University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.

Meantime, all unsuspicious of any plots against her, Alice awaited the return of her
humble friend; and scarcely was it dark before, according to their preconcerted scheme,
Marian came up quite breathless from the lodge, and sent a message in praying that
Mistress Alice would of her kindness walk down to the Stag's Head, since Martin had
been taken, as they feared, death sick. Old Mark looked up from his book quickly, as
the word was delivered; for she was sitting with him at the time, engaged about some
graceful feminine handiwork, and began saying something about the lateness of the
hour, and the darkness; but he perceived, as he looked up, a meaning in his daughter's
eye, which checked him as he did so, and he made no further opposition, when she
said calmly—

“Oh! father, I must go—I shall not be away above an hour or so at the utmost—I
will take Launcelot and Charles, with weapons and a lantern, so there cannot be any
danger.”

“As you will, Alice,” the old man replied, “but I must say I think it foolish, seeing
that to go in the morning would probably do every whit as well. The men, however,
must carry fire-arms, if you will go—see to it, Peter,” he continued—“see that they
carry pistolets besides their broadswords;” then, as the servant left the room to execute
his bidding—“what is there in the wind now, Alice?” he said anxiously, “for I am
certain there is something—I can read that in your eye, and heightened color!”

“Oh! read your æschylus, dear father,” said she smiling, as if to reassure him,
“instead of wasting your acumen upon my silly cheek. You shall know all when I
return, and all good news, I fancy.” And she stooped over him, as she spoke, and
parted the long snowy hair from his broad brow, and kissed him tenderly before she
left the room.

Nothing occurred of any moment on their way, except that Marian told her how
Martin had in truth come home from wandering in the park, far more distempered than
he had been since the outrage; that he had raved so furiously about the soldier, that
he had terrified them all, and had then fallen into the worst fit she had ever witnessed.
Bartram had not arrived when she left home, but she feared not he would be there
before them. And so, indeed, he was. For, when they reached the Stag's Head, after
desiring the two men to make themselves comfortable by the kitchen hearth, over a pot
of spiced ale which stood simmering in the chimney corner, all mantled over with a
rich creamy froth; and sending off the girls on the pretext of putting the blind woman
quietly to bed, Marian lit a hand-lamp, and led the fair young lady by the same winding
staircase, into the same neat chamber wherein Chaloner had breakfasted on the eventful
morning which sealed his earthly fate. Here she set down the light upon the table,
and opening a small door into an inner chamber, looking to the back of the house, and
quite overshadowed by the tall elm-trees of the park which grew within ten or twelve
feet of the latticed window—“Bartram,” she said in a low whisper, “are you there,
Master Bartram?”

“Ay!” was the answer in a yet lower tone—“Ay! but be very cautious, I fear
we may be watched. Is Mistress Alice with you? I need not ask though, I hear her
gentle tread—come in then, come in both of you, now quickly—leave the light there,
oh! leave the light, it would betray us outright—and hark you, Marian, reach me that
old steel cross-bow, and the bolts that hang above the chimney—it is as well to be prepared
for the worst always.”

Alice immediately entered, and went up to the peddler, whose sturdy and athletic

form she could discover indistinctly near the window, saying in a sweet guarded tone,
“Well, Master Bartram, I have come to hear what you can have to say to me—something
of greater moment than the last modes, or the price of French taffeta, I hope—”

“Yes, indeed! yes, indeed, lady,” he replied; “but, I beseech you come and sit here
by me, that I may speak quite low to you. I do not like the shadow of those trees; a
man might lie upon the coping of the wall, within six feet of us, and we no thought
the wiser!”

“Then why not shut the casement? or, better yet, go to the other chamber?” said
Alice; doing, however, quietly as he directed her.

“Because,” said Bartram, still gazing out into the darkness; “this is the only safe
room in the house; in all the rest the servants would overhear us, and as for the casement,
four of the panes are broken, the worse luck on it; it slipped from my hand as I
entered, and fell back against the tenter-hook in the house-side. So if I were to shut
it, it would but hinder us from seeing what's afoot without doors, while it would be no
safeguard in the least to us within. Ay! that's it, Marian,” he continued, as he reached
the cross-bow from her hand, and instantly applied himself to bend it, and fit the quarrel,
or steel-headed bolt, to the stiff cat-gut string. “Now keep your watch there in the
parlor, but do not shut the door, lest Mistress Alice be afraid, nor move the lamp at
all—it is well placed now, since it casts no glimmer hitherward. Now lady, listen;
listen with all your ears, that you may perfectly remember: and that, if possible,
without obliging me to answer any question. We have but little time to talk; and if
I be not more mistaken than I am very often, I saw the shadow of a man dogging
me in the park; and if it were so, he was not half so far as he should have been
when I climbed in here at this window.”

“Do not fear,” answered Alice, “that I shall clearly comprehend, and perfectly
remember what you tell me; go on at once, I pray you, for the sooner I reach home,
the safer it will be for all of us.”

“Well then,” he said, still speaking very low, and pausing every now and then to
listen for a moment, and keeping his eyes fixed upon the summit of the park wall,
which was nearly on the level of the window—“well, then, all is prepared for the young
cavalier's escape—a sharp fast-sailing lugger is lying off the Welsh coast; relays of
horses are already posted in spots where none will think of looking for them: I will
accompany him to the sea-shore myself, and see him safe abroad. Ha! what was that?
did you not hear a sound?”

“It was a bird,” Alice replied—“only the cry of a little bird, and hark! that is the
flutter of his wings as he takes flight; go on good Bartram!”

But he did not go on, but sat there with his head bent forward, his rapid roving eye
glancing continually over every object, and his ear drinking every sound, however small
or trivial. But there arose no further noise, although he listened for ten minutes at the
least, moving not nor speaking; then with a doubtful and dissatisfied shake of the head,
“It was indeed a bird,” he said—“a missel thrush, awakened from its roost by sudden
fear; that much is clear enough to all who know the habits of the bird—but what should
have compelled him to take wing so wildly, it would require a wiser head than mine to
fathom.”

“How can you think so deeply on such a trifle?” said Alice, wondering greatly at
the peddler's manner; “What can it signify what roused him? a fox perhaps, passing
among the shrubs below, or a night-owl, it might be, or perhaps a snake.”

“As for trifles, lady,” the peddler replied very gravely; “I trust in heaven that you
may never learn as I have, to take the closest note of all such seeming trifles—taught
so to do by the hard bitter teacher of the best earthly wisdom—painful and sad experience.
I have been hunted day and night, by savage bloodhounds and men more savage
yet, and have 'scaped only by my knowledge of such trifles. Lady, God has not given
one small instinct to one of the smallest of his creatures, but has its clear and proper
meaning—but speaks to him who comprehends, with voice as plain and audible, and far
more true than any human accents. There is not a bark or whine of the hill-fox, not

a yell of the wild-cat, a shriek of the night-wandering owl, not a note of the meanest
warbler, nay! not a croak of the garrulous frog, but I have learned to mark them, and
draw deep warnings from them each and all! But it was none of those things which
you named that startled that poor throstle. A fox would not have roused the bird at
all, for it roosts high, and knows as well as we do that foxes climb no trees—night-owls
prey ever in the open meadows, and strike their victims on the ground, never among thick
woods or even in high bushes—then as for snakes, the cold nights this week past have
driven the snakes all into their snug holes under ground for winter-quarters. No, if
that thrush did not wake up scared by a dream—for birds dream also! Mistress Alice,
although I don't suppose you will believe me—it was a man that forced it to take wing,
and yet I heard no footstep nor any rustling of the branches.”

“It was a dream, then, I dare say,” said Alice, not a little surprised and rather restless
at his long discussion; “for surely had there been a man, we must have heard
him: go on, I pray you, with our more urgent business.”

“Well, as I said then, all is ready, and I have picked a stout and bold companion to
see us clear at starting. Now, lady, mark me well: the third night hence there will be
no moon, none at all; and as I think, the weather will be cloudy. We shall need all
the hours of darkness, for if the day dawn on our road we are but lost men all. At
eight o'clock then, to the moment, we must start. Now tell me clearly, you, where are
the mouths of the two outward passages. This you must speak out fearlessly, for we
must know it, or we shall never meet; but wander, it may be, all the night long in the
park at cross purposes.”

“One opens in the lane, sixty-four paces due cast from the lodge—a large arched drain
comes out through the park wall, just opposite a tall old ash tree. You cannot miss the
spot. The other—my father told me this, that I might tell it to a trusty friend in case of
urgent need—communicates with a low natural cave, not much larger than a foxearth
or rabbit burrow; the mouth is in the steep red gravelly bank of the rivulet, an arrow-shot
above the first of the three bridges; it is within a foot or less of the water's brink,
and in high floods is sometimes quite submerged; there is a clump of very thick dark
hollies on the bank's edge, and one of the same trees, a variegated one, about midway
the steep deelivity exactly over it—”

“Hush!” whispered the peddler; “hush!” laying his hard hand on her arm in the
excitement of the moment; “heard you not that?” as a slight grating sound, like that
which a person might make creeping along the top of a rough-hewn stone wall, became
quite audible; and, as he spoke, he rose carefully to his feet, holding the cross-bow
ready in his hand for instant service. The very next moment, the noise was repeated;
and was followed closely by a loud rustling of the branches of the elm, which could be
indistinctly seen to shake against the dull horizon, though there was not a breath of
air abroad to stir them. As quick as thought the cross-bow rose to Bartram's shoulder,
a hoarse clang broke the silence, and then the whirring of the heavy missile! the
boughs were more violently agitated yet, as if some heavy body was breaking its way
through them, and in a moment the marked and peculiar sound of a soft heavy mass
falling upon the ground succeeded, with something that resembled a faint groan.

“Good God!” cried Alice, clasping her hands in all the agony of mortal terror—
“Good God! you have killed some one—oh! how could you be so rash, so unthinking!”

“I hope I have,” Bartram replied, speaking in a louder voice than he had ventured
to adopt before, and not without some real dignity—“I hope I have slain some one—
for that one must have been either a night-robber or a spy, and which he was soever,
death is his fitting meed. But I believe I have not; for I shot quite at random, and
I fancy the bolt broke his arm; at least he was alive as he dropped through the
branches, and seemed to catch at them as if to break his fall.”

“He may be wounded, then,” Alice exclaimed. “Oh, heavens! wounded, and
bleeding his life-blood away upon the cold damp ground, without a helping hand to
soothe his tortures. Let me call Charles and Launcelot, to go and search for him with
torches!” and, as she spoke, she darted toward the door; but Bartram caught her firmly
but respectfully, and held her fast by the arm.

“Unhand me, sir;” she said, with not a little indignation in her tones, though they
were still instinctively suppressed—“unhand me, for I will go forth!”

“Not for your life! dear lady—for all our lives—I say!” responded Bartram;
“Yours—Wyvil's—mine—but that is little worth, and ready at a moment's call! and
your good father's!” and seeing that she was struck by his words, he released her and
continued. “Now hear me, Mistress Alice, but twenty words more, and then return
straightway to the Hall, taking your servants with you—as soon as you shall have
departed, I will go look for the man I shot at—I will, by all that I hold sacred! Now
this is all that still is left to say. I understand the spots you have described distinctly.
Of these, the first will be the best, if it be possible to use it; therefore let him try that
the first—but, as it opens on the road, something may well occur to make it perilons.
Therefore let him look for this token—if he find not a glove within the drain, at some
five yards from the arched mouth, directly in the centre of the dry channel—for it is
dry, I well remember—let him go back at once, and he will find us at the other. He
must be at the drain mouth shortly after seven, that he may have full time to get back
to the other entrance if he find not the symbol. But, for no cause whatever, let him go
forth until be hear me whistle thrice—he knows my call I trow! Now, do you understand
distinctly? Let him be at the drain by seven, and if he find the glove, lie perdu
there, until he hear the signal; if not, back with the speed of light to the cave by the
river.”

“Yes, yes; I understand distinctly,” she replied—“but—”

“Oh, no buts; no buts, dear lady,” cried the peddler; “we have no time for
buts! You have the whole plan now before you, and if you manage rightly, then his
escape is certain—if not, then on their heads be the blame who mar it in the acting.
Now, Marian, light her down the stairs—take your men hastily, I do beseech you,
Mistress Alice, and get you homeward with all speed—this is no place for such as you,
at such an hour. God's blessing on your head, and be of a good heart, for all shall yet
go well. And trust me I will go forth instantly, and see what has befallen yonder—
though I am well assured his life is safe, and his wounds, if he indeed be wounded,
quite superficial. It is as well so too; for he heard nothing of our conversation—
nothing at least that could do good or evil.”

He led her to the door as he said this, and while Marian conducted her down to the
kitchen, and saw her set forth for the Hall under the keeping of her sturdy yeomen, he
lifted from the table where they had lain during his interview with Alice, two brace of
large long-barrelled pistolets, and a broad-bladed wood-knife; the latter of which he
thrust into his belt at first, whereas he opened the pans of the others, and felt that the
powder was both dry and loose, and the flints firm fixed, before he consigned them to
the girdle. This done, he mounted on the window-sill, caught a large flexible branch
of the elm-tree in both his hands, and swung himself—with far more agility than could
be looked for in a man of his years and thickset frame—to the top of the park wall,
alighting on it firmly, and balancing himself a moment before he stooped; and grasping
the projecting coping with a strong hold, lowered himself to arms' length, and then
dropped safely to the earth within the park of Woolverton. There he searched diligently
and for a long time, if he might discover any trace of the man he had shot at; but there
was no one there, alive or dead; nor was there any sign that anything had fallen from
above, except that one small bush was beaten to the earth, and some of its thin shoots
battered and broken as if by some heavy body.