Katherine sprang to the spot where the instrument stood, and with eager hands she prepared it for the necessary observation.

"It is he!" she cried, the instant her eye was put to the glass. "I even see his head above the stones. How unthinking to expose himself so unnecessarily!"

"But what says he, Katherine?" exclaimed Cecilia; "you alone can interpret his meaning."

The little book which contained the explanations of Miss Plowden's signals was now hastily produced, and its leaves rapidly run over in quest of the necessary number.

"Tis only a question to gain my attention. I must let him know he is observed."

When Katherine, as much to indulge her secret propensities as with any hope of its usefulness, had devised this plan for communicating with Barnstable, she had, luckily, not forgotten to arrange the necessary means to reply to his interrogatories. A very simple arrangement of some of the ornamental cords of the window-curtains enabled her to effect this purpose; and her nimble fingers soon fastened the pieces of silk to the lines, which were now thrown into the air, when these signals in miniature were instantly displayed in the breeze.

"He sees them!" cried Cecilia, "and is preparing to change his flags."

"Keep then your eye on him, my cousin, and tell me the colors that he shows, with their order, and I will endeavor to read his meaning."

"He is as expert as yourself! There are two more of them fluttering above the stones again: the upper is white, and the lower black."

"White over black," repeated Katherine, rapidly, to herself, as she turned the leaves of her book.—"'My messenger: has he been seen?'—To that we must answer the unhappy truth. Here it is— yellow, white, and red—'He is a prisoner.' How fortunate that I should have prepared such a question and answer. What says he, Cecilia, to this news?"

"He is busy making his changes, dear. Nay, Katherine, you shake so violently as to move the glass! Now he is done; 'tis yellow over black, this time."

"'Griffith, or who?' He does not understand us; but I had thought of the poor boy, in making out the numbers—ah! here it is; yellow, green, and red—'My cousin Merry'—he cannot fail to understand us now."

"He has already taken in his flags. The news seems to alarm him, for he is less expert than before. He shows them now—they are green, red, and yellow."

"The question is, 'Am I safe?' 'Tis that which made him tardy, Miss Howard," continued Katherine. "Barnstable is ever slow to consult his safety. But how shall I answer him? should we mislead him now, how could we ever forgive ourselves!"

"Of Andrew Merry there is no fear," returned Cecilia; "and I think if Captain Borroughcliffe had any intimation of the proximity of his enemies, he would not continue at the table."

"He will stay there while wine will sparkle, and man can swallow," said Katherine; "but we know, by sad experience, that he is a soldier on an emergency; and yet, I'll trust to his ignorance this time—here, I have an answer: 'You are yet safe, but be wary.'"

"He reads your meaning with a quick eye, Katherine; and he is ready with his answer too: he shows green over white, this time. Well! do you not hear me? 'tis green over white. Why, you are dumb—what says he, dear?"

Still Katherine answered not, and her cousin raised her eyes from the glass, and beheld her companion gazing earnestly at the open page, while the glow which excitement had before brought to her cheek was increased to a still deeper bloom.

"I hope your blushes and his signals are not ominous, Kate," added Cecilia; "can green imply his jealousy, as white does your purity? what says he, coz?"

"He talks, like yourself, much nonsense," said Katherine, turning to her flags, with a pettish air, that was singularly contradicted by her gratified countenance; "but the situation of things requires that I should talk to Barnstable more freely."

"I can retire," said Cecilia, rising from her chair with a grave manner.

"Nay, Cecilia, I do not deserve these looks—'tis you who exhibit levity now! But you can perceive for yourself that evening is closing in, and that some other medium for conversation, besides the eyes, may be adopted.—Here is a signal, which will answer: 'When the abbey clock strikes nine, come with care to the wicket, which opens, at the east side of the paddock, on the road: until then, keep secret.' I had prepared this very signal, in case an interview should be necessary."

"Well, he sees it," returned Cecilia, who had resumed her place by the telescope, "and seems disposed to obey you, for I no longer discern his flags or his person."

Miss Howard now arose from before the glass, her observations being ended; but Katherine did not return the instrument to its corner, without fastening one long and anxious look through it, on what now appeared to be the deserted tower. The interest and anxiety produced by this short and imperfect communication between Miss Plowden and her lover did not fail to excite reflections in both the ladies, that furnished materials to hold them in earnest discourse, until the entrance of Alice Dunscombe announced that their presence was expected below. Even the unsuspecting Alice, on entering, observed a change in the countenances and demeanor of the two cousins, which betrayed that their secret conference had not been entirely without contention. The features of Cecilia were disturbed and anxious, and their expression was not unlike melancholy; while the dark flashing eye, flushed temples, and proud, determined step of Katherine exhibited in an equal, if not a greater degree, a very different emotion. As no reference to the subject of their conversation was, however, made by either of the young ladies after the entrance of Alice, she led the way, in silence, to the drawing-room.

The ladies were received, by Colonel Howard and Borroughcliffe, with marked attention. In the former there were moments when a deep gloom would, in spite of his very obvious exertions to the contrary, steal over his open, generous countenance; but the recruiting officer maintained an air of immovable coolness and composure. Twenty times did he detect the piercing looks of Katherine fastened on him, with an intentness that a less deliberative man might have had the vanity to misinterpret; but even this flattering testimonial of his power to attract failed to disturb his self-possession. It was in vain that Katherine endeavored to read his countenance, where everything was fixed in military rigidity, though his deportment appeared more than usually easy and natural. Tired at length with her fruitless scrutiny, the excited girl turned her gaze upon the clock: to her amazement, she discovered that it was on the stroke of nine, and, disregarding a deprecating glance from her cousin, she arose and quitted the apartment. Borroughcliffe opened the door for her exit, and, while the lady civilly bowed her head in acknowledgment of his attention, their eyes once more met; but she glided quickly by him, and found herself alone in the gallery. Katherine hesitated, more than a minute, to proceed, for she thought she had detected in that glance a lurking expression, that manifested conscious security mingled with secret design. It was not her nature, however, to hesitate, when circumstances required that she should be both prompt and alert; and, throwing over her slight person a large cloak, that was in readiness for the occasion, she stole warily from the building.

Although Katherine suspected most painfully that Borroughcliffe had received intelligence that might prove dangerous to her lover, she looked around her in vain, on gaining the open air, to discover any alteration in the arrangements for the defence of the abbey, which might confirm her suspicions, or the knowledge of which might enable her to instruct Barnstable how to avoid the secret danger. Every disposition remained as it had been since the capture of Griffith and his companion. She heard the heavy, quick steps of the sentinel, who was posted beneath their windows, endeavoring to warm himself on his confined post; and as she paused to listen, she also detected the rattling of arms from the soldier who, as usual, guarded the approach of that part of the building where his comrades were quartered. The night had set in cloudy and dark, although the gale had greatly subsided towards the close of the day; still the wind swept heavily, and, at moments, with a rushing noise, among the irregular walls of the edifice; and it required the utmost nicety of ear to distinguish even these well-known sounds, among such accompaniments. When Katherine, however, was satisfied that her organs had not deceived her, she turned an anxious eye in the direction of what Borroughcliffe called his "barracks." Everything in that direction appeared so dark and still as to create a sensation of uneasiness, by its very quiet. It might be the silence of sleep that now pervaded the ordinarily gay and mirthful apartment! or it might be the stillness of a fearful preparation! There was no time, however, for further hesitation, and Katherine drew her cloak more closely about her form, and proceeded with light and guarded steps to the appointed spot. As she approached the wicket the clock struck the hour, and she again paused, while the mournful sounds were borne by her on the wind, as if expecting that each stroke on the bell would prove a signal to unmask some secret design of Borroughcliffe. As the last vibration melted away, she opened the little gate, and issued on the highway. The figure of a man sprang forward from behind an angle of the wall, as she appeared; and while her heart was still throbbing with the suddenness of the alarm, she found herself in the arms of Barnstable. After the first few words of recognition and pleasure which the young sailor uttered, he acquainted his mistress with the loss of his schooner, and the situation of the survivors.

"And now, Katherine," he concluded, "you have come, I trust, never to quit me; or, at most, to return no more to that old abbey, unless it be to aid in liberating Griffith, and then to join me again forever."

"Why, truly, there is so much to tempt a young woman to renounce her home and friends, in the description you have just given of your condition, that I hardly know how to refuse your request, Barnstable. You are very tolerably provided with a dwelling in the ruin; and I suppose certain predatory schemes are to be adopted to make it habitable! St. Ruth is certainly well supplied with the necessary articles, but whether we should not be shortly removed to the Castle at York, or the jail at Newcastle, is a question that I put to your discretion."

"Why yield your thoughts to such silly subjects, lovely trifler!" said Barnstable, "when the time and the occasion both urge us to be in earnest?"

"It is a woman's province to be thrifty, and to look after the comforts of domestic life," returned his mistress; "and I would discharge my functions with credit. But I feel you are vexed, for to see your dark countenance is out of the question, on such a night. When do you propose to commence housekeeping, if I should yield to your proposals?"

"I have not concluded relating my plans, and your provoking wit annoys me! The vessel I have taken will unquestionably come into the land, as the gale dies; and I intend making my escape in her, after beating this Englishman, and securing the liberty of Miss Howard and yourself. I could see the frigate in the offing, even before we left the cliffs."

"This certainly sounds better!" rejoined Katherine, in a manner that indicated she was musing on their prospects; "and yet there may exist some difficulties in the way that you little suspect."

"Difficulties there are none—there can be none."

"Speak not irreverently of the mazes of love, Mr. Barnstable. When was it ever known to exist unfettered or unembarrassed? Even I have an explanation to ask of you, that I would much rather let alone.

"Of me! ask what you will, or how you will; I am a careless, unthinking fellow, Miss Plowden; but to you I have little to answer for—unless a foolish sort of adoration be an offence against your merits."

Barnstable felt the little hand that was supported on his arm, pressing the limb, as Katharine replied, in a tone so changed from its former forced levity, that he started as the first sounds reached his ears. "Merry has brought in a horrid report!" she said; "I would I could believe it untrue! but the looks of the boy, and the absence of Dillon, both confirm it."

"Poor Merry! he too has fallen into the trap! but they shall yet find one who is too cunning for them. Is it to the fate of that wretched Dillon that you allude?"

"He was a wretch," continued Katherine, in the same voice, "and he deserved much punishment at your hands, Barnstable; but life is the gift of God, and is not to be taken whenever human vengeance would appear to require a victim."

"His life was taken by Him who bestowed it," said the sailor. "Is it Katherine Plowden who would suspect me of the deed of a dastard!"

"I do not suspect you—I did not suspect you," cried Katherine; "I will never suspect any evil of you again. You are not, you cannot be angry with me, Barnstable? Had you heard the cruel suspicions of my cousin Cecilia, and had your imagination been busy in portraying your wrongs and the temptations to forget mercy, like mine, even while my tongue denied your agency in the suspected deed, you would—you would at least have learned how much easier it is to defend those we love against the open attacks of others, than against our own jealous feelings."

"Those words, love and jealousy, will obtain your acquittal," cried Barnstable, in his natural voice; and, after uttering a few more consoling assurances to Katherine, whose excited feelings found vent in tears, he briefly related the manner of Dillon's death.

"I had hoped I stood higher in the estimation of Miss Howard than to be subjected to even her suspicions," he said, when he had ended his explanation. "Griffith has been but a sorry representative of our trade, if he has left such an opinion of its pursuits."

"I do not know that Mr. Griffith would altogether have escaped my conjectures, had he been the disappointed commander, and you the prisoner," returned Katherine; "you know not how much we have both studied the usages of war, and with what dreadful pictures of hostages, retaliations, and military executions our minds are stored! but a mountain is raised off my spirits, and I could almost say that I am now ready to descend the valley of life in your company."

"It is a discreet determination, my good Katherine, and God bless you for it; the companion may not be so good as you deserve, but you will find him ambitious of your praise. Now let us devise means to effect our object."

"Therein lies another of my difficulties. Griffith, I much fear, will not urge Cecilia to another flight, against her—her—what shall I call it, Barnstable—her caprice, or her judgment? Cecilia will never consent to desert her uncle, and I cannot muster the courage to abandon my poor cousin, in the face of the world, in order to take shelter with even Mr. Richard Barnstable!"

"Speak you from the heart now, Katherine?"

"Very nearly—if not exactly."

"Then have I been cruelly deceived! It is easier to find a path in the trackless ocean, without chart or compass, than to know the windings of a woman's heart!"

"Nay, nay, foolish man; you forget that I am but small, and how very near my head is to my heart; too nigh, I fear, for the discretion of their mistress! but is there no method of forcing Griffith and Cecilia to their own good, without undue violence?"

"It cannot be done; he is my senior in rank, and the instant I release him he will claim the command. A question might be raised, at a leisure moment, on the merits of such a claim—but even my own men are, as you know, nothing but a draft from the frigate, and they would not hesitate to obey the orders of the first lieutenant, who is not a man to trifle on matters of duty."

"Tis vexatious, truly," said Katherine, "that all my well-concerted schemes in behalf of this wayward pair should be frustrated by their own willful conduct! But after all, have you justly estimated your strength, Barnstable? are you certain that you would be successful, and that without hazard, too, if you should make the attempt?"

"Morally, and what is better, physically certain. My men are closely hid, where no one suspects an enemy to lie; they are anxious for the enterprise, and the suddenness of the attack will not only make the victory sure, but it will be rendered bloodless. You will aid us in our entrance, Katherine; I shall first secure this recruiting officer, and his command will then surrender without striking a blow. Perhaps, after all, Griffith will hear reason; if he do not, I will not yield my authority to a released captive, without a struggle."

"God send that there shall be no fighting!" murmured his companion, a little appalled at the images his language had raised before her imagination; "and, Barnstable, I enjoin you, most solemnly, by all your affection for me, and by everything you deem most sacred, to protect the person of Colonel Howard at every hazard. There must be no excuse, no pretence, for even an insult to my passionate, good, obstinate, but kind old guardian. I believe I have given him already more trouble than I am entitled to give any one, and Heaven forbid that I should cause him any serious misfortune!"

"He shall be safe, and not only he, but all that are with him, as you will perceive, Katherine, when you hear my plan. Three hours shall not pass over my head before you will see me master of that old abbey. Griffith, ay, Griffith, must be content to be my inferior, until we get afloat again."

"Attempt nothing unless you feel certain of being able to maintain your advantage, not only against your enemies, but also against your friends," said the anxious Katherine. "Rely on it, both Cecilia and Griffith are refining so much on their feelings, that neither will be your ally."

"This comes of passing the four best years of his life within walls of brick, poring over Latin grammars and syntaxes, and such other nonsense, when he should have been rolling them away in a good box of live-oak, and studying, at most, how to sum up his day's work, and tell where his ship lies after a blow. Your college learning may answer well enough for a man who has to live by his wits, but it can be of little use to one who is never afraid to read human nature, by looking his fellow- creatures full in the face, and whose hand is as ready as his tongue. I have generally found the eye that was good at Latin was dull at a compass, or in a night squall: and yet, Griff is a seaman; though I have heard him even read the Testament in Greek! Thank God, I had the wisdom to run away from school the second day they undertook to teach me a strange tongue, and I believe I am the more honest man, and the better seaman, for my ignorance!"

"There is no telling what you might have been, Barnstable, under other circumstances," retorted his mistress, with a playfulness of manner that she could not always repress, though it was indulged at the expense of him she most loved; "I doubt not but, under proper training, you would have made a reasonably good priest."

"If you talk of priests, Katherine, I shall remind you that we carry one in the ship. But listen to my plan: we may talk further of priestcraft when an opportunity may offer."

Barnstable then proceeded to lay before his mistress a project he had formed for surprising the abbey that night, which was so feasible that Katharine, notwithstanding her recent suspicions of Borroughcliffe's designs, came gradually to believe it would succeed. The young seaman answered her objections with the readiness of an ardent mind, bent on executing its purposes, and with a fertility of resources that proved he was no contemptible enemy, in matters that required spirited action. Of Merry's remaining firm and faithful he had no doubt; and although he acknowledged the escape of the peddler boy, he urged that the lad had seen no other of his party besides himself, whom he mistook for a common marauder.

As the disclosure of these plans was frequently interrupted by little digressions, connected with the peculiar motions of the lovers, more than an hour flew by, before they separated. But Katherine at length reminded him how swiftly the time was passing, and how much remained to be done, when he reluctantly consented to see her once more through the wicket, where they parted.

Miss Plowden adopted the same precaution in returning to the house she had used on leaving it; and she was congratulating herself on its success, when her eye caught a glimpse of the figure of a man, who was apparently following at some little distance, in her footsteps, and dogging her motions. As the obscure form, however, paused also when she stopped to give it an alarmed, though inquiring look, and then slowly retired towards the boundary of the paddock, Katherine, believing it to be Barnstable watching over her safety, entered the abbey, with every idea of alarm entirely lost in the pleasing reflection of her lover's solicitude.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

"He looks abroad, and soon appears, O'er Horncliffe-hill, a plump of spears, Beneath a pennon gay." Marmion.

The sharp sounds of the supper-bell were ringing along the gallery, as Miss Plowden gained the gloomy passage; and she quickened her steps to join the ladies, in order that no further suspicions might be excited by her absence.—Alice Dunscombe was already proceeding to the dining parlor, as Katherine passed through the door of the drawing-room; but Miss Howard had loitered behind, and was met by her cousin alone.

"You have then been so daring as to venture, Katherine!" exclaimed Cecilia.

"I have," returned the other, throwing herself into a chair, to recover her agitation—"I have, Cecilia; and I have met Barnstable, who will soon be in the abbey, and its master."

The blood which had rushed to the face of Cecilia on first seeing her cousin now retreated to her heart, leaving every part of her fine countenance of the whiteness of her polished temples, as she said:

"And we are to have a night of blood!"

"We are to have a night of freedom, Miss Howard; freedom to you, and to me: to Andrew Merry, to Griffith and to his companion!"

"What freedom more than we now enjoy Katherine, is needed by two young women? Think you I can remain silent, and see my uncle betrayed before my eyes? his life perhaps endangered!"

"Your own life and person will not be held more sacred, Cecilia Howard, than that of your uncle. If you will condemn Griffith to a prison, and perhaps to a gibbet, betray Barnstable, as you have threatened—an opportunity will not be wanting at the supper-table, whither I shall lead the way, since the mistress of the house appears to forget her duty."

Katharine arose, and with a firm step and proud eye she moved along the gallery to the room where their presence was expected by the rest of the family. Cecilia followed in silence, and the whole party immediately took their several places at the board.

The first few minutes were passed in the usual attentions of the gentlemen to the ladies, and the ordinary civilities of the table; during which Katherine had so far regained the equanimity of her feelings, as to commence a watchful scrutiny of the manners and looks of her guardian and Borroughcliffe, in which she determined to persevere until the eventful hour when she was to expect Barnstable should arrive. Colonel Howard had, however, so far got the command of himself, as no longer to betray his former abstraction. In its place Katherine fancied, at moments, that she could discover a settled look of conscious security, mingled a little with an expression of severe determination; such as, in her earlier days, she had learned to dread as sure indications of the indignant, but upright, justice of an honorable mind. Borroughcliffe, on the other hand, was cool, polite, and as attentive to the viands as usual, with the alarming exception of discovering much less devotion to the Pride of the Vineyards than he commonly manifested on such occasions. In this manner the meal passed by, and the cloth was removed, though the ladies appeared willing to retain their places longer than was customary. Colonel Howard, filling up the glasses of Alice Dunscombe and himself, passed the bottle to the recruiting officer, and, with a sort of effort that was intended to rouse the dormant cheerfulness of his guests, cried:

"Come Borroughcliffe, the ruby lips of your neighbors would be still more beautiful, were they moistened with this rich cordial, and that, too, accompanied by some loyal sentiment. Miss Alice is ever ready to express her fealty to her sovereign; in her name, I can give the health of his most sacred majesty, with defeat and death to all traitors!"

"If the prayers of an humble subject, and one of a sex that has but little need to mingle in the turmoil of the world, and that has less right to pretend to understand the subtleties of statesmen, can much avail a high and mighty prince like him who sits on the throne, then will he never know temporal evil," returned Alice, meekly; "but I cannot wish death to any one, not even to my enemies, if any I have, and much less to a people who are the children of the same family with myself."

"Children of the same family!" the colonel repeated, slowly, and with a bitterness of manner that did not fail to attract the painful interest of Katherine: "children of the same family! Ay! even as Absalom was the child of David, or as Judas was of the family of the holy Apostles! But let it pass unpledged—let it pass. The accursed spirit of rebellion has invaded my dwelling, and I no longer know where to find one of my household that has not been assailed by its malign influence!"

"Assailed I may have been among others," returned Alice; "but not corrupted, if purity, in this instance, consists in loyalty—"

"What sound is that?" interrupted the colonel, with startling suddenness. "Was it not the crash of some violence, Captain Borroughcliffe?"

"It may have been one of my rascals who has met with a downfall in passing from the festive board—where you know I regale them to-night, in honor of our success—to his blanket," returned the captain, with admirable indifference; "or it may be the very spirit of whom you have spoken so freely, my host, that has taken umbrage at your remarks, and is passing from the hospitable walls of St. Ruth into the open air, without submitting to the small trouble of ascertaining the position of doors. In the latter case there may be some dozen perches or so of wall to replace in the morning."

The colonel, who had risen, glanced his eyes uneasily from the speaker to the door, and was evidently but little disposed to enter into the pleasantry of his guest.

"There are unusual noises, Captain Borroughcliffe, in the grounds of the abbey, if not in the building itself," he said advancing with a fine military air from the table to the centre of the room, "and as master of the mansion I will inquire who it is that thus unseasonably disturbs these domains. If as friends, they shall have welcome, though their visit be unexpected; and if enemies, they shall also meet with such a reception as will become an old soldier!"

"No, no," cried Cecilia, entirely thrown off her guard by the manner and language of the veteran and rushing into his arms. "Go not out, my uncle; go not into the terrible fray, my kind, my good uncle! you are old, you have already done more than your duty; why should you be exposed to danger?"

"The girl is mad with terror, Borroughcliffe," cried the colonel, bending his glistening eyes fondly on his niece, "and you will have to furnish my good-for-nothing, gouty old person with a corporal's guard, to watch my nightcap, or the silly child will have an uneasy pillow, till the sun rises once more. But you do not stir, sir?"

"Why should I?" cried the captain; "Miss Plowden yet deigns to keep me company, and it is not in the nature of one of the —th to desert his bottle and his standard at the same moment. For, to a true soldier, the smiles of a lady are as imposing in the parlor as the presence of his colors in the field."

"I continue undisturbed, Captain Borroughcliffe," said Katherine, "because I have not been an inhabitant, for so many months, of St. Ruth, and not learned to know the tunes which the wind can play among its chimneys and pointed roofs. The noise which has taken Colonel Howard from his seat, and which has so unnecessarily alarmed my cousin Cicely, is nothing but the olian harp of the abbey sounding a double bass."

The captain fastened on her composed countenance, while she was speaking, a look of open admiration, that brought, though tardily, the color more deeply to her cheeks: and he answered with something extremely equivocal, both in his emphasis and his air:

"I have avowed my allegiance, and I will abide by it. So long as Miss Plowden will deign to bestow her company, so long will she find me among her most faithful and persevering attendants, come who may, or what will."

"You compel me to retire," returned Katherine, rising, "whatever may have been my gracious intentions in the matter; for even female vanity must crimson, at an adoration so profound as that which can chain Captain Borroughcliffe to a supper-table! As your alarm has now dissipated, my cousin, will you lead the way? Miss Alice and myself attend you."

"But not into the paddock, surely, Miss Plowden," said the captain; "the door, the key of which you have just turned, communicates with the vestibule. This is the passage to the drawing-room."

The lady faintly laughed, as if in derision of her own forgetfulness, while she bowed her acknowledgment, and moved towards the proper passage: she observed:

"The madness of fear has assailed some, I believe, who have been able to affect a better disguise than Miss Howard."

"Is it the fear of present danger, or of that which is in reserve?" asked the captain; "but, as you have stipulated so generously in behalf of my worthy host here, and of one, also, who shall be nameless, because he has not deserved such a favor at your hands, your safety shall be one of my especial duties in these times of peril."

"There is peril, then!" exclaimed Cecilia; "your looks announce it. Captain Borroughcliffe! The changing countenance of my cousin tells me that my fears are too true!"

The soldier had now risen also, and, casting aside the air of badinage, which he so much delighted in, he came forward into the centre of the apartment, with the manner of one who felt it was time to be serious.

"A soldier is ever in peril, when the enemies of his king are at hand, Miss Howard," he answered: "and that such is now the case, Miss Plowden can testify, if she will. But you are the allies of both parties— retire, then, to your own apartments, and await the result of the struggle which is at hand."

"You speak of danger and hidden perils," said Alice Dunscombe; "know ye aught that justifies your fears?"

"I know all," Borroughcliffe coolly replied.

"All!" exclaimed Katherine.

"All!" echoed Alice, in tones of horror, "If, then, you know all, you must know his desperate courage, and powerful hand, when opposed—yield in quiet, and he will not harm ye. Believe me, believe one who knows his very nature, that no lamb can be more gentle than he would be with unresisting women; nor any lion more fierce, with his enemies!"

"As we happen not to be of the feminine gender," returned Borroughcliffe, with an air somewhat splenetic, "we must abide the fury of the king of beasts. His paw is, even now, at the outer door; and, if my orders have been obeyed, his entrance will be yet easier than that of the wolf to the respectable female ancestor of the little Red-riding- hood."

"Stay your hand for one single moment!" said Katherine, breathless with interest; "you are the master of my secret, Captain Borroughcliffe, and bloodshed may be the consequence. I can yet go forward, and, perhaps, save many inestimable lives. Pledge to me your honor, that they who come hither as your enemies, this night, shall depart in peace, and I will pledge to you my life for the safety of the abbey,"

"Oh! hear her, and shed not human blood!" cried Cecilla.

A loud crash interrupted further speech, and the sounds of heavy footsteps were heard in the adjoining room, as if many men were alighting on its floor, in quick succession. Borroughcliffe drew back, with great coolness, to the opposite side of the large apartment, and took a sheathed sword from the table where it had been placed; at the same moment the door was burst open, and Barnstable entered alone, but heavily armed.

"You are my prisoners, gentlemen," said the sailor, as he advanced; "resistance is useless, and without it you shall receive favor. Ha, Miss Plowden! my advice was that you should not be present at this scene."

"Barnstable, we are betrayed!" cried the agitated Katherine. "But it is not yet too late. Blood has not yet been spilt, and you can retire, without that dreadful alternative, with honor. Go, then, delay not another moment; for should the soldiers of Captain Borroughcliffe come to the rescue of their commander, the abbey would be a scene of horror!"

"Go you away; go, Katherine," said her lover, with impatience; "this is no place for such as you. But, Captain Borroughcliffe, if such be your name, you must perceive that resistance is in vain. I have ten good pikes in this outer room, in twenty better hands, and it will be madness to fight against such odds."

"Show me your strength," said the captain, "that I may take counsel with mine honor."

"Your honor shall be appeased, my brave soldier, for such is your bearing, though your livery is my aversion, and your cause most unholy! Heave ahead, boys! but hold your hands for orders."

The party of fierce-looking sailors whom Barnstable led, on receiving this order, rushed into the room in a medley; but, notwithstanding the surly glances, and savage characters of their dress and equipments, they struck no blow, nor committed any act of hostility. The ladies shrank back appalled, as this terrific little band took possession of the hall; and even Borroughcliffe was seen to fall back towards a door which, in some measure, covered his retreat. The confusion of this sudden movement had not yet subsided, when sounds of strife were heard rapidly approaching from a distant part of the building, and presently one of the numerous doors of the apartment was violently opened, when two of the garrison of the abbey rushed into the hall, vigorously pressed by twice their number of seamen, seconded by Griffith, Manual, and Merry, who were armed with such weapons of offence as had presented themselves to their hands, at their unexpected liberation. There was a movement on the part of the seamen who were already in possession of the room, that threatened instant death to the fugitives; but Barnstable beat down their pikes with his sword, and sternly ordered them to fall back. Surprise produced the same pacific result among the combatants; and as the soldiers hastily sought a refuge behind their own officers, and the released captives, with their liberators, joined the body of their friends, the quiet of the hall, which had been so rudely interrupted, was soon restored.

"You see, sir," said Barnstable, after grasping the hands of Griffith and Manual in a warm and cordial pressure, "that all my plans have succeeded. Your sleeping guard are closely watched in their barracks by one party; our officers are released and your sentinels cut off by another; while, with a third, I hold the centre of the abbey, and am, substantially, in possession of your own person. In consideration, therefore, of what is due to humanity, and to the presence of these ladies, let there be no struggle! I shall impose no difficult terms, nor any long imprisonment."

The recruiting officer manifested a composure throughout the whole scene that would have excited some uneasiness in his invaders, had there been opportunity for minute observation; but his countenance now gradually assumed an appearance of anxiety, and his head was frequently turned, as if listening for further and more important interruptions. He answered, however, to this appeal with his ordinary deliberation.

"You speak of conquests, sir, before they are achieved. My venerable host and myself are not so defenceless as you may chose to imagine." While speaking he threw aside the cloth of a side table, from beneath which the colonel and himself were instantly armed with a brace of pistols each. "Here are the death-warrants of four of your party, and these brave fellows at my back can account for two more. I believe, my transatlantic warrior, that we are now something in the condition of Cortes and the Mexicans, when the former overran part of your continent —I being Cortes, armed with artificial thunder and lightning, and you the Indians, with nothing but your pikes and sling, and such other antediluvian inventions. Shipwrecks and seawater are fatal dampers of gunpowder!"

"That we are unprovided with firearms, I will not deny," said Barnstable; "but we are men who are used, from infancy, to depend on our good right arms for life and safety, and we know how to use them, though we should even grapple with death! As for the trifles in your hands, gentlemen, you are not to suppose that men who are trained to look in at one end of a thirty-two pounder, loaded with grape, while the match is put to the other, will so much as wink at their report, though you fired them by fifties. What say you, boys, is a pistol a weapon to repel boarders?"

The discordant and disdainful laughs that burst from the restrained seamen were a sufficient pledge of their indifference to so trifling a danger. Borroughcliffe noted their hardened boldness, and taking the supper bell, which was lying near him, he rang it, for a minute, with great violence. The heavy tread of trained footsteps soon followed this extraordinary summons; and presently the several doors of the apartment were opened, and filled with armed soldiers, wearing the livery of the English crown.

"If you hold these smaller weapons in such vast contempt," said the recruiting officer, when he perceived that his men had possessed themselves of all the avenues, "it is in my power to try the virtue of some more formidable. After this exhibition of my strength, gentlemen, I presume you cannot hesitate to submit as prisoners of war."

The seamen had been formed in something like military array, by the assiduity of Manual, during the preceding dialogue; and as the different doors had discovered fresh accessions to the strength of the enemy, the marine industriously offered new fronts, until the small party was completely arranged in a hollow square, that might have proved formidable in a charge, bristled as it was with the deadly pikes of the Ariel.

"Here has been some mistake," said Griffith, after glancing his eye at the formidable array of the soldiers; "I take precedence of Mr. Barnstable, and I shall propose to you, Captain Borroughcliffe, terms that may remove this scene of strife from the dwelling of Colonel Howard."

"The dwelling of Colonel Howard," cried the veteran, "is the dwelling of his king, or of the meanest servant of the crown! so, Borroughcliffe, spare not the traitors on my behalf; accept no other terms than such unconditional submission as is meet to exact from the rebellious subjects of the anointed of the Lord."

While Griffith spoke, Barnstable folded his arms, in affected composure, and glanced his eyes expressively at the shivering Katherine, who, with her companions, still continued agitated spectators of all that passed, chained to the spot by their apprehensions; but to this formidable denunciation of the master of the abbey he deemed proper to reply:

"Now, by every hope I have of sleeping again on salt water, old gentleman if it were not for the presence of these three trembling females, I should feel tempted to dispute, at once, the title of his majesty. You may make such a covenant as you will with Mr. Griffith, but if it contain one syllable about submission to your king, or of any other allegiance than that which I owe to the Continental Congress, and the State of Massachusetts, you may as well consider the terms violated at once; for not an article of such an agreement will I consider as binding on me, or on any that shall choose to follow me as leader."

"Here are but two leaders, Mr. Barnstable," interrupted the haughty Griffith; "the one of the enemy, and the other of the arms of America. Captain Borroughclffe, to you, as the former, I address myself. The great objects of the contest which now unhappily divides England from her ancient colonies can be, in no degree, affected by the events of this night; while, on the other hand, by a rigid adherence to military notions, much private, evil and deep domestic calamity must follow any struggle in such a place. We have but to speak, sir, and these rude men, who already stand impatiently handling their instruments of death, will aim them at each other's lives; and who can say that he shall be able to stay their hands when and where he will. I know you to be a soldier, and that you are not yet to learn how much easier it is to stimulate to blood than to glut vengeance."

Borroughcliffe, unused to the admission of violent emotions, and secure in the superiority of his own party, both in numbers and equipments, heard him with the coolest composure to the end, and then answered in his customary manner:

"I honor your logic, sir. Your premises are indisputable, and the conclusion most obvious. Commit then these worthy tars to the good keeping of honest Drill, who will see their famished natures revived by divers eatables and a due proportion of suitable fluids; while we can discuss the manner in which you are to return to the colonies, around a bottle of liquor, which my friend Manual there assures me has come from the sunny side of the island of Madeira, to be drunk in a bleak corner of that of Britain. By my palate! but the rascals brighten at the thought. They know by instinct, sir, that a shipwrecked mariner is a fitter companion to a ration of beef and a pot of porter than to such unsightly things as bayonets and boarding-pikes!"

"Trifle, not unseasonably!" exclaimed the impatient young sailor. "You have the odds in numbers, but whether it will avail you much in a deadly struggle of hand to hand, is a question you must put to your prudence: we stand not here to ask terms, but to grant them. You must be brief, sir; for the time is wasting while we delay."

"I have offered to you the means of obtaining, in perfection, the enjoyment of the three most ancient of the numerous family of the arts— eating, drinking, and sleeping! What more do you require?"

"That you order these men, who fill the pass to the outer door, to fall back and give us room. I would take, in peace, these armed men from before the eyes of those who are unused to such sights. Before you oppose this demand, think how easily these hardy fellows could make a way for themselves, against your divided force."

"Your companion, the experienced Captain Manual, will tell you that such a manoeuvre would be very unmilitary with a superior body in your rear!"

"I have not leisure, sir, for this folly," cried the indignant Griffith. "Do you refuse us an unmolested retreat from the abbey?"

"I do."

Griffith turned with a look of extreme emotion to the ladies, and beckoned to them to retire, unable to give utterance to his wishes in words. After a moment of deep silence, however, he once more addressed Borroughcliffe in the tones of conciliation.

"If Manual and myself will return to our prisons, and submit to the will of your government," he said, "can the rest of the party return to the frigate unmolested?"

"They cannot," replied the soldier, who, perceiving that the crisis approached, was gradually losing his artificial deportment in the interest of the moment. "You, and all others who willingly invade the peace of these realms, must abide the issue!"

"Then God protect the innocent and defend the right!"

"Amen."

"Give way, villains!" cried Griffith, facing the party that held the outer door; "give way, or you shall be riddled with our pikes!"

"Show them your muzzles, men!" shouted Borroughcliffe, "but pull no trigger till they advance."

There was an instant of bustle and preparation, in which the rattling of firearms blended with the suppressed execrations and threats of the intended combatants; and Cecilia and Katherine had both covered their faces to veil the horrid sight that was momentarily expected, when Alice Dunscombe advanced, boldly, between the points of the threatening weapons, and spoke in a voice that stayed the hands that were already uplifted.

"Hear me, men! if men ye be, and not demons, thirsting for each other's blood; though ye walk abroad in the semblance of Him who died that ye might be elevated to the rank of angels! Call ye this war? Is this the glory that is made to warm the hearts of even silly and confiding women? Is the peace of families to be destroyed to gratify your wicked lust for conquest, and is life to be taken in vain, in order that ye may boast of the foul deed in your wicked revels? Fall back, then, ye British soldiers! if ye be worthy of that name, and give passage to a woman; and remember that the first shot that is fired will be buried in her bosom!"

The men, thus enjoined, shrank before her commanding mien, and a way was made for her exit through that very door which Griffith had, in vain, solicited might be cleared for himself and party. But Alice, instead of advancing, appeared to have suddenly lost the use of those faculties which had already effected so much. Her figure seemed rooted to the spot where she had spoken, and her eyes were fixed in a Settled gaze, as if dwelling on some horrid object, While she yet stood in this attitude of unconscious helplessness, the doorway became again darkened, and the figure of the Pilot was seen on its threshold, clad, as usual, in the humble vestments of his profession, but heavily armed with the weapons of naval war. For an instant, he stood a silent spectator of the scene; and then advanced calmly, but with searching eyes, into the centre of the apartment.



CHAPTER XXIX.

"Don Pedro. Welcome, Signior: you are almost come to part almost a fray." Much Ado About Nothing.

"Down with your arms, you Englishmen!" said the daring intruder; "and you, who fight in the cause of sacred liberty, stay your hands, that no unnecessary blood may flow. Yield yourself, proud Briton, to the power of the Thirteen Republics!"

"Ha!" exclaimed Borroughcliffe, grasping a pistol, with an air of great resolution, "the work thickens—I had not included this man in my estimate of their numbers. Is he a Samson, that his single arm can change the face of things so suddenly! Down with your own weapon, you masquerader! or, at the report of this pistol, your body shall be made a target for twenty bullets."

"And thine for a hundred!" returned the Pilot.—"Without there! wind your call, fellow, and bring in our numbers. We will let this confident gentleman feel his weakness."

He had not done speaking, before the shrill whistle of a boatswain rose gradually on the ears of the listeners, until the sense of hearing became painfully oppressed by the piercing sounds that rang under the arched roof of the hall, and penetrated even to the most distant recesses of the abbey. A tremendous rush of men followed, who drove in before them the terrified fragment of Borroughcliffe's command, that had held the vestibule; and the outer room became filled with a dark mass of human bodies.

"Let them hear ye, lads!" cried their leader; "the abbey is your own!"

The roaring of a tempest was not louder than the shout that burst from his followers, who continued their cheers, peal on peal, until the very roof of the edifice appeared to tremble with their vibrations. Numerous dark and shaggy heads were seen moving around the passage; some cased in the iron-bound caps of the frigate's boarders, and others glittering with the brazen ornaments of her marine guard. The sight of the latter did not fail to attract the eye of Manual, who rushed among the throng, and soon reappeared, followed by a trusty band of his own men, who took possession of the post held by the soldiers of Borroughcliffe, while the dialogue was continued between the leaders of the adverse parties.

Thus far Colonel Howard had yielded to his guest, with a deep reverence for the principles of military subordination, the functions of a commander; but, now that affairs appeared to change so materially, he took on himself the right to question these intruders into his dwelling.

"By what authority, sir," the colonel demanded, "is it that you dare thus to invade the castle of a subject of this realm? Do you come backed by the commission of the lord lieutenant of the county, or has your warrant the signature of his majesty's secretary for the home department?"

"I bear no commission from any quarter," returned the Pilot; "I rank only an humble follower of the friends of America; and having led these gentlemen into danger, I have thought it my duty to see them extricated. They are now safe; and the right to command all that hear me rests with Mr. Griffith, who is commissioned by the Continental Congress for such service."

When he had spoken, he fell back from the position he occupied in the centre of the room, to one of its sides, where, leaning his body against the wainscot, he stood a silent observer of what followed.

"It appears, then, that it is to you, degenerate son of a most worthy father, that I must repeat my demand," continued the veteran. "By what right is my dwelling thus rudely assailed? and why is my quiet and the peace of those I protect so daringly violated?"

"I might answer you, Colonel Howard, by saying that it is according to the laws of arms, or rather in retaliation for the thousand evils that your English troops have inflicted between Maine and Georgia; but I wish not to increase the unpleasant character of this scene, and I therefore will tell you that our advantage shall be used with moderation. The instant that our men can be collected, and our prisoners properly secured, your dwelling shall be restored to your authority. We are no freebooters, sir; and you will find it so after our departure. Captain Manual, draw off your guard into the grounds, and make your dispositions for a return march to our boats—let the boarders fall back, there! out with ye! out with ye—tumble out, you boarders!"

The amicable order of the young lieutenant, which was delivered after the stern, quick fashion of his profession, operated on the cluster of dark figures that were grouped around the door like a charm; and as the men whom Barnstable had led followed their shipmates into the courtyard, the room was now left to such only as might be termed the gentlemen of the invading party, and the family of Colonel Howard.

Barnstable had continued silent since his senior officer had assumed the command, listening most attentively to each syllable that fell from either side; but now that so few remained, and the time pressed, he spoke again:

"If we are to take boat so soon, Mr. Griffith, it would be seemly that due preparations should be made to receive the ladies, who are to honor us with their presence; shall I take that duty on myself?"

The abrupt proposal produced a universal surprise in his hearers; though the abashed and conscious expression of Katherine Plowden's features sufficiently indicated that to her, at least, it was not altogether unexpected. The long silence that succeeded the question was interrupted by Colonel Howard.

"Ye are masters, gentlemen; help yourselves to whatever best suits your inclinations. My dwelling, my goods, and my wards, are alike at your disposal—or, perhaps Miss Alice here, good and kind Miss Alice Dunscombe, may suit the taste of some among ye! Ah! Edward Griffith! Edward Griffith! little did I ever—"

"Breathe not that name in levity again, thou scoffer, or even your years may prove a feeble protection!" said a stern, startling voice from behind. All eyes turned involuntarily at the unexpected sounds, and the muscular form of the Pilot was seen resuming its attitude of repose against the wall, though every fibre of his frame was working with suppressed passion.

When the astonished looks of Griffith ceased to dwell on this extraordinary exhibition of interest in his companion, they were turned imploringly towards the fair cousins, who still occupied the distant corner, whither fear had impelled them.

"I have said that we are not midnight marauders, Colonel Howard," he replied: "but if any there be here, who will deign to commit themselves to our keeping, I trust it will not be necessary to say, at this hour, what will be their reception."

"We have not time for unnecessary compliments," cried the impatient Barnstable; "here is Merry, who, by years and blood, is a suitable assistant for them, in arranging their little baggage—what say you, urchin, can you play the lady's maid on emergency?"

"Ay, sir, and better than I acted the peddler boy," cried the gay youngster; "to have my merry cousin Kate and my good cousin Cicely for shipmates, I could play our common grandmother! Come, coz, let us be moving; you will have to allow a little leeway in time, for my awkwardness."

"Stand back, young man," said Miss Howard, repulsing his familiar attempt to take her arm; and then advancing, with a maidenly dignity, nigher to her guardian, she continued, "I cannot know what stipulations have been agreed to by my cousin Plowden, in the secret treaty she has made this night with Mr. Barnstable: this for myself, Colonel Howard, I would have you credit your brother's child when she says, that to her, the events of the hour have not been more unexpected than to yourself."

The veteran gazed at her, for a moment, with an expression of his eye that denoted reviving tenderness; but gloomy doubts appeared to cross his mind again, and he shook his head, as he walked proudly away.

"Nay, then," added Cecilia, her head dropping meekly on her bosom, "I may be discredited by my uncle, but I cannot be disgraced without some act of my own."

She slowly raised her mild countenance again, and bending her eyes on her lover, she continued, while a rich rush of blood passed over her fine features:

"Edward Griffith, I will not, I cannot say how humiliating it is to think that you can, for an instant, believe I would again forget myself so much as to wish to desert him whom God has given me for a protector, for one chosen by my own erring passions. And you, Andrew Merry! Learn to respect the child of your mother's sister, if not for her own sake, at least for that of her who watched your cradle!"

"Here appears to be some mistake." said Barnstable, who participated, however, in no trifling degree, in the embarrassment of the abashed boy; "but, like all other mistakes on such subjects, it can be explained away, I suppose. Mr. Griffith, it remains for you to speak—damn it, man," he whispered, "you are as dumb as a codfish—I am sure so fine a woman is worth a little fair-weather talk:—you are muter than a four- footed beast—even an ass can bray!"

"We will hasten our departure, Mr. Barnstable," said Griffith, sighing heavily, and rousing himself, as if from a trance. "These rude sights cannot but appall the ladies. You will please, sir, to direct the order of our march to the shore. Captain Manual has charge of our prisoners, who must all be secured, to answer for an equal number of our own countrymen."

"And our countrywomen!" said Barnstable, "are they to be forgotten, in the selfish recollection of our own security?"

"With them we have no right to interfere, unless at their request."

"By heaven! Mr. Griffith, this may smack of learning," cried the other, "and it may plead bookish authority as its precedent; but let me tell you, sir, it savors but little of a sailor's love."

"Is it unworthy of a seaman, and a gentleman, to permit the woman he calls his mistress to be so, other than in name?"

"Well, then, Griff, I pity you, from my soul. I would rather have had a sharp struggle for the happiness that I shall now obtain so easily, than that you should be thus cruelly disappointed. But you cannot blame me, my friend, that I avail myself of fortune's favor. Miss Plowden, your fair hand. Colonel Howard, I return you a thousand thanks for the care you have taken, hitherto, of this precious charge; and believe me, sir, that I speak frankly, when I say, that, next to myself, I should choose to entrust her with you in preference to any man on earth."

The colonel turned to the speaker, and bowed low, while he answered with grave courtesy:

"Sir, you repay my slight services with too much gratitude. If Miss Katherine Plowden has not become under my guardianship all that her good father, Captain John Plowden, of the Royal Navy, could have wished a daughter of his to be, the fault, unquestionably, is to be attributed to my inability to instruct, and to no inherent quality in the young lady herself. I will not say, Take her, sir, since you have her in your possession already, and it would be out of my power to alter the arrangement; therefore, I can only wish that you may find her as dutiful as a wife as she has been, hitherto, as a ward and a subject."

Katherine had yielded her hand, passively, to her lover, and suffered him to lead her more into the circle than she had before been; but now she threw off his arm, and shaking aside the dark curls which she had rather invited to fall in disorder around her brow, she raised her face and looked proudly up, with an eye that sparkled with the spirit of its mistress, and a face that grew pale with emotion at each moment, as she proceeded:

"Gentlemen, the one may be as ready to receive as the other is to reject; but has the daughter of John Plowden no voice in this cool disposal of her person? If her guardian tires of her presence, other habitations may be found, without inflicting so severe a penalty on this gentleman as to compel him to provide for her accommodation in a vessel which must be already straitened for room!"

She turned, and rejoined her cousin with such an air of maidenly resentment as a young woman would be apt to discover, who found herself the subject of matrimonial arrangement without her own feelings being at all consulted. Barnstable, who knew but little of the windings of the female heart, or how necessary to his mistress, notwithstanding her previous declarations, the countenance of Cecilia, was to any decided and open act in his favor, stood in stupid wonder at her declaration. He could not conceive that a woman who had already ventured so much in secret in his behalf, and who had so often avowed her weakness, should shrink to declare it again at such a crisis, though the eyes of a universe were on her! He looked from one of the party to the other, and met in every face an expression of delicate reserve, except in those of the guardian of his mistress, and of Borroughcliffe.

The colonel had given a glance of returning favor at her whom he now conceived to be his repentant ward, while the countenance of the entrapped captain exhibited a look of droll surprise, blended with the expression of bitter ferocity it had manifested since the discovery of his own mishap.

"Perhaps, sir," said Barnstable, addressing the latter, fiercely, "you see something amusing about the person of this lady, to divert you thus unseasonably. We tolerate no such treatment of our women in America!"

"Nor do we quarrel before ours in England," returned the soldier, throwing back the fierce glance of the sailor with interest; "but I was thinking of the revolutions that time can produce; nothing more, I do assure you. It is not half an hour since I thought myself a most happy fellow; secure in my plans for overreaching the scheme you had laid to surprise me; and now I am as miserable a dog as wears a single epaulette, and has no hope of seeing its fellow!"

"And in what manner, sir, can this sudden change apply to me?" asked Katherine, with all her spirit.

"Certainly not to your perseverance in the project to assist my enemies, madam," returned the soldier, with affected humility; "nor to your zeal for their success, or your consummate coolness at the supper-table! But I find it is time that I should be superannuated—I can no longer serve my king with credit, and should take to serving my God, like all other worn-out men of the world! My hearing is surely defective, or a paddock- wall has a most magical effect in determining sounds!"

Katherine waited not to hear the close of this sentence, but walked to a distant part of the room to conceal the burning blushes that covered her countenance. The manner in which the plans of Barnstable had become known to his foe was no longer a mystery. Her conscience also reproached her a little with some unnecessary coquetry, as she remembered that quite one-half of the dialogue between her lover and herself, under the shadow of that very wall to which Borroughcliffe alluded, had been on a subject altogether foreign to contention and tumults. As the feelings of Barnstable were by no means so sensitive as those of his mistress, and his thoughts much occupied with the means of attaining his object, he did not so readily comprehend the indirect allusion of the soldier, but turned abruptly away to Griffith, and observed with a serious air:

"I feel it my duty, Mr. Griffith, to suggest that we have standing instructions to secure all the enemies of America, wherever they may be found, and to remind you that the States have not hesitated to make prisoners of females in many instances."

"Bravo!" cried Borroughcliffe; "if the ladies will not go as your mistresses, take them as your captives!"

"'Tis well for you, sir, that you are a captive yourself, or you should be made to answer for this speech," retorted the irritated Barnstable. "It is a responsible command, Mr. Griffith, and must not be disregarded."

"To your duty, Mr. Barnstable," said Griffith, again rousing from deep abstraction; "you have your orders, sir; let them be executed promptly."

"I have also the orders of our common superior, Captain Munson, Mr. Griffith; and I do assure you, sir, that in making out my instructions for the Ariel—poor thing! there are no two of her timbers hanging together—but my instructions were decidedly particular on that head."

"And my orders now supersede them."

"But am I justifiable in obeying a verbal order from an inferior, in direct opposition to a written instruction?"

Griffith had hitherto manifested in his deportment nothing more than a cold determination to act, but the blood now flew to every vessel in his cheeks and forehead, and his dark eyes flashed fire, as he cried authoritatively:

"How, sir! do you hesitate to obey?"

"By heaven, sir, I would dispute the command of the Continental Congress itself, should they bid me so far to forget my duty to—to—"

"Add yourself, sir!—Mr. Barnstable, let this be the last of it. To your duty, sir."

"My duty calls me here, Mr. Griffith."

"I must act, then, or be bearded by my own officers. Mr. Merry, direct Captain Manual to send in a sergeant and a file of marines."

"Bid him come on himself!" cried Barnstable, maddened to desperation by his disappointment; "'tis not his whole corps that can disarm me—let them come on! Hear, there, you Ariels! rally around your captain."

"The man among them who dares to cross that threshold without my order, dies," cried Griffith, menacing with a naked hanger the seamen who had promptly advanced at the call of their old commander. "Yield your sword, Mr. Barnstable, and spare yourself the disgrace of having it forced from you by a common soldier."

"Let me see the dog who dare attempt it!" exclaimed Barnstable, flourishing his weapon in fierce anger. Griffith had extended his own arm in the earnestness of his feelings, and their hangers crossed each other. The clashing of the steel operated on both like the sound of the clarion on a war-horse, and there were sudden and rapid blows, and as rapid parries, exchanged between the flashing weapons.

"Barnstable! Barnstable!" cried Katherine, rushing into his arms, "I will go with you to the ends of the earth!"

Cecilia Howard did not speak; but when Griffith recovered his coolness, he beheld her beautiful form kneeling at his feet, with her pale face bent imploringly on his own disturbed countenance. The cry of Miss Plowden had separated the combatants, before an opportunity for shedding blood had been afforded; but the young men exchanged looks of keen resentment, notwithstanding the interference of their mistresses. At this moment Colonel Howard advanced, and raising his niece from her humble posture, said:

"This is not a situation for a child of Harry Howard, though she knelt in the presence, and before the throne, of her sovereign. Behold, my dear Cecilia, the natural consequences of this rebellion! It scatters discord in their ranks; and, by its damnable leveling principles, destroys all distinction of rank among themselves; even these rash boys know not where obedience is due!"

"It is due to me," said the Pilot, who now stepped forward among the agitated group, "and it is time that I enforce it. Mr. Griffith, sheathe your sword. And you, sir, who have defied the authority of your senior officer, and have forgotten the obligation of your oath, submit, and return to your duty."

Griffith started at the sounds of his calm voice, as if with sudden recollection; and then, bowing low, he returned the weapon to its scabbard. But Barnstable still encircled the waist of his mistress with one arm, while with the other he brandished his hanger, and laughed with scorn at this extraordinary assumption of authority.

"And who is this," he cried, "who dare give such an order to me!"

The eyes of the Pilot flashed with a terrible fire, while a fierce glow seemed to be creeping over his whole frame, which actually quivered with passion. But, suppressing this exhibition of his feelings, by a sudden and powerful effort, he answered in an emphatic manner:

"One who has a right to order, and who will be obeyed!"

The extraordinary manner of the speaker contributed as much as his singular assertion to induce Barnstable, in his surprise, to lower the point of his weapon, with an air that might easily have been mistaken for submission. The Pilot fastened his glowing eyes on him, for an instant, and then turning to the rest of the listeners, he continued more mildly:

"It is true that we came not here as marauders, and that our wish is to do no unnecessary acts of severity to the aged and the helpless. But this officer of the crown, and this truant American in particular, are fairly our prisoners; as such, they must be conducted on board our ship."

"But the main object of our expedition?" said Griffith.

"'Tis lost," returned the Pilot, hastily—"'tis sacrificed to more private feelings; 'tis like a hundred others, ended in disappointment, and is forgotten, sir, forever. But the interests of the Republics must not be neglected, Mr. Griffith.—Though we are not madly to endanger the lives of those gallant fellows, to gain a love-smile from one young beauty, neither are we to forget the advantages they may have obtained for us, in order to procure one of approbation from another. This Colonel Howard will answer well in a bargain with the minions of the Crown, and may purchase the freedom of some worthy patriot who is deserving of his liberty. Nay, nay, suppress that haughty look, and turn that proud eye on any, rather than me; he goes to the frigate, sir, and that immediately."

"Then," said Cecilia Howard, timidly approaching the spot where her uncle stood, a disdainful witness of the dissensions among his captors; "then will I go with him! He shall never be a resident among his enemies alone!"

"It would be more ingenuous, and more worthy of my brother's daughter," said her uncle, coldly, "if she ascribed her willingness to depart to its proper motive." Disregarding the look of deep distress with which Cecilia received this mortifying rejection of her tender attention, the old man on receiving this order, rushed into the room in a medley; but, notwithstanding the surly glances, and savage characters of their dress and equipments, they struck no blow, nor committed any act of hostility. The ladies shrank back appalled, as this terrific little band took possession of the hall; and even Borroughcliffe was seen to fall back towards a door which, in some measure, covered his retreat. The confusion of this sudden movement had not yet subsided, when sounds of strife were heard rapidly approaching from a distant part of the building, and presently one of the numerous doors of the apartment was violently opened, when two of the garrison of the abbey rushed into the hall, vigorously pressed by twice their number of seamen, seconded by Griffith, Manual, and Merry, who were armed with such weapons of offence as had presented themselves to their hands, at their unexpected liberation. There was a movement on the part of the seamen who were already in possession of the room, that threatened instant death to the fugitives; but Barnstable beat down their pikes with his sword, and sternly ordered them to fall back. Surprise produced the same pacific result among the combatants; and as the soldiers hastily sought a refuge behind their own officers, and the released captives, with their liberators, joined the body of their friends, the quiet of the hall, which had been so rudely interrupted, was soon restored.

"You see, sir," said Barnstable, after grasping the hands of Griffith and Manual in a warm and cordial pressure, "that all my plans have succeeded. Your sleeping guard are closely watched in their barracks by one party; our officers are released and your sentinels cut off by another; while, with a third, I hold the centre of the abbey, and am, substantially, in possession of your own person. In consideration, therefore, of what is due to humanity, and to the presence of these ladies, let there be no struggle. I shall impose no difficult terms, nor any long imprisonment."

The recruiting officer manifested a composure throughout it, and the latter laughing, and indulging those buoyant spirits that a boy of his years and reflection might be supposed to feel even in such a scene. It was fortunate for her cousin that Katherine had possessed so much forethought; for the attention of Cecilia Howard was directed much more to the comforts of her uncle than to those which were necessary for herself. Attended by Alice Dunscombe, the young mistress of St. Ruth moved through the solitary apartments of the building, listening to the mild religious consolation of her companion in silence, at times yielding to those bursts of mortified feeling, that she could not repress, or again as calmly giving her orders to her maids, as if the intended movement was one of but ordinary interest. All this time the party in the dining-hall remained stationary. The Pilot, as if satisfied with what he had already done, sank back to his reclining attitude against the wall, though his eyes keenly watched every movement of the preparations, in a manner which denoted that his was the master spirit that directed the whole. Griffith had, however, resumed, in appearance, the command, and the busy seamen addressed themselves for orders to him alone. In this manner an hour was consumed, when Cecilia and Katherine appearing in succession attired in a suitable manner for their departure, and the baggage of the whole party having been already entrusted to a petty officer and a party of his men, Griffith gave forth the customary order to put the whole in motion. The shrill, piercing whistle of the boatswain once more rang among the galleries and ceilings of the abbey, and was followed by the deep, hoarse cry of:

"Away, there, you shore-draft! away, there, you boarders! ahead, heave ahead, sea-dogs!"

This extraordinary summons was succeeded by the roll of a drum and the strains of a fife, from without, when the whole party moved from the building in the order that had been previously prescribed by Captain Manual, who acted as the marshal of the forces on the occasion.

The Pilot had conducted his surprise with so much skill and secrecy as to have secured every individual about the abbey, whether male or female, soldier or civilian; and as it might be dangerous to leave any behind who could convey intelligence into the country, Griffith had ordered that every human being found in the building should be conducted to the cliffs; to be held in durance at least until the departure of the last boat to the cutter, which, he was informed, lay close in to the land, awaiting their re-embarkation. The hurry of the departure had caused many lights to be kindled in the abbey, and the contrast between the glare within and the gloom without attracted the wandering looks of the captives, as they issued into the paddock. One of those indefinable and unaccountable feelings which so often cross the human mind induced Cecilia to pause at the great gate of the grounds, and look back at the abbey, with a presentiment that she was to behold it for the last time. The dark and ragged outline of the edifice was clearly delineated against the northern sky, while the open windows and neglected doors permitted a view of the solitude within. Twenty tapers were shedding their useless light in the empty apartments, as if in mockery of the deserted walls; and Cecilia turned shuddering from the sight, to press nigher to the person of her indignant uncle, with a secret impression that her presence would soon be more necessary than ever to his happiness.

The low hum of voices in front, with the occasional strains of the fife, and the stern mandates of the sea-officers, soon recalled her, however, from these visionary thoughts to the surrounding realities, while the whole party pursued their way with diligence to the margin of the ocean.



CHAPTER XXX.

"A chieftain to the Highlands bound Cries, 'Boatman, do not tarry! And I'll give thee a silver pound, To row us o'er the ferry.'" Lord Ullin's Daughter.

The sky had been without a cloud during the day, the gale having been dry and piercing, and thousands of stars were now shining through a chill atmosphere. As the eye, therefore, became accustomed to the change of light, it obtained a more distinct view of surrounding objects. At the head of the line that was stretched along the narrow pathway marched a platoon of the marines, who maintained the regular and steady front of trained warriors. They were followed at some little distance by a large and confused body of seamen, heavily armed, whose disposition to disorder and rude merriment, which became more violent from their treading on solid ground, was with difficulty restrained by the presence and severe rebukes of their own officers. In the centre of this confused mass the whole of the common prisoners were placed, but were not otherwise attended to by their nautical guard than as they furnished the subjects of fun and numberless quaint jokes. At some distance in their rear marched Colonel Howard and Borroughcliffe, arm in arm, both maintaining the most rigid and dignified silence, though under the influence of very bitter feelings. Behind these again, and pressing as nigh as possible to her uncle, was Miss Howard, leaning on the arm of Alice Dunscombe, and surrounded by the female domestics of the establishment of St. Ruth. Katherine Plowden moved lightly, by herself, in the shadow of this group, with elastic steps but with a maiden coyness that taught her to veil her satisfaction with the semblance of captivity. Barnstable watched her movements with delight, within six feet of her, but submitted to the air of caprice in his mistress, which seemed to require that he should come no nearer. Griffith, avoiding the direct line of the party, walked on its skirts in such a situation that his eye could command its whole extent, in order, if necessary, to direct the movements. Another body of the marines marched at the close of the procession, and Manual, in person, brought up the rear. The music had ceased by command, and nothing was now audible but the regular tread of the soldiers, with the sighs of the dying gale, interrupted occasionally by the voice of an officer, or the hum of low dialogue.

"This has been a Scotch prize that we've taken," muttered a surly old seaman; "a ship without head-money or cargo! There was kitchen-timber enough in the old jug of a place to have given an outfit in crockery and knee-buckles to every lad in the ship; but, no! let a man's mouth water ever so much for food and raiment, damme, if the officers would give him leave to steal even so good a thing as a spare Bible."

"You may say all that, and then make but a short yarn of the truth," returned the messmate who walked by his side: "if there had been such a thing as a ready-made prayer handy, they would have choused a poor fellow out of the use of it.—I say, Ben, I'll tell ye what; it's my opinion that if a chap is to turn soldier and carry a musket, he should have soldier's play, and leave to plunder a little—now the devil a thing have I laid my hands on to-night, except this firelock and my cutlash—unless you can call this bit of a table-cloth something of a windfall."

"Ay! you have fallen in there with a fresh bolt of duck, I see!" said the other, in manifest admiration of the texture of his companion's prize—"why, it would spread as broad a clew as our mizzen-royal, if it was loosened! Well, your luck hasn't been every man's luck—for my part, I think this here hat was made for some fellow's great toe: I've rigged it on my head both fore and aft, and athwart-ships; but curse the inch can I drive it down—I say, Sam! you'll give us a shirt off that table- cloth?"

"Ay, ay, you can have one corner of it; or for that matter, ye can take the full half, Nick; but I don't see that we go off to the ship any richer than we landed, unless you may muster she-cattle among your prize-money."

"No richer!" interrupted a waggish young sailor, who had been hitherto a silent listener to the conversation between his older and more calculating shipmates; "I think we are set up for a cruise in them seas where the day watches last six months; don't you see we have caught a double allowance of midnight!"

While speaking, he laid his hands on the bare and woolly heads of Colonel Howard's two black slaves, who were moving near him, both occupied in mournful forebodings on the results that were to flow from this unexpected loss of their liberty. "Slew your faces this way, gentlemen," he added; "there; don't you think that a sight to put out the binnacle lamps? there's darkness visible for ye!"

"Let the niggers alone," grumbled one of the more aged speakers; "what are ye skylarking with the like of them for? The next thing they'll sing out, and then you'll hear one of the officers in your wake. For my part, Nick, I can't see why it is that we keep dodging along shore here, with less than ten fathoms under us, when, by stretching into the broad Atlantic, we might fall in with a Jamaicaman every day or two, and have sugar hogsheads and rum puncheons as plenty aboard us as hard fare is now."

"It is all owing to that Pilot," returned the other; "for, d'ye see, if there was no bottom, there would be no pilots. This is dangerous cruising-ground, where we stretch into five fathoms, and then drop our lead on a sand-pit or a rock! Besides, they make night-work of it, too! If we had daylight for fourteen hours instead of seven, a man might trust to feeling his way for the other ten."

"Now, a'n't ye a couple of old horse-marines!" again interrupted the young sailor; "don't you see that Congress wants us to cut up Johnny Bull's coasters, and that old Blow-Hard has found the days too short for his business, and so he has landed a party to get hold of night. Here we have him! and when we get off to the ship, we shall put him under hatches, and then you'll see the face of the sun again! Come, my lilies! let these two gentlemen look into your cabin windows—what? you won't! Then I must squeeze your woolen nightcaps for ye!"

The negroes, who had been submitting to his humors with the abject humility of slavery, now gave certain low intimations that they were suffering pain, under the rough manipulation of their tormentor.

"What's that!" cried a stern voice, whose boyish tones seemed to mock the air of authority that was assumed by the speaker—"who's that, I say, raising that cry among ye?"

The willful young man slowly removed his two hands from the woolly polls of the slaves, but as he suffered them to fall reluctantly along their sable temples, he gave the ear of one of the blacks a tweak that caused him to give vent to another cry, that was uttered with a much greater confidence of sympathy than before.

"Do ye hear there!" repeated Merry—"who's skylarking with those negroes?"

"'Tis no one, sir," the sailor answered with affected gravity; "one of the palefaces has hit his shin against a cobweb, and it has made his earache!"

"Harkye, you Mr. Jack Joker! how came you in the midst of the prisoners?—Did not I order you to handle your pike, sir, and to keep in the outer line?"

"Ay, ay, sir, you did; and I obeyed orders as long as I could; but these niggers have made the night so dark that I lost my way!"

A low laugh passed through the confused crowd of seamen; and even the midshipman might have been indulging himself in a similar manner at this specimen of quaint humor from the fellow, who was one of those licensed men that are to be found in every ship. At length:

"Well, sir," he said, "you have found out your false reckoning now; so get you back to the place where I bid you stay."

"Ay, ay, sir, I'm going. By all the blunders in the purser's book, Mr. Merry, but that cobweb has made one of these niggers shed tears! Do let me stay to catch a little ink, sir, to write a letter with to my poor old mother-devil the line has she had from me since we sailed from the Chesapeake!"

"If ye don't mind me at once, Mr. Jack Joker, I'll lay my cutlass over your head," returned Merry, his voice now betraying a much greater sympathy in the sufferings of that abject race, who are still in some measure, but who formerly were much more, the butts of the unthinking and licentious among our low countrymen; "then ye can write your letter in red ink if ye will!"

"I wouldn't do it for the world," said Joker, sneaking away towards his proper station—"the old lady wouldn't forget the hand, and swear it was a forgery—I wonder, though, if the breakers on the coast of Guinea be black! as I've heard old seamen say who have cruised in them latitudes."

His idle levity was suddenly interrupted by a voice that spoke above the low hum of the march, with an air of authority, and a severity of tone, that could always quell, by a single word, the most violent ebullition of merriment in the crew.

The low buzzing sounds of "Ay, there goes Mr. Griffith!" and of "Jack has woke up the first lieutenant, he had better now go to sleep himself," were heard passing among the men. But these suppressed communications soon ceased, and even Jack Joker himself pursued his way with diligence on the skirts of the party, as mutely as if the power of speech did not belong to his organization.

The reader has too often accompanied us over the ground between the abbey and the ocean, to require any description of the route pursued by the seamen during the preceding characteristic dialogue; and we shall at once pass to the incidents which occurred on the arrival of the party at the cliffs. As the man who had so unexpectedly assumed a momentary authority within St. Ruth had unaccountably disappeared from among them, Griffith continued to exercise the right of command, without referring to any other for consultation. He never addressed himself to Barnstable, and it was apparent that both the haughty young men felt that the tie which had hitherto united them in such close intimacy was, for the present at least, entirely severed. Indeed, Griffith was only restrained by the presence of Cecilia and Katherine from arresting his refractory inferior on the spot; and Barnstable, who felt all the consciousness of error, without its proper humility, with difficulty so far repressed his feelings as to forbear exhibiting in the presence of his mistress such a manifestation of his spirit as his wounded vanity induced him to imagine was necessary to his honor. The two, however, acted in harmony on one subject, though it was without concert or communication. The first object with both the young men was to secure the embarkation of the fair cousins; and Barnstable proceeded instantly to the boats, in order to hasten the preparations that were necessary before they could receive these unexpected captives: the descent of the Pilot having been made in such force as to require the use of all the frigate's boats, which were left riding in the outer edge of the surf, awaiting the return of the expedition. A loud call from Barnstable gave notice to the officer in command, and in a few moments the beach was crowded with the busy and active crews of the "cutters," "launches," "barges," "jolly-boats," "pinnaces," or by whatever names the custom of the times attached to the different attendants of vessels of war. Had the fears of the ladies themselves been consulted, the frigate's launch would have been selected for their use, on account of its size; but Barnstable, who would have thought such a choice on his part humiliating to his guests, ordered the long, low barge of Captain Munson to be drawn upon the sand, it being peculiarly the boat of honor. The hands of fifty men were applied to the task, and it was soon announced to Colonel Howard and his wards that the little vessel was ready for their reception. Manual had halted on the summit of the cliffs with the whole body of the marines, where he was busily employed in posting pickets and sentinels, and giving the necessary instructions to his men to cover the embarkation of the seamen, in a style that he conceived to be altogether military. The mass of the common prisoners, including the inferior domestics of the abbey, and the men of Borroughcliffe, were also held in the same place, under a suitable guard: but Colonel Howard and his companion, attended by the ladies and their own maids, had descended the rugged path to the beach, and were standing passively on the sands, when the intelligence that the boat waited for them was announced.