"Leoline! Leoline! Leoline!" he called, while he rushed impetuously ap
stairs, and down stairs, and in my lady's chamber; but Leoline answered
not--perhaps never would answer more! Even "hoping against hope," he had
to give up the chase at last--no Leoline did that house hold; and with
this conviction despairingly impressed on leis mind, Sir Norman Kingsley
covered his face with his hands, and uttered a dismal groan.
Yet, forlorn as was the case, he groaned but once, "only that and
nothing more;" there was no time for such small luxuries as groaning and
tearing his hair, and boiling over with wrath and vengeance against the
human race generally, and those two diabolical specimens of it, the
Earl of Rochester and Count L'Estrange, particularly. He plunged head
foremost down stairs, and out of the door. There he was impetuously
brought up all standing; for somebody stood before it, gazing up at
the gloomy front with as much earnestness as he had done himself, and
against this individual he rushed recklessly with a shock that nearly
sent the pair of them over into the street.
"Sacr-r-re!" cried a shrill voice, in tones of indignant remonstrance.
"What do you mean, monsieur? Are you drunk, or crazy, that you come
running head foremost into peaceable citizens, and throwing them heels
uppermost on the king's highway! Stand off, sir! And think yourself
lucky that I don't run you through with my dirk for such an insult!"
At the first sound of the outraged treble tones, Sir Norman had started
back and glared upon the speaker with much the same expression of
countenance as an incensed tiger. The orator of the spirited address had
stooped to pick up his plumed cap, and recover his centre of gravity,
which was considerably knocked out of place by the unexpected collision,
and held forth with very flashing eyes, and altogether too angry to
recognize his auditor. Sir Norman waited until he had done, and then
springing at him, grabbed him by the collar.
"You young hound!" he exclaimed, fairly lifting him off his feet with
one hand, and shaking him as if he would have wriggled him out of hose
and doublet. "You infernal young jackanapes! I'll run you through in
less than two minutes, if you don't tell me where you have taken her."
The astonishment, not to say consternation, of Master Hubert for that
small young gentleman and no other it was--on thus having his ideas thus
shaken out of him, was unbounded, and held him perfectly speechless,
while Sir Norman glared at him and shook him in a way that would have
instantaneously killed him if his looks were lightning. The boy had
recognized his aggressor, and after his first galvanic shock, struggled
like a little hero to free himself, and at last succeeded by an artful
spring.