Chapter 13

THE OLD COUNTESS.

When the old countess of Carset threw out her flag from the battlements of Houghton castle, it could be seen from all the country around, for the grim old pile was built upon the uplands, and the gray towers rose up from the groves of the park like the peaks of a mountain.

For many a long year that broad flag had streamed like a meteor over the intense greenness of oaks and chestnuts; for, when the head of the house was at home, the crimson pennant was always to be seen floating against the sky, and over that sea of billowy foliage. The old lady of Houghton had not been absent from the castle in many years, for she was a childless woman, and so aged, that a home among her own people was most befitting her infirmities and her pride.

One day, as the sun was going down behind those massive castle towers, filling the sky so richly with gold and crimson, that the red flag was lost among its fiery billows, an old woman stood on the highway, with a hand uplifted to shade her eyes, as she searched for the old flag.

There was dust upon her leathern shoes and on the black folds of her alpaca dress, for she had walked from the railway station, and the roads were dry.

"Ah, how the trees have grown!" she said, mournfully, dropping her hand. "I never, never thought to be so near Houghton and not see the flag. Is my lady dead?"

The old woman was so distressed by the thought, that she sat down on a bank by the wayside, and over her came that dry, hard foreboding, which forbids tears to old eyes, but holds the worn heart like a vise. Thus, with her eyes fixed on the dusty road, she sat till all those bright clouds melted into the coming night; then she looked up and saw the great red flag streaming out against a sea of purplish gray, as it had done when she was a girl, seventy years ago.

"My lady is alive. She is there. Oh! my God! make me thankful!" she exclaimed, standing up in the road. "Through all, I shall see her again."

So she moved on, carrying a leathern travelling bag, worn and rusty, in her feeble hand. Along the highway, up to the gates of that noble park, she travelled with the slow, toilsome step of old age; but when she came to the gates they were closed, and her voice was so feeble that it failed to reach the lodge, from which she could see lights gleaming through the twinkling ivy leaves.

In patient disappointment the old woman turned from the gate, and walked on half a mile farther, for she knew of a small public house where a night's lodging could be obtained. She reached this low stone building after dark, and entered it quietly, like a gray ghost.

It was a strange guest to enter that tap-room, with her dusty garments and her old satchel. The villagers, who were taking their beer comfortably, lifted their eyes in astonishment at her sudden appearance, and they rounded with wonder, as she passed through the room and entered the kitchen naturally, as if she had belonged to the premises all her life.

No one in the house remembered the old woman. A curly-headed girl named Susan, had flitted like a bird about that kitchen the last time she had entered it, and now, when a man's voice called out "Susan!" she started and looked around in a dazed way, expecting the bright eyed girl would come dancing through the door. But instead appeared an elderly woman, with quantities of coarse black hair, smoothed under her cap. A linen apron, large and ample, protected her stuff dress, and a steel chatelaine, to which were suspended scissors, a needle case and tiny money box rattled at her side.

"Well, what is to do now, Stephen?" said the landlady, brushing some crumbs from her apron, for she had been cutting bread.

"Not much, only look sharp. Here is an old body just come off the tramp. Ah, there she sits. See to her while I mind the bar, for she seems a little above the common, and is quiet."

The landlord sank his voice as he made the communication, and, after a glance at the old woman, went back to his guests, while the matron addressed Mrs. Yates.

"Ye will be wanting something, no doubt. Will it be tea or a cup of ale posset?"

The old heart in that bosom stirred with a tender recollection of long ago, as this almost forgotten dish was mentioned, a dish so purely English, that she had never once heard it mentioned in her American life.

"I will thank you for a posset," she said, taking off her bonnet and smoothing her milk-white hair with both hands. "It is long since I have tasted one."

"Yes," answered the landlady, "there is more refreshment in a cup of warm posset, than in quarts of tea from China. Wait a bit and you shall have one of my own making; the maids never will learn how to curdle the milk properly, but I am a rare hand at it, as was my mother before me."

"Aye, a good housewife was your mother," said the old woman, as tender recollections stirred in her bosom, "for now I see that it is little Susan."

"Little Susan, and you know of her? That was what they used to call me when I was a lass, so high."

"But now, what is the name you go by?"

"What name should a woman go by but that of her own husband? You have just seen the master. The neighbors call him Stephen Burke."

"What, the son of James Burke, gamekeeper at the castle?"

"Why, did you know him, too?"

"Aye, that did I. A brave young fellow he was, and every one at the castle up yonder--"

The old woman checked herself. She had not intended to make herself known, but old recollections had thronged upon her so warmly, that it seemed impossible to keep silent.

"You speak of the castle as if you knew about it," said the landlady, eyeing her askance.

"And no wonder," answered the old woman; "people have told me about it, and I was in the neighborhood years ago, when you were a slip of a lass."

It was strange, but this old woman, since her entrance to that room, had fallen back upon phrases and words familiar to her lips once, but which had not made any part of her speech for years. There was a home sound in them that warmed her heart.

"Did ye ever know any of them up yonder?" asked the landlady, as she placed a broad porringer before the fire, and poured some milk into it.

"Yes. I have seen the countess, but it was long ago."

"May-be it was when the young lady was at home. Oh! them were blithe times, when young Lord Hope came a courting, and we could see them driving like turtle doves through the park and down the village; or, walking along by the hedges and gathering hyacinths and violets. It was a sorry time, though, when he took her away for good and all."

"Is the young lady living near this?" inquired Mrs. Yates, with an effort.

"Near this, my good woman! Why, she has been dead these many years, and Lord Hope had been married to his second wife ten years, when my first lass was born; but he lives at Oakhurst, and never comes here now. No one, in these parts, has seen his second lady, for the countess was sadly put out with the marriage, and all her household was forbidden to mention Lord Hope's name before her. She never got over the death of our own young lady in foreign parts, off in America among the red Indians, who tomahawk people, and no one asks why. This was where Lord Hope took his wife and child. Can any one wonder that our countess could not forgive him, especially when he came back home with a new wife, and stood out that his daughter should never come to Houghton, till our old lady up yonder was ready to be gracious to the new woman."

"So the child was never at the castle?" inquired the old woman.

"No one hereabouts has ever seen her, though we are told that she is a beautiful young lady, sweet and pleasant, but with a will of her own. The old countess sent for her once, for she must be heiress of Houghton, you know; but she sent back word that nothing could entice her into a house where her stepmother was forbidden to come, and this so offended our countess, that she has taken no notice of her since."

While she was talking, the landlady poured a measure of frothing ale into the porringer, and became all at once silent. The delicate art of curding the milk into whey took up all her attention. Thus the old lady was allowed to drop into a fit of thought, from which she was aroused, with a start, when the hostess poured the warm posset into a china bowl and began stirring it with a heavy silver spoon, as she called out:

"Come to the table, grandame, and sup the posset while it is hot. You'll not get its fellow till I turn my hand to another for ye. Come, come!"

Mrs. Yates drew her chair to the table, and took up the silver spoon, eagerly. Poor woman! She had travelled all day without tasting food, and the posset took her from a very painful train of thought.

The hostess sat down at one end of the table, smiling blandly over the keen appetite of her guest. With her arms folded on the white cloth, and her ruddy face bending forward, she went on with her talk. But this time she turned from the castle, and began to ask questions, for the presence of this singular old woman in her house had fully aroused her curiosity.

But the traveller was on her guard now, and escaped these blunt questions with quiet adroitness. When they became oppressive, she arose from the table and asked permission to seek her bed, as the day's travel had left her tired beyond anything.

The hostess took a candle from the table and led the way up stairs, somewhat baffled, but full of kindly feeling. There was something about the manner and speech of this old woman that set all her warm-hearted interest afloat. Who was she? From what part of England had she travelled with that rusty little bag and those thick-soled shoes? That quiet manner and gentle voice might have belonged to any lady of the land.

In the midst of these conjectures the quiet old woman reached out her hand for the candle, and with a soft "good-night," closed the chamber-door.