The Greatest Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (65+ Novels & Short Stories in One Edition). Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

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СКАЧАТЬ himself from those who held him; and without hat, and with clothes rent to fragments in the scuffle, and his face and hands all torn and bleeding, still carrying his naked sword in his hand, he rushed from the room, and, followed at a respectable distance by several of those who had witnessed the scuffle, and by his distracted appearance attracting the wondering gaze of those who traversed the streets, he ran recklessly onward to the "Cock and Anchor."

Chapter LXIX.

       The Bolted Window

       Table of Contents

      Followed at some distance by a wondering crowd, he entered the inn-yard, where, for the first time, he checked his flight, and returned his sword to the scabbard.

      "Here, ostler, groom—quickly, here!" cried Ashwoode. "In the devil's name, where are you?"

      The ostler presented himself, gazing in unfeigned astonishment at the distracted, pale, and bleeding figure before him.

      "Where have you put my horse?" said Ashwoode.

      "The boy's whisping him down in the back stable, your honour," replied he.

      "Have him saddled and bridled in three seconds," said Ashwoode, striding before the man towards the place indicated. "I'll make it worth your while. My life—my life depends on it!"

      "Never fear," said the fellow, quickening his pace, "may I never buckle a strap if I don't."

      With these words, they entered the stable together, but the horse was not there.

      "Confound them, they brought him to the dark stable, I suppose," said the groom, impatiently. "Come along, sir."

      "'Sdeath! it will be too late! Quick!—quick, man!—in the fiend's name, be quick!" said Ashwoode, glaring fearfully towards the entrance to the inn-yard.

      Their visit to the second stable was not more satisfactory.

      "Where the devil's Sir Henry Ashwoode's horse?" inquired the groom, addressing a fellow who was seated on an oat-bin, drumming listlessly with his heels upon its sides, and smoking a pipe the while—"where's the horse?" repeated he.

      The man first satisfied his curiosity by a leisurely view of Ashwoode's disordered dress and person, and then removed his pipe deliberately from his mouth, and spat upon the ground.

      "Where's Sir Henry's horse?" he repeated. "Why, Jim took him out a quarter of an hour ago, walking down towards the Poddle there. I'm thinking he'll be back soon now."

      "Saddle a horse—any horse—only let him be sure and fleet," cried Ashwoode, "and I'll pay you his price thrice over!"

      "Well, it's a bargain," replied the groom, promptly; "I don't like to see a gentleman caught in a hobble, if I can help him out of it. Take my advice, though, and duck your head under the water in the trough there; your face is full of blood and dust, and couldn't but be noticed wherever you went."

      While the groom was with marvellous celerity preparing the horse which he selected for the young man's service, Ashwoode, seeing the reasonableness of his advice, ran to the large trough full of water which stood before the pump in the inn-yard; but as he reached it, he perceived the entrance of some four or five persons into the little quadrangle whom, at a glance, he discovered to be constables.

      "That's him—he's our bird! After him!—there he goes!" cried several voices.

      Ashwoode sprang up the stairs of the gallery which, as in most old inns, overhung the yard. He ran along it, and rushed into the first passage which opened from it. This he traversed with his utmost speed, and reached a chamber door. It was fastened; but hurling himself against it with his whole weight, he burst it open, the hoarse voices of his pursuers, and their heavy tread, ringing in his ears. He ran directly to the casement; it looked out upon a narrow by-lane. He strove to open it, that he might leap down upon the pavement, but it resisted his efforts; and, driven to bay, and hearing the steps at the very door of the chamber, he turned about and drew his sword.

      "Come, no sparring," cried the foremost, a huge fellow in a great coat, and with a bludgeon in his hand; "give in quietly; you're regularly caged."

      As the fellow advanced, Ashwoode met him with a thrust of his sword. The constable partly threw it up with his hand, but it entered the fleshy part of his arm, and came out near his shoulder blade.

      "Murder! murder!—help! help!" shouted the man, staggering back, while two or three more of his companions thrust themselves in at the door.

      Ashwoode had hardly disengaged his sword, when a tremendous blow upon the knuckles with a bludgeon dashed it from his grasp, and almost at the same instant, he received a second blow upon the head, which felled him to the ground, insensible, and weltering in blood, the execrations and uproar of his assailants still ringing in his ears.

      "Lift him on the bed. Pull off his cravat. By the hoky, he's done for. Devil a kick in him. Open his vest. Are you hurted, Crotty? Get some water and spirits, some of yees, an' a towel. Begorra, we just nicked him. He's an active chap. See, he's opening his mouth and his eyes. Hould him, Teague, for he's the devil's bird. Never mind it, Crotty. Devil a fear of you. Tear open the shirt. Bedad, it was close shaving. Give him a drop iv the brandy. Never a fear of you, old bulldog."

      These and such broken sentences from fifty voices filled the little chamber where Ashwoode lay in dull and ghastly insensibility after his recent deadly struggle, while some stuped the wounds of the combatants with spirits and water, and others applied the same medicaments to their own interiors, and all talked loud and fast together, as men are apt to do after scenes of excitement.

      We need not follow Ashwoode through the dreadful preliminaries which terminated in his trial. In vain did he implore an interview with Nicholas Blarden, his relentless prosecutor. It were needless to enter into the evidence for the prosecution, and that for the defence, together with the points made arguments, and advanced by the opposing counsel; it is enough to know that the case was conducted with much ability on both sides, and that the jury, having deliberated for more than an hour, at length found the verdict which we shall just now state. A baronet in the dock was too novel an exhibition to fail in drawing a full attendance, and the consequence was, that never was known such a crowd of human beings in a compass so small as that which packed the court-house upon this memorable occasion.

      Throughout the whole proceedings, Sir Henry Ashwoode, though deadly pale, conducted himself with singular coolness and self-possession, frequently suggesting questions to his counsel, and watching the proceedings apparently with a mind as disengaged from every agitating consciousness of personal danger as that of any of the indifferent but curious bystanders who looked on. He was handsomely dressed, and in his degraded and awful situation preserved, nevertheless, in his outward mien and attire, the dignity of his rank and former pretensions. As is invariably the case in Ireland, popular sympathy moved strongly in favour of the prisoner, a feeling of interest which the grace, beauty, and evident youth of the accused, as well as his high rank—for the Irish have ever been an aristocratic race—served much to enhance; and when the case closed, and the jury retired after an adverse charge from the learned judge, to consider their verdict, perhaps Ashwoode himself would have seemed, to the careless observer, the least interested in the result of all who were assembled in that densely crowded place, to hear the final adjudication of the law. Those, however, who watched him more narrowly could observe, in this dreadful interval, that he raised his handkerchief often to his face, keeping it almost constantly at his mouth to conceal the nervous СКАЧАТЬ