cried Luke, as Sybil, half bewildered, tore herself from him.
“To Barbara Lovel.”
“I will go with you.”
“No! let me go alone. I have much to ask her; yet tarry not with this old man, dear Luke, or close your ears to his crafty talk. Avoid him. Oh, I am sick at heart. Follow me not; I implore you, follow me not.”
And with distracted air she darted amongst the mouldering cloisters, leaving Luke stupefied with anguish and surprise. The sexton maintained a stern and stoical composure.
“She is a woman, after all,” muttered he; “all her high-flown resolves melt like snow in the sunshine at the thought of a rival. I congratulate you, grandson Luke; you are free from your fetters.”
“Free!” echoed Luke. “Quit my sight; I loathe to look upon you. You have broken the truest heart that ever beat in woman’s bosom.”
“Tut, tut,” returned Peter; “it is not broken yet. Wait till we hear what old Barbara has got to say; and, meanwhile, we must arrange with Dick Turpin the price of that certificate. The knave knows its value well. Come, be a man. This is worse than womanish.”
And at length he succeeded, half by force and half by persuasion, in dragging Luke away with him.
CHAPTER 4
BARBARA LOVEL
Los Gitanos son encantadores, adivinos, magos, chyromanticos, que dicen por las rayas de las manos lo Futuro, que ellos llaman Buenaventura, y generalmente son dados à toda supersticion.
Doctor Sancho de Moncada.
Discurso sobre Espulsion de los Gitanos.
Like a dove escaped from the talons of the falcon, Sybil fled from the clutches of the sexton. Her brain was in a whirl, her blood on fire. She had no distinct perception of external objects; no definite notion of what she herself was about to do, and glided more like a flitting spirit than a living woman along the ruined ambulatory. Her hair had fallen in disorder over her face. She stayed not to adjust it, but tossed aside the blinding locks with frantic impatience. She felt as one may feel who tries to strain his nerves, shattered by illness, to the endurance of some dreadful, yet necessary pain.
Sybil loved her granddame, old Barbara; but it was with a love tempered by fear. Barbara was not a person to inspire esteem or to claim affection. She was regarded by the wild tribe which she ruled as their queen-elect, with some such feeling of inexplicable awe as is entertained by the African slave for the Obeah woman. They acknowledged her power, unhesitatingly obeyed her commands, and shrank with terror from her anathema, which was indeed seldom pronounced; but when uttered, was considered as doom. Her tribe she looked upon as her flock, and stretched her maternal hand over all, ready alike to cherish or chastise; and having already survived a generation, that which succeeded, having from infancy imbibed a superstitious veneration for the “cunning woman,” as she was called, the sentiment could never be wholly effaced. Winding her way, she knew not how, through roofless halls, over disjointed fragments of fallen pillars, Sybil reached a flight of steps. A door, studded with iron nails, stayed her progress; it was an old, strong oaken frame, surmounted by a Gothic arch, in the keystone of which leered one of those grotesque demoniacal faces with which the fathers of the church delighted to adorn their shrines. Sybil looked up — her glance encountered the fantastical visage. It recalled the features of the sexton, and seemed to mock her — to revile her. Her fortitude at once deserted her. Her fingers were upon the handle of the door. She hesitated: she even drew back, with the intention of departing, for she felt then that she dared not face Barbara. It was too late — she had moved the handle. A deep voice from within called to her by name. She dared not disobey that call — she entered.
The room in which Sybil found herself was the only entire apartment now existing in the priory. It had survived the ravages of time; it had escaped the devastation of man, whose ravages outstrip those of time. Octagonal, lofty, yet narrow, you saw at once that it formed the interior of a turret. It was lighted by a small oriel window, commanding a lovely view of the scenery around, and paneled with oak, richly wrought in ribs and groins; and from overhead depended a molded ceiling of honeycomb plaster-work. This room had something, even now, in the days of its desecration, of monastic beauty about it. Where the odor of sanctity had breathed forth, the fumes of idolatry prevailed; but imagination, ever on the wing, flew back to that period — and a tradition to that effect warranted the supposition — when, perchance, it had been the sanctuary and the privacy of the prior’s self.
Wrapped in a cloak composed of the skins of various animals, upon a low pallet, covered with stained scarlet cloth, sat Barbara. Around her head was coiffed, in folds like those of an Asiatic turban, a rich, though faded shawl, and her waist was encircled with the magic zodiacal zone — proper to the sorceress — the Mago Cineo of the Cingara — whence the name Zingaro, according to Moncada — which Barbara had brought from Spain. From her ears depended long golden drops, of curious antique fashioning; and upon her withered fingers, which looked like a coil of lizards, were hooped a multitude of silver rings, of the purest and simplest manufacture. They seemed almost of massive unwrought metal. Her skin was yellow as the body of a toad; corrugated as its back. She might have been steeped in saffron from her finger tips, the nails of which were of the same hue, to such portions of her neck as were visible, and which was puckered up like the throat of a turtle. To look at her, one might have thought the embalmer had experimented her art upon herself. So dead, so bloodless, so blackened seemed the flesh, where flesh remained, leather could scarce be tougher than her skin. She seemed like an animated mummy. A frame so tanned, appeared calculated to endure for ages; and, perhaps, might have done so. But, alas! the soul cannot be embalmed. No oil can re-illumine that precious lamp! And that Barbara’s vital spark was fast waning, was evident from her heavy, blood-shot eyes, once of a swimming black, and lengthy as a witch’s, which were now sinister and sunken.
The atmosphere of the room was as strongly impregnated as a museum with volatile odors, emitted from the stores of drugs with which the shelves were loaded, as well as from various stuffed specimens of birds and wild animals. Barbara’s only living companion was a monstrous owl, which, perched over the old gipsy’s head, hissed a token of recognition as Sybil advanced. From a hook, placed in the plaster roof, was suspended a globe of crystal glass, about the size and shape of a large gourd, filled with a pure pellucid liquid, in which a small snake, the Egyptian aspic, described perpetual gyrations.
Dim were the eyes of Barbara, yet not altogether sightless. The troubled demeanor of her grandchild struck her as she entered. She felt the hot drops upon her hand as Sybil stooped to kiss it; she heard her vainly-stifled sobs.
“What ails you, child?” said Barbara, in a voice that rattled in her throat, and hollow as the articulation of a phantom. “Have you heard tidings of Luke Bradley? Has any ill befallen him? I said you would either hear of him or see him this morning. He is not returned, I see. What have you heard?”
“He is returned,” replied Sybil, faintly; “and no ill hath happened to him.”
“He is returned, and you are here,” echoed Barbara. “No ill hath happened to him, thou sayest — am I to understand there is — to you?”
Sybil answered not. She could not answer.
“I see, I see,” said Barbara, more gently, her head and hand shaking with paralytic affection:
