Calantha was less surprised at this conversation, from remembering the secret Gondimar had communicated, than she otherwise must have been; but she could not understand what had given rise to this paroxysm of despair at that particular moment. A singular circumstance now occurred, which occasioned infinite conjecture to all around. Every morning, as soon as it was light, and every evening at dusk, a tall old man in a tattered garb, with a wild and terrible air, seated himself in front of the castle windows, making the most lamentable groans, and crying out in an almost unintelligible voice, “Woe, on woe, to the family of Altamonte.” The Duke was no sooner apprised of this circumstance, than he ordered the supposed maniac to be taken up; but Lady Margaret implored, entreated and even menaced, till she obtained permission from her brother to give this wretched object his liberty.
Such an unusual excess of charity—such sudden, and violent commiseration of a being who appeared to have no other view than the persecution and annoyance of her whole family, was deemed strange; but when they no longer were molested by the presence of the fanatic, who had denounced their ruin, they ceased to converse about him, and soon the whole affair was forgotten. Calantha indeed remembered it; but a thousand new thoughts diverted her attention, and a stronger interest led her from it.
CHAPTER VI.
The Rector of Belfont had willingly permitted the little Zerbellini to be placed under his wife’s care. The distance from thence to the castle was short; and Calantha had already sent her children there for the benefit of sea-bathing. On returning one day thence, she called upon Gerald Mac Allain, who had absented himself from the castle, ever since Mr. Buchanan had appeared there. She found him mournfully employed in looking over some papers and drawings, which he had removed to his own habitation. Upon seeing Lady Avondale he arose, and pointing to the drawings, which she recognized: “Poor Alice,” he said, “these little remembrances tell me of happier days, and make me sad; but when I see you, my Lady, I forget my sorrows.” Linden’s cottage was at a very little distance from Gerald Mac Allain’s. Calantha now informed him that she had met young Linden at the fair, and had wished to speak to him; but that she did not immediately remember him, he was so altered. Gerald said “it was no use for her to speak to him, or for any one else, he was so desperate-like; and,” added he, “Alice’s misconduct has broke all our hearts: we never meet now as formerly; we scarce dare look at each other as we pass.”
“Tell me, Gerald,” said Calantha, “since you have spoken to me on this melancholy subject, what is the general opinion about Alice? Has Linden no idea of what has become of her?—had he no suspicion, no doubt of her, till the moment when she fled?” “Oh yes, my Lady,” said the old man, “my poor girl estranged herself from him latterly; and when Linden was obliged to leave her to go to the county of Leitrim for Mr. O’Flarney, during his absence, which lasted six weeks, he received a letter from her, expressing her sorrow that she never could belong to him. Upon his return he found her utterly changed; and in a few weeks after, she declined his further visits; only once again consenting to see him. It was on the very morning before my Lady Margaret conveyed her away from the castle.”
“But did you never suspect that things were going on ill before?—did Linden make no attempt to see her at the Doctor’s? It seems strange that no measures should have been taken before it was too late.” “Alas! my dear young lady, you do not know how difficult it is to suspect and chide what we love dearly. I had given up my child into other hands; she was removed entirely from my humble sphere; and whilst I saw her happy, I could not but think her deserving; and when she became otherwise, she was miserable, and it was not the moment to shew her any severity. Indeed, indeed, it was impossible for me to mistrust or chide one so above me as my Alice. As to young Linden, it turned his mind. I walked to his father’s house, ill as I was, just to shake hands with him and see him, as soon as I was told of what had passed. The old gentleman, Cyrel’s father, could not speak. The mother wept as soon as she beheld me; but there was not one bitter word fell from either, though they knew it would prove the ruin of the young man, their son, and perhaps his death.”
“From that time, till the present,” continued Gerald, “I seldom see Linden; he always avoids me. He altered very much, and took to hard drinking and bad company; his mind was a little shaken; he grew very slack at his duty; and listed, we suppose, with that same gang, which seduced my two poor boys from their allegiance and duty. He was reprimanded and punished by his commander; but it seems all one, for Mr. Challoner was telling me, only a few days since, that in the last business there with Squire O’Flarney, Linden was taken notice of by the justice. There’s no one can save him, he seems so determined-like on his own ruin; and they say, it’s the cause why the old father is on his death-bed at this present time. There is no bitterness of heart like that which comes from thankless children. They never find out, till it is too late, how parents loved them:—but it was not her fault—no—I don’t blame her—(he knit his brow)—no—I don’t blame her.—Mr. Buchanan is no child of our own house, though he fills the place of that gracious infant which it pleased the Lord to take to himself. Mr. Buchanan is the son of a strange father:—I cannot consider him as one of our own—so arbitrary:—but that’s not the thing.”
“Gerald,” said Calantha, “you are not sure that Buchanan is the culprit: we should be cautious in our judgments.” “Oh, but I am sure, and I care not to look on him; and Linden, they say, menaces to revenge on the young lord, my wrongs and his own; but his old father begs him for God’s sake to be peaceable. Perhaps, my Lady, you will look on the poor gentleman: what though ’tis a dying man—you’ll be gratified to see him, there is such a calm upon his countenance.” “Must he die?” “Why, he’s very precarious-like:—but your noble husband, the young Lord Avondale, is very good to him—he has done all a man and a soldier could do to save him.” “I too will call,” said Calantha, to hide from Gerald how much she was affected; “and, as to you, I must entreat as a favour, that you will return to the castle: to-morrow is Harry’s birth-day; and it will not be a holiday, my father says, if you are not, as you were wont to be, at the head of the table with all the tenants.” “I will come,” said Gerald, “if it were only on account of my Lord’s remembering me: and all the blessings of the land go with him, and you, and his noble house, till the end of time, and with the young Lord of Glenarvon beside, who saved Roy and Conal from a shameful death—that he did.”
“But you forget,” said Calantha, smiling, “that, by your own account, he was the first to bring them there.” “By my heart, but he’s a noble spirit for all that; and he has my good wishes, and those of many beside.” As he spoke, his eye kindled with enthusiasm. Calantha’s heart beat high: she listened with eager interest. “He’s as generous as our own,” continued he; “and if he lets his followers take a pig or two from that rogue there, Squire Flarney, does not he give half he has to those in distress? If I could ever meet him face to face, I’d tell him the same; but we never know when he’s among us; for sure, there’s St. Clara the prophetess, he went to see her once, they say, and she left her aunt the Abbess, and the convent, and all the nuns, and went off after him, as mad as the rest. Och! you’d bless yourself to see how the folks crowd about him at the season, but they’re all gone from these parts now, in hopes of saving Linden, I’m told; for you know, I suppose, that he’s missing, and if he’s deserted, it’s said they are sure to shoot him on account of the troubles.”
“Three times there have been meetings in that cleft there,” continued Gerald, pointing towards the Wizzard’s Glen: “it was that was the first undoing of Miss St. Clare: they tell me she’s all for our being delivered from our tyrants; and she prophecies so, it would do you good to hear her. Oh, they move along, a thousand at a time, in a silence would surprise you—just in the still night, and you can scarce hear them tread as they pass; but I know well when they’re coming, and there is not one of us who live here about the town, would betray them, though the reward offered is very stupendous.”