you again I should add to your happiness, I would bear the suffering like a man. As it is, Master Cobbe, I must go against your will.”
He strode hastily away, with the wild creatures of the woods scattering right and left at his heavy tread, and, making straight for the gabled house, he began for the first time now to think upon its occupant.
Once or twice a pang shot through his breast as he thought of the gaily-dressed young officer made a welcome guest at the house whose door he was forbidden to enter; and he stopped short, with his teeth gritting together, and his brow knit, his mind agitated by the thoughts of what might be.
It was very still, and the soft balmy summer night-air bore the sounds from far away, as with a faint, piercing, shrill cry the bats wheeled around the tree beneath whose dark shadow he stood; the night-hawk chased the moths in busy circle, and a great white-breasted owl floated softly by, turned and flew beneath the tree, but on seeing Gil uttered a wild and thrilling shriek as it fled away, a sound in keeping with the words of Gil Carr, as he walked hastily on once more, exclaiming —
“I should slay him if he did.”
The object of his thoughts was Sir Mark Leslie, then lying on a couch by the open window of his room, with the sweet scents of the garden floating in, and the soft, moist, warm night-air playing pleasantly upon his forehead.
He, too, had his thoughts fixed upon Mace, and, perhaps by a subtle influence, they were drawn, too, towards him whom he had seen as her companion in the boat, the man who had played surgeon, and in whose eyes he had seemed to read no friendly feeling towards himself.
It must have been ten o’clock when Gil came in sight of the gables standing up against the soft, clear summer sky. The occupants of the neighbouring cottages were asleep, and with the exception of the beetle’s drone, and the baying of some bugle-mouthed beagle, all was so silent that the ripple and rush of the water in the stone channel seemed to rise and fall with almost painful force.
There was a broad sloping bank some thirty or forty yards from the front of the house, and, taking off his hat, Gil softly walked along by it for a little distance, stooping here and there to thrust his hand in among the long dew-wet grass, and place something in his hat.
So occupied was he with his proceedings that he did not notice a figure seated beneath a tree nor heed the faint odour of tobacco which was nearly overpowered in the soft, sweet woodland scents that floated by. Neither did he notice that a window was open in one of the gables, and that the founder was seated there, gazing out upon the summer sky.
For, lover-like, Gil Carr was just then very blind, perhaps because the thoughts of Mace Cobbe filled his breast to the exclusion of everything else. Turning then to his task, he walked back to the sloping bank, and softly placed the four glow-worms he had brought diamond-wise upon the grass, where the little creatures glimmered in the darkness like the signal-lights of a ship at sea.
So thought Gil Carr, as he turned to look at them from a little distance, and then, softly walking to the little swing-bridge, he crossed it lightly in the darkness, and, leaping the fence, stood amongst the clustering roses waiting for the opening of a window ten feet above his head.
He had not long to wait, for the signal had been seen, and before many moments had elapsed there was a slight grating noise and then a soft voice that made the young man’s heart throb uttered the one word – “Gil.”
“Yes, dear, I am here,” he replied, eagerly.
“How foolish!” came next from overhead. “Why, Gil, you were with me this afternoon, and yet you play the love-sick swain beneath my window now.”
“I am sick with love, sweet; even unto death.”
“Are you turning poet, Gil?”
“Yes, for I seem to live in a sphere of poesy when I think of thee.”
“You foolish boy.”
“I am,” he said. “Would I could see thine eyes.”
“And that they were glow-worms,” she said laughingly. “There, good-night, dear Gil. It is late, and I must to bed. If you are my true love, come boldly to the house by day; such meetings as this become neither thee nor me.”
“Stay awhile, sweet,” he said. “What of your guest?”
“Poor fellow! I have not seen him since.”
Gil sighed content.
“There, I must fain go now, dear Gil. Good-night.”
“Nay, nay! a moment longer,” he cried.
“Why, Gil,” she cried, laughing musically, “one would think you were a lover forsaken and forlorn, condemned to stay away – forbidden the house.”
“I am.”
“What?”
“I am, sweet; and condemned to stolen meetings.”
“Why, Gil?” she exclaimed; and in a low voice he told her all.
Meanwhile as Gil’s dark figure was seen approaching the house, the watcher at the open window drew back to ensure being unseen, and then proceeded to follow the young man’s movements, ending by going to the far end of the room, taking down a curious old Spanish matchlock from a couple of slings, and then opening an oaken cabinet, from which he took powder in a carved horn flask, and a small pouch of bullets, with which the piece was carefully charged. Then the match was cautiously lit, and, approaching the window, the barrel was laid upon the sill, as he who carried it went down on one knee, and took a careful aim at the young man where he stood.
“I could bring him down easily,” muttered the watcher. “He shall not play with me and break her heart.”
“Nay,” he growled, the next minute, “it would be cowardly, and he is a brave strong lad. But he shall not trifle with either of us, and I will not have him here.
“Shall I fire?” he said, holding the heavy piece hesitatingly; and the long barrel shook in his hand.
The hesitation was not for long. With a sigh of annoyance he placed the matchlock in the corner, and, going downstairs, he went out softly by the back, and came right round by the front of the house, as if meaning to interrupt the meeting now in progress, but instead of so doing he went down to the great mill-wheel, and crossed the water by means of its spokes and paddles. Then stealing softly along by the far edge of the deep stream, he crossed it by the bridge, and by putting a long lever in motion swung the bridge right round, leaving the way perfectly open, so that any one coming from the house would, in place of going across the bridge, walk in the darkness right into the deep water, and, however strong a swimmer he might be, he would be carried down by the force of the stream right amidst the woodwork of the wheel, perhaps past it, and down into the lower fall amongst the rocks beneath.
“He won’t drown,” muttered the founder; “and it will be a lesson to him – teach him that I don’t mean play.”
Walking softly back to the mill-wheel he crossed again, made his way into the house, and then to the window, where he once more took up his position, and began to watch the dimly-seen crossing, waiting to see the disturber, as he termed him, of his daughter’s peace, fall headlong into the channel.
Hardly had he settled himself, though, to watch, when a change came over him.
“No, hang
