The Star-Chamber: An Historical Romance, Volume 2, William Harrison Ainsworth [the little red hen read aloud txt] 📗

As he approached the cottage a heavy presentiment of ill seized Sir Jocelyn. The place seemed to have lost its customary smiling air. No fair countenance beamed upon him from the casement; no light footsteps were heard hastening to the door; no one opened it to give him welcome. Could Aveline have fled'?—or had some dire misfortune happened to her. Suspense was worse than certainty of ill: and after a moment's hesitation, he raised the latch, and with trembling footsteps crossed the threshold.

She was gone—he could no longer doubt it. The disordered appearance of the chamber in which he found himself, with its furniture scattered about, seemed to tell of a struggle, and a forcible abduction. Nevertheless, though expecting no answer, he called forth her name in accents of wildest despair. She came not to his cries—neither she nor her companion, Dame Sherborne, nor her faithful attendant old Anthony Rocke. All were gone. The house was indeed desolate.

Still clinging to hope, he flew up-stairs, but could find no traces there of any of the inmates of the dwelling; and with a heart now completely crushed, he descended to the chamber he had just quitted. Here he found Clement Lanyere surveying the scene of confusion around him with a stern and troubled look. Sir Jocelyn instantly rushed up to him, and seizing him by the arm, fiercely demanded what had become of Aveline?

"She is in the hands of Sir Francis Mitchell," replied the promoter, shaking-him off; "and, for aught I know, may be wedded to him by this time."

"Wedded!" almost shrieked the young man. "Impossible! she would never consent—and he would not dare have recourse to violence."

"Though he might not, his partner, Sir Giles Mompesson, would have no such scruples," returned the promoter. "But perhaps you are right, and Aveline's determined resistance may intimidate them both so that they may abandon their design. I hope so for your sake, and for hers also—but I have my fears."

"You know more than you choose to avow, Sir," said Sir Jocelyn sternly,—"and as you value your life, I command you to speak plainly, and tell me what has happened, and where I shall find Aveline."

"So commanded by any other than yourself, Sir Jocelyn," rejoined the promoter, "I would not speak; but to you I say, as I have before declared, that Aveline is undoubtedly in the power of Sir Francis Mitchell, and that it will rest entirely with herself whether she escapes him or not."

"And you have caused me to be detained while she has been carried off," exclaimed Sir Jocelyn, furiously. "Fool that I was to trust you! You are in league with the villains."

"Think of me what you please, and say what you will—you shall not anger me," rejoined the promoter. "I discovered your flight from the place of refuge I had procured for you, and guessing where you had come, followed you hither. Your danger is not past. Vainly will you seek Sir Francis Mitchell. You will not find him,—but you will find a serjeant-at-arms with a Star-Chamber warrant for your arrest. To this you can offer no resistance; and what will follow? I will tell you:—immediate incarceration in the Fleet Prison. And when safely lodged there, how, may I ask, are you to liberate Aveline?"

"I must trust to chance," replied Sir Jocelyn. "I can no longer place any reliance upon you. Stand aside, and let me pass. I would not harm you."

"You cannot injure one whose intentions are friendly to you as mine are. Listen to me, and let what I have to say sink deeply into your breast. Do anything rather than render yourself amenable to the accursed tribunal I have named. Abandon mistress, friend, relative—all who are near and dear to you—if they would bring you within its grasp."

"And do you venture to give me this shameful council? Do you think I will attend to it?" cried Sir Jocelyn.

"I am sure you will, if you hear me out—and you shall hear me," the promoter exclaimed with so much authority that the young man, however impatient, could not refuse attention, to him. "Look me in the face, Sir Jocelyn! Regard me well! Behold these ineffaceable marks made by the heated iron, and the sharpened knife! How came they there? From a sentence of the Star-Chamber. And as my offence was the same as yours, so your sentence will correspond with mine. Your punishment will be the same as mine—branding and mutilation. Ha! I perceive I have touched you now."

"What was your offence, unhappy man?" asked Sir Jocelyn, averting his gaze from the hideous aspect which, now lighted up with mingled emotions of rage and despair, had become absolutely appalling.

"The same as your own, as I have said," replied the other;—"a few hasty words impugning the justice of this vindictive court. Better had I have cut out my tongue than have given utterance to them. But my case more nearly resembled yours than I have yet explained, for, like you, I had incurred the displeasure of Sir Giles Mompesson, and was by him delivered to these hellish tormentors. Acting under cover of the Star-Chamber, and in pursuance of its iniquitous decrees, he nailed me to the pillory, and so fast, that the ears through which the spikes were driven were left behind. Think how you would like that, Sir Jocelyn? Think what you would feel, if you stood there on that infamous post, a spectacle to the base and shouting rabble, with a paper fastened to your breast, setting forth your crimes, and acquainting all that you were a Star-Chamber delinquent?"

"Enough, Sir," interrupted Sir Jocelyn.

"Ay, enough—more than enough," rejoined the other; "but I cannot spare you the whole of the recital, however painful it may be to you. My own sufferings will be yours, if you heed not. So I shall go on. In robbing me of my ears, the executioner had only half done his work. He had still further to deface the image of his Maker,—and he hesitated not in his task. No savage in the wilds could have treated his deadliest enemy worse than he