Rookwood Part 70

"Villain!" cried he, about to plunge the spear with all his force into his enemy's side, "you shall----"

The whistle was again heard without.

"Don't you hear that?" cried Jem: "'Tis Turpin's call."

"Turpin!" echoed Luke, dropping the point of his weapon. "Unbar the door, you treacherous rascal, and admit him."

"Well, say no more about it, Sir Luke," said Jem, fawningly; "I knows I owes you my life, and I thank you for it. Take back the lowre. He should not have shown it me--it was that as did all the mischief."

"Unbar the door, and parley not," said Luke contemptuously.

Jem complied with pretended alacrity, but real reluctance, casting suspicious glances at Luke as he withdrew the bolts. The door at length being opened, haggard, exhausted, and covered with dust, d.i.c.k Turpin staggered into the hut.

"Well, I am here," said he, with a hollow laugh. "I've kept my word--ha, ha! I've been d.a.m.nably put to it; but here I am, ha, ha!" And he sank upon one of the stools.

"We heard you were apprehended," said Luke. "I am glad to find the information was false," added he, glancing angrily at the ferryman.

"Whoever told you that, told you a lie, Sir Luke," replied d.i.c.k; "but what are you scowling at, old Charon?--and you, Sir Luke? Why do you glower at each other? Make fast the door--bolt it, Cerberus--right! Now give me a gla.s.s of brandy, and then I'll talk--a b.u.mper--so--another.

What's that I see--a dead man? Old Peter--Alan I mean--has anything happened to him, that he has taken his measure there so quietly?"

"Nothing, I trust," said Luke, stooping to raise up his grandsire. "The blow has stunned him."

"The blow?" repeated Turpin. "What! there _has_ been a quarrel then? I thought as much from your amiable looks at each other. Come, come, we must have no differences. Give the old earthworm a taste of this--I'll engage it will bring him to fast enough. Ay, rub his temples with it if you'd rather; but it's a better remedy down the gullet--the natural course; and hark ye, Jem, search your crib quickly, and see if you have any _grub_ within it, and any more _bub_ in the cellar: I'm as hungry as a hunter, and as thirsty as a camel."

_CHAPTER II_

_MAJOR MOWBRAY_

_Mephistopheles._ Out with your toasting iron! Thrust away!

HAYWARD'S _Translation of Faust_.

Conkey Jem went in search of such provisions as his hovel afforded.

Turpin, meantime, lent his a.s.sistance towards the revival of Alan Rookwood; and it was not long before his efforts, united with those of Luke, were successful, and Alan restored to consciousness. He was greatly surprised to find the highwayman had joined them, and expressed an earnest desire to quit the hut as speedily as possible.

"That shall be done forthwith, my dear fellow," said d.i.c.k. "But if you had fasted as long as I have done, and gone through a few of my fatigues into the bargain, you would perceive, without difficulty, the propriety of supping before you started. Here comes Old Nosey, with a flitch of bacon and a loaf. Egad, I can scarce wait for the toasting. In my present mood, I could almost devour a grunter in the sty." Whereupon he applied himself to the loaf, and to a bottle of stout March ale, which Jem placed upon the table, quaffing copious draughts of the latter, while the ferryman employed himself in toasting certain rashers of the flitch upon the hissing embers.

Luke, meanwhile, stalked impatiently about the room. He had laid aside his tridental spear, having first, however, placed a pistol within his breast to be ready for instant service, should occasion demand it, as he could now put little reliance upon the ferryman's fidelity. He glanced with impatience at Turpin, who pursued his meal with steady voracity, worthy of a half-famished soldier; but the highwayman returned no answer to his looks, except such as was conveyed by the incessant clatter of his masticating jaws, during the progress of his, apparently, interminable repast.

"Ready for you in a second, Sir Luke," said d.i.c.k; "all right now--capital ale, Charon--strong as Styx--ha, ha!--one other rasher, and I've done. Sorry to keep you--can't conceive how cleverly I put the winkers upon 'em at York, in the dress of a countryman; all owing to old Balty, the patrico, an old pal--ha, ha! My old pals never _nose_ upon me--eh, Nosey--always help one out of the water--always staunch. Here's health to you, old crony."

Jem returned a sulky response, as he placed the last rasher on the table, which was speedily discussed.

"Poor Bess!" muttered d.i.c.k, as he quaffed off the final gla.s.s of ale.

"Poor la.s.s! we buried her by the roadside, beneath the trees--deep--deep.

Her remains shall never be disturbed. Alas! alas! my bonny Black Bess!

But no matter, her name is yet alive--her deeds will survive her--the trial is over. And now," continued he, rising from his seat, "I'm with you. Where are the t.i.ts?"

"In the stable, under ground," growled Jem.

Alan Rookwood, in the mean time, had joined his grandson, and they conversed an instant or two apart.

"My strength will not bear me through the night," said he. "That fellow has thoroughly disabled me. You must go without me to the hall. Here is the key of the secret pa.s.sage. You know the entrance. I will await you in the tomb."

"The tomb!" echoed Luke.

"Ay, our family vault," returned Alan, with a ghastly grin--"it is the only place of security for me now. Let me see _her_ there. Let me know that my vengeance is complete, that I triumph in my death over him, the accursed _brother_, through you, my grandson. _You_ have a rival brother--a successful one; you know now what hatred is."

"I do," returned Luke, fiercely.

"But not such hate as mine, which, through a life, a long life, hath endured, intense as when 'twas first engendered in my bosom; which _from one_ hath spread o'er all my race--o'er all save _you_--and which even now, when death stares me in the face--when the spirit pants to fly from its prison-house, burns fiercely as ever. You cannot know what hate like that may be. You must have wrongs--such wrongs as _mine_ first."

"My hate to Ranulph is bitter as your own to Sir Reginald."

"Name him not," shrieked Alan. "But, oh! to think upon the bride he robbed me of--the young--the beautiful!--whom I loved to madness; whose memory is a barbed shaft, yet rankling keen as ever at my heart. G.o.d of Justice! how is it that I have thus long survived? But some men die by inches. My dying lips shall name him once again, and then 'twill be but to blend his name with curses."

"I speak of him no more," said Luke. "I will meet you in the vault."

"Remember, to-morrow is her wedding day with Ranulph."

"Think you I forget it?"

"Bear it constantly in mind. To-morrow's dawn must see her _yours_ or _his_. You have her oath. To you or to death she is affianced. If she should hesitate in her election, do not you hesitate. Woman's will is fickle; her scruples of conscience will be readily overcome; she will not heed her vows--but let her not escape you. Cast off all your weakness. You are young, and not as I am, age-enfeebled. Be firm, and,"

added he, with a look of terrible meaning, "if all else should fail--if you are surrounded--if you cannot bear her off--use this," and he placed a dagger in Luke's hands. "It has avenged me, ere now, on a perjured wife, it will avenge you of a forsworn mistress, and remove all obstacle to Rookwood."

Luke took the weapon.

"Would you have me kill her?" demanded he.

"Sooner than she should be Ranulph's."

"Ay, aught sooner than that. But I would not murder both."

"Both!" echoed Alan. "I understand you not."

"Sybil and Eleanor," replied Luke; "for, as surely as I live, Sybil's death will lie at my door."

"How so?" asked Alan; "the poison was self-ministered."

"True," replied Luke, with terrible emphasis, "but I _spoke daggers_.

Hearken to me," said he, hollowly whispering in his grandsire's ears.

"Methinks I am not long for this world. I have seen her since her death!"

"Tut, tut," replied Alan. "'Tis not for you--a man--to talk thus. A truce to these womanish fancies."