Lost Sir Massingberd Volume Ii Part 5

With those words, he threw himself from his horse, and climbed up into the cart; it was rather a roomy one, but all that was in it was clearly to be seen at the first glance. It was carpeted with rushes a foot thick, from which Rachel Liversedge was busily engaged in weaving chair-bottoms. Opposite to her sat another female, engaged with the same articles, but constructing out of them crowns and necklaces, which, though they did not very much resemble the ornaments for which they were intended, appeared to afford her exquisite satisfaction.

"Why don't you introduce me, Rachel?" exclaimed she testily, as Mr. Long looked in. "Don't you see the gentleman is bowing? Sinnamenta--Lady Heath." The secret of the gipsies' sudden removal, as well as of their use of the vehicle which had excited his suspicions, was at once apparent to the rector.

"Is she better, happier in your custody?" inquired my tutor, in a whisper, of the chair-maker. "G.o.d knows I would not disturb her, if she be."

"My little sister is not beaten now," observed Rachel bitterly; "although, of course, we have not those luxuries with which her husband has always surrounded her."

"Only four times, Sister Rachel!" observed the afflicted one, in a tone of remonstrance, "one, two, three, four," checking them off on her poor fingers, covered with worthless gewgaws. "I don't consider Gilmore's beatings anything, only Sir Ma.s.singberd's."

"May G.o.d's curse have found him!" exclaimed Rachel Liversedge fervently; "may He have avenged her wrongs upon him at last! Don't look at me, sir, as though I were a witch wishing a good man ill. I wish I _were_ a witch. How he should pine, and rave, and writhe, and suffer ten thousand deaths in one!"

She spoke with such hate and fury, that Mr. Long involuntarily cast once more a suspicious glance around him, as though in reality she possessed the means of vengeance which she so ardently desired. "Did you expect to find him here?" continued she. "That was it, was it? I wish you had. I would that I had his fleshless bones to show you. It is not _my_ fault that I have them not, be sure. If there were any manliness left among my people--but there is not; they are curs all--if any memory of the persecuted and the murdered had dwelt within them, as with me, let alone this work of his," she pointed to her unconscious sister, "for which, had he done nought else, I would have torn his heart out;--he would not have lived thus long by forty years. For aught we know, however, he lives yet; only hearing he was gone, we went and took my little sister from her wretchedness, and thus will keep her if you give us leave, you Christian gentlemen. Where he may be, we know not; we only hope that in some hateful spot--in h.e.l.l, if such a place there be--he may be suffering unimagined pains."

The fervour and energy of her words, however reprehensible in a moral point of view, were such as left no doubt in the mind of Mr. Long that the gipsy woman spoke truth. a.s.suring her, therefore, that, so far as he was concerned, she should not be molested in the custody of her unfortunate sister, my tutor rode back to Fairburn, relieved from the dread burden of his late suspicion, but more at his wit's end for an elucidation of the disappearance of Sir Ma.s.singberd than ever. Right glad was I to hear that his errand among my dusky friends had been bootless; but by the next morning's post I had received bitter news from Harley Street. A copy of that menacing epistle which I had so unwittingly enclosed to Marmaduke from his uncle, reached me from Mr.

Gerard. His words were kind, and intended to be comforting. He knew, of course, that I had been deceived; he well knew, and they all knew, he said, that my hand was the last to do Marmaduke hurt, to do aught but protect and uphold him. But I could see that some grievous harm had occurred, nevertheless, through me, as Sir Ma.s.singberd's catspaw. It was more apparent to me because there was not one accompanying word from my dear friend himself, whom I knew too well to imagine capable of blaming me. It was most apparent of all because of the postscript written in Lucy's own hand--so fair, so clear, so brave, so like her own sweet self, saying that I must not reproach myself because I had been overreached by a base man. "Marmaduke will write soon," she said; "he does not love you less because he is silent upon this matter, and must be kept so for a little while." He was ill, then, thanks to my dull wits; and out of pity she had written "Marmaduke." Ah me, would _I_ not have been ill! Would _I_ not have welcomed kinship with a score of wicked uncles for such pity! "He does not love you less because he is silent;" was that a quotation culled from her own heart's whisperings?

"A most unfortunate business," said Mr. Long reflectively, when he had possessed himself of this intelligence. "That letter of Sir Ma.s.singberd's will undo all the good of the last twelve months. With what a devilish ingenuity for torment has he framed every phrase. '_'My arm will reach you wheresoever you are; at the time you least expect it, and from the quarter to which you have least looked. However Well it may seem to be with you, it will not be Well.'_ How thoroughly he knew his nephew! This will make Marmaduke Heath a wretched man for life."

"Not if Sir Ma.s.singberd be dead," said I, "and can be proved to be so."

"That is true," responded my tutor, drily; then added, without, I think, intending me to hear it, "But what will be worse than anything, is this doubt as to whether he be dead or not."

I felt convinced of this too, and bowed my head in sorrow and silence.

There was a long pause. Then my tutor suddenly started up, and exclaimed, with animation, "Peter, will you go with me to London? I certainly shall be doing more good there, just now, than here; and I think that your presence will be welcome, nay, needful, in Harley Street."

"I shall be ready to start this very evening," returned I, thinking of the mail which pa.s.sed at night.

"We will be off within an hour," replied my tutor; "I will order posters from the inn at once. Too much time has been lost already; we should have started when Sir Ma.s.singberd himself did."

"Do you think he is gone to town, then, with any evil purpose?" inquired I, aghast.

"If he has gone at all, it is certain it is for no good," rejoined the rector, gravely. "It is more than likely that this disappearance may be nothing but a ruse to throw us off our guard. The cat that despaired of attaining her end by other means, pretended to be dead."

[1] In those days, it was not thought inc.u.mbent upon ministers of the Gospel to look after gipsy-folk, whose souls, in case they had any, were not opined to be much worth saying.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PROCESSION.

At the time of which I write, a dweller in the midlands who wanted to go to town, did not drive down to the nearest railway station, to be transported from thence by the fiery dragon to his destination. Railways had been long heard of, and indeed there was one within twenty miles of Fairburn, which we should now call a tramway only, for engine it had none. Locomotives were the subject of debate in scientific circles, and of scorn among the rest of the community. A journey such as that my tutor and myself were about to undertake, is scarcely to be understood by readers of the present generation. Not only did it consume an amount of time which would now suffice for six times the distance, but it was surrounded by difficulties and dangers that have now no existence whatever--"extinct Satans," as a writer calls them, who is now scarcely held to be "modern," but who at that time had never written a line. The coach for which Mr. Long had thought it advisable not to wait, had met in its time with a thousand-and-one strange casualties, and the guard was a very Scheherazade at relating them. The "Highflyer" had come to dreadful grief in racing with an empty stomach, but many "outsides,"

against its rival, the "Rapid," which traversed a portion of the same road. It had often to open both its doors, to let the water through, in crossing Crittenden Ford, by neglect of which precaution upon one occasion, four "insides" had the misfortune to be suffocated. It had been dug out of snow-drifts a hundred times, and now and then it had _not_ been dug out, and the pa.s.sengers had been frost-bitten. In winter it was usual enough for them to spend a day or two perforce at some country inn, because the roads were "not open." The "Highflyer" had once been attacked by a tiger (out of a travelling caravan), which killed the off-leader; but this was an exceptional adventure. It was attacked by highwaymen at least once a year, but in this respect was considered rather a fortunate coach. Only a few weeks previously, there had been found by the reapers, in one of Farmer Arabel's wheat-fields, mail-bags with letters containing many thousand pounds in drafts and bills, which had been taken by gentlemen of the road from the custody of the guard of the "Highflyer" in the early summer. These persons had gone into the standing wheat to divide their booty, and left there what was to them unavailable property, or too difficult to negotiate.

In the two trips I had already taken to the metropolis, I had gone by this curious conveyance, of which all Fairburn had something to say; but I was now to journey even more gloriously still: so thoroughly had Mr.

Long got to be convinced that some immediate danger was imminent to Marmaduke at the hands of his uncle, that he could not bear the least unnecessary delay in giving him warning. We posted with four horses, and generally at full gallop. I agree with the Great Lexicographer in thinking that sensation very pleasurable indeed. The express-train, it is true, goes five times as fast, but you do not feel that there is any credit due to the steam-horse for that; you take it as a matter of course, and would do so, no matter what exertions it should make for you, short of bursting. But when you heard the ring of the sixteen hoofs upon the iron road, and the sharp crack of the whips in the frosty air, or leaned out of the window for a moment; and beheld the good steeds smoking in your behalf, you said to yourself, or to your companion, if you had one: "This is wonderful fine travelling." Perhaps you contrasted such great speed with that attained by the Exeter flying-coaches in your ancestors' time, and smiled with contemptuous pity at their five miles an hour, stoppages excluded.

The trees and hedges flew by you then, and gave an idea of the velocity, such as the telegraph-posts, seen vanishing thin out of the window of a railway-carriage, fail to convey; while, when you stopped for new cattle, the hurry and bustle attendant on the order, "Horses on," helped to strengthen the belief in your own fast travelling. Still, after the first few hours, even the enjoyments of a post-chaise-and-four begin to pall; and long before we had approached our destination, I was cramped, and chilled, and tired enough. It was growing dark, too, so that there was little to be seen without, and we had pa.s.sed those dangerous parts of the road where expectations of possible highwaymen had afforded me some excitement. I was dozing dreamily, unconscious that the light of London was flaring like a dusky dawn in front of us, and that we had even already entered its then limits upon the north-east, when I was roughly roused by the sudden stoppage of the carriage, accompanied by wild cries, and a glare of lurid flame. Mr. Long had put down the window, and was leaning out of it. There was a dense fog, and gas had not yet been established in that part of London; but a vast a.s.semblage of people were streaming slowly past us, and many of them had torches in their hands. They took no notice of us whatever, but yelled and shouted, and every now and then cast glances behind them at some approaching spectacle, which seemed to be about to overtake us. Presently, we beheld this ourselves. First came a great number of constables, marching twenty abreast, and clearing all before them with large staves; then a body of the mounted patrol--a corps then but newly formed, and which, although now well-nigh extinct, was destined in its time to do good service; then more constables; then a vast quant.i.ty of hors.e.m.e.n, armed and unarmed, and lastly this:--Extended on an inclined platform, built to a considerable height upon an open cart, was the body of a dead man; it was attired in blue trousers, and with a white and blue striped waistcoat, but without a coat. On the left side of him was a huge mallet, and on the right a ripping chisel.

"Great Heaven! what is this?" inquired Mr. Long of one of the mounted constables.

"Oh, it's him, sir, sure enough; we've got him at last," returned the officer.

"Him? Who?" cried I, half stupefied with fatigue and horror. "Have they found Sir Ma.s.singberd?"

No, it was not Sir Ma.s.singberd. The face which was now being slowly carried past us was wicked and stern enough, but it was not _his_ face.

The skin was black, the eyes were projecting; it was plain that the poor wretch had been strangled. The excitement of those who caught sight of it was hideous to witness; they cursed and hissed in hate and fury, and battled to get near the cart, that they might spit upon the corpse which it contained. The force of the advancing crowd was so tremendous that we were compelled to move for some distance side by side with this appalling sight, and presently immediately behind it; there we seemed to fall in as a part of the procession, and were no doubt considered by the majority of persons to officially belong to it. We were borne southwards quite out of our proper direction, and were unable to prevent it, for it was as much as the postillions could do to sit their horses, and avoid being shouldered out of their saddles. Our progress was of course at a foot's-pace only, and twice the procession halted, once opposite a draper's, and once opposite a public-house, when the yells and hooting of the crowd were terrible to hear. Not only were these two houses closely shuttered up (as they well might be), but the shop-fronts everywhere were closed, and the windows and the tops of the houses crowded with spectators. By this time, we had got to know in what dreadful proceedings we were thus taking an involuntary part. The body in the cart was that of the murderer Williams, who had committed suicide two days before, to escape, it was thought, not so much the scaffold, as the execrations of his fellow-creatures. All London was filled with hate of him, as before his capture it had been filled with fear; and the government had caused this public exhibition of his corpse, to convince the minds of the public that the wholesale a.s.sa.s.sin was really no longer alive. The houses at which we had halted were those which had once been inhabited by his unhappy victims, the Marrs and the Williamsons.

Subsequently, the corpse was conveyed to St. George's turn-pike, and there interred with a stake thrust through the middle of it; but before that frightful ceremony took place, the postillions had managed to extricate us, and we had driven westward to our destination. Still, I for my part had seen enough, and more than enough, to make that entry of ours into London a thing impossible to forget; and I think it rendered, by a.s.sociation, the mystery concerning which we had come up to Harley Street, more menacing and sombre than before.

CHAPTER IX.

AMONG FRIENDS.

We found Marmaduke Heath in a less morbid state of mind than we had expected. The die having been cast--the time given him by Sir Ma.s.singberd for his return and so-called reconciliation with that worthy having already elapsed without any action on the part of his uncle, the effect of that "Captain Swing"-like epistle was slowly wearing off. No one ever revived the matter in his presence, nor, as we have seen, was he permitted even to write upon the subject. Still, he knew that I had been lately communicated with concerning it--for at first the blow had fallen on its object with such force and fulness that those about him had really not liked to let me know the extent of the mischief I might have committed--and he imagined that I had now come up in mere friendly sorrow to cheer and comfort him. As he came out into the dark street on that December evening to give me loving welcome, fresh from that awful procession-scene, I positively looked with terror to left and right, lest some cloaked figure, whom yet we both should recognize, might reach forth an iron arm, and tear him away. It was I who was morbid and unstrung, and not my friend; he strove, I knew, to appear to the best advantage, in good humour and high spirits, in order that I might have less to reproach myself with.

"My dear old Peter" cried he, laughing, "how glad I am to see your honest face. Have you brought me any verbal message from my charming uncle, or are you only his deputy-postman? _How_ is he--_how_ is he?"

I could see, in spite of his light way, that he was curious to have this interrogation answered; but what was I to say? "I don't know whether he's well or ill," returned I, carelessly, as I stepped into the hall.

"But how is Mr. Gerard and Miss----"

"Here is 'Miss,'" returned a sweet voice, blithe as a bird's; "she is excellently well, Peter, thank you. But what a white face _you_ have got! If that is the gift of country air there is certainly no such cause for regretting our absence from the Dovecot, about which Marmaduke is always so solicitous."

"'Marmaduke' to his face, now!" thought I. I could not prevent my heart from sinking a little, in spite of the lifebuoy of friendship. But I answered gallantly, "There is no air that can wither _your_ roses, Miss Lucy, for the summer is never over where you are."

"Bravo, Peter," quoth Mr. Gerard, set in the warm glow of the dining-room, which gleamed forth from the open door behind him. "If he is so complimentary in a thorough draught, what a mirror of courtesy will he be when he gets thawed! Come in, my dear Mr. Long; come in to the warm. No east wind ever brought people more good, than this which brings you two to us. Lucy...--Ah, that's right; she has gone to order the dinner to be rechauffed. Now, do you travellers answer no man one word, but go make yourselves comfortable--you have your old rooms, of course--and then come down at once to food and fire. Marmaduke, my dear boy, you keep me company here, please; otherwise, you will delay Peter, with your gossip, I know."

That was a sentence with a purpose in it. If, as Mr. Gerard at once guessed, we had come up to town on business connected with Sir Ma.s.singberd, it might be advisable that I should not be interrogated by Marmaduke privately. For my part, I was greatly relieved by it, since I had no desire to be the person to communicate bad tidings--for such I knew he would consider them--to my friend a second time. My spirits had risen somewhat with the warmth of our reception; it is not a little to have honest friends, and welcome unmistakable in hand and voice and eye.

There is many a man who goes smoothly through the world by help of these alone, and only at times sighs for the love that but one could have given him, and which has been bestowed by her elsewhere. When I got down into the dining-room, a minute or two before my tutor, I was received by quite a chorus of kind voices--a very tumult of hospitable greeting.

"Warm your toes, Peter--warm your toes; you shall have a gla.s.s of sherry worth drinking directly," cried Mr. Gerard, all in a breath.

"Yes, Peter, you and I will have a gla.s.s together," exclaimed Marmaduke, eagerly.

"Stop for 'the particular'--stop for the green seal: it will be here in a minute," entreated the host.

"No, no," returned Marmaduke; "I must drink his health at once. Cowslip wine, if I drank it with Peter, would be better to me than Johannisberg."

He had his hand upon her arm, as I entered the room; I was sure of that, although she had gently but swiftly withdrawn it from his touch, as the door opened. How happy she looked; how pa.s.sing fair with that faint flush! How handsome and bright-faced was dear Marmaduke! How placidly content, like one who draws his happiness from that of others, was the countenance of Harvey Gerard! A picture of domestic pleasure and content indeed, and with three n.o.ble figures in it. It was impossible to doubt that two lovers stood before me, and a father who had found a prospective son-in-law, whom he could love as a son. This new relationship had been only established within a very few days, and upon that account, perhaps, it was the more patent. My mischance in the matter of Sir Ma.s.singberd's letter, had been the immediate cause of Marmaduke's declaration. She had compa.s.sionated him in his troubles, and he had told her in what alone his hope of comfort lay. He had not been sanguine of securing her--who could have been, with such a priceless prize in view?--for not only had he a diffidence in his own powers of pleasing, great and winning as they were, beyond those of any man I ever knew, but he feared to find an obstacle to his wishes in her father.

"Dear Mr. Gerard," he had said, with his usual frankness, "I have won your daughter's heart, and love her better than all the world. Still, it is you alone who have her hand to dispose of. She loves and respects you as never yet was father loved and respected, and this only makes her dearer to me. I feel as much bound in this matter by your decision--Oh, sir, G.o.d grant your heart may turn towards me--as she does herself. I dare not tell you what I think of you to your face. The very greatness of my respect for you makes me fear your rejection of _me_. I am, in one respect at least, a weak and morbid man, while your mind is vigorous and strong upon all points. You are in armour of proof from head to heel; whereas, there is a joint in my harness open to every blow. I am afraid, sir, that you despise me."