Starvecrow Farm. Stanley John Weyman

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СКАЧАТЬ that they will pursue us along the great road?"

      "Yes, as far as Kendal. There they will learn that we are not before them--that we have somewhere turned aside. And they will turn back."

      "But suppose that they drive on to Carlisle--where we rejoin the north road."

      "They will not," he replied confidently. He had regained the plausible air which he had lost while the terror of the sands was upon him. "And if you fear that," he continued, "there is the other plan, and I think the better one. To-morrow at noon the packet leaves Whitehaven for Scotland, The wind is fair, and by six in the afternoon we may be ashore, and an hour later you will be mine!" And again he sought to draw her into his arms.

      But she repelled him.

      "In either case," she said, her brow slightly puckered, "we must halt to-night at the inn of which you spoke."

      "The inn on Windermere--yes. And we can decide there, sweet, whether we go by land or sea; whether we will rejoin the north road at Carlisle or cross from Whitehaven to"--he hesitated an instant--"to Dumfries."

      She was romantic to the pitch of a day which valued sensibility more highly than sense, and which had begun to read the poetry of Byron without ceasing to read the Mysteries of Udolpho; and she was courageous to the point of folly. Even now laughter gleamed under her long lashes, and the bubblings of irresponsible youth were never very far from her lips. Still, with much folly, with vast recklessness and an infinitude of ignorance, she was yet no fool--though a hundred times a day she said foolish things. In the present circumstances respect for herself rather than distrust of her lover taught her that she stood on slippery ways and instilled a measure of sobriety.

      "At the inn," she said, "you will put me in charge of the landlady." And looking through the window, she carolled a verse of a song as irrelevant as snow in summer.

      "But----" he paused.

      "There is a landlady, I suppose?"

      "Yes, but----"

      "You will do what I say to-day," she replied firmly--and now the fine curves of her lips were pressed together, and she hummed no more--"if you wish me to obey you to-morrow."

      "Dearest, you know----"

      But she cut him short. "Please to say that it shall be so," she said.

      He swore that he would obey her then and always. And bursting again into song as the carriage climbed the hill, she flung from her the mood that had for a moment possessed her, and was a child again. She made gay faces at him, each more tantalising than the other; gave him look for look, each more tender than the other; and with the tips of her dainty fingers blew him kisses in exchange for his. Her helmet-shaped bonnet, with its huge plume of feathers, lay in her lap. The heavy coils of her fair, almost flaxen, hair were given to view, and under the fire of his flatteries the delicacy of colouring--for pallor it could scarcely be called--which so often accompanies very light hair, and was the sole defect of her beauty, gave place to blushes that fired his blood.

      But he knew something of her spirit. He knew that she had it in her to turn back even now. He knew that he might cajole, but could never browbeat her. And he restrained himself the more easily, as, in spite of the passion and eloquence--some called it vapouring--which made him a hero where thousands listened, he gave her credit for the stronger nature. He held her childishness, her frivolity, her naïveté, in contempt. Yet he could not shake off his fear of what she might do--when she knew.

       They paid off the Guide under the walls of the old Priory Church at Cartmel

      They paid off the guide under the walls of the old priory church at Cartmel, with the children of the village crowding about the doors of the chaise; then with a fresh team they started up the valley that leads to the foot of Windermere lake. But now the November day was beginning to draw in. The fell on their right took gloomier shape; on their left a brook sopped its way through low marsh-covered fields; and here and there the leafless limbs of trees pointed to the grey. And first one and then the other, with the shrill cries of moor-birds in their ears, and the fading landscape before their eyes, fell silent. Then, had they been as other lovers, had she stood more safely, or he been single-hearted, he had taken her in his arms and held her close, and comforted her, and the dusk within had been but the frame and set-off to their love.

      But as it was he feared to make overtures, and they sat each in a corner until, in sheer dread of the effect which reflection might have on her, he asked her if she feared pursuit; adding, "Depend upon it, darling, you need not; Sir Charles will not give a thought to this road."

      She drummed thoughtfully with her fingers on the pane.

      "I am not afraid of my brother," she said.

      "Then of whom?"

      "Of Anthony," she answered, and corrected herself hurriedly--"of Captain Clyne, I mean. He will think of this road."

      "But he will not have had the news before noon," Stewart answered. "It is eighteen miles from your brother's to the Old Hall. And besides, I thought that he did not love you."

      "He does not," she rejoined, "but he loves himself. He loves his pride. And this will hit both--hard! I am not quite sure," she continued very slowly and thoughtfully, "that I am not a little sorry for him. He made so certain, you see. He thought all arranged. A week to-day was the day fixed, and--yes," impetuously, "I am sorry for him, though I hated him yesterday."

      Stewart was silent a moment.

      "I hate him to-day," he said.

      "Why?"

      His eyes sparkled.

      "I hate all his kind," he said. "They are hard as stones, stiff as oaks, cruel as--as their own laws! A man is no man to them, unless he is of"--he paused almost imperceptibly--"our class! A law is no law to them unless they administer it! They see men die of starvation at their gates, but all is right, all is just, all is for the best, as long as they govern!"

      "I don't think you know him," she said, somewhat stiffly.

      "Oh, I know him!"

      "But----"

      "Oh, I know him!" he repeated, the faint note of protest in her voice serving to excite him. "He was at Manchester. There were a hundred thousand men out of work--starving, seeing their wives starve, seeing their children starve. And they came to Manchester and met. And he was there, and he was one of those who signed the order for the soldiers to ride them down--men, women, and children, without arms, and packed so closely that they could not flee!"

      "Well," she said pertly, "you would not have us all murdered in our beds?"

      He opened his mouth, and he shut it again. He knew that he had been a fool. He knew that he had gone near to betraying himself. She was nineteen, and thoughtless; she had been bred in the class he hated; she had never heard any political doctrines save those which that class, the governing class, held; and though twice or thrice he had essayed faintly to imbue her with his notions of liberty and equality and fraternity, and had pictured her with the red cap of freedom perched on her flaxen head, the only liberty in which he had been able to interest her had been her own!

      By-and-by, in different conditions, she might be СКАЧАТЬ