"Ah, dearest Phil!" her mother cried, "the poor babe rejoiceth in the sight of thee, all unwitting in her innocent glee of the shortness of this joy. Howsoever, methinks five or six hours of it is a boon for to thank God for;" and so putting her arm in his, she led him away to a solitary part of the garden, where they walked to and fro, she, as she hath since written to me, starting each time the clock did strike, like one doomed to execution. Methinks there was this difference between them, that he was full of hope and bright forecastings of a speedy reunion; but on her soul lay a dead, mournful despondency, which she hid by an apparent calmness. When, late in the evening, a third message came for to say the ship could not depart that night, I begun to think it would never go at all. I saw Basil looked at the weathercock and shrugged his shoulders, as if the same thought was in his mind. But when I spake of it, he said seafaring folks had a knowledge in these matters which others did not possess, and we must needs be patient under these delays. Howsoever, at three o'clock in the morning the shipman signified that the wind was fit and all in readiness. So we rose in haste and prepared for to depart. The countess put her arms about my neck, and this was the last embrace I ever had of her. My lord's brother and sisters hung about him awhile in great grief. Then his wife put out her hands to him, and, with a sorrow too deep for speech, fixed her eyes on his visage.
"Cheep up, sweetest wife," I heard him say. "Albeit nature suffers in this severance from my native land, my true home shall be wherever it shall please God to bring thee and me and our children together. God defend the loss of this world's good should make us sad, if we be but once so blessed as to meet again where we may freely serve him."
Then, after a long and tender clasping of her to his breast, he tore himself away and getting on a horse rode to the coast. Basil and I, with Mr. William Bray and Mr. Burlace, drove in a coach to the port. It was yet dark, and a heavy mist hung on the valley. Folks were yet abed, and the shutters of the houses closed, as we went down the hill through the town. After crossing the bridge over the Arun the air felt cold and chill. At the steep ascent near Leominster I put my head out of the window for to look once more at the castle, but the fog was too thick. At the port the coach stopped, and a boat was found waiting for us. Lord Arundel was seated in it, with his face muffled in a cloak. The savor of the sea air revived my spirits; and when the boat moved off, and I felt the waves lifting it briskly, and with my hand in Basil's I looked on the land we were leaving, and then on the watery world before us, a singular emotion filled my soul, as if it was some sort of death was happening to me—a dying to the past, a gliding on to an unknown future on a pathless ocean, rocked peacefully in the arms of his sheltering love, even as this little bark which carried us along was lifted up and caressed by the waves of the deep sea.
When we reached the vessel the day was dawning. The sun soon emerged from a bank of clouds, and threw its first light on the rippling waters. A favoring wind filled our sails, and like a bird on the wing the ship bounded on its way till the flat shore at Littlehampton and the far-off white cliffs to the eastward were well-nigh lost sight of. Lord Arundel stood with Basil on the narrow deck, gazing at the receding coast.
"How sweet the air doth blow from England!" he said; "how blue the sky doth appear to-day! and those saucy seagulls how free and happy they do look!" Then he noticed some fishing-boats, and with a telescope he had in his hand discerned various ships very far off. Afterward he came and sat down by my side, and spoke in a cheerful manner of his wife and the simple home he designed for her abroad. "Some years ago, Mistress Constance," he said—and then smiling, added, "My tongue is not yet used to call you Mistress Rookwood—when my sweet Nan, albeit a wife, was yet a simple child, she was wont to say, 'Phil, would we were farmers! You would plough the fields and cut wood in the forest, and I should milk the cows and feed the poultry.' Well, methinks her wish may yet come to pass. In Brittany or Normandy some little homestead should shelter us, where Bess shall roll on the grass and gather the fallen apples, and on Sundays put on her bravest clothes for to go to mass. What think you thereof, Mistress Constance? and who knoweth but you and your good husband may also dwell in the same village, and some eighteen or twenty years hence a gay wedding for to take place betwixt one Master Rookwood and one Lady Ann or Margaret Howard, or my Lord Maltravers with one Mistress Constance or Muriel Rookwood? And on the green on such a day, Nan and Basil and you and I should lead the brawls."
"Methinks, my lord," I answered, smiling, "you do forecast too great a condescension on your part, and too much ambition on our side, in the planning of such a union."
"Well, well," he said; "if your good husband carrieth not beyond seas with him the best earl's title in England, I'll warrant you in God's sight he weareth a higher one far away—the merit of an unstained life and constant nobility of action; and I promise you, beside, he will be the better farmer of the twain; so that in the matter of tocher, Mistress Rookwood should exceed my Lady Bess or Ann Howard."
With such-like talk as this time was whiled away; and whilst we were yet conversing I noticed that Basil spoke often to the captain and looked for to be watching a ship yet at some distance, but which seemed to be gaining on us. Lord Arundel, perceiving it, then also joined them, and inquired what sort of craft it should be. The captain professed to be ignorant thereof; and when Basil said it looked like a small ship-of-war, and as there were many dangerous pirates about the Channel it should be well to guard against it, he assented thereto, and said he was prepared for defence.
"With such unequal means," Basil replied, "as it is like we should bring to a contest, speed should serve us better than defence."
"But," quoth Lord Arundel, "she is, 'tis plain, a swifter sailer than this one we are in. God's will be done, but 'tis a heavy misfortune if a pirate at this time do attack us, and so few moneys with us for to spare!"