University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.

At this moment Munro re-entered the apartment,
and his presence served to restrain the lawlessness
of that fiercer passion which had no other
restraint at that moment. The attention of the
landlord was immediately called to the condition
of his prostrate and much-abused niece; and reproving
his companion for his violence, without
comprehending or conjecturing its extent, he raised
her carefully from the floor and seated her in a
chair that stood in a corner of the apartment. But
she seemed utterly unconscious all the while. Her

nerves had received a shock which threatened to
impair her senses. Her cheeks were cold and
ashy—her lips were livid, and parted frequently as
her teeth opened and shut with all the spasmodic
energy of one suffering from ague. Once or twice
her eyes brightened with the intelligence of returning
consciousness; which, as Munro saw, he hurried
his companion for the pursuit. It had now
become a matter of stern necessity with himself
to put on some degree of activity in the affair,
since the flight of the youth indicated a knowledge
of the design entertained against him, and, doubtless,
of all the parties. Rivers, during all this time,
seemed wrapped in thought; so much so, indeed,
as now most strangely to need the promptings,
rather than, as heretofore, the restraints of his
companion, in the pursuit of blood.

“Come, Guy—delay no longer. You little know
Lucy if you think we shall get any thing out of
her. You may strike, but you cannot make her
speak where her mind's fixed. Where she's bent
on a course, nothing can move her from it—'twas
a trick of her father's—and I smack something of
it myself. Nay, let go her hand—she must not be
used roughly; for though she has stood in our way,
she's a noble creature—too noble for us, by far,
Guy—and must not be ill-treated.”

“A plague on her nobility. Think you not she
knows all our design, and has told it all to this boy.
Would you believe it of her nobleness, that she
has sought him this night in his chamber—led him
forth—taught him our secret; and, sheltered in
the closet above the stairway as we ascended,
watched all our movements, and heard every thing
we said. I told you that something was stirring,
but you are duller than the owl.”

“Well, it's too late now for talk. I've been out

to the stable, and find his horse gone, saddle and
bridle—at its entrance I found this dirk, which
looks something like the one which he drew on you.
He must have dropped it in bringing forth his
horse.”

“It is not too late—I know the woods well, and
he does not. We must pursue. He will doubtless
take one or other of the two traces at the fork,
and his hoofs will soon tell us which. Our horses
are refreshed by this, and are in readiness. You
have pistols: see to the flints and priming. There
must be no scruples now. The matter has gone
quite too far for quiet, and though the affair was all
mine at first, it is now as perfectly yours.”

As Rivers spoke, Munro drew forth his pistols
and looked carefuly at the priming. The sharp
click of the springing steel, as the pan was thrown
open, now fully aroused Lucy to that consciousness
which had been only partial in the greater part of
this dialogue. Springing to her feet, she rushed
forward to her uncle, and looked appealingly into
his face, though she did not speak, while her hand
grasped tenaciously his arm.

“What means the girl?—” exclaimed Munro,
now apprehensive of some mental derangement.
She spoke, with a solemn emphasis, but a single
sentence:—

“It is written—thou shalt do no murder!”

The solemn tone—the sudden, the almost fierce
action, the peculiar abruptness of the apostrophe—
the whitely robed, the almost spiritual elevation of
figure—all so dramatic—combined necessarily to
startle and surprise; and, for a few moments, no
answer was returned to the unlooked-for speech.
But the effect could not be permanent upon minds
made familiar with the thousand forms of human

and strong energies. Munro, after a brief pause,
replied—

“Who speaks of murder, girl? Why this wild,
this uncalled-for exhortation?”

“Not wild, not uncalled-for, uncle, but most
necessary. Wherefore would you pursue the youth
—arms in your hands, hatred in your heart, and
horrible threatenings upon your lips. Why put
yourself into the hands of this fierce monster, as
the sharp instrument, to do his vengeance and
gratify his savage malignity against the young and
the gentle. If you would do no murder—not so
he. He will do it—he will make you do it—but
he will have it done. Approach me not—approach
me not—let me die, rather, Oh God—my uncle, let
him come not near me if you would not see me
die upon the spot—” she exclaimed, in the most terrified
manner, and with a shuddering horror as
Rivers, towards the conclusion of her speech, had
advanced towards her with the view to an answer.
To her uncle she again addressed herself,
with an energy which gave additional emphasis to
her language:—

“Uncle—you are my father now—you will not
forget the dying prayer of a brother. My prayer
is his. Keep that man from me—let me not see
him—let him come not near me with his polluted
and polluting breath. You know not what he is—
you know him but as a stabber—as a hater—as a
thief! But were my knowledge yours—could I
utter in your ears the foul language—the fiend-threatenings
which his accursed lips uttered in
mine,—but no—save me from him is all I ask—
protect the poor orphan—the feeble, the trampled
child of your brother. Keep me from the presence
of that bad man!”

As she spoke, she sank at the feet of the person

she addressed—her hands were clasped about his
knees, and she lay there shuddering and shrinking,
until he lifted her up in his arms. Somewhat
softened by his kindness of manner, the pressure
upon her brain of that ague-agony was immediately
relieved, and a succession of tears and sobs
marked the diminished influence of her terrors.
But, as Rivers attempted something in reply, she
started—

“Let me go—let me not hear him speak. His
breath is pollution—his words are full of foul
threats and dreadful thoughts. If you knew all
that I know—if you feared what I fear, uncle—
you would nigh slay him on the spot.”

This mental suffering of his niece was not without
its influence upon her uncle; who, as we have
said before, had a certain kind and degree of pride
—pride of character, we may almost call it—not
inconsistent with pursuits and a condition of life
wild and wicked even as his. His eye sternly
settled upon that of his companion, as, without a
word, he bore the almost lifeless girl into the
chamber of his wife, who, aroused by the clamour,
now and then looked forth upon the scene, but was
too much the creature of timidity to venture entirely
amid the disputants. Placing her under the
charge of the old lady, he uttered a few consolatory
words in her ear, but she heard him not. Her
thoughts evidently wandered to other than selfish
considerations at that moment, and as he left the
chamber, she raised her finger impressively—“Do
no murder, uncle—let him not persuade you into
crime—break off from a league which compels you
to brook a foul insult to those you are bound in
duty to protect.”

“Would I could!” was his muttered sentence
as he left the chamber. He felt the justice of the

counsel, but wore the bewildered expression of
countenance of one conscious of what is right,
but wanting courage for its adoption.

“She has told you no foolish story of me?” was
the somewhat anxious speech of Rivers upon the
reappearance of the landlord.

“She has said nothing in words, Guy Rivers—
but much in look, that made me doubt whether you,
and not this boy we pursue, should not have my
weapon in your throat. But, beware! The honour
of that child of Edgar Munro is to me what would
have been my own; and let me find that you have
gone a little beyond the permitted point in speech
or action, and we cut asunder. I shall then make
as little bones of putting a bullet through your
ribs as into those of the wild bullock of the hills.
I am what I am—my hope is that she may always
be the pure creature which she now is, if it were
only that she might pray for me.”

“She has mistaken me, Munro—”

“Say no more, Guy. She has not much mistaken
you, or I have. Let us say no more on this subject—you
know my mind, and will be advised—let
us now be off. The horses are in readiness and
waiting, and a good spur will bring us with the
game. The youth, you say, has money about him,
a gold watch, and—”

“Yes—all—but what of that? Are there more
scruples now?”

“No, no!” and the fierce superiority of Rivers
in all matters of crime over his companion, was
manifested in this single sentence—“but, to strike,
and strike for nothing, you know, is scarcely
wisdom.”

“We do not strike for nothing, even though no
money come of it. I do not, at least—” was the
half-muttered reply of Rivers, as the two proceeded

into the court in the rear of the building, where
their horses were in waiting. In a few moments
they were in full speed over the hard and stony
road, with different emotions in their bosoms, yet
both with the same object.