"Well, we don't want them. Move on, then! Your daughter can take her maid with her if she wishes," he said with surly courtesy. "Is this the wench? Well, get your mistress a cloak, and be quick about it!"
Assisted by Chloe, the maid, and Lord Desborough, the colonel half carried, half led, his daughter out of the room.
"Seymour, Seymour!" she cried despairingly at the door; but he lay still where he had fallen, seeing and hearing nothing.
CHAPTER VI
Faithful Subject of his Majesty
A few miles up the river from Colonel Wilton's plantation, upon a high bluff, from which, as at that point the river made a wide bend, one could see up and down for a long distance in either direction, was the beautiful home of the Talbots, known as Fairview Hall.
On the evening of the raid at the Wilton place, Madam Talbot and her son were having a very important conversation. Madam Talbot was a widow who had remained unwedded again from choice. Rumor had it that many gentlemen cavaliers of the neighborhood had been anxious to take to their own hearthstones the person of the fair young widow, so early bereft, and incidentally were willing to assume the responsibility of the management of the magnificent estate which had been left to her by her most considerate husband. Among the many suitors gossip held that Colonel Wilton was the chief, and it was thought at one time that his chances of success were of the best; but so far, at least, nothing had come of all the agitation, and Madam Talbot lived her life alone, managing her plantation, the object of the friendly admiration of all the old bachelors and widowers of the neighborhood. She had devoted herself to the successful development of her property with all the energy and capacity of a nature eminently calculated for success, and was now one of the richest women in the colony. One son only had blessed her union with Henry Talbot, and Hilary Talbot was a young man just turned twenty-five years of age, and the idol of her soul. Too self-contained and too proud to display the depth of her feelings, except in rare instances, and too sensible to allow them to interfere in the training of the child, she had spared neither her heart nor her purse in his education, with such happy results that he was regarded by all who knew him as one of the finest specimens of young Virginia that it were possible to meet. Of medium height, active, handsome, dark-eyed, dark-haired, fiery and impetuous in temperament, generous and frank in disposition, he was a model among men; trained from his boyhood in every manly sport and art, and educated in the best institutions of learning in the colonies, his natural grace perfected by a tour of two years in England and abroad, from which he had only a year or so since returned, he perfectly represented all that was best in the young manhood of Virginia. For many years there had been hopes in the minds of Colonel Wilton and Madam Talbot, that the affection between the two young people, who had played together from childhood with all the frankness and simplicity permitted by country life, would develop into something nearer and dearer, and that by their marriage at the proper time the two great estates might be united.
The two children, early informed of this desire, had grown up under the influence of the idea; as they reached years of discretion, they had taken it for granted, considering the arrangement as a fact accomplished by tacit understanding and habit rather than by formal promise. Personally attached to each other, nay, even fondly affectionate, the indefinite tie seemed sufficiently substantial to bring about the desired result. Katharine had, especially during Talbot's absence in Europe, resisted all the importunities and rejected all the proposals made to her, and on his account refused all the hearts laid at her feet. Since Talbot's return, however, and especially since he refused, or hesitated rather, to cast his lot in with her own people, his neighbors and friends, in the Revolution, the affair had, on her part at least, assumed a new phase. Still, there had been nothing said or done to prevent this consummation so devoutly to be wished until the advent of Seymour. Then, too, Talbot, calm and confident in the situation, had not noticed Seymour's infatuation, and was entirely ignorant that the coveted prize had slipped from his grasp. The insight of the confident lover was not so keen as that of the watchful father.
It was believed by the principal men of Virginia that Talbot's sympathies were with the revolted colonies; but the influence of his mother, to whom he had been accustomed to defer, had hitherto proved sufficient to prevent him from openly declaring himself. His visit to England, and the delightful reception he had met with there, had weakened somewhat the ties which bound him to his native country, and he found himself in a state of indecision as humiliating as it was painful. Lord Dunmore and Colonel Wilton had each made great efforts to enlist his support, on account of his wealth and position and high personal qualities. It was hinted by one that the ancient barony of the Talbots would be revived by the king; and the gratitude of a free and grateful country, with the consciousness of having materially aided in acquiring that independence which should be the birthright of every Englishman, was eloquently portrayed by the other. When to the last plea was added the personal preference of Katharine Wilton, the balance was overcome, and the hopes of the mother were doomed to disappointment.
For his own hopes, however, the decision had come too late, and it may be safely presumed that his hesitation was one of the main causes through which the woman he loved escaped him; for Katharine's heart was given to young Seymour, after a ten days' courtship, almost before his eyes. In any event, a wiser man would have seen in Seymour a possible, nay, a certain rival by no means to be disregarded. An officer who had devoted himself to the cause of his country in response to the first demand of the Congress, who had been conspicuously mentioned for gallantry in general orders and reports, who had been severely wounded while protecting Katharine's father at the risk of his life; as well bred and as well born as Talbot, of ample fortune, and with a wide knowledge of men and things acquired in his merchant voyagings as captain of one of his own ships in many seas,—Seymour's single-hearted devotion eminently fitted him to woo and win Miss Katharine Wilton, as he had done.