It was a large old hall, lined with black oak. The sun was setting,
but setting in splendour; and the rich rosy light poured in through
the windows, casting a faint glow upon the old carved wreaths and
glistening panels.
"Perhaps," said Lord Walton, as they entered and he closed the door,
"I had better order them to bring lights, dear Arrah, for the sun will
be down ere my tale is told."
"Oh, no," answered Arrah Neil; "there will be light enough for so sad
a story as this must be; and we can sit in this window, where we can
see the last look of day."
Her cousin led her to one of those old-fashioned window-seats where
many of us have sat in our own youth, and took his place beside his
fair companion, gazing with her for a moment upon the evening sky. At
length, with a start, as if he had forgotten for a time the cause of
their coming, he said--
"But to my tale, Arrah. Many years ago, my poor aunt fancied herself
the happiest of women--far from courts and crowds, in the midst of
wild scenes that suited her turn of mind, with a husband who loved her
deeply, and a daughter whom they both adored. Sir Richard was,
however, a soldier of much renown, and in the wars of Ireland he
carried Lady Margaret and their child to Dublin. They there became
first acquainted with a young Irish nobleman, nearly related to that
great man--for I must call him so, though he was a rebel--the
celebrated Earl of Tyrone. Your mother was then but a child, dear
Arrah, and this nobleman a youth; but after the return of Sir Richard
and his wife to Langley Hall he came to visit his eldest sister, who
was then married to the Earl of Beverley. Near neighbourhood produced
intimacy; but the Irish noble and the English knight differed on many
a point--in mere opinion, it is true; but the effect was such, that
when the young man asked the hand of the old man's daughter, it was
refused with some discourtesy. Lady Margaret herself would not hear of
such a marriage, though rank, station, and fortune, all were his; but
she loved not to part with her daughter, and still less to part with
her for a land which she looked upon as barbarous and full of strife.
Your father, Arrah, was rash and vehement, impatient of opposition and
easily moved to every daring deed, though generous, kind, and full of
honour. He had gained your mother's love, too, and he knew it; and
when he left Langley Hall, rejected in his suit, he vowed that six
months should not pass ere she should be his bride. Not six weeks went
by when, after going out to walk, sad and lonely, as had become her
custom, she did not return. Search was made, but she could not be
found, and no certain information was to be obtained. One man had
heard a distant cry; one had seen a ship hovering on the coast hard
by, and several had met a troop of men--strangers, evidently, both
from their dress and language--wandering near Langley Hall. A few
weeks of terrible suspense passed, and then Lady Margaret received a
letter in her daughter's hand, signed 'Arabella Tyrone.' It told of
her marriage with him she loved, and that love was openly
acknowledged. There was, indeed, a vague hint given that she had not
gone willingly, nor intentionally disobeyed her parents; but no
details were afforded.
"The answer was written in anger, bidding her neither see them nor
write to them more; and Sir Richard, remembering the vow of him who
was now his son-in-law, swore that he would find a time to make him
beg for pardon on his knees. Years passed ere that bitter vow could be
exercised. Your father, for the sake of an adored wife, bent his
spirit to sue by letter for forgiveness and oblivion of the past; but
that did not satisfy the stern old man, and at length his time came.
Fresh troubles broke out in Ireland. Sir Richard Langley received a
fresh command; and against your father--then alas! preparing to take
arms against the government--he chiefly urged an expedition. That
country has always had divisions and feuds in its own bosom; and a
party of the enemies of Tyrone were easily found to join their efforts
to a small body of regular troops, and guide them through the passes
to your father's castle."
"I remember it well," said Arrah Neil, "and the terrace looking to the
mountains."
"When Sir Richard found that he whom he sought was absent with his
wife and child," continued Lord Walton, "and that there was likely to
be the most desperate resistance without fruit, he was inclined to
pause, and perhaps might have retreated; but those with whom he was
now acting overruled his will. They would not hear of delay or
hesitation, with their enemy's hold before them. He remonstrated in
vain; the attack commenced; and though he took no part therein, and
likewise restrained his men, he had the grief of seeing his daughter's
dwelling taken, pillaged, and burned to the ground before his eyes.
There, alas! perished, dear Arrah, the poor sister of my friend your
cousin; and the sight of her blackened remains, which at first he
would hardly believe were not yours, though he had before been told
were not there, turned the heart of Sir Richard Langley to more
charitable thoughts. He repented bitterly, but the cup of his
chastisement was not yet full. Your father, after having seen your
mother and yourself embark to seek refuge in Holland, was taken by a
party of the old knight's troops, demanded by the government as a
state prisoner, and in spite of every effort, remonstrance, prayer,
and petition, was tried and executed as a traitor. Pardon me, dear
Arrah, that I speak such harsh words, and do so without trying to
soften them, for I wish to be as brief as may be."
Arrah Neil wept, but made no answer, and Lord Walton went on:--
"Amongst those who most earnestly entreated for your father's life
were Sir Richard Langley and my aunt, Lady Margaret; but those were
times, Arrah, when pampered sovereignty had never known the softening
touch of adversity, and flatterers and knaves were heard when the
honest and true were scorned. Nought availed and the old knight gave
himself up to bitter remorse. Your poor mother was sought for, and
every post took a letter to some one of those lands which it was
supposed she might have visited; but no such person was found, and at
length a vague rumour reached Langley Hall that she and her child were
dead. Whence it came, what was its foundation, no one could discover;
but, as year rolled on after year and no tidings arrived, the report
was credited. The old man accused himself of murdering his daughter
and her husband; inflicted on himself strange and superstitious
punishments; and, though poor Lady Margaret, knowing that her heart
was not burdened with the deeds that had taken place, bore her sad
bereavement more tranquilly, yet she could not altogether exculpate
herself from the charge of harshness, and she shared in all his
penitence and took part in all his grief. Though remorse often goes
with long life, yet such was not the case here. Sir Richard Langley
died after four or five years of unavailing regret, and Lady Margaret
remained as you have seen her--changed, very much changed, from what
she once was, but yet with fine and noble principles at heart. She was
always of a somewhat wild and enthusiastic temper of mind, and that
disposition has deviated of late into great eccentricity of character.
The thing that she has most loved and cherished, if not the only
thing, has been that faithful dog, which was saved when young from the
burning castle of your poor father, and which on the night of your
arrival displayed such strange signs of recognition."
"Oh, I remember him well now!" replied Arrah Neil: "there was a sunny
bank below the terrace, near a small lake, and I used to lie with my
little arms round his shaggy neck, and laugh when in play he bit at
the curls of my hair. It seems but as yesterday, now that the dark
mist has been removed from my memory. But go on, Charles; I do but
stop you."
Lord Walton had fallen into a reverie; a sweet one it was, to which he
had been led by the picture that she drew of her fair self in infancy.
He thought he saw her on the flowery bank, at sport with her rough
companion, and he might have paused to gaze long at the pleasant
sight, had not her words roused him.
"I have no more to tell, dear Arrah," he replied: "the rest of your
fate and history you know better than I do; but yet there is one
point----"
He stopped and gazed upon her, as far as the fading light would let
him do so, and his heart beat more than he had thought anything on
earth could have made it do. Arrah Neil raised her eyes with a look of
inquiry to his face; but the inquiry was instantly answered by what
she saw there, and with a cheek of crimson she withdrew her glance as
soon as it was given.
"Arrah," said Lord Walton, in a low and agitated tone, "I have loved
you long--longer, I now find, than I myself have known. Ay, Arrah, I
have loved you from childhood; and lately I have thought, have hoped,
have dreamed, perhaps, that you loved me."
Arrah Neil was silent for a moment--only a moment; but she did nothing
like any one else; and once more raising her eyes to his face, she
laid her soft hand on his and asked, "Whom have I ever loved but you?"
and then the tears rolled over the long lashes and diamonded her
cheek.
Charles Walton had felt in those few brief moments as he had never
felt before--as he had never imagined that he could feel. He, the
calm, the firm, the strong-minded, had felt timid as a child before
the cottage-girl, the object of his long bounty, the partaker of his
house's charity; and he knew from that strange sensation how powerful
was the love within him; while she, though agitated, though moved,
gained from the very pure singleness of the one strong passion which
had dwelt in her breast for years, that strength to avow it which he
seemed scarcely able to command.
But that avowal, once made on her part--though he knew it, though he
could not doubt it before--at once restored him to himself again; and
casting his arms round her, he called her his own dear bride.
A few minutes passed in sweet emotions--in words so broken and
confused that they would seem nonsense if here written--in signs and
tokens of the heart which form a sacred language that ought not to be
transcribed. But then Charles Walton spoke of his sister's approaching
marriage, and urged that she whom he loved would that day put the seal
upon their fate also.
Arrah turned pale and shook her head; and when her lover, with
soothing words and kind assurances, sought to remove what he believed
to be the mere timid scruples of a young heart to so hasty a marriage,
she answered--
"No, Charles, no! It is not that. I would not so ill repay your
generous kindness; I would not so badly return my benefactor's love.
But I cannot--no, I cannot--I ought not--nay, I dare not unite my fate
with yours till all doubt is removed of who and what I am. Oh,
Charles! I love you deeply. You know it--you must have seen it; but
yet, in truth and deep sincerity, I tell you that, even if you had
condescended to wed the poor, wild peasant girl, as you knew her long
ago, Arrah Neil had too much love for Charles Walton to let him so
degrade himself. No; as your equal by birth, however much inferior in
mind and every other quality, I am yours when you will. I will not say
a word: I will not plead even for a day's delay; but there must be no
doubt--it must be all proved."
"My dearest Arrah," replied her lover, tenderly, "I have no doubt. All
is clear--all is proved to me."
"But not to the world, Charles--not to the world," she answered. "You
have yourself admitted it; and you must not, indeed you must not urge
me, if you would not make me unhappy--unhappy either to refuse aught
that you ask or to do that which I think wrong."
Still he would have persuaded, but she gazed at him reproachfully,
saying, "Oh, Charles, forbear!" and he felt her heart beat violently
beneath his arm.
"Well, then, Arrah," he said in a somewhat mournful tone, "remember,
my beloved, you have promised that whenever these papers can be
found--and I trust that will be soon--or that your birth be by any
other means clearly established, you will be mine without delay."
"The instant that you ask me," replied Arrah Neil; and shortly after
Charles Walton led her back to the arms of Lady Margaret Langley. He
left her there, hurried out to the houses where his men were lodged,
and seeking out old Major Randal, bade him to send a small party in
the direction of Bishop's Merton, with orders to inquire for Captain
Barecolt at every village on the way.
"In that part of the country," he said, anticipating the old soldier's
objections, "I find that the parliamentary party dare not show their
faces, and there can be no danger of a surprise. Lord Hertford's
people keep the Roundheads down."
"Oh! I have no objection, my good lord," answered Major Randal, drily.
"I could as ill spare Barecolt as your lordship, though he has been
too much absent from his troop of late; but if it be for his majesty's
service, I have nought to say. However, in time of need he always
proves himself a good soldier, and in time of idleness he amuses me,
which few things do now-a-days. I can hardly make him out yet, after
having known him ten years or more; for I never knew any one but
himself who was a braggart and a brave man, a liar and an honest one.
However, I will send out a party to-night, as your lordship seems
anxious."
The old officer went forth to do as he proposed; but Lord Walton did
not return at once to his dwelling, as might be supposed. On the
contrary, he remained in Major Randal's quarters, buried in deep
thought, so intense, so absorbing, that several persons came and went
without his perceiving them. For months he had struggled against the
passion in his bosom. He had struggled successfully, not to crush, but
to restrain it; and like a dammed-up torrent it had gone on increasing
in power behind the barrier that confined it, till, now that the
obstacle was removed, it rushed forth with overwhelming power. There
was an eager, a vehement, an almost apprehensive longing to call her
he loved his own, which can only be felt by a strong spirit that has
resisted its own impulses. There was a fear that it never would be--a
vague impression that some unforeseen impediment, some change, some
danger--nay, perhaps, death itself--would interpose and forbid it; and
when he roused himself with a start, he resolved to urge Arrah with
every argument to cast aside all her scruples and be his at once.
He found her seated by Lady Margaret, the old woman's hand in hers and
the stag-hound's head upon her knee, and there evidently had been
agitating but tender words passing; for Arrah's eyes were full of
tears, though there was a sweet smile upon her lip. Charles Walton was
too full of his errand for any concealment: he told Lady Margaret all,
and besought her to join her persuasions to his, which she did
joyfully. But the fair girl resisted, gently, sweetly, yet firmly,
even though he spoke of the chances of his own death. The thought
brought bright drops into her eyes again; but still she besought him
not to ask her, and looked so mournfully in his face when he seemed to
doubt her love, that he was once more forced to yield.
What was it that made her resolute against his wishes--ay, against the
dearest feelings of her own heart? There was a dread, a fancy, that if
she became Charles Walton's wife, and the proofs of her birth should
never be discovered, he might regret what he had done; that he might
wish the words unspoken, the bond of their union broken. She did not
do him full justice, but the very idea was agony; and though she knew
that, whatever he might feel in such a case, he was too generous to
let her perceive his regret, yet she saw sufficiently into her own
heart to be sure that she should doubt and fear, and that no peace, no
joy, would ever be hers, if in her marriage to him there was one cause
which could produce reasonable regret.