Traditions of Lancashire Volume I Part 55

"Old Geoffery," said Michael, coolly, "we'll settle our rank at a more convenient opportunity. Just now I'll thank thee for the flagon."

"It's in the cupboard," growled Hardpiece. "Verily these arms would tingle. But I am old, and that same Michael but a sorry brute--no beating would mend him. An a.s.s of most vicious propensities; he will bite forwards and kick backwards. Friends get the benefit of his teeth, and foes the favour of his heels."

Thus did the old man console himself for the rudeness he could not restrain. It was not long ere a summons hurried them to the courtyard.

They found their beasts equipped and ready to depart; Harry and Julia looking joyously on, vastly diverted with the horses' accoutrements.

Hildebrand stood by the gateway, looking moody and anxious for their departure; Alice, full of sorrow, attended with some refreshments which were stowed into the wallet. The journey was but short, and an hour's ride that fine morning, Michael said, would bring them to their destination. Hildebrand forbade him to mention the place where he wished to conceal the children, lest it should be known to their iniquitous relatives. Each horseman, with a child mounted before him, slowly pa.s.sed the outer court, at the entrance of which Alice disappeared. The iron tramp of the steeds rang shrilly from underneath the arched gateway; Hildebrand stood by the platform; he bade them good speed. Anthony pa.s.sed first; Michael checked his horse for a moment, when Hildebrand took the hand of the boy, and pressed it; but one portentous look, as at the recognition of some sinister purpose, pa.s.sed between Michael and the old man, un.o.bserved by his colleague. Hildebrand raised his hand above his mouth, and slowly whispered--

"Remember!--the gulf underneath the waterfall."

The hors.e.m.e.n departed. Pa.s.sing the bridge they were just rising over the green slope when the children recognised Alice upon her mistress's palfrey. They screamed out loudly to her; but she was riding in a contrary direction, and soon pa.s.sed out of their sight.

The narrow glades of the forest suddenly encompa.s.sed them. The morning was pretty far advanced; the merry birds twittered in their dun covert, brushing the dewdrops from the boughs with their restless wings. The thrush and blackbird poured forth a more melancholy note; whilst the timid rabbit, scared from his morning's meal, rushed by and sought his burrow. The wood grew thicker, and the sunbeams that shot previously in broad slopes across their path soon became as lines of intensely-chequered light piercing the grim shadows beneath. The trees, too, put on a more sombre character; and the sward appeared choked with rank and noxious weeds. It seemed a path rarely trod, and only to be recognised by occasional openings through the underwood.

They travelled for some hours. Michael had taken the lead, and Anthony with his prattling charge rode carelessly on. Looking round, the latter suddenly checked his horse. A momentary alarm overspread his features as he cried--

"Michael, you have surely mistaken the path: an hour's ride should have brought us to the end of our journey, and our beasts have been footing it on since morning."

"Heed not, comrade; thou wilt soon find we have the right track before us. We shall be through the wood presently."

"Why, this is the road to Ingleton, if I mistake not; I hear the roar of the Greta."

"Right--we shall be on our road to the old castle shortly."

They travelled on more silently than before, until the brawling of the torrent they had heard for some time increased with rapid intensity. The road now widening, Anthony spurred on his beast by the side of his companion, who slackened his pace to afford an opportunity for further parley.

"Whither are we bound?" inquired Anthony.

"Where the children will be well cared for."

A dubious expression of countenance, which Anthony but too well understood, accompanied these words; and villain was expressed by indications too unequivocal to be easily mistaken through every change and inflection of his visage. Anthony, though not of the most unsullied reputation, and probably habituated to crimes at which humanity might shudder, pressed the little victim closer to his breast. The prattle of the babe had won his heart: and the morning scene with Alice had softened his spirit so that he could have wept when he thought of the remorseless nature of his comrade, to whose care the children were entrusted.

The roar of the torrent grew louder. Suddenly they entered upon a sort of irregular amphitheatre--woods rising above each other to the very summit of the hills by which they were surrounded. A swollen waterfall was visible, below which a bare and flattened trunk, whose boughs had apparently been but just lopped, was thrown across the torrent. A ruined keep or donjon was seen above a line of dark firs, crowning the summit of a steep crag that rose abruptly from the river.

"This is our halfway-house," said Michael, pointing to the grim fortress: "the children are tired, and have need of refreshment. Tarry here with the horses whilst I carry them over the bridge."

"We have refreshments in the wallet--what need we to loiter yonder?"

replied Anthony, eyeing the other with an expression of distrust.

"The children want rest," said Michael, "and we shall there find shelter from the heat."

"If rest be needful," was the reply, "surely this dry sward and these overhanging leaves will afford both rest and shelter."

"The children are in my keeping," said Michael, fiercely, "and I am not to account with thee for my proceedings. Alight, and give me the child."

"I will not!--Michael, I have watched thee, and I know that thou art a villain. Ay, draw, I have weapons too, comrade."

Fast and furious grew the combat, during which the terrified children made the woods echo with their shrieks. The result was not long doubtful. Michael soon proved himself the better swordsman; and his antagonist, stumbling from fatigue, broke his own weapon in the fall.

Defenceless and exposed, the uplifted sword of his adversary was raised for his destruction, when suddenly the arm of the ruffian was arrested, the weapon s.n.a.t.c.hed from his grasp, and a female figure habited in a dark and coa.r.s.e vestment stood between the combatants. Her brow was bare, and her dark full eye beamed on them with a look of pity and of anger. Her naturally pale cheek was flushed; but it betrayed not the agitation she endured. Erect and unbending she stood before them, and the quailing miscreant crouched at her feet.

"Away to thy master!--thy blood, too worthless even for thine own steel"----

She hurled away the weapon as she spoke.

Burning with revenge at his late defeat, Anthony flew after the falling brand: seizing it, he renewed the attack. Michael fled towards the bridge. With the bound of a bereaved tiger Anthony sprung upon his prey.

Just where the root of the trunk rested on the bank they closed, after a desperate lunge parried by the unprotected arm of Michael. It was disabled--but he still clung to his enemy. Anthony strove to disengage himself; but the other, aware that life or death depended on the issue of that struggle, hung on him with a convulsive tightness that rendered the advantage he had gained of no avail. The sword was useless. Anthony threw it into the boiling gulf at his feet. Both hands being now free, whilst one arm of his opponent hung powerless and bleeding at his side, he had greatly the advantage. He wrenched the other arm of Michael from its hold, lifted him from his narrow footing-place, and with a malignant shout of triumph shook him over the abyss. One startling plunge, and the wretch sank in the rolling waters. An agonising yell, and but one, escaped him, as he hung quivering over that yawning portal to eternity; the next cry was choked by the seethe of the boiling foam. The waves whirled him round for a moment like some huge leviathan tossing its prey. He sank into its gorge, and the insatiate gulf swallowed him up for ever. Anthony drew back. He turned from the horrid scene, with some yet lingering tokens of compunction, in the expectation of rejoining his companions; but in vain--the babes and his deliverer had disappeared!

Hildebrand Wentworth had pa.s.sed the remainder of that day in his own chamber. It was a dark lone room, leading out of the turret we have before described. Often had he ascended the narrow stair communicating with the parapet, and often had he watched the dark woods beneath the distant mountain. It was the road taken by his guilty emissaries; and, whether on the look-out for signals or for their return, he repeated his visits until the blue mists were gathering on the horizon, and day--another day!--had pa.s.sed into the bosom of eternity. It was an hour of holiness and peace, but heavy and disturbed was the current of his thoughts. He sat near a projecting angle of the turret, his head bent over the parapet. A female voice was heard beneath, chanting monotonously a low and melancholy psalm. Soon the following words were distinguished:--

"Dark as the bounding waters When storm clouds o'er them roll, The face of Zion's daughters Reveals the troubled soul."

Hildebrand drew his breath, as if labouring under some violent emotion.

His whole frame was agitated. His lip grew pale as she went on with a voice of exultation--

"But joy is sown in sadness, And hope with anxious fears; Yon clouds shall break in gladness.

And doubts dissolve in tears."

Fiends increase their torments at the sight of heaven! Hildebrand threw back his cloak,--with one clenched hand he struck his forehead, and with a loud groan he rushed from the spot. He sought rest in the gloom and solitude of his chamber; but hours pa.s.sed on, during which the conscience-stricken culprit endured the horrors of acc.u.mulated guilt.

Sometimes he opened the cas.e.m.e.nt, gazing on the dark heavens, until he thought they were peopled, and he held converse with unseen and terrible things. Inarticulate murmurs broke from his lips. A few words might occasionally be distinguished--"Murder!--An old man too--The children--they are at rest!" A gleam of pleasure pa.s.sed over his haggard features.

"I am now"--looking round--"now master of all."

"All?" breathed a low voice in the chamber.

The cringing wretch was speechless. Sense almost forsook him: horror fastened on his spirit, while he turned his eyes, as if by some resistless constraint, towards the place from whence the voice had issued. Near his couch was a curiously-wrought cabinet inlaid with ivory and gems of the most costly workmanship. An heir-loom of the house, it was highly valued, and tradition reports that it was one of those spoils on which our forefathers cast a longing glance in the wars of the Holy Sepulchre. Be this as it may, every doc.u.ment of value connected with the family was here deposited. By virtue of the power given to him from the dying Sir Henry, though ostensibly for the benefit of his lady and her infant offspring, Hildebrand guarded the trust with a jealous eye. No one had access to it but himself, nor did he permit any other person than old Geoffery, the house-steward, to visit his chamber.

Before this cabinet stood a figure enveloped in a dark robe. Pale, deadly pale, were the features, though scarcely discernible in their form and outline. The lamp burnt dimly; but with the quickened apprehension of guilt he recognised the wan resemblance of Lady Fairfax!

A cry of exhausted anguish escaped him, and he fell senseless on the floor.

Morning had risen, casting its bright and cheerful rays into the chamber, ere Hildebrand Wentworth awoke. Consciousness but slowly returned, and the events of the preceding hours came like shadows upon his soul. He stamped thrice, and immediately the vapid countenance of Geoffery Hardpiece was before him.

"Come hither, Hardpiece. I am wondrous heavy and ill at ease."

"Why, master, your bed has not been disturbed these two nights.--How should there be anything but an aching head, and complaining bones, when"----

Hildebrand cast a hasty and confused glance towards the couch as he replied--

"I have matters of moment just now that weigh heavily on my spirit. I cannot"----

Here was a short pause; he continued, with a slow and tremulous accent--

"I hope the children are safe."

"Why, master," said Geoffery, "you have sent them out of harm's way, I hope; but--I know not what ails me--an uneasy night of it I have had about them."

"What hast thou seen?" eagerly demanded Hildebrand.

"Seen! I have seen nothing, but I have been haunted at all quarters by a vast crowd of vexatious busy dreams--about cut-throats and murderers."