PART III.—NIGHT.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

The young and beautiful Lady of Lincoln won all hearts; not that she visited any but the poor in those days; but the fame of her beauty and sweetness spread abroad even so; and the 'Rose of Enderby,' though not to be seen, was known to be brightening the stern old castle. The tall gaunt father and the beautiful girl lived in utter seclusion, except when amongst the poor—always together. Strangely enough, he never tried to wander. She never had him left alone day or night; but he never seemed happy save with Deborah. And still she watched for and prayed for a change in him. She talked to him, waited on him, sang to him from morning till night. Out in the broad sunny court that lay between the door and the entrance-gates, Deborah and her father, and often old Marjory with them, would sit and look up the long grass avenue that stretched far away, a vista of giant trees, ever twilight, where the antlered deer would trot past, to seek fresh shade and pasturage, and where the far-away murmur of country life, the lowing of cows, the tinkle of a sheep-bell, the bark of a dog, the shout of a boy, or the cries of children at play, would be wafted to them musically.

One morning, left alone, Sir Vincent said to his child: 'Where are we, Deb?'

Often he had asked the same question before; and she answered as before: 'At Lincoln Castle, father.'

But he went on: 'Who lives here?'

'You and I, father, and I hope Charlie soon. Adam Sinclair gave us this place. Wasn't it good of him?'

'Adam Sinclair?' He looked bewildered, and shook his head. 'I know naught of him, Deb. Deb, little Deb, I was thinking of Kate Shaw. I saw her yesterday.'

'Who was she, father, dear?'

He stared at her. 'Why, your mother!'

Her heart fluttered. 'My mother! And did you see her yesterday?'

'Ay; she was walking under the trees yonder. But she looked ill, sadly ill; her hair was as white as mine. She gave me such a look!'

Deborah went and kneeled by her father, and put her arms around him. 'Poor sweet father! This could not be. Thou knowest my mother died long, long ago. And was her name Kate Shaw, father?'

'Ay;' and he smiled. Wrapt and intent, his eyes seemed gazing far through and away. 'She was Kate Shaw, Deb; a gipsy lass, and beautiful as the dawn. No one like her! Such eyes, such feet, such grace! Sweet Kate! sweet Kate!'

Deborah knew that her mother's name had been Kate. She marvelled, trembled.

'I walked with her yesterday, Deb; didn't I? Yes; under the trees at Enderby; and I found she loved me. Little witch! She was hard, hard to win; so coy, so whimsical! She had a gipsy lover too. I made short work of him.'

'Didst shoot him, father?'

Sir Vincent laughed aloud, then feigned to look greatly scandalised amid his mirth. 'Shoot him? Fie, fie, Deb! Ask me not what I did, child. Why, one day she cared for him, the next for me. I could not stand it. A Fleming too! The Flemings woo maidens honourably. 'Fore heaven, I made Kate my Lady Fleming—my sweet little wife Kate! But I let her go no more to the camp. Sometimes I think she pines. She talks sometimes about her mother, in her dreams—that old hag! My wife must give up all, and cleave to me. Kate, Kate! dear love!' Then he said no more, nor did Deborah; but she marvelled at what she had heard, and what could have recalled her mother so vividly.

It happened one afternoon a few days after this and their arrival at Lincoln, Dame Marjory entered with a pale face. 'My Lady Deb, there's a poor woman round there at the gates wantin' to see thee; she is very ill. She lies there; 'tis like she's dyin'; so Master Coleman thinks. She can't be moved away.'

'I will come,' cried Deborah. 'Send Coleman to father. I will speak to her.' Beautiful, pitiful, Deborah appeared in her long black robes to the vision of the dying woman, bending down to her. She was an old, old woman, with wild and wintry hair; death in her face, but life in her great burning eyes, and those were fixed on Deborah. Deborah started back. It was the gipsy! A hundred doubts and certainties rushed surging to her brain. The gipsy beckoned her nearer.

'Speak to her,' whispered old Marjory emphatically. 'Go nearer.' And then Marjory, standing by gaunt and grim, waved the other servants away.

Deborah kneeled and bent her ear to the dying woman's lips. 'Girl,' said the faint voice, 'I forgive and forget! Let me die like a woman, not like a dog. I am thy mother's mother, an' I have been round day an' night to seek thee. She cast me off—Kate Shaw, thy mother. Because she was my Lady Fleming, she forgot her old mother. I was the dirt under her feet. Thy servants turned me off, Mistress. But take me into your grand house an' let me die in peace.'

Deborah rose to her feet, and turned like a ghost on Marjory. 'Nurse,' she whispered, 'is this my grandmother?'

'Yes, Mistress Deborah; it is true.'

Then Deborah beckoned to the men, and bid them bear the dying woman in and lay her on a bed. And then Deborah, with Marjory on the other side, sat down beside her. She seemed almost gone; the breath came labouring. But the breeze that swept in at the open windows seemed to revive her. It blew on the long white locks straggling across the brow; on those glazing eyes, so dark, sunken, piteous—eyes that burned up again, and sought Deborah's face as the embers of a dying fire flicker up and throw into the room an unexpected light.

'My girl,' she said, 'if Kate had been like thee! Hark! I hated, an' yet I always loved thee! Thou'dst ne'er ha' treated me like a dog. An', ah me! I loved her like my soul!'

'Grandmother,' answered Deborah sweetly and with a clear utterance, that pierced to the dying ears, 'my mother loved you. Only the other day I heard that great as she was, she never forgot you, even in her dreams. Day and night she thought of you; but her promise to her husband kept her from you, though she pined to see you once again. Oh, be merciful then! Forgive her! You are going now to meet again. O forgive her! that God may let ye meet in heaven!'

The great eyes stirred not from Deborah's face. 'Shall I win to heaven, lass? Speak to me o' heaven.' And Deborah described to her that beautiful place, that land glorious with promise and with bliss, that 'eye hath not seen, nor heart of man conceived.' The dying gipsy listened with her soul in her eyes. Then said she, very faintly: 'I am goin'. O Jesus, let me come! O Kate—my Kate!' Then, with wonderful sudden life and fire: 'Hi! you, my lass! Where's the boy? the rogue—"wild Charlie" they called him. Where's he?'

'In Ireland. Gone to fight for the Irish, grandmother.'

She laughed exultantly. 'Why, I tell thee why—his mother was Irish, an' he knew it. Mad boy, mad boy!'

Deborah laid her white hand on the old brown trembling hand, and smiled. She watched to see again and again a strange look of Charlie in that faded face and those large and wistful eyes. A great new-born love was flooding Deborah's heart for the dying vagrant. But death was taking the wanderer away. 'O Jesus, let me come!' Deborah heard her say again.

The fire died out; the flame sank low; the embers of life just smouldered, nothing more.... The fresh wind blew in vain on the wild gipsy face. She was gone.

Scarcely had Katharine Shaw been laid in her grave when Sir Vincent Fleming became very ill—so ill, that Deborah despatched a letter post-haste to Mistress Margaret Fleming, begging her to make known the fact to Charlie at once. But Mistress Fleming had started for Dublin; and this is how it befell. One morning a letter came to her. She often received such; but this one had cost her a laugh and a cry of joy. Just as she was in the perusal, old Jordan entered, and stared in wonderment at the glorious happiness of her face. 'Why, my maid,' he said, 'what hast got there? It's naught but paper, is it?'

'No, dad; but something writ upon it. Father,' she said, and rose and slid the beautiful arm around his neck, 'haven't I been a good daughter to thee? Proud and pursed up with mine own conceit, the lads o' the village have always called me. But, father, "Mistress Dinnage" has been a good daughter unto thee?'

'Ay, ay, lass, thou hast! What wouldst be comin' at? What ails thee now, Mistress?'

'Why, I come to ask thy blessing on me. Don't look scared, father; no shame will ever fall on thee through Mistress Dinnage. But I will out with it, for I can never beat about the bush. Father, I am Charles Fleming's lawful wife!'

Jordan seized his child by the shoulders, and his old grotesque visage grew dignified and terribly stern in its earnestness as he almost shrieked: 'Not—not unbeknown to the Master—an' Mistress Deborah?'

'Unbeknown that we are wedded, but not that we love, father. Mistress Deborah has known and wished it long; and Sir Vincent—he has seen us twice together, father, when we were walking secretly, an' has smiled on us. Mistress Deborah has heard him say a hundred times that he would fain, if he had wealth, have for his daughter-in-law an "honest poor man's child." So father, dear father, ye must not be angered.'

'Child, child! thou'st done wrong in keepin' it hid. Married? What—married? Honestly?'

'Ay,' was the proud answer. 'Charles Fleming and Margaret Dinnage went to Daxford Church, and were wed; we came out man and wife. Ask Master Rawdon. Father, he's in Ireland; but it's kept secret from all but Mistress Deborah. He's gone soldiering, father; and in this letter he asks me to go. Father, I am his wife!'

'Ay, an' Jordan's daughter, Meg,' said the old man brokenly. 'I'm a'most dazed. And thou'rt goin' to leave the old man alone—alone!'

'Only for a little time, father—a little, little time; for soon Charlie, when all the trouble's over, will come home to Enderby. It's all arranged between Lady Deb and me. A fine home-comin' it'll be, an' it please thee, Master Dinnage! Father, I won't go for long, dear. But o' nights, thinkin' o' Charlie, I well nigh go distraught. There is danger, father, as thou know'st! Hundreds o' men are slain. I must be there. I must go, dear; but I won't be long.'

'Go, go!' muttered Jordan irefully. 'Thou'dst allus the bit atween thy teeth, Mistress Dinnage; so had thy poor dear mother. Go along! I've no need o' thee; yon brave young fellow hath. Thou'lt be killed next, girl, killed, ay, an' wus than killed, at the hands o' the wild Irish. But, go, go! I don't want thee here.'

Anger, pride, and sorrow struggled fiercely in the brave old heart; but 'Mistress Dinnage' knew how to take him. 'Father,' she said, sorrowfully regarding him, with her head slightly on one side, and her hands playing nervously with her apron, in her earnest pleading, 'if thou wert newly wed, an' so parted from mother by land an' sea—an' she in trouble, needin' thee sore—thou'dst wade through fire an' water, only to win to her. My heart is broke in twain 'tween thee both—one half is at home with thee, an' the other gone to Charlie. Though I don't speak or cry, my heart is wounded with every man that's killed, an' trouble wears me sore. Think of mother, my father! Think when thou wert first wed, what it would be for one to part thee—think o' it, an' bid me go!'

So Mistress Margaret won the day.