“What do you want, rascal?” cried Coates, from without.
“There are robbers in the house.”
“Thank you for the information. There is one I know of already.”
“Fool, they are in Lady Rookwood’s room; run to her assistance.”
“A likely story, and leave you here.”
“Do you hear that scream?”
“Eh, what—what’s that? I do hear something.”
Here Luke dashed with all his force against the door. It yielded to the blow, and he stood before the astonished attorney.
“Advance a footstep, villain,” exclaimed Coates, presenting both his pistols, “and I lodge a brace of balls in your head.”
“Listen to me,” said Luke; “the robbers are in Lady Rookwood’s chamber—they will plunder the place of everything—perhaps murder her. Fly to her assistance, I will accompany you—assist you—it is your only chance.”
“My only chance—your only chance. Do you take me for a greenhorn? This is a poor subterfuge; could you not have vamped up something better? Get back to your own room, or I shall make no more of shooting you than I would of snuffing that candle.”
“Be advised, sir,” continued Luke. “There are three of them—give me a pistol, and fear nothing.”
“Give you a pistol! Ha, ha!—to be its mark myself. You are an amusing rascal, I will say.”
“Sir, I tell you not a moment is to be lost. Is life nothing? Lady Rookwood may be murdered.”
“I tell you, once for all, it won’t do. Go back to your room, or take the consequences.”
“By the powers! but it shall do, anyhow,” exclaimed Titus, flinging himself upon the attorney, and holding both his arms; “you’ve bullied me long enough. I’m sure the lad’s in the right.”
Luke snatched the pistols from the hands of Coates.
“Very well, Mr. Tyrconnel; very well, sir,” cried the attorney, boiling with wrath, and spluttering out his words. “Extremely well, sir; you are not perhaps aware, sir, what you have done; but you will repent this, sir—repent, I say—repent was my word, Mr. Tyrconnel.”
“Repent be d—d,” replied Titus. “I shall never repent a good-natured action.”
“Follow me,” cried Luke; “settle your disputes hereafter. Quick, or we shall be too late.”
Coates bustled after him, and Titus, putting the neck of the forbidden whisky bottle to his lips, and gulping down a hasty mouthful, snatched up a rusty poker, and followed the party with more alacrity than might have been expected from so portly a personage.
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CHAPTER VI
THE APPARITION
ACCOMPANIED by her son, Lady Rookwood, on quitting the chamber of the dead, returned to her own room. She then renewed all her arguments; had recourse to passionate supplications—to violent threats; but without effect. Ranulph maintained profound silence. Passion, as it ever doth, defeated its own ends; and Lady Rookwood, seeing the ill effect her anger would probably produce, gradually softened the asperity of her manner, and suffered him to depart.
Left to herself, and to the communings of her own troubled spirit, her fortitude, in a measure, forsook her, under the pressure of the difficulties by which she was environed. There was no plan she could devise—no scheme adopt, unattended with peril. She must act alone—with promptitude, and secrecy. To win her son over was her chief desire, and that, at all hazards, she was resolved to do. But how? She knew of only one point on which he was vulnerable—his love for Eleanor Mowbray. By raising doubts in his mind, and placing fresh difficulties in his path, she might compel him to acquiesce in her machinations, as a necessary means of accomplishing his own object. This she hoped to effect. Still there was a depth of resolution in the placid stream of Ranulph’s character, which she had often noticed with apprehension. Aware of his firmness, she dreaded lost his sense of justice should be stronger than his passion.
As she wove these webs of darkness, fear, hitherto unknown, took possession of her soul. She listened to the howling of the wind—to the vibration of the rafters—to the thunder’s roar, and to the hissing rain; till she, who never trembled at the thought of danger, became filled with vague uneasiness. Lights were ordered; and when her old attendant returned, Lady Rookwood fixed a look so wistful upon her, that Agnes ventured to address her.