Penshurst Castle Part 18

The larks were soon lost to sight as they soared overhead, singing faintly as they rose; the rooks gave prolonged and melancholy caws as they took their early flight, and the c.o.c.ks crowed querulously in the yard, while now and then there was a pitiful bleat from the old ewe which had lost her lamb.

In the intervals of sound, the stillness was more profound, and there was a sense of oppression hanging over everything, which even Ambrose felt.

The moor stretched away in the haze, which gave the hillocks of gorse and heather and the slight eminences of the open ground an unnatural size.

Every moment Mary hoped to see the shepherd's well-known figure looming before her in the mist with the lamb in his arms, but no shepherd appeared.

'We must turn our steps back again, Ambrose. Perhaps the shepherd has gone down into the valley, and it is chill and damp for you to be out longer; when the sun gets up it will be warmer.'

She had scarcely spoken, when a figure appeared through the haze, like every other object, looking unnaturally large.

'Quick, Ambrose,' she said, 'quick!' and, seizing the child's hand, she began to run at her utmost speed along the sheep-path towards the stile leading into the Manor grounds, near the farmyard.

The child looked behind to see what had frightened his mother.

'It's the big black man!' he said.

But Mary made no answer. She ran on, regardless of hillocks and big stones--heedless of her steps, and thinking only of her pursuer.

Presently her foot caught in a tangle of heather, and she fell heavily, as she was running at full speed, and struck her head against some sharp stones lying in a heap at the edge of the track, which could hardly be called a path.

'Mother! mother!' Ambrose called; and in another moment a hand was laid on his shoulder--a strong hand, with a grasp which the child felt it was hopeless to resist. 'Mother! mother!'

The cry of distress might well have softened the hardest heart; but men like Ambrose Gifford are not troubled with what is commonly understood by a heart. He spoke, however, in gentle tones.

'My poor child, your mother is much hurt. We must seek for the aid of a surgeon. We must get help to carry her home. Come with me, and we will soon get help.'

'No, no; I will not leave my mother,' Ambrose said, throwing himself on the ground by her side. 'Why doesn't she speak or move? _Mother!_'

Alas! there was no answer; and a little red stream trickling down from a wound on the forehead frightened Ambrose still more.

'It is blood!' he cried, with the natural shrinking which children always show when their own fingers are cut. 'It is blood! Oh, mother!'

But Ambrose was now quietly lifted in a pair of strong arms, and the words spoken in his ear,--

'We must seek help; we will get a surgeon. Your mother will die if we do not get help, boy. Hus.h.!.+ If you cry out your mother may hear, and you will distress her. Hus.h.!.+'

Poor little Ambrose now subsided into a low wail of agony as he felt himself borne along.

'Where are you going, sir? Set me down, set me down.'

'We go for help for your mother. Let that suffice.'

Ambrose now made a renewed struggle for freedom. It was the last; he felt something put over his face, so that he could neither see where he was going nor utter another cry; he only knew he was being carried off by this strange man he knew not where, and that he had left his mother lying pale and still, with that terrible red stream trickling from her forehead, on the hillock of heather on the moor.

It is said, and perhaps with truth, that the bitterest hate is felt by the sinner against the sufferer for his sin. This hatred was in Ambrose Gifford's heart, and was the primary cause of his thus forcibly taking from the wife whom he had so cruelly betrayed, the child who was so infinitely precious to her.

Ambrose Gifford had, no doubt, by subtle casuistry persuaded himself that he was doing good to the boy. He would be educated by the Jesuits, with whom he had cast in his lot; he would be trained as a son of the Catholic Church, and by this he hoped to gain favour, and strike off a few years of purgatorial fire for his past sins!

He had confessed and done penance for the disgraceful acts of which he had been guilty, and he had been received into the refuge the Roman Church was ready to offer to him.

At this time she was making every effort to strengthen her outposts, and to prepare for the struggle which at any moment she might be called upon to make to regain her coveted ascendency in England.

The seminary founded at Douay by a certain Dr Allen, a fine scholar, who was educated at Oxford, was much resorted to by persecuted Catholics who sought a refuge there. Or by men like Ambrose Gifford, who, obliged to leave the country under the shadow of a crime committed, were glad to throw themselves into the arms ready to receive them, and, as they would have expressed it, find pardon and peace by fasting and penance in the bosom of the Catholic Church. Doubtless, the great majority of those who gathered at Douay at this time were devout and persecuted members of the Church, from the bondage of which Elizabeth had delivered her country, with the hearty approbation of her loyal subjects.

But, black sheep like Ambrose Gifford went thither to be washed and outwardly reformed; and he, being a man of considerable ability and shrewdness, had after a time of probation been despatched to England to beat up recruits and to bring back word how the Catholic cause was prospering there.

He had, therefore, every reason to wish to take with him his own boy, whose fine physique and n.o.ble air he had noted with pride as he had, unseen, watched him for the last few weeks when haunting the neighbourhood like an evil spirit.

He would do him credit, and reward all the pains taken to educate him and bring him up as a good Catholic.

The motives which prompted him to this were mixed, and revenge against his wife was perhaps the dominant feeling. She loved that boy better than anything on earth; she would bring him up in the faith of the Reformed Church, and teach him, probably, to hate his father.

He would, at any rate, get possession of this her idol, and punish her for the words she had spoken to him by the porch of the farm, on that summer evening now more than two weeks ago.

Ambrose Gifford had deceived Mary from the first, professing to be a Protestant while it served his purpose to win favour in the household of the Earl of Leicester, but in reality he was a Catholic, and only waited the turn of the tide to declare himself. He led a bad, immoral life, and it was scarcely more than two years after her marriage that Mary Gifford's eyes were opened to the true character of the man who had won her in her inexperienced girlhood by his handsome person--in which the boy resembled him--his suave manner, and his pa.s.sionate protestations of devotion to her.

Many women have had a like bitter lesson to learn, but perhaps few have felt as Mary did, humbled in the very dust, when she awoke to the reality of her position, that the love offered her had been unworthy the name, and that she had been betrayed and deceived by a man who, as soon as the first glamour of his pa.s.sion was over, showed himself in his true colours, and expected her to take his conduct as a matter of course, leaving her free, as he basely insinuated, to console herself as she liked with other admirers.

To the absolutely pure woman this was the final death-blow of all hope for the future, and all peace in the present. Mary fled to her old home with her boy, and soon after heard the report that her husband had been killed in a fray, and that if he had lived he would have been arrested and condemned for the secret attack made on his victim, and also as a disguised Catholic supposed to be in league with those who were then plotting against the life of the Queen.

About a year before this time, a gentleman of the Earl of Leicester's household, when at Penshurst, had told Mary Gifford that Ambrose Gifford was alive--that he had escaped to join the Jesuits at Douay, and was employed by them as one of their most shrewd and able emissaries. From that moment her peace of mind was gone, and the change that had come over her had been apparent to everyone.

The sadness in her sweet face deepened, and a melancholy oppressed her, except, indeed, when with her boy, who was a source of unfailing delight, mingled with fear, lest she should lose him, by his father's machinations.

It was not till fully half-an-hour after Ambrose had been carried away, that the shepherd, with his staff in his hand and the lost lamb thrown over his shoulder, came to the place where Mary was lying.

She had recovered consciousness, but was quite unable to move. Besides the cut on her forehead, she had sprained her ankle, and the attempt to rise had given her such agony that she had fallen back again.

'Ay, then! lack-a-day, Mistress Gifford,' the shepherd said, 'how did this come about. Dear heart alive! you look like a ghost.'

'I have fallen,' gasped Mary. 'But where is my boy--where is Ambrose? Get me tidings of him, I pray you, good Jenkyns.'

'Lord! I must get help for you before I think of the boy. He has run home, I dare to say, the young urchin; he is safe enough.'

'No, no,' Mary said. 'Oh! Jenkyns, for the love of Heaven, hasten to find my boy, or I shall die of grief.'

The worthy shepherd needed no further entreaty. He hastened away, taking the stile with a great stride, and, going up to the back door of the house, he called Mistress Forrester to come as quick as she could, for there was trouble on the moor.

Mistress Forrester was at this moment engaged in superintending the feeding of a couple of fine young pigs, which had been bought in Tunbridge a few days before. Her skirts were tucked up to her waist, and she had a large hood over her head, which added to her grotesque appearance.

'Another lamb lost? I protest, Jenkyns, if you go on losing lambs after this fas.h.i.+on you may find somebody else's lambs to lose, and leave mine alone. A little more barleymeal in that trough, Ned--the porkers must be well fed if I am to make a profit of 'em and not a loss.'

'Hearken, Madam Forrester,' Jenkyns said, 'the lamb is safe, but Mistress Gifford is lying yonder more dead than alive. Ned, there! come and help me to lift her home--and where's the boy, eh?'

'What boy?' Mrs Forrester asked sharply.