"I should think not, my lord," replied Wilton, resolved not to yield his point so easily. "I should rather imagine that Lord Byerdale's view was to give me an opportunity, on the contrary, of pleading my own cause with the Duke of Gaveston--to give me an opportunity of recalling all those feelings of kindness, friendship, and generosity which the Duke has constantly displayed towards me, and of urging him by all those high feelings, which I know he possesses, not to crush an attachment which has grown up under his eyes, and been fostered by his kindness."

The Duke was a little moved by Wilton's words and his manner; but he had taken his resolution to make the present discussion between himself and Wilton final, and he seized instantly upon the latter words of his reply.

"Grown up under my eye, and fostered by my kindness!" he exclaimed.

"You do not mean to say, sir, I trust, that I gave you any encouragement in this mad pursuit. You do not mean to say that I saw and connived at your attachment to my daughter?"

Wilton might very well have said that he certainly did give such encouragement and opportunity that the result could scarcely have been by any possibility otherwise than that which it actually was.

But he knew that to show him in fault would only irritate the Duke more, and he was silent.

"Good G.o.d!" continued the peer, "such a thing never entered into my head. It was so preposterous, so insane, so out of all reasonable calculation, that I might just as well have been afraid of building my house under a hill for fear the hill should walk out of its place and crush it. I could never have dreamed of or fancied such a thing, sir, as that you should forget the difference between my daughter, Lady Laura Gaveston, and yourself, and presume to seek the hand of one so much above you. It shows how kindness and condescension may be mistaken. Lord Byerdale, indeed, talks some vague nonsense about your having good blood in your veins; but what are your t.i.tles, sir?

what is your rank? where are your estates? Show me your rent-rolls.

I have never known anything of Mr. Wilton Brown but as the private secretary of the Earl of Byerdale--HIS CLERK he called him to me one day--who has nothing but a good person, a good coat, and two or three hundred a year. Mr. Wilton Brown to be the suitor for the only child of one of the first peers in the land, the heiress of a hundred thousand per annum! My dear sir, the thing was too ridiculous to be thought of. If people had told me I should have my eyes picked out by a sparrow I should have believed them as much;" and he laughed aloud at his own joke, not with the laugh of merriment, but of anger and scorn.

Wilton felt cut to the heart, but still he recollected that it was Laura's father who spoke; and he was resolved that no provocation whatsoever should induce him to say one word which he himself might repent at an after period, or with which she might justly reproach him. He felt that from the Duke he must bear what he would have borne from no other man on earth; that to the Duke he must use a tone different from that which he would have employed to any other man. He paused a moment, both to let the Duke's laugh subside, and the first angry feelings of his own heart wear off: but he then answered,--

"Perhaps, my lord, you attribute to me other feelings and greater presumption than I have in reality been actuated by. Will you allow me, before you utterly condemn me--will you allow me, I say, not to point out any cause why you should have seen, or known, or countenanced my attachment to your daughter, but merely to recall to your remembrance the circ.u.mstances in which I have been placed, and in which it was scarcely possible for me to resist those feelings of love and attachment which I will not attempt to disown, which I never will cast off, and which I will retain and cherish to the last hour of my life, whatever may be your grace's ultimate decision, whatever may be my fate, fortune, happiness, or misery, in other respects?"

The Duke was better pleased with Wilton's tone, and, to say the truth, though his resolution was in no degree shaken, yet the anger which he had called up, in order to drown every word of opposition, had by this time nearly exhausted itself.

"My ultimate decision!" said the Duke; "sir, there is no decision to be made: the matter is decided.--But go on, sir, go on--I am perfectly willing to hear. I am not so unreasonable as not to hear anything that you may wish to say, without giving you the slightest hope that I may be shaken by words: which cannot be. What is it you wish to say?"

"Merely this, your grace," replied Wilton. "The first time I had the honour of meeting your grace, I rendered yourself, and more particularly the Lady Laura, a slight service, a very slight one, it is true, but yet sufficient to make you think, yourself, that I was ent.i.tled to claim your after-acquaintance, and to justify your reproach for not coming to your box at the theatre. You must admit then, certainly, that I did not press myself into the society of the Lady Laura."

"Oh, certainly not, certainly not," replied the Duke--"I never accused you of that, sir. Your conduct, your external demeanour, has always been most correct. It is not of any presumption of manners that I accuse you."

"Well, my lord," continued Wilton, "it so happened that an accidental circ.u.mstance, not worth noticing now, induced your lordship to place much confidence in me, and to render me a familiar visitor at your house. You on one occasion called me to your daughter your best friend, and I was more than once left in Lady Laura's society for a considerable period alone. Now, my lord, none can know better than yourself the charms of that society, or how much it is calculated to win and engage the heart of any one whose bosom was totally free, and had never beheld before a woman equal in the slightest degree to his ideas of perfection. I will confess, my lord, that I struggled very hard against the feelings which I found growing up in my own bosom.

At that time I struggled the more and with the firmer determination, because I had always entertained an erroneous impression with regard to my own birth, an impression which, had it continued, would have prevented my dreaming it possible that Lady Laura could ever be mine--"

"It is a pity that it did not continue," said the Duke, dryly; but Wilton took no notice, and went on.

"At that time, however," he said, "I learned, through the Earl of Byerdale, that I had been in error in regard to my own situation--though the distance between your grace and myself might still be great, it was diminished; and you may easily imagine that such joyful tidings naturally carried hope and expectation to a higher pitch than perhaps was reasonable."

"To a very unreasonable pitch, it would seem, indeed, sir," answered the Duke.

"It may be so, my lord," replied Wilton, "but the punishment upon myself is very severe. However, not even then--although I had the fairest prospects from the interest and promises of the Earl of Byerdale, and from the whole interest of the Earl of Sunbury, who has ever treated me as a son--although I might believe that a bright political career was open before me, and that I might perhaps raise myself to the highest stations in the state--not even then did I presume to think of Lady Laura with anything like immediate hopes.

Just at this same period, however, the daring attempt to mix your grace with the plans of the conspirators by carrying off your daughter took place, and you were pleased to intrust to me the delicate and somewhat dangerous task of discovering the place to which she had been carried, and setting her free from the hands of the bold and in famous men who had obtained possession of her person. Now, my lord--feeling every inclination to love her, I may indeed say loving her before--you can easily feel how much such an attachment must have been increased; how much every feeling of tenderness and affection must have been augmented by the interest, the powerful interest of that pursuit; how everything must have combined to confirm my love for her for ever, while all my thoughts were bent upon saving her and restoring her to your arms; while the whole feelings of my heart and energies of my mind were busy with her, and her fate alone. Then, my lord, when I came to defend her, at the hazard of my life; when I came to contend for her with those who withheld her from you; when we had to pa.s.s together several hours of danger and apprehension, with her clinging to my arm, and with my arm only for her support and protection, and when, at length, all my efforts proved successful, and she was set free, was it wonderful, was it at all extraordinary, that I loved her, or that she felt some slight interest and regard for me? Since then, my lord, reflect on all that has taken place; how constantly we have been together; how she has been accustomed to treat me as the most intimate and dearest of her friends; how you your self have said you looked upon me as your son--"

"But never in that sense, sir, never in that sense!" exclaimed the Duke, glad to catch at any word to cut short a detail which was telling somewhat strongly against him. "A son, sir, I said, a son, not a son-in-law. But, however, to end the whole matter at once, Mr.

Wilton Brown, I am very willing to acknowledge the various services you have rendered me, and which you have recapitulated somewhat at length, and to acknowledge that there might be a great many motives for falling in love with my daughter, without my attributing to you any mercenary or ambitious motives. It is not that I blame you at all for falling in love with her; that was but a folly for which you must suffer your own punishment: but I do blame you very much, sir, for trying to make her fall in love with you, when you must have known perfectly well that her so doing would meet with the most decided disapprobation from her father, and that your marriage was altogether out of the question. I think that this very grave error might well cancel all obligations between us; but, nevertheless, I am very willing to recompense those services--" Wilton waved his hand indignantly--"to recompense those services," continued the Duke; "to testify my sense of them, in short, in any way that you will point out."

"My lord, my lord," replied Wilton, "you surely must wish to give me more pain than that which I feel already. The services which I have rendered were freely rendered. They have been repaid already, not by your grace, but by my own heart and feelings. The only recompence I ever proposed to myself was to know that they were really serviceable and beneficial to those for whom they were done. I ask nothing of your grace but that which you will not grant. But the time will come, my lord,--"

"Do not flatter yourself, to your own disappointment!" interrupted the Duke: "the time will never come when I shall change in this respect. I grant my daughter a veto, as I promised her dear mother I would, and she shall never marry a man she does not love; but I claim a veto, too, Mr. Wilton Brown, and will not see her cast herself away, even though she should wish it. The matter, sir, is altogether at an end: it is out of the question, impossible, and it shall never be."

The Duke rose from his chair as he spoke; and then went on, in a cold tone:--"I certainly expected that you might come to-morrow, sir, but not to-night, and I should have made in the morning such preparations as would have prevented any unpleasant meeting between my daughter and yourself in these circ.u.mstances. I must now give orders for her to keep her room, as I cannot consent to your meeting, and of course must not treat you inhospitably; but you will understand that the circ.u.mstances prevent me from requesting you to protract your visit beyond an early hour to-morrow morning."

"Your grace, I believe, mistakes my character a good deal," replied Wilton: "I remain not an hour in a house where I am not welcome, and I shall beg instantly to take my leave, as Somersbury must not be my abode to-night."

His utterance was difficult, for his heart was too full to admit of his speaking freely, and it required a great effort to prevent his own feelings from bursting forth.

"But your horse must be tired," said the Duke, feeling somewhat ashamed of the part he was acting.

"Not too tired, my lord," replied Wilton, "to bear his master from a house where he is unwillingly received. Were it necessary, my lord, I would walk, rather than force your grace to make any change in your domestic arrangements. You will permit me to tell the porter to call round my groom;" and going out for a moment, he bade the porter in a loud clear voice order his horses to be saddled again, and his groom to come round. He then returned to the chamber where the Duke remained, and both continued silent and embarra.s.sed. It was some time, indeed, before Wilton's orders could be obeyed, for his valise had been carried up to his usual apartments. At length, however, the horse was announced, and Wilton went towards the door,--

"I now take my leave of you, my lord," he said, "and in doing so, shall endeavour to bear with me all the bright memories of much kindness experienced at your hands, and forgetfulness of one night's unkindness, which I trust and believe I have deserved even less than I did your former goodness towards me. For yourself I shall ever retain feelings of the deepest regard and esteem; for your daughter, undying love and attachment."

The Duke was somewhat moved, and very much embarra.s.sed; and whether from habit, embarra.s.sment, or real feelings of regard, he held out his hand to Wilton as they parted. Wilton took it, and pressed it in his own. A single bright drop rose in his eye, and feeling that if he remained another moment his self-command would give way, he left the Duke, and sprang upon his horse's back.

Two or three of the old servants were in the hall as he pa.s.sed, witnessing, with evident marks of consternation and grief, his sudden departure from Somersbury. The Duke's head groom kept his stirrup, and to his surprise he saw the old butler himself holding the rein.

As Wilton thanked him and took it, however, the man slipped a note into his hand, saying in a low voice, "From my young lady." Wilton clasped his fingers tight upon it, and with one consolation, at least, rode away from the house where he had known so much happiness.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

The light was fading away as Wilton took his path through the thick trees of the park up towards the lodge at the gates; but at the first opening where the last rays of the evening streamed through, he opened Laura's note, and found light enough to read it, though perhaps no other eyes than those of love could have accomplished half so much; and oh, what a joy and what a satisfaction it was to him when he did read it! though he found afterwards, that note had been written while the eyes were dropping fast with tears.

"Fear not, dear Wilton," it said: "I have only time to bid you not to fear. I am yours, ever yours; and whatever you may be told, never believe that I give even one thought to any other man.

"LAURA GAVESTON."

She signed her name at full, as if she felt that it was a solemn act--not exactly a pledge, that would bind her in the least, more than her own resolutions had already bound her--but a pledge to Wilton's heart--a pledge to which in after years she could always refer, if at any time the hand of another man should be proposed to her.

She had wept while she had written it, but it had given her deep satisfaction to do that act; for she figured to her self the balm, the consolation, the support which it would be to him that she loved best on earth--yes, best on earth; for though she loved her father deeply, she loved Wilton more.

When the high command went forth, "Thou shalt leave all on earth and cleave unto thy husband or thy wife," the G.o.d that made the ordinance fashioned the human heart for its accomplishment. It would seem treating a high subject somewhat lightly, perhaps, to say that it may even be by the will of G.o.d that parents so very frequently behave ill or unkindly to their children in the matter of their marriage, in order to lessen the breaking of that great tie--in order that the scion may be stripped from the stem more easily. But it were well if parents thought of the effect that they produce in their children's affection towards them by such conduct; for youth is tenacious of the memories of unkindness, and often retains the unpleasant impression that it makes, when the prejudices that produced it have pa.s.sed away.

However that might be, Laura loved Wilton, as we have said, best on earth; she had a duty to perform to him, and she had a duty to perform to her father, and she determined to perform them both; for she believed--and she was right--that no two duties are ever incompatible: the greater must swallow up the less; and to let it do so, is a duty in itself; but in the present instance there were two duties which were perfectly compatible. She would never marry Wilton while her father opposed; but she would never marry any one else; for she felt that in heart she was already wedded unto him.

The words that she wrote gave Wilton that a.s.surance, and it was a bright and happy a.s.surance to him: for so long as there is nothing irrevocable in the future, the s.p.a.ce which it affords gives room for Hope to spread her wings; and though he might feel bitterly and deeply depressed by the conduct of the Duke, and the stern determination which he had displayed, yet with love--with mutual love, and firmness of heart on both sides, he thought that happiness might be indeed delayed, but was not permanently lost.

Meditating on these things, he rode on for about a couple of miles; but then suddenly recollected that in all the agitation of the moment, and the painful discussion he had under gone, he had totally forgotten to tell the Duke either the arrest of Sir John Fenwick, or the tidings which he had heard more immediately affecting himself. He again checked his weary horse, and asked himself, "Shall I ride back?" But then he thought, "No, I will not. I will stop at the first farm-house or inn that I may find, where I can get shelter for myself and food for my horses during the night, and thence I will write him the intelligence, take it how he will. I will not expose myself to fresh contumely by going back this night."

He accordingly rode on upon his way, full of sad and melancholy thoughts, and with the bright but unsubstantial hopes which Laura's letter had given him fading away again rapidly under causes of despondency that were but too real. It was an hour in which gloom was triumphant over all other feelings; one of those hours when even the heart of youth seems to lose its elastic bound; when hope itself, like some faint light upon a dark night, makes the sombre colours of our fate look even blacker than before, and when we feel like mariners who see the day close upon them in the midst of a storm, as if the sun of happiness had sunk from view for ever. Such feelings and such thoughts absorbed him entirely as he rode along, and he marked not at all how far he went, though, from the natural impulse of humanity, he spared the tired horse which carried him, and proceeded at a slow pace.

About three miles from the Duke's gates, his servant rode up, saying, "I see a light there, sir. I should not wonder if that were the little inn of the village which one pa.s.ses on the right."

"We had better keep our straight-forward way," replied Wilton. "We cannot be very far from the Three Cups, which, though a poor place enough, may serve me for a night's lodging."

The man fell back again, and Wilton was proceeding slowly when he perceived three men riding towards him at an easy pace. The night was clear and fine, and the hour was so early, that he antic.i.p.ated no evil, though he had come unarmed, expecting to reach Somersbury, as he did, before dark.

He rode on quietly, then, till he met them, when he was forced suddenly to stop, one of the three presenting a pistol at his breast, and exclaiming, "Stand! Who are you?"

"Is it my money you want, gentlemen?" demanded Wil ton; "for if it be, there is but little of it: but as much as I have is at your service."

"I ask, who are you?" replied the other. "I did not ask you for your money. Are you a King's officer? And which King's?"

"I am no King's officer," replied Wilton, "but a true subject of King William."