MARRIED IN HASTE. A Romantic Sketch.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 131, 5 December 1885, Page 6

MARRIED IN HASTE. A Romantic Sketch.

The following story I had direct from a son of the clergyman who performed the marriage ceremony, who came from England to this country, where he is now in good business. On the evening of a dark and lowering day in late autumn a close carriage was driven to the door of an inn in a manufacturing town of Derbyshire, from which alighted a female closely cloaked and veiled. She seemed to know that the land- 1 lord was a Kurl-hearted man, and one to Joe trusted. She called him aside and said, without raising her veil, but in a voice of rare sweetness and evidently that of a young person : " I must trust you, good sir, with more, perhaps, than life. I wish you to serve me without asking a question. I can give you my word, in the outset, that no harm can come to you on my account in any legal way. I must be married. I must ba a wife within this hour : and you must find me a husband. I only ask that you will find a man who can legally take a wife ; a man not a rascal ; and a man who will take three hundred pounds and give his solemn pledge never to seek me nor to speak to me after the final word of the marriage ceremony shall have been pronunced. If you can find such a man, and bring him hither, and then bring a willing clergyman, you will do me a great favour." " But the license, madam ?' "I am provided. I have a special license, ■wanting only the name of the bridegroom." It took the host some little time to make up hi? mind that the lady was in earnest, and that all else was right so far as the law was concerned. When he wassatisfied upon these points he nodded and pleasantly smiled. Just the man required was in his employ. He went out into the stables, where he found Mark Conroy at work over a favourite horse. Mark was a splendid specimen of physical and mental manhood. Nearly six feet tall, perfectly proportioned, with features regular and handsome, an eye like a well of light, and a clustering mass of nut-brown curls setting off his shapely head, he was a man such as might win the love and esteem of any woman ; and the only reason »vhy he had not married or courted any one of the many damsels who sought to attract him was that his love for his beautiful horses engrossed his whole heart. Mark heard the landlord's story, and went with him into the private apartment whore the lady was, determined to have the request from her own lips ; and she made it, though, when she had seen him, standing so strong and so proud before her, she faltered considerably. But she got through with it, claiming from him the pledge before mentioned. W"hile she spoke he tried by every means in his power to gain a glimpse of her face, but in vain. Yet he did not miss her voice. It was very sweet to his ear. He loved music, and he did not think he should ever forget the rich, pure tone 3 of that voice. It was to him an index to her character. Never a coarse woman with such breathing of music. " My dear lady," he said, with arespectful inclination of the head, " 1 will accept the money which you offer, because I think I can make a good use of it. Ordinarily I would not listen for a moment, but now three hundred pounds may be the weight in the balance that shall make my whole future ; and, added to this, I may serve you. Not for a hundred times three thousand pounds would I lend myself to a plot that could work harm to yourself." " It will save me, sir ! 0 ! it will save me!" ••Then I am ready." " And— l have your promise—" " I have given my word. It was never yet broken, and I do not think that to your harm I shall now make my first false step " Somehow the lady seemed to be more shy than she had been at first, and once or twice she moved away from Mark, as though she was afraid of him, and crouched nearer to the landlord. Near at hand lived an accommodating rector. He came in, fully understanding the work he was to do, and after a few words with the lady, he signified his readiness to proceed. The name of Mark Conroy was filled into the license, after which the work was quickly done. "Must I sign the register?" the newlymade wife asked, uneasily. The clergyman insisted upon it. The law required it. Mark signed his name in a bold, strong, round hand. Then the lady took the pen, and tremblingly wrote a name, saying : "That is not the name by which lam known, but I have a sacred right to it." She had written " Cobdelia Temple." She gave to the rector five pounds — to the host five more ; and then she counted out six crisp, new fifty-pound notes to her husband. Mark took them, and put them into his pocket, and then he drew from his purse a half sovereign of gold, and laying it upon the post of a big oaken chair, he placed the edge of his pocket-knife upon it, and with a single blow of a billet of wood he cut it into two equal parts, one of which he handed to hia wif6." "Lady," he said, "I need not tell you that this, to me, is, and must ever be while I live, a serious matter.— Do not tremble. You have my word ! — But will you not take this bit of gold, and keep it in remembrance of the man whose name you can wear when you will, and must henceforth be true to you ?" She caught the piece of gold with a spasmodic clutch, and turned away, as though to hide an emotion which she did not care to have witnessed. One step, and Mark Conroy was by her aide. He took her hand, and raised it to his lips "I do this revereritly," he said, almost in a whisper. '" And now, lady," he added lifting his head proudly, and stepping back, " know that I shall be true to the vows this nierht taken upon myself. If, in the time to come, Mark Conroy can in any way serve you, you may command him without fear. He will never intrude, and he will never and he will never take advantage of any service he may happily render. Adieu ! May God and the good angels watch over you, and bless you ever ?" And with this he turned away and was gone. The lady could not have spoken if she would. "I suppose," said the landlord, as the lady was ready to depart, " that you would have this kept a profound secret ?" "No !no !" she cried, vehemently. "If men should be upon my track— if they should trace me to this place— tell them that lam married. Tell them exactly what you have seen ; but, for his sake — my — my — husband's— do not give his name. Will you promise this?" The good Boniface promised, and very shortly afterwards the lady's carriage was whirling rapidly away into the gloom towards Cheshire. The clock in the tower of the old stone church was striking the hour of nine as the Btranpe woman drove away from the Derbyshire inn. Two hours later— as the aame bell-hammer was pealing forth the eleventh hour— another carriage was driven rapidly

up, from which alighted two gentlemen— one an elderly man, with a hard, hawk-like face, and the other younger, and evidently a debauchee. Mark Conroy heard the arrival, and came to see. The gentlemen were eager and breathlees. Had anything been seen of a young lady, appearing as the old man described. Mark contrived to whisper into the host's ear, to direct his questions. "How old was the lady?' asked the publican. "Nineteen," answered the old man. " Was she handsome?" " She has the name — the shameless vixen ! —of being the handsomest girl in Staffordshire." And then the host told his story— told it as it was, all save that he represented the husband as having gone in pursuit, not to molest the lady, but to protect her into Staffordshire, for he had determined to serve her if he could. The younger man swore a big oath, and the elder man swore a bigger. Their plans were shattered, and they were crestfallen and chagrined. Before they went away, the younger man discovered our hero, who had remained respectfully in the background. " Hallo, Mark ! Is that yourself ?" And he advanced and extended a hand with perfect freedom of manner. " Yes, my lord. lam stopping here just now." " Ah, say, Mark, r?id you see this girl we have been talking about ?" "Why, my lord, as for seeing her, I cannot say I did ; but I saw the carriage, and saw a woman get into it and whisk away." " Well, old fellow, there went the most dainty bit of womanhood in the kingdom. Egad ! I supposed I had her hard and fast. Sir John ia her guardian, and had given her to me ; but" — an oath—" she has given us the slip. Locks, and bolts, and iron bars have been of no use. I. she's been honestly married, Sir John's guardianship is at an end. But, say, Mark, I have a magnificent filly, which I wish you to take in hand. She promises tremendous things." Mark said he would give the filly a try, and shortly afterwards the gentlemen took thoir leave. "Who was that?" demanded the host, as they drove away. "That," replied Mark, " was the Earl of Bentley — Dick Temple." And they all went their ways in life as seemed to them best. Mark Conroy from that night became a new man. He borrowed books, and read and studied, and went at French and German. He had said that the three hundred pounds might be the making of him ; nor did he mistake. The owner of a place near Derby — a raiser of thoroughbred stock— was glad to sell him a half interest, and in a very few years the horses from the stables of Monkton and Conroy stood at the head of the list in England. The Earl of Bentley let his favourite filly go to pay a betting debt, and Mark bough;; the animal for twenty guineas. Four years later that filly was known and celebrated under the name of "Lightfoot," and Mark sold her to tho Earl of Derby for ten thousand pounds, and she won the money back for her noble owner in one season. This was but one circumstance of many. Mark Conroy had one great aim of life, and in that direction he bent every energy. At the age of tv^o-and-thirty he sold out all interest in his Derby property, and his funds in the hands of his bankers amounted to more than eighty thousand pounds. He had made not one mistake in all his ventures, and fortune had literally smiled upon him. And through it all— by day, when business seemed to entirely engross him, and by night, in the still, thoughtful watches, one influence was never absent— the music of that sweet voice he had heard in the old Derbyshire inn. O! what should come of it? At all events, the thought held him pure and true, and led him to the station of a manhood that any man might covet, for it was sure, and true, and elevated, and intellectual, and above all else, robust in glowing glorious health. Eight years had elapsed since the day on which Mark Conray was married, and he had grown from four-and-twenty to two-and-thirty, when be took a notion to make a tour on the continent. He went to Paris first, and thence into Germany. From city to city, seeking a pleasure he did not readily find, until at length he found himself in the quaint, old walled city of Ulm, on the Danube. He was standing in the quaintly constructed hall of a quaintly constructed inn, with innumerable nooks and corners and dim recesses, when he was attracted by the sound of a familiar voice. It was the voice of the Earl of Bentley, and he was talking with his valet, a dark-visaged, powerful rascal, evidently engaged because of his physical strength and daring. " She will be alone in her chamber anhoiw after dark" said the voice of the earl . " / have bought up her maid. My boat is at the. old landing. I must not be seen here. Will you carry the lady to that boat ?" The valet said he would do it. He knew just how to accomplish the task. He would bear the lady to the boat, and she should make no outcry ! " Once she is in \my poiuer." went on the earl. " all else is simple. We loill 'prove her professed marriage, all a sham, and she shall marry with me, or — " The rest of the sentence was lost. Conroys heart beat hard and fast. He knew very well who was the lady alluded to. He inquired ol the landlord, however, and was informed that the occupant of the suite he had designated was an English lady, who had been with him several weeks — Lady Isabel Cordelia, of Templeton. She was a beautiful woman, but evidently unhappy. Mark Conroy found the suite of apartments, and did not lose sight of the entrance. About an hour after dark he saw the maid come out, and saw her speak with a man who was hiding in a recess. Pre sently after that this man was joined by another, whom he had called by a low whistle, and the two entered the chamber from which the maid had come. A few moments, during which the watcher's heart beat furiously, and then came the sound of a smothered cry. With a bound Conroy was in the chamber, when he saw a lady struggling in the grasp of two men. With a blow of his fist that might have felled an ox, he sent the vallet to the floor ; then with a backward sweep he knocked the other against the wall ; and then, winding his left arm around the lady, he held her in safety, while with his right he drew a pistol and levelled it. "My !" exclaimed the vallet, when he had picked himself up and looked upon the man who had knocked him down, " it's the horse-tamer Conroy !" "And you'll find him something more than that if you do not take yourself out of this. Go tell your master that Mark Conroy knows all, and that if he is in Ulm to-morrow morning he may suffer for it \" The twomen slunk away, andjthenConway led the lady to a seat, and would have let her go, but she clung to him. He was able to speak with comparative calmness because he had carefully prepared himself for the meeting. " Lady, I have not forgotten my promise. I have watched over you when you knew it not. You may command me, even yet. "

She looked up into his face, still clinging to his strong arm, and a variety of emotions were shadowed upon her surpassingly beauiful face. "You are Mark Conroy?" •'I am." » Do you know who I am ?" "I do." "Do you know that you ever saw mo before?" ; "I cannot say that I know, but my ! heart tells me that it is so, —it tells me that you have the mate to this." And ho drew from his bosom, where it had hung suspended from a silken cord about his neck, a tiny bag of chamois-skin, from which he took a semi- disk of gold. A moment she stood irresolute, and then, while a rich glow suffused her cheeks, mounting to her temples and brow, and imparting to the lustrous eyes a living light, she drew from her own bosom, where it had been kept in a velvet pouch, the other half of tho golden half-sovereign. Conroy could contain his great heart no longer. Grasping both the lady's hands, and lo&king earnestly and frankly into her face, he said : „ , • I *' Lady, from that hour, of the other years—that hour in the old Derbyshire inn— j I have kept tho faith then pledged. Your voice betrayed to me a pure and worthy woman, and I have held the sweet remembrance in lovo and true devotion. I dare not, knowing who and what you are, ask you to share my lot ; but 0 !— if you—" She put out her hand and stopped him. " Mark Conroy, from that same hour I have not lost sight of you. I know how you have lived— how you have thrived and prospered—" "But," he cried, interrupting her, "you do not know that the one thought of yourself has been the blessed spirit of my upris ing." " But— l have hoped if," she said. "You— have— hoped?" " 0 ! my husband ! if you can claim me for your wifo, and love me always, I will be happy !" And so, after the years of waiting, Mark Conroy found his reward : and ke was not prouder nor more happy than was tho Lady Isabel Cordelia, heiress of tho vast estates of the Earl of Templeton. A distant cousin inherited the title, but the wealth was hers. Lord Bontley, when he learned the truth, not only gave up his striving and his persecution, but he descended to beg that the story of his fruitless endeavours might not be told in England. But in England Mark Conroy and his wife lived no more. They found a pleasanter home on the Rhine, where were countrymen enough to make it homelike, and where they were estimated in society for the grand qualities of head and heart that endeared them to all with whom they came in social contact.