第41章

But while each of them was engaged by an antagonist, she was forced into the thicket by the two remaining villains, who placed her and themselves on horses which stood ready behind the copse-wood.They mounted at the same time, and, placing her between them, set of at a round gallop, holding the reins of her horse on each side.By many an obscure and winding path, over dale and down, through moss and moor, she was conveyed to the tower of Westburnflat, where she remained strictly watched, but not otherwise ill-treated, under the guardianship of the old woman, to whose son that retreat belonged.No entreaties could prevail upon the hag to give Miss Vere any information on the object of her being carried forcibly off, and confined in this secluded place.The arrival of Earnscliff, with a strong party of horsemen, before the tower, alarmed the robber.As he had already directed Grace Armstrong to be restored to her friends, it did not occur to him that this unwelcome visit was on her account; and seeing at the head of the party, Earnscliff, whose attachment to Miss Vere was whispered in the country, he doubted not that her liberation was the sole object of the attack upon his fastness.The dread of personal consequences compelled him to deliver up his prisoner in the manner we have already related.

At the moment the tramp of horses was heard which carried off the daughter of Ellieslaw, her father fell to the earth, and his servant, a stout young fellow, who was gaining ground on the ruffian with whom he had been engaged, left the combat to come to his master's assistance, little doubting that he had received a mortal wound, Both the villains immediately desisted from farther combat, and, retreating into the thicket, mounted their horses, and went off at full speed after their companions.Meantime, Dixon had the satisfaction to find Mr.Vere not only alive, but unwounded.He had overreached himself, and stumbled, it seemed, over the root of a tree, in making too eager a blow at his antagonist.The despair he felt at his daughter's disappearance, was, in Dixon's phrase, such as would have melted the heart of a whin stane, and he was so much exhausted by his feelings, and the vain researches which he made to discover the track of the ravishers, that a considerable time elapsed ere he reached home, and communicated the alarm to his domestics.

All his conduct and gestures were those of a desperate man.

"Speak not to me, Sir Frederick," he said impatiently; "You are no father--she was my child, an ungrateful one! I fear, but still my child--my only child.Where is Miss Ilderton? she must know something of this.It corresponds with what I was informed of her schemes.Go, Dixon, call Ratcliffe here Let him come without a minute's delay." The person he had named at this moment entered the room.

"I say, Dixon," continued Mr.Vere, in an altered tone, "let Mr.

Ratcliffe know, I beg the favour of his company on particular business.--Ah! my dear sir," he proceeded, as if noticing him for the first time, "you are the very man whose advice can be of the utmost service to me in this cruel extremity.""What has happened, Mr.Vere, to discompose you?" said Mr, Ratcliffe, gravely; and while the Laird of Ellieslaw details to him, with the most animated gestures of grief and indignation, the singular adventure of the morning, we shall take the opportunity to inform our readers of the relative circumstances in which these gentlemen stood to each other.

In early youth, Mr.Vere of Ellieslaw had been remarkable for a career of dissipation, which, in advanced life, he had exchanged for the no less destructive career of dark and turbulent ambition.In both cases, he had gratified the predominant passion without respect to the diminution of his private fortune, although, where such inducements were wanting, he was deemed close, avaricious, and grasping.His affairs being much embarrassed by his earlier extravagance, he went to England, where he was understood to have formed a very advantageous matrimonial connexion.He was many years absent from his family estate.Suddenly and unexpectedly he returned a widower, bringing with him his daughter, then a girl of about ten years old.From this moment his expense seemed unbounded, in the eyes of the simple inhabitants of his native mountains.It was supposed he must necessarily have plunged himself deeply in debt.

Yet he continued to live in the same lavish expense, until some months before the commencement of our narrative, when the public opinion of his embarrassed circumstances was confirmed, by the residence of Mr.Ratcliffe at Ellieslaw Castle, who, by the tacit consent, though obviously to the great displeasure, of the lord of the mansion, seemed, from the moment of his arrival, to assume and exercise a predominant and unaccountable influence in the management of his private affairs.

Mr.Ratcliffe was a grave, steady, reserved man, in an advanced period of life.To those with whom he had occasion to speak upon business, he appeared uncommonly well versed in all its forms.