Much more followed, but they spoke rapidly and briefly, for time was precious.
"You will end all this by wedding me, my beloved," said Gray in her ear, as he pressed her to his breast, and stifled her reply by kisses. "Then at midnight we shall leave Bommel together for the sea-coast, from thence to Scotland and the king! Say that you will become my wife – here are the altar, the church, the priest, and his missal – here even the ring. Oh, say that you will, for with life I cannot separate from you again!"
"My love for you," sobbed Murielle, "is stronger than my destiny – "
"Nay, 'tis destiny that makes you love me."
Her tears fell fast, but her silence gave consent.
The abbot felt all the force of his kinsman's arguments, and the more so that they were added to his own previous fears and convictions. He wisely conceived that the marriage of Murielle to Gray would prove the most irremovable barrier to the proposed matrimonial alliance between Douglas and the duke of Albany. He was aware that by the performance of such a ceremony, he would open an impassable gulf between himself and his lord and chief; but he felt that he owed a duty to the king, James II., in saving him from a coalition so formidable as a union between the adherents of the outlawed prince and rebellious peer; a duty to Murielle, in saving her from becoming the hapless tool of a conspiracy, the victim of a roué husband and a ruinous plot; and a duty to his kinsman and friend, whom he had every desire to protect and serve.
Thus he suddenly consented, and summoning his chanter, and a curé of the church, whom in his writings he names "Father Gustaf Dennecker, of the order of St. Benedict," he drew a missal from the embroidered pouch which hung at his girdle, and before our poor bewildered Murielle knew distinctly what was about to ensue she found herself a bride – on her knees before the altar, and the marriage service being read over her.
It proceeded rapidly. Murielle felt as one in a dream. She saw the open missal, from the parchment leaves of which some little golden crosses dangled; she saw the abbot in his purple stole, and heard his distinct but subdued Latinity, as he addressed them over the silver altar rail. She was aware of the presence of Gray, and her little heart beat tumultuously with awe and love and terror, while reassured from time to time by the gentle pressure of his hand – that strong and manly hand which had grown hard by the use of his sword-hilt. She heard the ring blessed, and felt it placed upon her marriage finger!
She heard the muttered responses of Father Gustaf and of the old chanter of Tongland Abbey, who, in his terror of the earl, was almost scared out of his senses; and then came the sonorous voice of the abbot, as he waved his hand above her, and concluded with these words: – "Deus Israel conjugat vos; et ipse sit vobiscum, qui misertus duobus unicis: et nunc Domine, fac eos plenius benedicere te."
She arose lady of Foulis, and the wedded wife of Sir Patrick Gray, from whom death only could separate her; but she reclined her head upon his breast, and sobbed with excitement, with joy, and alarm.
After a pause the abbot closed his missal, and as he descended from the altar his eye caught a pale grim face behind the shadow of a column. It vanished, but as the blood rushed back upon the heart of the startled abbot, he thought the features of that face were those of James Achanna, and he was right!
"You must now separate; the future depends upon your secrecy and discretion, as a discovery will ruin all, and we have not a moment to lose," said the abbot, who felt more dismay in his heart than at that moment he cared to communicate.
"What a time to separate!" exclaimed Gray almost with anger.
"You separate but to meet again," said the abbot imperatively, but in a low voice, lest there might be other eavesdroppers; "away to your hostelry, Sir Patrick, get horses, and make every arrangement for immediate flight. If you leave Bommel at midnight, by riding fast you may both reach the coast of Altena long before day-break, and there find a ship for Scotland."
"Let us escape now; why delay a single hour?"
"That may not be; your flight would be discovered, and the followers of the earl would be aided in a pursuit by those of De Lalain the Dyck Graf. The time to choose is when all are abed and asleep, or ought to be, and I will provide the order to pass you through the gates of the city. The doors of our residence are secured every night by Sir Alan Lauder, who keeps the keys with care, as if he were still in Thrave, and feared the thieves of Annandale. You know the window of Murielle's sleeping apartment?"
"It overlooks the garden above an arbour."
"Be within the arbour when this church bell strikes twelve; keep your horses in the street, and I myself, as far as an old man may, will aid your flight together. You will pass through the church by the postern, and then God speed ye to the sea! Till then, farewell, and my blessing on ye! Ah, well-a-day! all this toil, all this trouble, all this peril had been saved us, if – if – "
"What, my Lord?"
"The master of evil and of mischief had been but forgiven and restored to his place – but the time shall come," said the abbot, remembering his pet crotchet, as they hastily separated; "that blessed time shall come!"
CHAPTER XXXVIII
A WEDDING NIGHT
"Their swords smote blunt upon our steel,
And keen upon our buff;
The coldest blooded man of us
Had battering enough;
'Twas butt to butt, and point to point,
And eager pike to pike;
'Twas foin and parry, give and take,
As long as we could strike."
Gray seemed to tread on air – he felt as one in a dream – but a dream to be realized – as he hurried through the streets of Bommel to his hostelry, to pack his mail (a portmanteau), to order his horse to be in readiness, and to procure one for Murielle; while his emotions of love for her, and gratitude to the abbot, left no room in his honest heart for exultation that he was about to outwit his enemies, and by bearing her away avenge the wrongs they had done him.
While he is busy with the hosteller, his grooms, horses, and arrangements, let us return to one who was quite as busily taking measures to circumvent them – the inevitable Achanna.
In less than half an hour after his disappearance from the church, he was closeted with the earl, who had just risen from his knees, having been on a prie-dieu at prayer before a crucifix and case containing some crumbs of the bones of St. Bryde – the chief palladium of the house of Douglas.
"What tidings now," said he, "for thou art always abroad in the night, like an owl or a rascally kirkyard bat? Miserere mei Deus!" he added, concluding his orisons.
The earl was in a good humour; the formula of his prayers and his adoration of the relics had partially soothed his ferocious spirit; but on hearing what had occurred his fury was on the verge of taking a very dangerous turn, for, snatching a dagger from his girdle, he seized Achanna by the throat, and tearing open his collar and pourpoint, threatened to stab him for not having prevented this secret and – so far as some of his plans were concerned – most fatal marriage from taking place by killing Gray on the spot.
"At the steps of the altar?" gasped Achanna, struggling to free himself.
"Anywhere; what mattered it, wretch, where you slew my enemy?" thundered Douglas, hurling him in a heap against the wainscot.
"But – but, my lord – bethink you – 'twere a sacrilege, and the Dyck Graf would have broken me alive on the wheel, even were I, like yourself, a belted earl."
"True; we are not now within a day's ride of Thrave," said the earl almost with a groan, as he sank into a chair, and, overwhelmed by what seemed a sudden and irremediable catastrophe, gave way to undignified fury and abuse. He dared not trust himself in the presence of Murielle, lest he should commit some fatal violence, or in that of Albany, lest he might betray the source of that unbecoming discomposure, which filled his proud heart with shame at himself; and a rage at Gray, which words cannot describe. Thus a long time elapsed before he could arrange his thoughts after hearing Achanna repeat at least twice all he had seen and overheard in the church of St. Genevieve.