Fixing her soft eyes mournfully, and with half reproachful glance, on those of the old servant, she laid her hand lightly on his arm, and said, with an attempt to be playful, as of old, which was in truth most melancholy, “Ah, I have found you out for all your hiding, Jeremy. So you were watching me in these wild woods;” and then altering her tone in an instant, as if she had become aware that the effort was in vain, “but no,” she added, “no, no—you are mistaken; I am not mad, indeed I am not mad, only most miserable; though God knows, and he only, how soon they may make me mad also. Now listen to me, Jeremy, you must promise me here, and now, that you will do from this time forth whatever I may ask of you. I know that in old times you were good to my mother, and now, God help me, unless it be you alone, there is no one left to be good to her daughter. Say, will you promise me, old Jeremy?”
“I will—I will, Mistress Margaret,” replied the old man, moved even to tears by the earnest incoherency of her address. “I will, if they kill me for it! I will do what you bid me, though it be to lose my own life, or—” and he bent his brows darkly, and clenched his hand and repeated in a deep whisper, “or—or to take that of others!”
For one moment she gazed at him so wistfully and so wildly, that he imagined that he had hit upon her meaning, and that she only lacked the nerve to speak out her desire openly. He fixed his eye, therefore, firmly and confidently on hers, and tapping the butt of the heavy cross-bow, which lay in the hollow of his left arm, with the fore-finger of his right, “There is no doubt,” he said, “nor any danger. I can send a broad arrow through his heart, as he rides home some night in his cups, I warrant me, and none the wiser.”
“Hush! hush!” replied the girl severely. “You must not speak of such things, nor I think of them. You misunderstand me, and offend me.” But it was remarkable that her cheek did not pale, nor her lip quiver, nor her soft eye blanch, nor any start of disgust or horror shake her frame, at that dark and bloody proposition. A little month before, and she had recoiled in awe and loathing, had fled in utter scorn and hatred from any one who should have dared to impute such meaning to her words. But now she listened calmly, and though she refused and rebuked the offer, she did so with an unmoved and deliberate demeanor, as if she were herself familiar with thoughts of blood and death; as if she had accustomed herself to envisage such ideas calmly, perchance herself to look at man’s worst enemy or best friend, as it may be, no longer through a glass darkly, but steadily, and face to face.
It must have been, indeed, strange misery, awful despair, which had changed a being so merry and innocent, so delicate and womanly, and gentle, into one so resolved and stern, and so calm in her resolution, whether for good or evil.
“No, no,” she continued, “you must promise me, in the first place, never to follow or watch my steps any more, but, on the contrary, to observe others, lest they do so; and if you see or suspect any one attempting it, frustrate or intercept him. Do you promise me this?”
“I swear it.”
“It is well. Now tell me, how long shall it take, with the utmost speed of man and horse, taking relays wherever they may be had, to reach Oxford.”
“I will be bound to do it, Mistress Margaret, between sunrise to-morrow and noon the third day hence; a younger man might do it quicker by well nigh a day; but I am near to fourscore years old now, and my limbs grow stiff, and my breath fails, but my will is good, lady, and my heart is as stout as ever.”
“I doubt it not, Jeremy; and that will do right well. Now mark me. I may have need to send ere long to Oxford a messenger whom I can trust, and may have no occasion to speak with you. See, here is gold, thirty broad pieces. Now observe this ring which I wear; if I send it to you at any hour of night or day, or give it you myself, or drop it in your path that you find it, tarry not for one moment, but take horse and ride—and ride for life, for life, and—” here she dropped her voice, and caught the old man by his hand, and whispered in his ear—“bear it to Lionel Thornhill, and with your own hand place it in his hand. Do you mark?—Do you comprehend? Will you do my bidding?”