“Then trust me I go not from Norham, betide me what may,” cried Sir Patrick, energetically. “But tell me, lady, I entreat thee, when these eyes may be again blest with thy presence; give me hope, the which is now the food I feed on.”
“Nay, in sooth, I can enter into no arrangements,” said the lady, with yet greater agitation; “but,” said she, starting away, “I have tarried here too long; in truth, Sir Patrick Hepborne, I must be gone; may the Holy Virgin be with thee, Sir Knight!”
“And may thou be guarded by kindred spirits like thyself!” cried Sir Patrick, earnestly clasping his hands, and following her with his eyes as she hastily retreated with old Adam.
Sir Patrick took several turns on the walls, giving way to the rapture which this meeting had occasioned him, and then hastened to regain his apartment, where he laid himself down not to repose, but to muse on the events of the evening.
“The minstrel was right,” thought he; “the good Adam’s prophecy did not deceive me. She admitted that her heart was free, and she confessed, as far as maiden modesty might permit her, that she is not altogether without an interest in me. She was pleased with the idea of our farther stay at Norham; and in her confusion she betrayed, that to meet me again would give her pleasure. And she shall meet me again—ay, and again; mine excellent Assueton’s patience must e’en bear some days’ longer trial, for go, at least, I shall not. Days, did I say? ha! but let events determine.” With such happy reflections, and yielding to a train of the most pleasing anticipation, he amused himself till he fell asleep.
CHAPTER VII.
The Midnight Meeting in the Ancient’s Chamber—Strange Proposal—A Dreadful Alternative.
It was past the hour of midnight, when all in the Castle had [[62]]been for some time still, save when the sentinels on the ramparts repeated their prolonged call, that a footstep was again heard upon the stair leading to the top of the keep. It was the heavy, slow step of Sir Walter de Selby. He carried a lamp in his hand, and often stopped to breathe; but at last he made his way to the roof, and sought the aerial den of the monstrous Ancient. He went thither, deluded man, imagining that he went of his own free will; but the crafty Ancient had taken secret measures to insure his coming.
When the good old knight had sought the little private oratory within his chamber, immediately after his attendants had retired, he was fearfully dismayed by observing a blue lambent light flitting over the surface of an ancient shield that hung above a small altar within a dark Gothic recess. In that age of ignorance, a circumstance so unaccountable might have shaken the firmest nerves; but it had been the shield of his father, a bold moss-trooper, and from him he had learned that this was the ill-omened warning sign that was always said to appear to foretell some dire calamity affecting him or his issue. With extreme agitation of mind he at once recurred to recent events for an explanation of it. During his ride with the Bishop of Durham, that prelate had repeated the arguments he had employed the day before, particularly in the long conference they had held after the banquet, to fortify him in the resolution of pressing the Lady Eleanore into a marriage with Sir Rafe Piersie; and, indeed, Sir Walter’s heart was so eagerly set on the accomplishment of a union in every respect equal to his most sanguine wishes, that little eloquence was necessary to convince him of the propriety of urging his daughter to it by every means in his power. Nay, although she was his only child, and that he so doted on her as to have got into a habit of yielding to every wish she expressed, yet this was a point on which he was very easily brought to adopt a determined line of conduct with her. She had somewhat provoked him, too, by the license she had given her tongue in presence of the Bishop, when she indulged herself in ridiculing the very august person he was proposing to her as a husband; and the knight’s passion at the moment had so far got the better of his affection, that he spoke to her with a degree of harshness he had never used before. His after conversations with the Bishop had now brought him to the determination of compelling the Lady Eleanore to a marriage so much to her advantage, and so flattering to his own hopes of high alliance. So firmly was he fixed in this resolution, that, in a meeting he had with his daughter after his return from [[63]]accompanying the Bishop, he withstood all her entreaties, and steeled himself against all her grief, and all her spirited remonstrances. After such an interview, it is not surprising that Sir Walter should have immediately supposed that the menacing prodigy, which now appeared before his eyes, had some reference to the purposed marriage of the Lady Eleanore. On all similar occasions of threatened misfortune, he had been for some years accustomed to apply for counsel to the cunning Ancient Fenwick, whom he believed to possess supernatural powers of foretelling and averting the greatest calamities; nay, he had more than once been convinced of the happy effects of his interference in his behalf. His impatience to seek him at present, therefore, was such that he could hardly restrain himself until he had reason to think that all eyes in the Castle were closed but his own. He paced his chamber in a state bordering on distraction, stopping from time to time at the door of the oratory to regard the terrific warning, and wringing his hands as he beheld it still flitting and playing over the surface of the shield.