A Marriage at Sea. William Clark Russell
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balcony. My heart beat fast as I thought that even now my darling might be standing at the window peering through it, waiting for the signal flash. Caudel was thinking of her too.
"The young lady, begging of your pardon, sir, must be a gal of uncommon spirit, Mr. Barclay."
"She loves me, Caudel, and love is the most animating of spirits, my friend."
"I dorn't doubt it, sir. What room will it be that she's to come out of?"
"The dining-room—a big, deserted apartment where the girls take their meals."
"'Tain't her bedroom, then?"
"No. She is to steal dressed from her bedroom to the salle-à-manger—"
"The Sally what, sir?"
"No matter, no matter," I answered.
I pulled out my watch, but there was no power in the starlight to reveal the dial-plate. All continued still as the tomb, saving at fitful intervals a low note of silken rustling that stole upon the ear with some tender, dream-like gushing of night-air, as though the atmosphere had been stirred by the sweep of a large, near, invisible pinion.
"This here posture ain't so agreeable as dancing," hoarsely grumbled Caudel, "could almost wish myself a dwarf. That there word beginning with a Sally—"
"Not so loud, man; not so loud."
"It's oncommon queer," he persisted, "to feel one's self in a country where one's language ain't spoke. The werry soil don't seem natural. As to the language itself, burst me if I can understand how a man masters it. I was once trying to teach an Irish sailor how to dance a quadrille. 'Now, Murphy,' says I to him, 'you onderstand you're my wiz-a-wee?' 'What's dat you call me?' he cried out. 'You're anoder and a damn scoundrel besoides!' Half the words in this here tongue sound like cussing of a man. And to think of a dining-room being called a Sally—"
The convent clock struck one.
"Now," said I, "stand by."
I held up the lamp, and so turned the darkened part as to produce two flashes. A moment after a tiny flame showed and vanished above the balcony.
"My brave darling!" I exclaimed. "Have you the ladder in your hand?"
"Ay, sir."
"Mind these confounded hooks don't chink."
We stepped across the sward and stood under the balcony.
"Grace, my darling, is that you?" I called in a low voice.
"Yes, Herbert. Oh, please be quick. I am fancying I hear footsteps. My heart is scarcely beating for fright."
But despite the tremble in her low, sweet voice my ear seemed to find strength of purpose enough in it to satisfy me that there would be no failure from want of courage on her part. I could just discern the outline of her figure as she leaned over the balcony, and see the white of her face vague as a fancy.
"My darling, lower the line to pull the ladder up with—very softly, my pet—there are iron hooks which make a noise."
In a few moments she called: "I have lowered the line."
I felt about with my hand and grasped the end of it—a piece of twine, but strong enough to support the ladder. The deep, blood-hound-like baying of the dog recommenced, and at the same time I heard a sound of footsteps in the lane.
"Hist! Not a stir—not a whisper," I breathed out.
It was the staggering step of a drunken man. He broke maudlingly into a song when immediately abreast of us, ceased his noise suddenly and halted. This was a little passage of agony, I can assure you! The dog continued to utter its sullen, deep-throated bark in single strokes like the beat of a bell. Presently there was a sound as of the scrambling and crunching of feet, followed with the noise of a lurching tread; the man fell to drunkenly singing to himself again and so passed away up the lane.
Caudel fastened the end of the twine to the ladder, and then grunted out: "All ready for hoisting."
"Grace, my sweet," I whispered, "do you hear me?"
"Distinctly, dearest; but I am so frightened!"
"Pull up this ladder softly and hook the irons on to the rim of the balcony."
"Blast that dawg!" growled Caudel, "dummed if I don't think he smells us."
The ladder went rising into the air.
"It is hooked, Herbert."
"All right, Caudel, swing off upon the end of it—test it, and then aloft with you for mercy's sake!"
The three metal rungs held the ropes bravely stretched apart. The seaman sprang, and the ladder held as though it had been the shrouds of a man-of-war.
"Now, Caudel, you are a seaman—you must do the rest," said I.
He had removed his boots, and, mounting with cat-like agility, gained the balcony; then taking my sweetheart in his arms he lifted her over the rail and lowered her with his powerful arms until her little feet were half-way down the ladder. She uttered one or two faint exclamations, but was happily too frightened to cry out.
"Now, Mr. Barclay," hoarsely whispered Caudel, "you kitch hold of her, sir."
I grasped the ladder with one hand, and passed my arm round her waist; my stature made the feat an easy one; thus holding her to me I sprang back, then for an instant strained her to my heart with a whisper of joy, gratitude, and encouragement.
"You are as brave as you are true and sweet, Grace."
"Oh, Herbert!" she panted, "I can think of nothing. I am very wicked and feel horribly frightened."
"Mr. Barclay," softly called Caudel from the balcony, "what's to be done with this here ladder?"
"Let it be, let it be," I answered. "Bear a hand, Caudel, and come down."
He was alongside of us in a trice, pulling on his boots. I held my darling's hand, and the three of us made for the hole in the hedge with all possible speed. But the cabbages were very much in the way of Grace's dress, and so urgent was the need to make haste that, I believe, in my fashion of helping her, I carried her one way or another more than half the distance across that wide tract of kitchen-garden stuff.
The dog continued to bark. I asked Grace if the brute belonged to the house, and she answered yes. There seemed little doubt, from the persistency of the creature's deep delivery, that it scented some sort of mischief going forward, despite its kennel standing some considerable distance away on the other side of the house. I glanced back as Caudel was squeezing through the hole—I had told him to go first to make sure that all was right with the aperture, and to receive and help my sweetheart across the ditch—I glanced back, I say, in this brief pause; but the building showed as an impenetrable shadow against the winking brilliance of the sky hovering over and past it rich with the radiance in places of meteoric dust; no light gleamed; the night-hush, deep as death, was upon the château.
In a few moments my captain and I had carefully handed Grace through the hole and got her safe in the lane, and off we started, keeping well in the deep gloom cast by the convent wall, walking swiftly, yet noiselessly, and scarcely fetching our breath till we were clear of the lane, with the broad, glimmering St. Omer Road running in a rise upon our left.
By the aid of the three or four lamps we had passed I managed very early to get a view of my sweetheart, and found that she had warmly robed herself in a fur-trimmed jacket, and that her hat was a sort of turban as though chosen from her wardrobe with a view to her passage through the hole in the hedge. I had her hand under my arm; and pressed and caressed it as we walked. Caudel taking the earth with sailorly strides bowled and rolled along at her right, keeping her between us. I spoke to her in hasty sentences, forever praising her for her courage and thanking her for her love, and trying to hearten her; for now that the first desperate step had been taken, now that the wild risks of escape were ended, the spirit that had supported