Twice or thrice the girl, in the course of the day, locking the door of her mistress's chamber, according to the orders of Nicholas Blarden and his confederates, but less in obedience to them than for the sake of _her_ security, ran downstairs to learn whatever could be gathered from the servants of the intended movements of the conspirators; each time, as she descended the stairs, the parlour bell was rung, and a servant encountered her before she had well reached the hall; and Mr. Chancey, too, with his hands in his pockets, and his cunning eyes glittering suspiciously through their half-closed lids, would meet and question her before she pa.s.sed: were ever sentinels more vigilant--was ever _surveillance_ more jealous and complete?

During these excursions she picked up whatever was to be learned of the intentions of those in whose power her young mistress now helplessly and despairingly lay.

"Sir Henry Ashwoode and Mr. Blarden is gone to town together, my lady,"

said the maid, in a whisper, for she felt the vigilance of Chancey and his creatures might pursue her even to the chamber where she stood; "they'll not be out till about eight o'clock, my lady, at the soonest, maybe not till near nine or ten; at any rate it will be dark long before they come, and G.o.d knows what may turn up before then--don't lose heart, my lady--don't give up."

In vain, entirely in vain, however, were the words of hope and courage spoken; they fell cold and dead upon the palsied senses and stricken heart of despairing terror. Mary Ashwoode scarcely understood, and seemed not even to have heard them.

As the evening approached the poor girl made another exploring ramble, in the almost desperate speculation that she might possibly hit upon something which might suggest even a hint of some mode of escape.

Having encountered Chancey and one of the serving men, as usual, and pa.s.sed her examination, she crossed the large old hall, and without any definite pre-determination, entered Sir Henry's study, where he and Blarden had been sitting, and carelessly thrown upon the table a large key. For a moment she could scarcely believe her eyes, and her heart bounded high with hope as she grasped it quickly and rolled it in her ap.r.o.n--"Could it be the key of one of the doors through which alone liberty was to be regained?" With a deliberate step, which strangely belied her restless anxiety, she pa.s.sed the door within which Chancey was sitting, and ascended to the young lady's chamber.

"My lady, is this it?" exclaimed she, almost breathless with excitement, and holding the key before the lady's face.

Mary Ashwoode with a momentary eagerness glanced at it.

"No, no," said she, faintly, "I know all the keys of the outer doors; it was I who brought them to my father every night; but this is none of them--no, no, no, no." There was a dulness and apathy upon the young lady, and a seeming insensibility to everything--to hope, to danger--to all, in short, which had intensely interested every faculty of mind and feeling but the day before--which frightened and dismayed her humble friend.

"Don't, my lady--don't give up--oh, sure you won't lose heart entirely; see if I won't think of something--never mind, if I don't think of some way or another yet."

The red discoloured tints of evening were now fading from the landscape, and rapidly giving place to the dim twilight--the harbinger of a night of dangers, terrors, and adventures; and as the poor maiden sat by the young lady's side, with a heart full of dark and ominous foreboding, she heard the door of the outer chamber--the little boudoir which we have often had occasion to mention--opened, and two persons entered it.

"They are here--they are come. Oh, G.o.d! they are here," exclaimed Mary Ashwoode, clasping her small hand in terror round the girl's wrist.

"The door's locked, my lady," said the girl, scarcely less terrified than her mistress; "they can't come in without letting us know first.'

So saying, she ran to the door and peeped through the keyhole, to reconnoitre the party, and then stepping on tip-toe to the young lady, who, more dead than alive, was sitting by the bed-side, she said in a whisper,--

"Who do you think it is, ma'am? blessed hour! my lady, who should it be but that lawyer gentleman--that Mr. Chancey, and the old parson--they are settling themselves at the table."

Mr. Gordon Chancey and the Reverend Ebenezer Shyc.o.c.k were determined to make themselves comfortable in their new quarters. Accordingly they heaped wood and turf upon the expiring fire, and compelled the servant to ply the kitchen bellows, until the hearth crackled and roared again; then drawing the table to the fire-side--a pretty little work-table of poor Mary's--now covered with brandy-flasks, pieces of tobacco, pipes, and the other apparatus of their coa.r.s.e debauch--the two worthies, illuminated by a pair of ponderous wax-candles, and by the blaze of a fire, and having drawn the curtains, sat themselves down and commenced their jolly vigils.

Chancey possessed the rare faculty of preserving his characteristic cunning throughout every phase and stage of intoxication short of absolute insensibility; on the present occasion, however, he was resolved not to put this convenient accomplishment to the test. The goodwill of Nicholas Blarden was too lucrative a possession to be lightly parted with, and he could not afford to hazard it by too free an indulgence upon the present important occasion; he therefore conducted his a.s.saults upon the bottle with a very laudable abstemiousness. Not so, however, his clerical companion; he, too, had, in connection with his convivial frailties, a compensating gift of his own; he possessed, in an eminent degree, the power of recovering his intellects upon short notice from the influence of brandy, and of descending almost at a single bound from the loftiest alt.i.tude of drunken inspiration to the dull insipid level of ordinary sobriety; all he asked was fifteen minutes to bring himself to. He used to say with becoming pride--"If I could have done it in _ten_, I'd have been a bishop by this time; but _dis aliter visum_; I had not time one forenoon; being wapper-eyed, I was five minutes short of my allowance to get right, consequently officiated oddly--fell on my back on the way out, and couldn't get up; but what signifies it? I'm better off, as matters stand, ten to one; so here goes, my fellow-sinner, to it again; one brimmer more."

The reverend doctor, therefore, was much less cautious than his companion, and soon began to exhibit very unequivocal symptoms of a declension in his intellectual and physical energies, and a more than corresponding elevation in his hilarious spirits.

"I say," said Chancey, "my good man, you'd better stop; you have too much in as it is; they'll be here before half-an-hour, and if Mr.

Blarden finds you this way, I declare to G.o.d I think he'll crack your neck down the staircase."

"Well, dearly beloved," said the clerical gentleman, "I believe you _are_ right; I'll bring myself to. I _am_ a little heavy-eyed or so; all I ask for is a towel and cold water." So saying, with many a screw of the lips, and many a hiccough, he made an effort to rise, but tumbled back--with an expression of the most heavenly benevolence--into his chair, knocking his head with an audible sound upon the back of it, and at the same time overturning one of the candles.

"Pull the bell, dearly beloved," said he, with a smile and a hiccough--"a basin of water and a towel."

"Devil broil you, for a drunken beast," said Chancey, seriously alarmed at the condition of the couple-beggar; "he'll never be fit for his work to-night."

"Fifteen minutes, neither more nor less," hiccoughed the divine, with the same celestial smile--"towel, basin of cold water, and fifteen minutes."

Chancey did procure the cold water and a napkin, which, being laid before the clergyman, he proceeded with much deliberation, while various expressions of stupendous solemnity and beaming benevolence flitted in beautiful alternations across his expressive countenance, to prepare them for use. He doffed his wig, and first bathing his head, face, and temples completely in the cool liquid, saturated the towel likewise therein, and wound it round his shorn head in the fashion of a Turkish turban; having accomplished which feat, he leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and became, to all intents and purposes, for the time being, stone dead.

Leaving his reverend companion undisturbed to the operation of his own hydropathic treatment, Gordon Chancey drew his seat near to the fire, and filling his pipe anew with tobacco, leaned back in the chair, crossed his legs, and more than half closing his eyes, prepared himself luxuriously for what he called "a raal elegant draw of particular pigtail."

CHAPTER LVIII.

THE SIGNAL.

Flora Guy peeped eagerly through the keyhole of her lady's chamber into the little apartment in which the two boon companions were seated.

After reconnoitring for a very long time, she moved lightly to her mistress's side, and said, in a low but distinct tone,--

"Now, my lady, you must get up and rouse yourself--for G.o.d's sake, mistress dear, shake off the heaviness that's over you, and we have a chance left still."

"Are they not in the next room to us?" inquired Mary.

"Yes, my lady," replied the maid, "but the parson gentleman is drunk or asleep, and Mr. Chancey is there alone--and--and has the four keys beside him on the table; don't be frightened, my lady, do you stay quite quiet, and I'll go into the room."

Mary Ashwoode made no answer, but pressed the poor girl's hand in her cold fingers, and without moving, almost without breathing, awaited the result. Flora Guy, meanwhile, opened the door, and pa.s.sed into the outer apartment, a.s.suming, as she did so, an air of easy and careless indifference. Chancey turned as she entered the room, fanning the smoke of his tobacco pipe aside with his hand, and eying her with a jealous glance.

"Well, my little girl," said he, "and what makes you leave your young lady, my dear?"

"An' is a body never to get an instant minute to themselves?" rejoined she, with an indignant toss of her head; "why then, I tell you what it is, Mr. Chancey, I'm tired to death, so I am, sitting in that little room the whole blessed day, and not a word, good or bad, will the young lady say--she's gone stupid like."

"Is the door locked?" said Chancey, suspiciously, and at the same time rising and approaching the young lady's chamber.

As he did so, Flora Guy, availing herself instantly of this averted position, s.n.a.t.c.hed up, without waiting to choose, one of the four great keys which lay upon the table, and replaced it dexterously with that which she had but a short time before shown to her mistress; in doing so, however, spite of all her caution, a slight clank was audible.

"Well, _is_ it locked?" inquired the damsel, hoping by the loud tone in which she uttered the question to drown the suspicious sounds which threatened her schemes with instant detection.

"Yes, it is locked," rejoined Chancey, glancing quickly at the keys; "but what do you want there? move off from my place, will you?" and shambling to the table he hastily gathered the four keys in his grasp, and thrust them into his deep coat pocket.

"You're in a mighty quare humour, so you are, Mr. Chancey," said the girl, affecting a saucy tone, through which, had his ear been listening for the sound, he might have detected the quaver of extreme agitation, "you usedn't to be so cross by no means at the Columbkil, but mighty pleasant, so you used."

"Well, my little girl," said Chancey, whose suspicions were now effectually quieted, "I declare to G.o.d you're the first that ever said I was bad tempered, so you are--will you have something to drink?"

"What have you there, Mr. Chancey?" inquired she.

"This is brandy, my little girl, and this is sack, dear," rejoined Chancey, "both of them elegant; you must have whichever you like--which will you choose, dear?"

"Well, then, I'll have a little drop of the sack, mulled, I thank you, Mr. Chancey," replied she.

"There's nothing to mull it in here, my little girl," objected the barrister.

"Oh, but I'll get it in a minute though," replied she, "I'll run down for a saucepan."

"Well, dear, run away," replied he, "but don't be long, for Miss Ashwoode might want you, my little girl, and it wouldn't do if you were out of the way, you know."

Without waiting to hear the end of this charge, Flora Guy ran down the staircase, and speedily returned with the utensil required.

"Maybe I'd better go in for a minute first, and see if she wants me,"