Castle; and, with her shawl wrapped around her head, so as in some degree to conceal her features, she stood before Mr. Cargill in the doubtful light and shadow of a huge platanus tree, which formed the canopy of the arbour, and seemed to await the communication he had promised.
“Report says,” said the clergyman, speaking in an eager and hurried manner, yet with a low voice, and like one desirous of being heard by her whom he addressed, and by no one else,—“Report says that you are about to be married.”
“And is report kind enough to say to whom?” answered the lady, with a tone of indifference which seemed to astound her interrogator.
“Young lady,” he answered, with a solemn voice, “had this levity been sworn to me, I could never have believed it! Have you forgot the circumstances in which you stand?—Have you forgotten that my promise of secrecy, sinful perhaps even in that degree, was but a conditional promise?—or did you think that a being so sequestered as I am was already dead to the world, even while he was walking upon its surface?—Know, young lady, that I am indeed dead to the pleasures and the ordinary business of life, but I am even therefore the more alive to its duties.”
“Upon my honour, sir, unless you are pleased to be more explicit, it is impossible for me either to answer or understand you,” said the lady; “you speak too seriously for a masquerade pleasantry, and yet not clearly enough to make your earnest comprehensible.”
“Is this sullenness, Miss Mowbray?” said the clergyman, with increased animation; “Is it levity?—Or is it alienation of mind?—Even after a fever of the brain, we retain a recollection of the causes of our illness.—Come, you must and do understand me, when I say, that I will not consent to your committing a great crime to attain temporal wealth and rank, no, not to make you an empress. My path is a clear one; and should I hear a whisper breathed of your alliance with this Earl, or whatever he may be, rely upon it, that I will withdraw the veil, and make your brother, your bridegroom, and the whole world, acquainted with the situation in which you stand, and the impossibility of your forming the alliance which you propose to yourself, I am compelled to say, against the laws of God and man.”
“But, sir—sir,” answered the lady, rather eagerly than anxiously, “you have not yet told me what business you have with my marriage, or what arguments you can bring against it.”
“Madam,” replied Mr. Cargill, “in your present state of mind, and in such a scene as this, I cannot enter upon a topic for which the season is unfit, and you, I am sorry to say, are totally unprepared. It is enough that you know the grounds on which you stand. At a fitter opportunity, I will, as it is my duty, lay before you the enormity of what you are said to have meditated, with the freedom which becomes one, who, however humble, is appointed to explain to his fellow-creatures the laws of his Maker. In the meantime, I am not afraid that you will take any hasty step, after such a warning as this.”
So saying, he turned from the lady with that dignity which a conscious discharge of duty confers, yet, at the same time, with a sense of deep pain, inflicted by the careless levity of her whom he addressed. She did not any longer attempt to detain him, but made her escape from the arbour by one alley, as she heard voices which seemed to approach it from another. The clergyman, who took the opposite direction, met in full encounter a whispering and tittering pair, who seemed, at his sudden appearance, to check their tone of familiarity, and assume an appearance of greater distance towards each other. The lady was no other than the fair Queen of the Amazons, who seemed to have adopted the recent partiality of Titania towards Bully Bottom, being in conference such and so close as we have described, with the late representative of the Athenian weaver, whom his recent visit to his chamber had metamorphosed into the more gallant disguise of an ancient Spanish cavalier. He now appeared with cloak and drooping plume, sword, poniard, and guitar, richly dressed at all points, as for a serenade beneath his mistress's window; a silk mask at the breast of his embroidered doublet hung ready to be assumed in case of intrusion, as an appropriate part of the national dress.
It sometimes happened to Mr. Cargill, as we believe it may chance to other men much subject to absence of mind, that, contrary to their wont, and much after the manner of a sunbeam suddenly piercing a deep mist, and illuminating one particular object in the landscape, some sudden recollection rushes upon them, and seems to compel them to act under it, as under the influence of complete certainty and conviction. Mr. Cargill had no sooner set eyes on the Spanish cavalier, in whom he neither knew the Earl of Etherington, nor recognised Bully Bottom, than with hasty emotion he seized on his reluctant hand, and exclaimed, with a mixture of eagerness and solemnity, “I rejoice to see you!—Heaven has sent you here in its own good time.”
“I thank you, sir,” replied Lord Etherington, very coldly, “I believe you have the joy of the meeting entirely on your side, as I cannot remember having seen you before.”
“Is not your name Bulmer?” said the clergyman. “I—I know—I am sometimes apt to make mistakes—But I am sure your name is Bulmer?”
“Not that ever I or my godfathers heard of—my name was Bottom half an hour ago—perhaps that makes the confusion,” answered the Earl, with very cold and distant politeness;—“Permit me to pass, sir, that I may attend the lady.”
“Quite unnecessary,” answered Lady Binks; “I leave you to adjust your mutual recollections with your new old friend, my lord—he seems to have something to say.” So saying, the lady walked on, not perhaps sorry of an opportunity to show apparent indifference for his lordship's society in the presence of one who had surprised them in what might seem a moment of exuberant intimacy.
“You detain me, sir,” said the Earl of Etherington to Mr. Cargill, who, bewildered and uncertain, still kept himself placed so directly before the young nobleman, as to make it impossible for him to pass, without absolutely pushing him to one side. “I must really attend the lady,” he added, making another effort to walk on.
“Young man,” said Mr. Cargill, “you cannot disguise yourself from me. I am sure—my mind assures me, that you are that very Bulmer whom Heaven hath sent here to prevent crime.”
“And you,” said Lord Etherington, “whom my mind assures me I never saw in my life, are sent hither by the devil, I think, to create confusion.”
“I beg pardon, sir,” said the clergyman, staggered by the calm and pertinacious denial of the Earl—“I beg pardon if I am in a mistake—that is, if I am
“Valentine?—Valentine?” answered Lord Etherington, impatiently,—“I am neither Valentine nor Orson—I wish you good-morning, sir.”
“Stay, sir, stay, I charge you,” said the clergyman; “if you are unwilling to be known yourself, it may be because you have forgotten who I am—Let me name myself as the Reverend Josiah Cargill, minister of St. Ronan's.”
“If you bear a character so venerable, sir,” replied the young nobleman,—“in which, however, I am not in the least interested,—I think when you make your morning draught a little too potent, it might be as well for you to stay at home and sleep it off, before coming into company.”
“In the name of Heaven, young gentleman,” said Mr. Cargill, “lay aside this untimely and unseemly jesting! and tell me if you be not—as I cannot but still believe you to be—that same youth, who, seven years since, left in my deposit a solemn secret, which, if I should unfold to the wrong person, woe would be my own heart, and evil the consequences which might ensue!”
“You are very pressing with me, sir,” said the Earl; “and, in exchange, I will be equally frank with you.—I am not the man whom you mistake me for, and you may go seek him where you will—It will be still more lucky for you if you chance to find your own wits in the course of your researches; for I must tell you plainly, I think they are gone somewhat astray.” So saying, with a gesture expressive of a determined purpose to pass on, Mr. Cargill had no alternative but to make way, and suffer him to proceed.
The worthy clergyman stood as if rooted to the ground, and, with his usual habit of thinking aloud exclaimed to himself, “My fancy has played me many a bewildering trick, but this is the most extraordinary of them all!—What can this young man think of me? It must have been my conversation with that unhappy young lady that has made such an impression upon me as to deceive my very eyesight, and causes me to connect with her history the face of the next person that I met—What
“Why, what every one thinks of thee that knows thee, prophet,” said the friendly voice of Touchwood, accompanying his speech with an awakening slap on the clergyman's shoulder; “and that is, that thou art an
