Читать книгу Captain Kyd - J. H. Ingraham - Страница 8

Table of Contents

"From crag to crag descending—swiftly sped

Stern Conrad down, nor once he turned his head;

He bounds, he flies, until his footsteps reach

The verge where ends the cliff, begins the beach."

The Corsair.

"Dark was the flow of Oscar's hair,

But Allan's locks were bright and fair."

Oscar of Alva.

"But who is he, whose darken'd brow

Glooms in the midst of general mirth?"

Ibid.

When the hawk, which had been so skilfully struck by the arrow of Kate Bellamont, flapped himself, in his violent death-throes, over the edge of the cliff, a gallant young fisher's lad, seeing him lodge in the topmost branches of a blasted tree twenty feet below, fearlessly flung himself off the precipice, and lighted, by the aid of a limb, on a projecting rock within twelve feet of him. The cliff at this place was one hundred and forty feet in height, and, except where its surface was opened by narrow crevices, in which a few shrubs and dwarf cedars found precarious roothold, or where a fragment, hurled from its seat by the lightning, or fallen through age into the sea, left a narrow shelf, it presented to the passing boatman on the bay below a naked and gigantic wall, of nearly perpendicular ascent and inaccessible to human foot: indeed, from a midway brow seventy feet from the base, it receded, leaving a sheer descent of that space from the water, which lay black, still, and of profound depth beneath. Near the top of the cliff grew a scathed cedar, clinging with its hardy roots into a cleft in its face, and leaning threateningly over the flood. Its top reached within twenty feet of the summit of the precipice; but, inclining at an angle away from it, stood full seven feet out from its side. It was the ragged arms of this tree which caught the hawk in his descent, and where, with fierce cries of rage and pain, he struggled to free himself from the fatal shaft, but which he drove deeper and deeper into his side with every beat of his strong wing.

The young man paused after lighting upon the first landing-place, and measured with a cool glance the dizzy descent; and then fixed his gaze on the bird, whose blood-red eyes flashed forth vindictive fire as they met his, with a resolute look that conveyed a determination to capture him at whatever risk. The pliant limb of a tree growing on the summit, by which he had let himself down to the place where he stood, had, on being released, sprung back to its natural position far beyond his reach: the surface of rock, eight feet in height above him, was as even as a wall of masonry; and an upward glance satisfied him that, without assistance from those above, to reascend again would be impossible. Quietly smiling at the difficulty in which he had involved himself, the fearless lad placed his eyes again on the hawk with the confident and resolute, and almost stern, expression they had before borne, and began to examine narrowly his position, and to look about for some safe way of descending to a perilous spur, the breadth of a man's two hands, which, on peering down, he discovered projecting from the side of the rock on a level with the top of the tree. Whether governed solely by that pride of spirit which is found in most youths of high-toned feelings, he internally resolved to accomplish what he had thoughtlessly undertaken; whether actuated by the spirit of adventure, or whether fascinated by the beauty of Kate Bellamont, he wished to preserve the proud bird as a trophy of her skill; whether one or all of these motives influenced the daring fisher's lad, remains to be unfolded.

The spot on which he stood was the projecting edge of the second stratum of rock, twenty inches wide, running irregularly along the face of the precipice, and appeared to have been formed by the falling away of large chips or flakes from the upper and softer stratum. From this rim there ran a zigzag crevice, an inch wide, obliquely downward along the rock to the shelf below, on which grew a handful of long grass and two or three slender shrubs. On a level with it was the top of the tree; underneath, thirty feet below, were visible its gnarled roots clinging to a mere lip of the rock, yet vigorously inserting themselves in the neighbouring crevices; farther down, on the edge of the brow where the cliff began to incline inward, was visible yet one more foothold, scarcely a palm in breadth; below that, the shrinking eye measured a dizzy vacancy till it fell upon the still, pool-like bay beneath.

The youth surveyed these features of the dangerous precipice with a steady eye; and having coolly calculated his chance of accomplishing safely the descent of the twelve feet below him, sat down with his legs hanging over, and deliberately drew off his stout fisher's boots and hung them on a twig beside him. Then turning round, he carefully slid off and suspended his body an instant by his right hand, till he had firmly inserted the tip of one foot and the fingers of the other hand in the zigzag crevice. Releasing his right hand from its grasp on the shelf, he then carried it below the left, and having got a firm hold of the edge of the fissure, let go with the left and passed it in its turn under the right: he changed the position of his feet in the same manner so long as he could obtain, which was not always the case, a resting-place for his toes; and in this way, with cool self-possession and undaunted nerve, which even the wild cries and beating wings of the bird could not move, he succeeded in safely reaching the small projecting leaf, and stood on a level with the top of the tree. The falcon was now within seven feet of him horizontally; but he seemed as far from the attainment of his object as before. It was impossible to spring into the tree, even if its roots should not be torn from their rocky bed by the force of the leap and his weight. But the young fisherman possessed a temper that never yielded to obstacles, and seemed to be governed by a spirit that scorned defeat. Stretching himself out upon the shelf, which was just broad enough to contain his body lying sideways to the face of the rock, he looked down, and saw within reach of his arm a stout root, the strength of which he tested; and below this, within reach of his feet if he should swing himself off, was a sharp projection scarce the size of his foot; and a few inches below that, a stout limb of the tree rested against the precipice. His eye embraced at once these advantages, and he did not hesitate to avail himself of them.

Lightly, but yet with care, he committed his weight to the root, and, hanging at the full length of his arm, reached, after three unsuccessful trials, the spur below with the tip end of one of his toes. This, to one like him, was a sufficient hold to authorize him to release his grasp above. Lying, like a fly upon a wall, close against the side of the rock, he now fearlessly yet cautiously let go his hold, and stood with one foot on the projection, with no other support but his muscular adhesion to the wide wall of the precipice. This was a situation attended with the most imminent peril; and by the firmly-closed lips and the almost stern expression of his eyes, it was clear that he was fully conscious of his dangerous position. But there was no shrinking, no pallor, no sign of fear! He was equal to the danger he had braved; and, as this increased, the powers of his mind and body seemed to expand to compass it.

The branch of the tree was within a few inches of the point on which his foot rested. Slowly and cautiously he dropped his unsupported leg, while he pressed his cheek and shoulder close against the side of the cliff; for he knew that the slightest deviation from the equilibrium would be fatal. His foot at length touched the horizontal limb, which was the thickness of a man's arm where it met the rock. He repeatedly pressed upon it, each successive time harder and heavier, until he found that it would bear his whole weight. Then directing his hand carefully downward towards his feet, he placed it on the point of rock, removing his foot at the same instant to make room for it, and stood upright and with confidence on the limb.

Satisfied that the branch, which, turned back by the cliff, had forced the tree to lean over the water, would safely sustain him, he now glanced down to the foot of the tree, and began to inspect the hold of the trunk upon the shelf from which it grew. The examination afforded him no very great assurance; nevertheless, he determined to test its strength by advancing out on the limb, though aware that, if it should yield to his weight, he would be hurled with it into the sea. Even this reflection did not present any weighty objection to his making the trial; for with a fearless recklessness, for which there is no sufficient term in language, he half anticipated the possibility of such a catastrophe, and caught himself calculating the chances in favour of his taking in safety a flight into the deep pool beneath. Letting go his grasp on the point of rock, he now settled himself astride the branch, and made gradual approaches towards the trunk. It remained firm as the rock in which it was imbedded, and scarcely gave signs of feeling his weight till he touched the body, when the top slightly vibrated. He paused; but, finding it still remain fast, rose to his feet and clasped the scathed trunk, at first lightly, and then more firmly; and at last, gaining confidence, he shook it till the hawk fluttered anew in its perch. Assured of its security, his lips unclosed, and his eyes lost their severity, and with a smile of success he cast them triumphantly upward, where, but a few feet above him, entangled by the long shaft of the arrow and his broken wing, he saw the falcon secured in the crotch formed by a fork of three stumps of limbs (all that decay had left) that terminated its summit.

Without hesitation he began to climb the trunk, which, save the limb by which he had reached it, and the branches crowning it, was bare from its roots upward. This was the least difficult part of his hazardous enterprise, and he soon got within reach of the bird, and stretched one arm forth to seize him by the wing. But the fierce animal, who had for a few moments ceased his struggles to watch, with a quick and guarded glance, the movements of the young fisherman, no sooner saw this hostile demonstration on the part of his human foe, than, with an intelligence supernaturally called forth by existing suffering and anticipated danger, he struck at him fiercely with his sharp, glittering talons; while, stretching downward his head to the full extent of his neck, he uttered long, wild cries of mingled fear and menace. Nothing daunted by what, in itself, was sufficiently appalling, the young man coolly watched his opportunity, and, at the expense of several severe wounds in the wrist from his talons, caught the hawk by the throat. Clinging round a limb with the disengaged arm, he raised himself higher in the tree, and lifting his prize, which still struck at him with his armed feet, he skilfully extricated the wing and arrow from the crotch: the next instant, with the huge, fluttering bird in his hand, he had slidden down the trunk, and was standing on the transverse limb with a flushed brow, and a triumphant look illuminating his handsome and fearless countenance.

With one arm bent around the tree, and the other holding the hawk at full length, he now began to cast his eyes upward. They travelled over the bare surface, scarcely without lighting upon a resting-place for a squirrel; and he began, for the first time, to question the possibility of reascending; it having been comparatively easy for him to let his body down by the crevice, as he had descended, while it would be impracticable for him to lift its whole weight up again by the mere effort of the fingers. A glance demonstrated this to him at once. But time was not given him to reflect on a plan for surmounting a difficulty which, in reality, was insurmountable, his faculties being at once called into action to save himself from being thrown from this dizzy perch by the struggles of the hawk. This ferocious creature had been wounded by the arrow in the side just beneath the wing, which was broken by the fall to the earth, and, thence passing upward, the barb had come out through his back, without touching any vital part. His strength was, therefore, through pain, rather augmented than diminished; and notwithstanding the manual pressure upon his windpipe, he now began to battle fiercely with his captor, fighting both with his claws and remaining wing. Though holding him out at arm's length, the young man was unable wholly to defend himself from the strong blows of the wing, which was three feet in length, with which he violently assailed him about the head, while with his talons he succeeded in striking his person and inflicting a deep wound in his breast. He for a time coolly bore the heavy sweeps of the wing, hoping he would soon tire; but he forgot that his terrible antagonist was "the bird of tireless wing;" and, at length, finding his own strength beginning to fail, though his spirit was unsubdued, he loosened his hold from the trunk of the tree which his arm had hitherto encircled, and, leaning his back against it, watched his opportunity, and suddenly, with a firm grasp, seized the wing as it was beating against his temples, and, by a sudden and skilful turn of his wrist, dislocated it. This bold act nearly destroyed his equilibrium; and, after its successful accomplishment, he just had time to recover his hold on the tree to save himself from falling into the dark wave below. For a moment afterward his heart throbbed tumultuously; and reflecting on the imminent peril he had incurred by this necessary exposure, he trembled with emotion and several times breathed heavily, as if to relieve his breast of a weight of suffocating sensations—the tribute which nature demanded of humanity.

Goaded to increased rage by the additional pain, and maddened at his vain efforts to lift his useless wing, the eyes of the hawk glittered in his head like a snake's, and, opening his red jaws, he thrust forth his long, narrow tongue, and hissed at his captor like an angry serpent. It was a moment that called for all the moral energy and physical nerve man is capable of exercising in the hour of danger. The extraordinary young fisherman evinced the possession of these qualities in a degree adequate to the crisis which called them into action. With his eyes fixed unflinchingly on the burning eyeballs of the hawk, and calmly indifferent the while to the terrible hisses which came hot from his throat and fell warm upon his face, he continued to keep him at bay so that his talons should not reach his person, and put forth all his strength to strangle him. There was a moral grandeur in the spectacle this young fisher's lad presented, fearlessly perched on his fearful eminence, as regardless of the depth below as if standing in his own cottage door, battling at such odds with the fiercest warrior of the air!

It was at this crisis that one of the fishermen, a very old man, whose attention, with that of his companions, had been hitherto too much occupied by the trial at archery to give a thought to the youth, after having remained to see the prize awarded to the victress, turned to leave the ground, when missing the young man, he recollected that he had seen him follow the hawk to the verge of the cliff. Calling him by name and not receiving any reply, he approached the precipice; but finding that he was on the most perpendicular part of it, he cast only a hasty glance down, and was about to turn away, supposing he had, unseen, descended to the beach by the usual route a little farther to the north, when a movement far below arrested his eyes. Looking steadily, he beheld the youth with one arm clasped round the tree, and the other stretched out, holding the bird by the neck, while all his moral and physical energies were called into action to enable him to defend himself against the talons of the savage creature.

A glance conveyed to the fisherman the whole extent of the danger; and, after looking down upon him for a moment in speechless horror, his limbs trembled with fear, and, giving utterance to a wild cry, he would have fallen from the precipice had he not caught by a tree that hung over its verge. Kate Bellamont was the first to reach the cliff on hearing the alarm given by the old man; and, glancing down, she intuitively comprehended the peril in which the youth had placed himself. With wonderful presence of mind, waving her hand back to those advancing, she said with energy,

"Hold! all of ye! Breathe not a word! He is in mortal danger! A shriek, or a sign of fear among us may unnerve his bold spirit and be fatal to him!"

Several of the young archeresses stopped suddenly, and turned pale at this intimation of danger; while one or two, with more sensibility of nerves, unable to control their fears, turned and fled towards the castle, as if in the retirement of their closets they would shut out all sense of the threatened evil. Young Lord Robert was the first by Kate Bellamont's side.

"By Heaven! a bold peasant!" he said, his eyes sparkling with admiration; "but—"

"Lester, this is no time for words," spoke the maiden, quickly. "Something must be done for him. How could he have got there in safety! Poor, rash youth!"

"Alas! my child, my lost, lost child!" cried the old fisherman, who was seated on the ground shaking his head mournfully, turning his eyes away from the trying scene. "God protect thee, lad, for no human aid will avail thee!"

"Do not despair, good Dennis, he may yet be saved," said Kate, encouragingly.

"Let go the bird!" shouted Lester.

The fisher's lad, whose attention had been called to the top of the cliff by the shout of the old man, and who had watched the movements of those above, smiled proudly at this request, and firmly shook his head in the negative.

"He deserves to perish if he will peril his life for that bird," said the young noble.

"Hush, Lester, he must be aided. Mark, drop the bird, or he will throw you off. How could you be so foolish as to adventure your life for that fierce hawk!"

"There is humble gallantry at the bottom of it, I dare swear," said Lester, with a tone in which there was a slight shade of scorn.

"Perhaps there may be!" was the quiet reply of the maiden. "Mark, let the bird go, I command you. If your life is sacrificed, I shall feel that I am the cause of it."

"By the bow of Dan Cupid! I would change places with the serf to have my situation create such an interest in your breast, fair lady." This was spoken, partly with sincere feeling, partly with derision, by the haughty Lester.

The full, dark gaze of Kate Bellamont encountered his; and with a manner that eloquently conveyed the feeling of contempt that sprang up in her heart, she said,

"Robert Lester must have fallen low in his own self-esteem to be jealous of a fisher's lad!"

The young noble, with all his native haughtiness and pride of spirit, possessed a generous nature, and was ever ready to atone for the wounds which his wayward temper might have caused him unawares to inflict. Especially was this the case where Kate Bellamont was the party interested. With an instantaneous change peculiar to hasty spirits, he sought pardon of the offended maiden with his eyes, and at once appeared so different, that she saw that she could fully rely on him; plainly reading in his face, with unerring feminine tact, that he nobly had resolved to banish every feeling but the humane one the occasion demanded.

"Lester, he will not release the bird for which he has perilled so much," she said, with frank confidence in her tones, "and we must devise some means to save both him and his prize. Haste to the castle, and get a rope to save your comrade!" she cried to the remaining fisherman.

"I will save him with my life!" said the young noble. "How many bows have we here?"

"A dozen," said Kate, at once comprehending the object of his inquiry. "But are they strong enough, Robert?"

"To bear the weight of three men. Aid me, Kate, in making a chain of them."

In a few seconds they had prepared a rope or chain nearly threescore feet in length, of bows strung together, each link being five feet long. Firmly securing one end to the top of the precipice by carrying it over an upright limb, they successfully tested the strength of the whole by extending it along the lawn, half a dozen drawing on it at once without breaking it.

"This will do," he said with confidence, approaching the cliff to let it down; but, to his surprise, he saw that the youth no longer retained the bird, which, notwithstanding the command of the maiden, he had hitherto seemed resolved, as Lester had hinted, to preserve, at the peril of his life.

While these preparations had been making on the cliff, the hawk, not being any longer able to reach the young fisher's body with his talons, began to strike and lacerate his wrists. Finding at length that his strength was unequal to the effort of strangulation (his intention having been, if he could have killed him, to have lashed him to his back, and so ascended with him), and satisfied that, while holding him in his hand alive, he could not reascend, he reluctantly had been compelled by a severe wound in the hand to let him go. In his fall the bird struck heavily against the root of the tree, and, bounding off, descended twenty feet lower, when the point of the arrow, which passed through him like a spit, caught in a cleft and firmly held him on the little shelf before described, which projected from the brow that beetled over the sea at the height of seventy feet from it. The youth watched him a few moments steadily, and saw that he moved neither wing nor talon. He was dead!

When the intrepid lad saw him arrested in this manner, and that life was now extinct, the cloud of regret that began to darken his face was all at once chased away by a sunbeam of pleasure; for he discovered, as he followed the bird's course with his eye, that the cleft in which he was caught commenced at the very foot of the tree, and offered him the same perilous facilities of descent that the zigzag one above had afforded. When Lester looked over the cliff preparatory to letting down the chain of bows, he beheld him, therefore, to his astonishment, in the act of swinging himself from the horizontal limb, and the next moment clinging about the trunk below it. Before either Kate or he could speak to warn him, so sudden was their surprise, the daring youth had effected a cautious and rapid descent of the tree, and was standing safely at its roots: on casting their eyes farther below, they discerned, hanging over the very verge of the brow, midway the precipice, the lifeless ger-falcon, which instantly accounted to them for this new and unexpected movement.

"His blood be upon his own head!" cried the maiden, shrinking from the sight. "Lester, look! Is he not attempting to reach the bird? Or perhaps he finds that he cannot climb the precipice again, and is trying to descend to the water!"

"It is a long step of seventy feet from where that bird hangs to the bottom," said the old fisherman, for an instant rousing himself. "He will die, lady, and I shall have to convey his mangled corpse in my skiff to my lonely hut, and dig for the poor boy a grave in the sand. I loved him as if he had been my own flesh and blood!"

Kate was about to ask him, with surprise, if he were not his own son, when a cry of alarm caused her to turn round just in time to see Lord Robert commit himself fearlessly to the chain of bows and swing himself over the dizzy verge. As he descended from her sight, with a smile on his lip and a devotion of the eyes as he met hers, that told her, plainer than words could convey it, that he ventured his life for her sake prompted by his sympathy with the interest she took in the daring fisher's boy, he said resolutely,

"I will save him in spite of himself, or share his fate!"

She was about to speak, but her voice failed her; and covering her eyes to hide him, as he hung suspended above the sea, from her swimming sight, for a few seconds she appeared as if her presence of mind had deserted her. This weakness, if an emotion so natural can be termed such, was but momentary. Recovering herself by a strong mental effort, she once more looked over the cliff, and calmly watched the descent of the daring Lester, whom she knew to be a skilful cragsman, with a prayer on her lip for his safety. The novel chain by which he descended reached to within ten feet of the spot where the young fisherman stood, and the intention of Lord Robert was to take the tree, and reach the roots of it as the other had done before him. He had accomplished, however, but a few feet of his passage down the rock, not without great peril, though at each junction of the bows he found a resting-place for his feet and a hold for his hands, when the young fisher's lad lowered himself from his shelf, and, getting his fingers in the cleft, began to descend, alternately supporting his weight by his arms, with a celerity and apparent recklessness that, to the spectators above, was fearful to witness: he, however, took a firm grasp of the rock each time, and with a cool head and steady eye, gained the spur where the hawk was fixed. In the mean while Lord Robert had reached the tree; and leaving the chain swinging in the air, he clasped the trunk, and quickly descended it: but the object for which he had so generously ventured his life was now twenty feet below him. With all his nerve, the fearless young noble shuddered when he looked down and beheld the means by which the fisher's lad had made his last descent. Both had reached the points at which they aimed at the same instant; and when Lord Robert bent over to look down, holding firmly by the roots of the tree, the other was standing with perfect self-possession on his dizzy foothold, holding the hawk in one hand, and waving with the other to those above.

"Do you value your life so lightly, peasant, without saying anything of the painful sympathy your folly produces in those who are spectators of your foolhardiness, that you peril it after this fashion?" said the young noble, passionately, yet unable to refuse the admiration due to his fearless character.

"I am not your serf, Lord Robert of Castle More, that my life should be of value in your eyes," said the youth, with a look and bearing as haughty as the young noble's.

"Ha!" exclaimed Lord Robert, with astonishment and anger; "these are brave words to come from beneath a homespun jerkin. By the cross of St. Peter! fisherman, thou dost presume too much upon that equality to which mutual danger has for the moment brought us. I have periled my life to assist thee—not by mine own will, by Heaven! for thou deservest to be rewarded for thy temerity by a bath in the sea; but at the bidding of a lady, who, perforce, thinks, if thou shouldst, by any lucky chance, break thy neck for the hawk her arrow has sent over the cliff, thy blood will be on her head. So I have explained to thee the height and depth of my charity, lest thou shouldst swell still bigger to think that, peasant as thou art, thou hast made a noble thy servant."

"A very proper speech, I have no doubt, Lord Robert More," answered the fisherman, with a quiet smile of superiority (as the noble construed it). "I need none of your lordship's aid. Without it I came down, and without it I can go up again."

"The devil have thee, then, for thy obstinacy," cried Lester, his eyes flashing with anger; "by the rood, if I had thee there, I would be of a mind to help thee down rather than up."

"The path by which I came is equally open to your lordship," was the cool answer. "Robert More, thrice have I saved your life; and though you have thanked me like a noble for the deed at the time, have after cancelled it by treating me like a slave, because the accident of birth has made you noble and me base. Leave me again. I will not owe my life to your lordship!" This was said in a steady and determined, but very quiet tone.

"My good Meredith, I will forgive thy rudeness of speech, for thou hast had offence," said the young man, struck with his proud and independent character, so nearly akin to his own. "The haughtiness with which I have treated thee is one of the consequences of this accident of birth. Believe me, I have never forgotten what I owe to thy courage: once saved from drowning by thee! once snatched from a peril almost equal to that thou art now in! once preserved from death beneath the antlers of an enraged stag! I have not forgotten these debts, thou seest. If I have seemed to thee ungrateful, set it down, brave Mark, to pride of birth rather than want of feeling. Shall I aid thee, lad, in gaining the top?"

"Lord Robert, your words have atoned for the past," said the young fisherman, not unmoved by this generous and manly defence of the proud young noble; "nevertheless, I will not owe my life to you!"

The noble fastened his penetrating gaze on the upturned face of the young fisherman, and thought he discovered a meaning there that was a key to his refusal.

"Ha! I have it!" he said, internally, after a few moments' reflection. "He dares to place his thoughts on her!"

Instantly, with that lightning-like rapidity with which his impulsive feelings changed, he shouted in a loud, haughty tone of voice,

"Ho, Sir Peasant! prithee tell me what strange fondness for dead hawks set thee to jeoparding thy life after this sort?"

"Lester," cried Kate Bellamont from the summit of the cliff, hearing their voices without understanding the words, "why this delay? Can there be no means of reaching the noble youth?"

"Noble youth!" repeated the young man, scornfully, to himself; "it will be a princely next. By the cross! If he does not smile and wave his daring hand to her! And she answers it back! Fellow!" he added, fiercely, "I will come down and hurl thee into the sea!"

"You are welcome, Lord Robert," replied the other, unmoved; "yet, as there is barely room for me, it is certain that, if you do descend, one of us only can remain upon it."

The impetuous Lester was already preparing to descend by the crevice; but the coolness of the other at once disarmed his anger.

"Thou art a brave fellow, Mark, and I would not injure thee. But," he added, sternly, "see that thou cross not my path!"

"How mean you, Lord Robert?" he inquired, concealing his penetration of the lover's motives under a look of simplicity that embarrassed the haughty and sensitive noble.

Before he could reply, the voice of the Countess of Bellamont, encouraging them both, was heard from the summit. She only had this instant arrived, drawn hither by the rumour of the danger of the fisher's lad, accompanied by Dermot, and one or two men-servants, with ropes and other means of assisting those below.

Her first proceeding, on discovering the position of the parties, was to attach the rope to the chain of bows, and have the end of it firmly tied to the tree. She then bade the men to lower it steadily till it could be reached by Lord Robert, and in a few seconds he held it in his grasp.

"Now, Sir Peasant," said Lester, relaxing into his former haughty mood, "here is the means of reascending the cliff."

"You may profit by it, my lord, I will not," said the youth, firmly. "I will receive no favour at your hands."

"Then, by Heaven, thou shalt ascend, whether thou wilt or no," said the noble, with energy. "I have pledged my word to save thee, and I will redeem my pledge. Ho! there above! Drop a piece of cord a few yards in length, so that it will fall at my feet."

The coil was placed by Kate Bellamont on the rope, and the next moment, sliding down like a ring along the chain of bows, it was caught in his hand.

"Let out twenty feet more of the rope," he again shouted, "and see that it is well fast above."

As it passed through his hands, he conducted it over the shelf on which he stood till it touched the feet of the young fisherman. He had quietly watched these preparations, and, as they were completed, he coolly glanced into the depth beneath, and then upward to the young noble, with an air so resolute that the other paused ere he descended by the chain, on a link of which one foot already rested.

"Surely thou wilt not be so mad!" exclaimed Lester, reading a fatal determination in his lofty and intrepid look.

"Robert More, I will owe you no favour. Rather than be beholden to you for my life, I will fling it away, as freely as I have now hazarded it to win a smile from the fair maiden of Castle Cor."

"Thou! By Heaven, I thought it!" he shouted, with scorn and indignation. "If I had thee on a piece of ground two feet square that would hold us both, I would waive my birth, and do battle with thee on that score, hind as thou art! and see if I could not beat out of thy bones this leaven of insolence! I will now assuredly aid thy return to the summit, that I may have the pleasure afterward of doing for thee this good service."

As Lester spoke, he committed himself with cool intrepidity to the chain, holding in one hand the coil of line, by which it was evidently his intention to lash the young fisherman to the rope, and began rapidly to descend.

"Robert More, I do not fear to meet you on any ground. If I did, I should hardly take this leap to avoid the lesson you have in contemplation for me! But I will owe you no favour, not even that of life. Nor shall you lay a finger upon me to force me to do your pleasure in this thing. Hold! place your foot on the nock of this second bow above me, and I will take a free spring out into the air."

This was said in a tone and manner—a steady uplighting of his clear dark eyes, and a firm, muscular compression of the lip—that made the other hesitate; but it was only for an instant: the next moment he let the bow to which he held slip through his hands, and he descended with velocity till his foot struck upon the last link, which was on a level with the young fisherman's head. At the same moment the latter elevated his arms high above his head, holding the hawk between his hands, and, placing his feet close together, made a spring into the air!

Lester, with a full knowledge of his cool and resolute character, had not anticipated this result; and, in his surprise, had nearly let go his hold. He at the same time uttered a cry of horror, which was answered from the summit by a loud wail of anguish from many voices; for this act had been witnessed by all, without the cause which influenced it being apparent. Preserving the erect attitude with which he had left the rock, the young fisherman descended like lightning, cut the still bosom of the black wave beneath, and disappeared below the agitated surface; the heavy, splashing sound of his fall striking on the ears of those on the summit of the cliff like his death-knell. Wild and full of mortal anguish was the shriek that echoed it!

A flush of hope lighted up the countenance of Lester when he saw the accuracy with which he had struck the surface, and thought upon the manner of his descent. At the same time Kate Bellamont, who had been an interested but puzzled spectator (for their voices, at the height she stood, had not distinctly reached her) of the previous conduct of the parties, and had beheld with horror the seemingly fatal act of the adventurous youth, also marked the natatory art with which he had taken the spring; and, scarcely hoping, watched, equally with Lester, the circling waves, as they widened from the centre, with an intensity amounting to agony.

After an interval of full thirty seconds, which seemed an age to those who watched, the water, which had once more become nearly smooth, was seen to part many yards from the point of descent, and the head of the daring youth appeared above the surface. A shout, loud and long, greeted him from the cliff; and no voice was louder or more glad in the joyful welcome than Lord Robert's. With the hawk elevated in one hand, and buffeting the waves with the other, he swam bravely towards a belt of sand a few yards farther northward; and in a few moments afterward he safely landed, full in sight of those standing anxiously on the cliff. Pointing to his prize, and waving his hand to Kate Bellamont with native gallantry, he disappeared around an angle of the shore, to reascend, by a beaten and easy path, to the summit of the promontory.

In the mean time Lord Robert became an object of renewed interest to the party. He was sixty feet from the top of the cliff, with no other means of reaching it than the precarious chain of bows and a few additional feet of rope: even the permanent safety of this was doubtful. It depended solely for its strength on the goodness of the yews and the entire soundness of the slender bow-strings; and one of these he discovered, on running his eyes upward, was chafed by some sharp point of the rock with which it had come in contact. There remained, however, no alternative. It was plain that he must either trust himself to it, or follow the example of the young fisherman, and take the leap into the sea. For a moment he gazed down into the water, and seemed to measure with deliberate purpose the empty void between; but, shaking his head with doubt, he once more turned his attention to the equally dangerous, but more probable, means of escape. The catgut which had stranded belonged to the third bow above him. Drawing hard upon it with his whole weight, he saw that it was slowly untwisting, and that it would be madness to trust himself to it. His self-possession, however, did not desert him.

"Can you obtain no stout rope that will reach me here, 'wild Kate?'" he said, in a careless tone; "I fear the ragged points of the rock will cut your bow-strings, and spoil them for further shooting."

"No, Lester, there is none!" answered the maiden, in a deep voice, that betrayed the depth and intensity of her feelings at this crisis; "men have been sent to the cove for ropes, but it is far, and it will be long before they return, even if they succeed in getting them. God protect you! Preserve your coolness, for my sake, Robert!" she added, with that force and truth that spurned, at such a moment, all disguise.

Her words seemed to have awakened anew the spirit within him. Placing his hand on his heart, he carried it to his lips, and gallantly waved it towards her. She answered it encouragingly in return; but instantly turning away overcome by her feelings, cast herself on the bosom of her mother, and burst into tears.

Necessarily ignorant of this touching testimony of her attachment to him, which his imminent danger now forbade her to disguise longer under a mask of badinage, Lester concentrated all his energies to the task before him. He felt that before the lapse of one or two hours, which it would require to get ropes from the cove which was more than a league distant, the inconvenience of his position would have left him with little strength to climb the cliff, even with the assistance that might then be rendered. He was now in the full possession of his physical and mental energies, and resolved, without longer delay, to avail himself of them. Taking the cord, which he had demanded for a very different intention, he fastened one end around his wrist; then leaning backward from the rock, sustaining himself by the grasp of one hand on the chain, he threw it upward with such accurate aim that it passed through the bow next above the one with the stranded string, and fell down within his reach. He then loosened it from his wrist, firmly secured the ends to the lower bow on which he was sustained, and so made the cord supply the place of the weak bow-string, and bear the whole strain. This done, he prepared to ascend the smooth face of the rock twenty feet to the foot of the tree. Grasping the cord with both hands, he braced himself in a horizontal position, one of most imminent hazard which demanded all the coolness, self-possession and physical strength he was possessed of, and began literally to walk up the perpendicular side of the precipice. The stranding of a string; a sudden strain upon the tensely bent bows; the least deviation from the horizontal, would have been instantly fatal! Coolly, slowly, steadily, lifting himself, step by step, hand after hand, he at last got to a level with the tree, firmly grasped one of its roots, and by its aid sprung lightly upon the shelf on which it grew.

His preparations had been watched, and it was told Kate Bellamont that he was preparing to ascend. But the maiden had yielded her full heart to her woman's nature; and while he was making the perilous ascent, with her head lifted from her mother's bosom, and with tearful eyes and clasped hands, she was looking heavenward, breathing a silent prayer for his safety. A shout of joy announced to her his success! Once more she dropped her face and wept with joy. Lady Bellamont, who felt that all had been done that circumstances admitted of, refrained from watching his perilous feat; and, while she solaced her daughter, calmly directed Cormac the forester to steady the rope, and keep it from rubbing against the rocks.

Quitting the chain, Lester now ascended the tree to the transverse branch, which he had scarcely reached when a loud crack at the root warned him that the scathed solitary of the cliff, unused to such repeated trials, was giving way under his weight. Hardly had he time to throw himself upon the chain, and hang by a bow-string with one hand, when a series of loud reports rapidly followed each other as one after another the roots snapped; the top of the tree waved wildly to and fro, and then the huge trunk plunged, crashing and roaring, into the flood beneath. For an instant afterward the appalled Lester continued to cling to the fragile chain with nervous solicitude; but at length assured that he was not to be carried along with it into the frightful gulf, he prepared to continue, by the same process of horizontal walking he had hitherto adopted, his upward progress to the next shelf, six feet above him, and with which the top of the tree had been on a level.

The effect of the fall of the tree on those so deeply interested above can scarcely be imagined. Lady Bellamont answered the heavy crash by a wild shriek, echoed by all around save Kate. With her the dreadful suspense and anxiety were now lost in the certainty of his fate. She calmly raised her head, approached the cliff with a firm step, and looked steadily down, not with hope, but with a settled gaze of despair, as if she would take a last look at his grave, and for ever impress upon her heart's tablet his sea-covered tomb. It was at this moment of her soul's anguish she confessed within her own heart that, notwithstanding the lightness with which she might have attempted to disguise it, she loved him with all the fervour and devotedness of a first passion. Approaching the verge with such feelings, her surprise was only equalled by her joy when she saw him in the act of climbing on the shelf above described. A joyful cry escaped her; and the bold youth, looking up, acknowledged her presence with a proud smile and wave of his hand. From this moment Kate Bellamont was herself again. He was safe! The change from grief to joy in her countenance was electrical! and she prepared to watch and aid his ascent with all the coolness and energy she was possessed of.

He had accomplished thus far his arduous task in comparative safety; and as he had now but twenty feet more to ascend, she looked with confidence to its successful accomplishment. This space, however, save a shelf within eight feet of the top on which the young fisherman had alighted, and the zigzag crevice by which he had descended the remaining twelve feet, was steep as a wall, and as difficult of ascent. The young man, after having hitherto passed through such trying scenes, was not now to be daunted by any obstacles, of whatever magnitude, that opposed his farther progress. Nerving himself to the effort, he grasped the rope, which here had taken the place of the chain of bows, and extended himself, as before, into a horizontal position, meeting and returning with a smile, as he did so, her look of solicitude. As he slowly and laboriously ascended, she inspired the men to their task of keeping the rope from the cliff, often assisting them with her own fingers, till at length she was rewarded by seeing him safely reach the shelf, and stand within eight feet of the summit. By her direction the men now bent the projecting branch of the tree until it was within his reach; when, aided by one hand placed on the rope, he lightly climbed the limb, and with a spring stood in safety on the top of the cliff.

Kate, who had scarcely breathed as she watched this final effort, guided by the impulse of the moment, flung herself at once, grateful, happy, weeping, into his arms!—so certain it is that true love will out, give it occasion to speak for itself! And what fitter one than this? At such a time, love is both deaf and blind. It sees, hears, knows no voice but its own; is indifferent to the opinions of a world of witnesses, and, setting aside all canons of propriety and discretion, abandons itself to the impulses of its ardent nature. Such was the love of Kate Bellamont.

But love, like all other emotions, is but short-lived in its excess. The temporary excitement passes away; reflection follows; notions of propriety return; and the conscious victim, blushing, mortified, angry with shame, feels that there is a world of witnesses to whose canons she is amenable, and shrinks at the judgment that will be passed on her outrage of its received notions of maidenly propriety. Such, the next moment after abandoning herself to the first wild gush of joy at his escape, were the thoughts that rushed thick on the mind of the proud and sensitive maiden. She sprang away from him; hid her face in her hands; and, for the moment, scarcely knew whether her wounded feelings would have vent in tears or laughter. True to her character as "Wild Kate of Castle Cor," the latter prevailed; and, exposing her face, she broke into a fit of merry laughter, which was caught up and continued, with many a lively witticism, by those around, who, the moment before, were sad and gloomy under the pressure of fatal forebodings: for so wonderfully, yet wisely, is the human heart constituted, that smiles never come so readily, and are never so bright, as when heralded by tears.

The gratified Lester was too happy to receive such an ingenuous, impulsive token of her love, and of its deep, womanly sincerity, to feel hurt at this change in her manner, which his good sense enabled him to refer to its true cause. With deep and silent pleasure, he felt that that moment had fully repaid him for all he had risked.

Grace Fitzgerald, who had been by no means an indifferent spectator of his hazardous adventure, now advanced, grasped his hand with great warmth, and congratulated him on his safety.

"You need not look so very fond, Sir Cragsman," she said, gayly; "I am not about to follow the example cousin Kate has so generously set for us. Oh no! What with your exploit and Kate's folly, you will be completely spoiled for me! I dare say you would go down that horrid place again for another such hug as my cousin Kate gave you. Really, I am shocked!"

"I will go down and take the leap off into the sea for a similar reception from Grace Fitzgerald," said Lester, with an air of gallantry.

"And do you think I would come near such a dripping monster as you would make of yourself? No, no, I am no Nereid to fancy a man coming out of the sea."

"By which I infer, fair lady," he said, archly, "that, if I will go down and come up dry, you will give me such a welcome as—"

"Kate gave you? Really, you are quite spoiled. Kate, come and take care of your beau cavalier, for he is no longer fit for any company but yours. But here comes one I will welcome, dripping or dry!"

She bounded forward as she spoke, and met, at the head of the path, the gallant fisher's lad, who just then appeared, on his way up from the water, bearing in his hand the ger-falcon which had been the cause of putting in peril two human lives. He was accompanied by the old fisherman, who, having remained on the summit of the cliff, paralyzed and inert through alarm and anxiety until assured of his safety, had gone down to the beach to meet him on his return. She approached the young adventurer with one hand extended to welcome him, the forefinger of the other at the same time lifted with censure.

"I will shake hands with you, Mark; but you deserve, handsome as you are, to have your ears boxed. See what a to-do you have been the cause of; and all for that great black bird, which Kate, forsooth, must shoot instead of sending her arrow at the target. Well, you are a noble and gallant young man, and I like you. Do you hear that, Kate? I too have made a declaration! Well, but I won't embrace you, I think, for you are too wet."

While the lively girl was speaking, the rest of the party, including Lord Robert and Kate, approached and joined in welcoming him.

"My brave Meredith," said Lester, frankly extending his hand, "you deserve a better career than that before you. Henceforth let us be friends."

The hand of the young noble was received without embarrassment and with a native dignity of manner by the humble youth, that, to all present, atoned for his want of high birth; while he said, with a firm yet respectful tone,

"We may not be enemies, but we can never be friends, Lord Robert: friendship between the high and low is but another name for dependance to the latter."

"I fear you speak too truly, Mark," said Kate, who had congratulated him on his escape with an honest warmth and sincerity of manner that sent the blood like lightning to his brows.

"Not in my case, brave Mark," said the noble, earnestly; "I will become your patron and—"

"And is there patronage without dependance, my lord?" he asked, in a quiet tone.

"Well, well," said Lester, colouring, "have it your own way. You have pride enough for Lucifer!"

"But not enough for a noble," said the other, with a very slight curl of the lip.

"Mark Meredith," said Kate, reprovingly, "you forget your station. A proper degree of pride is the secret of independence. Perhaps you have too much. Lord Robert is sincere, and means well by you."

"Believe her, Mark," said Grace Fitzgerald, with playful raillery; "nobody ought to know so well what Lord Robert means as my cousin Kate."

"Stop your saucy tongue, Grace," said the maiden, placing a finger on her bright lips. "What will you now do, Mark, with this bird, that has cost us, through your thoughtlessness, so much anxiety and suffering?"

"And betrayed a secret that was not quite a secret before," said the mischievous Grace.

"Grace, prithee hist!" cried Kate, with a spice of asperity.

"Give me the bird, peasant!" said Lester, in a tone of authority. "I will nail it on the door of the lodge at Castle More, in honour of the fair archer who shot it."

"Here is the gentle owner," replied the youth, turning towards Kate Bellamont; and gracefully kneeling as he spoke, he gallantly laid the bird at her feet, saying,

"Gentle archeress, deign to accept—it is the only boon I crave for my peril—this trophy of thy skill. I have obtained it for thee at the risk of life and limb, valuing neither, so that I might do thee a service, and save what I know thou wilt be proud to preserve in remembrance of this day."

"By the cross! a forward youth! an Alfred in disguise, I would swear!" said Lester, haughtily, his quick spirit kindling at the scene. "He will be offering next, fair Kate," he added, scornfully, "to share with thee his palace of bark and poles, and his wide realm of sand and seashells. S'death! a proper peasant!" The young noble's eyes sparkled, and he paced the sward with angry impatience, as he concluded.

Kate Bellamont was not indifferent to the tone, manner, and language with which the hawk was presented by the humble youth. She was flattered by his well-directed compliments, and pleased, without knowing why, with the deep, silent admiration with which he regarded her. Was it the language of love? His manner reminded her of Lester in his most impassioned moments of devotion; but there was in the fine face of the young fisherman a calmer, sweeter, more chastened expression; a reverence without humility; devotion without awe. Was it love? She trembled, as she thought so, and dared not a second time meet his dark-beaming eyes. The peculiar character of the expression of his face was read aright by none but herself and Lester: for only love and jealousy can translate the language of love. The light blue eyes of the young noble flashed fierce fire as he witnessed what he deemed palpable proof of his suspicions. His glance turned rapidly from the face of one to the face of the other. The expression of his maddened him; that of hers troubled and puzzled him; and he turned away, grinding his teeth with bitterness: for what is there on earth so bitter as jealousy?

The contrast between the appearance of these two haughty young men was as great as that existing between their ranks in life. The young noble was in his eighteenth year, tall, and firmly made, with uncommon breadth and expansion of chest, which gave a striking appearance of compactness and muscular finish to his frame, that promised, in manhood, nobleness of carriage as well as great personal strength. His complexion was fair as the Saxon's; his features regular as the Greek's; but, unlike his, stamped with that union of manly grace and strength, and bold, fiery energy, supposed to be characteristic of the ancient Briton. Over his clear, high forehead fell locks of light flaxen hair of rare beauty, and shining tresses of the same pale, golden hue floated about his shoulders. His eyes were his most remarkable feature. They were large and blue, clear as light, and of a beautiful shape, glowing with intellect and sparkling with animation, and, when undisturbed, beaming with a soft and gentle expression betokening gayety of temper and lightness of spirit; but, when roused by anger, they flashed fierce fire, and seemed literally to blaze, so bright was the light they emitted. They further possessed a striking peculiarity, which so marked his angered glance that he who once encountered it never forgot it till his dying day. This was a habit, or, rather, nature had given it to him, when under the influence of angry passions, of lowering his brows down over his eyes in such a way as to destroy their fine, oval form, and give them a strange, triangular shape; and the pupil of his eyes darkening at the same time till they grew black as night, communicated to them a singularly wild and terrible expression.

His lips were very beautiful both in form and colour; but the upper wore a haughty curl that marred the beauty of a mouth which nature had chiselled with the nicest hand. He carried himself at all times with a gallant but proud air; and his demeanour was like that of the highborn youths of his time, taught to regard all of low degree as created for their use and pleasure. His faults were those of education rather than of the heart; and, where these deeply-grafted prejudices were not attacked, he was frank, noble, and generous, and not unworthy the love of a noble maiden like Kate Bellamont. At the moment seized upon to describe his appearance, he was standing within a few feet of the young fisherman, his eyes sparkling with anger and assuming that remarkable shape which has been described, with his head and one foot advanced, and his whole attitude hostile and threatening.

The fisher's lad, who continued kneeling for an instant at the feet of the fair archeress awaiting her acceptance of the trophy he had presented, met his dark look unmoved, and, as he thought, with a smile of proud defiance. The appearance of this bold youth, whose bearing caused the haughty Lester to question if nature had not a nobility of her own creation, was, save in his proud carriage, strikingly opposite to that of the young noble. He was about the same age, and nearly as tall, but had not such fulness in the chest, and was wanting something of his breadth of shoulders; but his figure, if lighter, was more elegant, and united great muscular activity with native dignity and ease of motion. He wore fishermen's loose trousers, with a coarse jacket of brown stuff, and was both barefooted and bareheaded. His face was exceedingly fine. It was oval in shape, with an olive complexion, still more darkened by exposure to wind and sun: now, with the glow of exercise and the magic presence of her before whom he bent, it had become of the richest brown colour. His dark hair was glossy with sea-water, and, parted naturally on his brow, fell in long raven waves adown his well-shaped neck. His eyes were dark as hers on whom he gazed, exceedingly large-orbed, and eloquent with thought and feeling.

"What handsome eyes!" thought Grace Fitzgerald, as she gazed on them.

"What dangerous eyes!" thought Kate.

His eyebrows were as even and accurately arched as if pencilled; but they were redeemed from anything like effeminacy, on account of the delicacy of their outline, by the intellectual fulness of the brow. His nose was straight, and of just proportions; his mouth beautiful as a girl's, yet full of character, decision, and strength, and oftener it was the seat of dejected thought than of smiles. Its expression was generally quiet; yet the finely chiselled lips were full of spirit; and, when silent, seemed most to speak, so eloquent were the thoughts that coloured them with their ruby life. The merest movement of the upper conveyed the intensest feelings with the vivid rapidity of the lightning's flash, whether they were begotten of scorn or irony, love or hatred. His bearing, as well as his appearance, was above his station; and he manifested a haughty independence of spirit that scorned the distinctions of rank, and a pride of character that, in one of his humble grade, was not far from being closely allied to audacity. But perhaps this only proceeded from a certain impatience at being compelled, nevertheless, to admit in his own person a conventional inferiority to those with whom he felt he was on that broad basis of equality, the elements of which are equal physical and intellectual qualifications.

Though a poor fisher's lad, he possessed all the feelings and sensations common to humanity, and experienced emotions both of pleasure and pain; could feel disgusted at what was revolting, and be pleased at what was agreeable. He shared, therefore, with all men, of whatever rank, from the prince to himself—for there could scarcely be a lower scale—that mysterious principle of the heart by which it attracts, and is attracted to, woman—he beheld Kate Bellamont, and this moral loadstone, acting as nature intended it should do, irresistibly drew him towards her. Without reflection, without cherishing either a hope or a fear, but simply happy in the contiguity, he gave himself up to the new and delightful sensations produced by the flow of love's magnetic fluid through his heart. In plain words, the poor fisher's lad fell deeply in love with the highborn heiress of Castle Cor.

No one of the wonderful phenomena of the human mind so fully demonstrates that it is a mesh of anomalies, as the existence of the fact that, when a man loves a woman, he has only to learn that another regards her with the same flattering sentiments, to hate him most cordially, seek him out, quarrel with him, and even take his life. It would seem to be taken for granted that the knowledge of this fact would have a directly contrary effect; for the presumption irresistibly follows, that whoever feels an interest in the object to which we ourselves are so closely bound by ties of love, must, without regarding the delicacy of the compliment to our individual tastes, be proportionably loved by us. But experience has too often demonstrated this by no means to be the case; but, on the contrary, the knowledge of the existence of a parallel attachment produces in the breast of the legitimate admirer wrath, malice, and hatred, filling his soul towards the subject of it with all manner of evil.

True to this feeling of the human heart, the young noble and fisher's lad forthwith felt rising in their breasts towards each other emotions of a hostile character; for love is a famous leveller, and the prince can deign even to hate his slave if love raises him to a rival. In one of the youths it manifested itself in the cool expression of defiance: in the other, by haughty scorn and indignant surprise.

When the fisher's lad had finished his manly and gallant address, he modestly continued to await, with his hand upon the bird, the acknowledgments of the fair maiden. Gratified, yet embarrassed, Kate remained silent, knowing not how to reply to the chivalrous lad, who, under the magic tuition of love, had suddenly assumed a character that alarmed her; who, all at once, had been converted, as if by a spell, from the quiet, yet handsome fisher's boy, who was accustomed to attend her in her excursions along the beach, into a bold and daring lover! She could not be insensible to the compliment. She loved Lester with all her heart; therefore she could not have requited the youth's boyish love, had his blood been noble as her own. Yet there remained a place in her heart for kindly gratitude, and with a smile that sent the quick colour to the forehead of the boy, she said, in a voice that thrilled to his soul,

"I thank you, Mark, for the gift. I will keep it in remembrance of your courage, as well as a trophy of my skill in archery; notwithstanding, I fear good Cormac will lay claim to it, as it was hit with his own arrow. It would make a brave ornament, with its wings spread at length above the door of his cot," she added, turning to the old forester, who stood respectfully on the outskirts of the party that was gathered about Mark and his ger-falcon.

As she spoke her thanks she extended to Mark her hand, which he took with blushing embarrassment, and, after a moment's hesitation, gracefully carried to his lips. The eyes of the young noble sparkled with anger as he saw the offer of the hand, but they shot forth a menacing glare as he witnessed the act on the part of the youth: turning on his heel with an execration, he would have left the ground but for the eye of Kate Bellamont, which he caught fixed upon him.

"Come, Mark," said Grace, "you must join us all in the pavilion; for you need refreshment after your fatigue. I wish, Robert, you would present him with one of your green hunting-suits. I declare, I should like to see if he would not outbrave you all. Do! good Lord Robert."

"You are perfectly crazy, Grace," said Kate, aside.

"Am I? was the quiet reply, accompanied by a quizzical look, which conveyed far more than the words to Kate's comprehension, and made her, in spite of her efforts to maintain indifference, look exceedingly foolish.

"You are all beside yourselves, I verily believe," said Lester, in a tone that his accent alone made biting; "I have no doubt whatever that it would oblige you excessively, Lady Grace, if I would exchange attire with your fishy favourite."

"Really, Lord Robert, I wish you would. I have a curiosity to know what sort of a fisherman you would make. I dare say a very nice one, save a spice or so of pride, that would hardly suit your station."

"Pride in a peasant is impertinence. But 'tis an attribute most congenial to the station, I discover," he added, with cool irony, "and doth recommend its possessor, I see, most particularly to the favour of noble ladies."

"I advise you, then, Lester, when you chance to fall in their good graces," said Kate, assuming the same tone, yet qualifying its bitterness with good-humour, "that you renew your suit under a fisher's garb; believe me, it will assuredly restore you to favour."

"I have no hesitation in believing it," said Lester, in a grave tone, and with a marked emphasis of manner that excited both maidens to laughter; but he was far from participating in their merriment, and turned from them with an angry brow.

"I have delayed the banquet too long with this folly," said Kate; "hie to the pavilion, fair archers and gallant esquires all," she added, gayly, "and I will soon follow you. As for you, Mark, I will send to you some of the choicest viands on the board, and cousin Grace shall be the bearer of them. Cormac, take up the hawk."

"This honour will please Lord Robert better," replied Grace, glancing at him with an archly malicious look.

"Lord Robert will have nothing to do with this piece of folly," cried he, in a tone that made her start. "By the cross of Christ! peasant, if you betake not yourself speedily to thy hovel, I will hurl thee with mine own hand from the cliff upon its roof."

As he spoke he advanced upon him. Mark looked apologetically at Kate, and then sprang to his feet, and confronted him with that calm courage which had hitherto characterized him. His coolness maddened the impulsive Lester, and with a bound he leaped upon him, and caught him by the throat; but, ere he could get his fingers firmly clinched upon his windpipe, he reeled violently backward by the force of a blow upon his chest, dealt with a skill and accuracy of aim that compensated for any inequality of physical strength. With eyes darkening with rage, he recovered himself, and seeing lying not far from him on the ground his short hunting-spear, he snatched it up, and launched it at his breast with a force and direction that would have transfixed him on the spot but for his presence of mind; anticipating its flight, he quietly moved from its path, when it passed within a few inches of his head with a loud whirring noise, and, striking against a distant rock, shivered into a thousand fragments.

"Robert Lester," exclaimed Kate Bellamont, with a flashing eye and a voice of indignant horror, "by that act you have forfeited all that belongs to you as a noble gentleman, and also," she added, with deep feeling and a proud spirit, "all that connects you with any person (I speak for all) that is here present."

"Pardon me, lady," he said, throwing himself at her feet, and attempting to take her hand.

"Never, Robert Lester. Touch me not! Leave me—leave me! Leave us all! The farther festivities of the day will be marred by your presence!"

"Lady—"

"Silence, assassin!" and the dark eyes of the roused heiress of Bellamont flashed with such a light as might burn in an indignant seraph's.

"Ha!" he cried, starting to his feet, "this to me!"

"This to you, Robert Lester, who now have made yourself lower than the meanest peasant. I degrade you from your esquireship; and, faith! if the more noble Mark Meredith shall not take your place. Mark, approach and be my esquire of archery!"

The youth proudly smiled, but hesitated.

"I command you. As true as my father's blood runs in my veins, thou art the more noble!"

"God of Heaven! this is too much to bear calmly," cried Lester, his eyes assuming that remarkable shape that characterized them when his anger had grown to its height.

"Mercy!" cried Grace Fitzgerald, with real alarm; "what a fearful look! I wonder," she added, with a slight touch of her usual manner, "that I ever could have had the courage to coquet with such a terrible creature."

The fierce noble made no reply, but, glancing from her to Kate, looked pleadingly, as if about to speak; but she shook her head with a motion scarcely perceptible, but in a firm manner, that left no hope to his repentant spirit. Striking his forehead violently, with mingled shame and rage he rushed from the spot towards the castle, and walked rapidly until he disappeared behind an angle of one of the towers. Kate Bellamont followed him with her eyes, her brow unbent, her proud manner and high-toned look unchanged; but, when he could no longer be seen, there was perceptible a struggle on her eloquent countenance to restrain the emotion with which her heart was full. With an even voice and forced gayety, she said,

"We will now to the pavilion, maidens fair and cavaliers; and I trust this rudeness of yonder haughty boy will not mar our festivities. Mark, you will attend me. What! has he gone too? God grant two such fiery youths meet not again this day."

"Didst observe, my lady," said Cormac, who had been a silent spectator of the exciting scene, "didst take note of that look out of the eyes of Lord Robert? Well, if it did not remind me of Hurtel o' the Red Hand, as if he had stood before me."

And the old forester ominously shook his head, as if it contained something very mysterious, yet untold, and followed the party to the pavilion, whither they had already directed their steps, to partake, with what spirits they might after the scenes that had transpired, of the luxurious banquet therein spread for their entertainment.

Here Kate Bellamont, who preserved a calm dignity the while, and, save to the eye of Grace, whose generous spirit sympathized warmly and sincerely in her feelings, betrayed no outward signs of emotion, with a tranquilly-spoken excuse for her absence left them and fled to the castle: she ran through its long hall like a hunted hart; flew up the broad staircase to her boudoir, and entering it, closed the door. Then uttering a gasping cry of suffering, she threw herself, with a wild abandonment of passion, upon a seat; the fountains of her bursting heart, so long choked up, were opened; and she gave way to an irresistible flood of tears.

It is ever thus with woman! Although, in the moment of just resentment, pride and anger may for a while check the flow of affection, and harden the wounded heart as if bound about with bands of steel, yet love will return again, dissolve these bands, and convert resentment into tenderness. It is its nature to obliterate all dark spots that wrong may have cast upon the heart; to palliate offences, and to forgive even where forgiveness is a weakness: it makes itself half sharer of the fault; is ever ready to bear the whole weight of the blame, and with open arms to receive back again, without either atonement or acknowledgment, the guilty but still loved offender.

In a few moments the current of her feelings had changed. She thought of the thousand noble qualities of Lester's head and heart, shaded only by the faults of pride of birth and a hasty temper.

"For these," she asked of her heart, "shall I break his high spirit? For these shall I inflict a pang on his noble nature? For these, which among men are regarded praiseworthy attributes of highborn gentlemen—for these shall I make him unhappy, and myself—for it will kill me—miserable? Oh, Lester, dear Lester, I was too, too cruel! You had cause for anger; but oh, that fatal spear! Would that it had been far from your hasty arm!"

At this moment she heard the sound of horses' feet moving rapidly across the court towards the forest. With a foreboding of the cause she flew to the lattice, and beheld Lester, mounted on his coal-black steed, galloping at the top of the animal's speed away from the castle, each moment burying his armed heels into his sides, and riding as if he would outstrip the winds. For a moment she watched him with an earnest gaze, then threw open the lattice, shouted his name, and waved her hand! But his back was towards her, and he was too far off to hear even her voice calling him to return; and in a few seconds afterward he entered the wood. With tearful eyes she saw the last wave of his dark plume as he disappeared in the winding of the road; and, leaning her hand upon the window, she sobbed as if her young heart would break. Oh love, love, what a mystery thou art!