Kitabı oku: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 354, April 1845», sayfa 5

"Thanks, thanks, my dear, my pretty, my darling Mildred!" exclaimed the young man, and as he spoke, he sprang, musket on arm, upon a stone bench, which stood out from the wall immediately under Mistress Mildred's window, and endeavoured to snatch the white hand that just peeped so invitingly over the edge of the low wooden balcony.

"Out upon you, Master Sentinel," said the young lady, putting back her hand. "Is it thus you keep your watch? Another such step and I shall sound the alarm, and denounce you as a deserter to your post. Look ye! your prisoner will escape."

Gerald instinctively turned his head to the old tower behind him, as he stepped down again from the stone bench, with somewhat of that tail-between-the-legs look, which a spaniel wears when repulsed from his mistress's lap. But there was no one stirring. He shook his head reproachfully at the laughing girl.

"Nay! I did but remind you of your duty," said Mildred; "and you know my father sets much store by the capture of this prisoner, whom he supposes to be some one of rank and note; a fugitive from the dispersed army of the malignants; perhaps a friend of the young King of Scots, and, as such, aware of his retreat."

"I saw him as they brought him hither, after capturing him in an attempt to gain the coast," replied the young soldier. "He is an old cavalier, of a stately and goodly presence, although cast down by his ill fortune. But enough of this. Tell me, Mildred" – But here the ears of the young couple caught the sound of a distant bell as it came booming over the water of the broad.

"Hush! It is the curfew from the town," said Mildred. "The watch will now be changed. Back! back! They will be here directly. I must away."

"Already," cried Gerald with vexation. "But another word, Mildred – but one – some token of your love until we meet again."

"Impossible!" replied the fair girl. "How can you ask me for a token? It were very wrong in me to give you such. You ask too much." Then, as she was about to close the window, she exclaimed again, "This poor rose wants trimming sadly. Alack! these early frosts destroy all my poor plants;" and taking up her scissors, which hung from her girdle, she snipped at a withered leaf. Perhaps Mildred's pretty little hand trembled, for of course it was an accident – the unfortunate scissors, instead of cutting the withered leaf; closed upon the very prettiest rose upon the little tree – that rose happened to hang over the edge of the balcony, and so it came to pass that it fell at Gerald's feet.

Gerald seized it and pressed it, like all true lovers from time immemorial, to his lips.

"Thanks! darling girl," he cried.

"Thanks! for what?" rejoined Mistress Mildred, putting on a very lamentable air. "Now, don't suppose I have done this purposely. My poor rose! how you crush it and tumble it in your hand. How could I be so awkward!" and with these words the window was wholly closed.

Gerald still stood with his eyes fixed upon the window, when a noise, as if a sharp rustling among leaves, startled him. Immediately upon the alert, he looked cautiously around; but there was no one in the court. He walked hastily to the parapet wall and bent over it – all was still except the boat of the fisherman, which he had before observed. It had apparently been rowed to another part of the river about the mansion, as a better place for fishing, without having been observed by the inattentive sentinel, for it was now floating down the stream towards the opening into the broad. The fisherman again lay motionless at the bottom of the boat. Suddenly a thought seemed to cross the young soldier's brain, for he sprang to the bushes still left growing near the parapet wall, and searched hastily among the leaves. From the ground beneath their thick shelter he raised a small packet. His musket was already jerked into his right arm to fire an alarm, in order that the fisherman might be pursued, as suspected of attempting to establish a communication with the prisoner, when his eye fell upon the superscription of the packet. He stared for one moment with surprise; and then his colour changed, and he grew deadly pale. His eye hurried rapidly to the tower – an exclamation of bitter grief burst from his lips – and he stood aghast. At this moment the steps of the soldiers coming to relieve guard resounded along the vaulted passage communicating between the court and other parts of the mansion. At the sound the blood rushed back into Gerald's face, until it covered forehead and temples. He hastily replaced the packet in the hiding-place where he had discovered it, and stood with musket in arm, and in a state of ill-repressed agitation, awaiting the corporal and guard.

The young soldier who was now brought to relieve him from his post, was the same Mark Maywood of whom he had expressed his jealous doubts.

The usual ceremony of relieving guard was gone through; but although the words of order were few, these few words were communicated by Gerald in a brief angry tone, and received by the other young soldier with a cold frowning air. Between the two young men there appeared to exist feelings of an instinctive repulsion.

As he turned to leave the court, Gerald gave another anxious, eager look at the old tower, and glanced askance at the leafy hiding-place of the packet. Another troubled sigh burst from his heart; but whatever thoughts occupied him before passing under the vaulted passage, he raised his eyes to the well-known chamber casement, which was close by. He could evidently perceive Mildred's graceful form partly ensconced behind a hanging to her window. Was she watching his departure? No. It seemed to him as if her eyes were turned in the direction of the handsome young recruit – that detested Maywood. And he? Gerald looked round once more. He felt convinced that the young sentinel's eyes were fixed upon pretty Mistress Mildred's window. It was in a high state of agitation – a new fit of raging jealousy mingling with other painful and harassing emotions, that Gerald followed the corporal and soldiers from the court.

Chapter II

 
"O, 'tis your son!
I know him not.
I'll be no father to so vile a son."
 

Rowley, (Woman Never Vexed.)

 
"Yet I have comfort, if by any means
I get a blessing from my father's hands."
 

Idem.

Gerald sat with a troubled and moody air upon one of the stone benches of the low hall, which, formerly intended, perhaps, as a sort of waiting-room for the domestics of the establishment, was now used as the guard-room. Although his thoughts were not upon the objects around him, he seemed to be assiduously employed in cleaning and arranging his accoutrements – for in spite of his birth and the fortune bequeathed to him by his uncle, he was still left to fulfil the very humblest and most irksome duties of a military life.

It had been part of the severe Colonel Lyle's system of education to inure his adopted son to every toil and privation that might give health and hardihood to mind as well as body; and upon the same principle, when he had enrolled the boy as a volunteer in his own troop, he had compelled him to serve as a common soldier. The colonel's strict and somewhat overwrought sense of justice, as well as his peculiar political opinions, had led him, moreover, to declare, that whatever the artificial position of his adopted son in the supposed scale of society, it should be by merit only that the young volunteer should rise from the ranks through the various grades of military distinction; and upon his deathbed he had urged his friend Seaman to pursue the same system, as long as Gerald should feel disposed to follow under him the career of arms. Although received, therefore, with certain reservations, upon an equality of footing into the family of Colonel Seaman, and in some measure looked upon as the accepted lover and future husband of the colonel's fair daughter, young Gerald found himself condemned to go through all the inferior duties and occupations of a common soldier.

Long accustomed, however, by his uncle's strict and unbending system of training, to hardships little regarded by a roughly-nurtured youth of his years, he never thought of murmuring against this harsh probation; and if, now, he pursued his occupation with a troubled brow, it was far other thoughts that caused that look of doubt and uneasiness.

The vaguest suspicions of his mistress's fickleness were sufficient to excite the jealous temperament of a youth like Gerald, whose naturally ardent and passionate disposition, whose hot Clynton blood had been only subdued, not quenched, by the strict education of his severe, cold uncle Lyle. But there were thoughts and feelings of a far more momentous and harassing nature which now assailed him. The packet which he had discovered among the bushes growing close upon the parapet wall, and which had evidently been conveyed by stealth within the precincts of the fortress, had borne the following superscription: – "For the Lord Clynton – these."

It was Lord Clynton, then – it was his own father, who was a prisoner within those walls.

Under sad auspices were his filial affections now first awakened. He was aware of the danger that must attend his unhappy parent should he be discovered to be, as was probably the case, one of those obstinate malignants, as they were termed, who, after having made reluctant submission when the fate of arms proved fatal to Charles I., had again joined the royalist troops when the standard was raised for the young prince, and fought in his cause, until the final overthrow at Worcester forced them into flight from the country. It was in an attempt of this kind that the prisoner had been taken. Gerald knew how almost certain would be the old cavalier's condemnation under such circumstances. But there were evidently hopes of saving him. Communications, it was clear, had been established with the prisoner by persons outside the walls of the fortress. It was known probably, that, by permission of the commander, the prisoner was allowed to take the air for a certain time daily, in the small court beneath the walls of the tower in which he was confined; and this opportunity was watched, it would seem, for the conveyance of the communication into the hand of the prisoner.

The conflicting struggle which had arisen in Gerald's mind, now gave place to one overpowering feeling. He was determined at all risks, and at whatever sacrifice to himself, to save his father. The breach of trust – the dereliction from his honour – the probability of being obliged to renounce the hand of the girl he loved, if detected in assisting in a plot to favour the evasion of the old cavalier – all faded away before his sight, and appeared as naught when compared with the hope of rescuing his father from his cruel situation. What the nature of the scheme was which Lord Clynton's friends seemed to be devising, in order to effect his escape, or how far he could assist in such a project, he was unable to divine. But the one thought was there, and mastered all – the thought that, on opening the way of escape before his father, he should be able to say, "Father, bless thy long-estranged son; it is he who saves thee." The rest was doubt, confusion, and darkness.

Again and again did he turn over in his mind a thousand projects by which to aid in the evasion of the prisoner. Again and again did he endeavour to conjecture what might have been already purposed. All appeared to him to be impracticable on the one hand, and a mystery on the other. Already the consciousness of his secret induced him to look upon every one with suspicious eyes, as an enemy or a spy upon his conduct. But most of all, with that prejudice which pointed him out his supposed rival as the object of peculiar hatred, did he look upon Mark Maywood as his enemy in this matter – that Mark Maywood, whose violent party feelings, and fierce Republican abhorrence of royalty and the adherents of the fallen royalty of England, had already manifested themselves in such frequent outbreaks since his arrival as a fresh recruit in the troop – that Mark Maywood, who, in case of the evasion of one of the detested cavaliers, would be foremost to hunt him to the death – that Mark Maywood, who, even now, kept watch over his father's prison, and might, if he discovered the packet which was intended for the old man's hand, thwart for ever the only means of the unfortunate prisoner's escape. And as this thought came across him, Gerald counted, in an agony of mind, all the possibilities by which the packet might meet the sentinel's eye. With beating heart he reviewed, in imagination, every leaf which hid it, every overhanging branch which might add to its concealment. Bitterly did he reproach himself in his heart, that he had thrown it back to its hiding-place so hastily and carelessly upon hearing the approach of the guard. It seemed to him that if the packet were discovered, it would have been he who had delivered up his father, who had betrayed the secret on which depended his father's safety. The thought, however, that the evening was closing in, somewhat consoled him. Eternally long seemed the time spent in this mute agony of doubt. At length the hour sounded for the relief of the guard, and Gerald's heart beat painfully. Now he might learn whether Maywood had made the dreaded discovery. He placed himself as if by chance in the passage through which the guard had to pass with the report to the governor, and gazed with scrutinizing look into the face of the young soldier as he went by, as if he could read an answer to his dreaded doubts in those dark eyes. Mark Maywood's face, to which, in spite of its beauty, the closely clipped dark hair in Roundhead fashion, contrasting with the thick mustache, gave a harsh and hard look, was stern, frowning, and expressive of that sullen severity which was usually put on by the enthusiasts of the day. In such a face Gerald could read nothing to dissipate his doubts, but every thing to strengthen them. Anxiously did he await the return of the relieved sentinel to the guard-room. But when Mark Maywood came at last, he interchanged but a few sentences with the older and sterner of his comrades, said not a word to Gerald, and, taking a well worn Bible in his hand, flung himself on a bench, and soon seemed lost in serious devotion. Once, in truth, Gerald fancied that he raised his eye to scan him, as if with scorn, and then indeed he first remarked that Maywood twisted between his fingers a rose. For a moment his aversion to the young soldier as an enemy to be dreaded for his father's sake, was absorbed in his hatred to him as a suspected rival. That rose? how had he obtained it? Could Mildred be so base as to encourage the handsome young enthusiast, who, in spite of his gloomy character, had evidently, to Gerald's jealous eye, shown himself feelingly alive to the attraction of pretty Mistress Mildred's charms? For a moment the feelings of jealousy so completely overpowered all others, that he started forward to challenge the young man to account for the possession of that rose. But again the thoughts of his father came across him. Such a challenge must necessarily involve him in a quarrel – a quarrel would be followed by an arrest for breach of discipline – a confinement of some hours, during which, he, who might have aided his father's escape, might perhaps have left him to perish; and swallowing with an effort all the bitter feelings that almost choked him – he again turned away and sought his hard couch.

Sleep he could not; or if he dozed, the conflicting feelings of doubt, apprehension for his father, and burning jealousy, still flitted through his mind like a troubled and tormenting nightmare; and the next day Gerald arose with the earliest dawn, in a state of mind the uneasiness of which seemed intolerable.

The morning broke – the day advanced – and as no new measures seemed to be taken with respect to the prisoner, Gerald's mind began by degrees to be relieved from its trembling apprehensions as to the discovery of the packet; eagerly did he await the hour of his own guard, which, in the course of the morning, was announced to him to be at noon, and as usual in the small inner court. His heart beat with impatience to see whether the secret communication still remained in its hiding-place, and to facilitate, if possible, the means of its falling into his father's hands.

At length the hour arrived – Accompanied by the corporal and the other soldiers of the guard, he was taken to relieve his predecessor on the post, and after an interchange of the usual formalities, was left alone. His first impulse was to examine the bush into which, on the previous evening, had been flung the packet. After looking carefully around him, and, in spite of the absorbing thought which now occupied his attention, casting one glance, accompanied by a troubled sigh, upon Mildred's window, he approached the wall. Before, however, he could put aside the leaves, several heavy steps resounded through the vaulted passage, and Gerald drew back from the wall with all the seeming unconcern he could assume.

The persons who entered the court were the commander, Lazarus Seaman himself, and three soldiers. With a grave salute, and a few words to Gerald, the colonel gave directions that the heavy gate of the prison tower should be opened, and motioning to one of the soldiers who accompanied him to remain behind, he entered the tower with the two others, and was immediately heard mounting the winding stair leading to the room above, in which the prisoner was confined.

Again did Gerald's heart beat thick with apprehension. What could be the purpose of this visit of the governor to his prisoner? Had a report of the previous evening been the cause of this fresh examination? Did it result from the discovery of the secret packet? Gerald trembled – a moment's search among those bushes would convince him of the reality or vanity of his agonizing fears, and yet he did not dare to stir a step to solve his doubts. The eye of the other soldier was upon him. He listened with straining ears to catch the faintest sound that came from the tower, as if it had been possible for him to hear what passed in the chamber of the prisoner; striving, at the same time, to master all expression of his feelings, lest his secret should be read upon his brow by the very anxiety to conceal it. Useless effort; for the soldier who remained behind paid little heed to him, and would have been totally unable to comprehend his motives for uneasiness, had even its expression been visible.

At length the steps of the governor and his party were heard descending the stairs of the tower. As they emerged into the court, Gerald started with a fresh burst of uncontrollable agitation. The old cavalier followed the Roundhead colonel. With a few more words to signify to his prisoner that the time allotted to him to take the air in that court was but short, Lazarus Seaman again retired.

The soldier, already mentioned, remained behind as a sort of extra sentinel, or watch, to prevent all possibility of escape, during the time the prisoner was permitted to promenade the open space.

Gerald was in the presence of his father!

With what overpowering emotion did he now long to throw himself into those arms, and be pressed to his father's heart! And yet the utmost caution was necessary. A word might deprive him of all power to assist the prisoner in his projected escape. It was with the utmost difficulty that he restrained his feelings, and watched the noble form of the old cavalier as he paced slowly and sadly up and down the court.

That, then, was his father!

The dark mourning habit which Lord Clynton wore in imitation of many of the Royalist party, after the execution of their unfortunate master, although soiled and torn, gave him an air of dignity in spite of its look of sadness; and the long grizzled beard, which had evidently remained untrimmed, having been left probably to grow uncultured as a sign of sorrow, bestowed upon him an imposing expression, in spite of its neglected state.

Although cast down and worn out by disappointment and vexation, there was evidently a feverish and testy impatience in the old man's manner, which was perhaps a symptom of the family temperament; and Gerald observed that from time to time he looked sharply at both the sentinels, and then cast a furtive glance at the clump of bushes near the wall. The packet then was supposed by the prisoner to be still there; but yet uneasiness and doubt were visible in his hasty looks. In reflecting upon the position of the barred window of the prisoner's chamber, Gerald remembered that its tenant might have witnessed the approach of the supposed fisherman, and divined his motive, without being able to see what had passed near the bushes themselves.

The old man was consequently still doubtful as to the safety of the communication which was to be the key to his escape, and even more anxious as to the means by which he might reach it. Gerald watched with palpitating heart, how, in his promenade, the old cavalier approached nearer and nearer, as if unconsciously, the parapet wall. Had he been alone, all, he said to himself, would have been well; but there was another witness to observe the prisoner's actions. Gerald in his turn also scrutinized the comrade of his watch, and turned over in his mind schemes to elude his vigilance.

The man employed upon the extra duty of this watch was well known to him by sight and reputation. He was said to have been originally of Dutch extraction; and certainly there was much in his heavy features, sleepy eyes, and phlegmatic temperament, which seemed to attest the truth of such a supposition – a supposition which was still more borne out by the report that he owned the euphonious appellation of Gideon Van Guse. This, however, was but vague hearsay; for, in imitation of the fantastic habit of some of the fanatics of the time, Gideon had adopted a pious cognomen, the softness of which he perhaps fancied to accord well with his own placable and quiet disposition. He went by the name of Godlamb Gideon, except upon those occasions when some of the more wicked of his comrades took advantage of certain drowsy and somniferous points in his indolent character, to bestow upon him the nickname of Go-to-bed Godlamb.

As Gerald cast his scrutinizing look upon him, Master Go-to-bed Godlamb was standing planted against a wall, in the full warmth of an autumnal sun, perched upon one leg, according to a habit which he seemed to have inherited, by a sort of instinct, from the cranes of the country of his fathers, and which he was generally observed to adopt when in a more than usually drowsy disposition. His other leg was twisted round its brother, in somewhat incomprehensible fashion. But in spite of this supposed indication of drowsiness, Gideon's light eyes stared out from under his preposterously high steeple hat with unusual wakefulness and rotundity, and gave to his not very expressive physiognomy the appearance of that of an owl.

Gerald thanked the good fortune that had sent him, at such a moment, a comrade of so drowsy and phlegmatic a nature. But it was in vain that he watched for some further indications of the usual results of Go-to-bed Godlamb's pious meditations. The eyes would still preserve a most provoking rotundity; nay, more, they appeared determined, out of the most obstinate spirit of opposition, to assume at that moment a liveliness they never had been known to assume before, since they had opened on the light of day.

The old cavalier still paced the court, but nearer to the bushes than before. Impatient, also, at the loss of the precious moments as they hurried by, Gerald approached his comrade.

"You seem weary, friend," he said.

"Yea, verily," answered Godlamb Gideon through his nose. "My soul is weary with long watching; but if the flesh be weak, the spirit is still strong."

"Give way, comrade, give way," insinuated Gerald; "I will keep watch for both, and none shall be the wiser."

"Nay, but the labourer is worthy of his hire," snorted Gideon with much unction. "Odds pittikins, man," he blurted out immediately afterwards, in another and more natural tone, "would you have me in arrest again for sleeping on my post? That is to say," continued the Puritan soldier, casting up his eyes, and again resuming his canting whine, "verily and of a truth the hand of the scourger has been heavy upon me; the unjust have prevailed against me; but I will watch, that I fall not again into their toils."

Gerald turned away with impatient vexation. At that moment the old cavalier, who had taken advantage of the few words passing between the two sentinels, to approach the bushes unobserved, was bending down to possess himself of the packet. As Gerald turned he again drew back, his purpose unfulfilled.

Standing with his back to the other sentinel, Gerald now made a sign to the old man, with his finger placed upon his lips, to say not a word, but to repose his confidence in him. The prisoner started with surprise, and looked at the young soldier with a mixture of hope and doubt. Before making any further demonstration, Gerald again turned in his walk, to assure himself that Gideon observed nothing of this interchange of looks with the prisoner, and then again turning his back to him, placed his hand upon his heart with a look of fervour and truth, which would have been alone sufficient to inspire confidence in the old cavalier, and passing as near him as he could with prudence, murmured in a low tone, "Trust to me!" The old man again started; but there was more of pleasurable surprise, and less of doubt, in his expression. Gerald's heart beat wildly, as his father's eye beamed upon him for the first time with kindly and grateful feeling.

The young soldier again looked at his comrade. Gideon's eyes were now beginning to close, in the excess of his fervour over the pious page. Walking quietly to the protecting bushes, Gerald bent over the parapet as if to look into the stream, and plunging his arm at the same time into the leaves, felt for the packet. After a moment's fear and doubt, he touched it – he drew it forth. By a movement of his head, he saw the old man watching him with increasing agitation; but, giving him another look to re-assure him, Gerald rose from his posture, and was about to conceal the packet in his bandoleer, when it slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground. At the noise of the fall, Gideon's eyes again opened, and were lifted up with owl-like sagacity of expression. Gerald's foot was already upon the packet. Neither he nor the old cavalier dared to interchange a look. Gideon's eyes said, as plainly as eyes could speak, that they were not asleep, and had not been asleep, and never intended to go to sleep – in fact, were wonderfully wakeful. Aware that he could not remain motionless upon the spot where he stood, under the full stare of Gideon's eyes, Gerald let fall his musket, as if by accident, and then kneeling with his back to his fellow-sentinel, contrived adroitly to raise the packet at the same time with his musket, and to conceal it upon his person. The prisoner was following his movements with anxious eagerness.

Possessed of the precious document, Gerald now felt the impossibility of giving it into his father's hands, as long as the eyes of Godlamb Gideon were upon them. There appeared to him to be but one practicable manner of conveying the desired intelligence contained within it to the prisoner – namely, by examining himself the contents, in such a manner as not to excite the suspicions of his comrade, and then communicating them in low and broken sentences to his father.

Placed in such a position as not to be observed by Gideon, he took the packet from his bosom, and making the movement of breaking the fastening, looked imploringly at the old cavalier. The old man comprehended the glance, hesitated for a moment with a look of doubt, and then, clearing his brow with an expression of resolution, as if there were no other means, nodded his head stealthily to the young soldier, and moving to one of the stone benches fixed against the walls of the court, the furthest removed from the spot where Gideon stood, flung himself down upon it, and with his face buried between his hands, seemed absorbed in thought.

From one of the capacious pockets of his full hose, Gerald now produced a book – it was the Bible; for it was the fashion of the times among the Puritanical party to carry the holy book about the person. With a short humble prayer that he might not be thought to desecrate the sacred volume by applying it to a purpose of concealment for his father's sake, he placed upon its open pages the letter, which formed the only contents of the packet, after having first torn away and concealed, unobserved, the envelope, and then resumed his monotonous pacing up and down the court.

Gideon observed his comrade's seeming devotion, and appearing determined to outrival him in excess of zeal, applied himself more sedulously than ever to his book.

"Your friends are on the alert – a lugger lies off the coast ready for your escape," said Gerald in a low tone to the old cavalier, as he passed as near to him in his walk as discretion would permit.

Such was the sense of the commencement of the communication. The old man made a gentle inclination of his head, to show that he understood him, without raising it from between his hands. The young soldier looked at Gideon; Gideon had shifted his legs, and perched himself in an attitude bearing a more direct resemblance to that of a reposing crane than ever. Gerald again cast his eyes upon his open book —

"All is prepared for to-night," he continued to mutter, as he again slowly passed the seat of the prisoner. "Have the bars of your window been cut by the file already conveyed to you?"

The old man again bowed his head with an affirmative movement.