Langford had not been left five minutes alone ere the sound of voices
of persons rapidly approaching caught his ear. At first he imagined
that they proceeded from the side by which he himself had entered; but
the moment after he became convinced that they came from the direction
of the other door, which, as he justly supposed, communicated with a
staircase in one of the large buttresses. At first, of course, the
sounds were indistinct, but, a moment after, a key was placed in the
lock, and a loud, deep voice was heard exclaiming, "I will stop for
nothing till I have seen him face to face! Where is this murderer of my
son?"
The door was thrown violently open before these words were fully
spoken, and the Earl of Danemore himself stood before the prisoner.
He was a tall, handsome, powerful man, wide-chested, broad-shouldered,
and still very muscular, without being at all corpulent. He might be
sixty-three or sixty-four years of age, and his hair was snowy white.
His eyebrows, however, and his eyelashes, both of which were long and
full, were as black as night. There was many a long, deep furrow on his
brow, and a sort of scornful, but habitual wrinkle between the nostril
of the strong aquiline nose and the corner of his mouth. On his right
cheek appeared a deep scar, round, and of about the size of a
pistol-ball; and on the chin, was a longer scar, cutting nearly from
the lip down into the throat and neck. He was dressed in a suit of
plain black velvet, with the large riding boots and heavy sword, which
were common about fifteen or sixteen years before the period of which
we now speak, but which were beginning by this time to go out of
fashion.
On entering the room, his teeth were hard set together, his brow
contracted till the large thick eyebrows almost met, and his whole air
fierce and agitated. His quick eyes darted round the room in a moment,
and alighted upon Langford, who turned and faced him at once.
The moment, however, that their looks met, a strange and sudden change
came over the whole appearance of Lord Danemore. He paused abruptly,
and stood still in the middle of the room, gazing in Langford's face,
while the frown departed from his brow, and he raised his hand towards
his head, passing it twice before his eyes, as if he fancied that some
delusion had affected his sight. His lips opened as if he would have
spoken, but for a moment or two no sounds issued forth; and the calm,
quiet, steady gaze with which Langford regarded him seemed to trouble
and agitate him.
"What is your name? what is your name?" he exclaimed rapidly, when he
could speak. "Who brought you here?"
"My name is Henry Langford," replied the prisoner--"an officer, in the
service of his majesty; and if you seriously ask, my lord--for I
suppose, I have the honour of speaking to the Earl of Danemore--if you
seriously ask who brought me hither, I have only to reply two very
silly persons calling themselves magistrates, who have entertained or
rather manufactured, amongst themselves a charge against me for which
there is not the slightest foundation."
"Henry Langford! Henry Langford!" repeated the Earl, casting his eyes
on the ground, and then raising them again to Langford's face, every
line and feature of which he seemed to scan with anxious care. "Pray of
what family are you?"
"My father," replied Langford, "was a gentleman of some property in
England, of which property, however, I have been unjustly deprived;"
and as he spoke, he fixed his eyes steadfastly upon the Earl; but that
nobleman's countenance underwent no change, and he proceeded--"My
mother was also a lady of some property----"
"Where were you born?" demanded the Earl, quickly.
"Though your questions are rather unceremonious, my lord, for a perfect
stranger," Langford replied, "I will not scruple to answer them. I was
born in a small town in this country."
"Not in France?" demanded the Earl, quickly. "I do not ask without a
motive--not in France? Are you certain it was not in France?"
"Perfectly certain," replied Langford. "My mother's family, however,
were French--related to the illustrious family of Beaulieu."
"So," said the Earl, "so! How nearly are you related to that
family?--are you sure not in France?"
"Quite certain," replied Langford. "I have lived much in France, which
may have given me some slight foreign accent; and as to my relationship
to the Beaulieus, I can really hardly tell how near. I have only heard
my mother say that she was nearly related to them."
"It cannot be! It cannot be!" said the Earl, drooping his head, and
looking down upon the ground. "Is your mother living?"
A cloud came over Langford's brow: "She is not," he said.
The Earl again seemed interested. "How long has she been dead?" he
asked.
"About two years," Langford replied, and thereupon the Earl once more
shook his head, saying, "It cannot be. You are very like the late
Marquis of Beaulieu," he added--"extremely like; and though
circumstances have compelled me to discontinue my acquaintance with
that family, I knew the Marquis once, and loved him well. I could have
almost fancied that you were his son, and for his sake I cannot regard
you with any other eyes than those of kindness. But yet what do I say?"
he continued, while his brow again grew dark. "They tell me you have
murdered my son, my only son. How strange, if the son of the man who
had so nearly killed the father, should, five-and-twenty years after,
have slain the son!"
"You forget, my lord, and you mistake altogether," replied Langford.
"In the first place, I am not the son of the Marquis of Beaulieu; and,
in the next place, I assure you most solemnly by all I hold dear--I
pledge you my honour as a gentleman and a soldier, and my oath as a
Christian and a man--that I have had no more share in this unfortunate
event than you have."
"I would willingly believe you," answered the Earl, "most willingly,
for yours is a countenance from which I have been accustomed to expect
nothing but truth and honour. Yet why do these men accuse you? Why, if
there be not proof as strong as truth itself why do they dare to bring
an accusation against one of your high house? Oh, young man! young man!
if you have slain him by fraud or villany, I will take vengeance of you
by making you the public spectacle, and giving you up to the rope and
scaffold: chains shall hang about you even in your death, and your
bones shall whiten in the wind. But, if you have slain him foot to foot
and hand to hand, you shall meet a father's vengeance in another way.
Ay! old as I am, I will take your heart's blood, and you shall find
that this arm has lost nothing of its skill and but little of its
strength. You shall learn what a father's arm can do when heavy with
the sword of the avenger!"
"Once more, my lord," replied Langford, calmly, "I assure you that I am
perfectly innocent. I assure you that, neither fairly and openly, nor
covertly and treacherously, have I had aught to do with your son's
death. The sole ground for suspicion against me has been what I will
not conceal from you, my lord, that, upon a slight quarrel between us,
he drew his sword upon me, in the park of Sir Walter Herbert."
"Ay, Sir Walter Herbert!" exclaimed the peer, with a bitter sneer; "the
pitiful old fool! He and his fair dainty daughter, Mistress Alice, they
would none of my son, would they not? He shall pay for it in prison,
and she shall see him rot before her eyes. Ay, now I guess how it all
is. She has found a lover in fair Master Henry Langford, has she? and
he has murdered a rival who might have proved troublesome. They shall
answer for it, they shall answer for it! Ho! below there!" he
continued, approaching the door. "Bring me up the papers which those
two knights left!"
Langford suffered him to proceed with the wild and rapid starts to
which the vehemence of his passions led him; but when he paused, the
prisoner took up the conversation, saying, "I was about to tell you, my
lord, that your son did seek a quarrel with me; did draw his sword upon
me; did try to induce me to follow his example, but in vain."
"What!" interrupted the peer, "did you refuse to fight him? How was
that? a soldier, and a man of your race?"
"I did refuse to fight him, my lord," replied Langford, "for particular
reasons of my own. I have had many opportunities of showing that fear
forms no part of my nature, and I am not at all apprehensive of ever
being mistaken for a coward."
He spoke with a calm and easy dignity, slightly throwing back his head,
while the fine formed nostril expanded with a sense of honourable
pride. The Earl gazed upon him attentively, the angry fire that had
been in his eyes gradually subsiding as he did so, and he repeated more
than once, in a low voice, "So like! So strangely like!"
At that moment, with the rapidity of one accustomed to obey the orders
of a quick and imperious master, a servant appeared bringing in the
bundle of papers which contained the evidence collected against
Langford at Moorhurst. The Earl cast himself into a chair, spread the
papers out upon the table, and ran his eye rapidly over them, one after
another. Langford had also seated himself, and watched the proceedings
of the Earl attentively, though neither of them spoke for some minutes.
When the Earl had done, he looked up in the prisoner's face, and, after
pausing with a thoughtful air for several moments, he said, "This is a
case of suspicion against you, but nothing more. I, myself, the person
most interested, cannot make more of it; and from what I see of you,
from your face and from your family, I will add that I do not believe
you guilty."
"My lord, you do me justice," replied Langford, "and it makes me right
glad to see you so inclined. There was an old custom which was not
without its value, for human nature cannot be wholly mastered even by
the most consummate art; and I am now willing to recur to that old
custom, to give you further proof that you judge rightly of me. Let me
be taken to the room where your poor son lies. I will place my hand
upon his heart, and swear to my innocence. I do not suppose, my lord,
that the blood would flow again, if I were culpable; but I do believe,
that no man conscious of such a crime as murder, could perform that act
without betraying by his countenance the guilty secret within him. I am
ready to perform it before any persons that you choose to appoint."
"Are you not aware," demanded the Earl, sternly, "that the body has not
been found?"
"Good God:" exclaimed Langford, his whole face brightening in a moment,
"then, perhaps he is living yet. This is the most extraordinary tale
that ever yet was told--a man arrested--accused--well nigh condemned
for the murder of another who is probably alive. A thousand to one he
is still alive! Oh, my lord be comforted, be comforted!"
"You deceive yourself, young man," replied the Earl, with a melancholy
shake of the head, "you deceive yourself. His death is but too clearly
proved. His white horse returned last night alone, with his own neck
and the saddle stained with blood. The road by Upwater Mere was found
drenched with gore--with my child's gore! and his cloak was found
amongst the beeches hard by, pierced on the left side with a pistol
shot, which must have been fired close to his bosom, for the wadding
had burnt the silk. It, too, was stiff with blood. There were traces of
several horses' feet about, but no trace of where the body had been
carried, though I myself--I, his father--have spent several hours in
seeking the slightest vestige that might direct me. Doubtless it is
thrown into the mere," and as he spoke he covered his eyes with his
hands, and remained for several minutes evidently overpowered with deep
emotion, against which he struggled strongly but in vain.
Langford, too, was moved, and after having waited in silence for
several minutes, in the hope that the agitation which his companion
suffered would pass away, he ventured to address some words of comfort
to Lord Danemore; saying "I am deeply grieved, my lord, that you have
such cause for apprehension, but still I cannot help hoping that all
these causes for believing the worst may prove fallacious, and that
your son may yet be restored to you."
"No, no, sir, no!" replied the Earl, "I will not deceive myself, nor do
I wish to be deceived. Such evidence is too clear. I am not a child or
a woman, that I cannot bear any lot assigned to me. I can look my fate
in the face, however dark and frowning its brow may be, and say to it,
'Thou has but power to a certain degree, over my mind thou canst not
triumph, and even whilst thou wringest my heart and leavest my old age
desolate, I can defy thee still!'"
Langford bent down his eyes upon the ground, and did not reply for
several minutes. He did not approve the spirit in which those words
were spoken, but yet it was not his task to rebuke or to admonish, and
when he did reply, he again sought to instil hope.
"Your lordship says," he observed at length, "that the evidence is too
clear. It is certainly clear enough to justify great and serious
apprehensions, but not to take away hope, or to impede exertion. I
remember having heard of an instance which occurred in far distant
climates, where the causes for supposing a person dead were much more
conclusive than in the present instance. A sailor had left the ship to
which he belonged, and wandered on shore in a place infested with
pirates. He did not return. Boats were sent after him, and in tracing
the course of one of the rivers up which he was supposed to have taken
his way, his clothes were found bloody, torn, and cut with the blows of
a sword: a leathern purse, which he was known to have carried full of
money, was found further on, devoid of its contents; and further still,
a mangled and mutilated body, in which almost all his comrades declared
they recognised his corpse; and yet, three years after that, he
rejoined the ship to which he belonged, having made his escape from the
party of robbers by whom he had been taken. The body which had been
found was that of another man, though the clothes and the purse
undoubtedly were his own."
While he spoke, the Earl turned deadly pale, gazed upon him for a
moment or two with a straining eye, then suddenly started up, and
without a word of reply quitted the room.
Langford at first seemed surprised, but smiled slightly as he saw him
go: then calmly sat down at the table, took up the papers which the
Earl had left behind him, read over the evidence against himself, and
wrote in the margin a number of observations, wherever any strained or
unjust conclusion seemed to have been drawn by the magistrates. He had
been occupied in this manner about an hour, when the Earl again made
his appearance. His manner was very different from what it had been on
the previous occasion. There was a want of that fierce energy which had
before characterised it; there was a doubtfulness, a hesitation, and a
vagueness, quite opposed to the keen, sharp decision of his former
demeanour. He treated Langford more as an acquaintance, more even as a
friend, than as a prisoner. Two or three times he spoke of the chances
of his son being still alive, and referred vaguely to the story which
Langford had told him, but then darted off suddenly to something else.
At length, however, he took up the papers on which the other had
commented, and, without noticing the observations that he had written,
said it was unjust, upon a case where there was nothing made out
against him but suspicion, that he should be detained as a close
prisoner. "If, therefore," he said, "you will give me your word not to
attempt to make your escape, the doors shall be thrown open to you;
this chamber and the next shall be your abode for the time, though they
should have put you somewhere else, for this room is appropriated to
me. Here," he continued, in a thoughtful and abstracted tone, "when I
wish to think over all the crowded acts of a long, eventful, and
constantly changing life, I come and sit, where no sound interrupts me
but the twittering of the swallow, as it skims past my windows. Here I
can people the air with the things, and beings, and deeds of the past,
without the empty crowd of the insignificant living breaking in upon my
solitude, and sweeping away the thinner but more thrilling creations
called up by memory. I know not how it is, young gentleman, that there
is scarcely any one but you whom I could have borne patiently to see in
this chamber; but your countenance seems connected with those days to
which this room is dedicated. There is a resemblance, a strong and
touching resemblance, to several persons long dead; and that likeness
calls up again to my mind many a vision of my youthful days--days,
between which and the dark present, lies a gulf of fiery passions,
sorrows, and regrets. I know not wherefore they put you here, or who
dared to do it, but it is strange that, being here, you seem to my eyes
the only fit tenant of this chamber except myself. Here I sit and read
the letters of dead friends--here I sit and ponder over the affections
and the hatreds, the hopes, the fears, the wrath, the enjoyment, the
sorrow, the remorse of the past; here often do I sit and gaze upon the
pictures of those I loved in former times--of the dead, and the
changed, and the alienated; of persons who, when those pictures were
painted, never thought that there could come a change upon them, or
upon me, either in the bodily or the mental frame; never dreamed of the
mattock, and the grave, and the coffin, and the slow curling worm that
has long since revelled in their hearts; no, nor of fierce and fiery
contention, envy, jealousy, rivalry, hatred, the death of bright
affection, and the burial of every warm and once living hope. Here am I
still wont to gaze upon their pictures, and I know not how it is, but
it seems to me as if your face were amongst them."
"I fear me, my lord," said Langford, "that those endowed with strong
feelings and strong passions are most frequently like children with a
box of jewels, squandering precious things without knowing their value,
and gaining in exchange but gauds and baubles, the paint and tinsel of
which is soon brushed off, leaving us nothing but regret. There is no
time of life, however, I believe, at which we may not recover some of
the jewels which we have cast away, if we but seek for them rightly;
and I know no means likely to be more successful than that which you
take in tracing back your steps through the past."
"It is a painful contemplation," said Lord Danemore, "and I fear that
in the dim twilight of age, let me trace back my steps as closely as I
will, I am not likely to find again many of the jewels that I scattered
from me in the full daylight of youth."
"Perhaps, my lord," replied Langford, "you might, if you were to take a
light. However," he added, seeing a look of impatience coming upon the
Earl, "I am much obliged to you for your offer of a partial kind of
freedom. I never loved to have a door locked between me and the rest of
the world; and I willingly promise you to make no attempt to escape
during the whole of this day, for of course my promise must have a
limit. In the course of that day, you will most likely be able to
procure further information in regard to this sad affair; and I do
trust and hope that it may be such as may relieve your bosom from the
apprehensions which now oppress you."
"I must exact your promise for two days," said the Earl; "for I have
sent to tell those two foolish men who brought you here, that I cannot
deal with them to-day, and have bidden them, in consequence of what you
have said, though with but little hope, to cause search of every kind
to be made through the country round. There are one or two questions,
also, which I would fain ask you, but I will not do it now; yet I know
not why I should not; but no, not now! Have I your promise?"
"You have," replied Langford.
And the Earl, after pausing and hesitating a moment or two longer,
quitted him by the chief entrance, leaving the doors open behind him.
"There is but one thing I ask of you," added the Earl, as he turned to
depart; "should you leave these two rooms, lock the door of the one in
which you now are till you return, for I do not suffer the feet of
ordinary servants to profane it."
When Langford was alone, he paused for a moment or two to think over
his situation; and then, with a natural desire to use the freedom that
had been given him, opened the door of the chamber in which he had been
placed, and proceeded through the bed-room beyond, to the head of the
staircase. Remembering the Earl's request to lock the door, he turned
back to do so, and when he again approached the stairs, the voice of
some one singing below rose to his ear. The tone in which the singer
poured forth his ditty was low, but after listening for a moment,
Langford recognised the voice of the poor half-witted man, John Graves,
and a sudden hope of finding means of clearing himself by the aid of
that very person struck him. He descended the stairs slowly, and at the
bottom of the first flight found the wanderer sitting on the lower
step, with his head hanging down in an attitude of dejection; laying
his hand upon his shoulder, Langford caused him to start up suddenly
and turn round.
"Ah, Master Harry!" cried the man, in one of his saner moods, "is that
you? It is you I came to see. I heard they had taken you up, and locked
you up here, and I came to see if I could help you, for you have always
been kind and generous to me; and then, if I could not help you, I
could sing you a song, and that would do you good, you know; I always
said you ought to have your rights, you know; but I must not say so
here, or they will scold me, as they did before."
"Come up hither with me, John," said Langford; "I believe that you can
help me, if you will. But how came you here? Do they suffer you
knowingly to wander about the house in this manner?"
"Not as far as this," replied the man, laughing; "not as far as this.
They would soon drive me down if they saw me above the grand stairs.
But about the passages below they never mind me. Only I sometimes creep
up, and find my way about all the rooms, and if I hear a step, hide
behind a window-curtain. It is no later than last night that I and
another--but I must not speak of that. Never you mind, Master Harry,
you will have your rights still."
"Perhaps so, John," answered Langford, "though I do not think you well
know what my rights are. However, now follow me up here." Thus saying,
he led the way to the apartments which had been assigned to him,
followed quickly by the madman, whose step was as noiseless and
stealthy as if he had been going to murder the sleeping. When he saw
Langford approach the door of the inner room, he cast an anxious and
furtive glance towards the top of the stairs, and listened, and as soon
as the lock was turned and the entrance free, he ran in and closed it
after him, looking straight towards one of the small cupboards in the
wall, saying, "There! there! Be quick, for fear some one should come!"
Langford gazed on him with some surprise, and then replied, "You know
more of these matters than I thought you did. However, you mistake. I
want you merely to bear a letter and a message for me."
"But the papers! the papers!" exclaimed the other. "Are you not going
to take the papers?"
"No!" exclaimed Langford. "Certainly not by stealth, John."
"Then it is you that are mad," replied his companion; "and they have
mistaken me for you. I will go and make affidavit of it."
"I should not hold myself justified in taking them stealthily," replied
Langford. "Perhaps ere I quit this house I may claim them boldly; and
some time or another I must make you tell me how you know so much of
matters I thought secret; but time is wanting now, and we may be
interrupted. I have some reason to think that, if you will, you can
find out for me a person called Franklin Gray."
"Can I find him out?" said the madman. "Ay, that I can; in two hours I
can be with him."
"Will you bear a message from me to him?" demanded Langford, "without
forgetting a word of it, and without telling a word to any one else?"
"That I will joyfully," replied the other; "I never forget--I wish I
could--it is that turns me mad--I remember too well; and I will tell
nothing though they should put me to the torture. I always tell truth
if I tell anything; but I can hold my tongue."
"Well then," said Langford, "tell Franklin Gray for me, that I am kept
a prisoner here on a charge of shooting poor Lord Harold. If he be
shot, I entertain but few doubts in regard to who it was that did it:
and I ask Franklin Gray, in honour and in memory of our old
companionship, to give me the means of clearing and delivering myself."
"Franklin Gray shot him not," replied the madman; "that I know full
well. Franklin and I are friends; don't you know that, Master Harry?
For a fox, he is the best of foxes! But I'll do as you tell me,
however."
"I know he did not shoot him," answered Langford: "I am as sure of that
as you are. Nevertheless, carry him my message. But hold," he said,
seeing the man turning abruptly to depart, "I will write a few lines to
good Sir Walter Herbert, which I shall be glad if you will give into
his hands, or into the hands of his daughter."
The half-witted man signified his willingness to do anything that
Langford told him; and sitting down at the table, that gentleman wrote
a few lines to Sir Walter Herbert, briefly explaining to him his
situation, and begging him, in case of his being detained beyond the
close of the subsequent day, to take measures to ensure that justice
was done him. This epistle he had no means of sealing, and merely
folding it up in the form of a letter, he put it into the hands of his
hair-brained messenger, and suffered him to depart.