The Buccaneer - A Tale

"Walter, Walter!" exclaimed Constance, clasping her hands.

"I crave your pardon, Lady," said Burrell, without altering his tone;

"but do not thus alarm yourself: my sword shall not again be drawn upon

a low and confirmed malignant. Sir," turning from his opponent and

addressing the stranger, "heard you not how he applied the forbidden

title of majesty to the man Charles Stuart; shall I not forthwith arrest

him for high treason?--runneth not the act so, formed for the renouncing

and disannulling of the pretended title of the late man's progeny?"

"Perish such acts and their devisers!" shouted the Cavalier, losing all

prudence in the excitement of the moment. "Let the lady retire, while we

end this quarrel as becomes men!"

"Heed him not, heed him not, I implore, I entreat you!" exclaimed

Constance, sinking to the earth at the feet of Major Wellmore, by whom

the hint of Burrell was apparently unnoticed; "the lion takes not

advantage of the deer caught in the hunter's toils, and he is

distraught, I know he is!"

"I am not distraught, Miss Cecil, though I have suffered enough to make

me so: what care I for acts formed by a pack of regicides!"

"Young man," interrupted the old officer with a burst of fierce and

strong passion that, like a mountain torrent, carried all before it,

"I arrest you in the name of the Commonwealth and its Protector! A

night in one of the lone chambers of Cecil Place will cool the

bravo-blood that riots in your veins, and teach you prudence, if the

Lord denies you grace."

He laid his hand so heavily on De Guerre's shoulder, that his frame

quailed beneath its weight, while the point of his sword rested on the

peaceful grass. Burrell attempted, at the same instant, to steal the

weapon from his hand: the Cavalier grasped it firmly; while Major

Wellmore, darting on the false knight a withering look, emphatically

observed, and with a total change of manner,-"I can, methinks, make good a capture without your aid, kind sir;

although I fully appreciate your zeal in the cause of the

Commonwealth!" The latter part of the sentence was pronounced with a

slow and ironical emphasis; then, turning to De Guerre, he added, "I

need not say to you that, being under arrest, your sword remains with

me."

De Guerre presented it in silence; for the result of his interview with

Constantia had rendered him indifferent to his fate, and, although but

an hour before it would have been only with his life that his sword had

been relinquished, he now cared not for the loss of either.