Unvisited and uninvited, I felt that to have left a card at Chillingham Park would have been an intrusion unwarranted by the rules of good society--rules which I warmly bequeathed to the infernal gods. I had come to Canterbury; but to what end?--unless I met Louisa on the road, or in the city, and such wished-for chances seldom fall to the lot of lovers.
There was the cathedral, where, doubtless, she and her family would be on a Sunday, in their luxuriously-cushioned pew, attended by a tall "Jeames" in plush, carrying a great Bible, a nosegay, and gold-headed cane; but to thrust myself upon her there was too humble a proceeding for my then mood of mind.
I longed with all my soul to see her, were it but for a moment; and yet I also longed for the route to the East, as a relief from my present torture; and come it soon would now. There was some consolation in that conviction.
War had already been declared against Russia by the Western Powers of Europe. On the 23rd of the last month the brigade of guards had departed from London, after taking farewell of the Queen at Buckingham Palace; the Baltic fleet had sailed from Spithead; many of our troops were already embarked; and the French fleet for the North Sea had sailed from Brest. All betokened earnest and rapid preparations for a protracted contest; so I felt assured that our days in Maidstone were numbered now.
How long, or how far I wandered on that evening, full of vague and most dispiriting thoughts, I know not--near to Margate certainly; and the sun was setting as I returned, keeping near the sea-shore, and in sight of the countless white sails and smoky funnels of the craft that were standing outward or inward about the mouths of the Thames and Medway.
The sun sunk beyond the horizon; but the twilight was strong and clear. The place was lonely and still; and, save the chafing of the sea on the rocks at the Reculvers, not a sound came on the calm atmosphere of the soft spring evening. I was there alone, with my own thoughts for company, and found it difficult to realise the idea that the roar of London, with all its mingled myriads of the human race, was but sixty miles distant from where my horse nibbled the grass that grew by the sequestered wayside.
The whole scenery was intensely English. Against the rosy flush of the sunset sky, that old landmark for mariners, the Sisters, as the two spires of the ancient church are named, stood up sharply and darkly defined about a mile distant; near me spread an English park, studded with fine old timber, a model of beauty and fertility, the sward of the most brilliant green, and closely mown, as if shaved with a huge razor. The smoke of the quaint old Saxon village curled upwards far into the still air, and all seemed peaceful and quiet as the shades of evening deepened--quiet as the dead of ages in the graves that lie about the basement of the old church that marks the spot where St. Augustine--sent by Pope Gregory on the errand of conversion--first put his foot upon the Saxon shore; and as if further to remind me that I was in England, and not in my native country, the curfew bell now rang out upon the stilly air, tolling "the knell of parting day," for, as the Norman power stopped on the banks of the Tweed, the curfew is, of course, unknown in Scotland.
I had been lost in reverie for some time--how long I know not, while my horse shook his bridle and ears ever and anon at the evening flies, and cropped the herbage that grew under a thick old hedge, which bordered the flinty and chalky way--when the sound of voices roused me; and close by a rustic wooden stile, that afforded a passage through the hedge in question, I suddenly beheld a man and woman in parley--conversation it could not be termed, as the former was evidently confronting, and rudely barring, the progress of the latter.
On the summit of the stile her figure was distinctly seen in dark outline against the twilight sky.
She seemed young and handsome, with a smart little black-velvet hat and feather. Her small hands were well-gloved; one firmly grasped her folded parasol and handkerchief, and the other held up her skirt prettily as she sought to descend the stile, showing more than no doubt was generally revealed of a well-rounded leg, a taper ankle, and tiny foot, encased in a fashionable kid boot.
Young and perfectly ladylike, her whole toilette was in keeping with her lithe and graceful figure; but her face was turned from me.
He who confronted her was a burly, surly, beetle-browed, and rough-visaged fellow, like a costermonger, with a slouched, broken hat, which he touched, half ironically, from time to time; a black beard of a week's growth bristled on his chin; a patch covered one of his discoloured eyes; he had a great cudgel under his arm, and an ugly bull-terrier, with a huge head and close-shorn ears, was close to his heels. His hand was held forth for charity, and he was fully prepared to enforce that good quality.
Alarmed by the appearance of the fellow, who might very well have passed for a twin brother of Bill Sykes, the young lady hovered with irresolution on the upper step of the stile, and said, timidly--
"Permit me to pass, if you please, sir."
"Not without giving me summut, marm; and I tell yer I ain't neither sir nor mister, but just Bill Potkins," growled the fellow. "I've a darned good mind to set this ere dog at your ankles!"
"But I repeat to you that I have left my purse at home," she urged.
"You have left it at whoam have yer; that is all gammon, for I knows yer, for all yer dainty airs, and the captain too, for the matter o' that. Shall I tell his name?" he asked with a scowl, while he surveyed her all over, as if looking for something to snatch ar wrench away; but she seemed destitute of ornaments.
"Yes, I have indeed left it; but for pity sake allow me to pass," she said, faintly, and then, gathering strength, added, "Moreover, fellow, you must."
"Criky; that's a good 'un--must I really now?"
"Yes, please," returned the young girl, in tears.
"Well, I sha'n't then--not till I've overhauled your pockets, and rummaged yer a bit, and that's all about it."
In a moment his ruffianly hands were upon her; the girl uttered a shrill scream and he a ferocious oath. I spurred forward my horse, reined him in with dragoon-like precision, and with the butt-end of my riding-whip dealt the would-be thief a blow which tumbled him in a heap at the foot of the stile.
With a terrible malediction, while the blood poured over his face, he staggered up, stooped his head, and thrusting his hat well over his eyes, was rushing on with uplifted cudgel, when I dexterously dealt him cut "one" full on the face, and made my horse rear for the purpose of riding him down. On this he uttered a yell, forced his way through the hedge, and taking to flight, disappeared, with his bull terrier barking furiously at his heels.
The young lady whom I had saved by such timely succour was still standing, pale and trembling, on the summit of the stile, irresolute which way to turn, when I dismounted, and throwing the reins over my arm, lifted my hat, and expressing the great satisfaction it afforded me to have been of such timely service, I offered my hand and assisted her to descend.
She thanked me in an agitated voice, and with a hurried manner, in language which was well chosen, but seemed perfectly natural to her.
I now perceived that she was older than her slender figure at first suggested. She seemed to be about five-and-twenty years of age, with a softly feminine and purely English face, long, tremulous eyelashes, and a perfect nose and chin. She was almost beautiful; but with an air of sadness in her charming little features, which, when her alarm subsided, was too apparent to fail to interest me.
"If you will not deem me intrusive," said I, lifting my hat again, and drawing back respectfully one pace, "I shall be most happy to escort you home."
"I thank you, sir."
"It is almost dark now, and your friends may be anxious about you."
"Friends?" she repeated, inquiringly, in a strange voice, while a cough of a most consumptive sound seemed to rack her slender form.
"Or permit me to escort you to where you were going. It was in this direction luckily, or I could only have taken my horse over the stile by a flying leap."
"But, sir----" she began, and paused.
"Consider, that fellow may be within ear-shot, and he may return again."
"True, sir. I do thank you very much. There was a time when I was not wont to be so unprotected; but I am so loth--"
"To incommode me; is it not so?"
"Yes, sir."
"Oh, do not say so. I am from the barracks at Maidstone, though in mufti, as you see, and trust you will permit me to be your escort. My time at present is completely at your disposal."
"I live about half-a-mile on this side of the village; and if you will be so very kind----"
"I shall have much pleasure," I replied, with a respectful bow; and leading my horse by the bridle, I walked onward by her side.
She conversed with me easily and gracefully on many subjects--of the oddness of her being abroad at such an hour alone; but in the country folks thought nothing of it. She had been visiting a sick fisherman's wife, or child, or something, at Herne Bay, and been detained; the roads were not unsafe thereabouts in general; but she must be careful for the future.