Ormiston

“ Ormiston groaned out an oath between his teeth, and La Masque raised one jeweled, snowy taper finger, reprovingly.
“Don't Mr. Ormiston—it's naughty, you know! May I go in?”
“Madame, you are enough to drive a man mad. Is the love I bear you worthy of nothing but mockery!” ”

“ I too prayed, now and then; but I doubt not the blessed Virgin hath rather hearkened to thee, who in purity, beauty, and innocence may so nearly approach herself."
"Cock and pie!" muttered Ormiston through his black beard, as he yawned and stretched his stalwart form before the blazing fire; "he is at his old trade of love-making again. When a-God's name will he ever learn sense!"
"What art thou grumbling at now, Hob Ormiston?" said the Earl laughing, "when our poor crayer went surging headlong down into the dark trough of yonder angry sea, by Saint Paul! ”

“ Shall we land you, Ormiston, or take you there, too?”
“I must land,” said Ormiston. “I have a pressing engagement for the next half-hour. Here it is, in a perfect deluge; the fires will be out in five minutes.”
The barge touched the stairs, and Ormiston sprang out, with “Good-night” to the earl. The rain was rushing along, now, in torrents, and he ran upstairs and darted into an archway of the bridge, to seek the shelter. ”

“ She drew back into the shadow as she spoke; and the two nobles, as they advanced, talking earnestly, beheld Sir Norman and Ormiston. Both raised their hats with a look of recognition, and the salute was courteously returned by the others.
“Good-night, gentlemen,” said Lord Rochester; “a hot evening, is it not? Have you come here to witness the illumination?”
“Hardly,” said Sir Norman; “we have come for a very different purpose, my lord.”
“The fires will have one good effect,” said Ormiston laughing; “if they clear the air and drive away this stifling atmosphere.” ”

“ For many weeks the sky had been clear, brilliant, and blue; but on this night dark clouds were scudding in wild unrest across it, and the air was oppressingly close and sultry.
“Where are you going now?” said Ormiston. “Are you for Whitehall's to night?”
“No!” said Sir Norman, rather dejectedly, turning to follow the pest-cart. “I am for the plague-pit in Finsbury fields!”
“Nonsense, man!” exclaimed Ormiston, energetically, “what will take you there? You surely are not mad enough to follow the body of that dead girl?” ”

“ For, during the past five months, while he had been on leave at Brockhurst, assisting Katherine to master the details of the very various business of the estate, Ormiston had revised his position and decided on heroic measures of reform. He would rid himself of debt, forswear expensive London habits, and those many pleasant iniquities which every great city offers liberally to such handsome, fine gentlemen as himself. ”

“ Meantime, may I ask the name of the lady I have been so fortunate as to serve!”
“Undoubtedly, sir—my name is Leoline.”
“Leoline is only half a name.”
“Then I am so unfortunate an only to possess half a name, for I never had any other.”
Ormiston opened his eyes very wide indeed.
“No other! you must have had a father some time in your life; most people have,” said the young gentleman, reflectively. ”

“ All this time Ormiston had been leading his own horse by the bridle, and as Sir Norman silently complied with this suggestion, in five minutes more they were in their saddles, and galloping at break-neck speed toward the city. To tell the truth, one was not more inclined for silence than the other, and the profoundest and thoughtfulest silence was maintained till they reached it. One was thinking of Leoline, the other of La Masque, and both were badly in love, and just at that particular moment very happy. ”

“ He knew the best place to take Ormiston was to the nearest apothecary's shop, which establishments were generally open, and filled, the whole livelong night, by the sick and their friends. As he was meditating whether or not to call the surly watchman to help him carry the body, a pest-cart came, providentially, along, and the driver-seeing a young man bending over a prostrate form-guessed at once what was the matter, and came to a halt. ”

“ Sir Norman slightly shrugged his shoulders, and flung his smoked-out weed into a heap of fire-wood.
“Are we near her house?” he asked. “Yonder is the bridge.”
“And yonder is the house,” replied Ormiston, pointing to a large ancient building—ancient even for those times—with three stories, each projecting over the other. “See! while the houses on either side are marked as pest-stricken, hers alone bears no cross. So it is: those who cling to life are stricken with death: and those who, like me, are desperate, even death shuns.” ”

“ God's blessing on our own land, that lies beyond sea, for it is like no other!" and whirling his bonnet round his head, more like a great schoolboy than a strong man of six feet eight inches, Ormiston with one bound sprang down the steep steps leading from the terrace to the shore; while the Earl, somewhat slowly and thoughtfully for so ardent a lover, returned to the presence of Anna, who, piqued by his long and unceremonious absence, was pleased to receive him with a pouting lip and a clouded brow, which his caresses soon dispelled. ”

“ And had it been daylight, his friend would have seen that he blushed almost as extensively as the lady. “She doesn't know me.”
“Ah, doesn't she, though? That shows all you know about it! She has seen you go past the window many and many a time; and to see you,” said Ormiston, making a grimace undercover of the darkness, “is to love! She told me so herself.”
“What! That she loved me!” exclaimed Sir Norman, his notions of propriety to the last degree shocked by such a revelation. ”

“ I thought Ormiston’s colour heightened; but he was not a man to show much visible emotion. “Charles Russell and his sister are still in London,” he replied; “I have just seen them. They know their father has left for the Continent; I hope they do not know all the reasons. I am very sincerely sorry for young Russell; it will be a heavy blow to him, and I fear he will find his circumstances bitterly changed. Of course he will have to leave Oxford.” ”

“ We sat down, and talked over those points in Ormiston’s conduct upon which Russell had put so unfavourable a construction. It was quite evident, that a man who could act with so much liberality and self-denial towards others, could have had no interested motives in his conduct with regard to Mary Russell; and her brother was now as eager to express his confidence in Ormiston’s honour and integrity, as he was before hasty in misjudging him. ”

“ Ah! whom have we here?”
The door of the house in question opened, as he spoke, and a figure—a man's figure, wearing a slouched hat and long, dark cloak, came slowly out. He stopped before the house and looked at it long and earnestly; and, by the twinkling light of the lamps, the friends saw enough of him to know he was young and distinguished looking.
“I should not wonder in the least if that were the bridegroom,” whispered Ormiston, maliciously. ”

“ Gallant Hob! the spiders will never spin their webs on thy pennon. Well met, fair sirs!" he added, as the train lowered their long lances, and passed under the low-browed archway into the palace yard. "In what case art thou this morning, Hob?"
"A steel one, as thou seest. Mass! but I am thirsty as a dry ditch with my morning ride. But, lo! yonder cometh the queen's grace and her ladies," said Ormiston, as all the lances were lowered, and there was a ruffling on the kettle drums. ”

“ Two large, curtainless windows, with minute diamond-shaped panes, set in leaden casements, admitted the golden and crimson light.
“For the reception-room of a sorceress,” remarked Sir Norman, with an air of disappointed criticism, “there is nothing very wonderful about all this. How is it she spaes fortunes any way? As Lilly does by maps and charts; or as these old Eastern mufti do it by magic mirrors and all each fooleries?”
“Neither,” said Ormiston, “her style in more like that of the Indian almechs, who show you your destiny in a well. ”

“ Half-indignant, and wholly laughing, Ormiston stepped back out of the way of his excited friend.
“I cry you mercy! In one word, then, I have been dispatched by a lady in search of you, and that lady is—Leoline.”
It has always been one of the inscrutable mysteries in natural philosophy that I never could fathom, why men do not faint. Certain it is, I never yet heard of a man swooning from excess of surprise or joy, and perhaps that may account for Sir Norman's not doing so on the present occasion. ”

“ If thou distrustest Paris, one stroke of a poniard"——
"Peace, Ormiston! thou art a very bravo, and would thus make one more sacrifice to increase our list of crimes."
"Just as a name may be wanted to fill the roll of Scotland's peers, by thy lamentable decapitation and profitable forfeiture," growled Ormiston. "I know little of statecraft, though I have a bold heart and a strong hand. Come! be once more a man, and leave remorse to children. The crime that passes unpunished, deserves not to be regretted."
"Sophistry!" exclaimed the conscience-struck Earl ”

“ The queen is in the vaulted chamber on the first floor; Jane of Argyle above."
"Well!" said Ormiston, fixing his keen dark eyes on those of the Earl.
"Well?" reiterated the Earl.
"It is folly to pause midway in the career of ambition; and it lies with thyself to make this woman thine; for what is she but a pretty woman after all? It lieth with thyself, I say, to make her thine, to end her scruples, and to close for ever the web thou hast woven around her." ”

“ I think, then, I was rather a favourite of Ormiston’s. To say that he was a favourite of mine would be saying very little; for there could have been scarcely a man in college, of any degree of respectability, who would not have been ready to say the same. ”

“ Some one lay on it, too—at least, Ormiston thought so; and he went cautiously forward, drew the curtain, and looked down.
“Great Heaven! what a beautiful face!” was his cry, as he bent still further down.
“What the plague is the matter?” asked Sir Norman, coming forward.
“You have said it,” said Ormiston, recoiling. “The plague is the matter. There lies one dead of it!”
Curiosity proving stronger than fear, Sir Norman stepped forward to look at the corpse. It was a young girl with a face as lovely as a poet's vision. That face was like snow, now ”

“ However, fortune sometimes loves to have a laugh at the prudent ones, and put to the rout all their wise prognostications; for, during Ormiston’s “year of grace”—while he still virtually held his fellowship, though he had accepted the living—our worthy old Principal died somewhat suddenly, and regret at his loss only gave way to the universal joy of every individual in the college (except, I suppose, any disappointed aspirants) , when Mr Ormiston was elected almost unanimously to the vacant dignity.
Mr Russell the elder has never returned to England. ”

“ Is the man crazy? I shall do no such thing, let me tell you, to-night.”
“Oh, just as you please,” said Ormiston, with a great deal of indifference, considering the urgent nature of his former request. “You can do as you like, you know, and so can I—which translated, means, I will go and tell her you have declined to come.”
“Tell her? Tell whom? What are you talking about? Hang it, man!” exclaimed Sir Norman, getting somewhat excited and profane, “what are you driving at? Can't you speak out and tell me at once?” ”

“ The quick eye of the English girl instantly perceived the goodly company of recruits assembled near the tower, and with a little smile of malicious triumph she pointed them out to her companion. Ormiston shook his head reprovingly. He was too thoroughly a soldier not to lament the policy which drafted large bodies of men into foreign armies, but he was full at that moment of his own concerns, and had little inclination to waste time in discussing the wisdom of his leaders. The truth was, Henrietta's reception of him on his arrival from Dublin the night before had disappointed him. ”

“ I cannot be worse; lead on—I follow thee!"
Ormiston gave him a mantle, unclasped the massive fetterlocks that secured his stiffened ankles, and led him down the narrow stair of the tower into the outer court of Holyrood, where Konrad almost tottered and fell, on finding himself fully exposed to the keen night wind of February ”

“ And by the way,” she said, half starting up, “the first thing to be done is, to see about this same Prudence. She must be somewhere in the house.”
“Prudence is nowhere in the house,” said Ormiston, quietly; “and will not be, she says, far a month to come. She is afraid of the plague.”
“Is she?” said Leoline, fixing her eyes on him with a powerful glance. “How do you know that?”
“I heard her say so not half an hour ago, to a lady a few doors distant. Perhaps you know her—La Masque.” ”

“ It seemed quite evident that there was some little prejudice on Russell’s part against Ormiston. Possibly he did not like his attentions to his sister. But that was no business of mine, and I knew the other too well to doubt his earnest wish to aid and encourage a man of Russell’s high principles, and [Pg 42] in his unfortunate position. None of us always know our best friends. ”

“ I have the honor to wish you both good-night.”
With which neat and appropriate speech, Ormiston bowed himself out, and was gone before Leoline could detain him, even if she wished to do so. Probably, however, she thought the care of one gentleman sufficient responsibility at once; and she did not look very seriously distressed by his departure; and, the moment he disappeared, Sir Norman brightened up wonderfully.
It is very discomposing to the feelings to make love in the presence of a third party; and Sir Norman had no intention of wasting his time on anything, and went at it immediately. ”