The sun had set nearly an hour. The moon had not yet risen, and the forest was all in darkness; but there were many people round the door of the woodman's cottage. Horsemen, and men in armour, and a groom leading a beautiful white horse, evidently caparisoned for a lady. Through the chinks of the boards which covered the windows much light was streaming; and the scene within was an unusual one for such a place. There were four persons standing round a table, on which was laid a parchment; and Iola and Chartley had just signed it. The earl of Arran took the pen and gave it to the princess countess of Arran, who added her name to the act; and he, himself, then subscribed his own.
Two or three of the attendants, male and female, attested the deed likewise; and then the woodman, if we may still so call him, placed Iola's hand in Chartley's, saying, "Now, take her, noble lord, and place her beyond risk and danger as speedily as may be. To your honour she is trusted; and I do believe that neither your honour nor your love will ever fail; but yet, remember she is not your wife till the ceremonies of religion have consecrated the bond between you. I trust we shall all meet again soon, in the presence of those who may rightly judge of these matters; and I promise you there to prove, that the contract between this lady and the Lord Fulmer is utterly null and void, and that this contract is legal and good. To insure all, however--for who shall count upon even a single day--give this letter to the earl of Richmond, when you have joined him, and tell him it comes from the woodman who once sent him intelligence which saved him from captivity, and perhaps from death. Now, God's blessing be upon you, my children. Nay, let us have no farewells, dear Iola. Take her, Chartley, take her, and away."
"But was not Constance to meet us here?" said Iola, in a low tone. "I thought she was to be my companion."
"I fear that has gone wrong," said the woodman. "The abbey gates were closed an hour before sunset, and even one of my men was refused admission to the mere outer court; but I shall join you soon and bring you news. Though I can raise no great force, yet with what men I can muster I will not fail to help the noble earl with my own hand. So tell him."
Thus saying, he led Iola to the door of the cottage, with his own strong arms placed her on the horse's back, and then with one more blessing, retired from her side. Chartley sprang lightly and happily into the saddle, and the whole party rode on. It consisted of some twenty men besides the lover and his lady; and, at a quick pace, they proceeded through the forest, taking very nearly the same direction which had been followed by the woodman and the bishop of Ely, but by the general road, instead of the narrow and somewhat circuitous paths along which the prelate had been led.
I have not time or space to pause upon the feelings of Iola at that moment--at least, not to describe minutely. They were strange and new to her. She had encountered danger; she had resisted anger, without fear; but her circumstances now were very different. She was not only going alone with the man whom she loved into the wide world, with perils, changes, and events, surrounding them on all sides like a mist, through which the most piercing eye could not discover one ray of light, but she was quitting all old associations, breaking through every habit of thought, entering upon an entirely new state of being. The grave of a woman's first life is her marriage contract. Did she doubt? Did she hesitate? Oh, no, she feared for the future in one sense, but in one sense alone. She believed, she knew, she felt, that she had chosen well, that Chartley's love would not alter, nor his tenderness grow cold, that her happiness was in him, and was as secure as any fabric can be, built upon a mortal and perishable base; but she felt that in uniting her fate to his, if she doubled the enjoyments and the happiness of being, she doubled the dangers and anxieties also. She was much moved, but not by that consideration--in truth her emotion sprang not from consideration at all. It was a sensation--a sensation of the awfulness of the change; and though it did not make her tremble, yet whenever she thought of it, and all that it implied through the wide long future, a thrill passed through her heart which almost stepped its beatings.
With Chartley it was very different. Men cannot feel such things with such intensity, nay, can hardly conceive them. His sensations were all joyful. Hope, eager passion, gratified love, made his heart bound high, and filled it with new fire and energy. He was aware that many dangers were around them, that every hour and every moment had its peril, and that then a strife must come, brief and terrible, in which, perhaps, all his newborn joys might be extinguished in death. But yet, strange to say, the thought of death, which had never been very fearful to him, lost even a portion of its terrors rather than acquired new ones, by what might appear additional ties to existence. We little comprehend in these our cold calculating days--in an age which may be designated "The age of the absence of enthusiasms"--we little comprehend, I say, the nature of chivalrous love; nor, indeed, any of the enthusiasms of chivalry. I must not stay to descant upon them; but suffice it to say, Chartley felt that, whenever he might fall, to have called Iola his own, was a sufficient joy for one mortal life, that to do great deeds and die with high renown, loving and beloved and wept, was a fate well worthy of envy and not regret.
Still he had some faint notion of what must be passing in her breast. He felt that the very situation must agitate her; he fancied that the mere material danger that surrounded them might alarm her; and he hastened to cheer and re-assure her as much as might be.
"I trust, dearest Iola," he said, "that I shall not weary you by this fast riding, after all the agitation of to-day. Once past Tamworth, and we shall be more secure; for all my men muster at Fazely; and I trust to find myself at the head of three hundred horse."
"Do you stop at Tamworth?" asked Iola. "I have heard that there are parties of the king's troops there."