“Alas! alas!” returned Abelard, “I have not forgotten her; and I assure you, I feel my lachrymal gland suffused almost to overflowing, whenever a thought of what may be her fate shoots across my pia-mater.”
The despair of the Duke and Sir Ambrose, when they saw their emissaries return with the clothes of Clara, may be easily imagined; and when they heard of the flight of Elvira, and the threats which Father Morris now openly indulged in, that the ex-Queen should be publicly executed if found, for having endeavoured to raise an insurrection, the climax of their misery seemed full.
In the meantime the party of Elvira did not dare to leave the hut in which they had remained pent up the whole day; their horses being crowded within its walls, as well as themselves, to prevent the possibility of discovery. At length, the shades of evening began to fall, and they again set forward at a rapid pace: though the agony they had suffered all day from fear of detection—the narrow space in which they had been cooped up, together with want of food, had exhausted the Queen so much that the morning found her unable to proceed without refreshment, and about daybreak they were obliged to approach a cottage to implore assistance.
The cottager and his son were out at work; but the woman of the house agreed to give the fugitives the shelter they requested. The prince, delighted at receiving this permission, flew back to the Queen to lift her from her horse; but, alas! Elvira was not in a state to enjoy even the most welcome tidings. Pale and livid as a corpse, her head hung upon the prince’s shoulder as he bore her into the house, and her terrified friends thought she had expired. A little warm milk, however, revived her, and she opened her eyes.
“I am ready—quite ready—to go on,” said she gasping for utterance, and again sinking back in a fainting fit.
“It is impossible she can proceed in this state,” said the prince to Clara, in a whisper; “what will become of us?”
“We must remain here quietly, till she is better,” said Clara.
“But if we should be pursued and taken?”
“We cannot die better than in such a cause,” said the heroic girl.
“It is strange,” said the prince, looking at her earnestly, “that the Queen has been able to inspire such enthusiastic devotion in such a mere boy.”
Clara blushed, and cast her eyes upon the ground, whilst the prince gazed upon her blushing cheeks still more earnestly, till she turned away from him abashed. He took her hand; “I cannot be mistaken,” said he, “it is, it is, Miss Montagu!”
Clara’s agitation betrayed her. “I must attend the Queen,” said she, breaking from him; and the prince, respecting the awkwardness of her situation, forbore to urge her farther: he felt, however, completely happy. Clara was too artless to conceal the interest he had excited in her breast, and it was not in the nature of man to be indifferent to the devotion of so young and lovely a creature. His eyes alone expressed his happiness; and Clara, who felt his delicacy in refraining from making any farther observations on her disguise, found her love for him increased tenfold by his forbearance.
A few hours’ repose restored Elvira so much, that she wished to pursue her journey immediately, and it was with the greatest difficulty that the prince persuaded her to wait till nightfall. “You must recruit your strength,” said he, “or you will never be able to plead your cause with the redoubtable Roderick. He is too stern a hero to be won as I was.”
“Oh, it is impossible to describe how I dread to meet him,” cried Elvira; “I tremble at his name. A being so fierce and stern as he is, will perhaps not even condescend to listen to a woman’s prayer, and he will spurn me from him.”
“Impossible!” cried the prince; “though I own, I wish we could do without him.”
Whilst the principals were thus employed, the cottager’s wife was endeavouring to learn from Hans who and what they were. “That poor lady seemed dreadfully tired,” said she. “When she came, she looked just like a drooping daffadowndilly; when the gentlemen lifted her from her horse—oh! it was quite moving to see her!”
“Ja!” said Hans.
“However, though her illness should occasion a little delay,” continued the cottager; “I opine that you must be unreasonable to grumble, when you consider the delightful occasion it affords you of refreshing your olfactory nerves by partaking of a little of this odoriferous atmosphere.”
“My what nerves?” asked Hans.
“Your olfactory nerves,” replied the learned cottager, with a look of the greatest possible contempt: “that is, the nerves that line the membrane of the nasal organ. Every child knows that the nasal fossae are formed to receive sensations, as by their depth and extent a larger surface is given to the pituitary membrane, and these soft sinuses, or cavities, are enabled to retain a greater mass of air loaded with odoriferous matter.”
Poor Hans stood aghast at this explanation, which he found something like that said to be given by Dr. Johnson, when he called network a complicated concatenation of rectangular angles; and afraid to speak, lest he should draw upon himself a new volley of words as astounding as the last, he remained silent, staring at his companions with much the same kind of feeling as that with which a wild man of the woods just caught, might be supposed to gaze upon enlightened Europeans.
“Can you give me some more warm milk?” asked Clara, who now descended in search of refreshments for the Queen.
“Do you think so much of the tepid lacteous fluid good for the lady?” asked the cottager, as she put some milk into a saucepan.
“She can take nothing else,” returned Clara. “How delightfully that girl sings!” continued she, listening with rapture to a milkmaid, who was chanting an Italian bravura as she was milking her cow.
“Yes,” replied the cottager, “Angelica sings
