Chapter Twenty.
Adventure with a Witch.
Master Clough punished me for what he was pleased to call my idle behaviour, during the time of the breaking of the images, by making me copy out the whole of a long letter he wrote to Sir Thomas Gresham, giving an account of the affair. He acknowledged that the mob, although he called them ruffianly rascals, had evidently been influenced by one sole motive, that was—to do away with all the symbols of Popery; that neither man nor woman had been in the slightest degree injured, nor a single article (great as was the value of many of them) appropriated by the image-breakers.
Shortly after this we were as usual seated at our desks working away, for Master Clough kept us well employed, when a courier entered the office. He brought the information that Sir Thomas Gresham had landed at Ostend two days before from England, accompanied by a lady, and that he hoped to arrive the following day at Antwerp. Preparations were instantly made for his reception. A’Dale and I were not a little interested in trying to guess who the lady could be. We cross-questioned the courier, but all we could learn from him was that the lady was not Lady Anne Gresham; indeed, he had supposed, from the way Sir Thomas treated her, that she must be his daughter. She was also, we discovered, young and fair. I had some hesitation in asking the man these questions. Her name he did not know. I strongly suspected that she must be Aveline Radford.
Madam Clough, however, at all events seemed to know all about her, and was preparing a room, though I must own that I did not venture to inquire of that lady. I have said very little about Madam Clough hitherto. She was a very good woman, but, in our estimation, not to be compared to Lady Anne. She demanded far more attention and respect as her due, and never allowed us the slightest approach to intimacy; indeed, she seemed to consider that we were in all respects her inferiors. Still she was, as I have said, a worthy woman, and knew how to do her duty. She was inclined to be charitable, as far as helping those who came to her in distress; and I have no doubt that in her own place at Plasclough, in Denbighshire, where she and her husband resided when making holiday, she acted the Lady Bountiful to perfection.
It must be confessed that, after the news we had received, I felt a strange trepidation at my heart, and made a variety of mistakes in the letters I was inditing, for which I received due verbal castigation from Master Clough. What other young lady could be coming besides Aveline? A’Dale, I rather suspect, hoped, for his own sake, that she might be some stranger; for though he admired Aveline, yet he was aware of my feelings with regard to her, and he was too true a friend to wish to interfere in the matter.
I slept very little, it must be owned, that night. I was thinking of Aveline—how she would appear; how she would treat me: whether, in the light of an old friend, or, after having seen so many great and wealthy people, be inclined to look upon me as her inferior. I kept twisting and turning the subject in every possible way, till I made myself perfectly miserable; and it was not till at last I thought that perhaps, after all, the lady who was expected might not be Aveline, that I dropped to sleep.
A bright idea occurred to me in the morning. It would be but respectful if A’Dale and I were to ride out to meet Sir Thomas Gresham as he approached Antwerp. I suggested the same to Master Clough, and, having got through all the work he required of us at an early hour, we were perfectly ready to set forth. He threw no objection in the way. We therefore ordered our horses, and as soon as we could with decency leave the office, we rode forth by the northern gate from the city. We, I must confess, had calculated, from the information gained from the courier, that Sir Thomas would not arrive for at least two or three hours after that time. We should thus have an opportunity of meeting him and his companions at some distance from the city, and enjoy the pleasure of riding back with them. We rode on for some distance, till at length we began to hope that we might soon fall in with the expected travellers. Every cloud of dust which appeared rising ahead of us gave us hopes that they were coming. As we drew nearer, and figures appeared through the cloud of dust, my heart beat quicker. A few minutes more showed us a party of travelling merchants, with their packs on led horses.