Flora Lyndsay Volume Ii Part 17

As long as Mr. Abel remained in F----, I maintained the reputation I had acquired; and long after he left us, I was a regular church-goer, and prosecuted my studies both at home and abroad. At that time my personal appearance was greatly in my favour; and I was vain of my natural advantages. I loved to dress better, and appear as if I belonged to a higher grade than my village a.s.sociates. This could not be done without involving considerable expense. I kept a handsome horse, and carried a handsome gun; and I flattered myself, that when dressed in my green velvet shooting jacket, white cords, top boots, and with my hunting cap placed jauntily on my head, I was as handsome and gentlemanly-looking a young fellow as could be found in that part of the country.

I had just completed my twenty-third year when Miss Ella made her appearance once more at the hall. She was no longer a pretty child, but had grown into a lovely and accomplished woman. A feeling of despair mingled with my admiration when she rode past me in the park, accompanied by a young gentleman and an elderly lady.

The gentleman was a younger brother, who afterwards died in India; the lady was her mother. Miss Ella was mounted on a spirited horse, which she sat to perfection, her n.o.bly proportioned figure displayed to the best advantage by her elegant and closely fitting dark blue riding habit.

After they pa.s.sed me, the elderly lady bent forward from her horse and said to her daughter, loud enough for me to hear. "Ella, who is that handsome young man?--he looks a gentleman."

"Far from that, Mamma," returned the young lady saucily. "It is my uncle's gamekeeper, Noah Cotton. The lad I once told you about. He is grown very handsome. But what a name, Noah," and she laughed--such a merry mocking laugh. "It is enough to drown any pretensions to good looks."

"How came you to know the man, Ella?" said her brother gravely.

"Oh, George, you know Uncle is not over particular. An aristocrat with regard to his game, and any infringement on his rights on that score, but a perfect democrat in his familiarity with his domestics and tenants. He used to send for this Noah to play with us during the holidays. He was a beautiful, curly-headed lad; and we treated him with too much condescension, but it was Uncle's fault;--he should have known that the boy was no companion for young people in our rank. This saucy, spoilt boy, had not only the impudence to fall in love with me, but to tell me so to my face."

"The scoundrel!" muttered the young man.

"Of course I never spoke to him again. I complained to Uncle, and he only treated it as a joke. It is a pity," she added, in a less boastful and haughty tone, "that he is not a gentleman: he is a handsome, n.o.ble-looking peasant."

They rode out of hearing, leaving me rooted to the spot. The sudden turn in the path had hidden me from their observation, and brought them and the theme of their conversation too terribly near.

Miss Ella's description of me cut into my heart, and stung me like an adder. I pressed my hand upon my burning brain,--upon my aching heart, I tried to tear her image from both. Vain effort! Pa.s.sion had done its work effectually. The limning of years could not be effaced by the desecrating power of mortified vanity.

I saw her many times during that visit to the Hall; but, beyond raising my cap respectfully when she pa.s.sed me, no word of recognition ever escaped from my lips. Once or twice I thought, from her manner, and the earnest way in which she regarded me, that she almost wished me to speak to her.

Her horse ran away with her one morning in the park, and she lost her seat, but received no serious injury. I caught the animal, and helped her to remount. Our eyes met, and she blushed very deeply, and her hand trembled as it lay for a moment in mine. Trifling as these circ.u.mstances were, they gave birth at the time to the most extravagant hopes, which filled me with a sort of ecstasy. I almost fancied that she loved me,--she, the proud, highborn, beautiful lady. Alas! I knew little of the coquetry of woman's nature, or that a girl of her rank and fortune would condescend to notice a poor lad like me, to gratify her own vanity and love of admiration.

I went home intoxicated with delight; and that night I dreamt I found a vast sum of gold beneath a pine-tree in one of the plantations, and that Ella Carlos had consented to become my wife. My vision of happiness was, however, doomed to fade. The next day Mrs. Carlos and her son and daughter left the Hall, and I did not see her again before she went.

For weeks after their departure I moped about in a listless, dispirited manner, loathing my menial occupation, and despising the low origin which formed an insurmountable barrier between me and the beautiful mistress of my heart.

I was soon roused from these unprofitable speculations, and called to take an active part in the common duties of my every-day life. Some desperadoes had broken into the preserves, and carried off a large quant.i.ty of game. Mr. Carlos vowed vengeance on the depredators, and reprimanded me severely for my neglect.

This galled my pride, and made me return with double diligence to my business. After watching for a few nights, I had every reason to believe that the poacher was no other than my old enemy. Bill Martin, after an absence of several years in America, had suddenly reappeared in the village, and was constantly seen at the public-house, in the company of a set of worthless, desperate characters. He had sunk into the low blackguard, and manifested his hatred to me by insulting me on all occasions. My dislike to this ruffian was too deep to find vent in words. I was always brooding over his injurious conduct, and planning schemes of vengeance.

One day, in going through the plantations, I picked up a large American bowie-knife, with Bill Martin's name engraved upon the handle. This I carefully laid by, hoping that it might prove useful on some future occasion. Meanwhile, the game was nightly thinned; and the caution and dexterity with which the poachers acted, baffled me and my colleagues in all our endeavours to surprise them in the act.

CHAPTER XVI.

TEMPTATION.

"That Bill Martin is a desperate ruffian," said Mr. Carlos to me one morning, after we were returning to the Hall through the park. I had been watching in the preserves all night, but nothing had transpired, beyond the discovery of the bowie-knife, that could lead to the detection of the marauders. "I have no doubt that he and his gang are the party concerned in these nightly depredations; but we want sufficient proof for their apprehension."

"Give Martin rope enough, and he'll hang himself," I replied. "He is fierce and courageous, but boastful and foolhardy. In order to astonish his companions, he'll commit some daring outrage, and betray himself. I will relax a little from our vigilance, to give him more confidence, and put him off his guard. It won't be long, depend upon it, before we have him safely lodged in ----gaol."

"Noah, my boy, you are a trump!" cried the Squire, throwing his arm familiarly across my shoulder. "It's a pity such talents as you possess should be wasted in watching hares and partridges."

I felt my heart heat, and my cheeks glow, and I thought of Miss Ella.

"Was he going," I asked myself, "to place me in a more respectable situation?"

But no; the generous fit pa.s.sed away, and he broke into a hearty laugh.

"D----e, Noah, I had half a mind to buy a commission for you, and make a soldier of you. But you had better remain as you are. That confounded name of Noah Cotton would spoil all. Who ever heard of a gentleman bearing such a cognomen? It is worse than Lord Byronis."

"Amas Cottle, Phoebus, what a name! What could tempt your mother to call you after the old patriarchal navigator! Ha! ha! it was a queer dodge."

"It was my father's name," said I, reddening; for, besides being bitterly mortified and disappointed, I by no means relished the joke; "and my father, though poor, was an honest man!"

"Both cases _rather_ doubtful," said the Squire, laughing to himself.

Then, slapping me pretty sharply on the shoulder, he said,--"And what, my lad, do you know of your father?"

"Nothing, personally; to the best of my knowledge I never saw him; but my mother has told me a good deal about him."

"Humph!" said Mr. Carlos. "Did she tell you how much she was attached to Mister Noah Cotton, and how grieved she was to part with such a tender, loving spouse?"

"Sir, Mr. Carlos,--do you mean to insult me by speaking in this jeering way of my parents?"

"Not in the least, Noah; so don't look at me with that fierce black eye, as if you took me for a hare or a pheasant, or, worse than either, for Bill Martin. _You_ ought to know that I am your friend,--have been your friend from a child; and if you continue to conduct yourself as you have done, will befriend you for life."

I looked, I am sure, very foolish, for I felt his words rankling in my heart; and, though I affected to laugh, I strode on by his side in silence; the chain of obligations he had wound around me, and my dependence upon him, tightening about me, and galling me at every step.

He certainly saw that I was offended, for, stopping at the gate which led from the park to the Hall-gardens, where our roads separated, he said, rather abruptly,--

"You are angry with me, Noah?"

"With you, sir?--that would be folly."

"It would, indeed. I see you can't bear a joke."

"Not very well."

"You don't take after your father, then, for he loves a joke dearly."

"Is my father alive?" I cried, eagerly.

"Of course he is."

"My mother don't know this."

"As well as I know it. Women have all their secrets. They don't tell us all they know. One of these days you'll hear more about this mysterious father, depend upon it."

I longed to ask him all he knew upon the subject, but we were not on terms of familiarity to warrant such a liberty. He was my master, and it was his part to speak--mine to listen. Presently he turned the subject into another channel altogether.

"By-the-by, Noah," said he, "I am going to-day to ----. I have a large sum of money to receive from my lawyer,--the payment for Crawford's farm, which I sold a few months ago. The land was bad, and I was offered a good price for it,--more, indeed, than I thought it was worth. Horner advised me to sell, and I sold it accordingly. It may be late when I return to-morrow night, which I shall do by the F---- coach. It will put me down on the other side of the park, and I shall have to walk home by the plantations, and through the great avenue; and, though the distance is but a mile, to tell you the truth, I should not like to meet Bill Martin and his gang, after nightfall, in such a lonely place, especially with a large sum of money on my person,--at least from 500_l._ to 1,000_l._ I wish you would bring your gun, and wait for the coming up of the coach, at the second gate, which leads into that lonely plantation.

It will be in by ten o'clock."

"That I will, with the greatest pleasure," I cried, and all my petty resentment vanished. "I am not afraid of twenty Bill Martins. I only wish I may have the luck to meet with him."