CHAPTER XXXVII.
It was nearly twelve o'clock at night, and Harry Martin stood with his wife, gazing down upon their sleeping child. Curious as are all the contrasts which life presents, there are few more extraordinary, more full of deep and strange interest, than the contrast between the vices and strong passions of unbridled manhood, and the calm reproachful innocence of infancy. Oh! what a mirror it holds up to shew man, hardened by sin, and strife, and selfishness, what he once was, what he might still have been; and yet, how seldom do we take the reproof to our hearts, how rarely do we apply to ourselves the comment which is secretly made within us! The bold, reckless man who stood there and gazed, felt a deep strain of solemn sensations, mingling with the feelings of paternal love, which the sight of his child called forth. But he asked himself not why or how it was that he experienced a sorrowful emotion totally distinct from the idea of parting from the beloved, as he gazed down upon the sleeping boy--an emotion which, if he had investigated all the causes, he would have found to be the voice of memory reproaching him for the innocence he had cast away.
"Well, Jane," he said, at length, "it is no use lingering--I must go. It would have been wiser, perhaps, not to come, but I could not go without seeing you again, my dear girl. Six hours now will bring me to the coast, and then the lugger the man talked of will soon take me to Liverpool, and the 'Mary Anne' sails on Saturday morning; so I shall soon be on my way to another far country, and you must follow as soon as may be--Hark! I thought your mother was gone to bed!"
"It is only the kitchen window," said his wife; "it makes that noise when the wind shakes it."
"You are sure that you have money enough for all that you want?" continued her husband.
"Quite sure," she answered; "more than enough, Harry. You know I have not been accustomed to such extravagance as you have taught me. I can do upon very little, and the passage-money I will put by and keep, without--"
"Hark!" he exclaimed, grasping her arm, and looking with a wild and eager gaze towards the door. "There is certainly some one below."
Jane turned as pale as death, for she distinctly heard a step, but she lost not her courage--her husband's life was at stake, and the resolute spirit of deep love rose up within her.
"Out through that room behind," she said; "the window is not high; then up the side of the hill, there are woods and moors. I will go down and stop them. Away, Harry, away!" and printing one kiss upon his cheek, she darted towards the staircase, and ran down, exclaiming, in a tone of alarm that needed no affectation to assume--"Who is there?--There is surely some one in the house! Mother, mother!" she was heard to exclaim aloud; "here are strange men in the house! Who are you?--what do you want here?"
"It's no use talking, ma'am," said a voice the moment after, proceeding from a stout, thickset personage, who stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, while another man was thrusting himself through the lattice window. "We want just to say a word or two to Mr. Martin, and we must say it, too. He knows that the game's up well enough, so it's no use dodging about in this way."