“Sure there’s not the laist room at all for the ladies; nor any baists to be had, all the way round Baron’s Down; nor ever so much as a boy to be fetched, as can take care of the cattle over the mountain,” said the master of the inn, now joining in the conversation. “What will become of us?” cried the nurse. “Dear, dear lady, be prevailed on: give up your wild enterprise: return to your father. Lady Anabel will be quite kilt with the fatigue. Be prevailed upon: give up this hopeless journey.” “_You_ may return, if it is your pleasure: I never will.” “Your ladyship will excuse me,” said the servant, producing some letters; “but I must entreat your perusal of these, before you attempt to proceed.” “You had better give my lady your best accommodations,” said the nurse in confidence to the landlord: “she is a near connexion of the Duke of Altamonte’s. You may repent any neglect you may shew to a traveller of such high rank.” “There’s nae rank will make room,” retorted the landlord. “Were she the late duchess herself, I could only give her my bed, and go without one. But indeed couldn’t a trifle prevail with the baists as brought you, to step over the mountains as far as Killy Cross?” “There’s nae trifle,” said a man, much wrapped up, who had been watching Lady Avondale—“there’s nae trifle shall get ye to Killy Cross, make ye what haste ye can, but what we’ll be there before ye.” Calantha shuddered at the meaning of this threat, which she did not understand; but the nurse informed her it was a servant of Sir Richard Mowbrey’s. CHAPTER LXXXIX. The letters from her father, Lady Avondale refused to read. Many remonstrances passed between herself and the duke’s servant. The result was a slow journey in the dark night, over a part of the country which was said to be infested by the marauders. No terror alarmed Lady Avondale, save that of losing a last, an only opportunity of once more seeing her husband—of throwing herself upon his mercy—of imploring him to return to his family, even though she were exiled from it. “Yet, I will not kneel to him, or ask it. If when he sees me, he has the heart to refuse me,” she cried, “I will only shew him my child; and if he can look upon it, and kill its mother, let him do it. I think in that case—yes, I do feel certain that I can encounter death, without a fear, or a murmur.”