‘The little birds that fly,
With careless ease, from tree to tree,’
are not more at liberty. Ah! fair enslaver! were I as unshackled!’—
The smiles that, momentarily, broke their way through the tears and sadness of Juliet shewed how much this declaration was in unison with her wishes; but, exhausted by relating a history so deeply affecting to her, she could enter into no discussion; and remained ceaselessly weeping, till the Baronet, with an expression of surprize, asked whether the meeting that would now ensue with her own family, could offer her no consolation?
Rousing, then, from her sorrows, to a grateful though forced exertion, ‘Oh yes!’ she cried, ‘yes! Your generous goodness has given me new existence! But horrour and distress have pursued me with such accumulating severity, that the shock is still nearly overpowering. Yet,—let me not diminish the satisfaction of your beneficence. I am going now to be happy!—How big a word!—how new to my feelings!—A sister!—a brother!—Have I, indeed, such relations?’ smiling even brightly through her tears. ‘And will Lady Aurora,—the sweetest of human beings!—condescend to acknowledge me? Will the amiable Lord Melbury deign to support, to protect me? Oh Sir Jaspar, how have you brought all this to bear? Where are these dearest persons? And when, and by what means, am I to be blest with their sight, and honoured with their sanction to my claim of consanguinity?’
Sir Jaspar begged her to compose her spirits, promising to satisfy her when she should become more calm. But, her thoughts having once turned into this channel, all her tenderest affections gushed forth to oppose their being diverted into any other; and the sound, the soul-penetrating sound of sister!—of brother! once allowed utterance, vibrated through her frame with a thousand soft emotions, now first welcomed without check to her heart.
Urgently, therefore, she desired an explanation of the manner in which this commission had been given; of the tone of voice in which she had been named; and of the time and place destined for the precious meeting.
Sir Jaspar, though enchanted to see her revived, and enraptured to give ear to her thanks, and to suck in her praises, was palpably embarrassed how to answer her enquiries; which he suffered her to continue so long without interruption or reply, that, her eagerness giving way to anxiety, she solemnly required to know, whether it were by accident, or through his own information, that Lord Melbury and Lady Aurora had been made acquainted with her rights, or, more properly, with her hopes and her fears in regard to their kindness and support.
Still no answer was returned, but smiling looks, and encouraging assurances.
The most alarming doubts now disturbed the just opening views of Juliet ‘Ah! Sir Jaspar!’ she cried, ‘why this procrastination? Practise no deception, I conjure you!—Alas, you make me fear that you have acted commission?’—
He protested, upon his honour, that that was not the case; yet asked why she had settled that his commission came from Lady Aurora, or Lord Melbury?
‘Good Heaven!’—exclaimed Juliet, astonished and affrighted.
He had only, he said, affirmed, that his commission was to take her to those noble personages; not that it had been from themselves that it had emanated.
Again every feature of Juliet seemed changed by disappointment; and the accent of reproach was mingled with that of grief, as she pronounced, ‘Oh Sir Jaspar! can you, then, have played with my happiness? have trifled with my hopes?’—
‘Not to be master of the whole planetary system,’ he cried, ‘with Venus, in her choicest wiles, at its head! I have honourably had my commission; but it has been for, not from your honourable relations. Those little invisible, but active beings, who have taken my conscience in charge, have spurred and goaded me on to this deed, ever since I saw your distress at the fair Gallic needle-monger’s. Night and day have they pinched me and jirked me, to seek you, to find you, and to rescue you from that brawny caitiff.’—
‘Alas! to what purpose? If I have no asylum, what is my security?—’
‘If I have erred, my beauteous fugitive,’ said Sir Jaspar, archly, ‘I must order the horses to turn about! We shall still, probably, be in time to accompany the happy captive to his cell.’
Juliet involuntarily screamed, but besought, at least, to know how she had been traced; and what had induced the other pursuit; or caused the seizure, which she had so unexpectedly witnessed, of her persecutor?
He answered, that, restless to fathom a mystery, the profundity of which left, to his active imagination, as much space for distant hope as for present despair, he had invited Riley to dinner, upon quitting Frith Street; and, through his means, had discovered the pilot; whose friendship and services were secured, without scruple, by a few guineas. By this man, Sir Jaspar was shewn the advertisement, which he now produced; and which Juliet, though nearly overcome with shame, begged to read.
‘ELOPED from her HUSBAND,
‘A young woman, tall, fair, blue-eyed; her face oval; her nose Grecian; her mouth small; her cheeks high coloured; her chin dimpled; and her hair of a glossy light brown.
‘She goes commonly by the name of Miss Ellis.
‘Whoever will send an account where she may be met with, or where she has been seen, to —— Attorney in —— Street London, shall receive a very handsome reward.’
The pilot further acknowledged to Sir Jaspar, that his employer had, formerly, been at the head of a gang of smugglers and swindlers; though, latterly, he had been engaged in business of a much more serious nature.
This intelligence, with an internal conviction that the marriage must have been forced, decided Sir Jaspar to denounce the criminal to justice; and then to take every possible measure, to have him either imprisoned for trial, or sent out of the country, by the alien-bill, before he should overtake the fair fugitive. His offences were, it seems, notorious, and the warrant for his seizure was readily granted; with an order for his being embarked by the first opportunity: nevertheless, the difficulty to discover him had almost demolished the scheme: though the Baronet had aided the search in person, to enjoy the bliss of being the first to announce freedom to the lovely Runaway; and to offer her immediate protection.
But the pilot, who, after being well paid for his information, had himself absconded, delayed all proceedings till he was found out, by Riley, upon the Salisbury-road. He evaded giving any further intelligence, till the glitter of a few guineas restored his spirit of communication, when he was brought to confess, that his master was in that neighbourhood; where they had received assurances that the fugitive herself was lodged. Sir Jaspar instantly, then, took the measures of which the result, seconded by sundry happy accidents, had been so seasonable and prosperous. ‘And never,’ said he, in conclusion, ‘did my delectable little friends serve me so cogently, as in suggesting my stratagem at your sight. If you do not directly name, they squeaked in my ear, her brother and sister, she may demur at accompanying you: if her brother and sister honour your assertion, you will fix the matchless Wanderer in her proper sphere; if they protest against it,—what giant stands in the way to your rearing and protecting the lovely flower yourself?—This was the manner in which these hovering little beings egged me on; but whether, with the playful philanthropy of courteous sylphs, to win me your gentle smiles; or whether, with the wanton malignity of little devils, to annihilate me with your frowns, is still locked up in the womb of your countenance!’
He then farther added, that Riley had accompanied him throughout the expedition; but that, always exhilarated by scenes which excited curiosity, or which produced commotion; he had scampered into the inn, to witness the culprit’s being secured, while Sir Jaspar had paid his respects at the chaise.
With a disappointed heart, and with affrighted spirits, Juliet now saw that she must again, and immediately, renew her melancholy flight, in search of a solitary hiding-place; till she could be assured of the positive embarkation of the commissary.
In vain Sir Jaspar pressed to pursue his design of conveying her to her family; the dread of Lord Denmeath, who was in actual communication and league with her persecutor, decided her refusal; though, while she had believed in Sir Jaspar’s commission for seeking her, neither risk nor doubt had had power to check the ardour of her impatience, to cast herself upon the protection of Lord Melbury and Lady Aurora: but she felt no courage,—however generously they had succoured and distinguished her as a distressed individual,—to rush upon them, uncalled and unexpected, as a near relation; and one who had so large a claim, could her kindred be proved, upon their inheritance.
Her most earnest wish was to rejoin her Gabriella; but there, where she had been discovered, she could least hope to lie concealed. She must still, therefore, fly, in lonely silence. But she besought Sir Jaspar to take her any whither rather than to Salisbury, where she had had the horrour of being examined by the advertisement.
Proud to receive her commands, he recommended to her a farm-house about three miles from the city, of which the proprietor and his wife, who were worthy and honest people, had belonged, formerly, to his family.
She thankfully agreed to this proposal: but, when they arrived at the farm, they heard that the master and mistress were gone to a neighbouring fair, whence they were not expected back for an hour or two; and that they had locked up the parlour. Some labourers being in the kitchen, Sir Jaspar proposed driving about in the interval; and ordered the postilion to Wilton.
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