University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII.

Beauchampe rose refreshed and more cheerful than usual.
The plans for the day, which had been discussed by himself
and friends the previous night, together with the lively
dialogue which had made them heedless of the progress of
the hours, were recalled to his memory, and he rose with
an unwonted spirit of elasticity and humour. But the
lively glance of his eye met no answering pleasure in that
of his wife. She was up before him. He did not dream
that she had not slept—that for half the night she had
hung above his sleep engaged in mental prayer that such
slumbers might still be spared to him, even if the dreary
doom of such a watch was still allotted to her. He gently
reproached her for the settled sadness in her looks, and
she replied only by a sigh. He did not notice the intense
gleams which, at moments, issued from her eyes, or he
might have guessed that some terrible resolution was busy
at the forge within her brain. Could he guess the sort of
manufacture going on in that dangerous workshop! But
he did not.

The party was assembled at the breakfast-table; and, as
if with a particular design to apprise Mrs. Beauchampe,
that her warnings were not heeded, Col. Sharpe dwelt

with great deliberation upon the best modes before them of
consuming the rest of the week with profit.

“What say you, Beauchampe, to a morning at your
friend Tiernan's—he will give us a rouse, I'm thinking;
the next day with Coalter, and Saturday, what ho! for an
elk-hunt! at all events, Barnabas must go to Coalter's—
he's a client of his, and will never forgive the omission;
and it is no less important that you should give him the
elk-hunt also; he has a taste for hard riding, and it will do
him good. He's getting stoutish, and a good shaking will
keep his bulk within proper bounds. Certainly, he must
have an elk-hunt.”

“A like reason will make it necessary that you should
share it also, Colonel,” said Beauchampe. “You partake,
in similar degree, of the infirmity of flesh which troubles
Mr. Barnabas.”

“Ay, ay, but I am no candidate for the red-hat, which
is the case with Barnabas, and which the conclave will
religiously refuse to a man with a corporation.”

“But you are after the seat of attorney general,” said
Mr. Barnabas, with the placable smile of dulness.

“Granted, and for such an office a good corporation
may be considered an essential, rather than any thing else.
It confers dignity, Hal. Now, the red-hatted gentry of the
club are not expected to be dignified. The humour of the
thing forbids it; and as a candidate for that communion, it
is necessary that you should live on soup maigre, and
`seek the chase with hawk and hound,' as Earl Percy
did. Besides, Beauchampe, he has a passion for it.”

“I a passion for it?” said Barnabas.

“Yes, to be sure—what were all those stories you used
to tell of hunting in Tennessee; stories that used to set
our hair on end at your hair breadth escapes. Either we
must suppose you to have grown suddenly old and timid,
or we must suppose, that, in telling those stories of your
prowess, you were amusing us with some pleasant fictions.
That's a dilemma for you, Barnabas, if you disclaim
a passion for an elk-hunt now.”

“No! by Jupiter, I told you nothing but the truth,”
said Barnabas, solemnly.

“I believe it,” said Sharpe, with equal solemnity, “I
believe it, and believe that the passion continues.”

“Well,” said the other, “I can't altogether deny that it
does, but it has been somewhat cooled by other pursuits
and associations.”

“It must be warmed again,” responded Sharpe. “Remember,
Beauchampe, be sure to make up a party for
Saturday.”

“We include you in it?” asked Beauchampe.

“Ay, ay,—if I happen to be `i' the vein.' But, you
know, like Corporal Nym, I'm a person of humours. I
may not have the fit upon me, or I may have some other
fit; and may prefer remaining at home to read poetry with
our fair hostess.”

The speaker glanced significantly at Mrs. Beauchampe
as he said these words. Their eyes encountered. Hers
wore an expression of the soberest sadness. As if provoked
by the speech and the glance, she said, in the most
deliberate language, while her look was full of the most
rebukeful and warning expression—

“I thought you were to leave this morning for Frankfort,
Col. Sharpe. I derived that impression somehow
from something that was said last evening.”

Beauchampe turned full upon his wife with a stern look
of equal astonishment and inquiry. Mr. Barnabas was
aghast, and Col. Sharpe himself, for a moment, lost his
equilibrium, and was speechless, while his eyes looked
the incertitude which he felt. He was the first, however,
to recover; and with a sort of legal dexterity, assuming as
really having been his own, the determination which she
had suggested as being made by him, he replied—

“True, my dear madam, that was my purpose yesterday,
but the kind entreaties of our host, and the pleasant
projects which we discussed last night, persuaded me to
yield to the temptation, and to stay till Sunday.”

The speaker bowed politely, and returned the severe
glance of the lady, with a look of mingled conciliation and
doubt. For the first time he began to feel apprehensive
that he had mistaken her, and perhaps himself. She was
a woman of prodigious strength of soul—indomitable resolution,
and the courage of a gigantic man. Never did
words proceed more deliberately—more evenly from human
lips—than did the reply from hers.

“That cannot be, Col. Sharpe. It is necessary that

you should keep your first resolution. Mr. Beauchampe
can no longer accommodate you in his dwelling.”

“How, Mrs. Beauchampe!” exclaimed the husband
starting to his feet, and confronting her. She had risen
while speaking, and was preparing to leave the room.
She looked on him with a countenance mournful and
humble—very different from that which she wore in addressing
the other.

“Speak, Anna,—say, Mrs. Beauchampe!” exclaimed
the husband. “What does this mean?—this to my guests
—to my friend!”

“He is not your friend, Beauchampe—nor mine! But
let me pass—I cannot speak here!”

She left the room, and Beauchampe, with a momentary
glance at Sharpe, full of bewilderment, hurried after his
wife.

“What's this, Sharpe, in a devil's name?” demanded
Barnabas in consternation.

“The devil himself, Barnabas!” said Sharpe. “I'm
afraid the jezebel means to blow me and tell every thing.”

“But you told me last night that all was well and going
right.”

“So I thought! I fear I was mistaken! At all events
I must prepare for the worst. Have you any weapons
about you?”

“My dirk!”

“Give it me—my pistols are in the saddle-bags.”

“But what shall I do?”

“You are in no danger. Give me the dirk, and hurry
out and have our horses ready. D—n the woman!
Who could have believed it!”

“Ah! you're always so sanguine!” began Barnabas,
but the other interrupted him.

“Pshaw! this is no time for lecturing! Your wisdom is
eleventh hour wisdom. It is too late here. Hurry and
prepare yourself and the horses, while I go to the room
and get the saddle-bags ready. If I am blown, my start
cannot be too sudden!”

Barnabas, always pliant, disappeared instantly, and
Sharpe, concealing the dirk in his bosom, with the handle
convenient to his clutch, found himself unpleasantly alone.

“Who the d—l could have thought it! What a woman!

But it may not be as bad as I fear. She may invent something
to answer the purpose of getting me off. She certainly
cannot tell the whole. No! no! That would be to
suppose her mad! And mad she may be! I had not thought
of that! Now, I think of it, she looks cursedly like an insane
woman. That wild, fierce gleam of her eye—those
accents—and indeed, every thing since I have been here!
Certainly, had she not been mad, it must have been as I
wished. I could not have been deceived—never was deceived
yet by a sane woman! It must be so, and if so, it
is possible that she may blurt out the whole. I must be
prepared. Beauchampe's as fierce as a vulture when
roused. I've seen that in him before. I must get my pistols,
though, in going for them, I may meet him on the
stairs. Well, if I do! I am armed. He is scarcely more
powerful than myself. Yet I would not willingly have
him grapple with me, if only because he is her husband.
The very thought of her makes me half a coward! And
yet I must be prepared. It must be done!”

Such were his reflections. He advanced to the entrance.
The footsteps of Beauchampe were heard rapidly striding
across the chamber overhead. The criminal recoiled as he
heard them. A tremor shot through his limbs. He clutched
the dagger in his bosom, set his teeth firmly, and waited
for a moment at the entrance. The sounds subsided
above. He thrust his head through the doorway, into the
passage, and leaned forward in the act of listening. The
renewed silence which now prevailed in the house, gave
him fresh courage. He darted up the steps, sought his
chamber, and with eager trembling hands caught up and
examined his pistols. Both were loaded, and he thrust
them into the pockets of his coat; then seizing his own
and the saddle-bags of his companion, he darted out of the
chamber, and down the steps, with footsteps equally light
and rapid. Once more in the hall and well armed, he was
more composed but as little prepared, morally, for events
as before. There was a heavy fear upon his spirit. The
consciousness of guilt is a terrible queller of one's manhood.
He waited impatiently for the return of Barnabas.
At such a moment, even the presence of one whom he
estimated rather humbly, and with some feelings of contempt,
was grateful to his enfeebled spirit; and the appearance

of the horses at the door, and the return of his
friend, had the effect of re-enlivening him to a degree
which made him blush for the feeling of apprehension
which he had so lately entertained.

“All's ready!—will you ride?” demanded Barnabas,
picking up his saddle-bags. The worthy coadjutor was
by no means audacious in his courage. Sharpe hesitated.

“It may be only a false alarm after all,” said he—“we
had better wait and see!”

“I think not,” said the former. “There was no mistaking
the words, and as little the looks. She's a very
resolute woman.”

Col. Sharpe was governed by the anxieties of guilt as
well as its fears. The painful desire to hear and know
to what extent the revelations of the wife had gone—a half
confidence that all would not be told—that some loophole
would be left for retreat;—and the farther conviction, that,
at all events, whatever was the nature of her story to her
husband, it was quite as well that he should know it at one
moment as another—encouraged him to linger; and this
resolve with the force of habitual will, he impressed upon
his reluctant companion.

Leaving them to their suspense below, let us join the
husband and wife above stairs.