So strongly did the absurdity of their mutual position strike the young lady, that, after several ineffectual efforts, she at last gave way to a burst of merriment, so hearty and prolonged, that Percy Neville felt himself irresistibly drawn into it; and the youthful pair laughed peal after peal of as merry and honest laughter as ever the old rafters rang with.
“Well, cousin Percy,” said the girl at last, while the merry tears still glittered in her lashes, “we shall at least prove good friends and cheerful companions while you stay; and if our parting, which I do really hope may be a long way off, be but half so goodhumoured as our meeting, why we shall separate without one particle of malice or ill-nature, and I believe without the heartache either.”
There was something so frank and hearty in the way in which the girl stretched out her little hand as she ended the sentence, that Percy felt, as, with a half comic half cordial salutation, he took her proffered hand, that it was then and there mutually covenanted and agreed between them that marriage and lovemaking were quite out of the question. We shall leave Percy Neville for the present, and follow Grace Willoughby, who, much relieved by finding that the visit of her kinsman would, after all, prove by no means the formidable and momentous matter she had so much feared, put on her hood, and ran lightly to her flower-garden to visit, ere the ruddy sunlight had quite disappeared, the early flowers that, with girlish delight, she greeted every time she looked on them,’ as the sweet harbingers of summer. While thus employed, the notes of the prophetic song, which had so strangely fascinated her imagination, again reached the lady’s ear; and little dreaming of danger or adventure, she vowed within herself that she would, with her own eyes, behold the minstrel who thus daringly chanted under the very walls of her father’s castle the downfall of his family and the ruin of his fortunes.
CHAPTER V.
NARRATING ALL THAT BEFEL GRACE WILLOUGHBY IN THE WOOD OF GLINDARRAGH.
THE young lady traversed the castleyard without observation, and with a light step, and a heart charged with no graver feeling than girlish curiosity and love of frolic, she passed under the castle gate, and down the narrow road leading from the castle to the old bridge, which, with five high and narrow arches, crossed the river within some hundred yards of the gate of the old building. The sun had still some twenty minutes of his course to run, and was beginning to sink among the piles of crimson clouds, which, like a gorgeous couch, seemed softly wooing the god of day to his repose. The young lady, in her rich red mantle, paused for a moment, and leaning over the grey battlement, looked up the chafing wayward stream. On one side rose the hoary walls and massive towers of the castle, with its narrow windows glittering in the red sunbeams, and its ivy nodding and waving in the light breeze of evening. On the other hung the wild wood of oak and thorn, whose branches, gnarled as the twisted horns of the wild deer which had once strayed proudly among their glades, overhung the wimpling flood, and caught the gilding and mellow light of the departing day. Between these objects, thus closing in the view, the dim hills and the far-off peaks of the mighty Galties faintly caught the level light in the filmy distance; and all seemed wrought with such a wondrous harmony of colouring, and such a melting softness of outline and shadowing, that, with the fresh sounds of the sighing breeze and rippling water, and the distant baying of village dogs, the lowing of the far-off kine, and the softened beating of the mill-wheels, mingling in the varied hum, and gently filling her ear with murmur not unmusical, she felt her heart moved within her with the tenderest joy, and sadness, and rapture, blended in strange absorbing ecstacy; so that, as she looked at the loved scene of all her brief existence — the old towers among which she was born; the river, whose hoarse voice, and changeful moods, and fitful eddies, and dark nooks, had been her familiar and, as it seemed, her kindly companions, from the time that memory had traced its earliest childish records; and the dear old wood where, with her fond nurse, she had wandered in the long autumn days, and gathered her infant treasures of bramble-berries and frahauns. As she looked at all these familiar, friendly scenes of her untroubled and gentle life — the home of all her store of happiness, remembered or to come — tears, pure tears of tenderest joy rose in her dark eyes, quivered like glittering diamonds on her long lashes, and one by one fell on the bosom of her own loved stream, and mingling in the rejoicing current, seemed to blend her fond remembrances and gentle affections still more dearly than ever with its chiming waters. Alas! in all the fond security of a home, never yet clouded by one fleeting trouble — in all the trusting repose of a pure young heart, that never yet was grieved by disappointment, or wrung with the pangs of fear and sorrow — guileless as an angel stooping from Paradise over this vexed world, the fair girl looks upon the chafing river, and never dreams that such a thing as danger haunts the dear scenes of her childish sports.
This reverie or rapture is broken; she has on a sudden heard the song again; and with a half laugh, and a sudden start, resolved no more to forget the purpose of her ramble, she lightly descends the steep side of the bridge, and wanders by the river’s bank through the hoary trees, among whose trunks and boughs the level light is streaming; and now she approaches the very spot where the songstress pours her melody; but, ere she reaches it, the object of her search is, as ill-fortune wills it, in motion — is gone — a screen of brushwood hides her effectually; and still the lady follows.
The sun had almost touched the verge of the distant hills, and the loneliness of the place — together, mayhap, with the ominous associations connected with the wild, sweet minstrelsy which lured her on — had already inspired, to allay the curiosity which had led her thus far, some little admixture of doubt and fear. She looked back; there was light, she thought, sufficient to see her home again, ere the sun had sunk, and to allow her time to pursue the invisible minstrel as far as the nearest screen of brambles, from under which it seemed the sounds were rising. She now approached it closely; the sounds were almost at her ear; and peeping through the bushes, she discerned a portion of the figure from which they proceeded, huddled up in a sort of bower, or rather lair. All she could distinctly see was the hand of the singer, which held a twig, with which the emphasis of the fierce and plaintive song was marked. On a sudden, as she watched this form, a sharp whistle reached her ear from some distance behind her. The figure started up, fully confronting her, and not a female, as she had expected to behold, but a wild, haggard, shockheaded boy stood gazing with a grin of something between wonder and ferocity full in her face. He was a mass of rags and filth, with the exception of a torn embroidered waistcoat, which might have fitted a full-grown man, and which descended, in very incongruous finery, to his very ankles, supplying his only substitute for the combined appliances of coat and vest. There was something savage and repulsive beyond expression in the face and bearing of this brawny urchin — an impression which the young lady felt considerably enhanced by observing the long straight blade of a skean shining under the folds of his vest. The beautiful girl, her lips parted with affright, her light form thrown back, and her head raised, stood like a startled deer, irresolute, and gazed at the squalid ruffian figure before her with a fascination which seemed reciprocal, for he also stood motionless, and stared in return upon her with a look of mingled curiosity and menace.
As they stood thus, the whistle was repeated; and the boy, without more delay, dived into the thickest of the underwood, and was lost to her sight. The apparition had appeared and vanished again with such astounding suddenness and rapidity, that, were it not that the sprays of the branches were still quivering where he had plunged through the thicket, she might have doubted whether the spectacle had not been indeed but the ideal creation of her own fancy.
Too late repenting the rashness which had led her to so sequestered a spot at such an hour, and unattended, at a season when, though danger had never approached herself, she well knew it to be abroad and busy, she began, flushed and agitated, to retrace her steps through the wood toward the old bridge, which once regained, she
would feel herself again secure. But that bridge was not to be regained, poor girl, without the deadliest peril that ever yet were innocence and weakness exposed to. The danger moves between you and your home. Alas! urge your speed, fair girl, as you may, you do but approach it the faster; the danger is before you — moves towards you — see, it comes — it is here.
As she pursued her homeward path with rapid tread and beating heart, she came on a sudden — passing the corner of a dense mass of furze and brambles, full in front of a figure, in dimensions much more formidable than that she had last encountered, and in aspect scarcely less repulsive — a huge, square-shouldered fellow, arrayed in a blue laced coat, three-cocked hat and plume, and jack boots, affecting a sort of demi-military attire, with a sabre by his side, and a pair of pistols stuck in his belt, occupied the pathway directly before her.
At her sudden appearance he had instinctively laid his coarse red hand upon the butt of one of his pistols; but one second sufficed to withdraw it again, and with a “ho-ho-hum!” he set his feet apart and his arms akimbo, as if prepared to dispute her passage, and eyed her with a look half jocular, half brutal. If the manner and bearing of his personage were calculated to alarm the young lady, there was certainly in his visage very little to reassure her. His face was large and broad, and suitably planted upon a powerful bull neck; a pair of glittering piggish eyes were set far apart in his head; his nose was drooping and somewhat awry; and a quantity of coarse reddish hair occupied his upper lip and chin, between which were glittering the double row of his tobacco-stained teeth, as he grinned facetiously in the face of the affrighted lady.
“And where are you going, my colleen dhas, in such a murdherin’ hurry?” inquired he in a strong brogue, while at the same time he extended his arms to prevent the possibility of her passing him; “where is it you’re going, my colleen beg, in all this foosther, an’ at this time o’ day?” and then breaking into song, and approaching her still more nearly, he continued —
“Oh! Colleen, it’s not goin’ to leave me,
An’ breakin’ your promise you’d be,
An’ forgettin’ the kisses you gave me
In undher the crooked oak tree?”
The young lady’s colour came and went with mingled alarm and indignation, and her heart beat so fast that she felt almost choaking, as this coarse and ruffianly figure drew nearer and nearer to her: with a violent effort, however, she mastered her agitation sufficiently to reply in a firm tone.
“I am going home, sir, to the castle — I am Sir Hugh Willoughby’s daughter. Pray, sir, allow me to pass on.”
The fellow uttered a prolonged whistle of surprise, and then repeated with a grin —
“Sir Hugh Willoughby’s daughter? — oh, ho! so much the better, my colleen oge. Come, lift up the hood, an’ give us a peep, for they say you’ve a purty face of your own, acushla.”
“Sir, I pray you, suffer me to go on my way,” urged she, now thoroughly alarmed at the insolent familiarity of the fellow. “Sir, it is growing late, and the twilight is falling; do, sir, I entreat, allow me to go homeward,”
“Late — to be sure it is, darlin’,” responded he, with a chuckle; “too late to let you pass without paying your way, my girl. There you stand — the purtiest girl in the seven parishes, as I’m tould; an’ here stand I a dashin’ officer of the king’s militia, an’ as fine a fellow, my darlin’, as ever a purty wench need desire to look at. Here we are, all alone, my beauty; an’, sure enough, the twilight fast falling, an’ the bushes all round.”
“Sir, let me go — I must go home,” said she, trembling violently, for she perceived that his jocular manner had given place to one of savage and sullen, determination, which rendered the familiarity and the endearment of his language but the more menacing and repulsive. “Sir, you will let me go — I know you will, you are an officer and a gentleman!”
“Too old an officer not to know when I’m well served,” replied he, advancing; “and too much of a gentleman not to thank fortune for her favours. Come, come, sweetheart, no nonsense.”
“Let me pass — let me pass,” said she, almost breathless with terror; “let me go, for these are my father’s woods, sir. How dare you bar my passage?”
“Come, come, come, none of your nonsense — this sort of balderdash will never go down with me,” replied he, sternly, “Monnum an dhioul, what’s your ould father to me; I wish I had him for five minutes here, foot to foot, and hand to hand, the bloody ould heretic dog, and you’d see what crows’ meat I’d make of him. Look in my face, darlin’, an’ thonnum an dhioul, you’ll see I’m in earnest; an’ I tell what it is, mavourneen, it’s often I shot a better woman than yourself.”
Heedless of every menace, while in an instant a thousand, thousand thoughts and remembrances, and a thousand agonized appeals whirled in frightful chaos through her mind, the young girl, in wildest terror uttered shriek after shriek, while at the instant her wrist was grasped in the massive gripe of her assailant.
Oh! for some pitying angel to rescue kindred innocence and beauty. Oh! for some stalworth champion, with righteous heart and iron arm, to hew and crush the cowardly monster into dust. Oh! good Sir Hugh, come, come — in heaven’s name, spur on thy good steed rowel-deep, spur on — spur, till thy way is tracked with blood and foam — ride for your life — for your life, Sir Hugh — thy daughter — the praised of every tongue, the pure and bright and beautiful, the idol of thy pride and love and life — thy child, for whose sake thou dost hold thy life-blood cheap — thy child, thy child, is struggling in a ruffian’s grasp. Oh! for a messenger of mercy to peal this summons in his ears, and ring the alarm through all the chambers of his heart. Oh! beautiful Grace Willoughby, art thou then, indeed, defenceless? Not so; for at the very moment when the hand of the brawny villain had grasped the tiny wrist of the beautiful lady, a deliverer appeared.
Through the wood of Glindarragh there wound an old bridle-track — it scarcely deserved to be called a road — which, entering the wooded grounds about a mile away, followed its wild and sequestered course among the thick trees and brushwood, until it debouched upon the more frequented road, just by the Castle-bridge. From this lonely road, which passed scarcely two hundred yards behind the spot where Grace Willoughby held parley with her insolent and ruffianly assailant, an unexpected deliverer appeared.
“Holla, fellow! forbear thy rudeness, or, by the mass, I’ll teach you a different behaviour! Do you hear, scoundrel?” cried a deep, stem voice, in a tone, less of anger, than of haughty and contemptuous command.
There was something in the suddenness, as well as in the tone of this interruption, which instantaneously diverted the attention of the ruffian from his intended victim, who, half dead with fear and agitation, staggered backwards, and supported herself, almost breathless, against a tree. At the same moment that he relaxed his grasp, he had turned in the direction of the speaker, and beheld, some thirty yards away, at the far end of the little glade in which he stood, mounted upon a powerful black charger, blazing in the splendour of a gorgeous military uniform, the figure of a tall man, of dark complexion and singularly handsome features, the character of which was at once melancholy and stern. His own black hair, instead of the monstrous peruke then fashionable, escaped from beneath his broadleafed, white-plumed hat, and fell in clusters upon his shoulders; his burnished cuirass reflected the last red rays of the half-hidden sun, and the scarlet skirts, which, falling from beneath it, reached to the tops of his huge jack-boots, glowed and glittered with gold lace; his buff leather gauntlets reached half way to his elbows, and his good sword danced and clanged by his side.
Before time for further parley had elapsed, this cavalier was within ten steps of the burly militia-man; and in an instant springing from his military saddle, confronted him upon the sward.
“Stand there, good Roland,” said he, throwing the bridle on the horse’s neck, and instantly strode up to the ill-favoured fellow in the blue suit, who, nothing dismayed, awaited his ap
proach with no other indication of emotion than a glance to the right and left, as if to see that, in case of a scuffle, his movements might be unembarrassed by branch or bramble; and, this precaution taken, he drew his beaver with an air of grim determination firmly down upon his brows, and resting his right hand upon the butt of one of the pistols which stuck in his belt, he set his left arm akimbo, and squaring himself while he planted his feet asunder firmly in the soil, he eyed the young soldier with a look of ferocious menace and defiance.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 52