appeared to be with hers. As soon as Miss Walton entered,
however, she turned from her shaggy companion to her friend, and,
advancing towards her, threw herself into her arms. For a moment she
remained silent, with her eyes hid on the lady's shoulder, and when
she raised them they were wet with bright drops; but Annie remarked,
though without one spark of pride, that there was a great difference
in the manner of Arrah Neil towards her. There was a something
gone--something more than the mere look of deep, absent thought, which
used so frequently to shade her countenance. There had been a reserve,
a timidity, in answering or addressing her, more than mere humility,
which was no longer there. Often had she striven to reassure the poor
girl, and to teach her to look upon the family at Bishop's Merton
rather as friends than mere protectors; but, though Arrah Neil had
ever been frank and true in her words, there seemed always a limit
drawn in her manner which she never passed, except perhaps at times
when she was peculiarly earnest towards the young lord himself: It had
seemed as if she felt even painfully that she was a dependant, and
resisted everything that might make her forget it for a moment.
Now, however, that restraint was gone: she gazed upon Annie Walton
with a look of deep love; she kissed her as she would have kissed a
sister; she poured forth her joy at seeing her again, in words full of
feeling--ay, and of poetry; and the lady was glad that she did so. She
would not for the world have said one syllable to check such
familiarity, for the character and fate of Arrah Neil had been to her
a matter of deep thought and deep interest. She felt, indeed, also,
that after all that had passed--after the scenes they had shared in,
and the anxieties and fears they had felt for each other--Arrah Neil
could never be to her what she had formerly been; that there was
something more in her bosom than pity and tenderness towards the poor
girl; that there were affection, tenderness, companionship--not the
mere companionship of hours and of dwelling-places, but the
companionship of thoughts and interests, which is perhaps the
strongest and most enduring of all human ties. There was even more
than all this. The change in Arrah Neil went beyond mere manner; the
tone of her mind and of her language had undergone the same: it seemed
elevated, brightened, enlarged. She had always been graceful, though
wild and strange. There had been flashes of a glowing fancy, breaking
forth, though oppressed and checked, like the flickering bursts of
flame that rise fitfully up from a half-smothered fire; but now the
mind shone out clear and unclouded, giving dignity and ease to every
expression and every act, however plain the words or ordinary the
movements; and Annie Walton felt that from that hour poor Arrah Neil
must be to her as a friend.
"Come, dear Arrah," she said, "sit down beside me, and let us talk
calmly. You are now amongst friends again--friends from whom you must
never part more; and yet we will not speak now over anything that can
agitate you. Lord Beverley tells me you have had much to suffer; and I
am sure all the scenes you have gone through this day, and the
fatigues you have endured, must have well-nigh worn you out and
overpowered you."
"I am weary," she replied, wiping away some drops that still trembled
on her eyelids; "but I have not suffered as you would do, were you to
pass through the same. It is my fate to encounter terrible things--to
pass through scenes of danger and difficulty. Such has been my course
from childhood; such, perhaps, it may be to the end of life. I am
prepared and ready: nay, more--accustomed to it; and when any new
disaster falls upon me, I shall henceforth only look up to heaven, and
say, 'Oh God! thy will be done! I am not a garden-plant, as you are,
Annie. I am a shrub of the wilderness, and prepared to bear the wind
and storm."
"Heaven forbid you should meet with many more, Arrah!" answered Miss
Walton. "There are turns in every one's fate, and I trust that for you
there are bright days coming."
"Still with an even mind will I try to bear them, be they fair or
foul," said Arrah Neil--"more calmly now than before; for much has
happened to me that I will tell you soon; and I have found that those
things which gave me most anguish have brought me happiness that I
never dreamt of finding, and that there is a smile for every tear,
Annie--a reward for every endurance."
"You have learned the best philosophy since we parted, dear girl,"
replied Miss Walton; "and in truth you are much changed."
"No, no!" said Arrah Neil, eagerly: "I am not changed; I am the same
as ever--just the same. Have you not seen a little brown bud upon a
tree in the spring-time, looking as if there were nothing in its heart
but dry leaves? and then the sun shines upon it for an hour, and out
it bursts all green and fresh. But still it is the same bud you looked
at in the morning. As for my philosophy, if such be the name you give
it, I have learned that in the course of this day. As I rode along,
now hither, now thither, in our flight from Hull, I thought of all
that has passed within the last two or three months: I thought of how
I had grieved, and how I had wept when they dragged me away from you
and your kind brother; and at the same time I remembered what all that
pain had purchased for me, and I asked myself if it might not be
always so here, even on the earth. Ay, and more, Annie; if the grief
and anguish of this world might not have its compensation hereafter.
So, when I found myself surrounded by the troopers without, and saw
that good lord borne in here wounded, and the bridge raised behind
him, I said, 'Now is the trial; O God! thy will be done.'"
Annie Walton gazed upon her with surprise, increasing every moment;
but she would not suffer the effect produced upon her mind to be seen,
lest she should alarm and check the fair being beside her: fearing,
too, that at any moment one of those fits of deep, sad abstraction of
mind should come upon her, which she could not believe to have wholly
passed away.
She merely replied, then, "You say, dear Arrah, that the pain you felt
in parting with us has purchased you some great happiness. May I ask
you what it is?--from no idle curiosity, believe me, but merely
because, as I have often shared and felt for your sorrows, Arrah, I
would fain share and sympathize with your joy."
"I will tell you; I will tell you all," replied Arrah Neil, laying her
hand upon Miss Walton's; "I must tell you, indeed very soon; for I
could not keep it in my own bosom, lest my heart should break with it.
But I would fain tell him first--I mean your brother, who has been so
kind and noble, so good and generous towards a poor girl like me, whom
he knew not."
But, before she could conclude the sentence, Captain Barecolt returned
from the chamber of the Earl of Beverley, and a conversation
interesting to both was brought for the time to an abrupt conclusion.