How the Train was fired,
and what followed the Explosion.
About ten o’clock in the night
under consideration, Surrey and Richmond, accompanied
by the Duke of Shoreditch, and half a dozen other archers,
set out from the castle, and took their way along the
great park, in the direction of the lake.
They had not ridden far, when they
were overtaken by two horsemen who, as far as they
could be discerned in that doubtful light, appeared
stalwart personages, and well mounted, though plainly
attired. The new-comers very unceremoniously
joined them.
“There are ill reports of the
park, my masters,” said the foremost of these
persons to Surrey, “and we would willingly ride
with you across it.”
“But our way may not be yours,
friend,” replied Surrey, who did not altogether
relish this proposal. “We are not going
farther than the lake.”
“Our road lies in that direction,”
replied the other, “and, if you please, we will
bear you company as far as we go. Come, tell me
frankly,” he added, after a pause, “are
you not in search of Herne the Hunter?”
“Why do you ask, friend?”
rejoined the earl somewhat angrily.
“Because if so,” replied
the other, “I shall be right glad to join you,
and so will my friend, Tony Cryspyn, who is close behind
me. I have an old grudge to settle with this
Herne, who has more than once attacked me, and I shall
be glad to pay it.”
“If you will take my advice,
Hugh Dacre, you will ride on, and leave the achievement
of the adventure to these young galliards,” interposed
Cryspyn.
“Nay, by the mass! that shall
never be,” rejoined Dacre, “if they have
no objection to our joining them. If they have,
they have only to say so, and we will go on.”
“I will be plain with you, my
masters,” said Surrey. “We are determined
this night, as you have rightly conjectured, to seek
out Herne the Hunter; and we hope to obtain such clue
to him as will ensure his capture. If, therefore,
you are anxious to join us, we shall be glad of your
aid. But you must be content to follow, and not
lead and to act as you are directed or
you will only be in the way, and we would rather dispense
with your company.”
“We are content with the terms are
we not, Tony?” said Dacre.
His companion answered somewhat sullenly
in the affirmative.
“And now that the matter is
arranged, may I ask when you propose to go?”
he continued.
“We are on our way to a hut
on the lake, where we expect a companion to join us,”
replied Surrey.
“What! Tristram Lyndwood’s cottage?”
demanded Dacre.
“Ay,” replied the earl,
“and we hope to recover his fair granddaughter
from the power of the demon.”
“Ha! say you so?” cried
Dacre; “that were a feat, indeed!”
The two strangers then rode apart
for a few moments, and conversed together in a low
tone, during which Richmond expressed his doubts of
them to Surrey, adding that he was determined to get
rid of them.
The new-comers, however, were not
easily shaken off. As soon as they perceived
the duke’s design, they stuck more pertinaciously
to him and the earl than before, and made it evident
they would not be dismissed.
By this time they had passed Spring
Hill, and were within a mile of the valley in which
lay the marsh, when a cry for help was heard in the
thicket on the left, and the troop immediately halted.
The cry was repeated, and Surrey, bidding the others
follow him, dashed off in the direction of the sound.
Presently, they perceived two figures
beneath the trees, whom they found, on a nearer approach,
were Sir Thomas Wyat, with Mabel in a state of insensibility
in his arms.
Dismounting by the side of his friend,
Surrey hastily demanded how he came there, and what
had happened?
“It is too long a story to relate
now,” said Wyat; “but the sum of it is,
that I have escaped, by the aid of this damsel, from
the clutches of the demon. Our escape was effected
on horseback, and we had to plunge into the lake.
The immersion deprived my fair preserver of sensibility,
so that as soon as I landed, and gained a covert where
I fancied myself secure, I dismounted, and tried to
restore her. While I was thus occupied, the steed
I had brought with me broke his bridle, and darted
off into the woods. After a while, Mabel opened
her eyes, but she was so weak that she could not move,
and I was fain to make her a couch in the fern, in
the hope that she would speedily revive. But the
fright and suffering had been too much for her, and
a succession of fainting-fits followed, during which
I thought she would expire. This is all.
Now, let us prepare a litter for her, and convey her
where proper assistance can be rendered.”
Meanwhile, the others had come up,
and Hugh Dacre, flinging himself from his horse, and
pushing Surrey somewhat rudely aside, advanced towards
Mabel, and, taking her hand, said, in a voice of some
emotion, “Alas! poor girl! I did not expect
to meet thee again in this state.”
“You knew her, then?” said Surrey.
Dacre muttered an affirmative.
“Who is this man?” asked Wyat of the earl.
“I know him not,” answered Surrey.
“He joined us on the road hither.”
“I am well known to Sir Thomas
Wyat,” replied Dacre, in a significant tone,
“as he will avouch when I recall certain matters
to his mind. But do not let us lose time here.
This damsel claims our first attention. She must
be conveyed to a place of safety, and where she can
be well tended. We can then return to search
for Herne.”
Upon this, a litter of branches were
speedily made, and Mabel being laid upon it, the simple
conveyance was sustained by four of the archers.
The little cavalcade then quitted the thicket, and
began to retrace its course towards the castle.
Wyat had been accommodated with a horse by one of
the archers, and rode in a melancholy manner by the
side of the litter.
They had got back nearly as far as
the brow of Spring Hill, when a horseman, in a wild
garb, and mounted on a coal black steed, lashed suddenly
and at a furious pace, out of the trees on the right.
He made towards the litter, over-turning Sir Thomas
Wyat, and before any opposition could be offered him,
seized the inanimate form of Mabel, and placing her
before him on his steed, dashed off as swiftly as he
came, and with a burst of loud, exulting laughter.
“It is Herne! it is Herne!”
burst from every lip. And they all started in
pursuit, urging the horses to their utmost speed.
Sir Thomas Wyat had instantly remounted his steed,
and he came up with the others.
Herne’s triumphant and demoniacal
laugh was heard as he scoured with the swiftness of
the wind down the long glade. But the fiercest
determination animated his pursuers, who, being all
admirably mounted, managed to keep him fully in view.
Away! away! he speeded in the direction
of the lake; and after him they thundered, straining
every sinew in the desperate chase. It was a wild
and extraordinary sight, and partook of the fantastical
character of a dream.
At length Herne reached the acclivity,
at the foot of which lay the waters of the lake glimmering
in the starlight; and by the time he had descended
to its foot, his pursuers had gained its brow.
The exertions made by Sir Thomas Wyat
had brought him a little in advance of the others.
Furiously goading his horse, he dashed down the hillside
at a terrific pace.
All at once, as he kept his eye on
the flying figure of the demon, he was startled by
a sudden burst of flame in the valley. A wide
circle of light was rapidly described, a rumbling
sound was heard like that preceding an earth-quake,
and a tremendous explosion followed, hurling trees
and fragments of rock into the air.
Astounded at the extraordinary occurrence,
and not knowing what might ensue, the pursuers reined
in their steeds. But the terror of the scene
was not yet over. The whole of the brushwood had
caught fire, and blazed up with the fury and swiftness
of lighted flax. The flames caught the parched
branches of the trees, and in a few seconds the whole
grove was on fire.
The sight was awfully grand, for the
wind, which was blowing strongly, swept the flames
forward, so that they devoured all before them.
When the first flash was seen the
demon had checked his steed and backed him, so that
he had escaped without injury, and he stood at the
edge of the flaming circle watching the progress of
the devastating element; but at last, finding that
his pursuers had taken heart and were approaching
him, he bestirred himself, and rode round the blazing
zone.
Having by this time recovered from
their surprise, Wyat and Surrey dashed after him,
and got so near him that they made sure of his capture.
But at the very moment they expected to reach him,
he turned his horse’s head, and forced him to
leap over the blazing boundary.
In vain the pursuers attempted to
follow. Their horses refused to encounter the
flames; while Wyat’s steed, urged on by its frantic
master, reared bolt upright, and dislodged him.
But the demon held on his way, apparently
unscathed in the midst of the flames, casting a look
of grim defiance at his pursuers. As he passed
a tree, from which volumes of fire were bursting, the
most appalling shrieks reached his ear, and he beheld
Morgan Fenwolf emerging from a hole in the trunk.
But without bestowing more than a glance upon his
unfortunate follower, he dashed forward, and becoming
involved in the wreaths of flame and smoke, was lost
to sight.
Attracted by Fenwolf’s cries,
the beholders perceived him crawl out of the hole,
and clamber into the upper part of the tree, where
he roared to them most piteously for aid. But
even if they had been disposed to render it, it was
impossible to do so now; and after terrible and protracted
suffering, the poor wretch, half stifled with smoke,
and unable longer to maintain his hold of the branch
to which he crept, fell into the flames beneath, and
perished.
Attributing its outbreak to supernatural
agency, the party gazed on in wonder at the fire,
and rode round it as closely as their steeds would
allow them. But though they tarried till the flames
had abated, and little was left of the noble grove
but a collection of charred and smoking stumps, nothing
was seen of the fiend or of the hapless girl he had
carried off. It served to confirm the notion of
the supernatural origin of the fire, in that it was
confined within the mystic circle, and did not extend
farther into the woods.
At the time that the flames first
burst forth, and revealed the countenances of the
lookers on, it was discovered that the self-styled
Dacre and Cryspyn were no other than the king and the
Duke of Suffolk.
“If this mysterious being is
mortal, he must have perished now,” observed
Henry; “and if he is not, it is useless to seek
for him further.”
Day had begun to break as the party
quitted the scene of devastation. The king and
Suffolk, with the archers, returned to the castle;
but Wyat, Surrey, and Richmond rode towards the lake,
and proceeded along its banks in the direction of
the forester’s hut.
Their progress was suddenly arrested
by the sound of lamentation, and they perceived, in
a little bay overhung by trees, which screened it
from the path, an old man kneeling beside the body
of a female, which he had partly dragged out of the
lake. It was Tristram Lyndwood, and the body
was that of Mabel. Her tresses were dishevelled,
and dripping with wet, as were her garments; and her
features white as marble. The old man was weeping
bitterly.
With Wyat, to dismount and grasp the
cold hand of the hapless maiden was the work of a
moment.
“She is dead!” he cried,
in a despairing voice, removing the dank tresses from
her brow, and imprinting a reverent kiss upon it.
“Dead! lost to me for ever!”
“I found her entangled among
those water-weeds,” said Tristram, in tones
broken by emotion, “and had just dragged her
to shore when you came up. As you hope to prosper,
now and hereafter, give her a decent burial. For
me all is over.”
And, with a lamentable cry, he plunged
into the lake, struck out to a short distance, and
then sank to rise no more.