Faithful Margaret Part 47

"What's sent the man back in such a temper, I wonder? My! he's always ranting about one thing or another; no wonder my poor miss hates him."

The man who opened to the colonel recoiled in astonishment from his fell scowl, as he brushed past him and sprang up stairs, three at a time.

In the absence of the mistress of Castle Brand, the unwelcome guest had appropriated to himself a suite of apartments in the castle, announcing his intention of waiting there for the return of the fugitive, and had lived a short but merry season in luxury and splendor; what wonder that he loathed the brutal fates which were conspiring to thrust him out of his paradise into outer darkness.

The maid who was replenis.h.i.+ng the colonel's fire, against his return from his ride, heard a savage oath behind her, and, favored by the darkness, slipped behind the door in a fright and stared with all her eyes at the colonel lighting his lamp, and banging down his desk upon the table.

He cursed everything he touched with the most blasphemous imprecations all the time he was removing papers and letters to his private pocket-book--all the time he was cramming his purse with gold and bank notes--all the time he was tossing his rich wardrobe into a valise.

Then he strode to the door, and turning on the threshold, sent a terrible scowl over the magnificent chamber, glittering with the flash of rich ornaments and the sheen of satin curtains. The veins swelled out on his forehead, and his pale lips twitched convulsively.

"All lost--all lost!" groaned the man in a despairing voice, and closed the door with a bang that shook the walls, and echoed through the vast halls like the report of a cannon.

Then he went into the drawing-room where the housekeeper had taken refuge. When she saw him coming along the pa.s.sage, and with a diabolical sneer of his face, he went to the marble-topped tables, mantel slabs, chiffoniers, and tiny tea-poys all laden with articles of _bijouterie_, and swept off the most costly of the ornaments into his rapacious valise; packing in paperweights of solid amethyst, vases of cut cornelian, ruby-spar, and frosted silver; pitching above them priceless gems of art in miniature, statuettes cut from topaz and chrysolites, (each cost a little fortune,) and then locking up his valise and making off with it "for all the world as if he was a traveling packman or a thief," as Mrs. Chetwode gasped out to Sally the cook, when she could seek the safety of the kitchen, for fright.

Then this eccentric colonel strode down stairs and took his ample Spanish riding-cloak off the pin and wrapping himself in it, with the startled John's help, he stepped to the dining-room door and drew a lowering glance around the majestic chamber.

There was a fine portrait of St. Udo Brand in his best days, painted upon the panel over the fire-place, and the ruddy light of the great astral lamp shone richly over the bold eyes and frank brow of the true heir of Castle Brand.

The skulking, demonized face in the doorway glared with frantic fury at the proud, high countenance on the wall, and a malediction burst from the writhing lips in a hissing whisper.

"Fool! you deserved your fate," said that strange whisper--"You had everything and I had nothing--I, the elder, the first born. Yet you threw your luck away with infernal pride, and beguiled me on to my ruin!

Devil! even in your grave you put out your hand to give me the fatal push."

He turned on his heel after that and fled from the Castle as if the Avenger of Blood was at his back, and ordering out the best blood-horse in the stables, he mounted and galloped down the drive.

Between the castle and the lodge he looked behind and spied his blood-hound Argus, tearing from the kennel after him.

The old lodge-keeper, who had hobbled out to open the gate, seeing that the colonel was in such a hurry, was amazed to hear his hoa.r.s.e tones raised like a madman's, while he ordered the dog home again, and threatened him in shocking language.

The dog crouched among the withered leaves until his master was riding on again, and then he slunk after him as before.

For the second time the colonel looked round at him, and catching him creeping after, he threw himself from the saddle, and seizing the hound by the collar, beat him with his weighted whip until the poor animal yelled with pain, and then he rode on again.

Still the dog dragged his bleeding limbs after his brutal master, and sought to keep him company, for he was his only friend, and had he not followed him many a weary mile?

For the third time the colonel looked behind, and caught the faithful brute following him. He drew a pistol from his breast, and leveled it full at the cowering hound, which nevertheless crawled close up to him, and whined, and licked his master's foot; he shot him through the head and rode on.

So his last friend fell dead by his merciless hand, his faithful serving had not availed to save him, his obedience had not helped him; when he was no longer of use to Roland Mortlake, and might be in his way, he crushed the creature that had loved him, and fled without him.

At the lodge-gate he turned for the last time in his saddle, and looked at the grand old castle standing in the midst of its rich domain, and looking like a Druid rock out of the chill moonlight.

A gleam of wicked envy broke from his basilisk eyes; he shook his clenched hand frantically at the stately pile, and the howl of a hungry tiger burst hoa.r.s.ely from his throat.

"It's mine by rights!" he cried in a frenzy, "and yet I've lost it forever! I might have been made for life, and now there's nothing left me but the chains or the gallows."

He finished with a vehement volley of oaths, his wolfish face grew black with pa.s.sion, his tall frame bowed upon his horse's mane in an access of abject fear, and plunging his spurs in his startled steed's flanks, he bounded away like the wind, but not on the road to Regis.

Mrs. Chetwode was ringing her hands over the despoiled drawing-room, and maids were crying and whispering that the colonel had gone mad, and the men were winking shrewdly to each other in token of their belief that the colonel wasn't just what he should be, when a posse of the queen's officers appeared on the scene, demanding the person of Roland Mortlake, _alias_ St. Udo Brand.

Too much disgusted with the colonel's low conduct that evening to care what sc.r.a.pe he had got into, the housekeeper went down to the constables, and described his proceedings with a plaintive regard to truth which met with but small favor from those functionaries.

No sooner had they wrung from her a description of the clothes he departed in and from the lodge-keeper, the road he had taken, then they galloped off in chase, leaving Mrs. Chetwode in the very middle of her succinct account of the caskets and ornaments "costing no end of money, which the rogue had took off with him."

Further disgusted with the unmannerly conduct of "them low-lived police," the prim housekeeper received Mr. Purcell and his news that Miss Margaret was safe home again, with elation, that she could fairly cry with joy to hear that the dear young miss was coming back, for she had feared many a time since she has gone away, that the colonel meant that she should never come back.

In truth her life had not been very genial those two days, with the colonel tramping his rooms like a caged hyena, and pouncing out upon her whenever a strange rap came to the door, as if he was looking every minute for some dreadful message from Regis.

"Pretending to want my blessed miss back so bad," cried Mrs. Chetwode, with a snort of disbelief. "Him as always snarled like a sick dog if ever her name was spoke by the servants. Where was he all that night after she went off, I'd like to hear? Out he goes, sir, ten minutes after you left this house to join Miss Margaret, and he never came back till daylight; and he wasn't at his own hotel, for his own man came here and said so. He was after mischief, I tell you, Mr. Purcell," concluded the worthy lady.

"That he was, the rascal," a.s.sented Purcell, wrathfully. "He was telegraphing his orders to his low accomplice, whom he had sent off to keep Miss Margaret in fear of her life all the way. Well, well, his day's done, Mrs. Chetwode, and I pray to goodness that he may be caught before the morning. You are to go down to the town and stay with Miss Margaret at the office till she sets the case in Mr. Emersham's hands.

She's afraid to come to the castle till the colonel is safely locked up."

Margaret was sitting by Mr. Emersham's smoking fire, pale and exhausted, but with eyes that shone with undiminished animation.

The venerable vicar sat beside her, softly pressing her hand between his own two; and the das.h.i.+ng young lawyer was just finis.h.i.+ng the reading of the case he had made out of the contents of Margaret's toilfully written doc.u.ment.

Mrs. Chetwode came to the travel-weary girl, and burst into a fond gush of tears.

"La sakes! Miss Margaret, I can't help it," sobbed the old lady, "to see you so white and worried is enough to break one's heart."

"The would-be-colonel, where is he?" clipped in the ready lawyer.

"Gone, sir, without e'er a good-by!"

"Oh, Mrs. Chetwode, have you let him escape?" cried Margaret, springing up wildly.

"I couldn't stop him, Miss Margaret, dear. He ramped through the castle like a madman, and then went off at full speed on Roanoke."

"Oh, me--he has escaped! Oh, Mrs. Chetwode!" moaned Margaret, sinking back in her chair and bursting into a violent fit of weeping.

Incessant anxiety, apprehension, and suspense had begun to tell upon her, she could not bear up a moment longer; and this disappointment was too much for her; so she fell into a pa.s.sion of tears, and sobbed, and cried out hysterically that St. Udo's enemy had got away, and that St.

Udo would never be avenged now!--until the compa.s.sionate vicar supported her to her carriage and got her driven to the castle.

So Mrs. Chetwode put her to bed, and nursed her, and wept over her, and got her to sleep at last; and she did not awake for at least twelve hours.

Next day Mr. Emersham sent up his card to Miss Walsingham, desiring an interview.

Willingly she hastened down stairs to see him, burning with impatience to hear his errand.

"Is the man found?" was her first eager question.

The bustling young lawyer subsided instantly.

"Haw, no, not quite caught yet," he admitted, "but he's almost as good as ours now, my dear madam. I visited O'Grady this morning, and caused him to turn queen's evidence against his accomplice in this business, and--aw, I may say the prisoner, I mean the culprit--is done for."

He did not explain that O'Grady had been bribed by the magnificent promises of the quick-witted Emersham to leak out a little of the truth, just enough to give the detectives a fresh clue to his probable hiding-place; and that poor O'Grady was just then imprecating the das.h.i.+ng young lawyer from earth to a hotter place as a cheat, a liar, and a traitor, when he found out that he had used him as a tool.

Mr. Emersham also showed his client a telegram which the detectives had sent him, stating that they had got on the criminal's track, and expected to come up with him very soon now.