THE HOUR BEFORE THE DAWN.
"What outward form and feature are
He guesseth but in part;
But what within is good and fair
He seeth with the heart."
Coleridge.
Through the woods with sure-footed fleetness their powerful horses bore Oswald and Wulfhere on the fateful night of their visit to the monastery. Matters of most momentous importance to Oswald at least, as well as to Alice and the Count her father, called for urgency, and would brook no delay. Presently the pair stood together in the wood, hard by the place of the mysterious passage. "Hold the horses, Wulfhere, and await my return; our rest will be more welcome, and much sweeter when we have brought peace unto others, and disburthened our minds of the momentous issues following on this day's work." So saying, he swung himself aloft, and speedily disappeared in the cavernous recesses of the giant oak.
Meanwhile, on the turret a lonely figure paced round and round its battlemented heights in the shivering cold, but all unconscious, and insensible to its chilling influences. It was Alice De Montfort who waited and watched in the loneliness of the night, hoping, yet despairing of hearing the welcome voice, or seeing the welcome form of her Saxon lover. Ever and anon, as she paced to and fro, she lifted up her tear-stained eyes in voiceless prayer to the heavens above her; but the driving clouds as they scudded across the face of the sky, seemed to shut out hope, and all response from the vaulted blue, toward which she looked for succour and for comfort. Then in mute agony she turned from the Omnipotent, whose form she could not see; and whose voice she could not hear, but who, though as yet there was no token, had nevertheless heard her prayer ere it was uttered, and in His own way was sending fleet messengers of hope.
Was there hope and help in man? She mounted the parapet and peered long and anxiously over the bastions into the cheerless night, listening with strained attention for sound of voice or human footfall. But the teeth of the driving wind bit with piteous severity her wan cheek, and she sank down again beneath the shelter of the wall.
"Will he come to-night?" she yearningly asked of the empty air.
Her faint heart gave the answer to the question.
"No, he is a fugitive and a hunted Saxon; a wolfshead and an outlaw; and after this day's vengeance he must hide himself as best he can. But I love him all the more for that, for he is brave and true, and I will gladly share poverty and exile with him. What would I not give this moment to know that he is safe? to feel the grasp of his strong arm; to hear his voice, resolute as a hero's should be, yet withal so tender, that a little babe would be hushed to sleep by its gentleness, as though 'twere a mother's lullaby. How danger seems to fly from me, and dark, overhanging fate is fronted by silver-winged hope when he is nigh! But, alas! vain are all my hopes, for he comes not. Perhaps already the traitorous minions have avenged themselves in his blood, and I shall never see him more. I must fain get me to my chamber and weep, and pray the night away, in the hope that with to-morrow's light there may come some tidings of him. Just one last look from the bastion ere I descend."