The Maid of Sker

chance of getting him convicted. But by issue of that warrant he had stirred up and given shape to all the suspicions now languishing, and had enabled good honest people to lay their heads together and shake them, and the boldest of them to whisper that if a common man had done this deed, or been called in question of it, the warrant would have held its ground, until he faced an impartial jury of his fellow-countrymen. And what was far more to Chowne’s purpose, he had thus contrived to spread between Sir Philip and his eldest son a deadly breach, unlikely ever to be bridged across at all, and quite sure to stand wide for healing, up to the dying hour. Because it was given to all to know that this vile warrant issued upon oath of Squire Philip and by his demanding; and the father’s pride would never let him ask if this were so.

Now people tried to pass this over, as they do with unpleasant matters, and to say, “let bygones go;” yet mankind will never have things smothered thus, and put away. When a game is begun, it should be played out: when a battle is fought, let it be fought out⁠—these are principles quite as strong in the bosoms of spectators, as in our own breasts the feeling⁠—“let us live our lives out.”

But Isabel Carey’s wrath would not have any reason laid near it. Her spirit was as fine and clear almost as her lovely face was, and she would not even dream that evil may get the upper hand of us.

She said to Sir Philip, “I will not have it. I will not stay in a house where such things can be said of anyone. I am very nearly eighteen years old, and I will not be made a child of. You have been wonderfully kind and good, and as dear to me as a father; but I must go away now; I must go away.”

“So you shall,” said poor Sir Philip; “it is the best thing that can be done. You have another guardian, more fortunate than I am; and, my dear, you shall go to him.”

Then she clung to his neck, and begged and prayed him not to think of it more, only to let her stop where she was, in the home of all her happiness. But the General was worse to move than the rock of Gibraltar, whenever his honour was touched upon.

“My dear Isabel,” he answered, “you are young, and I am old. You were quicker than I have been, to see what harm might come to you. That is the very thing which I am bound to save you from, my darling. I love you as if you were my own daughter; and this sad house will be, God knows, tenfold more sad without you. But it must be so, my child. You ought to be too proud to cry, when I turn you out so.”

Not to dwell upon things too much⁠—especially when grievous⁠—Narnton Court was compelled to get on without that bright young Isabel, and the female tailors who were always coming after her, as well as the noble gallants who hankered, every now and then, for a glimpse of her beauty and property. Isabel Carey went away to her other guardian, Lord Pomeroy, at a place where a castle of powder was; and all the old people at Narnton Court determined not to think of it; while all the young folk sobbed and cried; and take it on the average, a guinea a-year was lost to them.

All this had happened for seven years now: but it was that last piece of news, no doubt, almost as much as the warrant itself, that made our Captain carry on so when we were in the limekiln. Because Lord Pomeroy had forbidden Isabel to write to her lover, while in this predicament. He, on the other hand, getting no letters, without knowing why or wherefore, was too proud to send any to her.

We saw the force of this at once, especially after our own correspondence (under both mark and signature) had for years been like the wind, going where it listeth. So we resolved to stop where we were, upon receipt of rations; and Heaviside told us not to be uneasy about anything. For although he durst not invite us to his own little cottage, or rather his wife Nanette’s, he stood so well in the cook’s good graces that he could provide for us; so he took us into the kitchen of Narnton Court, where they made us very welcome as Captain Drake’s retainers, and told us all that had happened since the departure of Miss Isabel, between Narnton Court and Nympton. In the first place, Parson Chowne had been so satisfied with his mischief, that he spared himself time for another wedlock, taking as Mrs. Chowne No. 4 a young lady of some wealth and beauty, but reputed such a shrew that nobody durst go near her. Before she had been Mrs. Chowne a fortnight, her manners were so much improved that a child might contradict her; and within a month she had lost the power of frowning, but had learned to sigh. However, she was still alive, having a stronger constitution than any of the Parson’s former wives.

Parson Jack had also married, and his wife was a good one; but Chowne (being out of other mischief) sowed such jealousies between them for his own enjoyment, that poor Master Rambone had taken to drink, and his wife was so driven that she almost did the thing she was accused of. Very seldom now did either of these two great parsons come to visit Sir Philip Bampfylde. Not that the latter entertained any ill-will towards Chowne for the matter of the warrant. For that he blamed his own son, the Squire, having received Chowne’s version of it, and finding poor Philip too proud and moody to offer any explanation.

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