feet were shod with lightning, he flew along the passages, up the stairs, and in an incalculable short space of time stood within the very room where he had seen the astrologer --it was empty! As he left the chamber, more puzzled than ever, he encountered his mother's serving-maid on the stairs. "Her lady," she said, "had not been in that room today." "Nor any one else?" "No, certainly not." "Had Father Frank?" "No, Father Frank was with her lady, in the greenhouse!" Poor Basil! he was indeed perplexed! CHAPTER VII. Where fantasy, near handmaid to the mind, This busy pow'r is working day and night; With flutt'ring wings do keep her still awake. SIR JOHN DAVIES. As the day advanced, the young men proceeded to prepare for their journey to Beaulieu. The sergeant received directions to remain in the neighbourhood, where the Outlaw had so unaccountably disappeared; and Major Raymond assured him that, as he would be answerable for Ralph's forthcoming, there was no need for setting a watch over his sick-bed. Lady Sydney, though she warmly disclaimed the fact, was in heart and soul a political intriguante, and had James known her value in this respect, he would have had her about the court, where her fine abilities would have found fitting occupation: doubtless, the real source of her unhappiness arose from the impossibility of stirring up Sir EveVOL. I.-H rard to any thing like activity; he would never oppose and rarely contradicted her, though in the bitterness of her heart she would often assert matters that could not fail to irritate one of his political and religious faith. She ought, as far as energy was concerned, to have been born a statesman; as it was, her spirit sought other occupation, and she yielded to superstition, and a belief in supernatural agency, the powers of a mind which, at almost any other historical period, would have made her the wonder and the ornament of her age and sex. Much as she idolized her son, she could not conceal from herself the fact that he was any thing but a warm supporter of the Catholic faith; even Major Raymond, in her estimation, was all too cold in such a cause she trembled, too, at her son's intended visit to Beaulieu; and would, with woman's skilfulness, have invented some pretext to avoid such a contretems, had it not been for the necessity, which she was quick to discover, of showing zeal in behalf of her husband; for well she knew that Sir Everard felt none, and would not feign to feel any to bring matters to a safe and satisfactory issue. She was sorely perplexed as to the position in which he stood, and after a long consultation with Father Frank, decided on at once stirring in the matter, so as to apprehend this Outlaw, if indeed he lurked anywhere in the neighbourhood of her abode; she also insisted on the 'padre's mounting, not his ambling jennet, but a highbred horse that would carry him swiftly to St. Mary's, and give the abbess instructions to prevent any meeting between Rosalind and her cousin,-the chance of his visiting the place not having previously occurred to her. She offered Major Raymond her carriage to convey his sister to Sydney Pleasance, and was so urgent in her invitation, that he readily promised to present her to her ladyship, if he found by the next advices from London that his presence was not absolutely necessary in the camp. "If, however," he continued, "the Prince of Orange should take any decided step against the anointed king, there is but one course for every officer to pursue." Lady Sydney neither felt, nor pretended to feel, an atom of affection for her husband; yet the possibility of his falling into disgrace because of the part he had so decidedly taken in the affair of the past night, affected her much. It roused her pride to avert the danger-and pride was the torment of her mind. She had never before suspected that Sir Everard had any connection with the Outlaw; and even now was unable to divine why one of her husband's peaceable pursuits should trouble himself about the matter. A fanatic she knew well that this man was, and many asserted that he was absolutely mad. He roamed from place to place without any visible means of support; and persons from beyond seas had asserted him to have been seen in Germany and Holland, when it was known, or at least confidently believed, that he was at hide-and-seek in the woods of England or among the mountains of Wales. The village girls and women, both on the borders, and in the New Forest, with which he seemed familiar as if born among its shades, called him in poetic phrase, "Will of the Woodlands," an appellative suitable to his careless appearance, but not emblematic of his mind, of which they had no means of judging, as he held commune but with a few, and those were the bravest and most suspected of the Forest hunters. Under the impression that he was frequently in need of food, it was their custom to hide it in every nook and crevice where they thought it might be found. Despite Lady Sydney's religious opinions, there was something so bold, so daring in the adventures and hairbreadth escapes of this singular and mysterious being, that she entertained, perhaps without knowing it herself, a secret respect for his gallant and intrepid character; and she would hardly have aroused her domestics and retainers to the exertions she conceived necessary for his capture, but that the part Sir Everard had so unfortunately taken in the presence of the soldiers rendered it necessary. It was her husband's habit completely to permit her orders and directions to be supreme; so that she interfered not with his darling pursuits, he cared little who came or who went; and the idea of his contradicting her behest on this subject scarcely entered into her calculation, although she thought it might be as well to caution the servants "not to mention to Sir Everard that they were bent upon giving aid to the sergeant and his men." "I ask yer honour's pardon," said Jemmings, touching his cap, as only a soldier can when he speaks to his commander, "but I suppose I am to attend your honour to St. 66 Mary's; the servants are saying that they're to be on the alert, and if your honour pleases, I want my discharge." "I do not understand you," replied Captain Sydney; "you spoke just now of going with me, and now you say you want your discharge." "Not incompatible," said Jemmings, who prided himself on the use of long words; "I want my discharge from his majesty's service: but I can demonstrate to your honour that I am not wishful to leave yours." "Discharge! such conduct is not soldierly: the king has need of friends; surely that is not the reason you would leave him?" 66 No, not exactly, Master Basil; but my concomitated belief is, that a king will always have friends in England as long as he deserves 'em, holding as he does a respectable situation, and being-" 66 By Jove, sir, you are either mad or drunk, to talk in such a manner: saddle my horse, if you have not already done so, and bring him forth; and let me hear no more of such trash." "I ask your honour's pardon, but I really cannot be a soldier any longer. I intended to win my way to glory,to return after killing the Prince of Orange (for he will truly come) with his own Blue Bill,-to return, I say, and sip the sweets of retirement out of the buttercups and July-flowers of the forest; but I'll go no more, for I am a heart-broken, disappointed young man. Ah, Master Basil, Master Basil! you were never in love, or you would never look so cruel and so cold upon me." Basil smiled. "It is easy to smile when the heart is light; and Cicely used to say, Master Basil, I smiled sweetly. But there's something more in a man than in a turnip; there's a heart, Master Basil, a red-a bleeding heart in my bosom. I'll be no more a soldier; 'tis the trade of a successful lover, and I'm a forsaken one; so I'll just turn shepherd, and sing sonnetteers." Basil could refrain no longer, though he had matters of great moment to engross his attention. The idea of his old faithful Jemmings, "Old Iron," as he was termed by his brother soldiers, turning shepherd, caused him a hearty burst of laughter. The great overgrown monster who stood before him, in huge jack-boots and wide-topped gloves, metamorphosed into a shepherd, with a flock of lambs, a crook, a wreath of poppies, and a straw hat! it was too much for his gravity; which was tried still more, while Jemmings continued mingling up, in a strange way, hints against the immorality of Sergeant Snap'em, a pathetic lamentation for Cicely, and a repetition of his resolve to tarry no longer with the troops of James. It was in vain that Basil told him the impossibility of a stout able fellow like him receiving permission to quit his regiment. 6 "Then," replied Old Iron,' "I'll desert-it's in my destiny that I'm not to be a soldier." "And how know you that, my fine fellow ?" "How do I know it, your honour? Why, your honour remembers the woman in a red hood I told you of; and she was queen of the beggars, I thought--but she's better than that—a wonderful soothsayer! And hearing she could tell every thing, I went to her last night, where her tent is pitched down yonder, and resolved to make trial of her knowledge. First, I asked her who I was, and she told me! and I asked who you was, and she told me! And she initiated me likewise, that you would go a journey to-day to St. Mary's priory; and she told me you would fall in love with an Irish lady; and she told me your cousin was there too, but she said a black cloud shed poison on her when she was born—and she looked at the stars, and said I wasn't born to be a general! And, what was the most excruciating thing of all, she said that hussy Cicely was born under a wild star, and would certainly die mad. And she took me out and made me look over at Sydney Pleasance, and showed me where a dark cloud hung over the house-a horrible dark cloud it was!" "Enough of such trumpery!" exclaimed Basil, contemptnously. "Warn the women to look after their poultry, and the shepherd to his lambs, when such gipsies infest the country.' "She's no gipsy, Master Basil; if so be she be a she, still it's no gipsy: it's past gipsy learning, which comes out of ignorance; but that creeter's wisdom is beyond such. lowness. Does your honour ride Brown Bess?" "Yes," replied Basil, musingly. If any one had told |