CHAPTER IX SWORDS

As she passed below the room in which her uncle and his friends were, she heard their voices, and observed that one of the windows was open. But to this she attached no importance, unusual as the fact was at that hour, for she had other matters to think of. And indeed the night was not chill, though a slight breeze was stirring the leaves in the garden as she entered it. Leaving Prudence at the foot of the steps, Georgiana swiftly threaded the different alleys of shrubbery to make sure that no person chanced to be in the garden, a precaution she had adopted since the first meetings; but she did not peer under any of the bushes, or behind those that grew close to the wall, for she had not conceived that anybody might come into the garden to hide, or for other purpose than his own pleasure. She went and stood in the gateway near the glen-side. A moment later she saw the dark form of her lover approaching in the gloom of the park, and presently his arms were around her.

“How you tried my patience, sweet!” said he, leading her slowly toward the midst of the garden. “You are later than usual. I was beginning to think you must have appeared already, and that my eyes were so blurred watching the gateway they had failed to see you. Two minutes more, and I should have left my thicket and come to assure myself.”

“Never do that, I beg! Never come into the garden till you see me in the gateway—not even though you hear my voice. Promise me you will not—promise, Everell.”

“I would promise you anything in the world when you ask with that voice and those eyes—anything but to cease loving you or to leave you. But I do believe the goddess of love has this garden in her keeping, and reserves it wholly for us, we have been so safe from intrusion in it.”

“We have been very rash. I tremble to think how careless we were at first, when you were wont to come in before I saw that the coast was clear. But we are never perfectly safe here—as we found last night, when that country fellow stared in at the gateway.”

“I doubt if the yokel really saw us. But, if so, he would find nothing strange in your being here with your maid. If he saw me, he would suppose I was your uncle or some visitor. But I will take all precautions, dear, if only to make your mind easy. I wouldn’t have you suffer the least fear, not even for the sake of that look of solicitude in your eyes, which is certainly the tenderest, most heavenly look that a woman or an angel can bestow. It goes to my inmost heart, and binds me to you for ever. And yet I’d have you smile, for all that, if you’d be happier smiling.”

“I might be happier smiling, but I think I should not be as concerned for you then,” replied Georgiana, simply, and with a smile that had a little sadness in it.

“Ah, my dearest!” said Everell, softly, with a sudden tremor in his voice.

The silence that followed might have been longer but that the young man could not forget, for more than a few seconds at a time, how brief their interview was to be. He imagined, perhaps mistakenly, that the value of such meetings was to be measured in speeches rather than in silences, although he attached full worth to eloquent glances.

“When I feel how dull the hours are between these short glimpses of heaven,” said he, “I marvel to think how tedious the years must have been before I saw you, though I knew it not.—I never chafed at danger till now. Sometimes when I lie in the bracken yonder, or pace the dark bottom of the glen, I am tempted to ignore all risks, come boldly to your house, seek the acquaintance of your uncle, and measure my happiness by hours instead of minutes.”

“Oh, Everell!—do not think of it!”

“Nay, have no fear, sweet. Your commands are sacred with me—till you command me to leave you, or not to love you.”

“But if I commanded you earnestly to leave?—resolutely, so that you knew I meant it?”

“Could you have the heart to do that?”

“Would that I had! I ought to have. But would it be useless?”

“As useless as it would be cruel, sweet, I vow to you.”

“But ’tis cruel to let you stay. ’Tis a wonder your presence in the neighbourhood isn’t known already—a wonder the poacher hasn’t betrayed you.”

“Nay, he is true as steel. We are in the same galley—both rebels, he against the game laws and the world’s injustice, I against the present dynasty. You must know, we outlaws stand together.—You are again in the mood of fearing for my safety. But see how baseless your fears have been so far. Trust our stars, dearest: mine, at least, has ever been fortunate.”

“My fears are always returning. Sometimes I have the most poignant feeling of danger surrounding us, of reproach to myself that I was the cause of interrupting your flight. I have that feeling now. Oh, Everell, loth as I am to send you away, I feel in my soul that I ought! My heart, which would keep you here, at the same time urges you to fly: with one beat it calls to you, ‘Stay,’ and with the next cries, ‘Go!’ Oh, why did you not go on with your friend?”

“Indeed, ’tis better he and I are apart, since that fellow at the inn knew we travelled together,” replied Everell, trying to reassure her. “If the man really meant to continue dogging us, our separation was the best means of confusing him. Dismiss your fears, sweet. If your regard for me were love rather than compassion,—love such as I have for you,—the only impulse of your heart would be to keep me with you: beyond that, you would not think, either with hope or fear. And yet your compassion, so angelic,—nay, so womanly,—I would rather have than the love of any other woman.”

He said this honestly; for she had never in plain terms owned to him that she loved him, and he, in the humility of a man’s first love, saw himself unworthy of her by as much as he adored her, and therefore did not imagine himself capable of eliciting from her what he felt for her. Her indulgence he ascribed to the pity of a gentle heart for one whose situation, both as a refugee and as a lover, pleaded for him while his courtesy and honour gave assurance that her tenderness was safe from betrayal. If her heart desired him to stay near her, he supposed, ’twas because it hesitated to put him to the unhappiness of leaving her. That she might suffer on her own account in his absence, did not occur to him: she herself was all loveliness, and where she was, there would all loveliness be; what was he that she should find him necessary to make the world complete? Were his presence needful to her content, she would not limit their meetings to so few moments in a long day. Thus he thought, or, rather, thus he felt without analyzing the feeling.

“’Tis the duty of my compassion, then,” she answered, “to drive you away. I am more convinced of it now than ever. Such foreboding, such misgiving!—why do I feel so? I pray Heaven ’tis not yet too late.—Hark! what was that?”

“’Tis only the master and his guests a-laughing over their dissipations,” said Prudence, near whom the lovers happened at the moment to be standing. “They’ve left the window open, ma’am.”

“See how easily you are frightened without cause,” said Everell. “Come, has not the mood run its course?”

“Blame me not that I bid you go, Everell!” she replied, as if not to be reassured. “You may come to blame me that I ever stayed to hear you!”

“For that dear fault my heart will thank you while it moves.”

“It was a fault!—I see now that it was. I was so solitary, so rebellious against my uncle and his company, that when you came my heart seemed to know you as a friend; and I listened to you.”

“Ay, sweet listener that you were! What effect your listening had upon me! I had wished to return to France, which in exile I had grown up to love. This England, though I was born in it, was to me a strange country, but you have made it home!”

He raised both her hands to his lips, while she stood irresolute, her eyes searching his face for the secret of his confidence, which she would have rejoiced to think better warranted than her fears. The silence was suddenly broken by a slight, brief noise in the greenery near the steps.

“What’s that?” she said, quickly.

“The wind,” replied Everell; but the sudden straightening of his body, and fixity of his attention upon the place of the sound, betrayed his doubt.

“No,” whispered Georgiana, “’twas quite different.”

“Some animal moving among the shrubs,” said Everell. “I’ll go and see.”

With his hand upon his sword-hilt, he walked to the shrubbery growing along the foot of the bank which rose to the terrace. “’Twas hereabouts,” he said, and, drawing his weapon, thrust it downward into the thick leafy mass. From the further side of the mass came the loud hoot of an owl, followed by the noise of a man scrambling to his feet.

“Ah! come out, spy!” cried Everell, as the human character of the intruder was certified by a sound of husky breathing.

He darted his weapon swiftly here and there through the shrubbery, and then ran seeking the nearest opening by which he might get to the enemy. But the enemy spared him that trouble by appearing on the hither side of the barrier, from the very opening that Everell had sought. The strange man had a gun raised, to wield it as a club.

Everell, recalling his experience of John Tarby’s fowling-piece, nevertheless ran toward the fellow, hoping to dodge the blow, and disable the man by pinking him in the arm or shoulder, after which it might be possible to learn his purpose and come to terms. But just as the young gentleman went to meet his approaching foe, a sharp scream from Georgiana distracted him, so that, though he saved his head, he caught the gun-stroke on his right shoulder, and his sword-thrust passed wide of his adversary. He now heard other feet hastening toward him through the garden: it was, indeed, the appearance of the two other men, coming to the keeper’s aid upon his signal of the owl’s hoot, that had caused Georgiana to cry out. Everell, seeing his first opponent draw back to recover himself, turned swiftly to consider the newcomers, placing his back to the high shrubbery. One was approaching on his front, the other at his left. They both brandished cudgels; but, as they saw him dart his glance upon them in turn and hold his sword ready for a lunge in either direction, they stopped at safe distance.

“Oh, Everell, fly!” cried Georgiana, hastening to his side.

“What! and leave you to these rascals, sweet?” he answered.

“They’ll not harm me: they are servants here. Save yourself!—for my sake!”

He looked at her for an instant, read in her eyes the pleading of her heart, and said, softly, “For yours, yes!—we shall meet again.”

He then started toward the gateway leading to the park and glen. But the gardener and the groom swallowed their fear of steel, and made bravely to intercept him. He had confidence in his ability with the sword to deal with two men armed with cudgels. But he knew that his ultimate situation would be so much the worse if he killed either of these fellows. His thought, therefore, was to elude them by mere fleetness, or slightly to disable them. He soon abandoned the former hope, for at the first turn he tried they were swift to head him off. So he charged straight at the nearer, thrusting so fortunately as to prick the fellow’s shoulder, making him lower his cudgel with a howl. Everell now tried a similar lunge at the other cudgel-man, but the latter divined his purpose, and saved himself by tumbling over backward. The wounded man had instantly transferred his cudgel to his left hand, and now stood again in Everell’s way, while the fellow with the gun had come up to threaten him in the rear. Informed of this last danger by his hearing, the Jacobite sprang aside to the right in time to avoid a second blow. He turned swiftly upon the gun-wielder, whose fear of the sword made him thereupon flee toward the gateway. Everell’s three adversaries were now all in that part of the garden through which he had intended to escape.

“This way!” cried Georgiana, from behind him; “and by the terrace!”

Everell wheeled around and made a dash for the steps. His enemies were prompt to recover from their surprise and rush after him, the fallen man having speedily got on his feet again. But the clean-limbed Jacobite won to the steps by more than striking-distance. He thought to clear them in two bounds, then cross the terrace and gain the park.

“Eh! the deuce!” exclaimed a voice at the head of the steps, as a dark form, backed by several others, appeared there. Everell, who had just set his foot on the middle step, checked himself at the risk of his balance, and leaped back. The newcomer, who had a sword in his hand, thrust downward at Everell, at the same time calling out, “The light, Caleb!”

A lantern, which had been concealed under the coat of its bearer, now cast its rays over the scene from one side of the stair-top. Its help was more to those who arrived with it than to Everell, whose eyes had become used to the light shed by the stars alone. But he was now enabled to make sure that his new intercepter was Mr. Foxwell himself; that Rashleigh was at that gentleman’s side, with drawn sword; that the two London ladies stood close behind, peering forward and yet shrinking back, as curiosity disputed with fright; and that the man servant with the lantern carried also a coil of rope. All this was the observation of an instant. Even as he made it, Everell put his sword at guard, and looked a questioning defiance.

“A sturdy ghost, as I live!” cried Foxwell, motioning the three fellows at Everell’s back, who had come to a halt at the first intimation of their master’s arrival, to stay their hands. “My niece, too!—the guileless Georgiana!”

“Uncle!” she began, scarce able to speak, though her pale face and terrified eyes were eloquent enough; “this gentleman—”

“Is my prisoner, till he gives an account of himself. Do you surrender, sir?”

“No, sir,” replied Everell.

“Then I must reluctantly order these men to take you,” said Foxwell, politely.

“Then their deaths be on your head,” said Everell, and turned to make another dash for the gateway, determined this time to spare none who barred the way. To this direction of escape he was limited by his unwillingness to try fatal conclusions with Georgiana’s kinsman. But he was robbed of choice in the matter; for no sooner had he taken two strides than Foxwell, afraid of losing him, leaped down the steps, and shouted, “Turn and defend yourself!”

“THE TWO GENTLEMEN MADE THEIR SWORDS RING.”

Fearing that non-compliance might result in the indignity of being struck on the back with the sword while in flight, Everell obeyed. Ere he could think, his blade had crossed that of Foxwell, who a second time bade the three underlings hold off. The two gentlemen made their swords ring swiftly, in that part of the garden near the steps, Caleb moving the lantern so as to keep its light upon them. Georgiana watched in fearful silence, Prudence clinging to her and recurrently moaning, “Oh, lor!” Rashleigh stood on the steps, ready to interfere at call. The combatants seemed admirably matched, and each had reason to admire the other’s fencing. But, to Everell’s relief, it presently became apparent that the elder man’s arm was weakening. The Jacobite now indulged the hope of disarming him. But Foxwell, too, saw that possibility. He beckoned Rashleigh, who thereupon ran forward and struck up Everell’s sword, while the groom and the gardener, obeying a swift command of their master, seized the Jacobite’s elbows from behind. Everell made a violent effort to throw them off, but in sheer strength he was no match for them. Relinquishing the attempt, he said, quietly, to Foxwell, “’Twas scarcely fair.”

“For that I beg your pardon,” replied Foxwell, still panting for breath. “In a matter between us two alone as gentlemen, ’twould be dastardly. But I had to take you at all cost. You would not surrender; though you certainly owe me an explanation on one score, and are an object of suspicion on another.”

“Oh, Everell!” murmured Georgiana, who had fallen to weeping, and was heedful only of her lover’s plight and not at all of her uncle’s words.

“Everell, say you? Bring the lantern here, Caleb.” In the better light, Foxwell scrutinized his prisoner’s face. “The scar on the cheek, too. ’Tis as I thought. But how Miss Foxwell happens to participate—well, there will be time for explanations. Sir, if you will give me your parole d’honneur, I need not inflict upon you the restraint of—” He indicated the cords in Caleb’s possession.

“I thank you, but I prefer to retain my right of escape.”

“In that case, you will admit the necessity of the precautions I reluctantly take.” And Foxwell set about directing the servants in fastening the captive’s wrists behind him, and in tying his ankles so as to limit the length of his steps. With a courteous “Allow me, sir,” Foxwell disengaged the sword from Everell’s fingers and returned it to its own scabbard, which Everell had retained at his side. This act of grace the Jacobite acknowledged with a bow.

“Uncle, you will not detain this gentleman?” entreated Georgiana, conquering her tears. “He has done you no offence. As to our meeting here, I will tell you all; the fault is mine.”

“Not so!” said Everell, quickly. “If there be any fault in that, ’tis mine. Sir, it was not by Miss Foxwell’s desire that I came here; it was against her will that I spoke to her. My presence was forced upon her.”

“Well, well, you shall be heard presently. You have a more serious charge to face than making love clandestinely to young ladies.—As for you, Georgiana, I thought you were in your chamber, wrapped in the sleep of innocence. I’ll never trust prudery again. I beg you will go in immediately, miss.”

“Uncle, I will not go till you have set this gentleman free. You shall have all my gratitude and obedience: I’ll give you no cause of complaint. Be kind—generous—I pray—” Her voice failing her, she fell upon her knees, and essayed to take Foxwell’s hand.

“Nay, sweet, you go too far,” said Everell, tenderly.

“Too far, indeed,” said Foxwell. “No scenes of supplication, I beg,—they are sure to make me more severe. I advise you to go to your chamber, miss. You had best oblige me in this, else stubbornness on your part may awaken stubbornness on mine.”

“Go, dear, and trust all to me,” counseled Everell, who had been regarding her with eyes in which there was no attempt to belie his love. “Go—this is not the end.”

She looked at him a moment; then turned sorrowfully away, and went slowly up the steps and to the house, followed by her maid, to whose proffers of assistance she gave no more heed than if she had been walking in a dream.

“Sir,” said Everell, with a slight huskiness of voice, “let me assure you that I am a gentleman and a man of honour; and that I respect your niece, and have every reason to respect her, as I would a saint.”

“No assurance is needful to convince me you are a gentleman,” replied Foxwell. “I will lodge you in a manner as nearly befitting your quality as security and my poor means will allow. I must be your jailer for to-night, at least.—Caleb, go before with the lantern. To the hall first. And slowly.—I trust you can make shift to walk, sir.”

Placing the gardener and the groom at either side of the prisoner, and the keeper at his rear, Foxwell set the party in motion. The two gentlemen, following close, gave their arms to the ladies upon reaching the head of the steps, and the procession went on at the slow pace which Everell’s ankle-cords made imperative.

“A mighty pretty fellow, whatever he may be,” said Lady Strange, sotto voce.

“Georgiana is to be envied,” said Mrs. Winter. “Such are the rewards of virtue.”

“He is vastly in love with her,” declared Lady Strange. “Did you ever see such tender glances?”

“’Tis the kind of ghost you could find it in your heart to be haunted by, is it not, Di?” queried Mrs. Winter.

“The keeper must have been in some doubt whether the ghost was the ghost,” put in Rashleigh, “before he decided to give the alarm.”

There had indeed been indecision on the part of the keeper, but upon other ground than Rashleigh mentioned. As he sat with the gardener over their extra beer later that night, the keeper explained to his comrade:

“I were in a powerful state o’ uncertainty, and that’s the truth of it. For, in course, I knowed the young mistress and her maid as soon as ever they come into the garden. And when this here young captain,—for I take it, he can’t be no less, what with the air he have, and the way he handle his sword,—so when the young captain appeared, I soon see how the land lay. Though I couldn’t make out what they was a-sayin’, I could tell it were a matter o’ clandestine love. Now I were to give a owl’s hoot when the ghost appeared. Thinks I, ‘Devil a ghost this is, but yet ’tis the only ghost we’re like to behold. If I wait for a real ghost,’ thinks I, ‘we sha’n’t get to our beds this night; and yet I haven’t the heart to spoil the young lady’s love-affair.’”

“And small blame to you, David,” said Andrew the gardener. “Your thoughts was my thoughts, and I kep’ a-wondering to myself, ‘What will David do? If he doesn’t hoot, we shall have to stay out here all night, and then only get credit for going asleep and seeing nothing. And yet, if he does hoot, there’ll be a pretty kettle o’ fish for the young lady.’”

“Yes, Andrew, it were a great responsibility. I wished it had been left to you to do the hootin’, for, thinks I, ‘Andrew’s a wiser man than me, and he’d know the right thing.’”

“Maybe so, David, but not such a good hooter,” said Andrew, modestly. “I’ll admit I did a’most make up my mind that such kind of love-affairs comes to no good, and the master ought to know, so the best thing for all of us would be for you to consider the stranger a ghost, and hoot.”

“No doubt, no doubt, Andrew, now that I hear you say so. But I couldn’t muster up the heart, because I done my own love-makin’ in a clandestine manner, in my lovin’ days, and I had a sort o’ fellow-feelin’ with these young people, as you might say. So I couldn’t make up my mind. But I happened to move my leg, which were powerful cramped with sittin’ long in one position, an’ I made more noise nor I bargained for. And the first thing I knew, the young gentleman were a-proddin’ at me through the shrub’ry. So before I ever thought, the hoot come out, more as if there was a owl inside o’ me which hooted of its own accord, than if it was of my own free will.”

“It wasn’t of your own free will, man. Take my word for it, the matter was took out o’ your hands altogether. The moving of your leg was ordered from above, to bring about the end that was predestinated.”

“I believe it were, Andrew. At all events, once the hoot was out, the fat was in the fire. It weren’t a bad hoot, though, were it?”

“Better nor a real owl could do, David,” said Andrew, raising his beer to his mouth.