In half an hour he and three or four armed servants were on board a trawling-skiff, and away to Lundy.He did not return for three days, and then brought news: that an elderly man, seemingly a foreigner, had been lodging for some months past in a part of the ruined Moresco Castle, which was tenanted by one John Braund; that a few weeks since a younger man, a foreigner also, had joined him from on board a ship: the ship a Flushinger, or Easterling of some sort.The ship came and went more than once; and the young man in her.A few days since, a lady and her maid, a stout woman, came with him up to the castle, and talked with the elder man a long while in secret; abode there all night; and then all three sailed in the morning.The fishermen on the beach had heard the young man call the other father.He was a very still man, much as a mass-priest might be.More they did not know, or did not choose to know.
Whereon old Cary and Sir Richard sent Will on a second trip with the parish constable of Hartland (in which huge parish, for its sins, is situate the Isle of Lundy, ten miles out at sea); who returned with the body of the hapless John Braund, farmer, fisherman, smuggler, etc.; which worthy, after much fruitless examination (wherein examinate was afflicted with extreme deafness and loss of memory), departed to Exeter gaol, on a charge of "harboring priests, Jesuits, gipsies, and other suspect and traitorous persons."Poor John Braund, whose motive for entertaining the said ugly customers had probably been not treason, but a wife, seven children, and arrears of rent, did not thrive under the change from the pure air of Lundy to the pestiferous one of Exeter gaol, made infamous, but two years after (if I recollect right), by a "black assizes," nearly as fatal as that more notorious one at Oxford; for in it, "whether by the stench of the prisoners, or by a stream of foul air," judge, jury, counsel, and bystanders, numbering among them many members of the best families in Devon, sickened in court, and died miserably within a few days.
John Braund, then, took the gaol-fever in a week, and died raving in that noisome den: his secret, if he had one, perished with him, and nothing but vague suspicion was left as to Rose Salterne's fate.That she had gone off with the Spaniard, few doubted; but whither, and in what character? On that last subject, be sure, no mercy was shown to her by many a Bideford dame, who had hated the poor girl simply for her beauty; and by many a country lady, who had "always expected that the girl would be brought to ruin by the absurd notice, beyond what her station had a right to, which was taken of her," while every young maiden aspired to fill the throne which Rose had abdicated.So that, on the whole, Bideford considered itself as going on as well without poor Rose as it had done with her, or even better.And though she lingered in some hearts still as a fair dream, the business and the bustle of each day soon swept that dream away, and her place knew her no more.
And Will Cary?
He was for a while like a man distracted.He heaped himself with all manner of superfluous reproaches, for having (as he said) first brought the Rose into disgrace, and then driven her into the arms of the Spaniard; while St.Leger, who was a sensible man enough, tried in vain to persuade him that the fault was not his at all;that the two must have been attached to each other long before the quarrel; that it must have ended so, sooner or later; that old Salterne's harshness, rather than Cary's wrath, had hastened the catastrophe; and finally, that the Rose and her fortunes were, now that she had eloped with a Spaniard, not worth troubling their heads about.Poor Will would not be so comforted.He wrote off to Frank at Whitehall, telling him the whole truth, calling himself all fools and villains, and entreating Frank's forgiveness; to which he received an answer, in which Frank said that Will had no reason to accuse himself; that these strange attachments were due to a synastria, or sympathy of the stars, which ruled the destinies of each person, to fight against which was to fight against the heavens themselves; that he, as a brother of the Rose, was bound to believe, nay, to assert at the sword's point if need were, that the incomparable Rose of Torridge could make none but a worthy and virtuous choice; and that to the man whom she had honored by her affection was due on their part, Spaniard and Papist though he might be, all friendship, worship, and loyal faith for evermore.
And honest Will took it all for gospel, little dreaming what agony of despair, what fearful suspicions, what bitter prayers, this letter had cost to the gentle heart of Francis Leigh.
He showed the letter triumphantly to St.Leger; and he was quite wise enough to gainsay no word of it, at least aloud; but quite wise enough, also, to believe in secret that Frank looked on the matter in quite a different light; however, he contented himself with saying:
"The man is an angel as his mother is!" and there the matter dropped for a few days, till one came forward who had no mind to let it drop, and that was Jack Brimblecombe, now curate of Hartland town, and "passing rich on forty pounds a year.
"I hope no offence, Mr.William; but when are you and the rest going after--after her?" The name stuck in his throat.
Cary was taken aback.
"What's that to thee, Catiline the blood-drinker?" asked he, trying to laugh it off.
"What? Don't laugh at me, sir, for it's no laughing matter.Idrank that night naught worse, I expect, than red wine.Whatever it was, we swore our oaths, Mr.Cary; and oaths are oaths, say I.""Of course, Jack, of course; but to go to look for her--and when we've found her, cut her lover's throat.Absurd, Jack, even if she were worth looking for, or his throat worth cutting.Tut, tut, tut--"But Jack looked steadfastly in his face, and after some silence:
How far is it to the Caracas, then, sir?""What is that to thee, man?"