Chapter 13

"How! Lucia, wouldst them have me sink away
In pleasing dreams, and lose myself in love?"
_Cato_.

The reader must not imagine that the world stood still during the
occurrence of the scenes we have related. By the time the three seamen
were placed in as many different rooms, and a sentinel was stationed in
the gallery common to them all, in such a manner as to keep an eye on
his whole charge at once, the hour had run deep into the night. Captain
Borroughcliffe obeyed a summons from the colonel, who made him an
evasive apology for the change in their evening's amusement, and
challenged his guest to a renewal of the attack on the Madeira. This was
too grateful a theme to be lightly discussed by the captain; and the
abbey clock had given forth as many of its mournful remonstrances as the
division of the hours would permit, before they separated. In the mean
time, Mr. Dillon became invisible; though a servant, when questioned by
the host on the subject, announced that "he believed Mr. Christopher had
chosen to ride over to----, to be in readiness to join the hunt, on the
morning, with the dawn." While the gentlemen were thus indulging
themselves in the dining-parlor, and laughing over the tales of other
times and hard campaigns, two very different scenes occurred in other
parts of the building.

When the quiet of the abbey was only interrupted by the howling of the
wind, or by the loud and prolonged laughs which echoed through the
passages from the joyous pair, who were thus comfortably established by
the side of the bottle, a door was gently opened on one of the galleries
of the "cloisters," and Katherine Plowden issued from it, wrapped in a
close mantle, and holding in her hand a chamber-lamp, which threw its
dim light faintly along the gloomy walls in front, leaving all behind
her obscured in darkness. She was, however, soon followed by two other
female figures, clad in the same manner, and provided with similar
lights. When all were in the gallery, Katherine drew the door softly to,
and proceeded in front to lead the way.

"Hist!" said the low, tremulous voice of Cecilia, "they are yet up in
the other parts of the house; and if it be as you suspect, our visit
would betray them, and prove the means of their certain destruction."

"Is the laugh of Colonel Howard in his cups so singular and unknown to
your ear, Cecilia, that you know it not?" said Katherine with a little
spirit; "or do you forget that on such occasions he seldom leaves
himself ears to hear, or eyes to see with? But follow me; it is as I
suspect--it must be as I suspect; and unless we do something to rescue
them, they are lost, unless they have laid a deeper scheme