"Robin Hays, you wrong yourself," interrupted Barbara; "I do not see you thus, nor think you thus. The raven is not a beautiful bird, nor hath it a sweet voice, yet it was welcomed and beloved of the prophet Elijah."

"So it was, Barbara; but why?--because it was _useful_ to him in his hour of need. Think you that, in the time of his triumph and prosperity, he would have taken it to his bosom, as if it had been a dove?"

"I do not see why he should not," she said: "G.o.d is so good, that he never takes away one beauty without bestowing another; and the raven's glossy wing might be, to some, even more beautiful than the purple plumage of the dove: at all events, so excellent a man would not be chained by mere eye-beauty, which, after all, pa.s.seth quickly. Though I think it was very uncourteous of Mr. Fleetword to say, in my hearing, Robin, that the time would come when Mistress Constance would be as plain-favoured as old Dame Compton, whose countenance looks like the worm-eaten cover of Solomon Grundy's Bible."

"Ah, Barbara! you are a good girl: but suppose I was as rich as I ought to be before thinking of marrying--and supposing you came to the knowledge of your father, and he agreed--and supposing Mistress Cecil did not say nay--supposing all this----?"

Robin paused, and Barbara, with her eyes fixed on the ground, commenced pulling to pieces the rose-bud he had given her.

"Supposing all this, Barbara----?"

"Well, Robin?"

"Do you think, Barbara, you would then--marry me?"

"I never thought of marriage, seeing that I am too young, and, withal, too inexperienced; but there is one thing, Robin----"

"I knew it," interrupted the Ranger, in one of his sudden bursts of bitterness; "I might easily have known it--Beauty and ugliness!--Fool!

fool! to imagine that a girl could look on me without loathing!

There--go to your mistress, go to your mistress, and make gay sport of Robin Hays!"

The soft eyes of Barbara filled with tears; she made no reply, but prosecuted her attack on the rose-bud so vigorously, that nought but the stem remained in her fingers.

"You need not have torn that rose to bits before my face! Ay, trample on its leaves as you do on my heart!--Why do you not go to your mistress?"

"You are very wayward, Robin; one time smooth, at other times, and without cause, rugged as a path through a th.o.r.n.y common: I can only pray that the Lord may teach you better than to misinterpret my words, and mock a poor girl who never entertained a thought to your disadvantage."

She could say no more, for the large round tears forced their way down her cheeks, as she turned towards the house with a bowed head and a feeble step. But Robin's mood had again changed.

"I beg your pardon, Barbara: forgive me; and think, that if my mind sometimes takes a crooked turn, it is the fault of my d.a.m.nable body!"

"Do not swear; it is the profaneness of your words, and, I fear me too truly, of your life also, that hurts me. Oh, Robin! do tell me who my father is, that I may find him, and have some heart to lean upon that will not always cause me tears. My lady is ever sad, and you are ever wayward and uncertain: I am a double orphan; and were it not for the consolation afforded me by better thoughts, should be most miserable."

"Forgive me, girl, forgive me; but every one alludes to this cursed deformity, and it is ill to bear--" said Robin, walking by her side.

"I never alluded to it, never even thought of it," replied Barbara, sobbing: "if the voice and the eye is kind, and, above all, if the face become familiar, it is one, all one, whether the features be formed according to beauty or otherwise. I never thought of looking into little Crisp's face, when he licked my hand but now; I only felt that the creature loved me."

"Crisp is no more a beauty than his master," observed Robin, patting the dog, who leaped to the caress: "but you cannot like him as well as black Blanche, or Bright-eye, your mistress's silken favourites, who show their teeth at the poor fellow whenever he approaches the entrance?"

"Bright-eye is a trifle conceited, I grant; but Blanche is like a lamb, only what can she do? Crisp comes gammocking up, wagging his tail, seeming in the best of good humours; poor Blanche receives him kindly, and sometimes walks before him to the b.u.t.tery; then, all of a sudden, just as she is thinking how very glad she is to meet Crisp--thinking, too, that notwithstanding his s.h.a.ggy coat and crooked legs, he is a thousand times more to be esteemed and liked than the fine and conceited Bright-eye--at that very time, and just as suddenly as you fly into your pa.s.sions, Crisp stops, grins, twirls his tail, and will neither return her civility nor accept her invitation. What can poor Blanche do, Robin?"

This statement was made by the pretty Puritan with a mingling of simplicity and shrewdness, for which, to have looked in her innocent face, one would scarcely have given her credit. The tears of youth dry as quickly as the dews in summer; and the young heart rebounds from grief as swiftly as the arrow from the bow. Robin looked upon her with doubting, but with strong affection. He knew, though he struggled with hope against the conviction, that Dalton's friendship would hardly induce him to bestow his daughter upon such an unpropitious personage as himself; and he felt a.s.sured--or, at least, believed, in his more gloomy moments, that so it must be--no woman could, by any possibility, feel affection for him. He was also, at times, under the full a.s.surance that Barbara only laughed at his addresses; and though she had more than once given him all reasonable encouragement, he most industriously placed it to the account of the universality of female coquetry, a theory in which he most conscientiously believed.

Without, therefore, any notice of her little fable, or the visible inference so easily drawn from the comparison between Crisp and himself, he started off from the subject nearest his heart, with an abrupt inquiry as to whether her mistress would be likely to go abroad that evening.

"I dare say she will come out in the twilight," replied Barbara, who had sufficient of the sensitiveness of her s.e.x to feel deeply mortified at Robin's heedlessness of her delicate allusion, adding, "Good day; I cannot stay any longer with you; so give you good day;" and she added in a lower tone, "a more gentle humour when next we meet." Woman's pride impelled her footsteps with extraordinary alacrity; woman's affection, or curiosity, both of which are oftentimes at war with her reason, obliged her to look back as she entered the postern, and then she enjoyed the little triumph of observing that Robin remained on the same spot gazing after her.

"I don't think I said any thing very unkind to him," she thought while pa.s.sing along the gallery. "I have a great mind to go back and ask him if he wanted to send any message to my lady; I did not give the poor fellow time to speak--I ought not to serve anyone so. What would good Mr. Fleetword say, if he knew I spoke so snappishly to any fellow-christian?--Keep your cold nose away from my hand, Master Bright-eye; you forget how you behaved to my friend Crisp yesterday."

Just as she arrived at this point of her soliloquy, she stood before a window, overlooking the part of the garden where she had left Robin.--He was no longer there! and the fond heart of little Barbara, at once forgetful of the harshness and waywardness of her early friend, was only aroused from profound reasoning upon her own unworthiness, by a smart tap on the shoulder from the fair hand of Lady Frances Cromwell.

"Pretty Barbara in meditation!" she exclaimed;--"but this is no time to ask upon what or why. What is the meaning of your lady's sudden resolve?"

"What resolve, madam?"

"Why, a resolve to marry Sir Willmott Burrell within this week."

Barbara was panic-struck: she remained silent for a few minutes, and then clasping her hands, implored Lady Frances to do--she knew not what.

"Ah! she will die, my lady, she will die! for who could live married to such a man? He is, indeed, a fearful husband for such a one. My lady, I know she does not love him--she never did--never could. I have heard her say in her sleep----"

"What, good maid?" asked Lady Frances eagerly, and with her usual curiosity. But the habitual integrity of Barbara's mind was awakened: with tears and sobs she replied,--

"What I must not, as a true girl, repeat. I crave your pardon, my lady, but it would ill become me to speak of what is said in sleep: only, dear, dear lady, if you love my dear mistress--if her life be dear to you--prevent, if possible, this marriage."

CHAPTER XV.

And them beside a ladie faire he saw, Standing alone on foote in foule array; To whom himself he hastily did draw, To weet the cause of so uncomely fray, And to depart them, if so be he may.

SPENSER.

The Lady Frances Cromwell was not likely to keep secret, grief or any thing else she had the power of disclosing: forthwith she proceeded to a.s.sail Constance Cecil with a torrent of exclamations and expostulations, to support which no inconsiderable degree of philosophy was requisite. The intention, however, sanctified the deed, and Constance, for some time, only pressed her hand in reply: at length she said,--

"You see me, dearest Frances, at present under much depression:--a dark cloud is over me; but, I entreat you, heed it not. I am about to do what is right, and not even the commands of his Highness, your father, could prevent it, if indeed you were to act upon the hint you have given me, and procure his interference. My fate is sealed, irrevocably sealed! And do you wonder that I tremble at the change I am about to undergo, the awful change, from maid to wife? Barbara, good maid, let me see no more of tears, but smiles, as in past times. And now I entreat you both, sweet friends, (for that humble girl has a heart formed by tenderness for what is more exalted--friendship,) leave me. You, my dear Lady Frances, will to-day, for my sake, and for his, be as much as possible with my father; he must grieve at this parting--it is but natural;--and you, girl--there, go to your embroidery."

Barbara looked into her lady's face, seized her hand, and pressed it alternately to her heart and lips.

"I will sit in yonder nook, dear mistress; I will not turn towards you, nor speak, nor breathe--you may fancy me a statue, so silent, so immovable will rest your little Barbara. Blanche and Bright-eye, and even that black wolf-hound, remain in the chamber, and why not I? Am I less faithful, or less thoughtful, than a dog? and would you treat me worse? Besides, dear lady, your wedding-clothes! There is not a satin or a silver robe, nor farthingale, nor cardinal--not a lone ostrich-plume, that is not of six fashions past! Good, my lady, if it is to be, you must wed as of a right becomes your high descent. My Lady Frances can well speak of this; and as there is no time to send to London now, her tire-women would help me to arrange the robes necessary upon such occasions."

"Peace, Barbara! I mean to dress as well befits this bridal; so trouble not thyself as to the tiring; but go, my gentle girl, go, go."

"And may I not crouch yonder, where so often I have read to you, and sung the little ballads that you taught me for pastime?"

"Or those that poor Robin taught you? I wish that young man, Barbara, had a more settled way of life; for, despite his awkward form, there is much that is n.o.ble and elevated about him. However, make no haste to wed, and, above all, guard well your heart; keep a keen watch over your affections--ay, watch them, and pray, pray fervently, poor girl, that they may go to him who may have your hand."

"They _shall_ go," said Barbara, rising to follow Lady Frances, who had abruptly left the chamber to conceal her tears; "I would not marry a king--I mean, madam, a governor--if I did not love him! Why should I?"

"Why should you, indeed, my kind Barbara! There, go and tell your master, tell also Sir Willmott, that I have much to do and much to think upon; so that to-day they must excuse my absence. It is an awful thing this marriage--an unknown, or at least uncharted course to enter on;--to virgin minds," she murmured, as her faithful attendant left the room, "at all times full of doubts, ay, even when love is pilot and the fond soul brim-full of hope. I too, who had such dreams of happiness, of good and holy happiness--the interchange of kindness, the mutual zeal, the tender care--the look, so vigilant and gentle, so full of pure blandishment--the outpouring of thoughts on thoughts--the words, so musical because so rich with the heart's truth; and so I fancied love and its fulfilment, marriage. Well knew I of the contract: yet still I dreamed and hoped, yes, slept and dreamed; but to be awakened thus--to such unutterable horror! Thank G.o.d, my mother is in heaven!--that is the solitary drop of comfort in my life's poison-bowl.--My mother's death a comfort! Alas, alas!"

She covered her face with her hands, and we draw the Grecian painter's veil over the contending feelings it would be impossible adequately to portray.

Sir Willmott Burrell bustled and chafed, and gave orders to his serving-men, and to those now called tailors; visited the neighbouring gentry, but spoke not of his approaching marriage, which he preferred should take place as silently as might be. Nevertheless he had far too much depending upon the succeeding hours to pa.s.s the day either in quiet or composure. He had braved through his interview with the unhappy Sir Robert Cecil, and urged, as an excuse for his conduct, the extremity to which his love was driven by Constantia's decided rejection of his suit, carefully, however, concealing from her unfortunate parent the fact that she loved another.

Sir Robert had sent several messages to his daughter, imploring her to see him, but in vain--she resolutely refused, wisely dreading the result of such an interview. "This day and to-morrow is all the time," she said, "I can call my own, until--for me--time has entered upon eternity.

All I implore then is, that I may be alone, the mistress of myself during such brief s.p.a.ce."