Miss Walton took up the basket; and Lady Margaret, with the light, approached a door on the other side of the room which led to a narrow and very steep staircase; but Arrah Neil paused till the light was nearly gone, to gaze at the picture, and when she at length followed, her eyes too were running over with bright drops. A long passage at the top of the stairs conducted them to a door, which Lady Margaret gently opened, exposing a room within, furnished with a chair, a bed, and a small table, by which the earl was sitting, his head resting on his hand.
As may readily be supposed, he was well pleased to see his visiters; for long solitude in darkness and uncertainty, without occupation, will have a depressing effect upon the firmest heart and best regulated mind. The cause of their long absence was soon explained; and, the acceptable stores which they brought being taken from the basket and deposited on the table, though Annie Walton would fain have remained some time to console her lover in his imprisonment, he too strongly felt the danger of her so doing to permit it; and, only petitioning that when any one returned some books might be added to his store, to while away the hours of solitude, he saw them depart, though not without a sigh. No interruption took place on the return of the two young ladies to their room, and the night passed over without any other event deserving of notice.
[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
Tan household of Lady Margaret Langley was increased, during the day following the adventures related in the last two chapters, by the return of two stout servants, whom she had sent upon various errands to a considerable distance from Langley Hall; and in the evening the steward and his man came back, as they termed it--though, in truth, they both ordinarily lived in a house and cottage about two miles off--to the dwelling of the good lady. The hind, too, arrived, and took up his lodging in the house; and the shrewd servant, William, was busy amongst the farmers and tenants, talking with one, whispering with another, winking at a third. Langley Hall in truth became quite a gay place; for, in addition to the militia-men from Beverley, every morning saw five or six good yeomen, sometimes eight or nine, attending Lady Margaret's orders and directions about farming matters. Captain Hargood felt somewhat uneasy; for these visiters, all stout men and generally armed, became so numerous that he saw it was not at all unlikely that in process of time he might be outnumbered in the Hall. He perceived that, should such be the case, at any unexpected moment he might easily be overpowered, if the disposition which he had at first made of his men continued; for, scattered over that large, rambling mansion, in order to watch what was taking place in every part at once, there were not to be found more than two or three of the militia together at any one given point; and it was by no means an easy or rapid process to gather them from their several quarters into one body for the stairs and passages, the rooms and ante-rooms, the lobbies and galleries, the halls and corridors, were so intricate and in such number, that it was a good half-hour's march from one end of the house to the other; and the shutting of a door or barricading of a passage might in a moment isolate any one party from the rest. He could not help fancying, too, that Lady Margaret felt the advantage of her position, and that there was something more than chance in this influx of tenantry; and thus the feeling of security with which he had taken possession of Langley Hall soon disappeared, and he became very uneasy indeed.
In after periods of the civil war, when the bold and decided tone of the parliament had spread to the whole party, and the simple justice or petty commissioner, knowing that any violence against a malignant would receive countenance and applause from those who had the power of the state in their hands, ventured every excess against their enemies, Captain Hargood would have overcome the difficulty at once by marching off Lady Margaret and the principal members of her household to Beverley or Hull. But the Roundhead party, in remote provinces, had not yet acquired full confidence either in its strength or in its leaders; and steps afterwards taken as a matter of course were now not even thought of. His only resource, therefore, was to reinforce his numbers, if possible, and to make such changes in the disposition of his men in the mean while as would guard against surprise.
During the hours, then, at which the hall was thronged with the tenants and farmers, he gathered his men together into one part of the house, and there kept them till he found that the visiters who alarmed him were departing. But this was all that Lady Margaret desired; and, the unpleasant espial being removed from about nine in the morning till about one o'clock, ample time was afforded for very easy communication with the Earl of Beverley, both to cheer him by the society of his friends and supply him with all that might be necessary to his comfort.
As only one of the party could venture to be absent at a time, it may easily be supposed that Annie Walton was the person most frequently fixed upon, as she was certainly the one best fitted to console the weary hours of the earl in the strange sort of captivity to which he was reduced; and many and many a happy hour, during the next four days, did the two lovers spend together.
Of the present they had but little to say. No news of any importance reached the Hall, and the brief laugh excited by the success of Lady Margaret's stratagem for driving the militia-men into one particular portion of the house soon passed away. It was upon the past and upon the future, then, that their thoughts and conversation principally turned; but, though the mind of Annie Walton certainly rested more often and more anxiously upon the coming years than upon the past, yet the apprehensions that she entertained regarding them, the too intense interest they excited, and the agitation which the contemplation of all that might take place produced, naturally led her to seek relief in the softened influences of the past; and she would willingly dwell with her lover upon all the thousand little events of early days, showing him, without reserve, all the secrets of her own pure and guileless heart, and seeking playfully and yet eagerly to discover those of his.
Nor did he much strive to conceal them, although there were, of course, some things that he would not say; but whenever he saw that she was deeply interested, and that mystery might create doubts injurious to her peace, he was as frank and free as she was: sporting, perhaps, a little with her curiosity, but always satisfying it in the end. He did not, indeed, amuse himself or her, to use the words of a sweet old song that one time cheered my infancy, by
Tales telling of loves long ago,