CHAPTER XVI.
Still as a moonlight ruin is thy power,
Or meekness of carved marble, that hath prayed
For ages on a tomb; serenely laid
As some fair vessel that hath braved the storm,
And passed into her haven, when the noise
That cheered her home hath all to silence died,
Her crew have shoreward parted, and no voice
Troubles her sleeping image in the tide.
ALFORD.
My mind was a prey to great inquietude—shall I term it undefined jealousy?—as I galloped back to my hotel. I had left directions with Pitblado that, if any letters came for me during the two days I was to be absent from barracks, he was to mount my spare horse, and bring them on the spur direct to Canterbury; but none had come, for he had not appeared.
I lingered over my wine alone, in my solitary room at the Royal, reflecting on the evening's adventures.
Was the horseman who had passed me really Berkeley?
If so, he was riding to Chillingham Park, and would just be in time for dinner—a fact that, if he was uninvited, argued considerable familiarity with that proud and exclusive family.
Then there was the girl whom I had rescued at the stile. What a puzzle she was! I reviewed all her conversation with me, and her strange bearing. Her literary information and education seemed to be of a very superior kind, and her manner was unexceptionable. She seemed gentle, too, and to have been on an errand of charity or mercy. Why was she so agitated when our corps was mentioned! Her love for a red coat might be natural enough; but who was "the captain" to whom the ruffian referred when threatening her? Then there was undisguised anxiety for a letter. That was natural also; and it was an emotion in which I could fully share.
Those yokels in frocks and hobnailed shoes had called her wife, and even widow; but the servant, or nurse, only named her as "miss."
What if she and her nurse, the old spider-brusher, were but a delusion and a snare? What if her modesty and trepidation, and the old woman's love and anxiety, were but a specious piece of acting!
Prudence suggested that such things were not uncommon in this good land of Britain.