As O"Connor finished this sentence, his meditations were dispelled by certain sounds, which issued from the pa.s.sage leading to his room.
"A young man," exclaimed a voice, interrupted by a good deal of puffing and blowing, probably caused by the steep ascent, "and a good-looking, eh?--(puff)--dark eyes, eh?--(puff, puff)--black hair and straight nose, eh?--(puff, puff)--long-limbed, tall, eh?--(puff)."
The answers to these interrogatories, whatever they may have been, were, where O"Connor stood, wholly inaudible; but the cross-examination was accompanied throughout by a stout, firm, stumping tread upon the old floor, which, along with the increasing clearness with which the noise made its way to O"Connor"s door, sufficiently indicated that the speaker was approaching. The accents were familiar to him. He ran to his door, opened it; and in an instant Hugh Audley, Esquire, very hot and very much out of breath, pitched himself, with a good deal of precision, shoulders foremost, against the pit of the young man"s stomach, and, embracing him a little above the hips, hugged him for some time in silence, swaying him to and fro with extraordinary energy, as if preparatory to tripping him up, and taking him off his feet altogether--then giving him a shove straight from him, and holding him at arm"s length, he looked with brimful eyes, and a countenance beaming with delight, full in O"Connor"s face.
"Confound the dog, how well he looks," exclaimed the old gentleman, vehemently--"devilish well, curse him!" and he gave O"Connor a shove with his knuckles, and succeeded in staggering himself--"never saw you look better in my life, nor anyone else for that matter; and how is every inch of you, and what have you been doing with yourself? Come, you young dog, account for yourself."
O"Connor had now, for the first time, an opportunity of bidding the kind old gentleman welcome, which he did to the full as cordially, if not so boisterously.
"Let me sit down and rest myself: I must take breath for a minute,"
exclaimed the old gentleman. "Give me a chair, you undutiful rascal.
What a devil of a staircase that is, to be sure. Well, and what do you intend doing with yourself to-day?"
"To say the truth," said the young man, while a swarthier glow crossed his dark features. "I was just about to start for Morley Court, to see Sir Richard Ashwoode."
"About his daughter, I take it?" inquired the old gentleman.
"Just so, sir," replied the younger man.
"Then you may spare yourself the pains," rejoined the old gentleman, briskly. "You are better at home. You have been forestalled."
"What--how, sir? What do you mean?" asked O"Connor, in great perplexity and alarm.
"Just what I say, my boy. You have been forestalled."
"By whom, sir?"
"By me."
"By you?"
"Ay."
The old gentleman screwed his brows and pursed up his mouth until it became a Gordian involution of knots and wrinkles, threw a fierce and determined expression into his eyes, and wagged his head slightly from side to side--looking altogether very like a "Cromwell guiltless of his country"s blood." At length he said,--
"I"m an old fellow, and ought to know something by this time--think I _do_, for that matter; and I say deliberately--cut the whole concern and blow them all."
Having thus delivered himself, the old gentleman resumed his sternest expression of countenance, and continued in silence to wag his head from time to time with an air of infinite defiance, leaving his young companion, if possible, more perplexed and bewildered than ever.
"And have you, then, seen Sir Richard Ashwoode?" inquired O"Connor.
"Have I seen him?" rejoined the old gentleman. "To be sure I have. The moment the boat touched the quay, and I fairly felt _terra firma_, I drove to the "Fox in Breeches," and donned a handsome suit"--(here the gentleman glanced cursorily at his bottle-green habiliments)--"I ordered a hack-coach--got safely to Morley Court--saw Sir Richard, laid up with the gout, looking just like an old, dried-up, cross-grained monkey. There was, of course, a long explanation, and all that sort of thing--a good deal of tact and diplomacy on my side, doubling about, neat fencing, and circ.u.mbendibus; but all would not do--an infernal _smash_. Sir Richard was all but downright uncivil--would not hear of it--said plump and plain he would never consent. The fact is, he"s a sour, hard, insolent old scoundrel, and a bitter pill; and I congratulate you heartily on having escaped all connection with him and his. Don"t look so down in the mouth about the matter; there"s as good fish in the sea as ever was caught; and if the young woman is half such a shrew as her father is a tartar, you have had an escape to be thankful for the longest day you live."
We shall not attempt to describe the feelings with which O"Connor received this somewhat eccentric communication. He folded his arms upon the table, and for many minutes leaned his head upon them, without motion, and without uttering one word. At length he said,--
"After all, I ought to have expected this. Sir Richard is a bigoted man in his own faith--an ambitious and a worldly man, too. It was folly, mere folly, knowing all this, to look for any other answer from him. He may indeed delay our union for a little, but he cannot bar it--he _shall_ not bar it. I could more easily doubt myself than Mary"s constancy; and if she be but firm and true--and she is all loyalty and all truth--the world cannot part us two. Our separation cannot outlast his life; nor shall it last so long. I will overcome her scruples, combat all her doubts, satisfy her reason. She will consent--she will be mine--my own--through life and until death. No hand shall sunder us for ever,"--he turned to the old man, and grasped his hand--"My dear, kind, true friend, how can I ever thank you for all your generous acts of kindness. I cannot."
"Never mind, never mind, my dear boy," said the old gentleman, blubbering in spite of himself--"never mind--what a d----d old fool I am, to be sure. Come, come, you, shall take a turn with me towards the country, and get an appet.i.te for dinner. You"ll be as well as ever in half an hour. When all"s done, you stand no worse than you did yesterday; and if the girl"s a good girl, as I make no doubt she is, why, you are sure of her constancy--and the devil himself shall not part you. Confound me if I don"t run away with the girl for you myself if you make a pother about the matter. Come along, you dog--come along, I say."
"Nay, sir," replied O"Connor, "forgive me. I am keenly pained. I am agitated--confounded at the suddenness of this--this dreadful blow. I will go alone, pardon me, my kind and dear friend, I must go _alone_. I may chance to see the lady. I am sure she will not fail me--she will meet me. Oh! heart and brain, be still--be steady--I need your best counsels now. Farewell, sir--for a little time, farewell."
"Well, be it so--since so it _must_ be," said Mr. Audley, who did not care to combat a resolution, announced with all the wild energy of despairing pa.s.sion, "by all means, my dear boy, _alone_ it shall be, though I scarce think you would be the worse of a staid old fellow"s company in your ramble--but no matter, boys will be boys while the world goes round."
The conclusion of this sentence was a soliloquy, for O"Connor had already descended to the inn yard, where he procured a horse, and was soon, with troubled mind and swelling heart, making rapid way toward Morley Court. It was now the afternoon--the sun had made nearly half his downward course--the air was soft and fresh, and the birds sang sweetly in the dark nooks and bowers of the tall trees: it seemed almost as if summer had turned like a departing beauty, with one last look of loveliness to gladden the scene which she was regretfully leaving. So sweet and still the air--so full and mellow the thrilling chorus of merry birds among the rustling leaves, flitting from bough to bough in the clear and lofty shadow--so cloudless the golden flood of sunlight. Such was the day--so gladsome the sounds--so serene the aspect of all nature--as O"Connor, dismounting under the shadow of a tall, straggling hawthorn hedge, and knotting the bridle in one of its twisted branches, crossed a low stile, and thus entered the grounds of Morley Court. He threaded a winding path which led through a neglected wood of thorn and oak, and found himself after a few minutes in the spot he sought. The old beech walk had been once the main avenue to the house. Huge beech-trees flung their mighty boughs high in air across its long perspective--and bright as was the day, the long lane lay in shadow deep and solemn as that of some old Gothic aisle. Down this dim vista did O"Connor pace with hurried steps toward the spot where, about midway in its length, there stood the half-ruined piers and low walls of what had once been a gateway.
"Can it be that she shrinks from this meeting?" thought O"Connor, as his eye in vain sought the wished-for form of Mary Ashwoode, "will she disappoint me?--surely she who has walked with me so many lonely hours in guileless trust need not have feared to meet me here. It was not generous to deny me this boon--to her so easy--to me so rich--yet perchance she judges wisely. What boots it that I should see her? Why see again that matchless beauty--that touching smile--those eyes that looked so fondly on me? Why see her more--since mayhap we shall never meet again? She means it kindly. Her nature is all n.o.bleness--all generosity; and yet--and yet to see her no more--to hear her voice no more--have we--have we then parted at last for ever? But no--by heavens--"tis she--Mary!"
It was indeed Mary Ashwoode, blushing and beautiful as ever. In an instant O"Connor stood by her side.
"My own--my true-hearted Mary."
"Oh! Edmond," said she, after a brief silence, "I fear I have done wrong--have I?--in meeting you thus. I ought not--indeed I know I ought not to have come."
"Nay, Mary, do not speak thus. Dear Mary, have we not been companions in many a pleasant ramble: in those times--the times, Mary, that will never come again? Why, then, should you deny me a few minutes" mournful converse, where in other days we two have pa.s.sed so many pleasant hours?"
There was in the tone in which he spoke something so unutterably melancholy--and in the recollections which his few simple words called crowding to her mind, something at once so touching, so dearly cherished, and so bitterly regretted--that the tears gathered in her full dark eyes, and fell one by one fast and unheeded.
"You do not grieve, then, Mary," said he, "that you have come here--that we have met once more: do you, Mary?"
"No, no, Edmond--no, indeed," answered she, sobbing. "G.o.d knows I do not, Edmond--no, no."
"Well, Mary," said he, "I am happy in the belief that you feel toward me just as you used to do--as happy as one so wretched can hope to be."
"Edmond, your words affright me," said she, fixing her eyes full upon him with imploring earnestness: "you look sadder--paler than you did yesterday; something has happened since then. What--what is it, Edmond?
tell me--ah, tell me!"
"Yes, Mary, much has happened," answered he, taking her hand between both of his, and meeting her gaze with a look of pa.s.sionate sorrow and tenderness--"yes, Mary, without my knowledge, the friend of whom I told you had arrived, and this morning saw your father, told him _all_, and was repulsed with sternness--almost with insult. Sir Richard has resolved that it shall never be; there is no more hope of bending him--none--none--none."
While O"Connor spoke, the colour in Mary"s cheeks came and fled in turn with quick alternations, in answer to every throb and flutter of the poor heart within.
"See him--speak to him--yourself, Edmond, yourself. Oh! do not despair--see him--speak to him," she almost whispered, for agitation had well-nigh deprived her of voice--"see him, Edmond--yourself--for G.o.d"s sake, dear Edmond--yourself--yourself"--and she grasped his arm in her tiny hand, and gazed in his pale face with such a look of agonized entreaty as cut him to the very heart.
"Yes, Mary, if it seems good to you, I will speak to him myself," said O"Connor, with deep melancholy. "I will, Mary, though my own heart--my reason--tells me it is all--all utterly in vain; but, Mary," continued he, suddenly changing his tone to one of more alacrity, "if he should still reject me--if he shall forbid our ever meeting more--if he shall declare himself unalterably resolved against our union--Mary, in such a case, would you, too, tell me to see you no more--would you, too, tell me to depart without hope, and never come again? or would you, Mary--could you--dare you--dear, dear Mary, for once--once only--disobey your stern and haughty father--dare you trust yourself with me--fly with me to France, and be at last, and after all, my own--my bride?"
"No, Edmond," said she, solemnly and sadly, while her eyes again filled with tears; and though she trembled like the leaf on the tree, yet he knew by the sound of her sad voice that her purpose could not alter--"that can never be--never, Edmond--no--no."
"Then, Mary, can it be," he answered, with an accent so desolate that despair itself seemed breathing in its tone--"can it be, after all--all we have pa.s.sed and proved--all our love and constancy, and all our bright hopes, so long and fondly cherished--cherished in the midst of grief and difficulty--when we had no other stay but hope alone--are we, after all--at last, to part for ever?--is it, indeed, Mary, all--all over?"
As the two lovers stood thus in deep and melancholy converse by the ivy-grown and ruined gateway, beneath the airy shadow of the old beech-trees, they were recalled to other thoughts by the hurried patter of footsteps, and the rustling of the branches among the underwood which skirted the avenue. As fortune willed it, however, the intruder was no other than the honest dog, Rover, Mary"s companion in many a silent and melancholy ramble; he came sniffing and bounding with boisterous greeting to hail his young mistress and her companion. The interruption, harmless as it was, startled Mary Ashwoode.
"Were my father to find us here, Edmond," said she, "it were fatal to all our hopes. You know his temper well. Let us then part here. Follow the by-path leading to the house. Go and see him--speak with him for my sake--for my sake, Edmond--and so--and so--farewell."
"And farewell, Mary, since it must be," said O"Connor, with a bitter struggle. "Farewell, but only for a time--only for a little time, Mary; and whatever befalls, remember--remember me. Farewell, Mary."
As he thus spoke, he raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it for the first time, it might be for the last, in his life. For a moment he stood, and gazed with sad devotion upon the loved face. Then, with an effort, he turned abruptly away, and strode rapidly in the direction she had indicated; and when he turned to look again, she was gone.
O"Connor followed the narrow path, which, diverging a little from the broad gra.s.s lane, led with many a wayward turn among the tall trees toward the house. As he thus pursued his way, a few moments of reflection satisfied him of the desperate nature of the enterprise which he had undertaken. But if lovers are often upon unreal grounds desponding, it is likewise true that they are sometimes sanguine when others would despair; and, spite of all his misgivings--of all the irresistible conclusions of stern reason--hope still beckoned him on.
Thus agitated, he pursued his way, until, on turning an abrupt angle, he beheld, scarcely more than a dozen paces in advance, and moving slowly toward him in the shadowy pathway, a figure, at sight of which, thus suddenly presented, he recoiled, and stood for a moment fixed as a statue. He had encountered the object of his search. The form was that of Sir Richard Ashwoode himself, who, wrapped in his scarlet roquelaure, and leaning upon the shoulder of his Italian valet, while he limped forward slowly and painfully, appeared full before him.