Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

a i- head. A H. I II ? Mi'il why do
so wildly? A-.,
tno prey escapes while yo li
The squire did, iml- wildly at her; but the man
who had come to seek him having, by this time, cleared tho ditch
rather more successfully than he had done himself, took his
arm and drew him / rapid! down (lie mountain path.
"Do not cry, dear child do not cry," said tho girl to AgreBuming
all its former tenderness of tone ;
"
they ore quite out of sight flow and the ; dog in not much
hud, and will, lam sure, be able to lead you safely
B."
to tho
"Oh, do not leave me ?" cried Agnese ; "I dare not go
homo without you."
"Well, then," said tho other, a little reluctantly, " I will
n.-jlk with you as far as the gates of the avenue."
But when they had reached this point, Agueso clung to her
still, and cried so piteously that, almost in her own despite,
she was i'< >rced to proceed with her to the castle. Lady Oranmore
met them on the steps, and nearly forgot Agucso's bold
secession from tho church in terror at the vision of her pale
face and the blood-stained forehead of her companion.
" It is nothing," said this last in answer to her ladyship's
horror-stricken looks; " at least, nothing but wliat they may
look for, who find themselves abandoned to the tender mercies
of Squire Netterville."
"Netterviile again !" cried Lady Oranmoro.
edness is that man plotting now ?"
" What wick-
idence to serve as otters or wild foxes for his especial
amusement."
Lady Oranmore shuddered. She had once detested priests
and Papists as much as Squire Netterville himself ; but of late
her thoughts on the subject had been rapidly changing. She
no direct reply, however, although she kindly, and almost
affectionately, joined Agnese in her entreaties to her unknown
protectress, that sho would come in and suffer the
wound on her forehead to be properly cared for. They were
both refused with a look of proud embarrassment, which Lady
Oraumore took at first, for natural timidity ; so sho would
listen to no excuse, hurrying her guest with a kin .1 of goodnatured
violence into the castle, hull, and from thence to her
own private sitting-room, to which none but her especial
favorites ever found admittance. The blood rushed into the
stranger's facu as she crossed the threshold ; and for a moment
she stood gazing so silently around her, that Lady Oranmore
might have again have fancied her overcome by shyness, had
not something in her look and attitude contradicted her idea.
In spite of her shabby dress for, to say the truth, the close,
black gown she wore was both old and faded, and deserving
of no better title in spite, too, of her blood-stained features,
and the uncouth bandage which s-he herself had wrapped
around her forehead the girl still looked us if to tread tho
hall of princes was no new thing to her.
She was thinking (that was plain,) but not of tho splendors
by which she was surrounded, although it might; lie of some
distant memory to which they were associated ; for she sighed
and there was a look of sad , pleasure mingled with the
pain expressed upon her most speaking feat:
" I have never seen you bef, ire," .ved Lady Oraumore, sud-
denly; "yet is your face familiar to me as if I had known you
ni'.ther's anus."
from your
The girl sighed more deeply than before and ; withdrawing
her eyes slowly from uu arm-chair of antique fashion, on which
they had been a long time riveted, K\ed them steadily on the
i-r's fare, and wild, after a moment's pause :
" Have you never felt that be ore, Lady Oranmore? Have
,-er found a conversation a turn of thought a mere
word, perhaps, come upon your
car aa if it were the echo of
A\ 15
look upon tin in as if limy
b"fore? it in HO, with pict
:d it, may --.
"Strange girl!" cried Lady Oranmor'- ;
name ?"
!
" whut is your
"Grace," answered her visitant, shortly, and with emphasis.
" Grace what '.' you have another, I i
" I have no other, lady ; or, if 1 ever had, they have '
it away they who hate ua for our r mtry
but yet more, thanks be to God, for o-;r i elision."
"You are a Catholic, then, and haM for your faith?"
" I have !'
suffered in the person of those I Wed. My
had a brother, who, being of the lav.
him the right to dispossess his elder of his I
scruples in his conscience no kindness in his heart to deter
him from the deed and so he did it; and the poorest tenant on
tho laud was on that day a richer man than he who, a few Lours
before, had been lord of all."
"
Good God, whose child are you ?" cried Lady Oranmore,
in great agitation, catching tho speaker by the arm.
" Tho child of oppression, madam."
" But you are so like your story is so like" faltered Lady
Oranmore.
"
Like tho story of many another crushed heart and fallen
raceiii this unhappy laud, "the stranger coldly rejoined. "Nay,'
if fame speaks rightly, lady, even among your own kith and
kin such things have happened."
Lady Oranmore dropped the arm sho held, and breathed a
long-drawn sigh.
"Stay with mo, child," she said, at last. "If you hare no
home, no relation, no friend, you shall find all these in me.
"Nothing new, madam," said she; and tho girl's kindling
eye strangely contradicted the assumed nonchalance of her
manner. "Only plying Ms ancient trade more vigorously
than ever hunting r.riests and Papists from land to water, Moved,
and from water to land, as if they had only been sent by Prov-
it would seem, by a sudden impulse, the girl stepped
forward, knelt down, and kissed Lady Oranmore's hand. Tin-re
was nothing abject either in the look or manner with which
this lowly action was performed, although there was something
of humility (all the more touching, perhaps, for the proud
heart from whence it came) mingling with the deep and pas-
sionate gratitude by which it was inspired.
"Stay with me." repeat d Lady Oranmore, earnestly, as she
felt the girl's warm tears falling on her hand.
"
I thank I you, madam, for the kind :id
the kind
word; but God is good, and He has not left me friendli
And as for my home, it is better than His who had no spot
whereon to lay His head; and so it is surely pood enough for
one who would fain, though she does not, follow in His foot-
steps."
"Indeed, but you do, though," said Agnese, for the first
time joining in tho conversation, "You bore the hard word
and the hard blow for me this very day; and, surely, that is
what He would have done has done already for us all."
"No, I do not," said tho girl, Badly; "He prayed for His
I little love tho man who
persecutors; and, God help me !
made me an orphan."
She kissed Aguese, and pressed Lady Oronmon 's hand onco
more to her heart.
" May God keep you and guard you; and surely He Who
would not break the bruised reed or t.ii.
quench
will give a blessing if even for 'your kindness thi.i
nameless creature."
ig thx,
day to a
"Stay with me," Lady Oranmore once more
through her tears.
"
I cannot, madam; I am wanted and waited for t
Yet pardon me if I add another word; it is a I
Be 11 t worse to her than Squire .. He
m
the body he could not harm the soul. You can, mndair
you will, if for her worldly interests you seek to warp hei
science. She is a Catholic; in God's name, lether rem.
Catholic still."
"She shall," said Lady Oram
"It is well, madam. And in His name If, , who
said, in behalf of the little o;;ea He love,;
andalize one of th; se litp
Her for him tie
his neck, and that he should be drovued yi ti sea."'
if the