Part 76

They had passed the banks and were some leagues from shore. Morning was feebly dawning behind them, when the dark hull of a ship, rapidly enlarging, seemed to rise out, broad and distinct, from the thin mist towards the west. The loud and incessant moan of the waves, the dash and recoil of their huge tops breaking against the sides of the vessel, with voices from on board, were distinctly heard, and immediately the boat was alongside.

The transfer of their cargo was a work of more difficulty, partly owing to the clumsiness and unseamanlike proceedings of the men who had charge of the prisoner, and partly owing to the light being yet too feeble for objects to be distinctly seen. A considerable interval in consequence elapsed ere the jailer, his assistants, and their charge were hoisted on the deck, not of a trim, gallant war-ship, well garrisoned and appointed, but of a lubberly trading vessel, redolent of tar, grease, and fish-odours, bound for merry Scotland.

"Yoh-o-ih! There--helm down--back maintopsail. So, masters, we had nigh slipped hawser and away. Why, here have we been beating about and about for three long nights; by day we durst not be seen in-shore. Yon cruiser overhauls everything from a crab to a crab-louse. What! got part of your company in the gyves! Where is the earl?"

"Here!" said the prisoner, coolly.

"Hold, captain," cried the wondering jailer, "the vessel goes not on her voyage until I and two of my friends here depart with the boat; we go not farther with our prisoner. The remaining two will suffice to see him delivered up at head-quarters. Yet, this cannot be." Here the bewildered officer looked round. "I have a warrant to commit this rebel unto the safe keeping of--ay, the captain of his majesty's cutter, the Dart. But this," surveying the deck with a suspicious glance, "is as frowsy and fusty a piece of ship-timber as ever stowed coals and cods' tails between her hatches. I pray we be not nabbed!" said he in a supplicating tone to his head craftsman.

The prisoner himself seemed as much surprised as any of the group; but the stranger, now addressing him, unravelled the mystery.

"My lord; I am no traitor; though until now labouring under that imputation; but you are amongst friends. Thanks to a woman's wits, we are, despite guards, bolts, and fetters, aboard the vessel which was waiting for us when you were surprised and seized, unfortunately, as we were trying our escape towards the coast. With the aid of my parent, I have been at last successful. You are now free!" It was Katherine who said this.

She changed her hitherto muffled voice as she continued:--"Captain, we have nabbed as cunning a jailer as ever took rogue to board in a stone crib. We will trouble thee to use thy craft; undo these fetters, prithee. He must with you, captain, till you can safely leave him and his companions ashore; but use him well for his vocation's sake. My lord, through weal and woe I have been your counsellor--your friend; but we must now part--'tis fitting we should. While you were in jeopardy, that alone could excuse my flight. Should better times come!"----Her voice faltered; she could not proceed; and old Grimes drew his hat over his face.

"Father," said Katherine, "you will take me to our home again. I will be all to you once more; and to my mother, now that he is safe."

One kiss from the gallant earl, and the high-minded, though low-born, maiden stepped into the boat. One wave of the hand, when the morning mist interposed its white veil, and parted them for ever;--yet not before old Grimes, taking a last survey of the vessel, was quite sure he saw the magician of the casket looking at him over the ship's side. In all probability his fancy had not deceived him; the affair of the casket, though supposed by the fisherman to be altogether of a supernatural nature, was, in all likelihood, a means of supplying the earl with money and information to aid his escape.

The subsequent history of this unfortunate but misguided chieftain, whose daring and audacious bravery was worthy of a better cause and a more disinterested master, is but too well known.

The vessel, being ill equipped and hardly sea-worthy, was pursued--the earl taken, and an ignominious death gave to the world assurance of a traitor.

THE MAID'S STRATAGEM;

OR,

THE CAPTIVE LOVER.

"Let me alone with him. If I do not gull him into a nayword, and make him a common recreation, do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed."

--Twelfth Night.

The following tale is perhaps the most apocryphal in our series. There has been considerable difficulty in fixing its locality: and, indeed, we are hardly sure that the names, dates, and places we have hit upon, will answer to the facts in every particular. We have done our best to verify it, and have succeeded, we trust, in the attempt, more to our reader's satisfaction than our own.

"There be more fools than farthingales, and more braggarts than beards, in this good land of ours. A bald-faced impertinent! it should cost the grand inquisitor a month's hard study to invent a punishment for him. This pretty morsel! Hark thee, wench; I'll render his love-billet to thine ear. Listen and be discreet.

"'If my sighs could waft the soft cargo of their love to thy bosom, I would freight the vessel with my tears, and her sails should be zephyr's wings, and her oars love's fiercest darts. If I could tell but the lightest part of mine agony, your heart, though it were adamant, would melt in the furnace of my speech, and your torture should not abate till one kind glance had irradiated the bosom of your most unhappy, and most wretched of lovers,

ANTONIO.'

"Now for the post scriptum. If thy sighs be as long as thine ears,----help the furnace they are blown through. Again.

"'If one ray of compassion lurks in your bosom, lady, let those radiant fingers illuminate your pen, touching one little word by way of answer to this love-billet, though it were but as a rope thrown out in this overwhelming ocean of love to keep from sinking your unhappy slave. These from my dwelling at ----.'

"O' my troth, answer thou shalt have, and that quickly, on thy fool's pate. Dost think, Marian, it were not a deed worth trying, to quell this noisome brute with a tough cudgel?"

"It were too good for him," replied the maid; "but if you will trust the rather to my conceits, lady, we will make this buzzard spin. He shall dance so rare a coarnto for our pastime; beshrew me, but I would not miss the sport for my best holiday favours."

But we leave the beauteous Kate and her mischief-loving maiden, to plot and machinate against the unsuspecting lover. It behoveth us, moreover, to be absent for a somewhat grave and weighty reason, to wit, that when women are a-plotting, another and a more renowned personage--the beau ideal of whose dress and personal appearance, according to the testimony of a reverend divine, consists of a black coat and blue breeches--generally contrives to be present, as was by that learned dignitary umquhile set forth in a well-known ditty, of which the veracity is only equalled by the elegance and propriety of the subject, and the classical dignity of its composition.

Leaving them, though in somewhat dangerous company, we just glance at the lover, whose epistle to the proud maiden proved so galling to her humours.

Master Anthony Hardcastle was the only son of a substantial yeoman of good repute long resident in ----. Dying he left him, when scarcely at man's estate, the benefit of a good name, besides a rich store of substance, in the shape of broad pieces, together with lands and livings. The sudden acquisition of so much loose wealth to one whose utmost limit of spending money aforetime had been a penny at Easter and a groat at Michaelmas, did seem like the first breaking forth of a mighty torrent, pent up for past ages, forming its own wild and wilful channel, in despite of all bounds and impediments. His education had been none of the most liberal or extensive; and, astonished at his own aggrandisement, he found himself at once elevated into an object of importance ere he could estimate his own relative insignificance in the great world around him. Thus he became an easy prey to the hordes of idlers and braggarts with whom he associated. He had been to town, kept company with some of the leading cut-and-thrust bullies of the day; but Nature had denied him the headstrong boldness, the desperate recklessness of disposition, requisite for this amiable occupation. His infirmity had consequently often led him to play the coward. At the same time it probably was the means of restraining him from many of those evils into which his lavish and simple disposition might have been enticed, and he was now settling down quietly in the character of a good-natured, well-furnished simpleton. Fond of dress and a gaudy outside, he aimed at ladies' hearts through the medium of silken cloaks and ponderous shoe-buckles;--designing to conquer not a few of the fair dames with whom he associated. But, alas! the perversity of woman had hitherto rendered his efforts unavailing; still an overweening opinion of his own pretensions to their favour prevented him from giving up the pursuit, every succeeding mishap in no wise hindering him from following the allurements of the next fair object that fluttered across his path. He had heard of the wit and beauty of Kate Anderton, only daughter to Justice Anderton of Lostock Hall, a bluff and honest squire who spent his mornings in the chase and his evenings in the revel incident thereto; a man well looked upon by his less distinguished neighbours, being of a benevolent disposition, and much given to hospitality. Kate's disposition was fiery and impetuous, but tempered withal so pleasantly by the sweetness of a naturally tender and affectionate spirit, that you loved her the better for these sharp and wayward ingredients, which prevented that sweetness from cloying.