A friend in need : a romance

Chapter I. The Soliloquy

" It is strange !" mused Laura Vandeleur, as she sauntered along the most shadowed walks of her garden one glowing afternoon in the year 1786. " It is wondrous strange how dif ferently, from their very cradles, the destinies of individuals seem moulded ! and how widely, too, opposed to the career for which their facul ties and characters might appear to have adapted them by nature ! Here now am I, full of energy, earnestness and romance, if I know myself aright, yet doomed to lead the life of the veriest anchorite ; whilst others — " and she suddenly checked her walk, and stamped her pretty foot in impatience at the vision she con jured up. "Bless me, what fives of excitement vol. i. B others lead ! Why every one I ever knew seems to have a history, but me ; and I — poor I, am doomed to vegetate like any flower of my par terre, existing year after year without joy or grief, or so much as a ripple of love to ruffle the surface of the stagnant stream of life !

Is it to go on for ever thus ?" She resumed her walk, and her musings were carried on in silence for a space. Then again she broke forth aloud, as if the sound of her own voice was a relief to her heart. " Heavens ! what a stillness and a solitude are here ! my father and Michael away, the cook on leave to see her family, and nobody but Norrey and I in the house ! How oppressive is this sdence ! The very birds seem mute, taking, I presume, their noontide siestas in bowers of verdure ; they enjoy their repose, no doubt, they are not alone ; but as for me, I wish with all my heart that something, anything, that was not absolutely tragic, would break this wearying calm!" Again Laura took a few turns up and down the gravel walks, trying to divert her thoughts into another channel ; now she stooped to tie up a drooping carnation, or inhale the fragrance of an opening rose; then paused to listen to the murmur of the labouring bees, and the drowsier humming of the large summer flies, but all in vain — the same current of thought would still return.

" Truly, I am in a strange mood to-day, for I am usually both content and happy ; but just now all things appear so very, very lonely ! Let me reason with myself. I have every comfort that I wish for; I have a good father who re quires my attentions, so that I have the pleasant consciousness of being useful ; I have a pretty little home that I love ; I have — oh, so many blessings, and so few cares ; yet still, I cannot help wishing that I had — a history. Let me see. I shall actually be five-and-twenty on the 10th of November, and my life flowed on in just the same course ten years ago, and will do so, as far as I can see, ten years to come. Yet, fie on me ! for I do not know, after all, what it is that I want ! Not marriage, to take me away from my poor invalid father; not love without marriage, for that, I suppose, involves ' hope de ferred,' the blight of disappointment, or some shape of misery or other.

I do not know, in truth, what it is that I sigh for, except an event, an adventure, a something, the less probable and common-place the better, to break through the even tenor of my days, and furnish food for thought when it is over. Some people," she continued, after a meditative pause, " seem to live all the days of their life, always in change, b movement, and excitement; others have their interludes of calm and storm, both rendered wel come by the alternation ; chequering it, as the sunbeams through the foliage chequer just now the lights and shadows upon the velvet sward ; and others appear to concentrate in a brief space the essence of their lives, before and behind them, tranquillity, but in the midst of their career, a very hurricane of emotions, events and excite ments. But there is yet another phase of the stream of life possible, and I almost shudder to think it may be mine !

What if it were my destiny to glide on thus from the cradle to the grave, through a stirless stagnant pool of mere existence, without the full and proper exercise of my dormant energies, either of mind or body : without emotion, without such affection as I feel myself capable of experiencing ; without, in fact, anything that can make human life superior to that of the pretty passive flower, which buds and blossoms, opens its fair leaves to the sunbeam and the shower, then droops, declines its head, and dies. And is such to be my fate ?" ejaculated Laura with energy, as she shook her bright curls from her brow, and gazed intently into the blue expanse above. " Oh, forbid it Heaven ! Why should I be doomed to such a state of mere vegetation ? I, with a heart so ardent !" Then smiling, not unreprovingly at her own fervour, she resumed more calmly her walk and her reverie.

" I am handsome enough, I suppose, if I am to give credit to what friends say, and I have a tall and graceful figure ; moreover, T do not think that I am either ignorant in book know ledge, or a fool in regard of common sense; yet here I am, with almost five-and-twenty years over my head, which have scarcely left on memory's field a trace of personal history be hind. What can be the reason of such an ano maly ? There was my sister Millicent, married before she was twenty, and what a world of ex citement to bring it about ! My dear father so stern, Richard's father so angry, Richard himself so earnest, so loving, so eloquent, so despairing by turns ; and Milly so sad, and so fond, and so entreating, and so dutiful. Then all given up, and closettings, and letter writings, and weeping, and fainting ; poor Milly so wretched, and Richard's father so enraged ; and then his good old godmother dying and leaving him six thou sand pounds just at the right time, and all be coming by the stroke of a wand, happy and gay, and nobody frowning or weeping any more ; and little I, just nine years old then, hovering like a butterfly around her in my gay bridesmaid's attire.

I do not think I have had such a happy day as that ever since, and it is a long, long time ago ! Then there was my brother, and all the fuss people were in when he was to enter the army; and my father going up to London wdth him — such an event ! Well, that was in child hood, too, nothing happens now. And Lewis is married also, and had all sorts of strange adventures ; saving the life of his wife's father when he was shot at, and getting a fever and being nursed by his Julia ; oh, quite a romance ! And all the while I was reading aloud to my father, books that I did not understand, and newspapers which I could not be interested in ; and driven, for want of something better to do with my thoughts, to fancy romances for my ducks and hens, who became so many personages in my eyes, playing their special parts.

And in truth, they were a great comfort to me, poor, lonely-hearted child ! " Ah, if I had a sister near my own age to talk to, or a mother to love, I should-not mind the want of adventures or such sdly fancies; but my mother died when I was born, and Milly was so much older than I, so that I never had anybody to confide in as a dear friend. And indeed, as I have said all day, 1 do wish something would happen for I am growing weary of myself. I wish if ever I am to have a history that it would soon begin !" Well, well did Laura Vandeleur in after times A FRIEXD IN NEED. remember all this long train of thoughts, which I have recorded in detail, even at the risk of becoming wearisome to the reader, both because it serves to introduce her and her family, and also because it became stamped in that hour indelibly upon her memory by what followed.

As if some attendant spirit had been hovering among the pencilly foliage of the solitary acacia tree, beneath which she had paused, to hear her adjuration and comply with its behest, scarcely had Laura ceased to speak, when her life, her history, commenced.

Chapter II. The Adventure

The acacia tree beneath which, in the rest lessness of impatient youth, Laura had uttered her last words, was situated on a mound near the verge of a grassy slope, which formed the inner bank of a little winding rivulet. A thicket of evergreens and flowering shrubs separated this again from the low wall which bounded the garden. The house where she had passed her calm eventless life was at no great distance in the rear. " I wish something would happen ! I wish if I am ever to have a history that it would soon begin !" was Laura's aspiration ; and scarcely had she spoken, when, as if invoked by her words, a young man suddenly appeared upon the top of the wall, and dropped down amidst the laurels and, rhododendrons beneath. For a few moments he remained perfectly still, then, just raising his head above the foliage, he glanced eagerly around, and crouching low, once more made his way in that position rapidly through the shrubbery.

Presently, rising cautiously to his feet again upon the margin of the stream, he paused for an instant to gather breath, wiped the moisture from his flushed brow, and glanced once more around on every side. Apparently reassured by the survey, he then bounded across the rivulet, and in two steps was at the foot of the mound where Laura, trembling, and intently watchful, had instinctively sought to conceal herself by standing erect, close to the trunk of the tree. In fact up to this moment, favoured by the quiet colour of her morning gown, she had not been noticed by the intruder ; but now they heard each other's panting breath — they could have counted, had their minds been disengaged, each other's heart throbs. Laura felt the urgency of the case, and emerging at once from her unavailing retreat, summoned her courage, and turning towards the stranger, demanded in a firm voice what he sought there.

" Refuge, refuge, lady !" cried the young man, glancing wildly round as if to seek in what direction he might fly. " But ah, no ! I hear the horse hoofs of my pursuers, they must b have seen me as I leapt the wall, there is no refuge for me here." He ran towards the house as he spoke, and Laura, by an impulse which she had no time to analyse, ran with him ; the idea of pursuers, the suddenness of the whole transaction, and the evident alarm of her companion, excited a sort of panic in her brain, paralysing the reflective powers. Suddenly, where a winding of the walk inter posed a clump of shrubs between them and the bottom of the garden, the stranger abruptly paused. " Lady," he said, " you look good and pitiful, I will trust in you ! Take this," and he thrust a small packet into her half-reluctant hand ; " keep it safely for me, I adjure you, and sacred from every eye ; it is my only treasure.

Look there, look there !" he then cried, pointing with a terrified air towards the garden wall ; and with the words he darted away again at headlong speed. A glass door opened from the house into the garden ; through this the stranger darted, and in a moment was lost to Laura's sight. The fugitive was in her house, what was she to do ? what might not he do ? why was he pursued ? what was the packet so earnestly committed to her charge ? could it be stolen ? had she become the confederate of a thief? These thoughts rushed tumultuously through her mind with a rapidity which seemed to render them simultaneous, and Laura, meanwhile, was following with hurried steps towards the house, still holding the unwelcome packet in her hand. She turned rouud, however, a moment after wards, and lo, in the direction in which the fugitive had pointed, she saw the heads of two horsemen riding very slowly and apparently standing up in their stirrups, whde striving earnestly to look over the garden wall.

Upon this, Laura changed her first purpose, and instead of hurrying to the house, she care fully secreted the little packet upon her person ; and continuing her walk, sauntered back lei surely towards the stream. She could thus without appearing to observe them, command the movements of the horsemen, whom she doubted not were the pursuers of her first strange visitant. A little westward from that part of the wall which the latter had so precipitately scaled, there was a small door, towards which the path where Laura now walked, conducted; it was approached by a light wooden bridge spanning the stream already mentioned. Skirting the garden wall on the outer side was a narrow bohreen, or lane, upon which this door opened, and which communicated at a short distance with the main road to Armagh.

Along this lane the riders very slowly advanced, pausing from time to time like hunters " at fault," and still peering over the wall, as if suspecting that it was this which had baulked them of their prey, till at length they reached the small door which I have named, and the wall being raised in this place by a sort of entablature, entirely concealed them from Laura's view. By this time, the young lady's feelings of alarm had considerably subsided, and she felt, that whether right or wrong, her sympathies were engaged on the side of the weaker party, which is but the natural impulse of every gentle and generous soul. Considering his probable chances of escape, she inwardly congratulated herself that there was at present but a single woman-servant within the house, and hoped that the fugitive had escaped her notice and found a temporary respite from his apprehensions and fatigue.

He might indeed be a thief, but she trusted not, and refusing to think of silver spoons, she re flected only that he had confided himself to her protection, and she resolved to defeat the object of his pursuers if it were possible. Her step was now firm, her countenance calm, and her manner, as usual, somewhat dignified. She listened, and heard several voices conversing near the door. Suddenly loud knocks resounded on the panels ; these made the damsel's heart beat again, and her courage became less reso lute. Why, argued prudence, should she suffer herself to be drawn perhaps into some difficult position, possibly even an illegal act, for the sake of a young man of whom she knew ab solutely nothing, and whose situation led to the supposition of gudt; who was perhaps a thief, perhaps an assassin ?

She shuddered, and with silent footsteps was slowly retreating from the little bridge, when again there was a per fect storm of blows upon the door, and shouts and cries which she held her breath to listen to. " Young lady, speak to us a minute, will you be so good, Miss ?" Laura turned her head, and perceived that an ill-looking fellow had seated himself astride upon the wall, and was taking a sharp survey of the interior of the garden. " Spake a word with us, Miss Vandeleur, nothin' doubtin' that ye are Miss Vandeleur," said the man again, when he found himself observed. "We're all frinds, we'll do ye no manner of harm, not a bit of it, on the faith of a Christian. Arrah, this is a nice bit of a place ye've got here, Miss, to walk about in, only you look lonesome." " What is it that you want to say to me ?" demanded Laura.

"Is it me, Miss? Oh, nothin' at all, I'm much obleeged to you, it's not me at all, it's the gentlemin outside that requesht the permishon of a little conversation, Miss, if ye'd just be so kind as to open the door to thiin." " First let me know their business with me ;" replied Laura. " Shure, Miss, you wouldn't be so imperlite entirely, as to keep the gentlemin waiting out side." "Hold your tongue, Sir, you've too much talk by half!" cried another voice, somewhat harsh in its tones, " and tell the lady that we will not enter without her permission, but that we wish to ask her a question or two, if she would be good enough to open the door." " You hear what the gentleman says, Miss, an' I'm shure you'll not be the lady to disoblige him," said the man on the wall. " I do hear what he says," returned Laura, " and since we can communicate without opening the door, I prefer doing so."

She then crossed the bridge, and having thus only a panel between herself and the visitors, was able to converse without any difficulty. " What is it, Sirs, that you want with me ?" she enquired; "have you lost your way that you are riding thus in a private lane, that leads only to two or three farms ?" " No, ma'am, we came here in close pursuit of a young man whom we have followed for two days ; but he has more cunning than a fox, and more doublings than a hare. We were gaining fast upon him, however, when he turned down this bohreen, where we lost sight of him." " I saw him though !" cried the man upon the wall, " I could take my bible oath of it, that I saw just such a chap as they say he is, climb up hereabouts like a wild cat, and dis appear into the garden ; and I'll be bail the young fox is lying close amongst these green bushes and hearing to all that we're sayin ; unless, may be, the lady has taken him safely into the house."

" I have not taken any person into the house, Sir," returned Laura haughtily. Then addressing the speaker outside the door, she resumed : " May I enquire, Sir, who this young man is, whom you are pursuing so eagerly, and what crime he is guilty of, that he is to be hunted down, as you yourselves describe, like a wild animal ?" " Not quite so bad as that, Miss Vandeleur, for this lad here tells us that is your name; it is not so bad as that indeed, on the contrary, if he will but return home quietly with us, no harm will be done him, and I dare say it will all be forgotten." " What then has he done ?" " He has run away from home, ma'am, and his father sent me and my comrade here in pursuit of him. Indeed, Miss, we never ex pected it from him, and his behaviour is all the worse, as his poor mother, God rest her soul, is lying dead in the house."

"Is it possible?" cried Laura, feeling shocked. " Yes, Miss, both possible and true ;" joined in another voice coarse but cheerfid in its tones, " and what's more, the master is so wroth against him, that he wouldn't even insist upon his returning, if only he'd be minded to give up something that he took away with him." " Hold your tongue, blockhead ;" said the voice of the former speaker in a subdued tone, " she's no concern with that." This allusion to the mysterious packet con cealed on her own person, made Laura feel a strange uncomfortable thrill ; but still she judged that not without some powerful and unusual motives, would a son, unless an utter repro bate, thus fly from the death-bed of his mother. " If you would just be so good, Miss Vandeleur," said the harsh-voiced man, " as to advise him to return with us, or even to speak peaceably with us here, keeping the wall between us, you'd do him a kindness, you would indeed."

" How can I do so ?" interrupted Laura warily, " I do not know where he is." " Well, Miss, you may say so, certainly ; but this lad here, swears that he saw him get over the wall, so if you'll please to open the door, we will find him for ourselves." "Very well," replied Laura, fearing that further delay would only confirm their sus picions, " I will open the door so that you may satisfy your minds, but I feel convinced that you will find no person here." She then opened the door, and saw two horsemen, bearing the appearance of the better class of farm servants, who, having now dis mounted, desired the man who had climbed upon the wall, to descend and hold their horses ; and whispering to him to keep a sharp look out, they promptly entered the garden. Having crossed the bridge they looked eagerly around, and appeared rather disappointed at the aspect of things.

" He can hardly be here !" said the one who had spoken least. "I told you so," remarked Laura; and still willing to gain a few minutes' time for the fugitive to make good his retreat, she enquired what motive could have induced the young man to leave his house at such a crisis. "No doubt, Miss, there must be the bad dhrop in him to do such a thing, least of all at such a time," said the less discreet of the pursuers, "yet I should never have thought it of Master George, neither." "The deuce take your mill-clapper of a tongue !" cried his companion, a restless look ing little man somewhat past the middle age, " can't you search for him, instead of chattering there ?" "And where are we to look?" returned the younger, who was robust and tall, with a good natured but somewhat stolid countenance, " for nowhere can he be to my judgment, unless, indeed, we find him crouched down in the shrubbery beneath the wall, as that 'cute lad outside, hinted of."

" He's there for a wager," exclaimed the more energetic pursuer, and on the word, darted back across the bridge, and plunging amongst the evergreens, their glistening foliage was soon seen agitated and waving, as if a large dog was making its way through the thicket. His confederate was following more slowly, when Laura, touching his arm to arrest his steps, repeated her question as to what had induced the fugitive to leave his home. "Deuce take me if I know," was the careless reply, " but no sooner was his mother dead, than he robbed his father — at least so they say, and was off and away ; an' bedad he didn't choose his time badly neither." Laura's heart sickened at the idea that such a ruffian was, in all probability, lurking in some corner of her peaceful home ; and that she had sought to shield him from the hands of justice.

Swift was the thought, but suggestive also. "A thief!" she exclaimed, "have you then a warrant for his apprehension ?" " Why no, Miss, there was no time for that ; and besides, if we could only get the thing from him by quiet manes, it would do better ; better for us and him too; for we are to give him fifty pounds to seek his fortune with, if he gives it up to us peaceably ; and many a better fellow I trow has started in the world with less." "Ought you not to help your companion now ?" suggested Laura, " see, you might search in the shrubbery yonder above the bridge." "You're right, Miss Jack Reilly will be calling me to account else. Good day to you." Laura slowly retreated towards the house, ruminating on what she had heard, when she was startled by a cry of delight from the man who first entered the shrubbery.

She turned : "Hilloah!"- cried he, "come here Sam! here be his footprints clear as day, this is the place he has got over, sure enough !" Sam hurried to the spot; Laura trembled for the fugitive, and indeed, felt herself humbled, at appearing before these men in the light of one that would screen the guilty; but whde revolving many thoughts, she watched with anxiety the eager gestures of the men. "You see, Miss Vandeleur, we were right," cried the ardent discoverer, " here are the twigs of the bushes all broken to pieces in this place, the moss of the wall scraped, and two deep footprints in the soil ; and by the look of the bushes I think he must have made his way out in this direction, and got over or through the stream opposite where you stand." " Aye, you have it, Jack, there's something like footprints, or a crushed look any way, over upon the grass between us and the lady.

Trust me for a sharp eye at the long look !" " You ! you boasting bosthoon ! if you fixed but the last stone of the wall, you'd say you built it." Sam was about to retort, but Laura Vandeleur, who thought it was now a favourable opportunity to withdraw from a scene which, every moment, A FRIEND If, NEED. made her feel more nervously uncomfortable, interrupted him. " Well, Sirs," she said firmly, " since you are convinced that you are upon the traces of the fugitive, I recommend you not to leave the shrubbery until you are perfectly satisfied that he cannot be there; you can then, if you please, search the rest of the garden; but let me beg of you not to injure the flowers and trees, or my father will be much displeased." " Is your father within, Miss ?" " 1 think not just now," replied Laura, judging it better not to betray the loneliness of her position, " but do not lose time in your search, and I will send one of the servants to fasten the door after you when you have con cluded."

"Thank you, Miss ; but just one word more," said the man whom his companion had desig nated as Jack Redly, " one word Miss ; if you or Captain Vandeleur help to conceal this young man from us, it can do him no manner of good, but harm maybe, for it may make his father, do ye understand, just cast him off for ever. I'm thinking he must be somewhere about here, and if you see him, young lady, would ye kindly be troubled to tell him that we won't hurt or harm him, he can come back home with us or not as he pleases, if he wdl but give us up what he took off with him. An'- now won't ye jist tell me," he added in a lower tone, " where he lies hid, for since you were in the garden, I think for all you have said, that ye must have seen him." " I have already answered you on that point," replied Laura, assuming a haughty tone.

" Good morning — you are at liberty to continue your search as you think fit." She then returned to the house, gradually accelerating her steps as she proceeded, and feeling much in doubt whether or not she were acting rightly ; her honest mind recoiled from the subterfuges she had practised, yet the thought of betraying one who perhaps was inno cent into the hands of those who might, for what she knew, be his implacable enemies, was stdl more abhorrent to her nature. Besides, he had confided in her. Laura closed the glass door behind her, and even took the precaution of putting up the shutters. Surprised at the sound, the maid Norrey emerged from the kitchen. " La, Miss, what are you puttin' up the fastens for at this hour of the day?" " I will tell you, Norrey, come here ; there are some men in the garden, and—" " Lord, Miss, men !"

" Yes ; I let them in, to look for a youth whom they insisted was hiding here ; you have not seen any body have you ?" " Me ! Blessed Virgin, no, Miss. Hidin' here ! and how calmly you speak of it, whiles you put my blood all of a curdle, and my heart all in a flutter, Miss ; and the master and Mike away, too !" " Come, don't be foolish, Norrey, the men will do you no harm ; I have been talking to them in the garden this half hour, and now I want you to go and keep an eye on them. And be sure, Norrey, that you see them out of the garden door, and lock it fast behind them." " Lord, Miss ! why did you let them in at all ? I don't like a bit too well to go out to them." " I told you that they were searching for a boy whom they say has run away from home ; they are decent men and will not harm us.