The warrant for Sir Jocelyn's committal to the Fleet was delivered by the serjeant-at-arms to the deputy-warden; and the latter having duly perused it, was conferring with one of the jailers as to where the prisoner should be conducted, when a side-door was suddenly opened, and Sir Giles Mompesson issuing from it, tapped the deputy-warden on the shoulder.

"You need not consider where the prisoner is to be lodged, Master Tunstall," he said, looking fixedly at Mounchensey all the while. "The dungeon he is to occupy is the darkest, the deepest and the dampest in the Fleet. It is that in which his father died. You know it well, Grimbald," he added, to one of the burliest of the jailers. "Take him thither at once, and I will go with you to see him safely bestowed.

"Pa.s.s on, Sir," he continued, with a smile of fiendish satisfaction, as Mounchensey was led forth by the jailer.

Chapter XXIV.

The Abduction.

Night had come on, and Aveline was anxiously expecting the arrival of her lover, when a loud knocking was heard at the door of the cottage; and before the summons could be answered by Anthony Rocke, two persons entered, and pushing past the old serving-man, who demanded their business, and vainly endeavoured to oppose their progress, forced their way into the presence of his mistress. Dame Sherborne was in an inner room, but, alarmed by the noise, she flew to the aid of her charge, and reached her at the same moment with the intruders. Her lamp threw its light full upon their countenances; and when she found who they were, she screamed and nearly let it fall, appearing to stand much more in need of support than Aveline herself.

The foremost of the two was Sir Giles Mompesson, and his usually stern and sinister features had acquired a yet more inauspicious cast, from the deathlike paleness that bespread them, as well as from the fillet bound round his injured brow. The other was an antiquated c.o.xcomb, aping the airs and graces of a youthful gallant, attired in silks and velvets fashioned in the newest French mode, and exhaling a mingled perfume of civet, musk, and ambergris; and in him Aveline recognised the amorous old dotard, who had stared at her so offensively during the visit she had been forced to make to the extortioner.

Sir Francis's deportment was not a whit less impertinent or objectionable now than heretofore. After making a profound salutation to Aveline, which he thought was executed in the most courtly style, and with consummate grace, he observed in a loud whisper to his partner, "'Fore heaven! a matchless creature! a divinity! Introduce me in due form, Sir Giles."

"Suffer me to make known to you Sir Francis Mitch.e.l.l, fair mistress,"

said Mompesson. "He is so ravished by your charms that he can neither eat, drink, nor sleep; and he professes to me, his friend and partner, that he must die outright, unless you take pity on him. Is it not so, Sir Francis? Nay, plead your own cause, man. You will do it better than I, who am little accustomed to tune my voice to the ear of beauty."

During this speech, the old usurer conducted himself in a manner that, under other circ.u.mstances, must have moved Aveline's mirth; but it now only excited her disgust and indignation. Sighing, groaning placing his hand upon his heart, languishingly regarding her, and turning up his eyes till the whites alone were visible, he ended by throwing himself at her feet, seizing her hand, and attempting to cover it with kisses.

"Deign to listen to me, peerless and adorable damsel!" he cried in the most impa.s.sioned accents he could command, though he wheezed terribly all the while, and was ever and anon interrupted by a fit of coughing.

"Incline your ear to me, I beseech you. Sir Giles has in no respect exaggerated my sad condition. Ever since I beheld you I have been able to do nothing else than--ough! ough!--dwell upon your surpa.s.sing attractions. Day and night your lovely image has been constantly before me. You have driven sleep from my eyelids, and rest from my--(ough!

ough!)--frame. Your l.u.s.trous eyes have lighted up such a fire in my breast as can never be extinguished, unless--(ough! ough! ough!)--plague take this cough! I owe it to you, fair mistress of my heart, as well as my other torments. But as I was about to say, the raging flame you have kindled in my breast will utterly consume me, unless--(ough! ough!

ough!)"

Here he was well-nigh choked, and Sir Giles had to come to his a.s.sistance.

"What my worthy friend and partner would declare, if his cough permitted him, fair Mistress Aveline," urged the extortioner, "is that he places his life and fortune at your disposal. His desires are all centred in you, and it rests with you to make him the happiest or most miserable of mankind. Speak I not your sentiments, Sir Francis?"

"In every particular, good Sir Giles," replied the other, as soon as he could recover utterance. "And now, most adorable damsel, what say you in answer? You are too gentle, I am sure, to condemn your slave to endless tortures. Nay, motion me not to rise. I have that to say will disarm your frowns, and turn them into smiles of approval and a.s.sent. (O, this accursed rheumatism!" he muttered to himself, "I shall never be able to get up unaided!) I love you, incomparable creature--love you to distraction; and as your beauty has inflicted such desperate wounds upon my heart, so I am sure your gentleness will not fail to cure them.

Devotion like mine must meet its reward. Your answer, divinest creature!

and let it be favourable to my hopes, I conjure you!"

"I have no other answer to give," replied Aveline, coldly, and with an offended look, "except such as any maiden, thus unwarrantably and unseasonably importuned, would make. Your addresses are utterly distasteful to me, and I pray you to desist them. If you have any real wish to oblige me, you will at once free me from your presence."

"Your hand, Sir Giles--your hand!" cried the old usurer, raising himself to his feet with difficulty, "So, you are not to be moved by my sufferings--by my prayers, cruel and proud beauty?" he continued, regarding her with a mortified and spiteful look. "You are inflexible--eh?"

"Utterly so," she replied.

"Anthony Rocke!" cried Dame Sherborne, "show the gentlemen to the door--and bolt it upon them," she added, in a lower tone.

"Not so fast, Madam--not so fast!" exclaimed Sir Francis. "We will not trouble old Anthony just yet. Though his fair young mistress is indisposed to listen to the pleadings of love, it follows not she will be equally insensible to the controlling power of her father's delegated authority. Her hand must be mine, either freely, or by compulsion. Let her know on what grounds I claim it, Sir Giles."

"Your claim cannot be resisted, Sir Francis," rejoined the other; "and if you had followed my counsel, you would not have condescended to play the abject wooer, but have adopted the manlier course, and demanded her hand as your right."

"Nay, Sir Giles, you cannot wonder at me, knowing how infatuated I am by this rare and admirable creature. I was unwilling to a.s.sert my rights till all other means of obtaining her hand had failed. But now I have no alternative."

"Whence is your authority derived?" inquired Aveline, trembling as she put the question.

"From your dead father," said Sir Giles, sternly. "His last solemn injunctions to you were, that you should wed the man to whom he had promised you; provided your hand were claimed by him within a year after his death. With equal solemnity you bound yourself to fulfil his wishes.

The person to whom you were thus sacredly contracted is Sir Francis Mitch.e.l.l; and now, in your father's name, and by your father's authority, he demands fulfilment of the solemn pledge."

"O, this is wholly impossible!--I will not believe it!" almost shrieked Aveline, throwing herself into Dame Sherborne's arms.

"It is some wicked device to ensnare you, I am convinced," said the old lady, clasping her to her breast. "But we defy them, as we do the Prince of Darkness, and all his iniquities. Avoid thee, thou wicked old sinner!--thou worse than the benighted heathen! Get hence! I say, Sathanas!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed to Sir Francis.

"Ay, I am well a.s.sured it is all a fabrication," said Anthony Rocke. "My master had too much consideration and tenderness for his daughter to promise her to a wretched old huncks like this, with one foot in the grave already. Besides, I knew he held both him and Sir Giles Mompesson in utter abomination and contempt. The thing is, therefore, not only improbable, but altogether impossible."

"Hold thy peace, sirrah!" cried Sir Francis, foaming with rage, "or I will cut thy scurril tongue out of thy throat. Huncks, indeed! As I am a true gentleman, if thou wert of my own degree, thou shouldst answer for the opprobrious expression."

"What proof have you that my father entered into any such engagement with you?" inquired Aveline, turning to Sir Francis. "Your bare a.s.sertion will scarcely satisfy me."

"Neither will it satisfy me," remarked Anthony. "Let him produce his proofs."

"You are acquainted with your father's handwriting, I presume, fair maiden?" rejoined Sir Francis. "And it may be that your insolent and incredulous serving-man is also acquainted with it. Look at this doc.u.ment, and declare whether it be not, as I a.s.sert, traced in Hugh Calveley's characters. Look at it, I say, thou unbelieving hound," he added, to Anthony, "and contradict me if thou canst."

"It is my master's writing, I am compelled to admit," replied the old serving-man, with a groan.

"Are you prepared to render obedience to your father's behests, maiden?"

demanded Sir Giles, menacingly.

"O, give me counsel! What shall I say to them?" cried Aveline, appealing to Dame Sherborne. "Would that Sir Jocelyn were here!"

"It is in vain to expect his coming," rejoined Sir Giles, with a bitter laugh. "We have taken good care to keep him out of the way."

"There is no help then!" said Aveline, despairingly. "I must submit."

"We triumph," whispered Sir Giles to his partner.

"Talk not of submission, my dear young lady," implored Anthony Rocke.

"Resist them to the last. I will shed my best blood in your defence. If my master did give them that paper he must have been out of his senses, and you need not, therefore, regard it as other than the act of a madman."

"Peace, shallow-pated fool!" cried Sir Giles. "And do you, fair mistress, attend to me, and you shall learn under what circ.u.mstances that contract was made, and how it becomes binding upon you. Deeply indebted to Sir Francis, your father had only one means of discharging his obligations. He did hesitate to avail himself of it. He promised you to his creditor, and obtained his own release. Will you dishonour his memory by a refusal?"

"O, if this tale be true, I have no escape from misery!" exclaimed Aveline. "And it wears the semblance of probability."

"I take upon me to declare it to be false," cried Anthony Rocke.

"Another such insolent speech shall cost thee thy life, sirrah!" cried Sir Giles, fiercely.

"Read over the paper again, my dear young lady," said Dame Sherborne.

"You may, perhaps, find something in it not yet discovered, which may help you to a better understanding of your father's wishes."

"Ay, read it!--read it!" cried the old usurer, giving her the paper.

"You will perceive in what energetic terms your father enjoins compliance on your part with his commands; and what awful denunciations he attaches to your disobedience. Read it, I say, and fancy he is speaking to you from the grave in these terms--'Take this man for thy husband, O my daughter, and take my blessing with him. Reject him, and my curse shall alight upon thy head.'"