Douglas shuddered at the picture, and asked the holy father what he should do.
“Retreat to my secret chamber, in the first instance; it were madness, and worse, to attempt to exclude the Earl de Mowbray from his castle, even if we had sufficient strength within, which you know we have not. I shall cause Lady Emma to be conveyed there also when she recovers; we must resolve on some scheme instantly; the secret of the spring is unknown to all but your faithful friends.”
Sir John at length complied, and was shortly afterwards joined in his retreat by Lady Emma and Edith. Flight—instant flight—was resolved on; and the timid and gentle Emma, who had hardly ever ventured beyond the walls of the castle, declared she was ready to dare everything rather than be torn from her husband, or be the means of his being consigned to endless captivity, or, it might be, a cruel and lingering death. Father Anselm set off again in search of Ralph, and soon returned with the joyful intelligence that De Mowbray was still at a castle a few miles distant; that those of his followers who had already arrived were then carousing deeply; and as soon as the first watch was set, a pair of fleet horses would be waiting at the small postern, to which Douglas and his lady could steal unobserved, wrapt in horsemen’s cloaks. The short interval which intervened was spent by Edith in making such preparations as were required for the travellers, and by the churchman in fervent petitions to Heaven for their safety. At length the expected signal was given from the chapel, and the agitated party stood at the low postern, where Ralph waited with the horses. It was some moments before the lady could disengage herself from the arms of her weeping attendant; but the father hurried them away, and soon their figures were lost in the gloom, and their horses’ tread became faint in the distance.
Well it was for the fugitives that their plans had been so quickly executed, for ere midnight the trumpets of De Mowbray sounded before the castle gate. There all was uproar and confusion. The means of refreshment had been given with unsparing hand, and the wild spirits of the mercenaries whom he commanded were then in a state bordering on stupefaction from their lengthened debauch. The few who accompanied him were not much better, and he himself had all his evil passions inflamed by the wine he had quaffed with the Lord of Barnard Castle. Hastily throwing himself from his reeking charger, he entered his castle sword in hand, and ordered his sister to be brought before him, and the castle to be searched, from turret to foundation stone, for the presumptuous Douglas. Pale, trembling, and in tears, Edith threw herself at his feet.
“O, my good lord, my lady, my dear lady is ill, very ill, ever since she heard of the death of her honoured father. To-morrow she will endeavour to see you.”
“Off, woman!” he exclaimed. “This night I must and shall see my sister, dead or alive,” and he arose with fury in his looks.
But Wolfstone, his lieutenant, a brave young man, stepped before him, and, drawing his sword, exclaimed—
“You must pass over my dead body ere you break in upon the sacred sorrows of Lady Emma.”
There was something in the brave bearing of the gallant foreigner which even De Mowbray respected, for he lowered his voice, and stealing his hand from his dagger, said—
“And where is Father Anselm, that he comes not to welcome me to the halls of my fathers?”