"Oh, dear! I am very glad to hear it," she replied. "You surely would not have had him stay in a nasty, filthy prison for two or three weeks, because a great rogue chose to accuse him of a crime nobody believes he committed? I am very glad to hear it, indeed!"
The good lady then paused for a moment; and perceiving that, although her avowal of disbelief in regard to Captain Delaware's guilt had been not a little pleasing to his father, Sir Sidney still remained sad and depressed, she turned to him, kindly saying, "Come, come, Sir Sidney, I will not have you look so gloomy. You are as careworn as if your son were really guilty; and as we all know very well that he is not, you should make yourself quite sure that he will easily be able to cause his innocence to appear. But I have laid out a little scheme for you and Blanche. I have nobody staying with me in my new house, and the place is quite quiet. You will do nothing here but grow dull and melancholy, and I will have you get into the chariot with me, and come away and spend a week or two till all this is settled."
Although Sir Sidney Delaware felt that the invitation was most kind, and in his own dwelling experienced that sickening disgust which one feels toward all once-loved things, when some fatal change has poisoned them with bitter associations, yet he declined Mrs. Darlington's offer on his own part, though he much pressed his daughter to accept it. Blanche, however, refused to leave her father; and the matter would have ended thus, had not Mrs. Darlington discovered that one great motive in Sit Sidney's desire to remain at his own dwelling, at least for that night, was to hear the first news brought by the messengers dispatched to intercept his son.
As soon as she found how much weight this had upon him, she proposed to go forward with Dr. Wilton to Emberton, and there hear all that had been done in her own business: after which, she said, she would return at six o'clock for Sir Sidney and his daughter, who must have received tidings from the three county towns to which officers had been dispatched.
Some slight difficulties having been discussed and overcome, this plan was agreed to. Mrs. Darlington and Dr. Wilton departed; and the fact that Mrs. Darlington had visited the ruined family at Emberton having been ascertained by the appearance of her carriage rolling down the avenue from the house, threw the town into a state of agitation which might have afforded matter of envy to the arch-agitator himself.
In the mean while, the various messengers charged with the warrants against Captain William Delaware, proceeded toward their destinations. It may be only necessary to follow one of them, however; as all the rest, being sent in various wrong directions, might have gone onward in a direct line till they met at the antipodes, without setting eyes upon William Delaware. The one, then, who was directed to ride with all speed to the seaport town of ----, and having got his warrant backed by the proper authorities, to search for and take the person of the accused, arrived in that place at about two o'clock of the afternoon; and, finding that no less than five foreign vessels had sailed that day at high water, which took place at eight of the clock, he proceeded as he had been directed, to inquire at the offices of all the foreign vice-consuls what passports had been granted during the morning.
The consuls and their clerks were as civil as possible, and the names and descriptions were read over to him; but the poor man might as well have been in Babel, such a confused multitude of unchristianlike Christian names were pronounced in his ears. His next attempt was at the descriptions; but he found that, during that one morning, people of all colors and complexions, of all ages and sizes, of all features and professions, had sailed for foreign parts, or obtained their passports, which was quite as good; and therefore, bewildered and in despair, he gave up the search; and, having committed his charge to the constables of the place, once more mounted and returned to Emberton.
These tidings were balm to the hearts of Sir Sidney and Blanche Delaware, but were not quite so pleasing to the people of Emberton, who next to a murder enjoyed a hanging--which, indeed, is generally much the same thing. Another messenger, however, arrived about the same time, who brought news which somewhat diverted their attention. This was the mast who had been sent the day before to London, by Dr. Wilton, in search of Mr. Beauchamp, and who was a shrewd, intelligent fellow, not likely to miss the track of any one he sought for. But the tidings he brought back imported, that Mr. Beauchamp had never reached his house in town; and that, along the whole line of road, no person resembling him had either fed a horse, taken a post-chaise, mounted a stage, or entered an inn for the last four days.
Every one opened their eyes; and the people of Emberton all went to bed with the consolatory reflection that Mr. Beauchamp, or rather Mr. Burrel, as they termed him, must undoubtedly have been murdered also. Dr. Wilton was himself uneasy. Sir Sidney Delaware said that the absence of Henry Beauchamp was most unfortunate on many accounts; but Blanche turned deadly pale when she heard the tidings, and the vague apprehensions by which they were accompanied; and it would require no great skill in the book of the human heart to read the silent commentary that went on in her own bosom, on the unexplained absence of one she dearly loved.