Volume II Part 20 (1/2)
”Never!” she replied, interrupting him; but a sudden heaving of the breast showed the anguish that one hopeless word cost her.
Stephen was in the chamber, still hurrying to and fro, too fully absorbed in his own abstractions to understand or attend to what was pa.s.sing.
”And wherefore?” inquired the cavalier, with some surprise.
”Wherefore? Ask your own nature and condition; your pride of station, which I have but lately known; your better reason, why; and see if it were either wise or fitting that one like yourself--though of your precise condition I am yet ignorant--should wive with the daughter of a poor but honest tapster. Suffer this plainness; I might be your bauble to-day, and your chain to-morrow.”
”Thou dost wrong me!” said the cavalier; and he took her hand tenderly, almost unresistingly, for a moment. ”I would wear thee as my heart's best jewel, and inlay thee in its shrine. It is but fitting that the life thou hast preserved should be rendered unto thee.”
”Nay, sir,” said she, withdrawing her hand, ”my pride forbids it; ay, pride! equal, if not superior to your own. I would not be the wife of a prince on these terms; nor on any other. 'Be not unequally yoked.'
Will not this wholesome precept hold even in a carnal and worldly sense? I would not endure the feeling of inferiority, even from a husband. 'Twould but be servitude the more galling, because I could neither persuade myself into an equality, nor rid me of the chain.”
”Thou dost reason wondrously, maiden. 'Tis an easy conquest, when neither pa.s.sion nor affection oppose our judgment; when the feelings are too cold to kindle even at the spark which the Deity himself hath lighted for our solace and our blessing in this valley of tears.”
”Mine!--Oh! say not they are too cold, too slow to kindle. They are too easily roused, too ardent, too soon bent before an earthly idol; but”--here she laid her hand on his arm--”but the right hand must be cut off, the right eye plucked out. I would not again be their slave, under the tyranny and dominion of these elements of our fallen nature, for all the pomps and vanities which they would purchase. There be mightier obstacles than those of expediency, as thou dost well imagine, to thy suit; but these are neither coldness nor indifference.” Here her voice faltered with emotion, and her heart rose, rebelling against her own inflexible purpose, in that keen, that overwhelming anguish of the spirit. She soon regained her composure, as she uttered firmly: ”They are--my altar and my faith!”
Egerton felt as though a sudden stroke had separated them for ever--as though it were the last look of some beloved thing just wrenched from his grasp. This very feeling, had none other prompted, made him more anxious for its recovery; and he would have urged his suit with all the energy of a reckless desperation, but the maiden firmly resisted.
”Urge me not again: not all the inducements I trust that even thou couldest offer would make me forget my fealty! No more--I hear thee not. The tempter I know hath too many allies within the citadel--worldly vanities and unsubdued affections--to suffer me to parley with the traitors and listen to their unholy suggestions. Again I say, I hear thee not.”
Finding it was in vain, he forbore to persecute her further; and after having merely tasted of the cordial, and partaken of a slight refreshment, he listlessly inquired if the term of his imprisonment would soon expire.
”Tarry here for a season, until the heat and energy of the pursuit be overpast, or at least abated. We could not find a more fitting place of concealment.”
”Being straitened for moneys until we can obtain succour from our friends, I cannot reward your hospitality as I would desire; but if we are brought forth and delivered safely from this thrall, thy father's house shall not be forgotten.”
”We will not touch the least of all thy gifts,” said the maiden: ”forbid that we sold our succour to the distressed, though it were to the most cruel and bitter of our enemies!”
A sudden thought excited this n.o.ble-hearted female. She cautiously approached her companion, who, having discontinued his perambulations, had seated himself in a corner, awaiting the termination of their interview. Knowing that he had generally a h.o.a.rd of moneys about his person--for covetousness was ever his besetting sin--she ventured to solicit a loan, either for herself or the stranger, judging that Egerton's escape would be much impeded, if, as he had just confessed, his finances were hardly sufficient for his ordinary expenditure.
”And so I must give my blood and my groats to nourish thy sweethearts, wench,” said the surly money-lender. ”I have saved this prelatist and malignant from his adversaries, and now”----He considered a while, muttering his thoughts and arguments to himself with a most confused and volatile impetuosity of ratiocination. In a short time he seemed to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion through all this obscurity, and drew out a handful of coin, of some low denomination, apparently by the sound, and placed it in the hands of his fair suitor.
”There--there--one, two, three. Never mind, wench; I could have counted 'em once with the best clerkman i' the parish; and for the matter of that, I've told 'em oft enough, though,--but the count always seems to slip from me. It is all I have, save the price of my life; and I would not part with that for a world's worth; for what should it profit me, when with it I had bought my grave?”
Marian immediately transferred the long-h.o.a.rded treasure into the hands of the cavalier.
”Thanks; yea, better than these, for they were a poor recompense, my peerless maiden. I scruple not to receive this loan at thine hands, because it is part of the means thou dost employ for my escape. Yet doubt not of my willingness and ability to repay thee tenfold. Thou wilt not deny me this silly suit.”
As he said this, he, with the greatest gallantry and devotedness, kissed the hand held forth to supply his exigency. He was accompanying the movement with some fair and courtly speech when a loud and terrible cry startled him. It was more like the howl of some ravenous beast than any sound which human organs ever uttered. Curses followed--horrible, untold--the suggestion of fiends in their bitterness and malignity. Then came the cry, or rather shriek--
”Lost! lost!” at irregular intervals.
The cavalier and his companion were much alarmed by this unexpected occurrence. They doubted not that the foul fiend was before them, bodily, in the form of this poor maniac. After a short interval of silence, he cried, approaching them fiercely--
”Ye have sold me, soul and body, to the wicked one. May curses long and heavy light on ye! The coin! the coin! Oh, that accursed thing! I have bought thy grave, stranger; and my day of hope is past!”
The latter part of the speech was uttered in a tone of such deep and heartrending misery that pity arose in place of terror in the bosom of his auditors. Marian ventured to address him, hoping she might a.s.suage or dissipate the fearful hallucination under which he laboured.
”There is yet hope for the repenting sinner. The hour of life is the hour of grace: for that, and that only, is life prolonged. Turn to Him from whom thou hast backslidden, nor add unto thy crime by wilfully rejecting the free offers of His mercy.”