These were but momentary reflections. My thoughts recurred at once to where my heart was dwelling---with her whose very image lived within me. Try how I would, I could think of no pleasure in which she took not part, imagine no scheme of life in which she was not concerned. Ambition had lost its charm; the path of glory I had longed to tread, I felt now as nothing beside that heather walk which led me towards her; and if I were to have chosen between the most brilliant career high station, influence, and fortune could bestow, and the lowly condition of a dweller in these wild mountain solitudes, I felt that not a moment of hesitation or doubt would mark my decision. There was a kind of heroism in the relinquishing all the blandishments of fortune, all the seductions of the brilliant world, for one whose peaceful and humble life strayed not beyond the limits of these rugged mountains; and this had its charm. There were times when I loved to ask myself whether Louisa Bellew would not, even amid all the splendour and display of London life, be as much admired and courted as the most acknowledged of beauty"s daughters: now I turned rather to the thought of how far happier and better it was to know that a nature so unhackneyed, a heart so rich in its own emotions, was never to be exposed to the callous collision of society and all the hardened hypocrisy of the world. My own lot, too, how many more chances of happiness did it not present as I looked at the few weeks of the past, and thought of whole years thus gliding away, loving and beloved!
A kind of stir, and the sound of voices beneath my window, broke my musings, and I rose and looked out. It proceeded from the young girl and the country lad who formed the priest"s household. They were talking together before the door, and pointing in the direction of the highroad, where a cloud of dust had marked the pa.s.sage of some carriage--an event rare enough to attract attention in these wild districts.
"And did his reverence say that the Captain was to be kept in bed till he came back?"
"Ah, then, sure, he knew well enough," said Mary, "that the young man would be up and off to the castle the moment he was able to walk--ay, and maybe before it too. Troth, Patsey, it"s what I"m thinking--there"s n.o.body knows how to coort like a raal gentleman."
"Och, botheration!" said Patsey, with an offended toss of his head, and a look of half malice.
"Faix, you may look how you like, but it"s truth I"m telling ye. They know how to do it. It isn"t winking at a body, nor putting their great rough arms round their neck; but it"s a quiet, mannerly, dacent way they have, and soothering voice, and a look under their eyes, as much as to say, "Maybe ye wouldn"t, now?""
"Troth, Mary," said Patsey sharply, "it strikes me that you know more of their ways than is just convenient--eh, do you understand me now?"
"Well, and if I do," replied Mary, "there"s no one can be evenin" it to you, for I"m sure it wasn"t you taught me!"
"Ye want to provoke me," said the young man, rising, and evidently more annoyed than he felt disposed to confess; "but, faix, I"ll keep my temper. It"s not after spaking to his reverence, and buying a cow and a dresser, that I "m going to break it off."
"Heigh-ho!" said Mary, as she adjusted a curl that was most coquettishly half falling across her eyes; "sure there"s many a slip betune the cup and the lip, as the poor dear young gentleman will find out when he wakes."
A cold fear ran through me as I heard these words, and the presentiment of some mishap, that for a few moments I had been forgetting, now came back in double force. I set about dressing myself in all haste, and, notwithstanding that my wounded arm interfered with me at each instant, succeeded at last in my undertaking. I looked at my watch; it was already six o"clock in the afternoon, and the large mountains were throwing their great shadows over the yellow strand. Collecting from what I had heard from the priest"s servants that it was their intention to detain me in the house, I locked my door on leaving the room, and stole noiselessly down the stairs, crossed the little garden, and pa.s.sing through the beech hedge, soon found myself upon the mountain path. My pace quickened as I breasted the hillside, my eyes firmly fixed upon the tall towers of the old castle, as they stood proudly topping the dense foliage of the oak-trees. Like some mariner who gazes on the long-wished-f or beacon that tells of home and friends, so I bent my steadfast looks to that one object, and conjured up many a picture to myself of the scene that might be at that moment enacting there. Now I imagined the old man seated, silent and motionless, beside the bed where his daughter, overcome with weakness and exhaustion, still slept, her pale face scarce coloured by a pinkish flush that marked the last trace of feverish excitement; now I thought of her as if still seated in her own drawing-room, at the little window that faced seaward, looking perhaps upon the very spot that marked our last night"s adventure, and, mayhap, blushing at the memory.
As I came near the park I turned from the regular approach to a small path, which, opening by a wicket, led to a little flower-garden beside the drawing-room. I had not walked many paces when the sound of some one sobbing caught my ear. I stopped to listen, and could distinctly hear the low broken voice of grief quite near me. My mind was in that excited state when every breeze that rustled, every leaf that stirred, thrilled through my heart; the same dread of something, I knew not what, that agitated me as I awoke came fresh upon me, and a cold tremor crept over me. The next moment I sprang forward, and as I turned the angle of the walk beheld--with what relief of heart!--that the cries proceeded from a little child, who, seated in the gra.s.s, was weeping bitterly. It was a boy of scarce five years old that Louisa used to employ about the garden--rather to amuse the little fellow, to whom she had taken a liking, than for the sake of services which at the best were scarcely harmless.
"Well, Billy," said I, "what has happened to you, my boy? Have you fallen and hurt yourself?"
"Na," was the only reply; and sinking his head between his knees, he sobbed more bitterly than ever.
"Has Miss Loo been angry with you, then?"
"Na, na," was the only answer, as he poured forth a flood of tears.
"Come, come, my little man, what is it? Tell me, and perhaps we can set it all to rights."
"Gone! gone away for ever!" cried the child, as a burst of pent-up agony broke from him; and he cried as though his very heart would break.
Again the terrible foreboding crossed my mind, and without waiting to ask another question I rushed forward, cleared the little fence of the flower-garden at a spring and stood within a few yards of the window.
It lay open as usual; the large china vase of moss-roses that she had plucked the evening before stood on the little table beside it.
I stopped for an instant to breathe; the beating of my heart was so painful that I pressed my hand upon my side. At that instant I had given my life to have heard Louisa"s voice; but for one single word I had bartered my heart"s blood. But all was as hushed and still as midnight.
I thought I did hear something like a sigh; yes, and now I could distinctly hear the rustling sound of some one as if turning in a chair.
Sir Simon Bellew, for some cause, or other, I knew never came into that room. I listened again: yes, and now too I could see the shadow of a figure on the floor. I sprang forward to the window and cried out, "Louisa!" The next instant I was in the room, and my eyes fell upon the figure of--Ulick Burke! Seated in a deep arm-chair, his leg resting on a low stool, he was reclining at half-length, his face pale as death, and his very lips blanched; but there rested on the mouth the same curl of insolent mockery that marked it when first we met.
"Disappointed, I fear, sir," said he, in a tone which, however weakened by sickness, had lost nothing of its sneering bitterness.
"I confess, sir," said I confusedly, "that this is a pleasure I had not antic.i.p.ated."
"Nor I either, sir," replied he, with a dark frown. "Had I been able to ring the bell before, the letter that lies there should have been sent to you, and might have spared both of us this "pleasure," as you are good enough to call it."
"A letter for me?" said I eagerly; then half ashamed at my own emotion, and not indifferent to the sickly and apparently dying form before me, I hesitated, and added, "I trust that you are recovering from the effects of your wound."
[Ill.u.s.tration: 3-008]
"d.a.m.n the wound, sir; don"t speak to me about it! You never came here for that, I suppose? Take your letter, sir!" A purple flush here coloured his features, as though some pang of agonising pain had shot through him, and his livid lip quivered with pa.s.sion. "Take your letter, sir!" and he threw it towards me as he spoke.
I stood amazed and thunderstruck at this sudden outbreak of anger, and for a second or two could not recover myself to speak. "You mistake me,"
said I.
"Mistake you? No, confound me! I don"t mistake you; I know you well and thoroughly! But you mistake me, ay, and d.a.m.nably too, if you suppose that because I "m crippled here this insolence shall pa.s.s unpunished!
Who but a coward, sir, would come thus to taunt a man like me? Yes, sir, a coward! I spoke it--I said it! Would you like to hear it over again?
Or if you don"t like it, the remedy is near you--nearer than you think.
There are two pistols in that case, both loaded with ball; take your choice, and your own distance; and here, where we are, let us finish this quarrel! For, mark me!" and here his brow darkened, till the veins, swelled and knotted in his forehead, looked like indigo--"mark me, the account shall be closed one day or other!"
I saw at once that he had lashed his fury up to an ungovernable pitch, and that to speak to him was only to increase his pa.s.sion; so I stooped down without saying a word, and took up the letter that lay at my feet.
"I am waiting your reply, sir," said he, with a low voice, subdued by an inward effort into a seeming quietness of tone.
"You cannot imagine," said I mildly, "that I could accept of such a challenge as this, nor fight with a man who cannot leave his chair?"
"And who has made me so, sir? Who has made me a paralytic thing for life? But if that be all, give me your arm, and help me through that window; place me against that yew-tree, yonder. I can stand well enough.
You won"t?--you refuse me this? Oh, coward! coward! You grow pale and red again! Let your white lip mutter, and your nails eat into your hands with pa.s.sion! Your heart is craven, and you know it!"
Shall I dare to own it? For an instant or two my resolution tottered, and involuntarily my eyes turned to the pistol-case upon the table beside me. He caught the look, and in a tone of triumphant exultation cried out--
"Bravo, bravo! What! you hesitate again? Oh, that this should not be before the world--in some open and public place--that men should not look on and see us here!"
"I leave you, sir," said I sternly--"thankful, for _your_ sake at least, that this is not before the world."
"Stop, sir! stop!" cried he, hoa.r.s.e with rage. "Ring that bell!" I hesitated, and he called out again, "Ring that bell, sir!"
I approached the chimney, and did as he desired. The butler immediately made his appearance.
"Nicholas," cried the sick man, "bring in the servants--bring them in here; you hear me well. I want to show them something they have never seen. Go!"
The man disappeared at once, and as I met the scowling look of hate that fixed its glare upon me, once more I felt myself to waver. The struggle was but momentary. I sprang to the window, and leaped into the garden.
A loud curse broke from Burke as I did so; a cry of disappointed wrath, like the yell of a famished wolf, followed. The next moment I was beyond the reach of his insolence and his invective.
The pa.s.sionate excitement of the moment over, my first determination was to gain the approach, and return to the house by the hall door; my next, to break the seal of the letter which I held in my hand, and see if its contents might not throw some light upon the events which somehow I felt were thickening around me, but of whose nature and import I knew nothing.
The address was written in a stiff, old-fashioned hand; but the large seal bore the arms of the Bellew family, and left no doubt upon my mind that it had come from Sir Simon. I opened it with a trembling and throbbing heart, and read as follows:--
"My dear Sir,--The event of last night has called back upon a failing and broken memory the darkest hour of a long and blighted life, and made the old man, whose steadfast gaze looked onward to the tomb, turn once backward to behold the deepest affliction of his days--misfortune, crime, remorse. I cannot even now, while already the very shadow of death is on me, recount the sad story I allude to; enough for the object I have in view if I say, that, where I once owed the life of one I held dearest in the world, the hand that saved lived to steal, and the voice that blessed me was perjured and forsworn. Since that hour I have never received a service of a fellow-mortal, until the hour when you rescued my child. And oh! loving her as I do, wrapped up as my soul is in her image, I could have borne better to see her cold and dripping corpse laid down beside me than to behold her, as I have done, in your arms.
You must never meet more. The dreadful antic.i.p.ation of long-suffering years is creeping stronger and stronger upon me; and I feel in my inmost heart that I am reserved for another and a last bereavement ere I die.
"We shall have left before this letter reaches you. You may perhaps hear the place of our refuge, for such it is; but I trust that to your feelings as a gentleman and a man of honour I can appeal, in the certain confidence that you will not abuse my faith--you will not follow us.
"I know not what I have written, nor dare I read it again. Already my tears have dimmed my eyes, and are falling on the paper; so let me bid you farewell--an eternal fare well. My nephew has arrived here. I have not seen him, nor shall I; but he will forward this letter to you after our departure.--Yours, S. Bellew."
The first stunning feeling past, I looked round me to see if it were not some horrid dream, and the whole events but the frightful deception of a sleeping fancy. But bit by bit the entire truth broke upon me; the full tide of sorrow rushed in upon my heart. The letter I could not comprehend further than that some deep affliction had been recalled by my late adventure. But then, the words of the hag--the brief, half-uttered intimations of the priest--came to my memory. "Her mother,"
said I--"what of her mother?" I remembered Louisa had never mentioned or even alluded to her; and now a thousand suspicions crossed my mind, which all gave way before my own sense of bereavement and the desolation and desertion I felt, in my own heart. I threw myself upon the ground where she walked so often beside me, and burst into tears. But a few brief hours, and how surrounded by visions of happiness and lovet Now, bereft of everything, what charm had life for me! How valueless, how worthless did all seem! The evening sun I loved to gaze on, the bright flowers, the waving gra.s.s, the low murmur of the breaking surf that stole like music over the happy sense, were now but gloomy things or discordant sounds. The very high and holy thoughts that used to stir within me were changed to fierce and wrathful pa.s.sions or the low drooping of despair. It was night, still and starry night, when I arose and wended my way towards the priest"s cottage.