Paul Clifford Part 16

This very moral lay being ended, Mrs. Slopperton declared it was excellent; though she confessed she thought the sentiments rather loose.

Perhaps the gentleman might be induced to favour them with a song of a more refined and modern turn,--something sentimental, in short. Glancing towards Lucy, the stranger answered that he only knew one song of the kind Mrs. Slopperton specified, and it was so short that he could scarcely weary her patience by granting her request.

At this moment the river, which was easily descried from the windows of the room, glimmered in the starlight; and directing his looks towards the water, as if the scene had suggested to him the verses he sung, he gave the following stanzas in a very low, sweet tone, and with a far purer taste, than, perhaps, would have suited the preceding and ruder song.

THE WISH.

As sleeps the dreaming Eve below, Its holiest star keeps ward above, And yonder wave begins to glow, Like friendship bright'ning into Love!

Ah, would thy bosom were that stream, Ne'er wooed save by the virgin air!-- Ah, would that I were that star, whose beam Looks down and finds its image there!

Scarcely was the song ended, before the arrival of Miss Brandon's servant was announced; and her destined escort, starting up, gallantly a.s.sisted her with her cloak and her hood,--happy, no doubt, to escape in some measure the overwhelming compliments of his entertainers.

"But," said the doctor, as he shook hands with his deliverer, "by what name shall I remember and" (lifting his reverend eyes) "pray for the gentleman to whom I am so much indebted?"

"You are very kind," said the stranger; "my name is Clifford. Madam,"

turning to Lucy, "may I offer my hand down the stairs?"

Lucy accepted the courtesy; and the stranger was half-way down the staircase, when the doctor, stretching out his little neck, exclaimed,--

"Good-evening, sir! I do hope we shall meet again."

"Fear not!" said Mr. Clifford, laughing gayly; "I am too great a traveller to make that hope a matter of impossibility. Take care, madam,--one step more."

The night was calm and tolerably clear, though the moon had not yet risen, as Lucy and her companion pa.s.sed through the fields, with the servant preceding them at a little distance with the lantern.

After a pause of some length, Clifford said, with a little hesitation, "Is Miss Brandon related to the celebrated barrister of her name?"

"He is my uncle," said Lucy; "do you know him?"

"Only your uncle?" said Clifford, with vivacity, and evading Lucy's question. "I feared--hem! hem!--that is, I thought he might have been a nearer relation." There was another, but a shorter pause, when Clifford resumed, in a low voice: "Will Miss Brandon think me very presumptuous if I say that a countenance like hers, once seen, can never be forgotten; and I believe, some years since, I had the honour to see her in London, at the theatre? It was but a momentary and distant glance that I was then enabled to gain; and yet," he added significantly, "it sufficed!"

"I was only once at the theatre while in London, some years ago," said Lucy, a little embarra.s.sed; "and indeed an unpleasant occurrence which happened to my uncle, with whom I was, is sufficient to make me remember it."

"Ha! and what was it?"

"Why, in going out of the play-house his watch was stolen by some dexterous pickpocket."

"Was the rogue caught?" asked the stranger.

"Yes; and was sent the next day to Bridewell. My uncle said he was extremely young, and yet quite hardened. I remember that I was foolish enough, when I heard of his sentence, to beg very hard that my uncle would intercede for him; but in vain."

"Did you, indeed, intercede for him?" said the stranger, in so earnest a tone that Lucy coloured for the twentieth time that night, without seeing any necessity for the blush. Clifford continued, in a gayer tone: "Well, it is surprising how rogues hang together. I should not be greatly surprised if the person who despoiled your uncle were one of the same gang as the rascal who so terrified your worthy friend the doctor.

But is this handsome old place your home?"

"This is my home," answered Lucy; "but it is an old-fashioned, strange place; and few people, to whom it was not endeared by a.s.sociations, would think it handsome."

"Pardon me!" said Lucy's companion, stopping, and surveying with a look of great interest the quaint pile, which now stood close before them; its dark bricks, gable-ends, and ivied walls, tinged by the starry light of the skies, and contrasted by the river, which rolled in silence below. The shutters to the large oriel window of the room in which the squire usually sat were still unclosed, and the steady and warm light of the apartment shone forth, casting a glow even to the smooth waters of the river; at the same moment, too, the friendly bark of the house-dog was heard, as in welcome; and was followed by the note of the great bell, announcing the hour for the last meal of the old-fashioned and hospitable family.

"There is a pleasure in this," said the stranger, unconsciously, and with a half-sigh; "I wish I had a home!"

"And have you not a home?" said Lucy, with naivety. "As much as a bachelor can have, perhaps," answered Clifford, recovering without an effort his gayety and self-possession. "But you know we wanderers are not allowed the same boast as the more fortunate Benedicts; we send our hearts in search of a home, and we lose the one without gaining the other. But I keep you in the cold, and we are now at your door."

"You will come in, of course!" said Miss Brandon, "and partake of our evening cheer."

The stranger hesitated for an instant, and then said in a quick tone,--

"No! many, many thanks; it is already late. Will Miss Brandon accept my grat.i.tude for her condescension in permitting the attendance of one unknown to her?" As he thus spoke, Clifford bowed profoundly over the hand of his beautiful charge; and Lucy, wishing him good-night, hastened with a light step to her father's side.

Meanwhile Clifford, after lingering a minute, when the door was closed on him, turned abruptly away; and muttering to himself, repaired with rapid steps to whatever object he had then in view.

CHAPTER XII.

Up rouse ye then, My merry, merry men!

--JOANNA BAILLIE.

When the moon rose that night, there was one spot upon which she palely broke, about ten miles distant from Warlock, which the forewarned traveller would not have been eager to pa.s.s, but which might not have afforded a bad study to such artists as have caught from the savage painter of the Apennines a love for the wild and the adventurous. Dark trees, scattered far and wide over a broken but verdant sward, made the background; the moon shimmered through the boughs as she came slowly forth from her pavilion of cloud, and poured a broader beam on two figures just advanced beyond the trees. More plainly brought into light by her rays than his companion, here a horseman, clad in a short cloak that barely covered the crupper of his steed, was looking to the priming of a large pistol which he had just taken from his holster. A slouched hat and a mask of black c.r.a.pe conspired with the action to throw a natural suspicion on the intentions of the rider. His horse, a beautiful dark gray, stood quite motionless, with arched neck, and its short ears quickly moving to and fro, demonstrative of that sagacious and antic.i.p.ative attention which characterizes the n.o.blest of all tamed animals; you would not have perceived the impatience of the steed, but for the white foam that gathered round the bit, and for an occasional and unfrequent toss of the head. Behind this horseman, and partially thrown into the dark shadow of the trees, another man, similarly clad, was busied in tightening the girths of a horse, of great strength and size. As he did so, he hummed, with no unmusical murmur, the air of a popular drinking-song.

"'Sdeath, Ned!" said his comrade, who had for some time been plunged in a silent revery,--"'Sdeath! why can you not stifle your love for the fine arts at a moment like this? That hum of thine grows louder every moment; at last I expect it will burst out into a full roar. Recollect we are not at Gentleman George's now!"

"The more's the pity, Augustus," answered Ned. "Soho, Little John; woaho, sir! A nice long night like this is made on purpose for drinking.

Will you, sir? keep still then!"

"Man never is, but always to be blest," said the moralizing Tomlinson; "you see you sigh for other scenes even when you have a fine night and the chance of a G.o.d-send before you."

"Ay, the night is fine enough," said Ned, who was rather a grumbler, as, having finished his groom-like operation, he now slowly mounted.

"D---it, Oliver! [The moon] looks out as broadly as if he were going to blab. For my part, I love a dark night, with a star here and there winking at us, as much as to say, 'I see you, my boys, but I won't say a word about it,' and a small, pattering, drizzling, mizzling rain, that prevents Little John's hoofs being heard, and covers one's retreat, as it were. Besides, when one is a little wet, it is always necessary to drink the more, to keep the cold from one's stomach when one gets home."

"Or in other words," said Augustus, who loved a maxim from his very heart, "light wet cherishes heavy wet!"

"Good!" said Ned, yawning. "Hang it, I wish the captain would come. Do you know what o'clock it is? Not far short of eleven, I suppose?"

"About that! Hist, is that a carriage? No, it is only a sudden rise in the wind."

"Very self-sufficient in Mr. Wind to allow himself to be raised without our help!" said Ned; "by the way, we are of course to go back to the Red Cave?"

"So Captain Lovett says. Tell me, Ned, what do you think of the new tenant Lovett has put into the cave?"

"Oh, I have strange doubts there," answered Ned, shaking the hairy honours of his head. "I don't half like it; consider the cave is our stronghold, and ought only to be known--"

"To men of tried virtue," interrupted Tomlinson. "I agree with you; I must try and get Lovett to discard his singular protege, as the French say."

"'Gad, Augustus, how came you by so much learning? You know all the poets by heart, to say nothing of Latin and French."

"Oh, hang it, I was brought up, like the captain, to a literary way of life."