and had my strength faltered for a moment, or my foot slipped, I should have been in his power;" she leaned down her head and clasped her hands across her eyes, as if to exclude some image of horror.
"This is mere raving, child," said Ashwoode, "the veriest folly; I tell you the man is gone; you heard, if anything at all, a dog or a hare springing through the leaves, and your imagination supplied the rest. I tell you, once for all, that Blarden is threescore good miles away."
"Brother, as surely as I see you, I saw him this night," she replied. "I could not be mistaken; I saw him, and for several seconds before I could move, such was the palsy of terror that struck me. I saw him, and watched him advancing towards me—gracious heaven! for while I could reckon ten; and then, as I fled, he still pursued; he was so near that I actually heard his panting, as well as the tread of his feet;—brother—brother—there was no mistake; there could be none in this."
"Well, be it so, since you will have it," replied Ashwoode, trying to laugh it off; "you have seen his fetch—I think they call it so. I'll not dispute the matter with you; but this I will aver, that his corporeal presence is removed some fifty miles from hence at this moment; take some tea and get you to bed, child; you have got a fit of the vapours; you'll laugh at your own foolish fancies to-morrow morning."
That night Sir Henry Ashwoode, Nicholas Blarden, and their worthy confederate, Gordon Chancey, were closeted together in earnest and secret consultation in the parlour.
"Why did you act so rashly—what could have possessed you to follow the girl?" asked Ashwoode, "you have managed one way or another so thoroughly to frighten the girl, to make her so fear and avoid you, that I entirely despair, by fair means, of ever inducing her to listen to your proposals."
"Well, that does not take me altogether by surprise," said Blarden, "for I have been suspecting so much this many a day; we must then go to work in right earnest at once."
"What measures shall we take?" said Ashwoode.
"What measures!" echoed Blarden; "well, confound me if I know what to begin with, there's such a lot of them, and all good—what do you say, Gordy?"
"You ought to ask her to marry you off-hand," said Chancey, demurely, but promptly; "and if she refuses, let her be locked up, and treat her as if she was mad—do you mind; and I'll go to Patrick's-close, and bring out old Shycock, the clergyman; and the minute she strikes, you can be coupled; she'll give in very soon, you'll find; little Ebenezer will do whatever we bid him, and swear whatever we like; we'll all swear that you and she are man and wife already; and when she denies it, threaten her with the mad-house; and then we'll see if she won't come round; and you must first send away the old servants—every mother's skin of them—and get new ones instead; and that's my advice."
"It's not bad, either," said Blarden, knitting his brows twice or thrice, and setting his teeth. "I like that notion of threatening her with Bedlam; it's a devilish good idea; and I'll give long odds it will work wonders; what do you say, Ashwoode?"
"Choose your own measures," replied the baronet. "I'm incapable of advising you."
"Well, then, Gordy, that's the go," said Blarden; "bring out his reverence whenever I tip you the signal; and he shall have board and lodging until the job's done; he'll make a tip-top domestic chaplain; I suppose we'll have family prayers while he stays—eh?—ho, ho!—devilish good idea, that; and Chancey'll act clerk—eh? won't you, Gordy?" and, tickled beyond measure at the facetious suggestion, Mr. Blarden laughed long and lustily.
"I suppose I may as well keep close until our private chaplain arrives, and the new waiting-maid," said Blarden; "and as soon as all is ready, I'll blaze out in style, and I'll tell you what, Ashwoode, a precious good thought strikes me; turn about you know is fair play; and as I'm fifty miles away to-day, it occurs to me it would be a deuced good plan to have you fifty miles away to-morrow—eh?—we could manage matters better if you were supposed out of the way, and that she knew I had the whole command of the house, and everything in it; she'd be a cursed deal more frightened; what do you think?"
"Yes, I entirely agree with you," said Ashwoode, eagerly catching at a scheme which would relieve him of all prominent participation in the infamous proceedings—an exemption which, spite of his utter selfishness, he gladly snatched at. "I will do so. I will leave the house in reality."
"No—no; my tight chap, not so fast," rejoined Blarden, with a savage chuckle. "I'd rather have my eye on you, if you please; just write her a letter, dated from Dublin, and say you're obliged to go anywhere you please for a month or so; she'll not find you out, for we'll not let her out of her room; and now I think everything is settled to a turn, and we may as well get under the blankets at once, and be stirring betimes in the morning."
Chapter LIII.
The Double Farewell
Next day Mistress Betsy Carey bustled into her young mistress's chamber looking very red and excited.
"Well, ma'am," said she, dropping a short indignant courtesy, "I'm come to bid you good-bye, ma'am."
"How—what can you mean, Carey?" said Mary Ashwoode.
"I hope them as comes after me," continued the handmaiden, vehemently, "will strive to please you in all pints and manners as well as them that's going."
"Going!" echoed Mary; "why, this can't be—there must be some great mistake here."
"No mistake at all, ma'am, of any sort or description; the master has just paid up my wages, and gave me my discharge," rejoined the maid. "Oh, the ingratitude of some people to their servants is past bearing, so it is."
And so saying, Mistress Carey burst into a passion of tears.
"There is some mistake in all this, my poor Carey," said the young lady; "I will speak to my brother about it immediately; don't cry so."
"Oh! my lady, it ain't for myself I'm crying; the blessed saints in heaven knows it ain't," cried the beautiful Betsy, glancing devotionally upward through her tears; "not at all and by no means, ma'am, it's all for other people, so it is, my lady; oh! ma'am, you don't know the badness and the villainy of people, my lady."
"Don't cry so, Carey," replied Mary Ashwoode, "but tell me frankly what fault you have committed—let me know why my brother has discharged you."
"Just because he thinks I'm too fond of you, my lady, and too honest for what's going on," cried she, drying her eyes in her apron with angry vehemence, and speaking with extraordinary sharpness and volubility; "because I saw Mr. O'Connor's man yesterday—and found out that the young gentleman's letters used to be stopped by the old master, God rest him, and Sir Henry, and all kinds of false letters written to him and to you by themselves, to breed mischief between you. I never knew the reason before, why in the world it was the master used to make me leave every letter that went between you, for a day or more in his keeping. Heaven be his bed; I was too innocent for them, my lady; we were both of us too simple; oh dear! oh dear! it's a quare world, my lady. And that wasn't all—but who do you think I meets to-day skulking about the house in company with the young master, but Mr. Blarden, that we all thought, glory be to God, was I don't know how far off out of the place; and so, my lady, because them things has come to my knowledge, and because they knowed in their hearts, so they did, that I'd rayther be crucified than hide as much as the black of my nail from you, my lady, they put me away, thinking to keep you in the dark. Oh! but it's a dangerous, bad world, so it is—to put me out of the way of tellin' you whatever I knowed; and all I'm hoping for is, that them that's coming in my room won't help the mischief, and try to blind you to what's going on;" hereupon she again burst into a flood of tears.
"Good God," said Mary Ashwoode, in the low tones of horror, and with a face as pale as marble, "is that dreadful man here—have you seen him?"
"Yes, my lady, seen and talked with him, my lady, not ten minutes since," replied the maid, "and he gave me a guinea, and told me not to let on