Katerfelto: A Story of Exmoor

and believing this triplet of doggrel to contain the first principles of his art.

John Garnet, therefore, although he had long since discovered Katerfelto to be one of those rare horses that can begin again at the end of the day, did by no means suffer him to go his own pace home, restraining his generous impulses and riding him steadily along at very moderate speed.

I do not affirm, however, that his thoughts were entirely monopolised by this partner of his labours and his triumphs, or that he did not glance anxiously about him, from time to time, in search of the well-known figure on the white pony, that occupied the first place in his fancy, and indeed the inmost citadel of his heart.

He was beginning to find those hours very wearisome which were spent apart from Nelly; and after its excitement had subsided, even so gallant a chase as that which he had lately witnessed, was felt to be no equivalent for absence from her side.

There are moments when reflection seems to be forced on the most thoughtless of men; when the dream vanishes the illusion is dispelled, and they catch a glimpse of life as it is, not as they wish it to be. John Garnet, riding softly through the heather, reviewed the events of the last few weeks by the light of common-sense, and wondered how this wild expedition of his, and wilder infatuation, was to end? That liberty and life were endangered by his offences against the law he had long been assured; but it was only to-day, and by the merest accident, he had discovered that here, in the vicinity of his hiding-place, lurked an enemy who thirsted for his blood. There was no mistaking the expression of the Parson's face; and had he not caught and held the uplifted wrist in a grasp more powerful than its own, he felt that his life-blood would have mingled in the eddies of Waters-meet with that of the dying deer. Now, when the excitement of the strife was past, he shuddered to think of the hideous peril he had gone through, appreciating at the same time the vindictive hatred of such an enemy, whose brother he had slain in a midnight brawl, whose sweetheart he suspected he had won from him on the sands of Porlock Bay. In his place, thought John Garnet, he would have been as savage, no doubt; but, come what might—banishment, imprisonment, hanging, or a stand-up encounter man to man—nothing should ever force him to give up Nelly Carew!

His nerves must surely have been shaken by the severe exertions and strange experiences of the day; for a horse's head appearing suddenly at his knee, while its footfall was unheard amongst the heather, caused him to start violently, and lay his hand on the pistol in his holster.

Red Rube grinned in his face while he brought the broken-kneed pony alongside of Katerfelto. "Zeems as though a man couldn't forget the tricks of his trade, Captain," said the harbourer, with a cunning leer. "Here have I been slotting o'you better nor two mile on end, as though you'd been a right stag with three on the top—that's my calling. There are you, out with the barkers, finger on trigger, stand and deliver!—that's yours."

In vain John Garnet denied and expostulated, protesting, indeed, that he was wholly ignorant of the other's meaning, and did but make an involuntary gesture towards his weapon from an instinct of self-defence. Rube was not so to be put off, and continued his remonstrances in a tone of confidential sympathy, with his hand on the grey horse's mane.

"There's a time for a deer to move, and a time for a deer to couch," said the harbourer, using the familiar metaphors of his calling. "A time for 'un to stand at bay, and a time for 'un to break the bay. When a deer vinds itself hard pressed, and never a stick of covert for miles, the sensible creetur 'takes soil,'—do 'ee hearken to me, Captain, it takes soil, I say, and vinds its safety many a time in the salt sea. 'Tis not so fur from Porlock to Ilfracombe, but that theer good grey horse could cover the distance in half a day."

He sidled farther off as he spoke, and seemed lost in contemplation of Katerfelto's points and symmetry, as he trotted by his side.

"What should I do at Ilfracombe when I got there?" asked John Garnet; adding, impatiently, "Man alive! speak no longer in parables. If you've anything to say, out with it, and tell me what you mean!"

Rube looked behind, before, and on each side; then he drew nearer and whispered—

"There be a price on thic' head o' yourn', Captain, a longish price, too. May-be more than it be worth."

"I know it," answered John Garnet; "I've seen the bills. It's an easy way to get a hundred guineas, Rube. Why don't you earn the money yourself?"

The old man looked hurt. "It's not honest wood-craft," said he. "Every beast of chase has a right to be hunted in season, and with a fair start. The hounds are on your track, Captain, I give you fair warning; but that's not all. There's one, a coarse black dog (Rube chuckled while he enunciated this conceit), as will never be off the line so long as the game is a-foot, nor leave the slot till he has the deer by the throat. Do you think you deceived me awhile ago, when you two stood in a dead-lock together on yonder slab of stone? Double on him, Captain, I do tell 'ee, double on him, that's what you've got to do. I've friends at Ilfracombe, free-traders they call 'em down there, they'd take any young man aboard as was well known to Red Rube. This here wind will serve, and I do know 'twill stay in the North for days together now, as though 'twere nailed there. God speed ye, young man. You mind what I tell 'ee. Keep your own counsel, and take a good hold of your horse's head!"

Then he shook the pony's bridle, turned briskly down a coombe, and disappeared.

CHAPTER XXVI.

A HARD BARGAIN.

Plodding wearily on, in the shuffling, dogged, continuous jog-trot that takes a tired hunter home, Cassock presently pricked his ears, and increased the pace of his own accord, while his rider's heart beat fast, for rising an acclivity not a bow-shot in front, fluttered the blue riding-habit that enclosed her pretty shape, nodded the feather in the saucy little hat, that could be worn so jauntily by none but Nelly Carew. Cowslip had failed to make up its lost ground in time for her to see the end of the run, and Nelly was riding soberly home, full of pleasant thoughts and fancies that grouped themselves round a figure on a grey horse, skimming the brown moorland, far ahead of all competitors, and when last seen, alone with the hounds!

"Good even, Mistress Nelly," said the Parson, ranging alongside, with an awkward bow. "Nothing amiss, I hope, with Cowslip, nor its rider. 'Tis not often the pair of you give in before the deer, but you must confess that for this once Abner Gale and the old black nag had the better of pretty Mistress Carew." His voice, hoarse and thick with conflicting feelings, startled her from her day-dream. Nelly's colour rose, and the consciousness that he observed it caused her to blush deeper in mingled vexation and shame.

"I made a fatal mistake at starting," said she, with a nervous little laugh and a full stop.

"A great many women do that!" grunted the Parson.

"And all my calculations were wrong," continued Nelly, without noticing the interruption. "If the deer had passed under Dunkerry Beacon, like the big black stag last year, and taken soil in the Barle, down by Landacre Bridge, for instance, or at Withy-pool, where would you all have been then? Your turn to-day, Master Gale, mine to-morrow. That's the rule of stag-hunting, and it seems the same for most things in life."

She spoke with a flurried manner and an affectation of gaiety he did not fail to detect. The Parson's restless eye and moody brow frightened her, and glancing round on the solitude of the moor, she wished herself back with grandfather, safe at home.

"I would it were the same thing in life," he answered sullenly. "A bold, straightforward man who meant fair, and feared nothing, might have a chance of holding his own, then, and wouldn't see his place taken by the first new-comer with thicker lace on his coat and more brass on his forehead. Your park-fed deer is well enough, Mistress Nelly, for them that don't know better, but who in their senses would compare it with a real wild Exmoor stag?"

"I don't understand you!" said the girl, looking in vain for a companion, and wondering what had become of all the defeated riders who must be plodding steadily home.

"Then I'll speak out!" replied the Parson, "and remember, what Abner Gale says that he sticks to, for good and for evil, mind. For good and for evil! I'm a plain man, Mistress Carew."

"Not so very plain, for your age, you know!" Nelly could not resist saying, though dreadfully frightened. But he continued without noticing the interruption—

"A plain man, and may-be I han't learned any of the monkey tricks your town-bred gentlemen bring here into the West, thinking to carry all before them, with a hoist of the eyebrows, a fool's grin, and a dancing-master's bow. But at least I'm honest, if I'm nothing more, not afraid to show my face by light of day, nor to speak my mind in any company, from my Lord Bellinger down to Dick Boss the sheriff's officer, who has got a job in hand that will take him all his time, judging by what I saw to-day."

"Dick Boss! Sheriff's officer!" repeated Nelly, pale and aghast, for already she knew too well John Garnet's danger. "What have I to do with these matters? Why do you say such things to me?"

Though the Parson's voice softened while he answered, in Nelly's ear it sounded harsher than before.

"Why, Mistress Nelly?" he repeated. "I marvel that you can ask me so simple a question. Why do I watch every look of your blue eyes, every word from your sweet lips? Why do I feel a different man in your presence, and hover about you like that moor-buzzard up there hovers over the bare brow of the mountain, wheeling, poising, watching, waiting patiently till he may stoop and carry off his prize?"

"Waiting to tear it in pieces, you mean!" replied Nelly, angrily. "You're talking nonsense, Master Gale. If buzzard you be, I at least am not going to become your prey."

The sun was sinking to the brown level of the moor at their backs. The long shadows thrown before them, as they rode softly side by side, might have belonged to a pair of plighted lovers, so woven together were they, and intermingled on the broad expanse of heather, deepening to a browner russet and a redder gold with every moment of departing day.

Yet in one bosom rankled wild, unsatisfied longings, jealousy, suspicion, rage of wounded pride; in the other, contempt, loathing, and a passionate hatred, the more embittered that it was dashed with fear.

"You carry it with a high hand, Mistress Carew," said the Parson, losing the command he had tried to keep over a temper only too apt to rise beyond control. "You might have learned before now 'tis a waste of time to ride the great horse with me. I have the power, aye! and more than half the mind, to bring you down from your saddle there, in that tuft of heather, on your knees. You may smile—you look parlous handsome when you smile—but I'm not one to speak out of my turn, I tell ye. I know everything, and I've got his life in my hand!"

Of all her fair and noble qualities, a woman's hypocrisy is sometimes the fairest and the noblest. Unlike the rougher sex, it is when she is most unselfish that she seems most artful to deceive. Had her power been equal to her will, Nelly Carew's natural inclination, and indeed her earnest desire, had been to strike this man down, and trample him under Cowslip's hoofs, not perhaps to death, but to bodily injury and degradation, yet she commanded herself with an effort beyond all praise, and smiled sweetly in his face, while she observed—

"Something has put you out to-day, Master Gale. I suppose that is why you want to quarrel with your best friends. You never spoke to me so sharp before. Is it Cassock's fault, or mine, or whose, that your good nag could not keep up with that grey horse on the open moor? The creature seemed to have the wings of a bird. If that's all, sure 'tis no disgrace to be beaten when a man does his best."

Though her tone seemed easy and unconstrained, she felt cruelly anxious, and resolved at any cost to learn how far Abner Gale's enmity was to be feared on her lover's behalf.

"The grey horse is a good one, I'll not deny," said the Parson. "Too good for his master and his master's trade, though the beast has saved the man from hanging many a time and oft. I'm surprised at your grandfather, Mistress Nelly. I'm more surprised at yourself, that you can consort with such a jail-bird. He is a disgrace to us all, coming here to Porlock as though he could find no better place to hide in from the hue and cry."

"Do you mean Master Garnet?" exclaimed Nelly, with flashing eyes, while she stifled a sob of wrath and fear that rose from her heart.

"I mean Galloping Jack, the highwayman," answered Gale, "a villain who should have swung, by rights, at Tyburn, last autumn, whom I devoutly hope to see hanged before the fifth of November next!"

"You showed me his dying speech and confession yourself," answered the girl, with tight-set lips that kept down some overmastering emotion by sheer force of will. "Come, Master Gale, you know as well as I do that John Garnet is no common thief with a black vizard and a speedy horse, no mere moonlight robber to stop a coach for plunder on the king's highway. He has done something worse than that. Out with it; you used to have no secrets from your friends. Tell me what it is!"

Parson Gale was in the habit of declaring that a man who told a lie should possess a good memory. He wished he had stuck more consistently to this maxim, and had not, by his forgetfulness, thus laid his own statement open to denial. The wisest course, he thought, would be to take the bull by the horns.

"I only hoped to shame you out of your fancy, Mistress Nelly," said he, with a transparent affectation of friendliness and sincerity. "I know this man has assumed the title of a famous highwayman for disguise. He is no more Galloping Jack than I am. He is Master John Garnet, plain John Garnet, as I have heard them call him, in ridicule, I fancy, of his waiting-maid's face and mop of curling hair. Wanted for robbing his Majesty's Government. Wanted for high treason. Wanted for murder done in Covent Garden, brought home to him by evidence no court of justice can gainsay, and as sure to swing, on one, and all of these counts, as I hope I am to get home to supper this blessed night!"

She had grown paler and paler with every accusation in the catalogue of her lover's crimes. She looked as if she must have fallen fainting from the saddle, yet never for an instant did she lose her presence of mind, nor forego her resolution to save John Garnet how she could!

"I can't bring myself to believe it is as bad as you say," she answered carelessly. "But I thought there was something unusual about the gentleman, I'll not deny. 'Tis grandfather who will miss him if he comes to harm. Grandfather took to him, you know, as he never took to a stranger before. You must have seen that yourself."

"And you, Mistress Nelly," said the Parson, bringing his weary horse nearer the white pony's side, "did not you take to this stranger too, and for the sake of a new face flout the old friends who had loved you all your life?"

"La! Master Gale," was the feminine reply, "you talk of loves and likings as though we could put them on and off like our hose and farthingales. Sure you never thought me one to forget an old friend for the sake of a new face, comely though it be?"

"And you do not really care for this bedizened Jack-a-napes?" he exclaimed, while his voice shook with an emotion that betrayed how deeply the admission touched his feelings.

"I love him!" answered Nelly, watching her listener as the steersman watches an angry sky. "Yes, I love him—for grandfather's sake!"

Even in the anxiety and agitation of the moment, even through all the scorn and loathing she felt for the attentions of her unwelcome admirer, it could not but gratify her vanity to mark the changes that passed over his rough, weather-worn face with every word she uttered, every inflection of her voice. She had only suspected the Parson loved her when she first discovered her own love for John Garnet. She was sure of it now, and could almost have found it in her heart to pity him, for the utter hopelessness of his suit; but this was no time to indulge in such weakness. Abner Gale's affection was a powerful engine, and she must use it to save John Garnet's life.

Looking very beautiful, and trusting to her beauty as man trusts to his intellect, the brute to its strength and speed, she glanced her blue eyes shyly in his face, and added, after a becoming little pause of hesitation, "Why—Why should all this interest you, Master Gale?"

"Because I love you!" he exclaimed. "Love you, Nelly Carew, more than anything and everything in earth or heaven! I'm old and rough, I know—not fit to black the shoes on your pretty feet. I've been a brawler and a sot, and—and—worse than that, drinking and roystering at feasts and revels, while all the time my heart was sore for the sweetest lass in Devon, to think I wasn't good enough, nor comely enough, so much as to kiss the tips of her fingers, nor to sip with her on the same cup. But I'd be a different man if you was only to hold up your hand. It would be no trouble to leave liquor and wrestling-bouts, fairs, and fiddlings, roaring lads and saucy wenches, at your bidding. Nay, more than that, Mistress Nelly, I could go back from the great oath I swore, if you did but hold up your finger, and forgive my bitterest enemy for your sake!"

"Why should you have enemies, you that are so frank and hearty?" asked Nelly, fairly alarmed at the strength of the feelings she had aroused, while determined to profit by them at any cost.

The Parson reined in his horse, and unconsciously she followed his example.

"The man John Garnet," said he, in a deep, hoarse voice, "took my brother's life—stabbed him in the dark, Mistress Nelly, without friends or witnesses, and that man I have sworn never to leave till with my own eyes I see him laid in a murderer's grave. To-day an accursed chance delivered him out of my hand, when my knife was almost at his throat. The next time he shall not escape so well. Dick Boss and I, with a few stout lads to help, mean having him safe in Taunton Gaol before the week is out. And this is the gallant, pretty Mistress Nelly, I was fool enough to think had made such way in your good graces as to supplant your old friend Abner Gale!"

How she hated him, sitting there, square and resolute, on his horse! The unwelcome suitor, the implacable enemy, the avenger thirsting for the blood of one whom she only loved more madly, more devotedly, because of his danger and his need! Her blue eyes burned with unaccustomed fire, her cheek glowed with a deep, angry crimson, and Parson Gale, marking her emotion, believed it was called forth by affection for himself!

He looked at her in speechless admiration for the space of a full minute, then he burst out with a sob:

"Have pity on me, Mistress Nelly, have pity on me! I love you so! I love you so!"

She had reviewed the whole position, taken in every detail of the situation during this eventful pause, and made her crowning manœuvre with the skill of that subtlest of all tacticians—a woman at her wit's end!

"It's very easy to talk!" she observed, demurely, "but I was always one that liked to see a man prove his words. If you—you really cared for me, you would do what I ask, wouldn't you, Master Gale? and never want to know the reason why!"

"Ask it!" exclaimed the Parson, "and if I say no, beautiful Mistress Nelly, then say no to me, when I plead for something dearer and more precious than the light of day and the very air I breathe!"

She knew too well the compact implied by so enthusiastic an assent, but hesitated not for a single instant.

"You will spare Master Garnet," she said, in a steady, monotonous voice, "and give him time to get clear out of the country, for my—my grandfather's sake."

"On one condition!"

"On any condition," she murmured, and the brown moors, the evening sky, seemed to spin round so fast that she turned faint and giddy in the whirl.

There was no question of deception, no loop-hole for mental reservation and eventual escape. In the balance hung her lover's safety against her own utter destruction. Could there be a doubt into which scale would be flung the deciding weight of a woman's self-sacrificing devotion, a woman's uncalculating love?

"You will be my wife, Mistress Nelly Carew, if I pledge myself to let this man go free?" said the Parson, in slow, distinct syllables, while a grin of triumph, none the less hateful for the affection it expressed, rendered his face more hideous than ever in her eyes.

"I will be your wife, Master Abner Gale, if you pledge yourself to let this man go free!" she repeated, in clear, incisive tones that seemed the echo of his own.

"And you promise never to speak to him nor see him again?"

"And I promise never to see him, nor speak to him again!"

"It's a bargain."

"It's a bargain."

Then they shook hands, and although Abner Gale would fain have ratified this strange betrothal with a kiss, there was something in Nelly's face that absolutely cowed him, and he forbore.

They soon separated where their respective paths diverged. The Parson made his way over the moor, wondering that he did not feel more elated with his triumph, while Nelly rode home alone, looking into vacancy with a white face and fixed, tearless eyes, that seemed to express neither sorrow nor impatience, nor fear, but only mute wonder, and an uncomplaining, apathetic despair.

CHAPTER XXVII.

SELF-SACRIFICE.

"Weather-wise—fool otherwise," is a West-country proverb that by no means applied to Red Rube. The harbourer, who had taken a judicious view of John Garnet's position, and gave him sensible advice under the circumstances, proved also a reliable prophet, even in so uncertain a prediction as the quarter from which the wind would blow. It remained, as he expected, in the north, and a keen frost setting in on the night of the great chase from Cloutsham-Ball, gave promise of an earlier winter than was either expected or desired in the fertile coombes of West Somerset and North Devon. The honest yeomen-farmers looked grave and shook their heads. There were apples yet ungathered in late orchards, oats standing in sheaves on bare hill-farms; the cold weather would bring the stags on, too, and put an end to their favourite sport. Nobody wanted to begin winter in October, while old people dreaded the effects of an unseasonably low temperature, or neighbours who were a few years, or even a few months, older than themselves.

More than one venerable inhabitant of Porlock, noting his shrunken form and feeble gait, was heard to express a fear that, with the close of autumn, it would "go hard with Master Carew," and the veteran himself, though he kept his opinion from Nelly, little hoped to see the buds and blossoms of another spring. He felt that Death was coming like a giant on the mountains, casting his shadow before him as he advanced with swift and noiseless strides, nor, but for the leaving of his grandchild, did it seem so hard to follow the host of friends and comrades who had preceded him to the unknown country beyond the deep, dark, narrow stream. A brave man is seldom deceived in such matters. Old Carew, taking to his bed, gaunt and weary, an hour before Nelly came home, knew he would never leave it again alive.

Guiding Cowslip deftly down the hill into Porlock, the girl believed her cup of misery was full. She told herself it could not hold another drop. Severed from the love of her life at a single blow, dealt by her own hand—bound to the man she loathed and feared and hated, by her own promise—pledged never to see nor speak to John Garnet again—forbidden even to warn him that he must fly! No! Honour or dishonour, she would not hold to this part of the contract! He must learn the truth from her own lips, and then, though he should heap curses on her perfidy, she would bid him farewell for ever, and live out, as best she might, the life of misery and desolation she had chosen for his sake!

It formed no part of her calculations that he should be waiting for her at her own door, that, lighting down from her pony in the dusk of evening, she should leap into his arms, and find herself folded in a close embrace against his heart.

"Oh! you musn't! you musn't!" was all Nelly had strength to say, for one happy moment, ere she released herself and stood apart, trembling in every limb. Then, even in the failing light, she observed that his face was very grave, and she missed the gay, careless ring in his tone, that possessed so strange a charm for her loving ear. She had never heard him speak so sadly before.

"Sweetheart," he whispered, "my own Nelly, I looked for you all the way home, and waited here till you came back, because I had something to say that it was right you should hear to-night. I have not the heart to say it now. I was going away to-morrow morning, only for a time, Nelly, but I cannot leave you in your distress. I must stay and help you to keep up your courage, dear heart, and to take care of grandfather. He is ill—very ill, I fear, my pretty lass, and asked for you before he went to lie down; but try not to be frightened, dear heart, if—if—he doesn't seem to know you at first, when you go to his bedside!"

With a little cry of pity and terror she bounded from him while he spoke, and sped like a lapwing to her grandfather's chamber, leaving John Garnet standing by the porch, with Cowslip's bridle on his arm, in the last stage of perplexity and distress.

Leading the pony to the stable, he felt utterly at a loss what to do.

Courageous as he was, and too reckless of his own safety, he could not but feel that his position here in the hiding-place he had chosen became more dangerous every hour. Red Rube's warning did but corroborate his own suspicions, and when he reflected on Parson Gale's unscrupulous hatred, which would leave no stone unturned to deliver him into the hangman's hands, his common sense told him there was but one chance of escape left, while the plan advised by the harbourer, of taking boat at Ilfracombe, seemed the only practicable means of flight.

So soon, therefore, the next day, as Katerfelto was recovered from the effects of his exertions, he had intended to make for that little seaport, and embark forthwith, sending the grey horse back to Porlock by a trusty hand, to remain in Mistress Carew's care till its owner's return. He promised himself one more interview with Nelly, when, for the fiftieth time, they might exchange vows of unalterable affection, and so would go his way, despondent indeed and unhappy, yet not wholly despairing of better days to come.

And now old Carew's dangerous illness, of which he was advised the moment he got off his horse, scattered all these projects to the winds. While he waited for Nelly's return, that he might prepare her to expect the worst, he resolved that no consideration of safety for himself should part him from the woman he loved, so long as his presence could cheer and console her grief.

After a restless night, and an early visit to Katerfelto's stable, where it was satisfactory to find the grey horse, fresh and lively, rested from his hard day, John Garnet presented himself at Carew's door, and was surprised to be received by Nelly herself, who had not been to bed, yet looked none the less beautiful for the pale face and weary eyes, that spoke of some trial even sorer and sadder than the watch in a sick chamber, than the cruel suspense of hope and fear, when life seems to hang on a thread, that wears itself slowly away.

He would have caught her in his arms, but she motioned him to keep back with a scared, wistful look, and a ghastly smile, that chilled him to the heart.

"He is conscious," she said. "I thought you would wish to know. There is yet a hope, and God is merciful. Surely I am not to lose all in one day at one blow!"

"He will get well, sweetheart," answered John Garnet, hopefully, "and live, I pray, for many a long year to come. In a few weeks he will be strong enough to leave his bed, and, Nelly, he will be able to give me the girl I love with his own hand."

The last sentence he whispered in her ear, but she started away from him, and her face, pale enough before, turned white to the very lips.

"Silence!" she exclaimed, fiercely. "You must never speak to me like that again!"

But for the pity of it, his blank amazement would have seemed absolutely ludicrous. It was as though some soft and gentle bird that he loved and cherished had turned on him, with the gaping beak and battling wings of an infuriated hawk!

"What mean you?" he gasped. "What is it? Nelly! Sweetheart! What have I done?"

"To save him from death! To save him from death!" The words seemed ringing in her brain, or she never could have nerved herself for the task she had undertaken.

"We have not gone too far to draw back, Master Garnet," she said. "There is a time for all things. Let there be no more fooling between you and me!"

She spoke lightly, even flippantly, though she felt her heart breaking. Surely there is no courage like that of a woman who makes up her mind to lead a forlorn hope.

"Fooling!" he repeated; "fooling! Do you mean to affirm that you have been fooling me all the time? Explain yourself, Mistress Carew. Have you found a new sweetheart, or is this but a sorry jest to try the temper of the old?"

She bowed her head in assent. If she made him angry, she thought it would be easier to effect a rupture. And yet, to part from him unkindly! ah! if she could but fall down then and there, tell him the truth, and die!

He felt utterly perplexed, astounded, incredulous, yet wounded to the very heart. It seemed so impossible she should have ceased to care for him, even while the announcement was on her very lips. Stiffly, and with an offended air, extremely unlike the frank and kindly bearing that was one of John Garnet's characteristics, he made a low bow, and observed quietly:

"No lady need fear persecution from me. Forgive my repeating to you, Mistress Carew, that I loved you dearly, and believed you cared for me in return."

"I know it," she said, and but for a choking sensation in her throat would have added something more.

"I have deceived myself strangely, it seems," he continued, trying to meet her eyes, which she kept averted from his face. "Nevertheless, I think I am entitled to demand the cause of this sudden dismissal. I should not like to lose my respect for you, Mistress Carew, even though I must try to forget my own unreasonable love."

Still that catching in the throat. She loosened the black velvet band round her neck, before she could answer.

"Master Garnet," she said, "it is not good for you to be here. You ought never to have come. I blame myself you have not sooner gone away. Believe me, the air of Porlock means death. If you—you ever cared for me, as you say, depart at once, to-day, this very hour, and put the blue sea between us, for my sake!"

"For your sake?" This was surely a new experience of the sex, thought John Garnet; was ever woman so incomprehensible? Was ever woman so lovely, and so beloved?

"For my sake," she repeated, and the blue eyes met his own without flinching. "Master Garnet, I am going to be married, and your presence here conduces neither to my happiness nor your own."

"Married? Tell me at least the name of the man you have chosen."

There was no bitterness in his tone. Only a deep sorrow and a kindly interest that told of unselfish affection, wounded but not destroyed.

"Parson Gale," she answered, speaking very fast and glancing wildly about her. "Does it surprise you? Is it strange? Does it not seem like a jest?" She burst into a painful laugh, shrill, harsh, and by no means suggestive of mirth. He looked anxiously in her face, wondering more and more.

"Mistress Carew," he said, in a grave earnest voice, "I pray you may be happy!" and offered his hand.

She caught it in both her own, with a low, sobbing cry, pressed it to her heart, her lips, her eyes now streaming with tears, flung it from her in hysteric violence, and rushed out of his presence, leaving John Garnet utterly bewildered and dismayed.

Even now he could not bring himself to admit that all was over between them, though wholly unable to account for his sweetheart's inexplicable conduct, and completely at a loss what to think, and what to believe.

Later in the day, wandering restlessly to and fro, unwilling to leave its vicinity, he observed Parson Gale ride through the village of Porlock, dismount at old Carew's door, tie his horse there by the bridle, and enter the house without farther ceremony. Then, for the first time in his life, he felt that keen pang of jealousy, which is at once the test, and the punishment of love.

The Parson, notwithstanding certain misgivings, smothered in his own breast, that his wooing, although successful, was attended by many hindrances and drawbacks, had attired himself, as became his new character, with unusual care and splendour. The rusty old riding suit was replaced by a glossy black coat and waistcoat. His boots were clean, his spurs bright, and a new steel buckle shone in the band of his hat. More than one acquaintance whom he met in his ride, grinned admiringly, and asked himself, in his own vernacular, "Wot the dickens Payson wur up to now?"

But Abner Gale, like the rest of mankind, was doomed to learn, that, in a love chase, as in a stag hunt, checks, disappointments, falls, and other casualties must be encountered and endured. He had bought his pearl at a great price, no less than the loss of his revenge, and it seemed there should be nothing to do now, but to stretch out his hand and place the jewel in his breast. He felt sore and angry, like a man defrauded of his rights, or overreached in a bargain, to find himself kept waiting nearly an hour in old Carew's parlour, and greeted at last by Nelly, with a pale, serious face, and eyes full of tears.

He was a brisk suitor enough, to do him justice, entertaining no very exalted notions of women's coyness and delicacy, but holding rather to certain old-fashioned maxims inculcating promptitude and decision, protesting that "faint heart never won fair lady," and always impatient to "strike while the iron was hot." Yet even Parson Gale felt abashed to meet that serious, heart-broken gaze, and he could no more have offered to kiss her cheek than if she had been a queen on the throne.

Coldly, quietly, as though there were nothing more between them than the intercourse of common acquaintance, she informed him of her grandfather's illness, and her own fears for its result, adding that he required constant attendance; and Master Gale must not think her uncivil or inhospitable if she could spare him only a few minutes of her company in this climax of sorrow and distress.

Perhaps she never thought so well of him as when he released her hand with that respect which real misery commands from the roughest of natures, while he bade her, in a tone of unfeigned sympathy, "Keep her heart up, and never say die; for while there's life there's hope!"

"Not for me, Master Gale!" answered poor Nelly, now breaking down completely. "Oh! grandfather, grandfather! I had but you in the world!" Then she hid her face in her hands, and he saw by the action of her shoulders that she was sobbing as if her heart would break.—He dashed a tear from his own rough cheek.

"I'll take my leave now, Mistress Nelly," said he, "only wishing I could be of service to you, or do you good. Is there nothing you can think of? I'd go fasting and bare-foot from here to—to Jerusalem!" declared the Parson, who had not an idea where it was, "if I thought I could take the weight of a feather off the burden you have to bear!"

She only waved him away with one hand, keeping her tear-stained face buried in the other. He had already reached the door, when a bright thought suggested itself, and he turned back.

"Mistress Nelly!" he exclaimed, "if there's a doctor in England can cure good Master Carew, I know where he is to be found. I'll wager a gallon I bring him to this house within four hours of the present time." The familiar expression denoted that Parson Gale was thoroughly in earnest.

Nelly looked up through her tears. "God bless you for your kindness, at anyrate," she sobbed. "What is he? Who is he? Send for him at once!"

He turned, with his hand on the door. "The man is in hiding," he answered, "and may be afraid to come, for there is a price on his head. But this is a case of life and death, and if he refuses, I'll tie him hand and foot, by George, bundle him on to a horse, and carry him with me at a gallop across the moor!"

With this valorous promise, Abner Gale swung himself into the saddle, and in a few seconds was clattering up the stony lane from Porlock at his utmost speed. Regardless of his new clothes and the lustre of his boots, he pursued his way at the same headlong pace, through deep coombes and shallow streams, miry swamps, and tufted banks of heather, till he gained the open moor, and only drew bridle when he reached that lone and sequestered valley in which the gipsies had pitched their camp. Through it he rode like a madman, scattering the swarthy little half-naked children to right and left beneath his horse's feet. At the door of a brown weather-stained tent, sat Fin Cooper mending a kettle, and here the Parson halted with a jerk.

"Where's the priest?" said he. "I want him this instant. 'Tis to save a man's life!"

"What priest?" asked Fin, looking lazily up from his work.

"Katerfelto," explained Gale.

"Katerfelto," repeated the gipsy. "He would not thank you for calling him by his name!"

CHAPTER XXVIII.

SELF-DEFENCE.

He did not thank him. The Charlatan, who had closely shaven his venerable beard, and adopted, with their reserved demeanour, the precise and sombre habit of the Jesuits, was sitting down to an excellent stew, whereof the savour, notwithstanding his preoccupation, rose gratefully to the Parson's nostrils. But his business admitted of no delay, even for such temptation as a mess of game and venison cooked gipsy-fashion; and, laying his heavy hand on the other's shoulder, he addressed him by name, bidding him shortly "rise and get to the saddle, since a patient was dying for want of him. And even to those who knew it best, 'twas a sorry pastime riding the moor in the dark!"

Katerfelto started, looking about uneasily, for Dick Boss and his satellites. "Hush! good Master Gale," said he; "a man may have more names than one, and I am known as Father Constant here. The person you speak of fled the country a week ago. You owe him some gratitude, or I am mistaken. 'Twould be a scurvy trick to lay the bloodhounds on his track."

"Never fear, man!" answered the Parson, heartily. "Safe and undisturbed as a November stag shalt thou remain, so long as thou harbourest with us? 'Tis but a cast of thy trade I am asking thee, as though I bade Fin Cooper do me a bit of tinkering on a worn-out kettle. We must have thee down at Porlock to stop a hole in a man's life. Fin is putting a saddle on the sure-footed roan even now. I take no denial, Master Katerfelto. If you come not of good will, I shall carry you thither by force."

"Needs must, when the devil drives," answered the other; "and the proverb seems to hold good with a West-country parson. But, I pray you, let us ride softly and fairly. Lancets and scalpels are none the better for shaking, and I had as lief be hanged by King George, as break my neck in a Devonshire bog!"

Nervous of temperament, loving his ease, and unaccustomed to the saddle, there yet lurked in Katerfelto that professional instinct which seems to pervade every disciple of the healing science. He left his dinner unfinished for a scamper over the moor, regretful indeed, yet with admirable promptitude in the hope of saving a fellow-creature's life. He had practised medicine and surgery before he took to conspiracy and imposition, entertained sufficient confidence in his own skill, believing it greater than it was; and, but for the Parson's reckless speed, and the rough nature of the ground they traversed, would have experienced a doctor's gratification in the excitement of a new case, and the exercise of his art. But that rushing, reckless, headlong ride put to flight all thoughts save those of immediate self-preservation. Fin Cooper's roan, no matter how he came by it, was a swift and sure-footed galloway, with a hard mouth and a determined will of its own. The Parson had no sooner mounted, than he urged his horse to a gallop, and proceeded at that pace up and down the steepest hills, along the most broken paths, over the roughest ground, and through the tallest heather without pause or hesitation; while the galloway, not to be outdone, followed close in its leader's track, now leaping a hidden ditch, now swerving sharply aside to avoid a ravine, anon plunging through a bog up to its girths, with snorts of emulation and defiance. Finally, when the Parson came to an abrupt halt in the gloom of Horner Woods, it bumped against his horse's quarters with a jerk, that fairly shot Katerfelto out of the saddle on its neck and ears.

"I pray you give me a moment's breathing space," urged the discomfited rider as he shuffled back into his seat, "else I warn you, Master Gale, you will bring the dead to heal the living when we arrive at our patient's door!"

"Where there's life, there's hope," answered the Parson, who, in his abstraction, regarded his companion's distress no more than the difficulties in their way. "We are close at hand now. I can hear the tide whispering in the bay. Oh! Master Katerfelto, rescue me this one man from the grasp of death, and ask Abner Gale what you will in return. I am not so bad as you think, and—and—bad as I am, I never went back from my word!"

"I'll do my best," promised the other, observing, with exceeding gratification, that their horses' hoofs now rang on a sound, hard road, and that the scanty lights which marked the village of Porlock were within a quarter of a mile.

Dismounting at old Carew's door, the Parson ushered Katerfelto into Nelly's presence, and while he felt reassured to learn that her grandfather was still alive, could not but mark with deep concern the ravages a few hours of distress and vexation had made on the sweet face of his promised wife. He seemed, however, to recognise one consolation in the midst of all his troubles and anxieties—John Garnet must be far enough off by this time, and there was nothing more to fear from the rival, whose absence he had purchased at the price of his own revenge. In his self-satisfaction, the Parson almost fancied himself a benevolent and forgiving man, with virtues only now coming to maturity, who deserved to be happy because he was good.

Establishing the Doctor in Carew's house, under his grand-daughter's care, Abner Gale had the grace to take his own departure without delay, and rode home through the dark, elated at the successful issue of his enterprise, and the matrimonial prospects opening before him, but unmoved by Nelly's wan looks and obvious misery, as by the north wind that blew so keen at his back in angry gusts, powdering the sleeves of his riding-coat with something whiter than sleet, something, that a month later in the year he would have called snow.

"She never could live a week in that old house," muttered the Parson, turning his collar up to his ears, "unprotected and alone. She would come home to Abner Gale's roof, for sure, as kind and willing as a bird to the nest. It won't be long first, my beauty, for, if this is to be winter in earnest, the cold will bring the old man down like an apple off a tree!"

And the Parson was right. Carew's life was indeed ebbing swiftly and surely away; yet much had to come and go, even at this quiet village of Porlock, before his shattered storm-worn bark could reach her peaceful moorings in that Fair Haven—"where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest."

Katerfelto did his duty, and Nelly scarcely left the patient's bedside for a minute at a time. If skill and attention could have saved him, old Carew might have been kept alive for many a week to come; but the last few grains in the hour-glass seem to dribble away the fastest, and it was no more obvious to the doctor who watched, than to the girl who prayed, that with sinking strength and failing vitality, the question was no longer of days, but of hours.

In this her sore distress, how could John Garnet find it in his heart to leave the neighbourhood of the woman he loved? How could he bear to think of her loneliness, protected only by the hateful attentions of Parson Gale? He lingered on imprudently enough, visiting the house at frequent intervals for news of the dying man, and pressing many a crown-piece on the sorrowful servant, who was the only person visible to answer his inquiries.

Yet his pale and anxious looks had been marked by loving eyes, swimming in tears because of his constancy, his danger, and the promise that forbade further warning or expostulation. Herself unseen, Nelly caught a glimpse of her lover more than once—and so did Katerfelto.

His presence filled the Charlatan with indignation and alarm. They had been concerned together in a conspiracy against the Government, and either of them, so argued Katerfelto, could hang the other. If John Garnet recognised him, it was more than probable that he would endeavour to secure his own safety, or at least a commutation of capital punishment, by informing against his confederate.

The grey horse, the arms, the money, all would be traced back to the master-spirit that originated the plot, and there would be no escape for him then! John Garnet must be destroyed at once, without scruple and without delay. The means were close at hand. The Parson made no secret of his attachment to Nelly Carew, and Katerfelto seemed to know by instinct that in such a character as Gale's, jealousy once aroused could be lulled by nothing short of a deadly and final revenge. After all, he did but act in self-defence! He owed John Garnet a grudge, perhaps, for the abduction of Waif; but it was no question of petty injuries or reprisals now. Simply a choice of evils. John Garnet or himself had to pay the penalty of high-treason at Tyburn. Of course, it must be John Garnet!

So, when Parson Gale rode down to Porlock on his daily visit of inquiry, the Charlatan motioned him into the little parlour, and closed the door on their conference, with a mysterious face.

"My business here," he began, in his dry, sarcastic tone, "lies with symptoms rather than affections, and concerns the liver more than the heart. Nevertheless, I can understand men's devices, though I cannot sympathise with their follies, and I see well enough, Master Gale, there is no price you would grudge to pay for a pair of blue eyes that are sore with weeping and watching in the chamber overhead."

"What of that?" asked the other abruptly; for Nelly's persistent avoidance of him on the plea of her grandfather's danger vexed him to the heart.

"Not much, in my opinion," answered Katerfelto; "but it may be something in yours. The same cause produces different effects. You carry a pebble in your pocket without inconvenience, but put it in your shoe, and I defy you to walk across the room. You love this girl, Master Gale, and I know it. Do you want to lose her?"

The Parson must have been very much in earnest, for he neither stormed nor swore, but only turned a shade paler, and said, in a low, thick voice, "Lose her!—I had rather lose my own soul!"

"Then look a little closer after her," was the reply. "There's another man within a stone's-throw who loves blue eyes, may be as well as you do. He comes to the house daily. Aye, half-a-dozen times a day!"

"What manner of man?" asked the Parson, still in the same low, concentrated voice.

"A straight, handsome young spark," answered Katerfelto, "with bright eyes and dark clustering hair. Tush, Master Gale, you know him well enough—'tis none other than my former patient, 'plain' John Garnet!"

"When was he here last?"

"To-day—not an hour ago—a few minutes before you arrived. Stay, Master Gale—you seem in a prodigious hurry to be gone. See! you have forgotten your riding-glove."

"Give it Master Garnet when next he comes," said the Parson, in no louder tones than before, but with a look in his eyes that made even Katerfelto's blood run cold, "and tell him from me the harbourer shall not claim his right next time I set my stag up to bay. He will know what I mean. Oh! Nelly, Nelly!" he murmured, with a sob, while he unhitched his bridle from the garden palings, "I would have kept to my bargain if you had kept to yours!"

The Charlatan, returning to his medical duties perfectly satisfied that his object was in course of accomplishment, observed that Nelly was not as usual in attendance on her grandfather. She entered the room, however, within a minute or two, so pale and calm, that he had not the least suspicion she could have overheard any part of his conversation with the Parson.

Nevertheless, that evening, John Garnet found on his supper-table a letter, the first he had ever received from her, bearing no signature, and consisting only of the following lines:

"They have resolved on your destruction. Fly at once. Perhaps hereafter I shall see you again. Think no more of what I said. I will never marry him. I had rather die first."

That was all, but it set John Garnet acting as well as thinking. His preparations were soon made, a small valise was packed, his arms were carefully examined and fresh primed, finally he visited his horse in the stable, saw to his corn, his shoes, his saddle and bridle, all the requirements indispensable for the morrow, when, with the first appearance of day, he would have to ride for his life.

Lastly, he passed once more under Nelly's windows, and watched, with a strange, sad longing, the point of light that denoted her vigil by the dying man's bed. Then he turned back to his lodging for a few hours' rest, more depressed and sick at heart than he had ever felt before. The north wind howled angrily, stripping their autumn leaves in scores from the bending boughs of the orchard, while every now and then, an ungathered apple came to the ground with a thud. It was a dreary night, pain and sorrow within, cold and desolation without. A hopeless mourner above, a weary watcher below, for something told John Garnet that old Carew's life was ebbing away with every passing minute, and that death was busy up yonder, while here the snow fell thick and fast.

CHAPTER XXIX.

REMORSE.

In the gipsies' camp a night of snow and storm was accepted without a murmur, and provided against in a spirit of ingenuity and forethought peculiar to such wayfarers, as love the shelter of no roof so well as the canopy of heaven. Fin Cooper in his tent, at the door of which crackled a liberal fire of roots and brushwood, filling the interior with warmth, and indeed smoke, declared himself as happy as a king! He had all his comforts about him, and most of his possessions within call, nor wanted a sufficient share of such superfluities as made the luxuries of his hard unsophisticated life. There was a dressed skin for his couch, a good blanket for his coverlet, and a soft shawl doubled over an anker of brandy for his pillow. In the kettle steamed a hare, a brace of partridges, and a haunch from the fore-quarter of a red-deer. With food, rest, and warmth, good liquor in his cup and good tobacco in his pipe, Fin could not but admit that, so long as his tent held waterproof, he was not much to be pitied, even on a Devonshire moor under an early fall of snow. To-night, also, he considered himself more fortunate than usual, as he shared these advantages with no less welcome a visitor than Waif, accompanied, for reasons of propriety, by her grandmother, an old Egyptian, reputed to have once been handsome, and of fascinating demeanour, now, to say the least, a remarkable person in appearance, grim, taciturn, given to drink, and seldom condescending to remove a short black pipe from her mouth.

His promised wife, on the contrary, seemed in high spirits, as she was unquestionably in great beauty. Her black eyes, flushed and sparkled, her tawny cheek glowed with a rich deep crimson, while her manner betrayed no little self-assertion, her tone something, amounting almost to defiance, when addressed by her future lord. Talkative she never had been from childhood, but to-night she was less taciturn than usual, and seemed strangely eager to break such occasional silence as gave scope for her own thoughts.

Fin, looking on her with admiring eyes, did not fail to notice that in figure she had grown thin, to leanness, and that there shone a brilliancy, unnatural even for a gipsy, in the uneasy glances that watched his movements so narrowly, yet never rested for an instant on his face.

Thyra always seemed unlike other girls, thought Fin, and this preoccupation, no doubt, was but the slyness of love.

He took her hand, while the old beldame was busy refilling her pipe, and raised the slender, shapely fingers to his lips, with a comely grace, that a gipsy wears no less naturally than a prince of the blood.

"To-morrow, Thyra," said he, "you will make Fin Cooper the happiest man alive. To-morrow we shall be one in the sight of all our people, never to part again. The parson of the Gorgios joins a couple by the hand, like a brace of thieves chained together in the dock, but the Romipen of the Romany, a true gipsy marriage, solders them heart to heart, as I would weld tin and copper into brass! To-morrow, my lass, you will be mine. To-night I am altogether yours. Ask me what you will, beautiful Thyra, I can deny you nothing at such a time as this!"

Her hand remained in his while he spoke: when he dropped it she shivered from head to foot.

"I am cold," she murmured, "so cold. There will be snow to-morrow, Fin, deep snow, amongst these hills. The Gorgio bride wears white on her marriage-day. A Romany lass might do worse than follow the example."

Her fixed gaze, that seemed looking on some object miles and miles away, her sorrowful tone, so quiet and so very weary, disturbed him. He caught her hand once more, and would have drawn her into his arms, but for the shake and snort of a horse at the tent-door, and Parson Gale's well-known voice, bidding him rouse and show himself, with a tass of brandy in his hand.

A man who has little to offer is usually very hospitable. Fin sprang forward to welcome the intruder, with cordial alacrity, and summoned a bare-legged urchin from half-a-score within call, to lead the Parson's horse into a sheltered nook behind the adjoining copse, where two or three donkeys were pulling at a truss of hay. Abner Gale was then hurried into the tent, and supplied with brandy; the inclemency of the weather rendering that liquor unusually grateful to his burly frame.

"All friends, here?" asked the Parson, holding the untasted cup in his hand.

"All friends," replied Fin Cooper. "The old woman is stone deaf, and this time to-morrow Thyra will be my wife!"

Gale was equal to the occasion. Ere Waif could turn her head, he imprinted a kiss on her cheek, and tossed off the brandy to her health.

"I claim my priest's dues," said he gallantly, "the first right to salute a bride. And now to business, Fin. Not a moment is to be lost. I want to borrow the sure-footed roan again to-night. I'll pay you handsome this time."

With the lofty politeness of men who deal in horses honestly or otherwise, Fin ignored the question of money altogether.

"Oh! that's nothing between me and you," said the gipsy; "but the last journey you went our roan might as well have been stag-hunting. You must have galloped him a dozen miles on end without drawing bridle. 'Tis a good little beast as was ever bred on the moor, but I needn't tell you, Parson, that horseflesh is not iron. What do you want with him, now?"

"To mount Dick Boss," was the answer.

Fin made a wry face, and Waif held her breath. A sheriff's officer seemed the last person to whom it was natural for a gipsy to lend his horse.

Parson Gale put his head out at the tent-door, looked about him into the dark night through which snow-flakes were falling thick; and, having satisfied himself, he could not be overheard, proceeded to unfold his plans, the more frankly that he had every reason to count on the assistance of both his listeners.

"There's money be to got by the job," said he, with an evil scowl on his heavy brows. "Blood-money, but what of that? We will share and share alike. This pretty lass of yours, Fin, she found out where the deer harboured. You and Dick Boss, and another handy chap or two, shall help me take him, and when King George comes down with the reward, God bless him—there will be twenty guineas each to spend in drink! If that won't make a blithe wedding, Fin Cooper, I'll engage to remain a bachelor till my dying day!"

The gipsy was a man of business. "And your share, Parson?" he asked, calculating the sum to be divided with great exactitude.

"I don't desire to be paid," replied the Parson. "I do it for the sport!"

Waif leaped from her seat, with flashing eyes, and her hand on the knife she always wore, but sank back laughing wildly, and speaking in short disjointed gasps.

"Good!" she said. "Good! He's the right sort, Fin, this Gorgio. Bid him tell us how he means to set about the job."

Fin Cooper, turning to the Parson, thought he had never seen so wicked a smile as that which gleamed in Gale's eyes, and curled round his mouth while he repeated, "I do it for the sport, lad; he's a right deer, I tell ye; and if I don't set him up to-morrow, I swear I'll never go hunting again."

"That's why you want the roan?" asked Fin, turning the matter over in his mind, as a question of profit and loss.

"Right," answered the Parson; "Dick Boss must be on a good nag, and so must I. If John Garnet should get the wind of us, he'll show a clean pair of heels, you may take your oath. But what of that? Let worst come to worst, four mounted men spreading wide, and knowing every yard of the ground, ought to ride him down, though the grey horse had a wing at each foot instead of an iron shoe. But that's not my plan. Hark ye, Fin; we'll be in the saddle before daybreak, and we'll take him while he's asleep."

Waif stirred uneasily, but only muttered again, "Good! good! Mind what he says, Fin, for surely the Gorgio speaks fair."

"'Tis as easy as drinking out of a glass," continued the Parson, scarce noticing her interruption. "Dick Boss and the roan, his two men riding their own nags, yourself, Fin, on something that can gallop a bit, I never knew you without one—and game old Cassock to bring me along with the best of ye. It would be a rare chase, lad—I could almost wish he might slip through our fingers, and ride for it over the moor, but he'll never have the chance, Fin; he'll never have the chance!"

"Suppose he shows fight, Parson," suggested the gipsy, who was a bold fellow enough on occasion, but regarded such matters with a keen eye to business. "'Tis none of your dunghill fowls this, but a cock of the game, with never a morsel of white in his wing, put him down where you will. Suppose he lugs out on Dick Boss, and whistles a brace of balls into you and me?"

"I'm not afraid of him," answered Gale; "it makes no difference in the reward, Fin, whether we take him dead or alive."

"Come back, Thyra!" exclaimed the gipsy, with more of a husband's authority than was yet permissible in his tone. "Where are you going, lass? Come back, I tell ye."

She was already through the tent-door, but returned at his bidding. "It's stifling hot in here, Fin," she said; "I should have choked but for that mouthful of fresh air."

"And you were so cold a while ago," he replied, watching her narrowly. "Parson Gale," he added, turning to his visitor, "take the roan and welcome. The lad will show you where to find him. I'll meet you at the head of the coombe an hour before daybreak. It's a job that won't work well in the dark; but the less time we put off the better when once the sun's up. Will you take another cup of brandy, Parson? You've a cold ride before you, and we've not done with the snow yet."

But Gale declined, and Waif, who suffered nothing to escape her notice, argued from this unusual abstinence an intense longing to work out the project of his revenge.

So John Garnet was to be in the power of his enemies, bound hand and foot, delivered over to a shameful death, with to-morrow's dawn, and it wanted but three hours of daylight now. John Garnet, with his merry eyes, his winning smile, and frank, kindly face. Was this to be the end of all? The nightcap, and the nosegay, and the hangman's cart rumbling over the stones on Tyburn-hill. John Garnet, the man she used to love so dearly she would have followed him bare-footed through the world. And it was her doing—her revenge. Yes! If she had driven a knife into his throat she could not more surely have slain him, than when she betrayed the secret of his hiding-place, and denounced him to Parson Gale. The man she used to love, the man she loved so fondly, so madly still. Now that it was too late, the whole tide of her feelings seemed to turn, and she would have given her own life freely, then and there, to save him, aye even for the blue-eyed girl, whom from the moment she saw them whispering together in the orchard she hated, with the fierce, pitiless hatred of her race.

She gasped for breath, the tent and its occupants swam before her eyes; a deadly faintness seemed to hang fetters of ice about her limbs, and she turned sick, with a maddening fear, lest the strength and hardihood she had so prized might fail her, in this, the extremity of her need.

Fin Cooper watched her with shrewd suspicious glances. The gipsy, a man of few words, but keen in perception, and ready of resource, drew his own conclusions from the restlessness he could not fail to notice in his promised wife, and resolved not to let her out of his sight till he started on horseback to join Parson Gale and his satellites. Once in the saddle, he had no fear that Waif could outstrip them, or give John Garnet warning of his danger, till he was safe in their hands.

So he sat and smoked in silence, stretching his legs across his own tent-door, while Waif gnawed her lip in an agony of remorse within, and the snow fell fast through the darkness without. But towards dawn the air turned colder and the sky began to clear. Fin Cooper rose, shook himself, drank a mouthful of brandy, and bestowing a sarcastic nod on its inmates, left the tent to saddle his horse and depart. In a moment the girl slipped out behind him, and, lightly clad as she was, sped through the sleeping encampment, swift and noiseless as a deer. Her grandmother, waking from a doze, never doubted but that Thyra had returned to her own tent, and unwilling to face the night-air, composed herself to sleep again with the pipe still in her mouth. Fin Cooper, riding steadily up the coombe, chuckled to think how he had outwitted his bride, and stifled the pangs of jealousy it seemed so unreasonable to entertain, now that the lapse of an hour or two must deliver his rival into his hand, while the swarm of gipsies he left behind him, huddled up in their blankets under their canvas coverings, snored healthily and loud, thinking little, and caring less, about the pearl of their tribe, her anguish, her sorrows, her coming espousals, or, indeed, anything but their own warmth, comfort, and repose.

So Waif sped on, fast as her supple limbs could carry her, through the copse, and up the coombe, and across the moor, wrapped in its cheerless shroud, stretching, as it seemed in her impatience, to a limitless expanse that mortal foot could never compass, mortal eye was powerless to scan. Oh! for the wings of the curlew! Oh! for the speed of the red-deer. She would give all the rest of her life, willingly, thankfully, for two leagues, only two leagues, less to traverse, for two hours, only two hours more to spare. Was it the snow that showed everything so distinctly, or was this really the light of morning stealing, cold and pitiless, over a world of white? Toiling, hurrying, panting, all agape with pain and fear, she yet found breath to curse the coming day. And still she hardly knew how or why she was straining nerve and sinew in this desperate race. There could be nothing in common now, between herself and the man whom she hated so bitterly, yet loved so well. He had deceived her, aye, as he had deceived many another, before it came to her turn (here Waif's small white teeth closed hard on her dainty lip), and would deceive more, no doubt, hereafter, with the same alluring smile, if through her agency he should escape the penalty of his misdeeds, and survive for future treachery. How could he be so false, so cruel, so heartless? Were all men like this, Fin Cooper and the rest, or was John Garnet a vile exception to his kind? She knew not, she cared not. Good or bad, she loved him! she loved him! how could she ever have thought otherwise? and she would do all in her power to save him, cost what it might.

Oh, that endless stretch of moor—those weary dragging miles! Curse them! Curse them! It was broad daylight already, and she had only now caught sight of the Severn Sea, lowering a dark and sullen line beyond the snowy waste. A band of iron seemed to enclose her head, a weight to drag at each of her limbs, a cold hand to tighten round her heart. What if her strength were to fail, and she should be too late after all.

To see him once again!—once again! Only to look in his face and die! She would be content then, and ask for nothing more. But the time passed, ah! so quickly, and her lagging feet so laboured in the snow-drifts, that he might be taken long before she could arrive at Porlock, and even then the only mercy she asked of heaven might be denied.

Her lips were parched and dry, her knees trembled, she could hold out at such exhausting speed no longer, and yet she had scarce accomplished half the distance to her goal. She knew that deep, dark ravine well, narrowing yonder in her front to some eight or nine yards from bank to bank. It would save more than a mile could she cross it at that point where the blighted fir-tree stood. Above and below it widened into a deep precipitous coombe, tangled with brushwood, through which a silver thread of running water laughed and whispered many a fathom down in its slippery bed of stones. No. It was too far to leap, and she must go round. She lost heart utterly; and the wind, rising once more in mocking gusts, seemed to flout and buffet her, driving another snow-storm in her face.