I travelled along the beach until I reached the southern cape of Morecambe Bay, and only now and again swerved inland when I espied ahead of me the smoke and houses of a village. This I did more for safety's sake than for any comfort or celerity in the act of walking. Indeed, the sand, which, being loose and dry, slipped and yielded with every step I took, did, I think, double the labour and tedium of my journey. But on the other hand, the country by the sea-coast was flat, so that I could distinguish the figures of people and the direction of their walk at a long distance—a doubtful advantage, you may say, and one that cut both ways. And so it would have been but for the grassy sand-hills which embossed the wide stretch of shore. It was an easy thing to drop into the grass at the first sight of a stranger and crawl down into the hollows betwixt the hillocks; and had such an one pursued me, he would have had the most unprofitable game of hide-and-seek that ever a man engaged in. I had other reasons besides for keeping near the sea. For since I travelled chiefly by night and in the late and early quarters of the day, I had need of a resting-place when the day was full. Now so long as I kept to the coast I had ever one ready to my hand amongst these lonely and desolate sandhills, where I was easily able to scoop out a bed, and so lie snug from the wind. For another thing, I had thus the noise of the sea continually in my ears. I did not know in truth what great store I set on that, until a little short of Lancaster I turned my back on it. The sea sang to me by day and by night, lulling me like a cradle-song when I lay cushioned among the sand-hills, inspiriting as the drums of an army when I walked through the night. It was not merely that it told me of theSwallowswinging upon its tides, and of the great hopes I drew therefrom, but it spoke too with voices of its own, and whether the voices whispered or turbulently laughed, it was always the same perplexing mystery they hinted of. They seemed to signify a message they could not articulate, and it came upon me sometimes, as I sat tired by the shore, that I would fain sit there and listen until I had plucked out the kernel of its meaning. I used to fancy that once a man could penetrate to that and hold it surely, there would be little more he needed to know, but he would carry it with him, as a magic crystal wherein he could see strangely illuminated and made plain, the eternal mysteries which girded him about.
From Morecambe Bay I turned inland towards the borders of Yorkshire, and passing to the east of Kirby Lonsdale, that I might avoid the line of Forster's march, curved round again towards Grasmere. Here I began to redouble my precautions, seeing that I was come into a country where my face and recent history might be known. For since I had left the coast I had voyaged in no great fear of detection, taking a lift in a carrier's cart when one chanced to pass my way, and now and again hiring a horse for a stage. The apothecary at Preston, in addition to his other benefactions, had provided me with an inconspicuous suit of clothes, and as I had money in my pockets wherewith to pay my way, I was able to press on unremarked, or at least counted no more than a merchant's clerk travelling upon his master's business.
From Grasmere, I mounted by the old path across Coldbarrow Fell, which had first led me to Blackladies, and keeping along the ridge crept down into Keswick late upon the seventh day. There was no light in Mrs. Herbert's lodging as I slipped down the street, and for a second I was seized with a recurrence of my fear that she had left the town. It was only for a second, however. For that conviction which I had first tasted when I rode down Gillerthwaite in the early morning, had been growing stronger and stronger within me, more especially of late. I was possessed by some instinctive foreknowledge that the occasion for which I looked would come; that somehow, somewhere I should be enabled to bring forward my testimony to the clearing of Mr. Herbert from the imputation of disloyalty. It was a thought that more and more I repeated to myself, and each time with a stouter confidence. It may be that these more immediate tasks to which I had set my hand—I mean the rescue of Mr. Curwen and his daughter from the consequence of participation in the rebellion—hindered me from looking very closely into the difficulties of the third and last. It may be, too, that this conviction was in some queer way the particular message which the sea had for me—that I had received the message unconsciously while pondering what it might be. I do not know; I only know that when I repeated it to myself, it sounded like nothing so much as the booming of waves upon a beach.
I slept that night under a familiar boulder on the hillside above Applegarth, and in the early morning I came down to the house, and without much ceremony roused the household. Mary Tyson poked her head out of a window.
"Miss Dorothy?" I cried
"She is asleep."
"Wake her up and let me in!"
So I was in time. Mary Tyson came down and opened the door; and in a little, as I waited in the hall, I heard Dorothy's footsteps on the stairs.
"You have escaped!" she cried; "and my father—you bring bad news of him?"
"No; I thank God for it, I bring good news."
And the blood came into her cheeks with a rush.
I told her briefly how we had escaped from Preston. She listened to the story with shining eyes.
"And all this you have done for—for us?" she said with a singular note of pride in her voice.
"It is little," I replied, "even if what's left to do crowns it successfully. But if in that we go astray, why, it is less than nothing." Thereupon I told her of the plan which I had formed with regard to theSwallow, and of the journey which she and I must take. She listened to me now, however, with an occupied air, and interrupted me before I had come to a close.
"It is you who have done this?" she repeated in the same tone which she had used before.
"I did but keep my promise. It was made to you," I answered simply.
"I am your debtor for all my life."
"No," I cried. "It is the other way about."
"I do not feel the debt," she said very softly, and then raising a face all rosy: "Ah, but I let you stand here!" she exclaimed. "You shall tell me more of your plan while we breakfast, for I am not sure that I gave a careful ear to it;" and taking me by the arm she led me towards the dining-room. "You have come from Preston in all this haste. My poor child!" She spoke in a quite natural tone of pity, and I doubt not but what my appearance gave a reasonable complexion to her pity. It was the motherliness, however, which tickled me.
"What is it you laugh at?" she asked suddenly, her voice changing at once to an imperious dignity.
"I was thinking," said I, "that your head, Miss Curwen, only reaches to my chin."
"If God made me a dwarf," said she, with a freezing stateliness, "it is very courteous of you to reproach me with it—the most delicate courtesy, upon my word."
She was in truth ever very sensitive as to her height, and anxious to appear taller than she was; for which anxiety there was no reason whatever, since she was just of the right stature, and an inch more or less would have been the spoiling of her; which opinion I most unfortunately expressed to her, and so made matters worse. For said she—
"Your condescension, Mr. Clavering, is very amiable and consoling;" and with that she left me alone in the room, until such a time as breakfast should be ready. I went out, however, in search of Mary Tyson, and finding her, explained my design, and asked her to put together in a bundle the least quantity of clothes which would suffice for Dorothy until she reached France. Mary fell in with the plan immediately, and began to regret her age and bulk that would hinder her from keeping pace with us. But I cut short her discourse, and bidding her hasten on the breakfast, made shift with a basin of water and a towel to hurriedly repair the disarray of my toilet.
For now every instant of delay began to drag upon my spirits. Once upon the hillside, it would be strange, I thought, if we did not contrive to come undetected to Ravenglass. We had to cross two valleys, it is true, but they were both rugged and bleak, with but few dwellings scattered about them, and those only of the poorer sort, inhabited by men cut off from the world by the barrier of the hills, who from very ignorance could not, if they would, meddle in their neighbours' affairs. The one danger of the journey that I foresaw lay, as I have said, in the great fall of snow.
But here within the walls of the house it was altogether different. Danger seemed impending about me. Every moment I looked to hear the beat of hoofs upon the road, and a knocking on the door. It was, I assured myself, the most unlikely thing that on this one day the officers should come for Dorothy Curwen, but the assurance brought me little comfort I tasted in anticipation all the remorse which I should feel if the girl should be taken at the very moment of deliverance.
I was the more glad, therefore, when, on coming into the garden, I found Dorothy already dressed for the journey, in a furred waistcoat and a hood quilted and lined with a rose-coloured taffety.
"That is wise," said I, "for I fear me, Miss Curwen, we shall have it cold before we get to our journey's end."
She said never a word, but stood looking at me, and if glances could make one cold, I should have been shivering then.
"But let me be quick," I continued. "Is it known that you are at Applegarth? Have you ridden far abroad?" And in my anxiety I went over to the window and gazed down the road. Neither did she answer my questions, but, standing by the fireplace, in an even, deliberate voice she began to read me a lecture upon my manners.
"Miss Curwen!" I cried; "do you understand? Every moment you stay here, every word you speak, imperils your liberty."
She waited patiently until I had done, and continued her lecture at the point where I had interrupted her, as though I had not so much as spoken at all.
"This is the purest wilfulness!" I interrupted again, being indeed at my wits' end to know how I should stop her. I think that I showed too much anxiety, with my bobbings at the window, and exclamations, and that, seeing my alarm, she prolonged her speech out of sheer perversity to punish me the more. At last, however, she came to an end, and we set ourselves to the breakfast in silence. However, I was too hot with indignation to keep that silence wisely.
"The most ill-timed talk that ever I heard," I muttered.
She laid her knife and fork on the instant, and quietly recommenced. I rose from the table in a rage, and by a lucky chance hit upon the one argument that would close her lips.
"You forget," said I, "that your father's safety depends on your escape. If you and I are taken here, how shall he get free?" And in a very few minutes after that I took up the bundle Mary Tyson had made ready, and we crossed the threshold of Applegarth and made our way up Gillerthwaite.
It was still early in the morning, but I pushed on with perhaps greater urgency than suited my companion, since I was anxious that we should lie that night in Eskdale. Dorothy, indeed, walked more slowly than was usual with her, and there seemed to me to be an uncertainty in her gait, at which I was the more surprised, since the wind blew from the east, and we, who were moving eastwards, were completely sheltered from it by the cliffs of Great Gable, towering at the head of the valley. The steeper the ascent became, the greater grew the uncertainty of movement, so that I began to feel anxious lest some sickness should have laid hold upon her. I thought it best, however, to say nothing of my suspicion, but contented myself with glancing at her stealthily now and again. There was no hint of sickness discoverable upon her face, only she pursed her lips something sullenly, as though she was persisting in what she knew to be wrong; and once I thought that her eyes caught one of my troubled glances, and she coloured like one ashamed. At last, just as we had topped the summit of the pass, and were beginning to descend the broad, grassy cliffs between that mountain and the Pillar, she spoke, and it was the first time she had opened her lips since we had left Applegarth.
"It is an apology you need, I suppose," said she, with a singular aggressiveness, and my anxiety increased. For since I could not see that I had given her any occasion to take that tone, I was inclined to set it down to some bodily suffering.
"An apology?" I asked, with an effort at a careless laugh. "And what makes you fancy I need that?"
"It is so," she insisted, "else you would not be glowering at me in this ill-humour."
"Nay," I answered seriously, "I am in no ill-humour."
"You are," she interrupted almost viciously. "You are in the worst ill-humour in the world. Well, I do apologize. I should not have kept you waiting at Applegarth."
And I do not think that I ever heard an apology tendered with a worse grace.
"And now that I have begged your pardon," she continued, "I will carry my own bundle, thank you;" and she held out her hand for it.
"No indeed, and that you will not do," said I, hotly, "if you beg pardon from now to Doomsday."
"It is perfectly plain," said she, "that you mean to pick a quarrel with me."
Now, that I took to be the most unjust statement that she could make. And—
"Who began it?" I asked. "Who began the quarrel?"
"It is a question," she replied, with the utmost contempt, "that children ask in a nursery;" and very haughtily she marched in front of me down the hillside.
We had not gone more than a few yards before I stopped, only half stifling the cry which rose to my lips. I plumped down on the grass and fumbled in my pockets. Dorothy paused in her walk, turned, and came back to me.
"What is it?" she cried, and, I must suppose, noting my face, her tone changed in an instant "Lawrence, what is it? What is the paper?"
The paper was that on which Mr. Curwen had sketched the line of our journey. We were come to the curve in our descent into Mosedale from which that line was visible, as plainly marked on the face of the country as on the paper which I held in my hand. On the ridge of the horizon I could see the long back of Muncaster Fell, but it was not that which troubled me. We could keep on the western flank of Muncaster Fell. It was that gap between Scafell and the Screes which leads on to Burnmoor! I looked east and west. This gap that I see, I said to myself, is not the gap which Mr. Curwen meant; there will be another—there will be another! But all the time I knew most surely that this was the gap, and that over it stretched our path. Slantwise across Wastdale, and bearing to the right, Mr. Curwen had said. Well, Wastdale lay at my feet, its fields marked off by their stone walls, like the squares on a chessboard. Yes, that indeed was our way. Why, I could see Burnmoor tarn, of which he had made particular mention, and—and it lay like a pool of ink upon a sheet of white paper. There was the trouble! The wind had blown from the south-east this many a day, and with the wind, the snow; so that while in Gillerthwaite, in Ennerdale, in Newlands, through which I had come to Applegarth, I had seen the snow only upon the hilltops, and had not been troubled with it at all; there on Burnmoor it was massed from end to end. And Burnmoor was five miles across. I looked at Dorothy. Could she traverse it—she that was ailing? Five miles of snow, and the wind sweeping across those five miles like a wave! For there was no doubt but we should have the wind. If I looked upwards towards Scafell, I could see, as it were, the puff of a cannon's smoke rising up into the air. That was the wind whirling the snow. If I looked downwards into Wastdale, I could see the yew-trees by the church tossing their boughs wildly this way and that. I could hear it rushing and seething in Mosedale bottom. I looked at Dorothy, and my anxiety grew to alarm.
"What is it troubles you?" she said again.
Well, somehow or another this line had to be traversed. I should serve no end by increasing her suffering with an anticipation of the evils before us.
"Nothing," I answered, thrusting the paper back into my pocket "I was wondering whether or no I had mistaken our road." And I rose to my feet.
I could perceive from her face that she knew I was concealing some obstacle from her. She turned abruptly from me, and led the way without a word. I followed, noticing, with an ever-increasing dismay, how more and more she wavered as the descent grew steeper. And then all at once I caught sight of something which set me laughing—loudly, extravagantly, as a man will at the sudden coming of a great relief. Dorothy stopped and regarded me, not so much in perplexity, as in the haughtiest displeasure.
"Good lack!" I cried; "nay, don't stare at me. I cannot but laugh. For I believe it was the beginning of a fever troubled you, and now I know it to be a pair of heels."
She flushed very red and turned herself to face me, so that I could no longer see more than the tips of her toes.
"I know too the cause of your anger against me. It was a mere consciousness that you should not be wearing them."
"Oh, what a wiseacre!" says Dorothy, confiding her opinion to the rocks about her. "What a wonderful perceptive wiseacre! how Miss Curwen is honoured with his acquaintance!" All this in a tone of quiet sarcasm, which would have been more effectual had she not stamped her foot upon the ground. For on stamping, the heel slipped upon a loose stone, and had I not been near enough to catch her, the next instant she would have been lying full-length on the ground.
She gave something of a cry as I caught her, and sitting down, panted for a little. We both contemplated the heels. Then I drew out the paper again from my pocket.
"It was this I was considering;" and I handed it to her. "Mr. Curwen sketched it for me, and it is the way we have to go."
I pointed out the gap and the snow upon Burnmoor. She followed the direction of my gaze with a shiver, and again, but this time with equal melancholy, we fell to contemplating the heels.
"I put them on," she explained, with a touch of penitence, "before you said that about my father."
"But you could have changed them afterwards," I rejoined foolishly; and for my pains saw the penitence harden into exasperation.
"Besides, I cannot walk at all without heels," says she, briskly making a catch at her assurance.
"You cannot walk with them, I know, that's a sure thing," I persisted.
She turned to me very quietly—
"In spite of this great knowledge of yours, Mr. Clavering, of which, during the last minute, I have heard so much," she began deliberately, "there is one lesson you have yet to learn and practise. I have remarked the deficiency not only on this but on many occasions. You lack that instinct of tact and discretion which would inform you of the precise moment when you have said enough——"
How much longer she would have continued in this strain I do not know. For I sprang to my feet.
"If it is to be another lecture," I cried, "I accept the conclusion before it is reached. I can guess at it. Heels are your only wear, and the taller the better. Sailors should be enjoined by law to wear them, and they alone preserve the rope-dancer from a sure and inevitable death."
"A wiseacre first," says she, ticking off my qualities upon her fingers, "and now a humorist! Well there! a salad bowl of all the estimable virtues estimably jumbled. And meanwhile," she asked innocently, "are we not wasting time?"
I well-nigh gasped at her audacity; for who was to blame, if not she with the heels? However, this time I was sufficiently wise to keep silence, leaving it to experience to reprove her, as it most surely would. In which conviction I was right, for more than once she tripped on the grass as we descended; halfway down she reluctantly allowed me to assist her with a hand, and as we two moved along the side of Mosedale Beck at the entrance into Wastdale, she wrenched her ankle. The pain of the wrench luckily was not severe, and lasted no great while. She was in truth more startled than hurt, for we were treading the narrowest steep path, and at the side the rocks fell clear for about twenty feet to the torrent.
Thereupon she gave in and allowed me to go forward to a farmhouse lying at no great distance in Wastdale, and procure for her foot-gear of a more suitable kind. And comical enough it looked when she put it on, but I dared not laugh or so much as give hint of a smile, since I saw that her eyes were on the alert to catch me; for the worthy housewife hearing a story that I made up about a young girl who was travelling in a great haste across Ennerdale to visit a father who lay sick beyond there, which story was altogether a lie, though every word of it was truth, made me a present of a pair of her own boots and would take no money for them.
These Dorothy put on. I slipped those she had been wearing into the pockets of my great-coat, and making a hurried meal off some provisions which Mary Tyson had added to the bundle, we again set out.
I was now still more inclined to push forward at our topmost speed, for it was well past midday, and the tokens of foul weather which I had noted in the morning had become yet more distinct. The clearness had gone from the day, the clouds, woolly and grey, sulked upon the mountain-tops and crept down the sides; the wind had suddenly fallen; there was a certain heaviness in the air, as of the expectation of a storm. We went forward into the valley. When we were halfway to the church, a puff of wind, keen and shrewd, blew for an instant in our faces, and then another and another. But that last breath did not die like the rest; it blew continuously, and gathered violence as it blew.
The yew-trees in the churchyard resumed their tossing; we were so near that I could hear the creaking of their boughs. I looked anxiously towards the gap through which we were to pass to Eskdale. It was still clear of the mist, but where a shrub grew, or a tree reached out a branch on the slope beneath the gap, I saw the wind evident as a beating rain; and even as I looked, the gap filled—filled in a second—not with these slow, licking mists, but with a column of tempest that drove exultant, triumphing, and now and again in the midst of it I perceived a whirling gleam of white like foam of the sea.
I looked forwards to the church, backwards to the house. The church was the nearer. I took Dorothy by the elbow.
"Run!" I cried.
"I cannot," she replied, lagging behind.
I pressed her forward.
"You must."
"These shoes——" she began.
"Devil take the shoes!" cried I; and thereupon, with a perversity which even I would not have attributed to her, she slipped a foot out of a shoe, and stepped deliberately into a puddle.
"There," says she, defiant but shivering, "I told you they were too wide."
"You did it of a set purpose," said I. I looked towards the gap: it was no longer visible. The storm was tearing across the valley. I picked up Miss Dorothy Curwen in my arms, and ran with her towards the church. I got to the stone wall of the churchyard; a little wicket gave admittance, but the wicket was latched.
"Let me down!" says Dorothy.
"No!" says I, and I pushed against the wicket with my knee. It yielded; a few flakes of snow beat upon my face; I ran through the opening.
The churchyard, like the church, was the tiniest in the world; the walls about it reached breast high, and within the walls the yews were planted close in a square: so that standing within this square, it seemed to me that the storm had lulled. I carried Dorothy to that side of the church which was sheltered from the wind. I tried the door of the church, but it was locked. I set Dorothy down under the wall, slipped off my great-coat, and wrapped it warm about her.
"Look!" said I, shortly.
Just past the angle of the church the snow swirled forwards—down in the valley here it was rather sleet than snow—lashing the fields through which I had run.
"Where are you going?" said Dorothy, as perhaps with some ostentation I buttoned my coat across my breast.
"To pick up your shoe," said I; and I walked out through the wicket.
"I never met a man of so wicked a perversity," said she from behind me.
When I returned with the shoe, I found Dorothy sitting huddled against the church wall in a very doleful attitude.
"Oh!" she cried remorsefully, as she took the shoe from me, "you are drenched through and through, and it is I that am to blame."
"It matters nothing at all," I replied. "I have been out upon the tops of these ridges, and of nights. It would be strange if I were not inured to a little cold."
"You will take your coat, however."
I had the greatest difficulty in persuading her to keep it; for since I was drenched already, the coat would not dry me, but I should wet the coat. This was the argument I employed to her, though I had another, and a more convincing, to satisfy myself—I mean the sight of her wrapped up in it. It was a big, rough, heavy frieze coat and made a nest for her; she had drawn the collar of it close about her ears, and her face, rosy with warmth and the whipping of the wind as we came across the fields, peeped from the coat, like a moss-rose at the budding.
We sat for a while in silence—for the whistling of the storm was grown so loud, that we had need to shout, and even then the wind snatched up the words out of hearing almost before they had passed our lips.
In front of us the tempest roistered about the valley, twisting the sleet and snow this way and that, shrieking about the bases of the hills, whistling along the invisible ridges; now and again, however, there came a momentary lull, and during one of these intervals the clouds broke upon our left and disclosed the peak of Great Gable. Rising in that way, from the mists that still hid its flanks, the peak seemed so high that you thought it must be slung in mid-air; it stood out black against the grey clouds, barren, impregnable. Dorothy shuddered at the aspect of it.
"You were out upon those heights," she shouted into my ear, "night and day, after you left Applegarth?"
"Yes!" I nodded. Doubtless I should have pointed out that I did not make my bed upon the pinnacles, and that there was all the difference in the world betwixt rain and snow. But, to tell the truth, her anxiety on my account was of that sweetness to me that I could not lightly bring myself to dispense with it. I was debating the matter in my mind, when a tile, loosened by the wind, slid from the roof of the church and smashed upon the ground, a couple of feet from Dorothy. It turned the current of my thoughts effectually. The door of the church I knew to be locked; I crept round to the east end of the building. There was a great window with the panes set in lead, which reached from the roof to within three feet of the ground. And in that window a second window was made by the lowest of these leaded panes. Inserting my knife, I was able to force up the latch which fastened this second window, and found that, with some squeezing and compression, a body might crawl through the opening. I went back to Dorothy. "It will be safer in the church," said I. I climbed through the window by the side of the altar, and turned to help Dorothy in after me. But as I was in the act of helping her, I heard a clatter on the ground without. She was halfway through the window at the moment, and slipped back with a laugh.
"This time," said she, as she appeared again, and set her hands upon the sill—"this time I did not drop it on purpose." And I helped her in.
The church was barely furnished with perhaps a dozen of rough deal pews, and had not even a vestry, so that the parson's surplice lay neatly folded upon a chair in the chancel. Into one of the pews we entered, and since Dorothy was warm within my coat, I took and wrapped the surplice about my shoulders. So we sat side by side, silent, in the gloom of the church, the whitewashed walls glimmering about us, the sleet whipping the windows and tearing at the door. Somehow the sound of the storm had now become very pleasant to me, since it seemed to shut us off, as upon an island, more securely from the world.
It is strange how a man may walk again and again along a quite familiar path with companions who have grown familiar in his thoughts, and then on some one day, in a twinkling, and for no reason that he can afterwards discern, let him think never so hard, the companions with whom he has fared will lose their familiarity, will become, as it were, transfigured, and the spot to which he has come will take on a magical aspect and a magical light He seems to have come thither for the first time on that day; and let him con over the landmarks to prove the fancy wrong, the fancy will none the less abide with him, solid as truth. He recognizes the spot as in some way intimately concerned with him; it seems to have been waiting for him, and for the conjunction of this one particular hour with him. And the picture which he has of it, thus suddenly revealed, becomes henceforth part and parcel of his being, imperishably treasured within the heart of recollection. So, at all events, it was with me.
A picture of this valley in which we were, of this church in which we sat, sprang up before my eyes, and I viewed it with a curious detachment. It was as though I stood upon the rim of the mountains and looked down into the hollow. I saw the desolate hills ringing it about, made yet more desolate by the blurring snow. I saw the little white church set within its stunted, beaten yews, apart in the mid-centre of the valley. It was, too, as though I saw, by some strange clairvoyancy, through the walls, and beheld the two fugitives securely sheltered, side by side, in the dusk of the pew. And the picture has remained clamped in my memory ever since, so that I have but to close my eyes, and not merely do I see it vividly as I did then, but I experience again that vague sense of a voice crying somewhere out of Nature's heart, "This spot has been waiting for you twain, and for this one hour."
It was a movement which Dorothy made, brought me to myself. For she suddenly clasped her hands together with a shudder.
"You are cold?" I cried.
"No," she replied in a low voice. "I was thinking of that peak we saw and the horror of it by night," and her voice trembled for an instant, "and of your watching from the darkness the lights of Applegarth. We were comfortably in our beds; and it rained that night I remember the patter of the rain against the windows."
"Nay," said I, "there was little harm done. I am no snow-man to be washed away by a capful of rain."
She turned to me very quickly.
"Tell me," she said, in a voice no less quick. "The evening that you went from us—you were talking for a long while at the gate with Mary Tyson, you will remember. I interrupted your talk."
"Yes! I remember," I answered, staring straight in front of me.
"Well," she continued, "I have often wondered," her voice sank yet lower, "whether that going of yours was not a flight—flight from—from us at Applegarth. For, after all, it was something Mary Tyson said to you that made you go."
I turned towards her with a start.
"You know what Mary Tyson said?"
She looked at me in silence, her eyes shining out of the dusk. Then she lowered her head.
"I guessed it," she said in a whisper. "I guessed it then, for I know Mary's care for me. And the next morning when we sent her to warn you that the sheriff was at the door, I read it in her face. I mean," said she, recovering herself hastily, "I read your departure in her face, and I knew it was what she had said to you had driven you out, and not your own necessities."
She paused; I did not answer.
"The knowledge has troubled me sorely," she said, "for you were our guest."
"It made but the one night's difference," I urged, "for on the morrow came the officers."
"Ah! but that was the accident," she answered shrewdly. "They might not have come—they might never have come—and still you would have fled. I have said this much to you," she went on with a change of tone, "because I would have you look on me just as a friend, who trusts you, who has great cause to trust and thank you, and who would count it a very real happiness if she could, in any small way, repay you. I told you when we met on your march that I knew there was some great trouble."
"And the answer I gave to you then, I must give now. I am bound to face that trouble by myself. It was my sin brought it about."
"Ah! but one never knows whence help may come," she replied; and the gentle earnestness with which she spoke so tempted me to unbosom myself, that instinctively I drew away from her. "You think it is just a woman's curiosity which prompts me," she cried, mistaking my movement. "Ah! no. Acquit me of that fault! I am not sure, but it may be that I can help you."
Did she know? I wondered. My thoughts went back to that last meeting near Penrith. I had spoken then of a prison-door which must close between us twain, and she had made an answer which seemed to hint a suspicion of the truth.
"And even if I cannot, the mere telling sometimes helps," she continued, "so long as one tells it to a friend. I mean"—and here she began to speak very slowly, choosing her words, and with a certain difficulty in the utterance—"I mean I was afraid that something Mary might have said checks you. There are things one does not confide to an acquaintance, or, again, to one whom you think to look upon you as ever so much nearer than an acquaintance. But to a friend, yes! A friend is a halfway house between, where one can take one's ease;" and she drew a breath, like one that has come to the end of a dangerous task.
As for me, I sat listening to that word "friend." The walls seemed to retain it, and whisper it again to me after she had ceased, and in the changing tones which she had used. For now Dorothy had spoken it with an earnest insistence, as though anxious—almost over-anxious—I should just accept the phrase as the true definition of what she felt towards me; and now her voice had faltered and stumbled at the word. It may have been a lack of modesty—I cannot tell—but I think it would have been the falsest modesty in the world had I affected to neglect the manner of the speech, while considering the matter of it. But be it as it may, the one thought which rose in my mind, engrossing me, distinct, horrible in distinctness, was this: What if that word "friend" cloaked and concealed another—another which, but for those few weeks at Blackladies, I might—who knows!—perhaps have persuaded her to speak? Why then, if that was true, here was I implicating, in distress, the one woman who was chiefest in the front of my thoughts.
How that sin of mine reached out, making me a ban and a curse, bearing its evil fruit in unimaginable ways! And in the agony of my heart I cried—
"Would to God I had never come to Applegarth!"
The cry rang fierce and sharp through the little church. Silence succeeded it, and then—
"That is not very kind," said Dorothy, with a tremulous reproach, "It pains me."
"Ah! don't mistake," I went on. "For myself, I could not hope to make you understand what my visit there has meant to me. I came to Applegarth on an evening. The day I had passed waiting upon the hillside, and while I was waiting there, I made a resolve to repair, under God's will, a great wrong. Well, when I first saw you, I had but one thought—a thought of very sincere gladness that I had come to that resolve or ever I had had speech with you. And during the weeks that followed, this resolve drew strength and vigour from your companionship. That vigour and that strength it keeps, so that my one fear now is, lest chance may bar me from the performance. That is your doing. For until I came to Applegarth, all my life behind me was littered with broken pledges."
She laid her hand for an instant upon my sleeve.
"But what return have I made to you," I continued, "except a pitiful hypocrisy? I came to Applegarth an outlaw—yes, my one fault my loyalty! So you believed; so I let you believe. I wore your brother's clothes, and he died at Malplaquet. There was hypocrisy in the wearing of them!" And I turned suddenly towards her. "There was a picture I once saw—the picture of a dead man speaking. Even then it seemed to me an image of myself."
"A dead man speaking!" interrupted Dorothy, with a start.
"Yes!" said I, and I told her of the picture which Lord Bolingbroke had shown to me at the monastery of the Chartreux in Paris, and of the thought which I had drawn from it.
"A dead man speaking," she repeated, in a voice which seemed hushed with awe; "how strange!"
The storm had ceased to beat the window; the dusk was deepening to darkness; the silence was about us like a garment. I sat wondering at Dorothy's tone, wondering whether I should say what yet remained to say. But I had made use before of secrecy and deception. It would be best I should simply speak the truth.
"A dead man speaking," again said Dorothy.
"I had warning enough, you see," said I, "and I recognized the warning. The picture seized upon my thoughts. I knew it for an allegory, but made no profit of my knowledge. And so the allegory turns fact."
"What do you mean?" she asked, catching her breath.
"Oh, don't speak until I have done!" I cried "I find it hard enough to tell you as it is while you sit silent. But the sound of your voice cheats me of my strength, sets the duty beyond my reach. For it is a duty." I paused for a moment to recover the mastery of my senses. "I spoke to you once of a prison-door which would close between you and me. But that was not the whole of the truth. That prison-door will close, but it will open again; I shall come out from it, but upon a hurdle."
"Oh no!" cried Dorothy in such a voice of pain as I pray God I may never hear the like of again. I felt it rive my heart. She swayed forward; her forehead would have struck the rail of the pew in front. I put my arm around her shoulders and drew her towards me. I felt her face pressed against my bosom, her fingers twining tightly upon my coat.
"Yes, yes, it is true," I went on. "The allegory turns fact. Even in Paris, those months agone, I came to look upon myself as the figure in the picture, as the dead man speaking, meaning thereby the hypocrite detected. But now the words take on a literal meaning. It is a dead man who is speaking to you—no more than that—in very truth a dead man. You must believe it; and believe this too, that since my cup of life this long while back has over-brimmed with shame, and since it was I who filled it why, I could go very lightly to my death, but for the fear lest it should cause my little friend to suffer pain."
She disengaged herself gently from my clasp.
"I cannot take that fear away from you," she said in a broken whisper.
"And indeed I would not lose it," I replied. "In my heart of hearts I know that I would not lose it."
"What is it, then, you mean to do?" she asked.
"To travel with my friend as far as Ravenglass, to set her safe on board theSwallow, and then—somewhere there is a man in prison whose place is mine."
"You do not know where?" she exclaimed suddenly.
"No," said I, "but——"
She interrupted me with a cry.
"Look!" she said hurriedly, and pointed to a little window close beneath the roof. Through that window the moonlight was creeping like a finger down the wall, across the floor. "The storm has cleared; we can go."
She rose abruptly from her seat, and moved out into the chancel Something—was it the hurry of her movement, the tension of her voice?—made me spring towards her. I remembered that, when I spoke to her on the hillside near Penrith, it had seemed to me then that she had some inkling of the truth.
"You know!" I exclaimed—"you know where the prisoner is?"
"No," she cried, and her voice rose almost to a scream belying the word she spoke.
How she came by her knowledge I did not consider. She knew! I had no room for any other thought.
"Oh, you do know!" I implored, and dropping on my knee I seized the hem of her dress to detain her. I felt the dress drag from me; I held it the more firmly. "You do not know—oh, tell me! A man innocent of all wrongdoing, lies in prison—the charge, treason. Think you they will weigh his innocence after this rebellion? The fetters he wears are mine, his punishment is mine, and I must claim it. There's no other way but this plain and simple one. I must needs claim it. Oh think, ever since I have known you, the necessity that I should do this thing has grown on me, day by day, as each day I saw you. I have felt that I owed it to you that I should succeed. Do not you prevent me!"
She stood stock still; I could hear the quick coming and going of her breath, but in the uncertain twilight I could not read her face; and she did not speak.
"Listen!" I continued "If you do not tell me, it will make no difference. I shall still give myself up. But to the other it may make all the difference in the world. For it may be that I shall fail to save him."
Still she kept silence. So, seeing no other way, I stood up before her and told her the story from end to end, beginning with that day when I first rode over Coldbarrow Fell to Blackladies in company with Jervas Rookley, down to the morning when I fled from the garden where the soldiers searched for me.
I saw her head droop as she listened, and bow into her hands; yet I had to go on and finish it.
"But," said she, "you were not all to blame. The woman——"
"Nay," said I, "it can serve no purpose to portion out the blame; for, portion it as you will, you cannot shred away my share."
"Mr. Herbert," she objected again, "would have been taken in your garden, whether you had returned or no that afternoon."
"But my fault was the instrument used to ruin him. He was taken while he followed me. He was taken, too, because of me. For had I not ridden so often into Keswick, he would never have been suspected."
"It was his jealousy that trapped him, and Jervas Rookley provoked the jealousy."
"But I furnished him with the means."
The arguments were all old and hackneyed to me. I had debated them before, so that I had the answers ready. There was, besides, one final argument, and without waiting for her to speak again, I used it.
"And what of the wife waiting in Keswick?"
She turned away with a little swift movement, and again stood silent. Then she said—
"Yes! I too will face it bravely. Mr. Herbert lies in Carlisle Castle, waiting his trial. You know, after the message came to Applegarth, my father and I fled to Carlisle; we took refuge with friends—Whigs, but of my mother's family, and for her sake they gave us shelter. They knew the Governor of the Castle. He told them of a prisoner newly brought thither upon a warrant—a Mr. Herbert, who solaced himself night and day with the painting of the strangest picture ever known. You showed to me a letter at Applegarth, wherein a painter was mentioned and named, and I knew you had some trouble to distress you. I grew curious to see the prisoner; no one suspected I was in Carlisle, and so my friends consented to take me. I saw him. It is true I had no speech with him, but I saw the picture. It was a portrait of yourself, I thought, but I could not be sure. I was sure before you told me. I was sure when you spoke to me of that picture you had seen in Paris. For this portrait, too, that Mr. Herbert painted, was a portrait of yourself, as a dead man speaking."
I noticed that as she spoke her voice gained confidence and strength, and at the close it rang without a trace of fear or reluctance.
"Thank you," said I, simply. "Thank you with all my heart."
"Yes!" she replied, "it was right that I should tell you. You will go to Carlisle?"
"In truth I will;" and as she moved into a line with the window, the moonlight made a silver glory about her face. I saw with a great joy that her eyes, her lips were smiling. It seemed to me, indeed, that both our hearts were lighter. There was this one thing to do, and now here was the means revealed by which it might be done.
We climbed out of the window, and since it was too late for the continuance of our journey, we sought lodging for the night at that farmhouse which I had already visited. I remember walking across the fields in the star-shine and the moonlight, wondering at this vicarious revenge Herbert had taken on my picture, and at the strange destiny which had made this girl, so dear to me, the instrument of my atonement. And as we waited at the door, I said to her:
"I owed you much before to-night; but to-night you have doubled the debt."
"And I am proud to hear you say it," she replied.
From the farmer I borrowed a change of clothes, and coming down the stairs again, found Dorothy, to her evident satisfaction, in her own shoes, which she had taken from the pocket of my great-coat. We sat for a long while after our supper over the fire in the kitchen, talking of the days at Applegarth and laughing over that owl-hunt. Only twice was any reference made to our conversation in the church. For once I said:
"Do you remember when I came down to Applegarth, you were singing a song? It was called, 'The Honest Lover,' and I would fain have the words of it." And thereupon she wrote out the song upon a sheet of paper and gave it to me.
And again, when Dorothy had lit her candle, she stood for an instant by the door.
"That resolve you spoke of?" she said. "You had come to it on the day that you first reached Applegarth. It was the resolve to free Mr. Herbert at any cost?"
"Yes," said I.
"And it was that you were so glad you had determined on when you first saw me?"
"Yes," said I again.
"Well," said she, "it is the sweetest compliment that was ever paid to a woman."
The next morning we started betimes in the same cheerfulness of spirits, and making light of that dreaded snow as we crossed Burnmoor, descended into Eskdale about nine of the forenoon, and so reached Ravenglass before it was dusk. There, to my inexpressible delight, I saw theSwallowriding on an anchor a little way out. We crept down to the beach, and waited there until it was dark. Then I lighted a lantern which I had brought from the farmhouse for the very purpose, and lifting it up, swung it to and fro. In a little there was an answering flash from the sloop, and a little after that I heard the sound of oars in the water, and fell to wondering what sort of parting we should make, and, perhaps, in a measure, to dreading it. But the parting was of the simplest kind.
"It is good-bye, then," said Dorothy, "and we will shake hands, if you please."
This time I took her hand fairly within my palm, and held it clasped whilst it clasped mine.
"I am thanking God," said I, "for the truest friend that ever man had."
"Yes!" said she, nodding her head, "that is very prettily said, and no more than the truth."
"Ah!" said I, "you ever enjoyed a very proper notion of yourself;" and with that the boat grounded upon the beach, and, after all, we two parted with a laugh. I heard the song of the seamen at the windlass, coming across the water with an airy faintness, and then I set my face to the hillside.
It was a lonely business whereto I now was set, but in truth it is lonelier in the recollection than it was in the actual happening. As I sit over my fire here on a winter's night, I begin at times to wonder how I went through with it. I remember the incessant moaning of the sea,—for I followed my old plan, only with a greater precaution, and kept along the coast until I was nigh upon Whitehaven—and discover a loneliness in the thought that it was carrying Dorothy from me to France; I find, too, an overwhelming desolation in the knowledge that she and I had spoken the last good-bye, and a melancholy atop of that in the cheerfulness of our parting. But these notions are but the moss that gathers upon recollections. The sea brought no loneliness home to me,—rather it crooned of Dorothy's safety, nor was I conscious then of any desolation in the knowledge that my eyes would not again rejoice in the sight of her, for that very parting raised me out of my slough more nearly to her level; and as for the cheerfulness—why, just in that way would I have had her part from me. I believe, indeed, that I was more sensible of her presence on that journey from Ravenglass to Carlisle than ever I had been, even when her voice was in my ears or the knocking of her shoes upon the stones.
Moreover, there were two very immediate questions which pressed upon me, and saved me from much unprofitable rumination about myself. Dorothy had spoken of Anthony Herbert "waiting his trial," when she herself was in Carlisle, and that was over a month ago. Was he still waiting, or was the trial over? I had no means of resolving that question, and many a night I lay awake in some barn or outhouse, blowing on my frozen fingers to keep them warm, and casting up the probabilities. I was thus in a perpetual fever lest, after all, my intentions should be thwarted by a too late arrival. And to make the matter worse, I was compelled to practise every precaution, lest I should be recognized. Of which there was, to my thinking, no small danger, for in the first place my flight from Blackladies had made, as I knew, some noise in these parts, and moreover I had ridden openly on the march to Preston.
So here was my second question: Could I reach Carlisle a free man? for that I deemed to be an altogether necessary and integral part of my design. Once a captive, I was foredoomed already upon my own account, and any plea that I might urge on behalf of Anthony Herbert would win the less credit, since it would be made at no cost whatever to me who made it. If, however, I could come undetected there, and so give myself up, why, the voluntary relinquishment of life might haply be taken as a guarantee and surety for my word. Consequently I was reduced to a thousand shifts to avoid attention; I went miles about to come upon a solitary inn, and more often than not, when I reached it, my heart would fail me, and I would take to my heels in a panic, or at best gulp down the hastiest meal, and pulling my coat about my ears, front the cold night again. It was then a good twelve days after theSwallowhad lifted anchor and sailed down the coast, that I crept one dusky evening through the Botcher Gate into Carlisle; and what with the fear of capture and the fevers of delay, the endless fatigue to which during these many weeks I had been exposed and the inclemencies of the season, you may be sure I was in a sufficiently pitiable condition. I repaired at once to the market-place, and picking out the most insignificant tavern, learnt therein, over a glass of brandy from my host, that I was as much as a week in advance of my time. The news was an indescribable relief to me; and going out, I hired a mean lodging in a little street near the Horse Market, where I would lie that night, and determine on my course. For since I had yet a week, I thought that I might dispose of some portion of that time to the best advantage, by discovering the particulars of the charge which Anthony Herbert would have to meet. In which task I did not anticipate a very great difficulty, inferring, from what Dorothy had told me, that, what with the speculation his picture had given rise to, I should find his case a matter of common gossip. Accordingly, in the morning I bought at a dealer's a suit of clothes which would befit an apprentice, and tying my own hair in a cheap ribbon, which I was able to do, since I had discarded a peruke for convenience' sake after I left Blackladies, and changing my boots for a pair of shoes, I walked across the town towards the castle, in the hope that, either amongst the loiterers at the gates, or in the meadow by the river, I might discover something to my purpose.
In this Fortune favoured me, for though I learned little or nothing upon the first day, about three o'clock of the afternoon upon the second, while I stood in the open space betwixt the castle and the town, a little brisk gentleman came stepping from the gate-house and glanced at every one he passed with a great air of penetration, as who should say, "My friend, you have no secrets from me." He shot the same glance at me, though with more indifference, as though from habit he would practise it upon any who came in his way, be they mere apprentices. It was he, however, who was the one to be discomposed. For up went his eyebrows on the instant and his mouth gaped. He did not, however, stop, but rather quickened his pace and passed me. A few yards away he stopped to exchange a word with an acquaintance, but I noticed that he cast now and again a furtive glance towards me. My curiosity was fairly aroused, and being reluctant to lose any occasion that might serve me, I drew nearer and loitered in his vicinity until such time as the conversation should have ended.
Dismissing his acquaintance, he turned of a sudden.
"It is a disappointing place—Carlisle," he began abruptly; "the grass grows in the streets, which, I take it, are the dirtiest outside Bagdad, and the houses, what with their laths and clay and thatch, are as little reputable to the eye."
I knew not what in the world to make of this strange beginning, and so stared at the man in perplexity.
"You will have been sorely disappointed," he suggested, "for I am told that, on the contrary, the streets of Preston are very clean and spacious, and the houses built with some taste."
"It seems you know me," said I, starting forward.
"It has almost that air," he replied with a spice of mockery; "I have known more effectual disguises than an apron and a pair of brass buckles. But, indeed, had you dirtied your face, as you unwisely omitted to do, I should have known you none the less."
He stood with his head cocked on one side, enjoying my mystification.
"I have no doubt, sir, of your discernment and penetration," said I, thinking to humour him; "but since I cannot call to mind that you and I have ever met——"
He came a step nearer to me, and with a roundabout glance, to see that no listener was within earshot:
"There is a pretty unmistakable likeness of you yonder"—he jerked his head towards the castle—"though maybe the expression wants repose; moreover, I could not hear that you were taken prisoner, and so was inclined to expect you here."
"Then who in the world are you?" I exclaimed.
"Mr. Nicholas Doyle," said he, "and a lawyer of too much repute to be seen publicly hobnobbing with a rascally apprentice without questions asked. So if you please, you will just walk behind me until I come to my house, and when I go in at the front door you will slink round to the back."
These directions I followed, and was shown up the stairs to the first floor, whereupon Mr. Doyle locked the door and drew a screen before the keyhole.
"Now, Mr.—Mr. Whitemen, shall we say?—for though your face is little known, your name has been heard here—I may offer you a chair;" which he did, drawing it politely to the fire, and therewith offered me his snuff-box, but "without prejudice to his politics," as he said. For "none of your scatterbrained, romantical flim-flam for me," said he. "An honest Whig, my dear sir. By the way," and his eyes twinkled slyly, "I trust you did not find my staircase very dark?"
I was not in the humour to take any great pleasure in his witticism, as may be imagined, and I replied simply—
"You know the whole story, then?"
"Part the husband told me," said he, nodding his head, "part the wife. I pieced it together."
"The wife!" I exclaimed. "Then Mrs. Herbert is here—at Carlisle?"
"Doubtless," he returned; "where else?"
"I did not know," said I.
It was Mr. Doyle's turn to look surprised.
"But," said he, "she left word for you at Keswick. It was for that reason I told you I was not greatly surprised to come upon you."
"Nay," said I, "I have not been to Keswick. I learnt Anthony Herbert was here—well, from other sources. But," and I started forward eagerly in my chair, "Herbert must then have sent for her;" and I spoke joyfully enough, for of late, and in particular since I had known where Herbert lay, I had begun to reflect that, after all, his enlargement, could that be brought about, did not altogether patch up the trouble.
"No," answered Mr. Doyle; "Herbert only talked of her. I sent for her."
"I may thank you for that," said I. "They are reconciled?"
"It is a delicate point," said he, "how far. My client, it appears, was persuaded by that worthy gentleman, Jervas Rookley, that—well, that there were more solid grounds for his jealousy than actually existed. It is true Rookley has shown something of his hand, but not all of it. We are in the dark as to his motives, and Mr. Herbert—well, doubtless you have some notion of the whimsies of a man in love. Now he is in the depths of abasement, now he is very haughty on the summits of pride. A man in love! My dear sir, a man in love is very like a leg of mutton on my roasting-jack in the kitchen. First he spins this way, then he spins that, and always he is in the extremity of heat whichever way he spins. He is like the mutton, too, in his lack of sense, and in the losing of the fat; and very often, when he is roasted through and through, my lady serves him up for the delectation of her friends. Believe me, Mr. Clavering"—he checked himself, but the name was out of his mouth—"when next you figure on the jack, you will do well to bear in mind my simile. A leg of mutton, my dear sir."
Now, I had good reason to find his simile uncommonly distasteful, the more because I had a like reason for knowing it to be unjust; and, perhaps with more heat than was needed, I answered—
"For my part, I have no objection——"
"To a man in love!" said he, taking me up. "Nor I, indeed. On the contrary, I hold him in the greatest esteem, not so much, perhaps, for his falling in love, as for his consequent falling out of it, whereby comes much profitable litigation."
"Well," said I, anxious to put an end to his discourse, "your advice, Mr. Doyle, may be the best in the world; but you offer it to a man who will never find occasion for pursuing it." And at that his face became grave. "Let us get to the root of the matter. You tell me Jervas Rookley has shown his hand. In what way?"
"Why, he is to be the chief witness for the crown. It was he who laid the information against Herbert. And, you will observe, he is a strong witness. For what object had he in view, if he did not believe the information? What had he to gain?"
"I will not say that he did not believe it," I returned; "I will not say that he does not believe it. But I know very well what he has to gain, and that is, the estate of Blackladies."
And I told the lawyer of the double game which Rookley had played.
"One way or another, whichever king sat the throne, he was to recover the estate," I continued. "If the Hanoverian won, why, I was to be exchanged for it; but since he thinks I have slipped through his fingers, he will be eager to make Herbert my substitute."
"Yes," said the lawyer, thoughtfully; "but there will be only your bare word for this."
"But I shall have sacrificed my life to speak it," I said anxiously. For this very point had greatly troubled me.
"No doubt that will carry weight," he assented, "but enough—I do not know. It will, however, serve to bring about that reconciliation which seems so to weigh with you. Look! There is a copy of the indictment;" and running over to a bureau, he brought it back and thrust it into my hands.
I read it through carefully, from the beginning to the end.
"You will see," said he, "that no direct act is alleged beyond the possession of that medal."
"That is mine," said I.
"Can you prove it?" said he. "It was found in Mr. Herbert's apartments."
I thought for a moment, and with a cry sprang to my feet:
"Indeed I can," I cried; "I can prove it" And I told him how.
"Good!" he exclaimed, in a voice which topped my own; and then—
"Hush!" he whispered, in the greatest reproach; "you should have more discretion, you should indeed." And very cautiously he unlocked the door, and then flung it violently open. The landing, however, was clear.
"You see, Mr. Whitemen, there is much we have to fight against apart from the charges. There is the apparent honesty of Mr. Rookley, and moreover there is this rebellion which calls for examples, and you may add to our difficulties a Cumberland jury. You will remember that we marched out against you at Penrith, four thousand strong. That will teach you the temper of the county."
"I do not remember," I replied, "that your four thousand stayed to exchange opinions with us."
Nicholas Doyle laughed good-naturedly.
"It is a hit, I will not deny," said he. "But what if they hold to the plan, and decline to exchange opinions when they are in the jury-box, eh, my friend? what then? So you see there are dangers. With your help we may just save my client, but it will be by no more than the skin of his teeth. Without you we may as well submit to a sentence at the outset. But," and he spoke with a voice of the deepest gravity, "all this, which makes your evidence of the greatest value to us, renders it fatal to you. I do not mince words; I set the truth frankly before you. Your evidence may serve Mr. Herbert's turn,—but there is no more than a chance of that—it will most certainly send you to an ignominious death. Every word you will speak will be a plea of guilty. And mark you, there is but one punishment for treason. It will be no stepping on to a scaffold, and reading a few protestations, and kneeling down at the block, as though you just condescended to leave the world. No, you will be drawn through the streets, trussed hand and foot, on a hurdle. Then they will hang you—for a bit, but not until you are dead. Then they will light a fire and take a knife to you—and it will seem, I fear me, a weary while before the end is reached!"
"Good God!" I interrupted him, and snatched up my hat. "Do you wish me to leave your client precisely to that same fate?"
"Where are you going?" he asked in an incredulous tone, noticing my movement.
"To Carlisle Castle," said I.
"I thought as much," said he, and took me by the arm. "I doubt if I should have said so much to you, had I not felt certain it would not weigh with you. But you are young, Mr. Clavering, very young; and though I must count you a traitor, and deserving all this punishment, I could not send you to that fate without you had counted up the cost."
"That is kindly said," I replied, and offered him my hand, which he shook very cordially. "But less than a fortnight ago I stood upon the sea-shore with never a soul in view and a ship's boat on the beach and a ship spreading its sails to set me over into France. I am not like to be turned aside now."
He looked at me with a certain shrewdness in his eyes.
"This is a reparation which you purpose? A man of the world would tell you there was no necessity for it."
"But you do not say that?" I returned.
"I say," and he paused for a second—"I say damn women!" he cried, and brought his fist down upon the table.
"Even in that amiable sentiment I cannot agree with you," I answered with a laugh. "And so I will make a call upon the Governor of the castle."
But again he caught me by the arm.
"That would be the ruin of both of you. The Crown presses for an example to be made. And Jervas Rookley, I think, from what you yourself have said, will move heaven and earth to keep you out of court. If you go now to the castle, there is little likelihood of your giving evidence for Mr. Herbert; he must produce you at the trial, and not a moment before."
Thereupon he recommended to me to lie quietly in my lodging during the week, and come not out except to see him now and again of a night. At his bidding, indeed, I repaired to his house on the following evening, and found a tailor there waiting for me. "For," said Mr. Doyle, "we must make the most of our advantages, though my heart aches at dressing you up for the slaughter. But it will make a difference whether a lad in an apron and brass buckles gives himself up, or a proper young gentleman, with an air of means and dignity. Your word will gain credit with the jury. Lord! what a sight we shall have in the spectacle of Jervas Rookley's face. By the way," and he turned towards me with a certain customary abruptness, "Jervas Rookley's face has something changed since I set eyes on it before."
"Indeed," said I, indifferently; "and in what way?"
"It is marred by a scar."
"A scar!" I cried, with considerable satisfaction. "On the right side? It should stretch from the cheek bone to the chin."
"It does," answered Mr. Doyle, dryly. "I wonder how he came by it?"