The troop consisted of six persons; for, besides Wayland, they had

in company a royal pursuivant and two stout serving-men. All were

well-armed, and travelled as fast as it was possible with justice to

their horses, which had a long journey before them. They endeavoured

to procure some tidings as they rode along of Varney and his party, but

could hear none, as they had travelled in the dark. At a small village

about twelve miles from Kenilworth, where they gave some refreshment to

their horses, a poor clergyman, the curate of the place, came out of a

small cottage, and entreated any of the company who might know aught of

surgery to look in for an instant on a dying man.

The empiric Wayland undertook to do his best, and as the curate

conducted him to the spot, he learned that the man had been found on

the highroad, about a mile from the village, by labourers, as they were

going to their work on the preceding morning, and the curate had given

him shelter in his house. He had received a gun-shot wound, which seemed

to be obviously mortal; but whether in a brawl or from robbers they

could not learn, as he was in a fever, and spoke nothing connectedly.

Wayland entered the dark and lowly apartment, and no sooner had the

curate drawn aside the curtain than he knew, in the distorted features

of the patient, the countenance of Michael Lambourne. Under pretence

of seeking something which he wanted, Wayland hastily apprised

his fellow-travellers of this extraordinary circumstance; and both

Tressilian and Raleigh, full of boding apprehensions, hastened to the

curate's house to see the dying man.

The wretch was by this time in the agonies of death, from which a much

better surgeon than Wayland could not have rescued him, for the bullet

had passed clear through his body. He was sensible, however, at least in

part, for he knew Tressilian, and made signs that he wished him to stoop

over his bed. Tressilian did so, and after some inarticulate murmurs, in

which the names of Varney and Lady Leicester were alone distinguishable,

Lambourne bade him "make haste, or he would come too late." It was in

vain Tressilian urged the patient for further information; he seemed

to become in some degree delirious, and when he again made a signal to

attract Tressilian's attention, it was only for the purpose of desiring

him to inform his uncle, Giles Gosling of the Black Bear, that "he had

died without his shoes after all." A convulsion verified his words a few

minutes after, and the travellers derived nothing from having met with

him, saving the obscure fears concerning the fate of the Countess, which

his dying words were calculated to convey, and which induced them to

urge their journey with the utmost speed, pressing horses in the Queen's

name when those which they rode became unfit for service.




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