Again and again had Roland thought, while angry pride mingled with love and gratitude, that in marrying Aurelia, he would deprive her of no luxury to which she had been accustomed,—horses and carriages in summer, the sledge in winter, a dressing maid, or the thousand and one little things which wealth can procure, because she had that; but he had longed to make her mistress of Ardgowrie!
Now—now, when he had lost her, perhaps for ever, how pitiful and minor seemed all such considerations.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ABDUCTION OF AURELIA.
In the main, the newspaper report was correct.
Madame Darnel, with the amiable object in view stated in the letter of Aurelia, had been proceeding with her toward her own estate, which was near the pleasant and well-built village of St. Eustache, in Lower Canada. It consisted then of about a hundred houses, a handsome church and parsonage, and is situated near the mouth of the river Du Chine.
Her sledge was a handsome and fashionable one; the day was clear and bright, the snow, though deep, was frozen hard, and the sledge glided along delightfully. It was drawn by two fine horses, with showy harness, set off by high hoops with silver bells on the saddles, with rosettes of ribbon and streamers of coloured horse-hair on the bridles; and Aurelia—her charming face flushed and pinky with frosty air, a cosy boa round her slender neck, her hand, through gloved, inserted in a sable muff,—was enjoying to the utmost the gay jingle of the bells, the nice crisp sound of the runners of the sledge, when suddenly and involuntarily a shrill scream broke from her, when at a turn of the road near the river, where the cuttings in the banked-up snow lay deep between two rows of picket-fencing, a musket was fired, and their driver fell forward, a corpse, shot through the head, and the vehicle was surrounded by a mob of men.
Infuriated or sullen, but all ruffianly in aspect, these men nearly all wore fur caps, with large flaps down their cheeks, enormous pea jackets or blanket coats patched and tattered, with India-rubber shoes, or moose-skin mocassins, or thick cloth boots with high leggings.
All were armed with pikes, pitch-forks, swords, and pistols; many had fowling pieces; many more had muskets and bayonets, and wore cross-belts stolen from Government armouries or stripped from the slain; and some carried their ammunition in hunting pouches and shot bags.
One who seemed the leader wore a huge coat of buffalo hide, and looked like some great wild animal, for of the human face, nothing was visible, but a long blue nose and a pair of red and blood-shot eyes.