University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.

The dwarf listened to the commands of his mistress,
and prepared to obey them. He had been accustomed
to do so; indeed, it may as well be stated
in this place that Richard Stillyards, as he was called,
was rather an attendant of Florence Marbois, than
of the outlaw by whom she was betrayed. What
were the particular circumstances by which he became
bound to her service, may not here be known;
but it has been seen that there were events and performances
by which she had deserved his gratitude;
and his devotion to her service showed that he was
not unwilling to give it. He had been faithful to
her for a long period; obeying her slightest and her
strangest behest; ministering, perhaps harmfully at
times, to her jealousies of the outlaw, though without
seeking to encourage them; for Stillyards, so
far, had been able to discover no single instance of
a departure from his pledged faith to his leman on
the part of Edward Saxon; and he now regarded
the bitter rather than the angry mood of his mistress,
by which she declared her renewed suspicions, as
being equally without foundation with all which she

had entertained before. But though he assured her
of this conviction, his assurances were made in
vain; and he was sagacious enough to perceive that
her present disquiet was of a character which she
had not before exhibited. Hitherto, she had shown
a vague jealousy—a general but uncertain suspicion—of
the truth of one upon whom she felt she had
none of those holds, which can alone be found in a
compliance with the established laws of virtue and
society. There was hostility now, and hate, mingled
with her suspicions; and the very calmness which
overspread her features, and which regulated and
made deliberate the tremulous accents of her voice
as she spoke, convinced him that, whether she had
or had not occasion for her anger, it was yet of a
kind to prove dangerous. Stillyards was not so
bound to Florence Marbois, as to lend himself to all
her purposes; as to become the mere tool and agent
of a rash and improvident vengeance; and while he
prepared, without scruple, to set forth in obedience
to her commands, he half-resolved that Saxon should
have warning that his mistress was no longer to be
trifled with. Still, with a partial curiosity, he resolved
first to discover, if he could, whether the
outlaw was really unfaithful to his vows—an assertion
made with so much solemnity now, by the deserted
woman, as to impress itself upon his mind
with some force, in spite of his constant conviction
heretofore, that she had but little reason for complaint.
His purpose was to counsel the outlaw, if such
were the case, to greater prudence in his declarations
and proceedings; and, tickling his own vanity
with the patronizing idea of being an adviser to the
master beagle of the band, he saw but little harm in
practising a like unfaithfulness with his master towards
the mistress whom he served. These resolutions
passed through his mind as he proceeded upon
his mission. He soon got upon the track of the outlaw,
and followed him to Lucchesa, where he arrived
in time to become privy to the position of
Vernon in the house of Mr. Wilson, and that of
Saxon in reference to his daughter. He was soon
convinced that the story of Florence was not without
foundation. For the first time, he beheld the
reckless outlaw in the character of a devoted, if
not a sighing lover. He saw that the affair was
rapidly advancing to a close, and on the afternoon
of the day when Vernon was hurried from his
mistress by the self-created officers of justice, he
availed himself of an opportunity to emerge from
his cover and present himself boldly before the
outlaw. The place chosen for this revelation, was
a thick copse in the very wood in which the final
scene had taken place between Vernon and the
maiden. To this copse Saxon had retired after
he had witnessed the successful termination of one
portion of his projects. Stillyards had been equally
fortunate in beholding the events which we have
already described, and he was, therefore, very well
able to speak home upon the subject. While Saxon,
seated upon a fallen poplar, was busy chewing the
cud of various thought—thought no less perplexing
in some respects than it was exulting in others; and
while his eyes, fixed upon the ground, saw no image
but that drawn by his amorous fancy upon the warm
glass of his affections, he was suddenly and unpleasantly
startled into a new sphere of existence by the
abrupt appearance of the dwarf at his side.

“How now, sirrah!—What make you here?” he
demanded in harshest accents, as he beheld the intruder.
With a grin of equal consequence and humility
the dwarf replied—

“She sent me—she's heard it, sir—heard it all—
knows all about it, sir, and it's only right, sir, you

should know, it won't do to vex her;—she's angry
as a tiger-cat—looks as if she could bite and do a
great deal of mischief; and though she don't say,
yet I can see, and I thought it only right to let you
know, and to warn you, sir—there's danger—danger
in her eye—”

“What the devil do you mean, fool!” demanded
the outlaw, with an impatience momently increasing,
as he beheld the airs of self-esteem which now distinguished
the manner of the speaker.

“Fool!” cried the other, with a vexatious diminution
of his importance; “fool! Not so great a fool
neither, if you knew all.”

“All!—what all? What is it that your sagacious
head carries, that it is fitting I should know? Speak
out, booby, and leave off your damnable faces.”

This startling, and most humiliating reception,
effectually turned the sweet milk of the dwarf's disposition,
and a burning sentiment of indignation in
his bosom, made him wish he had left things to
themselves, confined himself to the old system of
espionage, and suffered the revengeful mood of his
mistress to work its own way, without offering any
obstructions to its progress. It was necessary, however,
that he should now speak, and to some purpose,
in order to account for that obtrusion of his
ungainly person, upon the secrecy of one who
seemed in such excellent temper to resent it. It
may readily be conjectured that what he did say, in
the momentary confusion of his thoughts from such
a reception, was scarcely satisfactory.

“You don't know, perhaps, sir, that she sent me.”

“Pshaw! you are a spy upon my actions—you
have long been so, booby. Do you think me ignorant
of that? Her folly and your stupidity have taught
me this long ago, and but that you could do me no
harm, and that I care as little for your cunning as

for her jealousy, I had stretched you out straighter
with a bullet than you have ever been able to stretch
yourself. Begone, fool—she is no less a fool that
sends you. Cross my path—lurk about my footsteps—let
me but catch a glance of your monkey
visage again where it should not be, and I silence
you for ever. Begone!—But—remember!”

With these words the outlaw rose, and seizing the
dwarf by the ears, sunk his finger-nail into the
flesh until the blood oozed out from the wound, then
flung him from him with a force that needed not the
additional impetus given by his foot, which was yet
applied with no qualified energy. The violence of
the effort flung the deformed upon the ground, from
which he sprang to his feet with the agility of a
tiger. He turned upon his assailant—his eyes
glared with the vindictive and unreflecting rage of
the same animal—and his unarmed fingers were extended,
as if endued with an instinct of their own,
to grapple with the foe. But the eye of the outlaw
quelled the inferior, and a pistol which he drew from
his bosom, effectually counselled him to increase the
distance between them. Slowly he sank from sight
into the neighbouring woods, from which, however,
he did not then depart. The watch which he had
hitherto kept over the movements of the outlaw, on
account of his mistress, was now maintained on his
own account. The malice which is the fruit of outraged
self-esteem, is that which is the last to forgive
its victim; and when Stillyards crept into the woods,
it was with the stealthy mood of the wild beast to
which we have already likened him—the appetite
which never knows repose until it gorges the full
feast from the very lifeblood of its prey. Saxon
had some lurking doubts that he had provoked an
evil spirit into activity, and though his apprehensions
were kept down by that scorn of the feeble and deformed

which the strong and proud are very apt to
feel, yet a momentary conviction of the necessity of
curbing or crushing such a spirit in the beginning,
persuaded him, the moment that Stillyards had disappeared
from sight, to pursue him. This he did,
but without effect. His search was fruitless. A
creature so active as the dwarf, who could crouch
with so little effort, and conceal himself in places
into which other men could not penetrate, could not
well be discovered, unless with his own consent;
and hopeless of a search which was no less tiresome
than fruitless, he left his unprofitable quest in
the prosecution of others far more attractive.

That evening, Saxon, who had sundry agents at
work, succeeded in getting Mr. Wilson to the hotel,
and safely seating him, with three others, at a game
of whist. Without knowing the history of this unfortunate
gentleman, which would have given the
outlaw a very desirable power over him, the latter
had yet been able to discover that leading passion
of the other, which had led him from folly to excess,
and from excess, by a very common transition, to
crime. He saw, in the eager anxiety of the stranger
when engaged at cards, in his flushed cheek, fitful
eye, and tremulous impatience, the peculiar material
out of which the devoted gamester is made. That
passion for small risks,—that pleasure in a hope of
gain that rises up into a feverish sentiment in spite
of every defeat, and goes on renewing itself day
after day, till the very dregs of moral life are
reached, and the carcass becomes a thing of spasmodic
and convulsive action, without stability or
strength—was there, preying upon and predominant
in the soul of Wilson, and renewing those
bonds of slavishness and sin, in the coercive trammels
of which he had sunk, first into the debtor, and
next into the felon—from deep to deep—until but

one more gulf—the closing covering gulf of all remained—yielding
him refuge and utter ruin at the
same moment in its unrelaxing jaws.—It was not
long before Wilson surrendered himself up to the
game; and when his tens, twenties, and hundreds
lay upon the board, and when his hands touched the
cards with a tremulousness that betrayed all the reviving
passions of his feeble nature, leaving him no
thought of other objects or relations, Saxon stole
away from the company, unseen by any but the
lynx-eyed dwarf, who, himself unobserved, was
now a far more devoted spy upon the actions of his
master than he had ever shown himself before. His
own bitter hostility was now his prompter in addition
to the jealousy of his mistress; and, he half
forgot, in pursuing his own malice, that he had
pledged himself to any other service. He followed
the outlaw from the threshold, and was the master
of all his movements.

But a brief space had elapsed after the departure
of Saxon, when a billet was put into the hands of
Virginia Wilson. She was sitting, sad and sleepless,
keeping a watch doubly lonesome and apprehensive
in the absence of her father, to whose errors
she could not be altogether blind, in the stillness and
silence of her chamber. The younger sister already
slept in the couch beside which she sat, and her
own loneliness grew more oppressive to her heart
as she listened to the sweet, equal respiration from
her lips—the breathing of that undisturbed sleep of
innocence and youth, ere care has deemed it
worthy of a blow, or defeated hope, and anxious
affection, brought restlessness and wakefulness to its
hours of repose. How she envied the child that
sleep. How she wished she could forget—that she
could close her mind as easily as she could close
her eyes, to the apprehensions which beset her soul

in reference to the fortunes of him, who already occupied
so large a place in its interests and being.
The billet which was brought her, came from him.
That assurance aroused her. She seized it with
trembling hands and breathless anxiety. She carried
it to the light and read:

“I am free, dearest Virginia—but a fugitive. I
dare not show myself at your dwelling. I dare not,
at this moment, show myself to any but to you.
Will you come to me—though for an instant only.
Come to me, if you love me—if you have faith in
my love—if you believe in my innocence—if you
would make me happy at a time when I am most
miserable—meet me by the fallen pine—under those
old groves—in the dear sweet walks which have
been already consecrated to our hearts by moments
which were too blissful to have been so brief. I
wait for you, dearest Virginia—my heart trembles
with impatient hope.

Vernon would not have written such a letter;
but Virginia Wilson was no critic. Her own feelings
were too quick, too active, too excited, to suffer
her judgment to examine the epistle calmly. Her
heart beat with new emotions. What could be his
present danger? Why should he be a fugitive?
Was he, in truth, a murderer—could he have slain
his friend by accident? She had his own assurances
that he had not done so, and she believed them.
But there was still a mystery, and doubts, to the
heart that loves, are agonies. There was but one
mode to escape them; and though not insensible to
the awkwardness of a situation which in ordinary
cases would seem to be an impropriety, she determined
on giving him the meeting which he craved.
Leaving or entering her chamber, she had been accustomed

to kiss her sister. The custom was a
sweet one. They had been almost the all in all, and the
only, to each other. Nevertheless, there were circumstances
and causes, which, in spite of the real
tenderness of the father, made Virginia not unfrequently
feel that they were almost fatherless also;
and now, when bending over the sleeping girl, and
pressing her lips gently upon her cheek, the tears,
few but big, fell from her eyes, and trembled upon
the forehead of the sleeper, like dew drops, in a
summer moonlight, beading the soft crimson of the
half-opening flower. But tears, though not unseemly
on the cheeks of so fair a blossom, yet appeared
to the mind of Virginia as of evil omen. She
kissed them off with the haste of a maternal anxiety,
and hurried from the chamber. There was none to
obstruct her departure, for the indulgence of her
father had left her the complete mistress of his household.
She hurried by the garden pale, the forest
groves were soon reached—the well known shadows
of old trees surrounded her, and now the fallen pine
tree appears, and she stands in the presence of—
Edward Saxon!