"I trust I'm not in the way," she said rather coldly, "but the storm is so violent, and the drifts are forming so fast, that I hope you will not mind my sheltering here.""My Lord De Boteler," said Edith, stepping forward, and looking full at the baron. "It is unlawful to send armed men, in the open day, without warrant, save your own will, to attack the house of a faithful vassal and set his life in jeopardy. Had you sent a messenger in peace, Edith Holgrave would have obeyed the mandate. There was little need of all this tumult to take an aged woman, whom He knoweth is innocent, and whom you, Lord of Sudley, in your own breast"He had been forced to engage a woman to help Caro in the house, and also a shepherd for Richard's work. His family had been whittled down to almost nothing. Only Caro, Pete, and Jemmy were left out of his eight splendid boys and girls. Caro, Pete, Jemmy, and hideous, mumbling Harryhe surveyed the four of them with contemptuous scowls. Pete was the only one who was worth anythingCaro and Jemmy would turn against him if they had the slightest chance and forsake him with the rest. As for Harry, he was a grotesque, an image, a hideous fum"Reuben himself as he really was." He! He!
ONE:"My lord abbot, my soul is guiltless of any crime which the church in its mercy absolves, or the law in its justice punishesI am neither murderess nor witch. As much would my soul abhor communing with the spirits of darkness, as my heart would shrink from destroying the innocent"
ONE:The sound of voices came from the passage outside the kitchen. Reuben was talking to the girl. A word or two reached them.The crowd was like a boa-constrictor, it seemed to fold itself round him, smashing his ribs. He screamed, half suffocated. His forehead was blistered with heat. Again the crowd constricted. A dizziness came this time with the suffocation, and strange to say, as consciousness was squeezed out of him like wind out of a bellows, he had one last visit of that furious hate which had made him join the battlehate of those who had robbed his father of Boarzell, and hate of Boarzell itself, because he would never be able to tame it as one tames a bull with a ring in its nose.
THREE:"Start not," said he, "John Ball is not come to harm you;he never harmed any to whom God gave the breath of life,neither did he counsel the blood which has been spilt. A price is set upon his headbut think ye the homeless wanderer fears to die? Baron of Sudley, I have come thus far to tell you what I told you once beforethat if ye will swear to set free the bondmen of Sudley, the child you mourn as dead shall be restored to you!"MacDonald for ever! Long live the Queen!"
"Oh, you need not pause," interrupted Calverley, "I do not want you to do him any bodily harm.""Do you think so, Calverley?but the varlet has the obstinate spirit of his motherand you know I do not desire his death!"On the second evening after, when Calverley was in his private sitting room, the door was thrown suddenly open.Two tears formed slowly in the corners of her eyes, welled at last over the silky, spidery lashes, and rolled down her cheeks. In themselves they were portentsfor Rose hardly ever cried. More wonderful still, she did not know that she was crying, she merely became[Pg 292] stupidly conscious of a smudging of those motionless trees beyond the garden, and a washing of the hard, copper-coloured sky."Forgive me, Margaret," said he, "for what I have said. But oh," he continued, taking her hand, and pressing it passionately to his bosom, "You know not how much I love you!Come, sir, will you walk?" Then kissing the damsel's hand he relinquished it; and Margaret, with streaming eyes and a throbbing heart, watched till the two receding figures were lost in the distance.Margaret raised her bright blue eyes, that had been as yet hidden by the long dark lashes, and the downcast lids; but, meeting the bold fixed gaze of the baron, they were instantly withdrawn, and the deep blush of one unaccustomed to the eyes of strangers, suffused her cheek and brow, and even her neck.
