“It is a lying prophecy.”
“It was uttered by one of your race.”
“By whom?”
“By Barbara Lovel,” said Peter, with a sneer of triumph.
“Ha!”
“Heed him not,” exclaimed Luke, as Sybil recoiled at this intelligence. “I am yours.”
“Not mine! not mine!” shrieked she; “but oh! not hers!”
“Whither go you?” cried Luke, as Sybil, half bewildered, tore herself from him.
“To Barbara Lovel.”
“I will go with you.”
“No! let me go alone. I have much to ask her; yet tarry not with this old man, dear Luke, or close your cars to his crafty talk. Avoid him. Oh, I am sick at heart. Follow me not: I implore you, follow me not.”
And with distracted air she darted amongst the mouldering cloisters, leaving Luke stupefied with anguish and surprise. The sexton maintained a stern and stoical composure.
“She is a woman, after all,” muttered he; “all her high-flown resolves melt like snow in the sunshine, at the thought of a rival. I congratulate you, grandson Luke; you are free from your fetters.”
“Free!” echoed Luke. “Quit my sight; I loathe to look upon you. You have broken the truest heart that ever beat in woman’s bosom.”
“Tut, tut,” returned Peter; “it is not broken yet. Wait till we hear what old Barbara has got to say; and, meanwhile, we must arrange with Dick Turpin the price of that certificate. The knave knows its value well. Come, be a man. This is worse than womanish.”
And at length he succeeded, half by force and half by persuasion, in dragging Luke away with him.
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CHAPTER IV
BARBARA LOVEL
LIKE a dove escaped from the talons of the falcon, Sybil fled from the clutches of the sexton. Her brain was in a whirl, her blood on fire. She had no distinct perception of external objects; no definite notion of what she herself was about to do, and glided more like a flitting spirit than a living woman along the ruined ambulatory. Her hair had fallen in disorder over her face. She stayed not to adjust it, but tossed aside the blinding locks with frantic impatience. She felt as one may feel who tries to strain his nerves, shattered by illness, to the endurance of some dreadful, yet necessary pain.
Sybil loved her granddame, old Barbara; but it was with a love tempered by fear. Barbara was not a person to inspire esteem or to claim affection. She was regarded by the wild tribe which she ruled as their queen-elect, with some such feeling of inexplicable awe as is entertained by the African slave for the Obeah woman. They acknowledged her power, unhesitatingly obeyed her commands, and shrank with terror from her anathema, which was indeed seldom pronounced; but when uttered, was considered as doom. Her tribe she looked upon as her flock, and stretched her maternal hand over all, ready alike to cherish or chastise; and having already survived a generation, that which succeeded, having from infancy imbibed a superstitious veneration for the “cunning woman,” as she was called, the sentiment could never be wholly effaced.
Winding her way, she knew not how, through roofless halls, over disjointed fragments of fallen pillars, Sybil reached a flight of steps. A door, studded with iron nails, stayed her progress; it was an old strong oaken frame, surmounted by a Gothic arch, in the keystone of which leered one of those grotesque demoniacal faces with which the fathers of the Church delighted to adorn their shrines. Sybil looked up—her glance encountered the fantastical visage. It recalled the features of the sexton, and seemed to mock her—to revile her. Her fortitude at once deserted her. Her fingers were upon the handle of the door. She hesitated; she even drew back, with the intention of departing, for she felt then that she dared not face Barbara. It was too late—she had moved the handle. A deep voice from within called to her by name. She dared not disobey that call—she entered.
The room in which Sybil found herself was the only entire apartment now existing in the priory. It had survived the ravages of time; it had escaped the devastation of man, whose ravages outstrip those of time. Octagonal, lofty, yet narrow, you saw at once that it formed the interior of a turret. It was lighted by a small oriel window commanding a lovely view of the scenery around, and panelled with oak, richly wrought in ribs and groins; and from overhead depended a moulded ceiling of honeycomb plaster-work. This room had something, even now, in the days of its desecration, of monastic beauty about it. Where the odour of sanctity had breathed forth, the fumes of idolatry prevailed; but imagination, ever on the wing, flew back to that period (and a tradition to that effect warranted the supposition) when, perchance, it had been the sanctuary and the privacy of the prior’s self.
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