"So be it, then," said the peer; "and now you must return to speak with the person I mentioned, who shall soon be sent to you." Thus saying, Lord Dewry called back the two men who had brought the young gipsy thither; and, after bidding them take him back to the strong room, told them, in his hearing, as an earnest of his good-will, to let him have everything that could render him comfortable in strict imprisonment. As soon as the men appeared, the boy resumed his look of sullen shyness; and, hanging his head, followed them in silence from the room.

The moment he had departed, the peer sent to inquire for the keeper, who had not yet returned, however; and Lord Dewry was kept for a short time under the irritation of his own impatient spirit. At length Harvey appeared, followed by his confederate, Harry Saxon; and it would have given sincere pleasure to a disciple of Lavater to see how well this worthy's countenance corresponded with his actions.

He was a man of about five-and-forty, and what many people would call a good-looking man; that is to say, he had a fresh country complexion, a high large nose, with small nostrils, a capacious mouth, furnished with white and regular teeth, a small keen black eye, under a very overhanging and observing brow, a forehead low, but broad, and surmounted with a layer of fine jet-black hair, smoothed down, and polished with the most careful and scrupulous precision. His dress, without being exactly that of a gamekeeper, had a sufficient portion of the style usually attributed to that cla.s.s to show his hankering after the beasts of the field. His coat was green, and on the b.u.t.tons thereof appeared, not alone the fox, that most sagacious animal, but a variety of birds and beasts, so comprehensive in their number, and so limited in their kind, that his garment formed a very excellent hieroglyphical abstract of the game act. Leathern gaiters, with small round leathern b.u.t.tons, cased a pair of st.u.r.dy legs, and defended them from the brambles of those paths he most frequented; and a pair of hedger's gloves upon his hands seemed well calculated to grope for springes and gins amid the th.o.r.n.y ways of life.

The peer surveyed him, as he entered, with the keen eye of worldly experience, and saw that he was a man to be depended on by those who could pay him well. After a brief question or two, to which the other replied with sly significance, the peer explained to him the ostensible object he had in view; namely, that of securing the apprehension of a gipsy felon called Pharold, by the instrumentality of the boy they had taken on the preceding night, and asked him if he were willing to undertake the part he was to play, and to perform it carefully.

"You are, I hear," he added, with some degree of irony, "in some way acquainted with these gipsies, and may, therefore, not like to bring one of them to justice. If it be so, speak, and we will find some other person."

"No, no, my lord," answered the man. "A gipsy! why, I hate a gipsy!

they come in and spoil every thing like the regular trade. No, no, hang 'em all for me."

Lord Dewry did not pause to inquire what Harry Saxon called the regular trade; but replied, "Well, if such be your opinion, go in and speak to this lad. Do not let him know that you have had any conversation with me upon the subject; but offer to do anything for him that you can; and when you have heard what he has to say, come back and let me know the result."

The peer added an injunction to be quick; and Harry Saxon was conducted, by his worthy a.s.sociate Harvey, to the strong room in which the gipsy lad had been confined.

The chamber would have been in every respect a comfortable one, had not the doors and windows been furnished on the outside with those appurtenances, obnoxious to all comfort, called bolts and bars. The house had been constructed when population was much thinner than at present, and when it was necessary that the dwelling of a magistrate, if situated far from any great town, should be provided with some place in which a prisoner might be confined for a few hours; for this purpose the room we speak of had been selected and fitted up, both on account of the distance at which it lay from the more frequented parts of the building, and of its proximity to a large old hall, which formed the extreme wing of the house, and topped the bank overhanging the river. This hall had often served, in cases of necessity, as a justice-room in the olden times; and though many years had elapsed since it had been employed on any very important occasion, yet even of later days it had been used for the meeting of magistrates and county functionaries, when anything caused them to a.s.semble in that part of the country.

The strong room, however, had never been intended for anything but temporary purposes, and was not at all calculated for securing a strong and determined prisoner for any length of time, as the windows, which opened into the park, were only closed by iron bars, which, as the peer had hinted, might easily be filed away from within, or forced off from without. These bars the boy took care to examine minutely as soon as he was taken back to the place of his confinement; and he then turned his eyes to the park beyond, to ascertain how far the plan he had to propose to Pharold would be recommended by the probability of its success.

A grove of old oaks and chestnuts came up nearly to the windows, so that there was plenty of shade to conceal any one who approached, except in the full light of day. But as he gazed, the boy's thoughts were soon drawn away from the dark scheme which the peer had suggested to him by the sight of the world beyond his prison. Through the wide s.p.a.ces between the trees the lawns and savannas of the park were to be distinguished, with other woods and groves beyond. The soft evening sunshine was sleeping upon the slopes and glistening on the river; and the deer were seen walking calm and free through the long dry autumn gra.s.s, while the call of the partridge sounded from some distant fields, and everything spoke of liberty, and happiness, and peace. The influence of the scene sank deep into his heart, as he stood separated from his people, barred in from the free and beautiful world, and, for the first time in his existence, confined to the close atmosphere of one small solitary room. It sank deep into his bosom; but, like the fabled amreeta cup of one of our truest poets, many of the sweetest things on earth are productive of good or evil according to the lip that tastes them. While he gazed, the pa.s.sionate love of wild unrestrained liberty, and of nature, in which his heart had been nurtured from infancy, grew overpowering. To be free--to bound away over those sunny fields--to cast bars and bolts behind him--became a pa.s.sion and burning thirst: better principles were wanting to teach him to endure; and had the price of liberty, at that moment, been a parricide, he would have dipped his hands in parental blood. Nerved by the pa.s.sionate desire, he seized the bars of iron in his hands, and strove to tear them open; but their strength resisted all his efforts, and he burst into tears to think that he must remain another day in bondage.

His eyes were still wet when the door opened, and the insidious prompter of the enterprise which had deprived him of his liberty entered the room. The youth, however, was, like the rest of the gipsies, ignorant that they had been betrayed; and although he had only seen the man once, he now received him gladly as an acquaintance and a friend.

Their conversation lasted about ten minutes, and at the end of that time the emissary returned to the peer to report what had just pa.s.sed.

"Well, well," demanded Lord Dewry, "with what message has he charged you?"

"A very short one, my lord," answered the man: "he bade me seek out old Mother Gray, or some of the women, and tell them to come down to speak with him at the window to-night; so, I take it, that won't suit your lordship's purpose."

"Yes, it will," answered the peer. "He will, probably, employ the women to work upon the men."

"Ay, ay, plough with the heifer," answered the other; "but I may as well, if your lordship has no objection, set them on the right track myself; and I will answer for it, I get them to persuade old Pharold to come down himself."

"There is a very large reward offered," answered the peer, dryly, "to any one who will contribute to place him in the hands of justice; and if you are successful in the attempt you shall not lose the reward.

But do you think you can find these gipsies?"

"Why, from what d.i.c.k Harvey says, my lord," he replied, "I think there can be no doubt that I can find the women part of them, though, most likely, the men are hiding away--and no bad job either; for they might fancy I had some hand in the last night's job--but, howsomever, if I can find the women, they'll make the men do what they like easy enough. So, if your lordship will keep a good watch round the strong room, without letting the folks show themselves till they are sure of their man, I think we may calculate upon Master Pharold pretty certain."

"In which case your reward is certain, too," answered the peer; "but now make haste upon your errand, my good man, for the sun will soon be going down, and you have but little time."

"Oh, I don't dislike a walk in the twilight," replied the fellow; and, bowing low, but with a somewhat too familiar grin, he took his leave and retired.

Lord Dewry immediately proceeded to give orders for a strict watch to be kept upon the windows of the strong room during the two following nights; and took measures that an ambush should be laid in the immediate vicinity, in such a manner that any person approaching could not escape; but, at the same time, he carefully directed that if none but women appeared, they should be permitted to go as they came, not only without molestation, but with every precaution to prevent the least appearance of unusual watch.

This being done, he turned his steps towards the chamber of Sir Roger Millington, for whose life the unfavourable opinion of the surgeon gave him no slight apprehension.

CHAPTER VII.

The person against whom so many subtle contrivances were directed, on leaving Colonel Manners, as we have described in a foregoing chapter, turned his steps towards the wood in which his own companions had sought refuge after the unfortunate events of the preceding night. If the reader will cast his eye upon the county map, he will see that, avoiding Morley Down, he skirted along the hill, the summit of which it crowned; and then, after following for a little way that part of the high-road which traversed the little isthmus, in the neighbourhood of which he had saved the life of Isadore Falkland, he struck soon after into the forest on the right. As he came not from the same side on which his comrades had entered the wood, his search for them was not without difficulty; but it is wonderful with what keen tact persons accustomed to such scenes and circ.u.mstances take advantage of slight and apparently insignificant indications to guide them on their way. A branch brushed aside, a trodden-down flower, the sight, or even the smell of smoke, the least sound of the human voice, will each aid them in their search; and by means of this kind Pharold, ere long, discovered the little glen in which his whole party had found an asylum.

At the moment he approached, had his keen mind not been engaged with many another thought, he might have remarked that there was some degree of bustle and consultation among the gipsies, which ceased as he came up. All, however, appeared glad to see him safe; and all crowded round to express the anxiety they had felt during his absence, and to question him as to the events which had befallen him. Lena hung upon his arm with evident pleasure at his return; but the fondness she displayed was more like that of a child towards a parent than that of a wife for a husband.

In answer to the inquiries of the whole party, Pharold--after having seated himself in the midst, and demanded some refreshment, which was speedily procured--related, briefly, all that had occurred as far as his own perils went. Of Colonel Manners he spoke as of a stranger, and neither noticed their encounter nor his promise of again meeting him, though he told the group around that ere an hour was over he must again set forth on matters of import not to be delayed.

"Well, I hope, at all events, that you are going to get poor Will out," said the old woman we have so often mentioned. "Poor boy! he has a hard fate."

"I hope," said Lena, seeing that Pharold made no answer--"I hope--" but then she stopped, as if afraid of offending him.

"And what do you hope, Lena?" said Pharold, gravely, but not so sternly as was often his wont.

"I hope," she said, more boldly, but with the colour coming up in her brown cheek--"I hope that some means will be found to set the poor boy free, for I am sure he was not the guilty person."

As she spoke Pharold gazed on her with such grave earnestness that her latter words faltered; and even after she had concluded he still kept his eyes fixed upon her in silence, till one of the men, who had accompanied d.i.c.kon on the deer-stealing expedition, joined into corroborate her words.

"No, no," said the man, "he was not so guilty as any of us. d.i.c.kon persuaded the rest of us, and we persuaded him; but it was a hard matter to do so; and then, after all, he never fired a gun."

"Well," said Pharold, "I have done my utmost to free him: but he is in the hands of our enemies, who are keen, and vigilant, and many; and I see no way of delivering him from them but by force, which I will not employ, first, because it would fail; and next, because it would be sacrificing many of the innocent to deliver one who, though less guilty than others, is still culpable. I see no other way."

"Ay, but there is another way, Pharold," said the old woman: "they say that he is confined in what they call the strong room."

"They say!" exclaimed Pharold, hastily--"they say! Some one has been with you: speak, who has been here? or has any one gone forth when I forbade it?"

The old woman only grinned at having betrayed herself, as Pharold looked sternly round upon the circle; but Lena cast herself upon his bosom, saying, "Tell him the truth! Oh, tell him the truth! It is always better to tell him the truth! Well, if no one else will, I will. Some one has been here, Pharold--some one who has seen the poor boy in prison; and he told us all how wretched he is, and also he said that William himself had sent him to us to say, that if any one would come down to-night or to-morrow night to the window of the room where he is lying, they could easily wrench off the iron bars that kept him in, and set him free at once."

"And who was the person that he sent?" demanded Pharold, sternly.

"Why, it was just Harry Saxon, the game-sneaker," answered the old woman; "who else should it be?"

"A dastardly villain!" said Pharold, hastily; "fit to betray us all: speak no more of it. I know that man of old, and would not trust him with the life of a child, if he could gain by its destruction."

"He seemed honest enough in this business," said the man called Brown; "for he told us all how he had got in to see the lad, and how he had traced us. .h.i.ther. He took some blame to himself, too, in the business of the deer-stealing, for he was to have bought the venison from d.i.c.kon; and that was the reason why he went to see poor Will in prison, and was willing to do what he could to get him out. Now I would not promise to go till I knew what you thought of it, Pharold; but if you like, I will go down to-night, for, as to the man betraying us, you see I have no fear, because, if he had liked, he could have brought people to nab us all here. So I will go and try what I can do."

"But did not Will say particularly," cried the shrill tones of the old woman, "that it must be some one who knew the place well, or they would get into a mess? If you go, Brown, you'll only get caught yourself, and spoil a hopeful plan for setting poor William free.

There is no one that knows the place well but Pharold and I, because we know it of old; and as Pharold is afraid to go any more, I would go with all my heart, if I were strong enough to get the bars off: I could have done it once, as well as the best man among you; but I am an old woman now. As for that, Pharold knows the place better than I do a great deal, for he lived in that very house for many a month, and--"

"Hold your peace, hold your peace, woman," interrupted Pharold. "The boy said to-night or to-morrow, did he not?"

"Yes, to-night or to-morrow," answered Brown; "but to-night were best, for who knows what may happen before to-morrow?"

"To-night I cannot go," answered Pharold, "for I have pledged my word to be elsewhere, and I do not break my word: but to-morrow I will go; and I think that, perhaps, after all, I may be able to set him free.

In the meantime, however, you, Mother Gray, shall go down this very night, to reward you for all the share you have had in the matter.

You know the strong room window, just in the angle, by the great hall.

Get ye down thither at midnight; and tell the boy that I will come to-morrow night: bid him keep a good watch; and if he sees any one lurking about, as if watching, let him sing some of the songs that he sings so well, to warn me. You look out well, too, and mark everything about you, to tell me when I come back. You were never the wisest or the best, but I do not think you such a devil as to betray one wilfully."