CHAPTER XVII
THE DUKE’S CARRIAGE
TWO hours later Bride looked up with an eager air, for she had heard the sound of a familiar footstep on the stair, and knew that she should have tidings at last.
She was comfortably established in a small parlour over a shop, and was making friends with a pair of solemn-looking little children, who were strangely fascinated by, though half afraid of, the pretty stranger lady. The house which had opened its door to the Duke’s party—and had had several windows broken in consequence—belonged to some humble tradespeople, and they had put everything in their house at the disposal of the Duke and his daughter, and had done all in their power to make them comfortable during the brief time which they had been forced to remain prisoners, owing to the presence of the howling mob without. Then when the crowd was diverted to some other spot, and had left this little street empty, Bride had still been left in the security of this humble abode, whilst the Duke and Eustace made their way back to the hotel, promising to return for her when the kidnapped carriage should have been recovered, and they could make another attempt to quit the town.
Bride had passed these two hours somewhat anxiously—her anxiety being for her father and Eustace, not for herself. The grocer’s two big lads, who acted the part of scouts, and ran in and out with items of news, reported that there was much excitement and rioting going on in the town now that all the mill hands were at liberty, and the supporters of the Radical candidate going to the poll. Sometimes sounds of distant yelling and hooting broke upon the ears of the listening girl, and sent a thrill through her frame. Sometimes there was a rush of growling operatives down the narrow street where she had found shelter, and for a moment her heart would stand still in expectation of an attack upon this very house; but the worthy people who had sheltered her took it all very quietly, and were not at all seriously disturbed. They said it was always so at election times, and smiled at the notion of there being any danger to dread.
So Bride had sipped the tea brought to her, and begged for the company of the two little children when their mother was obliged to go to her duties below. The time passed somewhat wearily and anxiously, but at last the sound of a familiar footstep without warned her that her time of waiting was at an end.
The door opened and Eustace entered, his face pale, his left arm in a sling, his clothes, though not exactly torn, and evidently carefully brushed, showing traces that their owner had been in some sort of skirmish or riot. The girl sprang up anxiously at sight of him, her face blanching a little.
“My father——?” she began, her lips forming the words, though her voice was barely a whisper. Eustace’s smile reassured her.
“He is quite safe. He will be here soon with a coach to take you safely home. He has not been in any of the troubles; he has been in the hotel ever since he left you. We got there by the back way without any difficulty; but the town was too disturbed for it to be advisable to attempt to drive out till some sort of order had been restored.”
“But you are hurt,” said Bride, with a look at the slung arm; “what have you been doing?”
“Oh, it is nothing,” answered Eustace, as he sat down to tell his tale, for he had been on his feet the best part of the day and was very fatigued; “only a little crushed and mangled—no bone broken. I could not keep within doors when so much that was exciting was going on without, and I was in the thick of the mêlée once. Poor Saul Tresithny fared worse than I. I am afraid he will never walk again. They are taking him to his grandfather’s house to be cared for: we thought it was the best thing to do. Poor fellow! poor fellow!—such a fine character run to waste! He might have done much for the cause of liberty and advancement; but he would not listen to aught save his own wild passions.”
Bride clasped her hands and looked earnestly at Eustace.
“Tell me what has happened,” she said breathlessly.
“I will tell you as much as I know myself. You are aware, of course, that to get possession of your father’s carriage and drag all the Radical voters to the poll in it was considered the most wonderful triumph over us and our man. As soon as you were safely out of the way, the mob turned its attention to the spoil they had confiscated. A young blacksmith who could drive was put on the box; the colours were torn from the horses and replaced by others; and the equipage was sent dashing all over the town, returning each time crammed inside and out with the shabbiest and least reputable voters that could be found, the snorting, terrified, foaming horses being goaded almost to madness by the shouting and the blows they received, and threatening again and again to become altogether unmanageable.”
“Poor creatures!” said Bride softly; “I hope they have not been hurt. My father would be grieved.”
“I think they will not be the worse in the end. They are on their homeward way now with their own coachman driving them, and poor Saul lies groaning in the torn and ruined carriage, being taken to his grandfather’s cottage by the wish of the Duke. It is doubtful whether he will live through the effects of this day’s work; and your father wished him to be taken to Abner, as the only person likely to exercise the smallest influence over him.”
“Ah! poor Abner!” said Bride, with compassion; and looking again at Eustace, she said, “Go on, please; tell me the rest.”
“Well, as far as I understand the matter, it was like this. Saul and his satellites were in possession of the Duke’s carriage, and acted as a sort of bodyguard whilst it made its journeys through the town. But as soon as it was recognised by the other side as being the Duke’s coach, and rumour spread abroad the report of how it had been taken from his Grace and put to these vile purposes, a counter-demonstration was at once organised. A mob of men wearing the colours not only of Sir Roland but of the Viscount, combined together to effect the rescue of the carriage, and very soon this ill-fated vehicle became the centre of a continuous and never-ceasing furious riot. It still remained in the possession of Saul’s men, but it was hemmed in by a crowd of enemies; and though by sheer weight and dogged power of resistance it was driven to and fro between the polling place and the town streets, its progress became with each succeeding journey more difficult, and the fighting around it hotter and hotter.”
“How extraordinary people are!” said Bride, with a light shiver, “as though it did any good to make these fearful disturbances and riots. Do they really think any cause will be benefited by such things? It seems all so strange and sad.”
“At least it seems the outcome of ordinary human nature at such times,” answered Eustace. “I did not know much about what was going on for some time, but by-and-bye word was brought that the fighting over the carriage was getting really rather serious. Once it had been taken possession of by the rival rabble, and was being borne back in triumph to the hotel to be put once more at the service of its owner; but then Saul led a tremendous charge with his roughs, and the fortunes of the day turned once more in his favour. Things in the town were getting so serious that some soldiers had been brought in under Captain O’Shaughnessy, and were drawn up in readiness not far off. But we all hoped there would be no need for their interference, and I thought I would go down and see what it was all about, and, if it was possible, draw off our own adherents from the unseemly riot.”
“And that was how you got hurt?” said Bride.
“Yes; perhaps I was foolish to suppose that one man, and that myself, could do any good at such a moment; but I think one has a natural desire to be in the thick of everything, and I knew that I should not come to harm, if Saul Tresithny could help it. I went down and out into the street. The noise told me that the carriage could not be far away, and very soon I had forced myself into the thick of the fight, hoping, when I got between the combatants, to induce Saul on the one side to draw off his men, whilst I urged those of our own supporters who had joined in the scrimmage to retire from the unseemly disturbance. But things had gone much too far for any pacific endeavours on my part. I do not know exactly in whose possession the carriage was at the moment when I reached it; and the press round it and the fighting was so fierce and indiscriminate that I could hardly move or breathe, let alone trying to make my voice heard. And soon I was recognised by one great fellow as an enemy, and a new element of fury was added to the struggle; but what really made the danger, and caused the damage at last, was a sudden shout raised at the back of the crowd that the soldiers were coming.”
“Ah!” breathed Bride softly.
“I suppose the man on the box of the carriage saw over our heads that it was true, for he suddenly deserted his post, and flung himself down to the ground; whilst the horses, feeling the sudden jerk of the reins, and then the slackness which followed, set to plunging and kicking wildly, scattering the mob right and left, and knocking down at least half-a-dozen of the crowd, as they swerved and tried to turn, before bolting off in their terror. Saul saw the peril to every one, rushed forward and made a gallant spring at their heads; but he was knocked down and trampled upon in a fearful way, before I and a few others could come to his assistance and get to the heads of the horses. When we brought them to a standstill at last, I had got my arm crushed, I shall never know exactly how; and the other fellows had all got bruises or cuts of one sort or another. As for poor Tresithny, he lay on the ground like one dead, his head bleeding, one foot so crushed that I fear he will never walk again, and with other injuries of quite as grave a character. But the mob had scattered helter-skelter by that time, and the soldiers, with their bayonets fixed, were quietly bearing down through the street, clearing a path before them, as a gale of wind clears away the fog wreaths through a valley.”
“They did not hurt the people—they did not fire?”
“Oh, no; they behaved very well and good-temperedly, for they were a good bit pelted and hooting at starting. I heard. They just fixed their bayonets, and marched quietly on in rank, and the mob dispersed more quickly than one would suppose possible. I think the fall of poor Tresithny, and the rumour that he was dead, frightened and discouraged the crowd, and perhaps they had had enough of it by that time. At any rate, by the time the soldiers reached us the street was almost clear; and after we had soothed and quieted the poor horses, who were in a lather from head to foot and quaking in every limb, they had picked up Tresithny tenderly enough, and laid him in the carriage, making a sort of bed for him there with all the cushions. It did not matter then that the poor fellow was bleeding, and that his clothes were covered with dust and mud: the carriage was in such a state inside and out that nothing could harm it more. When we had placed him there, we led the horses to the hotel yard, and your father was told everything, and came down to look for himself at the state of the equipage, and at the prostrate leader of the mob.”
“And he sent him home to Abner?” said Bride, with a soft light in her eyes.
“Yes. We got a surgeon to look at him without moving him, and he bound up the wound on his head, and cut away the boot from the crushed foot. He would not have him taken out of the carriage or moved in any way till he could be put straight to bed; and after the horses had been groomed and fed, the coachman was called for, and directed to drive young Tresithny to his grandfather’s cottage, the surgeon going in the carriage with him.”
“Poor Abner!” said Bride once more; “but it will be the happiest thing for him to have Saul under his own roof.”
“That is what your father said. So two soldiers were told off to see the carriage safe out of the town, and there is a sharp patrol of the streets being kept up to prevent any more organised rioting. I think the disturbers of the peace have had enough of it by this time. There is the ordinary scrimmaging and hustling about the poll, but that is quite a different thing from the desperate fighting and blackguardism that was going on round the Duke’s carriage. And now I have come to tell you that you will soon be called for and taken home. The hotel has furnished us with a coach to drive back in, and Captain O’Shaughnessy himself will accompany us out of the town to make sure there is no more rioting about us.”
“And how is the poll going?”
“Well for us. Mr. Morval has polled a large number of votes these past two hours, but Sir Roland still holds his own. So far as one may guess till the end has come, I should say he was quite safe for the seat; though I think his majority will be considerably reduced, as is natural, seeing how the party split. Things might have been much worse under such circumstances.”
The rattle of wheels below announced the arrival of the promised coach, and Bride took her departure, after having made acknowledgment of all kinds to the friendly people who had given her shelter. She found her father looking fagged and worn, but quiet and tranquil, and the journey home was accomplished without any farther disturbance.
Early next morning news reached the castle that Sir Roland had won the seat by a reduced though still substantial majority. The other piece of news was that Saul Tresithny had lived through the night, and, though very much injured, might still survive, only that he must lose his foot. It was so crushed and mangled and dislocated that nothing could be done for it. If his life were to be saved, the foot must go.
Bride went down herself to see Abner and make personal inquiries. The old man looked very pale and grave, but was quiet and composed.
“It may be, my Ladybird, that the Lord has sent this in mercy and not in wrath,” he said. “There’s many a one as has found the door of the fold in the time of weakness and sorrow and pain, that never could see it when things were otherwise with him. It is better to enter into life maimed than to lose the hope of salvation for this life and the next. Pray God he will turn to Him at last in this dark hour, when he could not make shift to see the way before.”
“Ah! I hope so!—I trust so,” said Bride softly. “That is why I am so glad for him to be with you and not amongst strangers. You can point the way; you can tell him of the hope. When his life here looks so dark before him, perhaps he will turn at last to the hope of the glory and blessedness that will be revealed in the kingdom. I do not see how men can live without that hope, when the things of earth fail them, and show how hollow and empty they always are.”
Abner smiled with a look on his face in which hope and sorrow were strangely blended. He knew better than this girl could do the hardness of the human heart and the stubborn toughness of a nature like Saul’s, and yet he would not despond.
“The Great Gardener never takes the pruning-knife but for the good of the plant He is about to prune,” he said. “It’s hard sometimes to watch the living tree cut away from the stem, but in days to come one sees and knows why it was needful. We can but live in faith that it will be so with these poor frail bodies of ours.”
“Does he know?” asked Bride, with a little shiver.
“No, he has never come to his senses yet, and I am hoping he won’t until it is all over. The doctor will come this afternoon with another gentleman, and then ’twill be done quick and sharp. I’m hoping and praying it will all be over before the poor lad comes rightly to himself.”
Bride spent that day mostly alone, and much of it in prayer. Her father, wearied out by the fatigues and excitements of yesterday, kept to his room, and Eustace had gone into Pentreath to see Sir Roland.
It was evening when a message from Abner was brought to the girl to tell her that the operation was over successfully, and that the patient was sleeping quietly under the influence of an opiate.
That evening she and Eustace dined alone together, the Duke preferring to keep still to his room. It was a soft clear evening in May, and the sunlight lay broad and bright upon the sparkling water as they passed out, at Eustace’s suggestion, upon the terrace, and sat there watching the beautiful pageantry of the evening sky. Eustace looked pale and tired, and there was a touch of gentle solicitude in Bride’s manner towards him that sent quick thrills through all his pulses. Those weeks just passed had not been too full of other interests and excitements to blind Eustace to the fact that Bride was still the one woman of all others for him. He had not spoken a single word of love to her all this while, and she gave no sign of remembering what had once passed between them; but the thought of it was strong in his mind to-night, and he was wondering with an intensity of feeling whether he might venture upon expressing some of those many thoughts and hopes which always came crowding upon him in the presence of his cousin when they were alone together.
She had told him all she knew of Saul—they could talk of him, at any rate; and both were keenly interested in the young man, and deeply grieved at the terrible injury he had received.
“If it had been in a good cause, it would have been easier to bear, I think,” she said. “But a street-fight—in the display of brute violence and unmeaning hostility—ah! it makes me so sad even to think of it!”
“I think it was better than that, Bride,” said Eustace. “I think, when Saul sprang at that great pair of plunging horses, he was trying to hinder mischief and hurt for others. I think he was trying to save me, for one, for I was very near. He had been fighting and leading rioters; but I think he fell in the cause of humanity and charity; I think he deliberately sacrificed himself for others.”
Bride’s eyes lightened and glistened.
“Oh, I am glad of that—I am very glad. I must tell Abner.”
There was silence for a few minutes between them, and then Eustace said in a low voice—
“Bride, you will let me know how it goes with him, and what sort of a recovery he makes. Your father is not very likely to mention it in his letters; but will you write now and then yourself, and tell me how it fares with Saul?”
She looked up quickly.
“Then are you going, Eustace?”
“I must go soon, quite soon, Bride. I do not know exactly when this new Parliament will first meet. The polling in the country is not over yet, but it soon will be now; and there is much to learn and to discuss before the House meets. I cannot delay much longer, now that I have a seat of my own.”
“No, I had forgotten for a moment. Of course, you are a member of Parliament now.”
He looked at her rather searchingly.
“Bride—tell me that you do not despise me for it?”
“Oh, no, Eustace, I do not despise you. I hope I do not despise anybody. I think it is very sad that men and women should ever hate or despise each other. We have all our faults and our imperfections. We ought to be very gentle and loving and patient.”
He wished she would be just a little less impersonal in her replies; and yet he could not wish her other than she was. He put out his hand and laid it softly on hers.
“Bride,” he said, “you have not given me the promise I asked for.”
She did not take her hand away, but let his lie upon it as they sat together in the soft evening light. She turned her sweet face towards him. It was not flushed, and was very calm and tranquil; yet, deep down in those liquid dark eyes there was a look which sent the blood coursing through his veins in a fashion that made him giddy for a moment. Yet he showed nothing outwardly, and she saw nothing to alarm her or drive her into herself.
“What promise?” she asked softly.
“To write to me sometimes when I am far away.”
“To tell you about Saul?” she added quietly. “Yes, Eustace, I will do that very willingly.”
“Thank you, Bride; but do not let your letters be restricted to news of Saul only. You will tell me of other things. You will tell me of St. Bride, St. Erme, of the St. Aubyns, Mr. Tremodart, of yourself.”
“I will tell you any news that I think will interest you,” she answered. “But you know there is little to happen at Penarvon. Nothing ever happens to me that would interest you.”
“Indeed, you are wrong there,” he answered with suppressed eagerness; “everything that happens to you is of the greatest possible interest to me.”
“I hardly think so,” she said musingly; “for you see one day here is outwardly just like another. Except at such times as these, there are no external events; and I do not think you take account of any but outward things—no one can speak of what is inward and spiritual to one who does, not understand.”
“And you think that I do not understand such things, Bride?”
Her glance into his face was very steady and searching.
“I do not think you do—yet,” she answered; “I may be wrong, but we generally feel those things. You have an intellectual life—a much deeper and fuller one than mine; but I think you have starved your spiritual life for a great many years. I think you have tried to judge all things spiritual by your intellectual standard, and all the things that cannot be made to agree with your philosophy are set aside as superstitions. I often think that the pride many men take in being above superstition is one of the subtlest and most destructive weapons the devil has ever forged. What is superstition? I have been told that long, long ago, it was almost the same in meaning as religion. It certainly means a belief in the unseen—in the powers of good and evil, in the mysterious actions of God—and of the devil—with regard to the children of men. But everything too deep or mysterious for human comprehension may be called superstition by those whose spiritual insight is blunted, and who have no experience of God’s dealing in the hearts of individual men. I know that hundreds and thousands of clever men call it superstition when they hear of men and women believing in special providences of God—believing that prayer is answered for such things as rainfall or drought or epidemic sickness. Others call it superstition when they are told of the coming kingdom of Christ and His Second Coming in glory, of which the Apostles constantly wrote and spoke, and which long ago the Early Church hoped to see. It is all so very, very sad to me when I think of it. Ah! Eustace, if you could but see the beautiful truth of God with eyes unclouded by the mists of your worldly philosophy! I sometimes think and believe that you will do so yet; but I do not think men can ever shake off the scales from their eyes until they begin to know that scales are there. Whilst they think it is their eyes that see, and their souls that embrace true wisdom, how can the Spirit of God find a home in their hearts? It is those who pray, ‘Lord, that I might receive my sight!’ who feel the Saviour’s hand laid upon them, and go away seeing.”
Eustace sat perfectly still, with his eyes fixed upon Bride’s face. A quick strange thrill went through him at her words, as it had done many times before when she was speaking with him. But during these past busy weeks there had been no talk of this sort between the cousins; and Eustace felt with a sensation of surprise, and almost of exultation, how far more responsive was his heart now when such words fell on his ear, than it had been months ago—a year ago, when she had sometimes spoken in this strain, and he had smiled to himself at her mystic fanaticism.
She had certainly come gradually to a clearer appreciation of what was going on in the world, and to a juster estimate of the good and the evil of the movements of the day. He often felt her increased power of sympathy and comprehension, and rejoiced in it; but had he too changed on his side, and were they really growing nearer together in all things? He no longer felt disposed to smile when she spoke words like these; rather he longed for her purity of faith and singleness of heart, and felt that she possessed a reserve of power and strength that was in many respects greater than his own. Where he would be led away by self-interest, she would see with perfect clearness of vision. Where he would be influenced by a partisan spirit to fail in discrimination, and adopt the evil with the good without analysis or reflection, she would detect at once all that was impure and unworthy, and refuse contact with it, even at the price of personal loss. It was, perhaps, impossible for a man in the vortex of political life and a keen party struggle to keep his heart perfectly pure, and always be found on the side of right, and the opponent of wrong in every phase; but at least she had inspired him with this desire as he had never known it before; and he began to understand—what once he would not have believed—that she gained this insight and this purity of heart and motive through the workings of that spiritual nature which had been such a perplexity to him before.
“Bride,” he said at last, in a strange voice, which he hardly knew for his own, “you almost persuade me to ask for that power of vision myself.”
Her eyes lighted with a strange radiance, though they were not turned to him, but out over the sea.
“I think it is never asked in vain,” she said softly, “if it is asked in humble repentant faith.”
“You will have to teach me, Bride, for I am very ignorant in all these things.”
“I cannot teach you,” she answered softly, “though, perhaps, I can help you with my prayers. Only the Spirit of God can guide you into all truth. He will lead you to the cross of the Crucified One first, and then by gradual steps to the knowledge of the Risen, the Ascended, the Glorified Lord, for whose bright and glorious coming we and all creation are waiting in patient confidence and joyful hope.”
He was silent. He could not follow her yet into these regions, but faint stirrings of the desire to do so were working in him. Once he had thought, “I must draw her down to earth and my level;” now, the unconscious aspiration of his mind was, “Would that I might follow her there!” But all he said was—
“Do you pray for me, then, Bride?”
“Always,” she answered softly; and although Eustace went in having spoken no word of love (as he had almost intended at the outset), he felt that he and Bride had never been so near together as at that moment.