"An owl?" asked Mr. Curwen, with an innocent sympathy.
"An owl?" I asked in a sudden heat.
Her eyes met mine, very cold and blank.
"O-w-l," she answered, spelling the word deliberately.
I could not think what had caused this sudden change in her.
"But, my dear," said Mr. Curwen in perplexity, "are you certain you have made no mistake?"
"Oh no, sir, there will be no mistake," says I, indignantly, or ever she could open her lips. But, indeed, I do not know whether in any case she would have opened them or not. For her face was like a mask.
"But I did not know there was an owl at Applegarth," says he.
"He is a new-comer," says I; "but you may take my word for it, there is an owl at Applegarth—a tedious, solemn owl."
Miss Dorothy nodded her head quietly at each epithet, and her action much increased my anger.
"Then you have heard it, Mr. Clavering," says Mr. Curwen; and "Indeed I have," I cried in a greater heat than ever, for I noticed a certain contentment begin to steal over the girl's face at each fresh evidence of my rage. "Indeed I have—under the eaves at my bedroom window."
"But, my dear Mr. Clavering," expostulated Mr. Curwen, "what sort of an owl is it?"
"A very uncommon owl," said I.
"Oh dear no, not at all," said Miss Curwen, stonily, with a lift of her eyebrows.
"Well, we will have him out to-morrow," says the father.
"No, sir, to-night," says I, "this very night"
Dorothy gave a start and looked at me with a trace of anxiety.
"Yes," I repeated significantly, wagging my head in a fury, "to-night—no later."
"Oh, but I like owls," cried she of a sudden. "That can hardly be," I insisted, looking hard at her, "since they keep you awake o' nights."
At that she coloured and dropped her eyes from my face.
"Perhaps I exaggerated," she said weakly, and sat smoothing the table-cloth on each side of her with her fingers. She glanced up at me. I was still looking at her. She glanced from me to her father. He was waiting for her answer, utterly at a loss.
"But I like owls," she said again in a queer little, high-pitched, plaintive voice; and somehow I began to laugh, and in a moment she was laughing too. "You make too much of the trouble," said she.
"We will have him out to-morrow," said Mr. Curwen; and again she laughed, but with something of mischief, so that though for that night there the matter dropped, I suspected she had devised some plan by which I was to suffer a penalty for her present discomfiture. And that suspicion I found to be true no later than the next morning.
For while we were yet at breakfast, Mr. Curwen returned to the subject, and was for sending out Mary Tyson to fetch in one of the shepherds in order to oust the bird.
"Yes, indeed," cries Dorothy, with a delighted little clap of the hands and a quick meaning glance at Mary Tyson.
The shepherds were all on the hillside; not one of them was within reach, said Mary, with suspicious promptitude.
"But we have a ladder," said Dorothy, speaking at me, and her eyes sparkling and dancing.
I made as though I had not heard the suggestion.
"Then I will myself hunt him out," said Mr. Curwen, with a ready eagerness to make proof of his activity.
"Father, that cannot be," says she. "It would put us to shame. Rather I will take it in hand;" and again she looked at me.
There was no escape.
"It is a duty which naturally falls to me," said I, not with the best grace in the world.
"Nay," said she, "we cannot admit of duties in our guests. It must be a pleasure to you before we allow you to undertake it."
"Then it will be a pleasure," I agreed lamely.
"We will endeavour to make it one," she replied, with a malicious nod of the head.
I tried, you may be sure, to defer this chase for an owl which I knew did not exist, and hoped by talking very volubly upon other topics to drive the thought of it from their minds, and to that end lingered over my breakfast, even after the rest had for some while finished. But the moment we did rise from the table: "There is no time like present," hinted Dorothy, plainly; and Mr. Curwen warmly seconding her—for he began to show something of excitement, like a child when some new distraction is offered to it—I fetched the ladder from an outhouse and reared it against the wall of Applegarth, at a spot she pointed out close to my window. Accordingly I mounted, the while Mr. Curwen and his daughter remained at the foot—he quite elated, she very sedate and serious. But no sooner had I reached the topmost rungs, than Dorothy discovers the nest a good twenty feet away; and I must needs descend, like the merest fool, shift the ladder, and mount again. And when once more I was at the top, she discovers it at a third place, and so on through the morning. I know not how many times I ran up and down that accursed ladder, but my knees ached until I thought they would break. Once or twice I stopped, as if I would have no more of it, whereupon she covered me with the tenderest apologies and regrets.
"But it is a farce," said I, laughing in spite of myself.
"Of course you are very tired," said she, reproachfully. "It is a shame that I should put you to so much trouble;" and she pops her foot upon the lowest rung of the ladder. So there was no other course, but up I must go again, until at last she was satisfied, and I beaten with fatigue.
"It is a strange thing," said Mr. Curwen, scratching his forehead, "that we cannot discover it."
"I fancy Mr. Clavering was right," says she, with a bubble of delight, "and it is a very uncommon owl."
And I was allowed to carry the ladder back to the outhouse.
The lesson, however, was lost on me, or rather, to speak by the book, had the very reverse effect to that it aimed at. For my solemnity was increased thereby. I reflected that Dorothy would never have played this trick upon an enemy, or even upon an unconsidered acquaintance, but only upon one whom she thought of as a friend. And there was the trouble. I held her in that reverence that it irked me intolerably to masquerade to her, though the masquerading was to my present advantage in her esteem. I had, of course, no thought that ever I could win her, since I saw myself hourly either doomed to the gallows, or, if I failed of that, to a more disgraceful existence. But I was fain that she should know me through and through for no better than I was; and so I wore her friendship as a stolen cloak.
Now, a thief, if the cloak galls him, may restore it. That I could not do without telling her the whole story; and the story I could not tell, since it was not I alone whose honour was concerned in it, but a woman with me. Or the thief may drop the cloak by the roadside without a word, and get him into the night. Over that alternative I pondered a long, dreary while.
But while I was yet tossed amidst these perplexities, news came to hand which quite turned the current of my thoughts. It was the 18th day of September, and Mr. Curwen, I remember, had left Applegarth early that morning on horseback, and, though it was now past nightfall, had not yet returned; the which was causing both his daughter and myself no small uneasiness at the very time when Tash rapped upon the door. He brought me a letter. I mind me that I stood in the hall staring in front of me, holding the open letter in my hand. It seemed that I saw the lock fall from a door, and the door opening on an unimagined dawn.
"What is it?" cried Dorothy, and for a second she laid a gentle hand upon my arm.
"It is," I exclaimed, drawing in a breath, "it is that the Earl of Mar—the duke, God bless him! for now one may give him his proper title—has raised King James's standard at Kirkmichael in Braemar."
Dorothy gave a cry of delight, and I joined in with it. For if the duke did but descend into England, if England did but rise to welcome him—why, there would be the briefest imprisonment for those lying under charge, whether true or false, of conspiring for King James.
Through the open doorway sounded the tramp of a horse.
"My father!" said Dorothy.
I crammed the letter into my pocket without a glance at its conclusion, and ran down the pathway to the gate. As I opened the gate Mr. Curwen rode up to it.
"I am glad to have this chance of speaking to you alone," said he, as he dismounted. "I have been to-day to Whitehaven. My ship, theSwallow, is fitting out I have given orders that the work should be hurried, and the crew shipped with the least delay. The Swallow will sail the first moment possible, and lie off Ravenglass until you come. It is an arduous journey from here to Ravenglass, but safe."
A farm-servant came up and led away the horse.
"TheSwallowshould be at Ravenglass in six weeks from to-day," he continued.
"But, sir," said I in a whisper, though I felt an impulse to cry the news out, "there will be no need, I trust, for theSwallow. There is the grandest news to tell you;" and I informed him of the contents of my letter.
Mr. Curwen said never a word to me, but dropped upon his knees in the pathway.
"God save the King!" he cried in a quavering voice, and the fervour of it startled me. His hands were clasped and lifted up before him, and by the starlight I saw that there were tears upon his cheek. Then he stood up again and mopped his face with his handkerchief, leaning against the palings of the garden fence. "Mr. Clavering, I could add with a full heart, 'Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,' but that there is work even for an arm as old and feeble as mine." At that he stopped, and asked, in a very different tone of trepidation, "Does Mary Tyson know?"
"Miss Dorothy does."
"Ah, of course, of course," he said with resignation, "It is all one;" and he walked slowly up the path. At the door he turned to me, and set a hand on my shoulder. "There is work, Mr. Clavering, for the feeblest arm?" he asked wistfully.
Now, all my instincts urged me to say "Yes," but, on the other hand, I remembered certain orders which had been given to me in a very decided voice, so that I stood silent. With a sorrowful shake of the head, Mr. Curwen passed through the door.
"Maybe you are right," said he, disconsolately; and then, "But the question is worth proving"—this bracing his shoulders and making a cut in the air with an imaginary sabre. However, Mary Tyson bustled forward to help him off with his great-coat, and scolded all the boldness out of him in the space of a minute, drawing such a picture of the anxiety into which his early outgoing and late home-coming had thrown the household, as melted him to humility.
"It was to do me a service," said I, interposing myself.
"And the more shame to you," says she, bluntly; "white hairs must wait on young legs!" and off she flung to the kitchen.
It was not until the following morning that Dorothy made allusion to his absence.
"I went on business to Whitehaven," he replied with a prodigious wink at me, which twisted the whole side of his face—his daughter could not but have observed it—"though the business might have waited;" and he added hurriedly, "However, I bring a message for you, my dear, for I chanced to meet old Mr. Aislabie in the street, and he sent his love to Miss Cherry-cheeks."
"Cherry-cheeks!" cried she, indignantly, "Cherry-cheeks! How dare he? Is it a bumpkin, a fat country milk-maid he takes me for?"
"My dear," said Mr. Curwen, with the gentlest spice of raillery, "you certainly deserve the charming title now."
She said no more concerning the journey to Whitehaven, being much occupied with her indignation. Once or twice I heard her mutter, "Cherry-cheeks!" to herself, but with a tone as though her tongue was too delicate for the gross epithet, and, as if to disprove its suitability, she sailed in to dinner that day with her hair all piled and builded on the top of her head under a little cap of lace, and a great hoop petticoat of silk, and the funniest little shoes of green and gold brocade with wonderful big paste buckles and the highest heels that ever I saw. Nor was that the whole of her protest. For though, as a rule, she was of a healthy, sensible appetite, now she would only toy with her meat, protesting that she could not eat a bit.
"I have no doubt," says I, "but what you are troubled with the vapours," and got a haughty glance of contempt for my pains. And after dinner what does she do but sit in great state in the drawing-room, with her little feet daintily crossed upon a velvet cushion, fanning herself languidly, and talking of French gowns, as the latest Newsletter represented them, and the staleness of matrimony, and such-like fashionable matters.
"But no doubt," says she with a shrug of the shoulders, and a pretty voice of insolence, "Mr. Clavering will marry;" she paused for a second. "And what will the wife be like?"
I was taken aback by the question, and from looking on her face, I looked to the ground or rather to the velvet cushion by which I happened to be sitting. It was for that reason, that not knowing clearly what I should say, I answered absently—
"She must have a foot."
"I suppose so," she replied, "and why not two?"
"Yes!" I continued slowly, "she must certainly have a foot."
"And maybe a head with eyes and a mouth to it," says she; "or does not your modesty ask so much?"
"I wonder you can walk on them at all," said I.
The heels were popped on the instant demurely under the hoop petticoat.
"Owl," she said in a very soft, low, reflective voice, addressing the word in a sort of general way to the four walls of the room.
"Miss Cherry-cheeks," said I, in as near the same tone as I could manage.
She rose immediately, the very figure of stateliness and dignity, swam out of the room, without so much as a word or a nod, and, I must suppose, went hungry to bed; for we saw no more of her that night.
For the next few days, as may be guessed, we lived in a great excitement and stress of expectation at Applegarth. Mr. Curwen would get him to his horse early of the morning, now rather encouraged thereto than dissuaded, and ride hither and thither about the country side, the while his daughter and I bided impatiently for his return. I cannot say, however, that the information which he gleaned was a comfort to compensate us for the impatience of our waiting. From Scotland, indeed, the news was good. We heard that the Earl of Mar was gathering his forces at the market-town of Moulin, and that the sixty men who proclaimed King James at Kirkmichael were now swelled to a thousand. But of England—or rather of those parts of it which lay about us—it was ever the same disheartening story that he carried back, a story of messengers buzzing backwards and forwards, betwixt a poor handful of landlords, and, for the rest, of men going quietly about their daily work. Once or twice, indeed, he returned uplifted with a rumour that the towns of Lancashire were only waiting for the Scottish army to march into England, before they mounted the White Cockade; on another occasion he satisfied us with a fairy-tale that the insurgents had but to appear before the walls, and Newcastle would forthwith open its gates; and at such times the old panels of the parlour would ring with laughter, as doubtless they had rung in the old days after Atherton Moor, and I would sit with a heart unworthily lightened by a thought that I might escape the payment which was due. But for the most part I had ever in my mind Lord Derwentwater's word about the pawns, and those yet earlier forebodings of my kinsman Bolingbroke. It seemed to me, indeed, that in this very rising of the Earl of Mar's, I had a proof of the accuracy of his forecasts. For he had sent word that the rebellion would be deferred, and here were the orders reversed behind his back. Moreover, we heard that the French King had died upon September 1st, and that I counted the most disheartening of calamities.
In this way, then, a week went by. On the evening of the eighth day, being the 25th September, I was leaning my elbows on the gate of the little garden, when I heard a heavy step behind me on the gravel. I turned, and there was Mary Tyson. It seemed to me that she was barring the path.
"Good-evening, Mary," said I, as pleasantly as possible.
"I am wishing for the day," said she, "when I can say the same to you, Mr. Clavering."
"And why?" said I, in astonishment. "It is no doing of mine that Mr. Curwen rides loose about the country-side."
"It is not of the father I am thinking," she interrupted; and I felt as though she had struck me.
"What do you mean?" I asked shortly.
"I know," she said, "this is no way for a rough old serving-body to speak to the likes of you. But see, sir," and her voice took on a curiously gentle and pleading tone, "I remember when she couldn't clinch her fist round one of my fingers. It's milk of mine, too, that has fed her, and it's honey to my heart to think she owes some of her sunshine to it I've seen her here at Applegarth grow from baby to child, and from child to woman. Yes, woman, woman," she repeated; "perhaps you forget that."
"No, indeed," said I, perplexed as to what she would be at; "it was the first thought I had of her."
"Then the more blame to you," she cried, and speech rushed out of her in a passion. "What is it that you're seeking of her—you that's hunted, with a price on your head? What is it? what is it?" And she stretched out her great arms on either side of her as though to make a barrier against myself. "Ah, if I were sure it would bring no harm on her, you should have the soldiers on your heels to-morrow. Many and many's the time I've been tempted to it when I've spied you in the orchard or on the lake. I have been sore tempted to it—sore tempted! What is it you want of her? It's the brother's clothes you are wearing, but is it the brother's heart beneath them?"
"Good God, woman!" I cried, dumfounded by her words.
She stood in the dusk before me, her grotesque figure dignified out of all knowledge by the greatness of her love for Dorothy. The very audacity of her words was a convincing evidence of that, and at the sight of her the anger died out of my heart. If she accused me unjustly, why, it was to protect Dorothy, and that made amends for all. Nay, I could almost thank her for the accusation, and I answered very humbly—
"I am like to get little good in my life, but may I get less when that is done if ever I had a thought which could disparage her."
"And how will I be sure of that?" asked Mary Tyson.
"Because I love her," said I.
An older man would have made, and a more experienced woman would have preferred, perhaps, a different answer; but I suppose she gauged it by the depth of her own affection. It struck root in a responsive soil.
"Ay, and how could you help it!" she cried, with a little note of triumph in her voice. But the voice in an instant deadened with anxiety. "You will have told her?"
"Not a syllable," says I. "I am, as you say, a man with a price on his head. I may be mated with an axe, but it is the only mate that I can come by."
She drew a deep breath of relief, and hearing it I laughed, but with no merriment at my heart She took a step forward on the instant.
"Well, and I am sorry," said she, "for you are not so ill-looking a lad in the brother's clothes." It was a whimsical reason, but given in a voice of some tenderness. "Not so ill-looking," she repeated, and at that her alarm reawakened. "But there's a danger in that!" she cries. "Miss Dorothy has lived here alone, with but a rare visitor once or twice in the twelvemonths. Maybe you speak to her in the same voice you use to me."
"Nay," I interposed, and this time my laugh rang sound enough. "Miss Curwen treats me with friendliness—a jesting friendliness, which is the very preclusion of love."
She bent forward a little, peering at me.
"Well, it may be," said she, "though I would never trust a boy's judgment on anything, let alone a woman."
Dorothy's voice called her from the house. She looked over her shoulder, and went on, lowering her tone—
"Look," said she, "at these boulders here," and she pointed to the darkening hillside. "They are landmarks to our shepherds in the mist But when the snow lies deep in winter, they will cross them and never know until they come to something else that tells them. It's so with us. We cross from this friendliness into love, thinking there are landmarks to guide us; but the landmarks may be hid, and we do not know until something else tells us we have crossed. And with some," and she nodded back towards the house, "there will be no retracing of the steps. Suppose you left your image with her. A treasure she will think it. It will prove a curse. You say you care for her?"
I saw what she was coming to, and nodded in assent.
"There is the one way to show it—not to her. No, not to her. That is the hardest thing I know, but the truest proof, that you will be content, for your love's sake, to let her think ill of you."
Dorothy's voice sounded yet louder. She came out into the porch. Mary Tyson hurried towards her, and receiving some order, disappeared into the house. Dorothy came slowly down the path towards me.
"You were very busy with Mary Tyson," said she.
"She was talking to me of the landmarks," said I.
"But one cannot see them," said she, looking towards the hillside.
I stood silent by her side. It was not that Mary Tyson's words had so greatly impressed me. I believed, indeed, that she spoke out of an overmastering jealousy for the girl's welfare. But I asked myself, since she had said so much, knowing so little of me, what would she have said had she known the truth? The temptation to set the sheriff on my path would long ago, I was certain, have become an accomplished act. Nor could I have blamed her. I was brought back to my old thought that I was wearing this girl's friendship as a thief may wear a stolen cloak.
"There is something I ought to tell you," said I suddenly, and came to a no less sudden stop, the moment that the sound of the words told me whither I was going. "But at this time," I continued in the lamest of conclusions, "I have no right to tell it you," and so babbled a word or two more.
She gave a little quiet laugh, and instead of answering me, began to hum over to herself that melody of "The Honest Lover." In the midst of a bar she broke off. I heard her breath come and go quickly. She turned and ran into the house.
That night, at all events, I acted upon an impulse of which I have never doubted the rectitude. Since I could not restore to her the stolen cloak, I took that other course, and dropped it by the wayside. I wrote a brief note of thanks to Mr. Curwen, and when the house was quiet, I crept from my room along the passage, and dropping out of that window which my host had shown me on the night of my coming to Applegarth, betook me under the star-shine across the fells.
That night I lay in the bracken on the hillside looking down into Ennerdale. Far below I could see one light burning in an upper window at the eastern side of Applegarth. It burned in Dorothy's chamber, and its yellow homeliness tugged at my heart as I lay there, the lonesome darkness about me, the shrill cry of the wind in my ears. The light burned very late that night. The clouds were gradually drawn like a curtain beneath the stars, and still it burned, and it was the blurring of the rain which at the last hid it from my sight.
For the next three days I hid amongst the hills betwixt Borrowdale and Applegarth. I was now fallen upon the last days of September, and the weather very shrewd with black drenching storms of rain which would sweep up the valleys with extraordinary suddenness, impenetrable as a screen, blotting out the world. The wind, too, blew from the north, bitter and cold, moaning up and down the faces of cliffs, whistling through the grasses, with a sound inimitably desolate, and twisting to a very whirlpool in the gaps between the mountain-peaks. To make my case the harder, I had come away in that haste, and oblivion of all but the necessity of my departure, that I had made little provision in my dress to defend me against the lashing of the wind and rain. I had picked up a hat and a long cloak, it is true, but for the rest, I wore no stouter covering than that suit of white which Mary Tyson had laid out for me so reluctantly. It was an unfit garb for my present life, and one that was to prove a considerable danger to me. But it was the cold discomfort of it which vexed me now. I had occasion enough to reflect on the folly of my precipitation, as I lay crouched in some draughty cave of boulders, watching the livelong day the clouds lower and lift, the battalions of the rain trample across the fells, and seeking to warm myself with the thought of that army in Scotland marching to the English borders. At nightfall I would creep down into Borrowdale, procure food from one of my old tenants who was well-disposed to me, and so get me back again to some jutting corner whence I could look down Gillerthwaite to Applegarth. But I looked in vain for the lights of the house. On the night of my departure, I saw them, but never afterwards, even when the air was of the clearest, so that I knew not what to think, and was almost persuaded to return to the house, that I might ascertain the cause of their disappearance.
So for four days and nights, whilst an old thought shaped to a resolve. For in the pocket of my coat, I had carried away not merely the button I had discovered in the garden at Blackladies—that never left my person—but the letter Tash had brought to me from Lord Derwentwater. I had been interrupted in the reading of it by Mr. Curwen's return, and so crammed it into my pocket with some part of it unread. However, I gave very careful heed to it now.
"My own affairs," it ran on, "have come to so desperate a pass that I dare not poke my nose into the matter of Herbert's disappearance; I live, indeed, myself, in hourly expectation of arrest. Your servant came again to me from Blackladies the other day, and told me a watch was no longer kept upon the house."
And since I had no knowledge that England was stirring in support of the rebellion, I determined to hazard an interview with my cousin, and so late on the fifth night climbed into the garden of Blackladies and let myself into the house as I had once seen Jervas Rookley do. I stood for a little in the parlour, feeling the darkness throb heavily about me with all the memories of that fatal night which had compassed my undoing.
Then I crossed towards the hall, but, my cloak flapping and dragging noisily at a chair as I passed, I loosed it from my shoulders and left it there. No lamp was burning in the hall, and since the curtains were drawn close over the lower windows, only the faintest of twilights penetrating through the upper panes made a doubtful glimmering beneath the roof; so that one seemed to be standing in a deep well.
The dining-room lay to my right on the further side of the hall. I made towards it, and of a sudden came sharply to a halt, my heart fairly quivering within me. For it seemed to me that the figure of a man had suddenly sprung out of the darkness and was advancing to me, but so close that the next step would bring our heads knocking against each other. And he had made no sound. As I stopped, the figure stopped. For a moment I stood watching it, holding my breath, then I clapped my hand to my sword, and the next moment I could have laughed at my alarm. For the figure copied my gesture. It was, moreover, dressed in clothes of a white colour from top to toe, and it was for that reason I saw its movements so distinctly. But I was likewise dressed in white. The one difference, in fact, between us which I noted was a certain black sheen in which it stood framed. I reached out a hand; it slid upon the polished surface of a great mirror.
The dining-room, I knew, opened at the side of this mirror, and I groped cautiously for the handle of the door, but before I found it my hand knocked against the key. With equal caution I opened the door to the width of an inch or so. A steady light shone upon the side of the wall, and through the opening there came the sound of a man snoring. I put my head into the room; and there to my inexpressible relief was Jervas Rookley. He was dressed in a suit of black satin, stretched to his full length upon a chair in front of a blazing fire, his head thrown back, his periwig on the floor, his cravat loosened, his shoes unbuckled off his feet.
I closed the door behind me; then opened it again and pocketed the key against which my hand had struck. The truth is that now that I was come into the man's presence, which I had before considered the most difficult part of the business, I now, on the contrary, saw very clearly that it was the easiest. I had not merely to come into his presence; I had to win out of it afterwards; and moreover I had somehow or other to twist from him the information about Mr. Herbert's whereabouts, for which I had adventured the visit.
I stepped on tiptoe across the carpet and seated myself in a chair facing him at the corner of the fireplace. Then I sought to arrange and order the questions I should put to him. But in truth I found the task well-nigh beyond my powers. It was all very well to tell myself that I was here on behalf of my remnant honour to secure the enlargement of Mr. Herbert. But the man was face to face with me; the firelight played upon his honest face and outstretched limbs; and I felt hatred spring up in me and kindle through my veins like fire. Up till now, so engrossed had I been by the turmoil of my own more personal troubles, I had given little serious thought to Jervas Rookley: I had taken his treachery almost callously as an accepted thing, and the depths of my indignation had only been stirred against myself. Now, however, every piece of trickery he had used on me crowded in upon my recollections. I might cry out within myself, "Anthony Herbert! Anthony Herbert!" Anthony Herbert was none the less pushed to the backward of my mind. That honest face was upturned to the light, and my thoughts swarmed about it I scanned it most carefully. It was more than common flushed and swollen, for which I was at no loss to account, since a bottle of French brandy stood on a little table at his elbow, three parts empty, and a carafe of water three parts full. I reached over for the bottle, and rinsing out his glass, helped myself, bethinking me that after my exposure of the three last days, its invigoration might prove of use to me.
But as I sat there and drank the brandy and watched Jervas Rookley's face, my fingers ever strayed to the hilt of my sword; I moved the weapon gently backwards and forwards so as to satisfy my ears with the pleasant jingle of the hanger; I half drew the blade from the sheath and rubbed my thumb along the edge until the blood came; and then I sat looking at the blood, and from the blood to Jervas Rookley, until at last an overmastering desire grew hot about my heart It was no longer the edge or the point of the sword which I desired to employ. I wanted to smash in that broad, honest face with the big pommel, and I feared the moment of his awakening lest I should yield to the temptation.
Fortunately, his first movement was one that diverted my thoughts. For as he opened his eyes he stretched out his hands to the brandy bottle. It was near to my elbow, however, on the mantelpiece, and I refilled my own glass. It was, I think, the sound of the liquor tinkling into the glass more than the words I spoke to him which made Rookley open his eyes. He blinked at me for a moment.
"You?" said he, but blankly with the stupor of his sleep still heavy upon him.
"Yes!" said I, drinking the brandy.
He followed the glass to my lips and woke to the possession of some part of his senses.
"I had expected you before," says he, and sits clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth and swallowing, as though his throat was parched.
"So I believe," I returned. "You had even gone so far as to prepare for me a fitting welcome."
He was by this time wide awake. He picked up his peruke, clapped it on his head, and stood up in his stocking feet.
"Your servants, sir," says he with inimitable assurance, "will always honour their master with a fitting welcome, so long as I am steward, on whatever misfortunes he may have declined."
"I meant," said I, "a welcome not so much fitting my mastership as that honesty of yours, Mr. Rookley, which my Lord Derwentwater tells me is all on the outside."
I bent forward, keeping my eyes upon his face. But not a muscle jerked in it.
"Ah!" said he, in an indifferent voice. "Did Lord Derwentwater tell you that? Well, I had never a great respect for his discernment;" and he stood looking into the fire. Then he glanced at me and uttered a quiet little laugh.
"So you knew," said he, easily, "I had it in my mind, but I could not be certain."
"I have known it——" I cried, exasperated out of all control by his cool audacity; and with a wave of the hand he interrupted me.
"You will excuse me," he said politely; and then, "There is no longer any reason why I should stand, is there?" and he resumed his seat and slipped his feet into his shoes. "Now," said he, "if you will pass the bottle."
"No," I roared in a fury.
"Well, well," he returned, "since there seems some doubt which of us is host and which guest, I will not press the request. You were saying that you have known it——?"
"Since one evening when you showed me a private entrance into Blackladies," I cried; and bending forward to press upon him the knowledge that he had thereby foiled himself, I added in some triumph, "I have great reason to thank you for that, Mr. Jervas Rookley."
He leaned forward too, so that our heads were close together.
"And for more than that," said he. "Believe me, dear Mr. Clavering, that is by no means all you have to thank me for;" and he very affectionately patted my knee.
"And that is very true," says I, as I drew my knee away. "For I have to thank you for the fourth part of a bottle of brandy, but I cannot just bring to mind any other occasion of gratitude."
"Oh, gratitude!" says he, with a reproachful shake of the hand. "Fie, Mr. Clavering! Between gentleman and cousins the word stinks—it positively stinks. Whatever little service I have done for you, calls for no such big-sounding name."
His voice, his looks, his gestures were such as a man notes only in a friend, and a friend that is perplexed by some unaccountable suspicion.
"But you spoke of honesty," he continued, throwing a knee across the other and spreading out his hands. "It is very true I played a trick on you in coming to Paris as your servant But it is a trick which my betters had used before me. Your Duke of Ormond got him into France with the help of a lackey's livery. And your redoubtable Mar——"
At that name I started.
"It is indeed so," he said earnestly. "The Earl of Mar, I have it on the best authority, worked his passage as a collier into Scotland."
It was not, however, that I was concerned at all as to how the Earl of Mar had escaped unremarked from London. But it suddenly occurred to me, as an explanation of Rookley's friendly demeanour, that the insurrection might be sweeping southwards on a higher tide of success than I had been disposed to credit. If that was the case, Mr. Jervas Rookley would of a certainty be anxious still to keep friends with me.
"So you see, Mr. Clavering," he went on, "I have all the precedents that a man could need to justify me."
"Well," said I, "it is not the trick itself which troubles me so much as your design in executing it."
"Design?" says he, taking me up in a tone of wonderment "You are very suspicious, Mr. Clavering. But I do not wonder at it, knowing in what school you were brought up;" and rising from his chair he took a pipe from the mantel-shelf and commenced to fill it with tobacco, "The suspicion, however, is unjust."
He bent down and plucked a splinter of burning wood out of the fire. "You do not smoke, I believe, but most like you do now, and at all events you will have grown used to the smell."
I started forward and stared at him. He lighted his pipe with great deliberation.
"Yes," said he nodding his head at me, "the suspicion is unjust." He tossed the splinter into the fire and sat down again.
"And how is little Dorothy Curwen?" he asked, with a lazy, contemptuous smile.
I sprang out of my seat, stung by the contempt rather than the surprise his words were like to arouse in me. And this, I think, he perceived, for he laughed to himself. Whereupon I felt my face flush; and that too he noted, and laughed again.
"Then you knew," I exclaimed, recovering myself—"you knew where I was sheltered!"
"A gentleman riding down Gillerthwaite at three o'clock of the morning is a sufficiently rare a sight to attract attention. I believe that, luckily, the shepherd who saw you only gossiped to a tenant of Blackladies."
I remembered the flock of sheep which I had seen scared up the hillside across the valley. But it was on my return from Keswick that I had been remarked—no later than a day after Rookley had striven to encompass my arrest.
"The news," said I, very slowly, "came to you in a roundabout fashion, and took, I suppose, some time in the coming. I infer, therefore, that it came to your ears after the Earl of Mar had risen in Scotland."
I was leaning upon the mantelpiece, looking down into his face, on which the fire shone with a full light; and just for a moment his face changed, the slightest thing in the world, but enough to assure me that my conjecture was right.
"There are inferences, my good cousin," he said sharply, "which it is not over-prudent for a man so delicately circumstanced as yourself to draw."
There was a note of disappointment in his tone, as though he would fain have hoodwinked me still into the belief that he stood my friend. And it suddenly occurred to me that there was a new danger in this knowledge of his—a danger which threatened not so much me as the people who had sheltered me. I resumed accordingly in a more amicable tone:
"It was not, however, of my whereabouts that I came hither to speak to you, but of the whereabouts of Mr. Herbert."
"Mr. Herbert?" says he, playing surprise. "What should I know of Mr. Herbert? Now, if I was to ask you the whereabouts of Mrs. Herbert, there would be some sense in the question, eh?" and he chuckled cunningly and poked a forefinger into my ribs. I struck the hand aside.
"What, indeed, should you know of Mr. Herbert," I cried—"you that plotted his arrest!"
"Arrest?" he interrupted, yet more dumfounded. "Plot?"
"That is the word," said I—"plot! a simple word enough, though with a damned dirty underhand meaning."
"Ah," he returned, with a sneer, "you take that interest in the husband, it appears, which I imagined you to have reserved for his wife. But as for plots and arrests—why, I know no more of what you mean than does the Khan of Crim Tartary."
"Then," said I, "will you tell me why you paid a visit to Mr. Herbert the night before he was arrested? And why you told him that if he came to Blackladies on the afternoon of the next day he would find Mrs. Herbert and myself in the garden?"
It was something of a chance shot, for I had no more than suspicion to warrant me, but it sped straight to its mark. Rookley started back in his chair, huddling his body together. Then he drew himself erect, with a certain defiance.
"But zounds, man!" he exclaimed, like one exasperated with perplexity, "what maggot's in your brains? Why should I send Herbert—devil take the fellow!—to find you in the garden when I knew you would not be there?"
"And I can answer that question with another," said I. "Who were in the garden at the time Mr. Herbert was to discover us?"
"The gardeners, I suppose," said he, thrusting his wig aside to scratch his head.
"It is a queer kind of gardener that wears buttons of this sort," said I; and I pulled the button from my pocket, and held it before his eyes in the palm of my hand.
He bent forward, examined the button, and again looked at me inquiringly.
"I picked it up," I explained, "on a little plot of trampled grass in the Wilderness on the next morning."
Rookley burst into a laugh and slapped his thighs.
"Lord! Mr. Clavering," he cried, and rising from his chair he walked briskly about the room, "your button is something too small to carry so weighty an accusation."
"Nay," I answered, smiling in my turn, "the button, though small, is metal solid enough. It depends upon how closely it is sewn to the cloth of my argument. It is true that I picked up the button on the morning that the soldiers came for me, but I was in the house on the afternoon before, and I saw——"
Jervas Rookley stopped in his walk, and his laughter ceased with the sound of his steps.
"You were in the house?" His mouth so worked that he pronounced the words awry. "You were in the house?"
"In the little parlour which gives on to the terrace."
Had I possessed any doubt before as to his complicity, the doubt would have vanished now. He reeled for a moment as if he had been struck, and the blood mottled in his cheeks.
"The house-door may be left open for one man, but two men may enter it," said I.
"You saw?" He took a step round the table and leaned across the corner of it. "What did you see?"
I took up a lighted candle from the table.
"I will show you," said I, and walked to the door.
He followed me, at first with uncertain steps. The steps grew firm behind my back.
They seemed to me significant of a growing purpose—so in the hall I stopped.
"We are good cousins, you and I," said I, holding the candle so that the flame lighted his face.
"Without a doubt," says he, readily. "You begin to see that you have mistaken me."
"I was thinking rather," said I, "that being good cousins, we might walk arm-in-arm."
"I should count it an honour," said he, with a bow.
"And it will certainly be a relief to me," said I. And accordingly I took his arm.
We crossed the hall into the parlour. The window stood open, as I had left it, with the curtains half drawn. Rookley busily pushed them back while I set the candle down. The sky had cleared during the last half hour, and the moon, which was in its fourth quarter, hung like a globe above the garden.
"I met Mr. Herbert in the hall," said I, "just outside this room. We had some talk—of a kind you can imagine. He went down the steps with his sword drawn. There he dropped his cloak, there he slashed at the bushes. Between those two trees he passed out of sight. I stepped out into the terrace to follow him, but before I had reached the flight of steps, I heard a pistol crack and saw a little cloud of smoke hang above the bushes there. I found the button the next morning at the very spot, and near the button, the pistol. It was Mr. Herbert's pistol. That," said I, "is my part of the story. But perhaps if we go back to the warmer room you will give me your part. For I take it that you were not in the house, else you would have heard my voice, but rather in the garden. You made a great mistake in not looking towards the terrace, my cousin." And again I took his arm, and we walked back.
I was, indeed, rather anxious to discover the whereabouts of Rookley during that afternoon, since so far I had been able to keep Mrs. Herbert's name entirely out of the narrative. If Jervas Rookley had been in the garden during the afternoon, and had only returned to the house in time to intercept Lord Derwentwater's letter concerning the French King's health, and had thereupon ridden off to apply for a warrant against me, why, there was just a chance that I might save Mrs. Herbert from figuring in the business at all.
Rookley said nothing until we were got back into the dining-room, but walked thoughtfully, his arm in mine. I noticed that he was carrying in his left hand the cord by which the curtains in the little parlour were fastened. He stood swinging it to and fro mechanically.
"Your suspicions," said he, "discompose me. They discompose me very much. I gave you credit for more generosity;" and lifting up the brandy bottle, he held it with trembling hands betwixt himself and the candle.
"I am afraid that it is empty," said I.
"If you will pardon me," said he, "I will even fetch another."
He laid the cord upon the table, advanced to the door and opened it wide. I saw him slide his hand across the lock.
"The key is in my pocket," I said.
He looked at me with a sorrowful shake of the head.
"Your suspicions discompose me very much," and he came back for a candle. I noticed too that he carelessly picked up the cord again.
"I think," said I, "that I will help you to fetch that bottle;" and I went with him into the hall.
There was something new in the man's bearing which began to alarm me. He still used the same tone of aggrieved affection, but with an indefinable difference which was none the less very apparent to me. His effort seemed no longer to aim at misleading me, but rather to sustain the pretence that he was aiming to mislead me. It seemed to me that since he had become aware of what I knew concerning his treachery he had devised some new plan, and kept his old tone to hinder me from suspecting it. I noticed, too, a certain deliberateness in the indifference of his walk, a certain intention in the discomposure.
In the hall he stopped, and setting down the candle upon a cabinet, turned to face me.
"Why did you come with me?" he asked gently.
"I did not know but what you might call your servants, and, as you put it, I am delicately circumstanced."
He raised his hands in a gesture of pity.
"See what suspicion leads a man to! My servants hold you in so much respect that if I harboured designs against your safety, to call my servants would be to ruin me."
I was inclined to believe that what he said was in a measure true, for I remembered the interview which I had had with Ashlock in the steward's office, and the subsequent consideration which had been shown me.
Then, "Look!" I cried of a sudden, pointing my arm. Right in front of me on that vacant space of the wall amongst the pictures hung the portrait of Jervas Rookley.
Rookley started ever so little and then stood eyeing me keenly, the while he swung round and round in a little circle the tassel of the curtain cord.
"You prate to me of suspicions," I cried, "there's the proof of their justice. This estate of Blackladies I held on one condition—that you should receive no benefit from it. We jogged side by side, you and I, cousins with hearts cousinly mated in the same endeavour! You still profess it! Then explain to me: how comes it the Whigs leave you alone, you stripped of your inheritance because of the very principles which outlawed me? Explain that, and I'll still believe you. Prove that you live here without the Government's connivance, I'll forget the rest of my suspicions. I'll count you my loyal friend. Only show me this: how comes it that I make my bed upon the bracken, and you lord it at Blackladies? Your presence the common talk, your picture staring from the walls?" and in my rage I plucked my sword from the sheath, and slashed his portrait across the face, lengthwise and breadthwise, in a cross.
The tassel stopped swinging. His shoulders hunched ever so little, his head came forward, the eyes shone out bright like beads, and his face tightened to that expression of foxy cunning I had noted before in mid Channel between Dover and Dunkirk.
"It is a gallant swordsman," he said, with a sneer, "and a prudent too."
"He looks to the original," I cried, "to give him the occasion of imprudence;" and I faced him.
"There is a better way," said he, with the quietest laugh, and he sprang back suddenly to the cabinet on which the candle stood. "We will make a present of a Michaelmas goose to King George."
I saw his hand for an instant poised above the flame, red with the light of it; I saw his figure black from head to foot, and at his elbow another figure white from head to foot, the reflection of myself in the mirror by his side; and then his palm squashed down upon the wick.
The hall fell to darkness just as I made the first step towards him. I halted on the instant. He could see me, I could not see him! He had thrown off the mask; he had proclaimed himself my enemy, and he knew where I had been sheltered. It was that thought which slipped into my mind as the darkness cloaked about me, and made me curse the folly of my intrusion here. I had hazarded not merely myself, but Dorothy and her father. He could see me, I could not see him, and the outcome of this adventure struck at Dorothy.
I stepped backwards as lightly as I could, until the edge of a picture-frame rubbed against my shoulder-blades, and so stood gripping my sword-hilt, straining my ears. Across the hall I seemed to hear Rookley breathing, but it was the only sound I heard. There was no shuffle of a foot; he had not moved.
Above me the twilight glimmered beneath the roof; about me the chamber was black as the inside of a nailed coffin. If I could only reach the windows and tear the curtains back! But half the length of the hall intercepted me, and to reach them I must needs take my back from the wall. That I dared not do, and I stood listening helplessly to the sound of Rookley's breathing. In that pitch-dark hall it seemed to shift from quarter to quarter. At one moment I could have sworn I heard his breath, soft as a sigh, a foot's length from me; I could almost have sworn I felt it on my neck; and in a panic I whirled my sword from side to side, but it touched nothing within the half circle of its reach. My fears indeed so grew upon me, that I was in two minds whether or no to shout and bring the servants about me. It would at all events end the suspense. But I dared not do it. Jervas Rookley distrusted them. But how much more cause had I! I could not risk the safety of Applegarth upon their doubtful loyalty. And then a sharp sound broke in upon the silence. It set my heart fluttering and fainting within me by reason of its abruptness, so that for a moment I was dazed and could not come at the reason of it. It was a clattering sound, and, so far as I could gather, it came from the spot where I had last seen Jervas Rookley standing. It was like—nay, it was the sound of a shoe dropped upon the boards. I know not why, but the sound steadied, though it appalled me. It spoke of a doubled danger and cried for a doubled vigilance. Rookley could not only see my white figure; he could move to it noiselessly, for he was slipping off his shoes.
I listened for the creak of a board, for the light padding sound of stockinged feet, for the rustle of his coat; and while I listened, I moved my sword gently in front of me, but my sword touched nothing and my ears heard nothing. Yet he must be coming—stealthily stepping across the hall—-I felt him coming. But from what quarter would he come? During those seconds of waiting the question became a torture.
And then a momentary hope shot through me. When he put the candle out his sword was in the scabbard. He had not drawn it, since I had listened so strenuously that I must have heard. However carefully he drew it, a chain would clink; or if not that, the scabbard might knock against his leg; or if not that, there would be a little whirr, a sort of whisper as the blade slid upwards out of the sheath.
There was still a chance, then. At that point of the darkness from which the sound should come I would strike—strike the moment I heard it, with all my strength, down towards the floor. I tightened my fingers about my sword-hilt and waited. But it was a very different noise which struck upon my hearing, a noise that a man may make in the dragging of a heavy sack. I drew myself up close to the wall, setting my feet together, pressing my heels against the panels. The sound filled me with such terror as I think never before or since I have known the like of. For I could not explain it to myself. I only knew that it was dangerous. It seemed to me to come from somewhere about midway of the room, and I held my breath that I might judge the better on its repetition. After a moment it was repeated, but nearer, and by its proximity it sounded so much the more dangerous. I sprang towards it. A sobbing cry leapt from my lips, and I lunged at a venture into the darkness. But again my sword touched nothing, and with the force of that unresisted thrust I stumbled forward for a step or two. My cry changed into a veritable scream. I felt the fingers of a hand gently steal about each of my ankles and then tighten on them like iron fetters. I understood; halfway across the room Rookley had lowered himself full-length upon the floor and was crawling towards me. I raised my sword to strike, but even as I raised it he jerked my feet from beneath me, and I fell face forwards with a crash right across his body. My sword flew out of my hand and went rolling and clattering into the darkness. My forehead struck against the boards, and for a moment I lay half stunned. It was only for a moment, but when that moment had passed, Jervas Rookley was upon me, above me, his arms twined about mine and drawing them behind me, his knees pressed with all his might into the small of my back.
"We will truss the goose before we send it to King George," said he.
Then I remembered the curtain cord. I felt that Rookley was trying to pass it from one hand to the other beneath my arms; I could hear the tassel bobbing and jerking on the floor, and I summoned all my strength to draw my arms apart. For if he prevailed, here was the end of all my fine resolve to secure Mr. Herbert's enlargement!
I had flattered myself with that prospective atonement, as though it was a worthy action already counted to my credit. I saw this in a flash now, now that I was failing again, and the perception was like an agony in my bones. It seemed to me that a woman's face rose out of the darkness before me, mournful with reproach, and the face was not the wife's who waited in Keswick, but Dorothy's. She looked at me from beneath a hood half thrown back from the head and across her shoulder, as though she had passed me, even as I had seen in my fancies a woman's face look at me, when I had watched the procession of my hours to come in the Rector's Library at the Jesuit College.
Meanwhile Rookley's knee so closely pressed me to the floor that my struggles did but exhaust myself, and delay the event. I was no match for him in bodily strength, and he held me, moreover, at that disadvantage wherein a weak man might well have triumphed over a strong.
I could get no purchase either with hand or foot, and lay like a fish flapping helplessly on the deck of a boat, the while he pressed my arms closer and closer together.
It is not to be imagined that this unequal contest lasted any great while. The thoughts which I have described raced through my mind while my cry seemed still to be echoing about the walls, and as though in answer to that cry, a latch clicked as I felt the cord tighten about my elbows.
The sound came from somewhere on the opposite side of the hall, and I do not think that Rookley heard it, for now and again he laughed in a low, satisfied fashion as though engrossed in the pleasure of his task. I heard a shuffling of feet, and a light brightened in the passage which led to the steward's office. A great hope sprang up within me. There was one servant in the house whom I could trust.
"Ashlock!" I shouted at the top of my voice.
The footsteps quickened to a run.
"Damn you!" muttered Rookley, and he let go the cord. He had raised his hand to strike, but I did not give him time for the blow. With a final effort I gathered up my knees beneath me and raised myself on my fore-arms. Rookley's balance was disturbed already. He put out a hand to the floor. I got the sole of my foot upon the boards, jerked him off my back, and rolled over upon him with my fingers at his throat. Ashlock ran towards us with a lighted lamp in his hand. I let go my hold and got to my feet. Rookley did the same.
"You came in the nick of time," said Rookley, "My good cousin would have murdered me;" and he arranged his cravat.
"That's a lie," said I, with a breath between each word.
"It was Mr. Clavering's cry I heard," said Ashlock.
And while he spoke a commotion arose in the upper part of the house. Doors opened and shut, there was a hurry of footsteps along the passages, and voice called to voice in alarm. My cry had roused the household, and I saw Jervas Rookley smile. I crossed the hall and picked up my sword. As I returned with it, I saw here and there a white face popped over the balusters of the staircase.
"I have fought with you in your way," said I. "It is your turn to fight with me in mine."
Rookley crossed his arms.
"To fight with a hunted traitor!" said he. "Indeed, my cousin, you ask too much of me; I would not rob the gallows of so choice a morsel. Burtham, Wilson, Blacket!" and he lazily called up the stairs to the servants clustered there. "This is your work. Ashlock, do you carry the news to the sheriff."
I glanced at Ashlock; he did not stir. On the staircase I heard a conflict of muttering voices, but as yet no one had descended. So a full minute passed, while my life and more than my life hung in the balance.
I kept my eyes on Rookley, debating in my mind what I should do, if his servants obeyed him. Every nerve in my body tingled with the desire to drive at him with my sword point; but he stood, quietly smiling, his arms folded, his legs crossed. I could not touch him; being unarmed he was best armed of all, and doubtless he knew it.
"Well!" he asked, as with some impatience. "Are my servants leagued against their master to betray his King?"
One man descended a couple of steps, and then Ashlock spoke.
"Sir," he said, "it is not for poor men like us to talk of kings. Kings are for you, masters are for us. And as it seems there are two kings for you to choose between, so there are two masters for the likes of us. And for my part," he raised his voice, and with his voice his face, towards the stairs—"for my part, I stand here;" and he crossed over to me and stood by my side.
I can see the old man now as he held up the lamp in his tremulous hand and the light fell upon his wrinkled face. I can hear his voice ringing out bold and confident. It was Ashlock who saved me that night. I saw the servants draw back at his words, and the mutter of voices recommenced.
"Very well," cried Rookley, starting forward. "Choose him for your master, then, and see what comes of it!" He shook his fist towards the servants in his passion. "One and all you pack to-morrow. Your master, I tell you, is the master of Blackladies."
"They have no master, then," I cried, for it seemed that at his words they again pressed forward. "For you have less right here than I."
Rookley turned and took a step or two towards me, his eyes blazing, his face white. But he spoke in a low voice, nodding his head between the words:
"They shall pay for this at Applegarth."
It was my turn to start forward.
"Dorothy Curwen shall pay for this—little Dorothy Curwen!"—with a venomous sneer. "Your friend, eh? But mine too. Ah, my good cousin, it seems your fortune always to come second."
At that I did what I had so much longed to do when I first saw him asleep. He was within two feet of me; I held my drawn sword in my hand. I made no answer to him in speech, but the instant the words were past his lips, I took my sword by the blade, raised it above my head, and brought the hilt crashing down upon his face. He spun round upon his heels and pitched sideways at my feet.
"Now, Ashlock," said I, "get me a horse."
"But there's no such thing, sir, at Blackladies," he replied. "They were seized this many a week back."
"How travels this?" and I pointed to Jervas Rookley.
"He travels no further than between the dining-room and the cellar."
And I crossed into the little parlour and picked up my cloak and hat. Then I returned to the hall. Burtham had raised Jervas Rookley's head upon his knee, and Wilson was coming from the kitchen with a bason of water and a towel. They looked at me doubtfully but said no word. I went to the hall door, unfastened the bolts, and started at a run down the drive. I had not, however, advanced many yards, when a cry from behind brought me to a halt; and in a little, old Ashlock joined me.
"I did but go for my hat, sir," he said, reproachfully. "A bald pate and an old man—they are two things that go ill with a night wind."
He was walking by my side as he spoke, and the words touched me to an extreme tenderness. He was venturing himself, without a question, into unknown perils, and for my sake. I could hear his steps dragging on the gravel, and I stopped.
"It must not be," I said. "God knows I would be blithe and glad to have a friend to bear me company, and it is a true friend you have been to me." I laid a hand upon his shoulder "But it is into dangers and hardships I shall be dragging you, and that I have no right to do without I can give you strength to win through them, and that strength I cannot give. These last days, the rain and hail have beat upon me by day, and the night wind has whistled through my bones in the dark. My roof-tree has been a jutting rock, my bed the sopping bracken, and so it will be still. It needs all my youth to bear it, it will mean death and a quick death to you. You must go back."
"Master Lawrence," he replied, catching at my arm, "Master Lawrence, I cannot go back!" and there was something like a sob in his voice.
"Had we horses," I continued, "I would gladly take you. But even this morning there is work for me to do that cries for all my speed."
Ashlock persisted, however, pleading that I should name a place where he could join me. Two things were plain to me: one that he had resolved to throw his lot in with me; the other that I must cross the fells to Applegarth without the hamper of his companionship. For Jervas Rookley, I felt sure, would seize the first moment of consciousness to exact his retribution. At last a plan occurred to me.
"You have crossed to Lord's Island already," I said. "Go to Lord Derwentwater again. Tell him all you have heard to-night, and make this request in my name: that he will keep you until I send word where you can join me."
"But Lord Derwentwater has fled," Ashlock exclaimed. "He fled north to Mr. Lambert, and thence goes to his own seat at Dilston, in Northumberland."
"He has fled! How know you this?"
"I was at Lord's Island this two days since, sir, seeking news of you. The warrant was out for him even then. He meets Mr. Forster at Greenrig, on the 6th of October. He told me he had sent to your hiding-place and bidden you join him there."
"At Greenrig with Mr. Forster? Then the country's risen." I could have gone down on my knees as I had seen my cousin do. "If only God wills, the rising will succeed;" and I cried out my prayer, from a feeling even deeper than that I cherished for the King. "Listen, Ashlock! The morning is breaking. Do you meet me by noon betwixt Honister Crag and Ennerdale Lake. There is a path; hide within sight of it;" and without waiting to hear more from him I set out at a run across Borrowdale. It was daylight before I had crossed the valley, and the sun was up.
But I cared little now whether or no I was seen and known. Since Jervas Rookley knew I had lain hidden those first weeks at Applegarth—why, it mattered little now who else discovered the fact. But indeed, Jervas Rookley was not the only one who knew.
For when I reached Applegarth, I found the house deserted. I banged at the door, and for my pains heard the echo ring chill and solitary through an empty house. I looked about me; not a living being could be seen. Backwards and forwards I paced in front of those blind windows and the unyielding door. I ran to the back of the house, thinking I might find an entrance there. But the same silence, the same deadly indifference were the only response I got. I know not what wild fears, what horrible surmises passed through my mind! It was because the house had sheltered me, I cried to myself, that desolation made its home there. I dropped on the grass and the tears burst from my eyes. For I remembered how Dorothy had sung within the chambers, how her little feet had danced so lightly down the stairs.