Captain Kyd Volume I Part 26

"He, he, he! Elpsy, thou art pleasant. If the lad's gone, I'll make the best o't till the saints give him back in good time. Come to my hut and break thy fast, avourneen! He was ever o'er lofty, and had notions above his cla.s.s. He was unhappy, the creature, because he was not equal with the young Lord o' Castle More. Be-dad! Elpsy, honey, one would ha'

thought he were of gentle blood!"

She started, and closely scrutinized the old fisherman's face; but, seeing nothing to confirm her now constantly active suspicions, she said,

"He was above his birth, as you say, gossip! The sea will be a school for him, and teach him his place. He will make a better sailor than lord. Ha, ha, ha! will he not, father Meredith?" and she laughed coldly and sarcastically as she spoke.

"He was always a good sailor, Elpsy, woman! Ne'er a s.h.i.+p came int' the Cove he went not up to her main truck; nor a craft lay becalmed i' the sight o' the bay he went not aboard and through every part o' her. He knew every rope in a s.h.i.+p as well as an admiral, the crathur! Ah, woman, he could do an officer's duty this day as well as the keptain o' the yacht yonder. He seemed to take to a seaman's life nat'rally, and it was ever discontented he was in the skiff. He loved to talk o' big s.h.i.+ps, and foreign lands, battles by sea, and storms, and s.h.i.+pwreck, and the likes o' them things; and, with all his high notions, he ever loved a sailor betther than a lord, and the sailors all liked him, the jewil!"

"He is in his place, then, father Meredith," said Elpsy, chiming in with the favourable train of the old fisherman's garrulous praises of the youth. "Thou wouldst not call him ash.o.r.e now an thou couldst."

"Nay, I would not say that, Elpsy, woman. Yet I begin to think the lad be best where he is. Yet it will be a dark day to my soul when the s.h.i.+p sails a-sea with him--the light o' my eyes! the core o' my heart! Och, hone! Sad will be the day to the soul o' me, Elpsy, woman! Come in, crathur, honey, an' take a bite o' the breakfast. It's you it is that's the comfort o' my lone bosom now, avourneen!"

"No, no, I have much to do the mornin', old man!" she said, turning from the door as the fisherman, after standing his oars up beside it, placed his hand upon the latch. "Take the gold freely; it is thine!" she added, casting it through the window upon the earthen floor of the cabin. "When the s.h.i.+p sails I will eat."

"Take a drap o' the dew, Elpsy, dear!" continued the old man, the grief, which at his age is always superficial, having, like a child's, been diverted for the time by the rattling gossip of the weird woman.

"Elpsy will fast from all save water till the masts of yonder yacht are shut from my sight by the meeting of sea and sky!"

She waved her hand with a lofty gesture as she spoke, as if she sought to impress the fisherman by her manner alone, and strode away from the hut towards the path that led up to the castle.

Grace Fitzgerald, after communicating the result of her interview with Mark, had left Kate to her repose. But, with grief at her feud with Lester, and her lively antic.i.p.ations of beholding him at her feet, to be raised from that humble posture to her forgiving embrace, her mind was too active for rest, and sleep fled from her pillow, leaving it in the sole possession of her ardent thoughts. With the first blush of day, her face scarce less roseate than the morning sky with the consciousness of her object, she rose and threw open her lattice, and turned her face, with earnest expectation, towards the forest-path which led northward towards Castle More. From time to time she would lean far out of the window, and, with eager ear, listen as if to catch some distant sound.

At length, with a look and exclamation of disappointment, not undivested of a slight shade of feminine pique, she closed the lattice and cast herself upon her pillow again, saying, in a tone of wounded pride,

"I care not! he is unworthy of a thought! I will forget him and try to sleep!"

She closed her eyelids, as if, at the same time, she expected her fevered thoughts, like the flower which folds its leaves together when the sun withdraws its light, would also shut themselves up and leave her to repose. But she now thought more vividly and acutely than before. It at length occurred to her that there might have been some delay on the part of the messenger. Perhaps Lester had not yet got her pacquet, or had just received it, and was now on his way to her!

"I will wait a little longer!" she said, unclosing her eyes, and rising and going to the lattice.

A long time she remained here, with her eyes fixed on the forest path, and her ears acutely set, to catch the most distant sound of horses'

feet.

"He comes not yet!" she sighed, with deep disappointment. "Yet he may soon be here! Hark! is not that his horse? No, 'tis a deer bounding along to the spring!"

At the moment a cool vein of wind from the sea chilled her, and, glancing at her dress as she drew it together across her bosom, she discovered, what she had hitherto been inattentive to, that she was in her night-robes.

"And I dare say I should have run to meet him as I am! What a foolish child!" she said, blus.h.i.+ng with confusion and innocent shame. "'Tis fortunate he did not come before! I will dress, and by that time he may be here!"

Hope, hope, hope! Star of woman's love! In thy celestial journeyings, thou dost never set on the limitless empire of her affections. Her wide heart has no horizon beneath which thou canst go down and disappear.

Patient, long suffering, ever hoping to the last, she steers by thee her bark of love through storm and danger, faithfully and fearlessly, never losing sight of thee till, from her expectant eye, death steals the power of reflecting longer thy radiance!

When she had completed her toilet, and found that there were still no indications of Lester's approach, she became impatient, and, throwing a hood and veil over her head, she left her chamber and hastened below.

For what purpose she hardly knew--impulse alone prompted her footsteps.

She hastened through the hall, and descended into the castle yard, and directed her course towards the forest. She had entered the verge of its gloomy shades, which the morning sun had scarcely yet driven out, and was penetrating its depths, when she suddenly stopped.

"Where am I going? what am I doing?" she exclaimed, as if her feet had been involuntarily obeying her thoughts. .h.i.therto, and she for the first time had discerned that she was really doing what she supposed she was only thinking of doing. Such absent reveries are peculiar to young persons in love!

"Am I really going to meet him? I did not know that I did love Lester so. But he would scorn me to find me here--I will hasten back as I came--though I scarce have any consciousness how that was! What a simple creature I have made of myself. I am afraid of my own ridicule. Oh love, love, you do play the mischief with maiden's hearts when once you get into them!" she said, sportively, yet ending her words with a deep sigh.

Turning back, she retraced her steps slowly towards the castle. As she approached it, her eyes were attracted by the pavilions, which still remained standing, and, bending her steps towards the lawn, she entered that which had been the scene of the yesterday's festival. No signs of the banquet remained--all, save the curtains of the tent, and one or two rustic sofas within it, were removed. She seated herself on one of these, and raising the north side of the tent-hangings by one of the silken cords attached to them, was enabled, without being seen, to command the avenue to the forest. With her person bent a little forward, and holding her handkerchief in her hand, as if prepared to wave it at an instant's notice, she sat watching in the direction in which she expected Lester to appear.

"I will meet him here," she said; "I would not have even cousin Grace, good as she is, to witness our interview of reconciliation. Oh, why does he linger so! Well, Robert, I have been taught a lesson in a knowledge of my own heart by this; and, let us but meet in peace once more, I will bear much ere I will make either you or myself so miserable again."

She sighed deeply as she spoke, and a glittering tear, like a drop of dew shaken from a spray, fell upon her hand.

"Surely he cannot love me, to linger so!" she said, dropping her aching eyes, which had long kept watch on the distant path.

"Proud maiden, thou hast spoken truly! he loves thee not!"

Kate turned in alarm as the stern, harsh voice that spoke these words sounded close to her ear, and beheld the weird woman.

"Elpsy!" she cried, rising and speaking between terror and surprise.

"The _witch_ Elpsy, lady," added the sorceress, sarcastically.

"What would you, woman?"

"Thyself."

"How mean you?" exclaimed the maiden, shrinking involuntarily back.

"Fear me not, lady!" she said, slowly and with mysterious emphasis, as she gazed on the face of the fair girl, her eyes gloating with a diabolical light; "I would not harm thy body, while I hold the key to thy soul."

"Fearful woman, if woman, or even human, thou art, what terrible meaning lies hidden beneath your words?"

"Thou lovest Robert of Lester?"

"Elpsy, I will not be questioned. Leave me," said Kate, her brow glowing between maidenly shame and anger.

But Elpsy, without heeding her command or seeming to observe her emotion, said, with the sardonic quiet that malice can put on when it would wound,

"Thou didst despatch a messenger to Castle More the last night, lady?"

"How knowest thou this?" she demanded, evasively, startled at her knowledge of what she believed known only to the parties immediately interested.

"Is there aught, daughter of the house of Bellamont, that happens among mortals," she said, in the elevated tone of mystery and supernatural power she was wont to a.s.sume at such times, "that Elpsy the sorceress is ignorant of?"

"I know thou art a dread and fearful woman," said Kate, with a thrill of aversion, "and have power to do evil, which, rather than good, I have heard it is thy delight to do."

"Ha, ha! thou hast well spoken," she responded, with a chuckling laugh, that caused the maiden, with all her firmness, to shudder and start back to the extremity of the pavilion.

"You fear me. Well, it is what I would have. Ho! 'Tis pleasant to be feared by the lovely and the pure--by the strong and the mighty; to be sought out by the n.o.ble, and have the homage of the low! Oh, it's a brave thing, this holding sway over the minds of mortals. Kings may govern their bodies--_we_ hold the empire of their souls! Ha, ha! So you fear me, trembler?"

"An angel would tremble before thee, guilty one!"

"Ha, ha! I know it. Thou hast spoken it. It is the reward held out to us that we shall one day master the good spirits."

"And how? Alone by the power of darkness and of sin! You conquer through fear, not by strength. Therefore it is that good spirits dare not enter the abodes of the prince of evil. Woman, thou art fearful; thy spells sinful; thy soul lost for ever!" she cried, with virtuous horror united to the natural enthusiasm of her character.