Lady Barbarity: A Romance

by J. C. Snaith

“Faugh!” I pondered, “these lonely speculations are so unendurable that I will fetch Emblem to bear me company the remainder of the night.”

But everything outside seemed muffled in such silence as with the hush of snow, that ere I started for her chamber I drew the blinds up of my own and looked out into the park.

Snow indeed! Quite a fall of it, though it now had ceased. The moon was shining on the breadths of white; every tree stood up weird and spectral, and such a perishing cold presided over all that the whole of Nature seemed to be succumbing to the blight of it. The lamp I held against the pane struck out for a quarter of a mile across the meadows and revealed the gaunt, white woods of Cleeby sleeping in the cold paleness of moon and snow. The night appeared to hold its breath in awe at the wonderful fair picture the white earth presented. And very soon I did also, but for a different reason.

To my left hand a hedge that stood a distance off was plainly to be seen. Suddenly a figure emerged stealthily from under it. ’Twas that of a man, who after looking cautiously about him began in a crouching and furtive fashion to approach the house.

He came creeping slowly through the snow, and at every yard he made it seemed as much as ever he could do to drag one leg behind the other. Once he stopped to listen and observe, and apparently heard sounds that did disquiet him, for he speedily resumed his motion, and at a more rapid pace than formerly. His form grew sharper and clearer as he came, and soon the moonlight fell on it so distinctly that I presently recoiled from the window with a thrill of very horror. It was the fugitive!

I think I was more frightened than surprised. During the weary vigil of that night this wanderer had held such entire dominion of my thoughts that after my brain had been fretted into a fever on his account, it seemed one of the most natural consequences to step from my bed and discover the cause of my distraction coming towards me through the night.

I quite supposed that his enemies had managed to turn him from the north, and that finding himself without money or any resources for escape, he had returned to Cleeby to implore the aid of the only friend he had in the cruel country of his foes. Yet his movements were so mysterious that I was by no means certain that this was so. Instead of coming underneath the window in which the blinds were up and a lamp was burning, that he should have known was mine (my figure must have been presented to him as clearly as by day), he renounced the front of the house entirely and turned into a path that led to the stables and kitchen offices on the servants’ side.

To try and find a motive for his action I pulled up the casement softly and thrust my head forth into the stinging air. Certain sounds at once disturbed the almost tragic hush, and assailed my ears so horridly that I hastily withdrew them and shut the window down. The poor lad’s pursuers were shouting and holloaing from a distant meadow. In half an hour at most they must run the wretch to earth, for they were horsed, and he was not; besides, his painful gait told how nearly he was beaten.

They say that the deeds of women are the fruit of sentiment, and after this strange night I, for one, will not dispute with the doctors on that theory. There was no particular reason why I should give a second thought to the fate of this hunted rebel, this baker’s son, this proletariat. Nay, the sooner he was retaken the better for myself and my papa. Yet at three of the clock that snowy morning I did not review his end with such a cold, complacent heart. His affairs seemed very much my own. Once when I had played the friend to him his brave eyes had delighted and inspired me. No, I would not sit down tamely and let him perish. Why should I—I whose spirit was adventurous?

Therefore, my determination taken, I wisely put the lamp out, that its brightness might not attract attention from those enemies scouring the fields, then proceeded silently but swiftly to get into my clothes. Never was I drest less carefully, but haste meant the salvation of a friend. Warmly shod and clad, I descended the stairs with expeditious quietude, groped to the left at the bottom of the staircase, through dark doors and the ghostly silence of moonlit and deserted passages, until I reached the kitchen part. Soon I found an outer door, unlocked it, slipped the bolt, and stepped into the night. The slight, soft breathing of a frost wind came upon my face, and a few straggling white flakes rode at intervals upon it, but only a film of snow was on the yard, of no more consistency than thistledown, but the sharp air was wonderfully keen.