University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.

The reader must not imagine that the world
stood still during the occurrence of the scenes we
have related. By the time the three seamen
were placed in as many different rooms, and a
sentinel was stationed in the gallery common to
them all, in such a manner as to keep an eye on
his whole charge at once, the hour had run deep
into the night. Captain Borroughcliffe obeyed a
summons from the colonel, who made him an
evasive apology for the change in their evening's
amusement, and challenged his guest to a renewal
of the attack on the Madeira. This was
too grateful a theme to be lightly discussed by
the captain, and the abbey clock had given forth
as many of its mournful remonstrances as the division
of the hours would permit, before they separated.
In the mean time, Mr. Dillon became
invisible; though a servant, when questioned by
the host on the subject, announced, that “he believed
Mr. Christopher had chosen to ride over to
—, to be in readiness to join the hunt, on

the morning, with the dawn.” While the gentlemen
were thus indulging themselves in the dining
parlour, and laughing over the tales of other
times and hard campaigns, two very different
scenes occurred in other parts of the building.

When the quite of the abbey was only interrupted
by the howling of the wind, or by the
loud and prolonged laughs which echoed through
the passages from the joyous pair, who were thus
comfortably established by the side of the bottle,
a door was gently opened on one of the galleries
of the “cloisters,” and Katherine Plowden issued
from it, wrapped in a close mantle, and holding
in her hand a chamber lamp, which threw its dim
light faintly along the gloomy walls in front,
leaving all behind her obscured in darkness.
She was, however, soon followed by two other
female figures, clad in the same manner, and provided
with similar lights. When all were in the
gallery, Katherine drew the door softly to, and
proceeded in front to lead the way.

“Hist!” said the low, tremulous voice of Cecilia,
“they are yet up in the other parts of the
house; and if it be as you suspect, our visit
would betray them, and prove the means of their
certain destruction.”

“Is the laugh of Colonel Howard in his cups
so singular and unknown to your ear, Cecilia,
that you know it not?” said Katherine with a
little spirit; “or do you forget that on such occasions
he seldom leaves himself ears to hear, or
eyes to see with. But follow me; it is as I suspect—it
must be as I suspect; and unless we do
something to rescue them, they are lost, without
they have laid a deeper scheme than is
apparent.”

“It is a dangerous road ye both journey,”

added the placid tones of Alice Dunscombe;
“but ye are young, and ye are credulous.”

“If you disapprove of our visit,” said Cecilia,
“it cannot be right, and we had better return.”

“No, no, I have said naught to disapprove of
your present errand. If God has put the lives of
those in your custody whom ye have taught yourselves
to look up to with love and reverence, such
as woman is bound to yield to one man, he has
done it for no idle purpose. Lead us to their
doors, Katherine; let us relieve our doubts, at
least.”

The ardent girl did not wait for a second bidding,
but she led them, with light and quick steps,
along the gallery, until they reached its termination,
where they descended to the basement
floor, by a flight of narrow steps, and carefully
opening a small door, they emerged into the
open air. They now stood on a small plat
of grass, which lay between the building and the
ornamental garden, across which they moved rapidly,
concealing their lights, and bending their
shrinking forms before the shivering blasts that
poured their fury upon them from the ocean.
They soon reached a large but rough addition to
the buildings, that concealed its plain architecture
behind the more laboured and highly finished
parts of the edifice, into which they entered
through a massive door, that stood ajar, as if to
admit them.

“Chloe has been true to my orders,” whispered
Katherine, as they passed out of the chilling
air; “now, if all the servants are asleep, our
chance to escape unnoticed amounts to certainty.”

It became necessary to go through the servants'
hall, which they effected unobserved, as it
had but one occupant, an aged black man, who,
being posted with his ear within two feet of a

bell, in this attitude had committed himself to a
deep sleep. Gliding through this hall, they entered
divers long and intricate passages, all of which
seemed as familiar to Katherine as they were unknown
to her companions, until they reached
another flight of steps, which they ascended.
They were now near their goal, and stopped to
examine whether any or what difficulties were
likely to be opposed to their further progress.

“Now, indeed, our case seems hopeless,” whispered
Katherine, as they stood, concealed by the
darkness, in one end of an extremely long, narrow
passage; “here is the sentinel in the building,
instead of being, as I had supposed, under
the windows; what is to be done now?”

“Let us return,” said Cecilia, in the same
manner; “my influence with my uncle is great,
even though he seems unkind to us at times. In
the morning I will use it to persuade him to free
them, on receiving their promise to abandon all
such attempts in future.”

“In the morning it will be too late,” returned
Katherine; “I saw that demon, Kit Dillon,
mount his horse, under the pretence of riding to
the great hunt of to-morrow, but I know his malicious
eve too well to be deceived in his errand.
He is silent that he may be sure, and if to-morrow
come, and find Griffith within these walls,
he will be condemned to a scaffold.”

“Say no more,” said Alice Dunscombe, with
singular emotion; “some lucky circumstance
may aid us with this sentinel.”

As she spoke, she advanced; they had not
proceeded far, before the stern voice of the soldier
challenged the party.

“'Tis no time to hesitate,” whispered Katherine;
“we are the ladies of the abbey, looking
to our domestic affairs,” she continued, aloud,

“and think it a little remarkable that we are to
encounter armed men, while going through our
own dwelling.”

The soldier respectfully presented his musket,
and replied—

“My orders are to guard the doors of these
three rooms, ladies; we have prisoners in them,
and as for any thing else, my duty will be to
serve you all in my power.”

“Prisoners!” exclaimed Katherine, in affected
surprise; “does Captain Borroughcliffe make
St. Ruth's Abbey a gaol! Of what offences are
the poor men guilty?”

“I know not, my lady; but as they are sailors,
I suppose they have run from his majesty's service.”

“This is singular, truly! and why are they not
sent to the county prison?”

“This must be examined into,” said Cecilia,
dropping the mantle from before her face. “As
mistress of this house, I claim a right to know
whom its walls contain; you will oblige me by
opening the doors, for I see you have the keys
suspended from your belt.”

The sentinel hesitated. He was greatly awed
by the presence and beauty of the speakers, but
a still voice reminded him of his duty. A lucky
thought, however, interposed to relieve him from
his dilemma, and at the same time to comply with
the request, or, rather, order of the lady. As he
handed her the keys, he said—

“Here they are, my lady; my orders are to
keep the prisoners in, not to keep any one out.
When you are done with them, you will please to
return them to me, if it be only to save a poor
fellow's eyes, for unless the door is kept locked,
I shall not dare to look about me for a moment.”

Cecilia promised to return the keys, and she

had applied one of them to a lock, with a trembling
hand, when Alice Dunscombe arrested her
arm, and addressed the soldier.

“Say you there are three? are they men in
years?”

“No, my lady, all good, serviceable lads, who
couldn't do better than to serve his majesty, or,
as it may prove, worse than to run from their colours.”

“But are their years and appearance similar?
I ask, for I have a friend who has been guilty of
some boyish tricks, and has tried the seas, I hear,
among other foolish hazards.”

“There is no boy here. In the far room on
the left is a smart, soldier-looking chap, of about
thirty, who the captain thinks has carried a musket
before now; on him I am charged to keep a
particular eye. Next to him is as pretty a looking
youth as eyes could wish to see, and it makes
one feel mournful to think what he must come to,
if he has really deserted his ship. In the room
near you, is a smaller, quiet little body, who
might make a better preacher than a sailor or a
soldier either, he has such a gentle way with
him.”

Alice covered her eyes with her hand a moment,
and then recovering herself, proceeded—

“Gentleness may do more with the unfortunate
men than fear; here is a guinea; withdraw
to the far end of the passage, where you can
watch them as well as here, while we enter, and
endeavour to make them confess who and what
they really are.”

The soldier took the money, and after looking
about him in a little uncertainty, he at length complied,
as it was obviously true they could only
escape by passing him, near the flight of steps.
When he was beyond hearing, Alice Dunscombe

turned to her companions, and a slight glow appeared
in feverish spots on her cheeks, as she addressed
them.

“It would be idle to attempt to hide from you,
that I expect to meet the individual whose voice
I must have heard in reality to-night, instead of
only imaginary sounds, as I vainly, if not
wickedly supposed. I have many reasons for
changing my opinion, the chief of which is that
he is leagued with the rebellious Americans in
this unnatural war. Nay, chide me not, Miss
Plowden; you will remember that I found my
being on this island. I come here on no vain or
weak errand, Miss Howard, but to spare human
blood.” She paused, as if struggling to speak
calmly. “But no one can witness the interview
except our God.”

“Go, then,” said Katherine, secretly rejoicing
at her determination, “while we inquire into the
characters of the others.”

Alice Dunscombe turned the key, and gently
opening the door, she bade her companions to
tap for her, as they returned, and then instantly
disappeared in the apartment.

Cecilia and her cousin proceeded to the next
door, which they opened in silence, and entered
slowly into the room.

Katherine Plowden had so far examined into
the arrangements of Colonel Howard, as to know
that at the same time he had ordered blankets to
be provided for the prisoners, he had not thought
it necessary to administer any further to the accommodations
of men who had apparently made
their beds and pillows of planks for the greater
part of their lives.

The ladies accordingly found the youthful
sailor whom they sought, with his body rolled in
the shaggy covering, extended at his length along

the naked boards, and buried in a deep sleep.
So timid were the steps of his visiters, and so
noiseless was their entrance, that they approached
even to his side, without disturbing his slumbers.
The head of the prisoner lay rudely pillowed on
a billet of wood, one hand protecting his face
from its rough surface, and the other thrust into
his bosom, where it rested, with a relaxed grasp,
on the handle of a dirk. Although he slept, and
that heavily, yet his rest was unnatural and perturbed.
His breathing was hard and quick, and
something like the low, rapid murmurings of a
confused utterance mingled with his respiration.
The moment had now arrived when the character
of Cecilia Howard appeared to undergo an entire
change. Hitherto she had been led by her cousin,
whose activity and enterprise seemed to qualify
her so well for the office of guide; but now she
advanced before Katherine, and, extending her
lamp in such a manner as to throw the light
across the face of the sleeper, she bent to examine
his countenance, with keen and anxious
eyes.

“Am I right?” whispered her cousin.

“May God, in his infinite compassion, pity
and protect him!” murmured Cecilia, her whole
frame involuntarily shuddering, as the conviction
that she beheld Griffith flashed across her mind.
“Yes, Katherine, it is he, and presumptuous
madness has driveu him here. But time presses;
he must be awakened, and his escape effected at
every hazard.”

“Nay, then, delay no longer, but rouse him
from his sleep.”

“Griffith! Edward Griffith!” said the soft
tones of Cecilia, “Griffith, awake!”

“Your call is useless, for they sleep nightly
among tempests and boisterous sounds,” said

Katherine; “but I have heard it said that the
smallest touch will generally cause one of them
to stir.”

“Griffith!” repeated Cecilia, laying her fair
hand timidly on his own.

The flash of the lightning is not more nimble
than the leap that the young man made to his
feet, which he no sooner gained, than his dirk
gleamed in the light of the lamps, as he brandished
it fiercely with one hand, while with the
other he extended a pistol, in a menacing attitude,
towards his disturbers.

“Stand back!” he exclaimed; “I am your
prisoner only as a corpse!”

The fierceness of his front, and the glaring
eyeballs, that rolled wildly around him, appalled
Cecilia, who shrunk back in fear, dropping her
mantle from her person, but still keeping her
mild eyes fastened on his countenance with a confiding
gaze, that contradicted her shrinking attitude,
as she replied—

“Edward, it is I; Cecilia Howard, come to
save you from destruction; you are known even
through your ingenious disguise.”

The pistol and the dirk fell together on the
blanket of the young sailor, whose looks instantly
lost their disturbed expression in a glow of pleasure.

“Fortune at length favours me!” he cried.
“This is kind, Cecilia; more than I deserve, and
much more than I expected. But you are not
alone.”

“'Tis my cousin Kate; to her piercing eyes
you owe your detection, and she has kindly consented
to accompany me, that we might urge you
to—nay, that we might, if necessary, assist you
to fly. For 'tis cruel folly, Griffith, thus to tempt
your fate.”

“Have I tempted it, then, in vain! Miss
Plowden, to you I must appeal for an answer and
a justification.”

Katherine looked displeased, but after a moment's
hesitation, she replied—

“Your servant, Mr. Griffith. I perceive that
the erudite Captain Barnstable has not only succeeded
in spelling through my scrawl, but he has
also given it to all hands for perusal.”

“Now you do both him and me injustice,” said
Griffith; “it surely was not treachery to show me
a plan, in which I was to be a principal actor.”

“Ah! doubtless your excuses are as obedient
to your calls, as your men,” returned the young
lady; “but how comes it that the hero of the
Ariel sends a deputy to perform a duty that is so
peculiarly his own? is he wont to be second in
rescues?”

“Heaven forbid that you should think so
meanly of him, for a moment! We owe you
much, Miss Plowden, but we may have other
duties. You know that we serve our common
country, and have a superior with us, whose beck
is our law.”

“Return, then, Mr. Griffith, while you may,
to the service of our bleeding country,” said
Cecilia, “and, after the joint efforts of her brave
children have expelled the intruders from her
soil, let us hope there shall come a time when
Katherine and myself may be restored to our
native homes.”

“Think you, Miss Howard, to how long a period
the mighty arm of the British king may extend
that time? We shall prevail; a nation
fighting for its dearest rights must ever prevail;
but 'tis not the work of a day, for a people, poor,
scattered, and impoverished as we have been, to
beat down a power like that of England; surely

you forget that in bidding me to leave you with
such expectations, Miss Howard, you doom me
to an almost hopeless banishment!”

“We must trust to the will of God,” said Cecilia;
“if he ordain that America is to be free
only after protracted sufferings, I can aid her
but with my prayers; but you have an arm and
an experience, Griffith, that might do her better
service; waste not your usefulness, then, in visionary
schemes for private happiness, but seize
the moments as they offer, and return to your
ship, if, indeed, it is yet in safety, and endeavour
to forget this mad undertaking, and, for a time,
the being who has led you to the adventure.”

“This is a reception that I had not anticipated,”
returned Griffith; “for though accident,
and not intention, has thrown me into your presence
this evening, I did hope that when I again
saw the frigate, it would he in your company,
Cecilia.”

“You cannot justly reproach me, Mr. Griffith,
with your disappointment, for I have not uttered
or authorized a syllable that could induce you or
any one to believe that I would consent to quit my
uncle.”

“Miss Howard will not think me presumptuous,
if I remind her that there was a time when
she did not think me unworthy to be intrusted
with her person and her happiness.”

A rich bloom mantled on the face of Cecilia,
as she replied—

“Nor do I now, Mr. Griffith; but you do
well to remind me of my former weakness, for
the recollection of its folly and imprudence only
adds to my present strength.”

“Nay,” interrupted her eager lover, “if I intended
a reproach, or harboured a boastful

thought, spurn me from you for ever, as unworthy
of your favour.”

“I acquit you of both, much easier than I can
acquit myself of the charge of weakness and
folly,” continued Cecilia; “but there are many
things that have occurred, since we last met, to
prevent a repetition of such inconsiderate rashness
on my part. One of them is,” she added,
smiling sweetly, “that I have numbered twelve
more months to my age, and a hundred to my
experience. Another, and perhaps a more important
one, is, that my uncle then continued
among the friends of his youth, surrounded by
those whose blood mingles with his own; but here
he lives a stranger, and, though he finds some consolation
in dwelling in a building where his ancestors
have dwelt before him, yet he walks as an
alien through its gloomy passages, and would
find the empty honour but a miserable compensation
for the kindness and affection of one whom
he has loved and cherished from her infancy.”

“And yet he is opposed to you in your private
wishes, Cecilia, unless my besotted vanity has led
me to believe what it would now be madness to
learn was false; and in your opinions of public
things, you are quite as widely separated. I
should think there could be but little happiness
dependant on a connexion where there is no one
feeling entertained in common.”

“There is, and an all-important one,” said
Miss Howard; “'tis our love. He is my kind,
my affectionate, and, unless thwarted by some evil
cause, my indulgent uncle and guardian—and I
am his brother Harry's child. This tie is not
easily to be severed, Mr. Griffith, though, as I do
not wish to see you crazed, I shall not add that
your besotted vanity has played you false; but,
surely, Edward, it is possible to feel a double tie,

and so to act as to discharge our duties to both.
I never, never can or will consent to desert my
uncle, a stranger as he is in the land whose rule
he upholds so blindly. You know not this England,
Griffith; she receives her children from the
colonies with cold and haughty distrust, like a
jealous step-mother, who is wary of the favours
that she bestows on her factitious offspring.”

“I know her in peace, and I know her in
war,” said the young sailor, proudly, “and can
add, that she is a haughty friend, and a stubborn
foe; but she grapples now with those who ask no
more of her, than an open sea, and an enemy's
favours. But this determination will be melancholy
tidings for me to convey to Barnstable.”

“Nay,” said Cecilia, smiling, “I cannot vouch
for others, who have no uncles, and who have an
extra quantity of ill humour and spleen against
this country, its people, and its laws, although
profoundly ignorant of them all.”

“Is Miss Howard tired of seeing me under the
tiles of St. Ruth?” asked Katherine. “But
hark! are there not footsteps approaching along
the gallery?”

They listened, in breathless silence, and soon
heard distinctly the approaching tread of more
than one person. Voices were quite audible, and
before they had time to consult on what was best
to be done, the words of the speakers were distinctly
heard at the door of their own apartment.

“Ay! he has a military air about him, Peters,
that will make him a prize; come, open the
door.”

“This is not his room, your honour,” said the
alarmed soldier; “he quarters in the last room in
the gallery.”

“How know you that, fellow? come, produce
the key, and open the way for me; I care not

who sleeps here; there is no saying but I may
enlist them all three.”

A single moment of dreadful incertitude succeeded,
when the sentinel was heard saying, in
reply to this peremptory order—

“I thought your honour wanted to see the one
with the black stock, and so left the rest of the
keys at the other end of the passage; but—”

“But nothing, you loon; a sentinel should
always carry his keys about him, like a gaoler;
follow, then, and let me see the lad who dresses
so well to the right.”

As the heart of Katherine began to beat less
vehemently, she said—

“'Tis Borroughcliffe, and too drunk to see
that we have left the key in the door; but what
is to be done? we have but a moment for consultation.”

“As the day dawns,” said Cecilia, quickly,
“I shall send here, under the pretence of conveying
you food, my own woman—”

“There is no need of risking any thing for my
safety,” interrupted Griffith; “I hardly think we
shall be detained, and if we are, Barnstable is at
hand, with a force that would scatter these recruits
to the four winds of heaven.”

“Ah! that would lead to bloodshed, and
scenes of horror!” exclaimed Cecilia.

“Listen!” cried Katherine, “they approach
again!”

A man now stopped, once more, at their door,
which was opened softly, and the face of the sentinel
was thrust into the apartment.

“Captain Borroughcliffe is on his rounds, and
for fifty of your guineas, I would not leave you
here another minute.”

“But one word more,” said Cecilia.

“Not a syllable, my lady, for my life,” returned

the man; “the lady from the next room
waits for you, and, in mercy to a poor fellow, go
back where you came from.”

The appeal was unanswerable, and they complied,
Cecilia saying, as they left the room—

“I shall send you food in the morning, young
man, and directions how to take the remedy necessary
to your safety.”

In the passage they found Alice Dunscombe,
with her face concealed in her mantle, and, it
would seem by the heavy sighs that escaped from
her, deeply agitated by the interview which she
had just encountered.

But as the reader may have some curiosity to
know what occurred to distress this unoffending
lady so sensibly, we shall detain the narrative, to
relate the substance of that which passed between
her and the individual whom she sought.