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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Starvecrow Farm, by Stanley J. Weyman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Starvecrow Farm
+
+Author: Stanley J. Weyman
+
+Release Date: March 14, 2012 [EBook #39138]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STARVECROW FARM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   1. Page scan source:
+      http://www.archive.org/details/starvecrowfarm00weymiala
+
+   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           STARVECROW FARM
+
+
+                        BY STANLEY J. WEYMAN.
+
+                              *   *   *
+
+THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF. A Romance. With Frontispiece and Vignette.
+Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.25.
+
+THE STORY OF FRANCIS CLUDDE. A Romance. With four Illustrations. Crown
+8vo, $1.25.
+
+A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE. Being the Memoirs of Gaston de Bonne, Sieur de
+Marsac. With Frontispiece and Vignette. Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.25.
+
+UNDER THE RED ROBE. With twelve full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo,
+cloth, $1.25.
+
+MY LADY ROTHA. A Romance of the Thirty Years' War. With eight
+Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.25.
+
+FROM THE MEMOIRS OF A MINISTER OF FRANCE. With thirty-six
+Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.25.
+
+THE MAN IN BLACK. With twelve Illustrations. Crown 8vo, $1.00.
+
+SHREWSBURY. A Romance. With twenty-four Illustrations. Crown 8vo,
+$1.50.
+
+THE RED COCKADE. A Novel. With forty-eight Illustrations by R. Caton
+Woodville. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
+
+THE CASTLE INN. A Novel. With six full-page Illustrations by Walter
+Appleton Clark. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
+
+SOPHIA. A Romance. With twelve full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo,
+$1.50.
+
+COUNT HANNIBAL. A Romance of the Court of France. With Frontispiece.
+Crown 8vo, $1.50.
+
+IN KINGS' BYWAYS. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
+
+THE ABBESS OF VLAYE. With Frontispiece. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
+
+                              *   *   *
+
+                  New York: Longmans, Green, and Co.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           STARVECROW FARM
+
+
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                          STANLEY J. WEYMAN
+
+       _Author of "A Gentleman of France" "The Abbess of Vlaye,"
+             "Count Hannibal," "The Castle Inn," "The Red
+             Cockade," "Under the Red Robe," etc., etc_.
+
+
+
+
+
+                            _ILLUSTRATED_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                       LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
+
+                   91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
+
+                          LONDON AND BOMBAY
+
+                                 1905
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Copyright, 1904, by
+                          STANLEY J. WEYMAN
+
+                              *   *   *
+
+                        _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER
+
+         I. Across the Quicksands.
+
+        II. A Red Waistcoat.
+
+       III. A Wedding Morning.
+
+        IV. Two to One.
+
+         V. A Jezebel.
+
+        VI. The Inquiry.
+
+       VII. Captain Anthony Clyne.
+
+      VIII. Starvecrow Farm.
+
+        IX. Punishment.
+
+         X. Henrietta in Naxos.
+
+        XI. Captain Clyne's Plan.
+
+       XII. The Old Love.
+
+      XIII. A Jealous Woman.
+
+       XIV. The Letter.
+
+        XV. The Answer.
+
+       XVI. A Night Adventure.
+
+      XVII. The Edge of the Storm.
+
+     XVIII. Mr. Joseph Nadin.
+
+       XIX. At the Farm.
+
+        XX. Proof Positive.
+
+       XXI. Cousin Meets Cousin.
+
+      XXII. Mr. Sutton's New Role.
+
+     XXIII. In Kendal Gaol.
+
+      XXIV. The Role Continued.
+
+       XXV. Prison Experiences.
+
+      XXVI. A Reconciliation.
+
+     XXVII. Bishop Caught Napping.
+
+    XXVIII. The Golden Ship.
+
+      XXIX. The Dark Maid.
+
+       XXX. Bess's Triumph.
+
+      XXXI. A Strange Bedroom.
+
+     XXXII. The Search.
+
+    XXXIII. The Smugglers' Oven.
+
+     XXXIV. In Tyson's Kitchen.
+
+      XXXV. Through The Wood.
+
+     XXXVI. Two of a Race.
+
+
+
+
+                        LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+They paid off the Guide under the walls of the old Priory Church at
+Cartmel.
+
+"I give you a last chance," he said.
+
+He neither cared nor saw who it was whom he had jostled.
+
+The face was Stewart's!
+
+... he touched his brow with his whip handle.
+
+... every head was uncovered as Clyne . . . rode to the door.
+
+In ten minutes the road twinkled with lights.
+
+She was leaning against the side of the window.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           STARVECROW FARM
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I
+
+                        ACROSS THE QUICKSANDS
+
+
+A head appeared at either window of the postchaise. Henrietta looked
+forward. Her lover looked back.
+
+The postchaise had nearly cleared the sands. Behind it the low line of
+Lancashire coast was fading from sight. Before it the long green hill
+of Cartmel had risen so high and drawn so near as to hide the Furness
+fells. On the left, seaward, a waste of sullen shallows and quaking
+sands still stretched to infinity--a thing to shudder at. But the
+savage head of Warton Crag, that for a full hour had guarded the
+travellers' right, had given place to the gentler outlines of Armside
+Knot. The dreaded Lancashire Channels had been passed in safety, and
+the mounted guide, whose task it was to lead wayfarers over these
+syrtes, and who enjoyed as guerdon the life-rent of a snug farm under
+Cark, no longer eyed the west with anxiety, but plashed in stolid
+silence towards his evening meal.
+
+And all was well. But the margin of safety had not been large--the
+postboys' boots still dripped, and the floor of the carriage was damp.
+Seaward the pale line of the tide, which would presently sweep in one
+foaming wave across the flat, and in an instant cover it half a foot
+deep, was fretting abreast the point. Ten minutes later had been too
+late; and the face of Henrietta's lover, whom a few hours and a Scotch
+minister were to make her husband, betrayed his knowledge of the fact.
+He looked backward and westward over the dreary flat; and fascinated,
+seized, possessed by the scene, he shuddered--perhaps at his own
+thoughts. He would fain have bidden the postboys hasten, but he was
+ashamed to give the order before her. Halfway across he had set down
+the uneasiness he could not hide to the fear of pursuit, to the fear
+of separation. But he could no longer do this; for it was plain to a
+child that neither horse nor man would cross Cartmel sands until the
+tide that was beginning to run had ebbed again.
+
+And Henrietta looked forward. The dull grey line of coast, quickly
+passing into the invisible, on which she turned her back, stood for
+her past; the sun-kissed peaks and blue distances of Furness, which
+her fancy still mirrored, though the Cartmel shore now hid them, stood
+for the future. To those heights, beautified by haze and distance, her
+heart went out, finding in them the true image of the coming life, the
+true foretype of those joys, tender and mysterious, to which she was
+hastening. The past, which she was abandoning, she knew: a cold home
+in the house of an unfeeling sister-in-law and a brother who when he
+was not hunting was tipsy--that, and the prospect of an unlovely
+marriage with a man who--horror!--had had one wife already, stood for
+the past. The future she did not know; but hope painted it from her
+brightest palette, and the girl's eyes filled, her lips quivered, her
+heart strained towards the sympathy and love that were henceforth to
+be hers--towards the happiness which she had set out to seek, and that
+now for certain could not escape her. As the postchaise lumbered
+heavily up the rough-paved groyne that led from the sands she shook
+from head to foot. At last her feet were set upon the land beautiful.
+And save for the compact which her self-respect had imposed upon her
+companion, she must have given way, she must have opened all her
+heart, thrown herself upon his breast and wept tears of tender
+anticipation.
+
+She controlled herself. As it happened, they drew in their heads at
+the same time, and his eyes--they were handsome eyes--met hers.
+
+"Dearest!" he said.
+
+"We are safe now?"
+
+"Safe from pursuit. But I am not safe."
+
+"Not safe?"
+
+"From your cruelty."
+
+His voice was velvet; and he sought to take her hand.
+
+But she withheld it.
+
+"No, sir," she said, though her look was tender. "Remember our
+compact. You are quite sure that they will pursue us along the great
+road?"
+
+"Yes, as far as Kendal. There they will learn that we are not before
+them--that we have somewhere turned aside. And they will turn back."
+
+"But suppose that they drive on to Carlisle--where we rejoin the north
+road."
+
+"They will not," he replied confidently. He had regained the plausible
+air which he had lost while the terror of the sands was upon him. "And
+if you fear that," he continued, "there is the other plan, and I think
+the better one. To-morrow at noon the packet leaves Whitehaven for
+Scotland, The wind is fair, and by six in the afternoon we may be
+ashore, and an hour later you will be mine!" And again he sought to
+draw her into his arms.
+
+But she repelled him.
+
+"In either case," she said, her brow slightly puckered, "we must halt
+to-night at the inn of which you spoke."
+
+"The inn on Windermere--yes. And we can decide there, sweet, whether
+we go by land or sea; whether we will rejoin the north road at
+Carlisle or cross from Whitehaven to"--he hesitated an instant--"to
+Dumfries."
+
+She was romantic to the pitch of a day which valued sensibility more
+highly than sense, and which had begun to read the poetry of Byron
+without ceasing to read the _Mysteries of Udolpho_; and she was
+courageous to the point of folly. Even now laughter gleamed under her
+long lashes, and the bubblings of irresponsible youth were never very
+far from her lips. Still, with much folly, with vast recklessness and
+an infinitude of ignorance, she was yet no fool--though a hundred
+times a day she said foolish things. In the present circumstances
+respect for herself rather than distrust of her lover taught her that
+she stood on slippery ways and instilled a measure of sobriety.
+
+"At the inn," she said, "you will put me in charge of the landlady."
+And looking through the window, she carolled a verse of a song as
+irrelevant as snow in summer.
+
+"But----" he paused.
+
+"There is a landlady, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, but----"
+
+"You will do what I say to-day," she replied firmly--and now the fine
+curves of her lips were pressed together, and she hummed no more--"if
+you wish me to obey you to-morrow."
+
+"Dearest, you know----"
+
+But she cut him short. "Please to say that it shall be so," she said.
+
+He swore that he would obey her then and always. And bursting again
+into song as the carriage climbed the hill, she flung from her the
+mood that had for a moment possessed her, and was a child again. She
+made gay faces at him, each more tantalising than the other; gave
+him look for look, each more tender than the other; and with the
+tips of her dainty fingers blew him kisses in exchange for his. Her
+helmet-shaped bonnet, with its huge plume of feathers, lay in her lap.
+The heavy coils of her fair, almost flaxen, hair were given to view,
+and under the fire of his flatteries the delicacy of colouring--for
+pallor it could scarcely be called--which so often accompanies very
+light hair, and was the sole defect of her beauty, gave place to
+blushes that fired his blood.
+
+But he knew something of her spirit. He knew that she had it in her to
+turn back even now. He knew that he might cajole, but could never
+browbeat her. And he restrained himself the more easily, as, in spite
+of the passion and eloquence--some called it vapouring--which made him
+a hero where thousands listened, he gave her credit for the stronger
+nature. He held her childishness, her frivolity, her _naivete_, in
+contempt. Yet he could not shake off his fear of what she might
+do--when she knew.
+
+
+[Illustration: They paid off the Guide under the walls of the old
+Priory Church at Cartmel]
+
+
+They paid off the guide under the walls of the old priory church at
+Cartmel, with the children of the village crowding about the doors of
+the chaise; then with a fresh team they started up the valley that
+leads to the foot of Windermere lake. But now the November day was
+beginning to draw in. The fell on their right took gloomier shape; on
+their left a brook sopped its way through low marsh-covered fields;
+and here and there the leafless limbs of trees pointed to the grey.
+And first one and then the other, with the shrill cries of moor-birds
+in their ears, and the fading landscape before their eyes, fell
+silent. Then, had they been as other lovers, had she stood more
+safely, or he been single-hearted, he had taken her in his arms and
+held her close, and comforted her, and the dusk within had been but
+the frame and set-off to their love.
+
+But as it was he feared to make overtures, and they sat each in a
+corner until, in sheer dread of the effect which reflection might have
+on her, he asked her if she feared pursuit; adding, "Depend upon it,
+darling, you need not; Sir Charles will not give a thought to this
+road."
+
+She drummed thoughtfully with her fingers on the pane.
+
+"I am not afraid of my brother," she said.
+
+"Then of whom?"
+
+"Of Anthony," she answered, and corrected herself hurriedly--"of
+Captain Clyne, I mean. He will think of this road."
+
+"But he will not have had the news before noon," Stewart answered. "It
+is eighteen miles from your brother's to the Old Hall. And besides, I
+thought that he did not love you."
+
+"He does not," she rejoined, "but he loves himself. He loves his
+pride. And this will hit both--hard! I am not quite sure," she
+continued very slowly and thoughtfully, "that I am not a little sorry
+for him. He made so certain, you see. He thought all arranged. A week
+to-day was the day fixed, and--yes," impetuously, "I am sorry for him,
+though I hated him yesterday."
+
+Stewart was silent a moment.
+
+"I hate him to-day," he said.
+
+"Why?"
+
+His eyes sparkled.
+
+"I hate all his kind," he said. "They are hard as stones, stiff as
+oaks, cruel as--as their own laws! A man is no man to them, unless he
+is of"--he paused almost imperceptibly--"our class! A law is no law to
+them unless they administer it! They see men die of starvation at
+their gates, but all is right, all is just, all is for the best, as
+long as they govern!"
+
+"I don't think you know him," she said, somewhat stiffly.
+
+"Oh, I know him!"
+
+"But----"
+
+"Oh, I know him!" he repeated, the faint note of protest in her voice
+serving to excite him. "He was at Manchester. There were a hundred
+thousand men out of work--starving, seeing their wives starve, seeing
+their children starve. And they came to Manchester and met. And he was
+there, and he was one of those who signed the order for the soldiers
+to ride them down--men, women, and children, without arms, and packed
+so closely that they could not flee!"
+
+"Well," she said pertly, "you would not have us all murdered in our
+beds?"
+
+He opened his mouth, and he shut it again. He knew that he had been a
+fool. He knew that he had gone near to betraying himself. She was
+nineteen, and thoughtless; she had been bred in the class he hated;
+she had never heard any political doctrines save those which that
+class, the governing class, held; and though twice or thrice he had
+essayed faintly to imbue her with his notions of liberty and equality
+and fraternity, and had pictured her with the red cap of freedom
+perched on her flaxen head, the only liberty in which he had been able
+to interest her had been her own!
+
+By-and-by, in different conditions, she might be more amenable, should
+he then think it worth while to convert her. For the present his
+eloquence was stayed in midstream. Yet he could not be altogether
+silent, for he was a man to whom words were very dear.
+
+"Well," he said in a lower tone, "there is something in that, sweet.
+But I know worse of him than that. You may think it right to transport
+a man for seven years for poaching a hare----"
+
+"They should not poach," she said lightly, "and they would not be
+transported!"
+
+"But you will think differently of flogging a man to death!"
+
+Her face flushed.
+
+"I don't believe it!" she cried.
+
+"On his ship in Plymouth Harbour they will tell you differently."
+
+"I don't believe it!" she replied, with passion. And then, "How horrid
+you are!" she continued. "And it is nearly dark! Why do you talk of
+such things? You are jealous of him--that is what you are!"
+
+He saw the wisdom of sliding back into their old relations, and he
+seized the opportunity her words offered.
+
+"Yes," he murmured, "I am jealous of him. And why not? I am jealous of
+the wind that caresses your cheek, of the carpet that feels your
+tread, of the star that peeps in at your window! I am jealous of all
+who come near you, or speak to you, or look at you!"
+
+"Are you really?"--in a tone of childish delight. "As jealous as
+that?"
+
+He swore it with many phrases.
+
+"And you will be so always?" she sighed softly, leaning towards him.
+"Always--Alan?"
+
+"To eternity!" he answered. And emboldened by her melting mood, he
+would have taken her hand, and perhaps more than her hand, but at that
+moment the lights of the inn at Newby Bridge flashed on them suddenly,
+the roar of the water as it rushed over the weirs surprised their
+ears, the postboys cracked their whips, and the carriage bounded and
+rattled over the steep pitch of the narrow bridge. A second or two
+later it came to a stand before the inn amid a crowd of helpers and
+stable lads, whose lanthorns dazzled the travellers' eyes.
+
+They stayed only to change horses, then were away again. But the halt
+sufficed to cool his courage; and as they pounded on monotonously
+through the night, the darkness and the dim distances of river and
+lake--for they were approaching the shores of Windermere--produced
+their natural effect on Henrietta's feelings. She had been travelling
+since early morning cooped and cramped within the narrow chaise; she
+had spent the previous night in a fever of suspense and restlessness.
+Now, though slowly, the gloom, the dark outlines of the woods, and
+that sense of loneliness which seizes upon all who are flung for the
+first time among strange surroundings, began to tell upon the spirits
+even of nineteen. She did not admit the fact to herself--she would
+have died before she confessed it to another; but disillusion had
+begun its subtle task.
+
+Here were all the things for which she had panted--the dear,
+delightful things of which she had dreamed: the whirl of the
+postchaise through the night, the crack of the whips, the cries of the
+postboys, the lighted inns, the dripping woods, the fear of pursuit,
+the presence of her lover! And already they were growing flat. Already
+the savour was escaping from them. There were tears in her heart,
+tears very near her eyes.
+
+He could have taken her hand then, and more than her hand. For
+suddenly she recognised, with a feeling nearer terror than her flighty
+nature had ever experienced before, her complete dependence on him.
+Henceforth love, comfort, kindness, companionship--all must come from
+him. She had flung from her every stay but his, every hand but his. He
+was become her all, her world. And could she trust him? Not only with
+her honour--she never dreamed of doubting that--but could she trust
+him afterwards? To be kind to her, to be good to her, to be generous
+to her? Thoughtless, inexperienced, giddy as she was, Henrietta
+trembled. A pitiful sob rose in her throat. It needed but little, very
+little, and she had cast herself in abandonment on her lover's breast
+and there wept out her fears and her doubts.
+
+But he had also his anxieties, and he let the moment pass by him
+unmarked. He had reasons, other and more urgent than those he had
+given her, for taking this road and for staying the night in a place
+whence Whitehaven and Carlisle were equally accessible; and those
+reasons had seemed good enough in the day when the fear of pursuit had
+swayed him. They seemed less pertinent now. He began to wish that he
+had taken another road, pursued another course. And he was deep in a
+brown study, in which love had no part, when an exclamation, at once
+of surprise and admiration, recalled him to the present.
+
+They had topped a bare shoulder and come suddenly in sight of Lake
+Windermere. The moon had not long risen above the hills on their
+right, the water lay on their left; below them stretched a long pale
+mirror, whose borrowed light, passing over the dark woods which framed
+it, faintly lit and explored the stupendous fells and mountains that
+rose beyond. To Stewart it was no unfamiliar or noteworthy sight; and
+his eyes, after a passing glance of approval, turned to the road below
+them and marked with secret anxiety the spot where two or three lights
+indicated their halting-place.
+
+But to Henrietta the sight, as unexpected as it was beautiful,
+appealed in a manner never to be forgotten. She held her breath, and
+slowly her eyes filled. Half subdued by fatigue and darkness, half
+awake to the dangers and possibilities of her situation, she was in
+the mood most fit to be moved by the tender melancholy of the scene.
+She was feeling a craving for something--for something to comfort her,
+for something to reassure her, for something on which to lean in the
+absence of all the common things of life: and there broke on her the
+mystic beauty of this moonlit lake, and it melted her. Her heart,
+hitherto untouched, awoke. The compact which she had made with her
+lover stood for naught. The tears running down her face, she turned to
+him, she held out her hands to him.
+
+"Kiss me!" she murmured. "And say--say you will be good to me! I have
+only you now!--only you!--only you!"
+
+He caught her in his arms and kissed her rapturously; and the embrace
+was ardent enough to send the scarlet surging to her temples, to set
+her heart throbbing. But the chaise was in the very act of drawing up
+at the door of the inn; and it may be doubted if he tasted the full
+sweetness of the occasion. A face looked in at the carriage window, on
+the side farther from the lake appeared a bowing landlord, a voice
+inquired, "Horses on?" The postchaise stopped.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II
+
+                           A RED WAISTCOAT
+
+
+Cheerful lights shining from the open doorway and the red-curtained
+windows of the inn, illumined the road immediately before it; and if
+these and the change in all the surroundings did not at once dispel
+the loneliness at Henrietta's heart, at least they drove the tears
+from her eyes and the blushes from her cheeks. The cold moonlight, the
+unchanging face of nature, had sobered and frightened her; the warmth
+of fire and candle, the sound of voices, and the low, homely front of
+the house, with its two projecting gables, reassured her. The forlorn
+child who had flung herself into her lover's arms not forty seconds
+before was not to be recognised in the girl who alighted slowly and
+with gay self-possession, took in the scene at a glance, and won the
+hearts of ostler and stableboy by her ease and her fresh young beauty.
+She was bare-headed, and her high-dressed hair, a little disordered by
+the journey, gleamed in the lanthorn-light. Her eyes were like stars.
+The landlord of the inn--known for twenty miles round as "Long Tom
+Gilson"--saw at a glance that the missus's tongue would run on her. He
+wished that he might not be credited with his hundred-and-thirty-first
+conquest!
+
+The thought, however, did not stand between him and his duty. "Sharp,
+Sam," he cried briskly. "Fire in Mr. Rogers's room." Then to his
+guests: "Late? No, sir, not at all. This way, ma'am. All will be ready
+in a twinkling."
+
+But Henrietta stood smiling.
+
+"Thank you," she answered pleasantly, her clear young voice slightly
+raised. "But I wished to be placed in the landlady's charge. Is she
+here?"
+
+Gilson turned toward the doorway, which his wife's portly form fitted
+pretty tightly.
+
+"Here, missus," he cried, "the young lady wants you."
+
+But Mrs. Gilson was a woman who was not wont to be hurried and before
+she reached the side of the carriage Stewart interposed; more roughly
+and more hurriedly than seemed discreet in the circumstances.
+
+"Let us go in, and settle that afterwards," he said.
+
+"No."
+
+"Yes," he retorted. And he grasped the girl's arm tightly. His voice
+was low, but insistent. "Let us go in."
+
+But the girl only vouchsafed him a look, half wondering, half
+indignant. She turned to the landlady.
+
+"I am tired, and need no supper," she said. "Will you take me into a
+room, if you please, where I can rest at once, as we go on early
+to-morrow."
+
+"Certainly," the landlady answered. She was a burly, red-faced,
+heavy-browed woman. "But you have come some way, ma'am. Will you not
+take supper with the gentleman?"
+
+"No."
+
+He interposed.
+
+"At least let us go in!" he repeated pettishly. And there was an
+agitation in his tone and manner not easy to explain, except on the
+supposition that in some way she had thwarted him. "We do not want to
+spend the night on the road, I suppose?"
+
+She did not reply. But none the less, as she followed Mrs. Gilson to
+the door, was she wondering what ailed him. She was unsuspicious by
+nature, and she would not entertain the thought that he wished her to
+act otherwise than she was acting. What was it then? Save for a burly
+man in a red waistcoat who stood in a lighted doorway farther along
+the front of the inn, and seemed to be watching their movements with
+lazy interest, there were only the people of the inn present. And the
+red-waistcoated man could hardly be in pursuit of them, for, for
+certain, he was a stranger. Then what was it?
+
+She might have turned and asked her lover; but she was offended
+and she would not stoop. And before she thought better of it--or
+worse--she had crossed the threshold. A warmer air, an odour of spices
+and lemons and old rum, met her. On the left of the low-browed passage
+a half-open door offered a glimpse of shining glass and ruddy
+firelight; there was Mrs. Gilson's snuggery, sometimes called the
+coach office. On the right a room with a long table spoke of coaching
+meals and a groaning board. From beyond these, from the penetralia of
+kitchen and pantry, came faint indications of plenty and the spit.
+
+A chambermaid was waiting at the foot of the narrow staircase to go
+before them with lights; but the landlady took the candles herself,
+and dismissed the woman with a single turn of the eye. A habit of
+obedience to Mrs. Gilson was the one habit of the inn, the one common
+ground on which all, from Tom Gilson to the smallest strapper in the
+stable, came together.
+
+The landlady went ponderously up before her guest and opened the door
+of a dimity-hung chamber. It was small and simple, but of the
+cleanest. Hid in it were rosemary and lavender; and the leafless
+branches of a rose-tree whipped the diamond panes of the low, broad
+window. Mrs. Gilson lighted the two wax candles--"waxes" in those days
+formed part of every bill but the bagman's. Then she turned and looked
+at the girl with deliberate disapproval.
+
+"You will take nothing, ma'am, to eat?" she said.
+
+"No, thank you," Henrietta answered. And then, resenting the woman's
+look, "I may as well tell you," she continued, holding her head high,
+"that we have eloped, and are going to be married to-morrow. That is
+why I wished to be put in your charge."
+
+The landlady, with her great face frowning, continued to look at the
+girl, and for a moment did not answer.
+
+At length, "You've run away," she said, "from your friends?"
+
+Henrietta nodded loftily.
+
+"From a distance, I take it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well," Mrs. Gilson rejoined, her face continuing to express growing
+disapproval, "there's a stock of fools near and far. And if I did my
+duty, young lady, there'd be one who would likely be thankful all her
+life." She took the snuffers and slowly and carefully snuffed the two
+candles. "If I did my duty, I'd lock you up and keep you safe till
+your friends came for you."
+
+"You are insolent," the girl cried, flaming up.
+
+"That depends," Mrs. Gilson retorted, with the utmost coolness. "Fine
+feathers make fine birds. You may be my lady, or my lady's maid. Men
+are such fools--all's of the best that's red and white. But I'm not so
+easy."
+
+Henrietta raised her chin a little higher.
+
+"Be good enough to leave the room!" she said.
+
+But the stout woman held her ground.
+
+"Not before I've said what I have to say," she answered. "It is one
+thing, and one thing only, hinders me doing what I ought to do, and
+what if you were my girl I'd wish another to do. And that is--your
+friends may not want you back. And then, to be married tomorrow is
+like enough the best you can do for yourself! And the sooner the
+better!"
+
+Henrietta's face turned scarlet, and she stamped on the floor.
+
+"You are a wicked, insolent woman!" she said. "You do not know your
+place, nor mine. How dare you say such things to me? How dare you? Did
+you hear me bid you leave the room?"
+
+"Hoity-toity!"
+
+"Yes, at once!"
+
+"Very good," Mrs. Gilson replied ponderously--"very good! But you may
+find worse friends than me. And maybe one of them is downstairs now."
+
+"You hateful woman!" the girl cried; and had a glimpse of the
+landlady's red, frowning face as the woman turned for a last look in
+the doorway. Then the door closed, and she was left alone--alone with
+her thoughts.
+
+Her face burned, her neck tingled. She was very, very angry, and a
+little frightened. This was a scene in her elopement which
+anticipation had not pictured. It humiliated her--and scared her.
+To-morrow, no doubt, all would be well; all would be cheerfulness,
+tenderness, sunshine; all would be on the right basis. But in the
+meantime the sense of forlornness which had attacked her in the chaise
+returned on her as her anger cooled, and with renewed strength. Her
+world, the world of her whole life up to daybreak of this day, was
+gone forever. In its place she had only this bare room with its
+small-paned casement and its dimity hangings and its clean scent. Of
+course _he_ was below, and he was the world to her, and would make up
+a hundredfold what she had resigned for him. But he was below, he was
+absent; and meantime her ear and her heart ached for a tender word, a
+kind voice, a look of love. At least, she thought, he might have come
+under her window, and whistled the air that had been the dear signal
+for their meetings. Or he might have stood a while and chatted with
+her, and shown her that he was not offended. The severest prude, even
+that dreadful woman who had insulted her, could not object to that!
+
+But he did not come. Of course he was supping--what things men were!
+And then, out of sheer loneliness, her eyes filled, and her thoughts
+of him grew tender and more humble. She dwelt on him no longer as her
+conquest, her admirer, the prize of her bow and spear, subject to her
+lightest whim and her most foolish caprice; but as her all, the one to
+whom she must cling and on whom she must depend. She thought of him as
+for a brief while she had thought of him in the chaise. And she
+wondered with a chill of fear if she would be left after marriage as
+she was left now. She had heard of such things, but in the pride of
+her beauty, and his subjection, she had not thought that they could
+happen to her. Now---- But instead of dwelling on a possibility which
+frightened her, she vowed to be very good to him--good and tender and
+loyal, and a true wife. They were resolutions that a trifling
+temptation, an hour's neglect or a cross word, might have overcome.
+But they were honest, they were sincere, they were made in the
+soberest moment that her young life had ever known; and they marked a
+step in development, a point in that progress from girlhood to
+womanhood which so few hours might see complete.
+
+Meanwhile Mrs. Gilson had returned to her snuggery, wearing a face
+that, had the lemons and other comforts about her included cream, must
+have turned it sour. That snuggery, it may be, still exists in the
+older part of the Low Wood Inn. In that event it should have a value.
+For to it Mr. Samuel Rogers, the rich London banker, would sometimes
+condescend from his apartments in the south gable; and with him Mr.
+Kirkpatrick Sharp, a particular gentleman who sniffed a little at the
+rum; or Sir James Mackintosh, who, rumour had it, enjoyed some
+reputation in London as a writer. At times, too, Mr. Southey, Poet
+Laureate elsewhere, but here Squire of Greta Hall, would stop on his
+way to visit his neighbour at Storrs--no such shorthorns in the world
+as Mr. Bolton's at Storrs; and not seldom he brought with him a London
+gentleman, Mr. Brougham, whose vanity in opposing the Lowther interest
+at the late election had almost petrified Mrs. Gilson. Mr. Brougham
+called himself a Whig, but Mrs. Gilson held him little better than
+a Radical--a kind of cattle seldom seen in those days outside the
+dock of an assize court. Or sometimes the visitor was that queer,
+half-moithered Mr. Wordsworth at Rydal; or Mr. Wilson of Elleray with
+his great voice and his homespun jacket. He had a sort of name too;
+but if he did anything better than he fished, the head ostler was a
+Dutchman!
+
+The visits of these great people, however--not that Mrs. Gilson
+blenched before them, she blenched before nobody short of Lord
+Lonsdale--had place in the summer. To-night the landlady's sanctum,
+instead of its complement of favourite guests gathered to stare at Mr.
+Southey's last order for "Horses on!" boasted but a single tenant.
+Even he sat where the landlady did not at once see him; and it was not
+until she had cast a log on the dogs with a violence which betrayed
+her feelings that he announced his presence by a cough.
+
+"There's the sign of a good house," he said with approval. "Never
+unprepared!--never unprepared! Come late, come early--coach, chaise,
+or gig--it is all one to a good house."
+
+"Umph!"
+
+"It is a pleasure to sit by"--he waved his pipe with unction--"and to
+see a thing done properly!"
+
+"Ay, it's a pleasure to many to sit by," the landlady answered with
+withering sarcasm. "It's an easy way of making a living--especially if
+you are waiting for what doesn't come. Put a red waistcoat on old Sam
+the postboy, and he'd sit by and see as well as another!"
+
+The man in the red waistcoat chuckled.
+
+"I'm glad they don't take you into council at Bow Street, ma'am!" he
+said.
+
+"They might do worse."
+
+"They might do better," he rejoined. "They might take you into the
+force! I warrant"--with a look of respectful admiration--"if they did
+there's little would escape you. Now that young lady?" He indicated
+the upper regions with his pipe. "Postboys say she came from
+Lancaster. But from where before that?"
+
+"Wherever she's from, she did not tell me!" Mrs. Gilson snapped.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"And what is more, if she had, I shouldn't tell you."
+
+"Oh, come, come, ma'am!" Mr. Bishop was mildly shocked. "Oh, come,
+ma'am! That is not like you. Think of the King and his royal
+prerogative!"
+
+"Fiddlesticks!"
+
+Mr. Bishop looked quite staggered.
+
+"You don't mean it," he said--"you don't indeed. You would not have
+the Radicals and Jacobins ramping over the country, shooting honest
+men in their shops and burning and ravaging, and--and generally
+playing the devil?"
+
+"I suppose you think it is you that stops them?"
+
+"No, ma'am, no," with a modest smile. "I don't stop them. I leave that
+to the yeomanry--old England's bulwark and their country's pride! But
+when the yeomanry 've done their part, I take them, and the law passes
+upon them. And when they have been hung or transported and an example
+made, then you sleep comfortably in your beds. That is what I do. And
+I think I may say that next to Mr. Nadin of Manchester, who is the
+greatest man in our line out of London, I have done as much in that
+way as another."
+
+Mrs. Gilson sniffed contemptuously.
+
+"Well," she said, "if you have never done more than you've done since
+you've been here, it's a wonder the roof's on! Though what you
+expected to do, except keep a whole skin, passes me! There's the
+_Chronicle_ in today, and such talks of riots at Glasgow and Paisley,
+and such meetings here and alarms there, it is a wonder to me"--with
+sarcasm--"they can do without you! To judge by what I hear, Lancashire
+way is just a kettle of troubles and boiling over, and bread that
+price everybody is wanting to take the old King's crown off his head."
+
+"And his head off his body, ma'am!" Mr. Bishop added solemnly.
+
+"So that it's little good you and your yeomanry seem to have done at
+Manchester, except get yourselves abused!"
+
+"Ma'am, the King's crown is on his head," Mr. Bishop retorted, "and
+his head is on his body!"
+
+"Well? Not that his head is much good to him, poor mad gentleman!"
+
+"And King Louis, ma'am, years ago--what of him? The King of France,
+ma'am? Crown gone, head gone--all gone! And why? Because there was not
+a good blow struck in time, ma'am! Because, poor, foolish foreigner,
+he had no yeomanry and no Bow Street, ma'am! But the Government, the
+British Government, is wiser. They are brave men--brave noblemen, I
+should say," Mr. Bishop amended with respect,--"but with treason and
+misprision of treason stalking the land, with the lower orders, that
+should behave themselves lowly and reverently to all their betters,
+turned to ramping, roaring Jacobins seeking whom they may devour,
+and whose machine they may break, my lords would not sleep in their
+beds--no, not they, brave men as they are--if it were not for the
+yeomanry and the runners." He had to pause for breath.
+
+Mrs. Gilson coughed dryly.
+
+"Leather's a fine thing," she said, "if you believe the cobbler."
+
+"Well," Mr. Bishop answered, nodding his head confidently, "it's so
+far true you'd do ill without it."
+
+But Mrs. Gilson was equal to the situation.
+
+"Ay, underfoot," she said. "But everything in its place. My man, he be
+mad upon tod-hunting; but I never knew him go to Manchester 'Change to
+seek one."
+
+"No?" Mr. Bishop held his pipe at arm's length, and smiled at it
+mysteriously. "Yet I've seen one there," he continued, "or in such
+another place."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Common Garden, London."
+
+"It was in a box, then."
+
+"It was, ma'am," Mr. Bishop replied, with smiling emphasis. "It was in
+a box--'safe bind, safe find,' ma'am. That's the motto of my line, and
+that was it precisely! More by token it's not outside the bounds of
+possibility you may see"--he glanced towards the door as he knocked
+his pipe against his top-boot--"one of my tods in a box before
+morning."
+
+Mrs. Gilson shot out her underlip and looked at him darkly. She never
+stooped to express surprise; but she was surprised. There was no
+mistaking the ring of triumph in the runner's tone; yet of all the
+unlikely things within the landlady's range none seemed more unlikely
+than that he should flush his game there. She had asked herself more
+than once why he was there; and why no coach stopped, no chaise
+changed horses, no rider passed or bagman halted, without running the
+gauntlet of his eye. For in that country of lake and mountain were
+neither riots nor meetings; and though Lancashire lay near, the echoes
+of strife sounded but weakly and fitfully across Cartmel Sands. Mills
+might be burning in Cheadle and Preston, men might be drilling in
+Bolland and Whitewell, sedition might be preaching in Manchester, all
+England might be in a flame with dear bread and no work, Corbett's
+Twopenny Register and Orator Hunt's declamations--but neither the
+glare nor the noise had much effect on Windermere. Mr. Bishop's
+presence there seemed superfluous therefore; seemed---- But before she
+could come to the end of her logic, her staid waiting-maid appeared,
+demanding four pennyworth of old Geneva for the gentleman in Mr.
+Rogers's room; and when she was serving, Mrs. Gilson took refuge in
+incredulity.
+
+"A man must talk if he can't do," she said--"if he's to live."
+
+Mr. Bishop smiled, and patted his buckskin breeches with confidence.
+
+"You'll believe ma'am," he said, "when you see him walk into the coach
+with the handcuffs on his wrists."
+
+"Ay, I shall!"
+
+The innuendo in the landlady's tone was so plain that her husband, who
+had entered while she was rinsing the noggin in which she had measured
+the gin, chuckled audibly. She turned an awful stare on him, and he
+collapsed. The Bow Street runner was less amenable to discipline.
+
+"You sent the lad, Tom?" he asked.
+
+The landlord nodded, with an apprehensive eye on his wife.
+
+"He should be back"--Mr. Bishop consulted a huge silver watch--"by
+eleven."
+
+"Ay, sure."
+
+"Where has he gone?" Mrs. Gilson asked, with an ominous face.
+
+She seldom interfered in stable matters; but if she chose, it was
+understood that no department was outside her survey.
+
+"Only to Kendal with a message for me," Bishop answered.
+
+"At this time of the night?"
+
+"Ma'am"--Mr. Bishop rose and tapped his red waistcoat with meaning,
+almost with dignity--"the King has need of him. The King--God bless
+and restore him to health--will pay, and handsomely. For the why and
+the wherefore he has gone, his majesty's gracious prerogative is to
+say nothing"--with a smile. "That is the rule in Bow Street, and for
+this time we'll make it the rule under Bow Fell, if you please.
+Moreover, what he took I wrote, ma'am, and as he cannot read and I
+sent it to one who will give it to another, his majesty will enjoy his
+prerogative as he should!"
+
+There was a spark in Mrs. Gilson's eye. Fortunately the runner saw it,
+and before she could retort he slipped out, leaving the storm to break
+about her husband's head. Some who had known Mr. Gilson in old days
+wondered how he bore his life, and why he did not hang himself--Mrs.
+Gilson's tongue was so famous. And more said he had reason to hang
+himself. Only a few, and they the wisest, noted that he who had once
+been Long Tom Gilson grew fat and rosy; and these quoted a proverb
+about the wind and the shorn lamb. One--it was Bishop himself, but he
+had known them no more than three weeks--said nothing when the
+question was raised, but tapped his nose and winked, and looked at
+Long Tom as if he did not pity him overmuch.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III
+
+                          A WEDDING MORNING
+
+
+In one particular at least the Bow Street runner was right. The
+Government which ruled England in that year, 1819, was made up of
+brave men; whether they were wise men or great men, or far-seeing men,
+is another question. The peace which followed Waterloo had been
+welcomed with enthusiasm. Men supposed that it would put an end to the
+enormous taxation and the strain which the nation had borne so
+gallantly during twenty years of war. The goddess of prosperity, with
+her wings of silver and her feathers of gold, was to bless a people
+which had long known only paper money. In a twinkling every trade was
+to flourish, every class to be more comfortable, every man to have
+work and wage, plenty and no taxes.
+
+Instead, there ensued a period of want and misery almost without a
+parallel. During the war the country had been self-supporting, wheat
+had risen, land suitable and unsuitable had been enclosed and tilled.
+Bread had been dear but work had been plentiful. Now, at the prospect
+of open ports, wheat fell, land was left derelict, farmers were
+ruined, labourers in thousands went on the rates. Nor among the
+whirling looms of Lancashire or the furnaces of Staffordshire were
+things better. Government orders ceased with the war, while the
+exhausted Continent was too poor to buy. Here also thousands were cast
+out of work.
+
+The cause of the country's misfortunes might be this or that. Whatever
+it was, the working classes suffered greater hardships than at any
+time during the war; and finding no anxiety to sympathise in a
+Parliament which represented their betters, began to form--ominous
+sign--clubs, and clubs within clubs, and to seek redress by unlawful
+means. An open rising broke out in the Fen country, and there was
+fighting at Littleport and Ely. There were riots at Spa Fields in
+London, where murder was committed; and there were riots again, which
+almost amounted to a rebellion, in Derbyshire. At Stock-port and in
+Birmingham immense mob meetings took place. In the northern counties
+the sky was reddened night after night by incendiary fires. In the
+Midlands looms were broken and furnaces extinguished. In Lancashire
+and Yorkshire the air was sullen with strikes and secret plottings,
+and spies, and cold and famine.
+
+In the year 1819 things came to a kind of head. There was a meeting at
+Manchester in August. It was such a meeting as had never been seen in
+England. There were sixty thousand at it, there were eighty thousand,
+there were ninety thousand--some said one, some said the other. It was
+so large, at any rate, that it was difficult to say that it was not
+dangerous; and beyond doubt many there would have snatched at the
+least chance of rapine. Be that as it may, the magistrates, in the
+face of so great a concourse, lost their heads. They ordered a small
+force of yeomanry to disperse the gathering. The yeomanry became
+entangled--a second charge was needful: the multitude fled every way.
+In ten minutes the ground was clear; but six lives were lost and
+seventy persons were injured.
+
+At once all England was cleft into parties--that which upheld the
+charge, and that which condemned it. Feelings which had been confined
+to the lower orders spread to the upper; and while from this date the
+section which was to pass the Reform Bill took new shape, underground
+more desperate enterprises were breeding. Undismayed the people met at
+Paisley and at Glasgow, and at each place there were collisions with,
+the soldiery.
+
+Mr. Bishop had grounds, therefore, for his opinion of the Government
+of which he shared the favour with the yeomanry--their country's
+bulwark and its pride. But it is a far cry to Windermere, and no
+offset from the storm which was convulsing Lancashire stirred the face
+of the lake when Henrietta opened her window next morning and looked
+out on the day which was to change all for her. The air was still, the
+water grey and smooth, no gleam of sun showed. Yet the general aspect
+was mild; and would have been cheerful, if the more distant prospect
+which for the first time broke upon Henrietta's eyes had not raised it
+and her thoughts to the sublime. Beyond the water, above the green
+slopes and wooded knobs which fringed the lake, rose, ridge behind
+ridge, a wall of mountains. It stretched from the Peak of Coniston on
+the left, by the long snow-flecked screes of Bow Fell, to the icy
+points of the Langdales on the right--a new world, remote, clear,
+beautiful, and still: so still, so remote, that it seemed to preach a
+sermon--to calm the hurry of her morning thoughts, and the tumult of
+youth within her. She stood awhile in awe. But her hair was about her
+shoulders, she was only half-dressed; and by-and-by, when her first
+surprise waned, she bethought herself that _he_ might be below, and
+she drew back from the window with a blush. What more likely, what
+more loverlike, than that he should be below? Waiting--on this morning
+which was to crown his hopes--for the first sight of her face, the
+first opening of her lattice, the gleam of her white arm on the sill?
+Had it been summer, and had the rose-tree which framed the window been
+in bloom, what joy to drop with trembling fingers a bud to him, and to
+know that he would treasure it all his life--her last maiden gift! And
+he? Surely he would have sent her an armful to await her rising, that
+as she dressed she might plunge her face into their perfume, and
+silently plighting her troth to him, renew the pure resolves which she
+had made in the night hours!
+
+But when she peeped out shyly, telling herself that she was foolish to
+blush, and that the time for blushing was past, she failed to discover
+him. There was a girl--handsome after a dark fashion--seated on a low
+wall on the farther side of the road; and a group of four or five men
+were standing in front of the inn door, talking in excited tones.
+Conceivably he might be one of the men, for she could hear them better
+than she could see them--the door being a good deal to one side. But
+when she had cautiously opened her window and put out her head--her
+hair by this time being dressed--he was not among them.
+
+She was drawing in her head, uncertain whether to pout or not, when
+her eyes met those of the young woman on the wall; and the latter
+smiled. Possibly she had noted the direction of Henrietta's glance,
+and drawn her inference. At any rate, her smile was so marked and so
+malicious that Henrietta felt her cheek grow hot, and lost no time in
+drawing back and closing the window.
+
+"What a horrid girl!" she exclaimed.
+
+Still, after the first flush of annoyance, she would have thought no
+more of it--would indeed have laughed at herself for her fancy--if
+Mrs. Gilson's strident voice had not at that moment brought the girl
+to her feet.
+
+"Bess! Bess Hinkson!" the landlady cried, apparently from the doorway.
+"Hast come with the milk? Then come right in and let me have it? What
+are you gaping at there, you gaby? What has't to do with thee? I do
+think"--with venom--"the world is full of fools!"
+
+The girl with a sullen air took up a milk-pail that stood beside her;
+she wore the short linsey petticoat of the rustic of that day, and a
+homespun bodice. Her hair, brilliantly black, and as thick as a
+horse's mane, was covered only by a handkerchief knotted under her
+chin.
+
+"Bess Hinkson? What a horrid name!" Henrietta muttered as she watched
+her cross the road. She did not dream that she would ever see the
+girl again: the more as the men's voices--she was nearly ready to
+descend--fixed her attention next. She caught a word, then listened.
+
+"The devil's in it if he's not gone Whitehaven way!" one said. "That's
+how he's gone! Through Carlisle, say you? Not he!"
+
+"But without a horse? He'd no horse."
+
+"And what if he'd not?" the first speaker retorted, with the
+impatience of superior intellect. "It's Tuesday, the day of the Man
+packet-boat, and he'd be away in her."
+
+"But the packet don't leave Whitehaven till noon," a third struck in.
+"And they'll be there and nab him before that. S'help me, he has not
+gone Whitehaven way!"
+
+"Maybe he'd take a boat?"
+
+"He'd lack the time"--with scorn.
+
+"He's took a boat here," another maintained. "That's what he has done.
+He's took a boat here and gone down in the dark to Newby Bridge."
+
+"But there's not a boat gone!" another speaker retorted in triumph.
+"What do you say to that?"
+
+So far Henrietta's ear followed the argument; but her mind lagged at
+the point where the matter touched her.
+
+"The Man packet-boat?" she thought, as she tied the last ribbon at her
+neck and looked sideways at her appearance in the squat, filmy mirror.
+"That must be the boat to the Isle of Man. It leaves Whitehaven the
+same day as the Scotch boat, then. Perhaps there is but one, and it
+goes on to the Isle of Man. And I shall go by it. And then--and
+then----"
+
+A knock at the door severed the thread, and drove the unwonted languor
+from her eyes. She cast a last look at her reflection in the glass,
+and turned herself about that she might review her back-hair. Then she
+swept the table with her eye, and began to stuff this and that into
+her bandbox. The knock was repeated.
+
+"I am coming," she cried. She cast one very last look round the room,
+and, certain that she had left nothing, took up her bonnet and a shawl
+which she had used for a wrap over her riding-dress. She crossed the
+room towards the door. As she raised her hand to the latch, a smile
+lurked in the dimples of her cheeks. There was a gleam of fun in her
+eyes; the lighter side of her was uppermost again.
+
+It was not her lover, however, who stood waiting outside, but Modest
+Ann--she went commonly by that name--the waiting-maid of the inn, who
+was said to mould herself on her mistress and to be only a trifle less
+formidable when roused. The two were something alike, for the maid was
+buxom and florid; and fame told of battles between them whence no
+ordinary woman, no ordinary tongue, no mortal save Mrs. Gilson, could
+have issued victorious. Fame had it also that Modest Ann remained
+after her defeat only by reason of an attachment, held by most to be
+hopeless, to the head ostler. And for certain, severe as she was, she
+permitted some liberty of speech on the subject.
+
+Henrietta, however, did not know that here was another slave of love;
+and her face fell.
+
+"Is Mr. Stewart waiting?" she asked.
+
+"No, miss," the woman answered, civilly enough, but staring as if she
+could never see enough of her. "But Mrs. Gilson will be glad if you'll
+speak to her."
+
+Henrietta raised her eyebrows. It was on the tip of her tongue to
+answer, "Then let her come to me!" But she remembered that these
+people did not know who she was--knew indeed nothing of her. And she
+answered instead: "I will come. Where is she?"
+
+"This way, miss. I'll show you the way."
+
+Henrietta wondered, as the woman conducted her along several
+low-ceiled passages, and up and down odd stairs, and past windows
+which disclosed the hill rising immediately at the back of the house,
+what the landlady wanted.
+
+"She is an odious woman!" she thought, with impatience. "How horrid
+she was to me last night! If ever there was a bully, she is one! And
+this creature looks not much better!"
+
+Modest Ann, turning her head at the moment, belied the ill opinion by
+pointing out a step in a dark corner.
+
+"There is a stair here, miss," she said. "Take care."
+
+"Thank you," Henrietta answered in her clear, girlish voice. "Is Mr.
+Stewart with Mrs.---- What's her name?"
+
+"Mrs. Gilson? No, miss."
+
+And pausing, the woman opened a door, and made way for Henrietta to
+enter.
+
+At that instant--and strange to say, not before--a dreadful suspicion
+leapt up in the girl's brain. What if her brother had followed her,
+and was there? Or worse still, Captain Clyne? What if she were
+summoned to be confronted with them and to be taken home in shameful
+durance, after the fashion of a naughty child that had behaved badly
+and was in disgrace? The fire sprang to her eyes, her cheeks burnt. It
+was too late to retreat; but her pretty head went up in the air, and
+her look as she entered spoke flat rebellion. She swept the room with
+a glance of flame.
+
+However, there was no one to be burned up: no brother, no slighted,
+abandoned suitor. In the room, a good-sized, pleasant room, looking on
+the lake, were only Mrs. Gilson, who stood beside the table, which was
+laid for breakfast, and a strange man. The man was gazing from the
+window, but he turned abruptly, disclosing a red waistcoat, as her eye
+fell on him. She looked from one to the other in great surprise, in
+growing surprise. What did the man there?
+
+"Where is Mr. Stewart?" she asked, her frigid tone expressing her
+feelings. "Is he not here?"
+
+Mrs. Gilson seemed about to answer, but the man forestalled her.
+
+"No, miss," he said, "he is not."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+She asked the question with undisguised sharpness.
+
+Mr. Bishop nodded like a man well pleased.
+
+"That is the point, miss," he answered--"precisely. Where is he?"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV
+
+                              TWO TO ONE
+
+
+Henrietta, high-spirited and thoughtless, was more prone to anger than
+to fear, to resentment than to patience. But all find something
+formidable in the unknown; and the presence of this man who spoke with
+so much aplomb, and referred to her lover as if he had some concern in
+him, was enough to inspire her with fear and set her on her guard.
+Nevertheless, she could not quite check the first impulse to
+resentment; the man's very presence was a liberty, and her tone when
+she spoke betrayed her sense of this.
+
+"I have no doubt," she said, "that Mr. Stewart can be found if you
+wish to see him." She turned to Mrs. Gilson. "Be good enough," she
+said, "to send some one in search of him."
+
+"I have done that already," the man Bishop answered.
+
+The landlady, who did not move, seemed tongue-tied. But she did not
+take her eyes off the girl.
+
+Henrietta frowned. She threw her bonnet and shawl on a side-table.
+
+"Be good enough to send again, then," she said, turning and speaking
+in the indifferent tone of one who was wont to have her orders obeyed.
+"He is probably within call. The chaise is ordered for ten."
+
+Bishop advanced a step and tapped the palm of one hand with the
+fingers of the other.
+
+"That is the point, miss!" he said impressively. "You've hit it. The
+chaise is ordered for ten. It is nine now, within a minute--and the
+gentleman cannot be found."
+
+"Cannot be found?" she echoed, in astonishment at his familiarity.
+"Cannot be found?" She turned imperiously to Mrs. Gilson. "What does
+this person mean?" she said. And her tone was brave. But the colour
+came and went in her cheeks, and the first flutter of alarm darkened
+her eyes.
+
+The landlady found her voice.
+
+"He means," she said bluntly, "that he did not sleep in his bed last
+night."
+
+"Mr. Stewart?"
+
+"The gentleman who came with you."
+
+"Oh, but," Henrietta cried, "you must be jesting?" She would not, she
+could not, give way to the doubt that assailed her.
+
+"It is no jest," Bishop answered gravely, and with something like pity
+in his voice. For the girl looked very fair and very young, and wore
+her dignity prettily. "It is no jest, miss, believe me. But perhaps we
+could read the riddle--we should know more, at any rate--if you were
+to tell us from what part you came yesterday."
+
+But she had her wits about her, and she was not going to tell them
+that! No, no! Moreover, on the instant she had a thought--that this
+was no jest, but a trick, a cruel, cowardly trick, to draw from her
+the knowledge which they wanted, and which she must not give! Beyond
+doubt that was it; she snatched thankfully at the notion. This odious
+woman, taking advantage of Stewart's momentary absence, had called in
+the man, and thought to bully her, a young girl in a strange place,
+out of the information which she had wished to get the night before.
+
+The impertinents! But she would be a match for them.
+
+"That is my affair," she said.
+
+"But----"
+
+"And will remain so!" she continued warmly. "For the rest, I am
+inclined to think that this is a trap of some sort! If so, you may be
+sure that Mr. Stewart will know how to resent it, and any impertinence
+offered to me. You"--she turned suddenly upon Mrs. Gilson--"you ought
+to be ashamed of yourself!"
+
+Mrs. Gilson nodded oracularly.
+
+"I am ashamed of somebody," she said.
+
+The girl thought that she was gaining the advantage.
+
+"Then at once," she said, "let Mr. Stewart know that I am waiting for
+him. Do you hear, madam?" she stamped the floor with her foot, and
+looked the pretty fury to the life. "And see that this person leaves
+the room. Good-morning, sir. You will hear from Mr. Stewart what I
+think of your intrusion."
+
+Bishop opened his mouth to reply. But he caught Mrs. Gilson's eye; and
+by a look, such a look as appalled even the Bow Street runner's stout
+heart, she indicated the door. After a second of hesitation he passed
+out meekly.
+
+When he was gone, "Very good, miss," the landlady said in the tone of
+one who restrained her temper with difficulty--"very good. But if
+you're to be ready you'd best eat your breakfast--if, that is, it is
+good enough for you!" she added. And with a very grim face she swept
+from the room and left Henrietta in possession of the field.
+
+The girl sprang to the window and looked up and down the road. She had
+the same view of the mild autumn morning, of the grey lake and distant
+range of hills which had calmed her thoughts an hour earlier. But the
+beauty of the scene availed nothing now. She was flushed with
+vexation--impatient, resentful. Where was he? He was not in sight.
+Then where could he be? And why did he leave her? Did he think that he
+need no longer press his suit, that the need for _pettis soins_ and
+attentions was over? Oh, but she would show him! And in a moment all
+the feelings of the petted, spoiled girl were up in arms.
+
+"They are horrid!" she cried, angry tears in her eyes. "It's an
+outrage--a perfect outrage! And he is no better. How dare he leave me,
+this morning of all mornings?"
+
+On which there might have stolen into her mind--so monstrous did his
+neglect seem--a doubt, a suspicion; the doubt and the suspicion which
+she repelled a few minutes earlier. But, as she turned, her eyes fell
+on the breakfast-table; and vexation was not proof against a healthy
+appetite.
+
+"I will show him," she thought resentfully, "that I am not so
+dependent on him as he thinks. I shall not wait--I shall take my
+breakfast. That odious woman was right for once."
+
+And she sat down in the seat placed for her. But as quickly she was up
+again, and at the oval glass over the mantel--where Samuel Rogers had
+often viewed his cadaverous face--to inspect herself and be sure that
+she was looking her best, so that _his_ despair, when he came and
+found her cold and distant, would be the deeper. Soon satisfied, she
+returned, smiling dangerously, to her seat; and this time she fell-to
+upon the eggs and girdle-cakes, and the home-cured ham, and the tea at
+ten shillings a pound. The room had a window to the lake and a second
+window which looked to the south and was not far from the first.
+Though low-ceiled, it was of a fair size, with a sunk cupboard, with
+glazed upper doors, on each side of the fireplace, and cushioned seats
+in the window-places. In a recess near the door--the room was full of
+corners--were book-shelves; and on the other side of the door stood a
+tall clock with a very pale face. The furniture was covered with some
+warm red stuff, well worn; and an air of that snug comfort which was
+valued by Englishmen of the day pervaded all, and went well with the
+scent of the China tea.
+
+But neither tea nor comfort, nor the cheerful blaze on the hearth,
+could long hold Henrietta's thoughts; nor resentment repress her
+anxiety. Presently she began to listen after every mouthful: her fork
+was as often suspended as at work. Her pretty face grew troubled and
+her brow more deeply puckered, until her wandering eye fell on the
+clock, and she saw that the slowly jerking hand was on the verge of
+the half-hour.
+
+Then she sprang up, honestly frightened. She flew to the window that
+looked on the lake and peered out anxiously; thence to the side
+window, but she got no glimpse of him. She came back distracted to the
+table and stood pressing her hands to her eyes. What if they were
+right, and he had not slept in his bed? What if something had happened
+to him? But that was impossible! Impossible! Things did not happen on
+such mornings as this! On wedding mornings! Yet if that were the case,
+and they had sent for her that they might break it to her--and then
+their hearts, even that woman's heart, had failed them? What--what
+then?
+
+She was trying to repel the thought when she fancied that she heard a
+sound at the door, and with a gasp of relief she looked up. If he had
+entered at that moment, she would have flung herself into his arms and
+forgiven all and forgotten all. But he did not enter, and her heart
+sank again, and lower. She went slowly to the door and listened, and
+found that the sound which she had heard was caused by the whispering
+of persons outside.
+
+She summoned her pride to her aid then. She opened the door to its
+full extent and walked back to the table, and turning, waited
+haughtily for them to enter. But to speak, to command her voice, was
+harder, and it was all she could do to murmur,
+
+"Something has happened to him"--her lip fluttered ominously--"and you
+have come to tell me?"
+
+"Nothing that I know of," Bishop answered cheerfully. He and the
+landlady had walked in and closed the door behind them. "Nothing at
+all."
+
+"No?" She could hardly believe him.
+
+"Not the least thing in life, miss," he repeated. "He's alive and well
+for what I know--alive and well!"
+
+She sat down on a chair that stood beside her, and the colour flowed
+back to her cheeks. She laughed weakly.
+
+"I was afraid that something had happened," she murmured.
+
+"No," Mr. Bishop answered, more seriously, "it's not that. It's not
+that, miss. But all the same it's trouble. Now if you were to tell
+me," he continued, leaning forward persuasively, "where you come from,
+I need have hardly a word with you. I can see you're a lady; your
+friends will come; and, s'help me, in six months you'll have your
+matie again, and not know it happened!
+
+"I shall not tell you," she said.
+
+The officer shook his head, surprised by her firmness.
+
+"Come now, miss--be advised," he urged. "Be reasonable. Just think
+for once that others may know better than you, and save me the
+trouble--that's a good young lady."
+
+But the wheedling appeal, the familiar tone, grated on her. Her
+fingers, tapping on the table, betrayed impatience as well as alarm.
+
+"I do not understand you," she said, with some return of her former
+distance. "If nothing has happened to Mr. Stewart, I do not understand
+what you can have to say to me, nor why you are here."
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Well, miss," he said, "if you must have it, you must. I'm bound to
+say you are not a young lady to take a hint."
+
+That frightened her.
+
+"If nothing has happened to him----" she murmured, and looked from one
+to the other; from Mr. Bishop's smug face to the landlady's stolid
+visage.
+
+"It's not what has happened to him," the runner answered bluntly. "It
+is what is likely to happen to him."
+
+He drew from his pocket as he spoke a large leather case, unstrapped
+it, and put the strap, which would have handily spliced a cart-trace
+of these days, between his teeth. Then he carefully selected from the
+mass of papers which the case contained a single letter. It was
+written, as the letters of that day were written, on three sides
+of a square sheet of coarsish paper. The fourth side served for
+envelope--that is, it bore the address and seal. But Bishop was
+careful to fold the letter in such a way that these and the greater
+part of the writing were hidden. He proffered the paper, so arranged,
+to Henrietta.
+
+"D'you know the handwriting," he asked, "of that letter, miss?"
+
+She had watched his actions with fascinated eyes, and could not think,
+could not imagine, whither they tended. She was really frightened now.
+But her mettle was high; she had the nerves of youth, and she hid her
+dismay. The hand with which she took the letter was steady as a rock,
+the manner with which she looked at it composed; but no sooner had her
+eyes fallen on the writing than she uttered an exclamation, and the
+colour rose to her cheeks.
+
+"How did you get this?" she cried.
+
+"No, miss, no," the runner answered. "One at a time. The question is,
+Do you know the fist? The handwriting, I mean. But I see you do."
+
+"It is Mr. Stewart's," she answered.
+
+He glanced at Mrs. Gilson as if to bespeak her attention.
+
+"Just so," he said. "It is Mr. Stewart's. And I warrant you have
+others like it, and could prove the fact if it were needed. No--don't
+read it, miss, if you please," he continued. "You can tell me without
+that whether the gentleman has any friends in these parts."
+
+"None."
+
+"That you know of?"
+
+"I never heard of any," she answered. Her astonishment was so great
+that she did not now think of refusing to answer. And besides, here
+was his handwriting. And why did he not come? The clock was on the
+point of striking; at this hour, at this minute, they should have been
+leaving the door of the inn.
+
+"No, miss," Bishop answered, exchanging a look with the landlady.
+"Just so, you've never heard of any. Then one more question, if you
+please. You are going north, to Scotland, to be married to-day? Now
+which way, I wonder?"
+
+She frowned at him in silence. She began to see his drift.
+
+"By Keswick and Carlisle?" he continued, watching her face. "Or by
+Kendal and Penrith? Or by Cockermouth and Whitehaven? But no. There's
+only the Isle of Man packet out of Whitehaven."
+
+"It goes on to Dumfries," she said. The words escaped her in spite of
+herself.
+
+He smiled as he shook his head.
+
+"No," he said; "it'd be a very long way round if it did. But Mr.
+Stewart told you that, did he? I see he did. Well, you've had an
+escape, miss. That's all I can say."
+
+The colour rose to her very brow, but her eyes met his boldly.
+
+"How?" she said. "What do you mean?"
+
+"How?" he repeated. "If you knew, miss, who the man was--your Mr.
+Stewart--you'd know how--and what you have escaped!"
+
+"Who he was?" she muttered.
+
+"Ay, who he was!" he retorted. "I can tell you this at least,
+young lady," he added bluntly, "he's the man that's very badly
+wanted--uncommonly badly wanted!"--with a grin--"in more places than
+one, but nowhere more than where he came from."
+
+"Wanted?" she said, the colour fading in her cheek. "For what? What do
+you mean?"
+
+"For what?"
+
+"That is what I asked."
+
+His face was a picture of importance and solemnity. He looked at the
+landlady as much as to say, "See how I will prostrate her!" But
+nothing indicated his sense of the avowal he was going to make so much
+as the fact that instead of raising his voice he lowered it.
+
+"You shall have the answer, miss, though I thought to spare you," he
+said. "He's wanted for being an uncommon desperate villain, I am sorry
+to say. For treason, and misprision of treason, and conspiracy. Ay,
+but that's the man you've come away with," shaking his head solemnly.
+"He's wanted for bloody conspiracy--ay, it is so indeed--equal to any
+Guy Fawkes, against my lord the King, his crown and dignity! Seven
+indictments--and not mere counts, miss--have been found against him,
+and those who were with him, and him the worst! And when he's taken,
+as he's sure to be taken by-and-by, he'll suffer!" And Mr. Bishop
+nodded portentously.
+
+Her face was quite white now.
+
+"Mr. Stewart?" she gasped.
+
+"You call him Stewart," the runner replied coolly. "I call him
+Walterson--Walterson the younger. But he has passed by a capful of
+names. Anyway, he's wanted for the business in Spa Fields in '16, and
+half a dozen things besides!"
+
+The colour returned to Henrietta's cheeks with a rush. Her fine eyes
+glowed, her lips parted.
+
+"A conspirator!" she murmured. "A conspirator!" She fondled the word
+as if it had been "love" or "kisses." "I suppose, then," she continued,
+with a sidelong look at Bishop, "if he were taken he would lose his
+life?"
+
+"Sure as eggs!"
+
+Henrietta drew a deep breath; and with the same sidelong look:
+
+"He would be beheaded--in the Tower?"
+
+The runner laughed with much enjoyment.
+
+"Lord save your innocent heart, miss," he said--"no! He would just
+hang outside Newgate."
+
+She shuddered violently at that. The glow of eye and cheek faded, and
+tears rose instead. She walked to a window, and with her back to them
+dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. Then she turned.
+
+"Is that all?" she said.
+
+"Good God!" Bishop cried. He stared, nonplussed. "Is that all?" he
+said. "Would you have more?"
+
+"Neither more nor less," she answered--between tears and smiles, if
+his astonished eyes did not deceive him. "For now I know--I know why
+he left me, why he is not here."
+
+"Good lord!"
+
+"If you thought, sir," she continued, drawing herself up and speaking
+with indignation, "that because he was in danger, because he was
+proscribed, because a price was set on his head, I should desert him,
+and betray him, and sell his secrets to you--I, his wife--you were
+indeed mistaken!"
+
+"But damme!" Mr. Bishop cried in amazement almost too great for words,
+"you are not his wife!"
+
+"In the sight of Heaven," she answered firmly, "I am!" She was shaking
+with excitement. "In the sight of Heaven I am!" she repeated solemnly.
+And so real was the feeling that she forgot for the moment the
+situation in which her lover's flight had left her. She forgot
+herself, forgot all but the danger that menaced him, and the
+resolution that never, never, never should it part her from him.
+
+Mr. Bishop would fain have answered fittingly, and to that end sought
+words. But he found none strong enough.
+
+"Well, I am dashed!" was all he could find to say. "I _am_ dashed!"
+Then--the thing was too much for one--he sought support in Mrs.
+Gilson's eye. "There, ma'am," he said vehemently, extending one hand,
+"I ask you! You are a woman of sense! I ask you! Did you ever? Did you
+ever, out of London or in London?"
+
+The landlady's answer was as downright as it was unwelcome.
+
+"I never see such a fool!" she said, "if that's what you mean. And
+you"--with scorn--"to call yourself a Bow Street man! Bow Street?
+Bah!"
+
+Mr. Bishop opened his mouth.
+
+"A parish constable's a Solomon to you!" she continued, before he
+could speak.
+
+His face was purple, his surprise ludicrous.
+
+"To me?" he ejaculated incredulously. "S'help me, ma'am, you are mad,
+or I am! What have I done?"
+
+"It's not what you've done!" Mrs. Gilson answered grimly. "It's what
+you've left undone! Oh, you gaby!" she continued, with unction. "You
+poor creature! You bag of goose-feathers! D'you know no more of women
+than that? Why, I've kept my mouth shut the last ten blessed minutes
+for nothing else but to see what a fool you'd make of yourself! And
+for certain it was not for nothing!"
+
+Henrietta tapped the table.
+
+"Perhaps when you've done," she said, with tragic dignity, "you will
+both be good enough to leave the room. I desire to be alone."
+
+Her eyes were like stars. In her voice was an odd mixture of elation
+and alarm.
+
+Mrs. Gilson turned on the instant and engaged her.
+
+"Don't talk nonsense!" she said. "Desire to be alone indeed! You
+deserve to be alone, miss, with bread and water, and the lock on the
+door! Oh, you may stare! But do you do now what he should have made
+you do a half-hour ago! And then you'll feel a little less like a play
+actress! Alone indeed! Read that letter and tell me then what you
+think of yourself!"
+
+Henrietta's eyes sparkled with anger, but she fought hard for her
+dignity.
+
+"I am not used to impertinence," she said. "You forget yourself!"
+
+"Bead," Mrs. Gilson retorted, "and say what you like then. You'll have
+little stomach for saying anything," she added in an undertone, "or
+I'm a Dutchman!"
+
+Henrietta saw nothing for it but to read under protest, and she did so
+with a smile of contempt. In the circumstances it seemed the easier
+course. But alas! as she read, her pretty, angry face changed. She had
+that extreme delicacy of complexion which betrays the least ebb and
+flow of feeling: and in turn perplexity, wonder, resentment, all were
+painted there, and vividly. She looked up.
+
+"To whom was this written?" she asked, her voice unsteady.
+
+Mrs. Gilson was pitiless.
+
+"Look at the beginning!" she answered.
+
+The girl turned back mechanically, and read that which she had read
+before. But then with surprise; now with dread.
+
+"Who is--Sally?" she muttered.
+
+Despite herself, her voice seemed to fail her on the word. And she
+dared not meet their eyes.
+
+"Who's Sally?" Mrs. Gilson repeated briskly. "Why, his wife, to be
+sure! Who should she be?"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V
+
+                              A JEZEBEL
+
+
+There was a loud drumming in Henrietta's ears, and a dimness before
+her eyes. In the midst of this a voice, which she would not have known
+for her own, cried loudly and clearly, "No!" And again, more
+violently, "No!"
+
+"But it is 'Yes'!" the landlady answered coolly. "Why not? D'you
+think"--with rough contempt--"he's the first man that's lied to a
+woman? or you're the first woman that's believed a rascal? She's his
+wife right enough, my girl"--comfortably. "Don't he ask after his
+children? If you'll turn to the bottom of the second page you'll see
+for yourself! Oh, quite the family man, he is!"
+
+The girl's hand shook like ash-leaves in a light breeze; the paper
+rustled in her grasp. But she had regained command of herself--she
+came of a stiff, proud stock, and the very brusqueness of the landlady
+helped her; and she read word after word and line after line of the
+letter. She passed from the bottom of the second sheet to the head of
+the third, and so to the end. But so slowly, so laboriously that it
+was plain that her mind was busy reading between the lines--was busy
+comparing, sifting, remembering.
+
+To Bishop's credit be it said, he kept his eyes off the girl. But at
+last he spoke.
+
+"I'd that letter from his wife's hand," he said. "They are married
+right enough--in Hounslow Church, miss. She lives there, two doors
+from the 'George' posting-house, where folks change horses between
+London and Windsor. She was a waiting-maid in the coffee-room, and
+'twas a rise for her. But she's not seen him for three years--reason,
+he's been in hiding--nor had a penny from him. Now she's got it he's
+taken up with some woman hereabouts, and she put me on the scent. He's
+a fine gift of the gab, but for all that his father's naught but a
+little apothecary, and as smooth a rogue and as big a Radical, one as
+the other! I wish to goodness," the runner continued, suddenly
+reminded of his loss, "I'd took him last night when he came in!
+But----"
+
+"That'll do!" Mrs. Gilson said, cutting him short, as if he were a tap
+she had turned on for her own purposes. "You can go now!"
+
+"But----"
+
+"Did you hear me, man? Go!" the landlady thundered. And a glance of
+her eye was sufficient to bring the runner to heel like a scolded
+hound. "Go, and shut the door after you," she continued, with
+sharpness. "I'll have no eavesdropping in my house, prerogative or no
+prerogative!"
+
+When he was gone she showed a single spark of mercy. She went to the
+fire and proceeded to mend it noisily, as if it were the one thing in
+the world to be attended to. She put on wood, and swept the hearth,
+and made a to-do with it. True, the respite was short; a minute or two
+at most. But when the landlady had done, and turned her attention to
+the girl, Henrietta had moved to the window, so that only her back was
+visible. Even then, for quite a long minute Mrs. Gilson stood, with
+arms akimbo and pursed lips, reading the lines of the girl's figure
+and considering her, as if even her rugged bosom knew pity. And in the
+end it was Henrietta who spoke--humbly, alas! now, and in a voice
+almost inaudible.
+
+"Will you leave me, please?" she said.
+
+"I will," Mrs. Gilson answered gruffly. "But on one understanding,
+miss--and I'll have it plain. It must be all over. If you are
+satisfied he is a rascal--he has four children--well and good. But
+I'll have no goings on with such in my house, and no making two bites
+of a cherry! Here's a bit of paper I'll put on the table."
+
+"I am satisfied," Henrietta whispered.
+
+Under the woman's blunt words she shook as under blows.
+
+But Mrs. Gilson seemed to pay little heed to her feelings.
+
+"Very good, very good!" she answered. "But I'll leave the paper all
+the same. It's but a bit of a handbill that fool of a runner brought
+with him, but 'twill show you what kind of a poor thing your Joe was.
+Just a spouter, that got drunk on his own words and shot a poor
+inoffensive gentleman in a shop! Shame on him for a little dirty
+murder, if ever there was one."
+
+"Oh, please go! please go!" Henrietta wailed.
+
+"Very well. But there's the paper. And do you begin to
+think"--removing with housewifely hand a half-eaten dish of eggs from
+the table, and deftly poising on the same arm a large ham--"do you
+begin to think like a grown, sensible woman what you'd best do. The
+shortest folly's soonest over! That's my opinion."
+
+And with that she opened the door, and, heavily laden, made her way
+downstairs.
+
+The girl turned and stood looking at the room, and her face was
+wofully changed. It was white and pinched, and full of strained
+wonder, as if she asked herself if she were indeed herself, and if it
+could really be to her that this thing had happened. She looked older
+by years, she looked almost plain. But in her eyes was a latent
+fierceness. An observer might have guessed that her pride suffered
+more sharply than her heart. Possibly she had never loved the man with
+half the fervour with which she now hated him.
+
+And that was true, though the change was sudden; ay, and though
+Henrietta did not know it, nor would have admitted it. She suffered
+notwithstanding, and horribly. For, besides pride, there were other
+things that lay wounded and bleeding: her happy-go-lucky nature that
+had trusted lightly, and would be slow to trust again; her girlish
+hopes and dreams; and the foolish fancy that had passed for love, and
+in a single day, an hour, a minute, might have become love. And one
+other thing--the bloom of her innocence. For though she had escaped,
+she had come too near the fire not to fear it henceforth, and bear
+with her the smell of singeing.
+
+As she thought of that, of her peril and her narrow escape, and
+reflected how near she had come to utter shipwreck, her face lost its
+piteous look, and grew harder, and sharper, and sterner; so that the
+wealth of bright hair, that was her glory, crowned it only too
+brilliantly, only too youthfully. She saw how he had fooled her to the
+top of her bent; how he had played on her romantic tastes and her
+silly desire for secrecy. A low-born creature, an agitator, hiding
+from the consequences of a cowardly crime, he had happened upon her in
+his twilight walks, desired her--for an amusement, turned her head
+with inflated phrases, dazzled her inexperience with hints of the
+world and his greatness in it. And she--she had thought herself wiser
+than all about her, as she had thought him preferable to the
+legitimate lover assigned to her by her family. And she had brought
+herself to this! This was the end!
+
+Or no, not the end. The game, for what it was worth, was over. But the
+candle-money remained to be paid. Goldsmith's stanzas had still their
+vogue; mothers quoted them to their daughters. Henrietta knew that
+when lovely woman stoops to folly, even to folly of a lighter
+dye--when she learns, though not too late, that men betray, there
+is a penalty to be paid. The world is censorious, was censorious then,
+and apt to draw from very small evidence a very dark inference.
+Henrietta's face, flaming suddenly from brow to neck, proved her vivid
+remembrance of this. Had she not called herself--the words burned
+her--"his wife in the sight of Heaven"? And now she must go back--if
+they would receive her--go back and face those whom she had left so
+lightly, face the lover whom she had flouted and betrayed, meet the
+smirks of the men and the sneers of the women, and the thoughts of
+both! Go back to blush before the servants, and hear from the lips of
+that grim prude, her sister-in-law, many things, both true and untrue!
+
+The loss of the tender future, of the rosy anticipations in which she
+had lived for weeks as in a fairy palace--she could bear this! And
+the rough awakening from the maiden dream which she had taken for
+love--she must bear that too, though it left her world cold as the
+sheet of grey water before her, and repellent as the bald, rugged
+screes that frowned above it. She would bear the heartsickness, the
+loneliness, the pain that treachery inflicts on innocence; but the
+shame of the home-coming--if they would receive her, which she
+doubted--the coarse taunts and stinging innuendoes, the nods, the
+shrugs, the winks--these she could not face. Anything, anything were
+better, if anything she could find--deserted, flung aside, homeless as
+she was.
+
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+Meanwhile Mrs. Gilson, descending with a sour face, had come upon a
+couple of maids listening at the foot of the stairs. She had made
+sharp work of them, sending them packing with fleas in their ears. But
+they proved to be only the _avant-couriers_ of scandal. Below were the
+Troutbeck apothecary and a dozen gossips, whom the news had brought
+over the hill; and hangers-on without number. All, however, had no
+better fate with Mrs. Gilson; not the parish constable of Bowness,
+whose staff went for little, nor even Mr. Bishop, that great man out
+of doors, at whose slightest nod ostlers ran and helpers bowed; he
+smiled superior, indeed, but he had the wisdom to withdraw. In two
+minutes, in truth, there remained of the buzzing crowd only the old
+curate of Troutbeck supping small beer with a toast in it. And he, it
+was said, knew better than any the length of the landlady's foot.
+
+But this was merely to move the centre of ferment to the inn-yard.
+Here the news that the house had sheltered a man for whose capture the
+Government offered six hundred guineas, bred wild excitement. He had
+vanished, it was true, like a child of the mist. But he might be found
+again. Meantime the rustics gaped on the runner with saucer eyes, or
+flew hither and thither at his beck. And Radicals being at a discount
+in the Lowther country, and six hundred guineas a sum for which old
+Hinkson the miser would have bartered his soul, some spat on their
+hands and swore what they would do if they met the devil; while
+others, who were not apt at thinking, retired into corners and with
+knitted brows and hands plunged into breeches pockets conjured up a
+map of the world about Windermere.
+
+It should be borne in mind that at this time police were
+unknown--outside London. There were parish constables; but where these
+were not cobblers, which was strangely often the case, they were men
+past work, appointed to save the rates. If a man's pocket were picked,
+therefore, or his stack fired, his daughter abducted, or his mare
+stolen, he had only himself and his friends to look to. He must follow
+the offender, confront him, seize him, carry him to the gaol. He must
+do all himself. Naturally, if he were a timid man or unpopular, the
+rogue went free; and sometimes went free again and again until he
+became the terror of the country-side. A fact which enables us to
+understand the terrors of lonely houses in those days, and explains
+the repugnance to life in solitary places which is traditional in some
+parts of England.
+
+On the other hand, where the crime was known and outrageous, it
+became every man's business. It was every man's duty to join the hue
+and cry: if he did not take part in it he was a bad neighbour. Mr.
+Bishop, therefore, did not lack helpers. On the first discovery of
+Walterson's flight, which the officer had made a little after
+daybreak, he had sent horsemen to Whitehaven, Keswick, and Kendal, and
+a boat to Newby Bridge. The nearer shore and the woods on the point
+below the bishop's house--some called it Landoff House--were well
+beaten, and the alarm was given in Bowness on the one hand and in
+Ambleside on the other. The general voice had it that the man had got
+away early in the night to Whitehaven. But some stated that a pedlar
+had met him, on foot and alone, crossing the Kirkstone Pass at
+daybreak; and others, that he had been viewed skulking under a
+haystack near Troutbeck Bridge. That a beautiful girl, his companion,
+had been seized, and was under lock and key in the house, was
+whispered by some, but denied by more. Nevertheless, the report won
+its way, so that there were few moments when the chatterers who buzzed
+about the runner had not an eye on the upper windows and a voice ready
+to proclaim their discoveries.
+
+Even those who believed the story, however, were far from having a
+true picture of poor Henrietta. With some she passed for a London
+Jezebel; locked up, it was whispered, with a bottle of gin to keep her
+quiet until the chaise was ready to take her to gaol. Others pictured
+her as the frenzied leader of one of the women's clubs which had
+lately sprung up in Lancashire, and of which the principal aim,
+according to the Tories, was to copy the French fish-fags and march
+one day to Windsor to drag the old king, blind and mad as he was, to
+the scaffold. Others spoke of a casual light-o'-love picked up at
+Lancaster, but a rare piece of goods for looks; which seemed a pity,
+and one of those tragedies of the law that were beginning to prick
+men's consciences--since there was little doubt that the baggage, poor
+lass, would hang with her tempter.
+
+A word or two of these whisperings reached Mrs. Gilson's ears. But she
+only sniffed her contempt, or, showing herself for a moment at the
+door, chilled by the coldness of her eye the general enthusiasm. Then,
+woe betide the servant whom she chanced to espy among the idlers. If a
+man, he was glad to hide himself in the stable; if a woman, she was
+very likely to go back to her work with a smarting cheek. Even the
+Troutbeck apothecary, a roistering blade who was making a day of it,
+kept a wary eye on the door, and, if he could, slipped round the
+corner when she appeared.
+
+But Juno herself had her moments of failure, and no mortals are exempt
+from them. About four in the afternoon Mrs. Gilson got a shock. Modest
+Ann, her face redder than usual, came to her and whispered in her ear.
+In five seconds the landlady's face was also redder than usual, and
+her frown was something to see. She rose.
+
+"I don't believe it!" she answered. "You are daft, woman, to think of
+such a thing!"
+
+"It's true, missus, as I stand here!" Ann declared.
+
+"To Kendal gaol? To-night!"
+
+"That very thing! And her"--with angry fervour--"scarce more than a
+child, as you may say!"
+
+"Old enough to make a fool of herself!" Mrs. Gilson retorted
+spitefully. "But I don't believe it!" she added. "You've heard amiss,
+my girl!"
+
+"Well, you'll see," the woman answered. "'Twill be soon settled. The
+justice is crossing the road now, and that Bishop with him; and that
+little wizened chap of a clerk that makes up the Salutation books. And
+the man that keeps the gaol at Appleby: they've been waiting for
+him--he's to take her. And there's a chaise ordered to be ready if
+it's wanted. It's true, as I stand here!"
+
+Mrs. Gilson's form swelled until it was a wonder the whalebone stood.
+But in those days things were of good British make.
+
+"A chaise?" she said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"There's no chaise," the landlady answered firmly, "goes from here on
+that errand!"
+
+Modest Ann knew that when her mistress spoke in that tone the thing
+was as good as done. But the waiting-maid, whose heart, for all her
+temper, was softer than her features, at which Jim the ostler was
+supposed to boggle, was not greatly comforted.
+
+"They'll only send to the Salutation," she said despondently.
+
+"Let them send!" the landlady replied. And taking off her apron, she
+prepared to face the enemy. "They'll talk to me before they do!"
+
+But Ann, great as was her belief in her mistress, shook her head.
+
+"What can you do against the law?" she muttered. "I wish that Bishop
+may never eat another morsel of hot victuals as long as he lives!
+Gravy with the joint? Never while I am serving!"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI
+
+                             THE INQUIRY
+
+
+"Who is there?"
+
+Henrietta lifted her tear-stained face from the pillow and awaited the
+answer. Three hours earlier, her head aching, her heart full,
+uncertain what to do or what would follow, she had fled from the
+commotion below, and, locking herself in her bedroom, had lain down
+with her misery. It was something to find in the apathy of prostration
+a brief respite; it was something to close her eyes and lie quite
+still. For a while she might keep her door locked, might nurse her
+wretchedness, might evade rude looks and curious questions, might
+postpone decision.
+
+For the pride that had sustained her in the morning had failed, as the
+day wore on. Solitude and the lack of food--she had refused to eat at
+midday--had worn down her spirit. At last tears had come, and
+plentifully--and repentance. She did not say that the fault was her
+own, but she knew it, she admitted it. The man had behaved to her
+wickedly, treacherously, horribly; but she had brought it on herself.
+He had laid the snare in vain had she not stooped to deceit--had she
+not consented to mislead her friends, to meet him secretly, to listen
+to him with as little heed of propriety as if she had been Sue at the
+forge, or Bess in the still-room. Her own vanity, her own folly, had
+brought her to the very verge of ruin; and with shame she owned that
+there was more in the old saws with which her sister-in-law had
+deafened her than her inexperience had imagined. But the discovery
+came late. She was smirched. And what--what was she to do? Where could
+she go to avoid the full penalty--the taunts, the shame, the disgrace
+that awaited her in the old home?--even if the old home were still
+open to her.
+
+Meanwhile she got no answer. And "Who is there?" she repeated wearily.
+
+The reply came muffled through the door.
+
+"You are wanted downstairs, lady."
+
+She rose languidly. Perhaps the time was come. Perhaps her brother was
+here, had followed, traced, and found her. For the moment she was all
+but indifferent. To-morrow she would suffer, and sorely; but to-day
+she had fallen too low. She went slowly to the door and opened it.
+
+Ann stood in the passage.
+
+"They want you downstairs, miss," she said.
+
+The girl saw that the woman looked queerly at her, but she was
+prepared for such looks. Unconsciously she had steeled herself to bear
+them. "Very well," she returned, and did not ask who wanted her. But
+she went back to her table, dabbed her eyes with cold water, and
+smoothed her hair and her neck-ribbon--she had pride enough for that.
+Then she went to the door. The woman was still outside, still staring.
+
+"I did not know that you were waiting," Henrietta said, faintly
+surprised. "I know my way down."
+
+"I was to come with you, miss."
+
+"Where are they, then?"
+
+"They are where you were this morning," the woman answered. "This way,
+if you please."
+
+Henrietta followed listlessly, and fancied in the sullenness of her
+apathy that she was proof against aught that could happen. But when
+she had descended the stairs and neared the door of Mr. Rogers's
+room--which was in a dusky passage--she found herself, to her
+astonishment, brushing past a row of people, who flattened themselves
+against the wall to let her pass. Their eyes and their hard
+breathing--perhaps because she was amongst them before she saw
+them--impressed her so disagreeably that her heart fluttered, and she
+paused. For an imperceptible instant she was on the point of turning
+and going back. But, fortunately, at that moment the door opened wide,
+Ann stood aside, and Mrs. Gilson showed herself. She beckoned to the
+girl to enter.
+
+"Come in, miss," she said gruffly, as Henrietta complied. "Here's some
+gentlemen want to ask you a question or two."
+
+Henrietta saw two persons with their faces turned towards her seated
+behind a table, which bore ink and paper and one or two calf-bound
+books. Behind these were three or four other persons standing; and
+beside the door close to her were as many more, also on their feet.
+But nowhere could she see the dreaded face of her brother, or, indeed,
+any face that she knew. And after advancing firmly enough into the
+room, she stopped, and, turning, looked uncertainly at Mrs. Gilson.
+
+"There must be some mistake," she murmured. "I have come into the----"
+
+"Wrong room, miss?"--the speaker was Bishop, who was one of the three
+or four who stood behind the two at the table. "No, there's no
+mistake, miss," he continued, with exaggerated cheerfulness. "It's
+just a formality. Only just a formality. These gentlemen wish to ask
+you one or two questions."
+
+The colour rose to her cheeks.
+
+"To ask me?" she repeated, with a slight ring of hauteur in her voice.
+
+"Just so," Bishop answered. "It will be all right, I am sure. But
+attend to this gentleman, if you please, and answer his questions."
+
+He indicated with his finger the one seated before him.
+
+The girl, half angry, half frightened, lowered her eyes and met those
+of the person at the table. Apparently her aspect had checked the
+exordium he had prepared; for instead of addressing her in the tones
+which were wont to fill the justice-room at Ambleside, Mr. Hornyold,
+rector and magistrate, sat back in his chair, and stared at her in
+silence. It was evident that his astonishment was great. He was a
+portly man, and tall, about forty years old, and, after his fashion,
+handsome. He had well-formed features and a mobile smile; but his face
+was masterful--overmasterful, some thought; and his eyes were hard,
+when a sly look did not soften, without much improving, their
+expression. The girl before him was young, adorably fresh, above all,
+beautiful; and the smile of the man peeped from under the mask of the
+justice. He stared at her, and she at him, and perhaps of the two he
+was the more taken aback. At any rate, it was Henrietta who broke the
+silence.
+
+"I do not understand," she said, with ill-suppressed indignation, "why
+I am here. Are you sure that there is no mistake?"
+
+He found his voice then.
+
+"Quite sure," he said drily. And he laid down the pen with which he
+had been toying while he stared at her. He sat a little more erect in
+his chair. "There is no mistake," he continued, "though for your sake,
+young woman, I wish I could think there was. I wish I could think
+there was," he repeated in a more indulgent tone, "since you seem, at
+any rate, a more respectable person than I expected to see."
+
+"Sir!"
+
+The girl's eyes opened wide. Her face was scarlet.
+
+He leaned forward.
+
+"Come, my girl," he said--and his familiar tone struck her, as it
+were, in the face,--never had such a tone been used to her before!
+"Let us have no nonsense. You will not improve your case that way. Let
+me tell you, we are accustomed to all sorts here. You must speak when
+you are told to speak, and be silent when you are bid, and in the
+meantime listen to me! Listen to me, I say!" staying by an imperious
+nod the angry remonstrance that was on her lips. "And remember where
+you are, if you wish to be well treated. If you are sensible and tell
+the truth, some other course will be found than that which, it is to
+be feared, must end this business."
+
+"But by what right," Henrietta cried, striving to command both her
+rage and her fear--"by what right----"
+
+"Am I about to question you?"--with a smirk of humour and a glance at
+the audience. "By the right of the law, young woman, which I would
+have you know is of some account here, however it may stand in
+Lancashire."
+
+"The law?" she stammered. And she looked round terrified. "Why? Why?
+What have I done?" she cried pathetically.
+
+For a moment all was dark before her.
+
+He laughed slyly.
+
+"That's to be seen," he said. "No hanging matter," he continued
+humorously, "I hope. And as it's good law that everybody's
+innocent--that's so, Mr. Dobbie, is it not?"--he addressed the
+clerk--"until he's found to be guilty, let somebody set the young
+woman a chair."
+
+"I can stand!" she cried.
+
+"Nay, you sit down!" muttered a gruff voice in her ear. And a hand--it
+was Mrs. Gilson's--pressed her down in the chair. "And you answer
+straight out," the woman continued coolly, in defiance of the
+scandalised look which Mr. Dobbie, the clerk, cast upon her, "and
+there's not one of 'em can do you any harm."
+
+The magistrate nodded.
+
+"That's true," he said tolerantly, "always supposing that you've done
+no wrong, my girl--no wrong beyond getting into bad company, as I
+trust will turn out to be the case. Now, Mr. Dobbie, take down her
+answers. What's your name, my girl, first?"
+
+Henrietta looked at him steadily; she was trying to place herself in
+these new conditions. Something like composure was coming back to her
+flushed and frightened face. She reflected; and having reflected, she
+was silent.
+
+He fancied that she had not heard, or did not understand.
+
+"Your name, young woman," he repeated, "and your last place of abode?
+Speak up! And don't be afraid."
+
+But she did not answer.
+
+He frowned.
+
+"Come, come," he said. "Did you hear me? Where is your home, and what
+do you call yourself? You are not the man's wife, I know. We know as
+much as that, you see, so you may as well be frank."
+
+"What is the charge against me?" She spoke slowly, and her face was
+now set and stubborn. "Of what am I accused?"
+
+Mr. Hornyold's face turned a brick red. He did not rule three parishes
+through three curates, reserving to himself only the disciplinary
+powers he was now exercising, to be thwarted by a run-the-country
+girl; who, in spite of her looks, was, ten to one, no better than the
+imprudent wenches the overseers were continually bringing before him.
+He knew at least the company she kept. He raised his voice.
+
+"I am not here to answer your questions!" he said, bending his brows.
+"But you mine! You mine!" he repeated, rapping the table sharply. "Do
+you hear? Now, you will at once tell me----"
+
+He broke off. The clerk had touched his sleeve and was whispering in
+his ear. He frowned impatiently, but listened. And after a moment he
+shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Very well," he said. "Tell her!"
+
+The clerk, a shabby man with a scratch wig and a little glass
+ink-bottle at his buttonhole, raised his eyes, and looking at her over
+his glasses, spoke:
+
+"You are not yet charged," he said; "but if you cannot give a
+satisfactory account of yourself you will be charged with receiving,
+harbouring, and assisting one William Walterson the younger, otherwise
+Stewart, otherwise Malins, against whom indictments for various
+felonies and treason felonies have been found. And with aiding and
+abetting the escape of the said William Walterson, in whose company
+you have been found. And with being accessory after the fact to
+various felonies----"
+
+"To murder!" said Mr. Hornyold, cutting him short emphatically. "To
+murder! amongst other things. That is the charge, if you must know it.
+So now"--he rapped the table sharply--"answer at once, and the truth.
+What is your name? And where was your last place of abode?"
+
+But Henrietta, if she were willing to answer, could not. At the sound
+of that dreadful word "murder!"--they hanged lightly, so lightly in
+those days!--the colour had fled from her face. The darkness that had
+confused her a while before hid all. She kept her seat, she even
+retained her erect posture; but the hands which she raised before her
+as if to ward off something groped idly in the air.
+
+Murder! No wonder that she lost consciousness for a moment, or that
+Hornyold, secretly relishing her beauty, thought that he had found the
+weapon that would soon bring her to her knees! or that the little
+audience by the door, listening awestruck, held their breath. The
+wonder was that only one of them judged from the girl's gesture that
+she was fainting. Only one acted. Mrs. Gilson stepped forward and
+shook her roughly by the shoulder.
+
+"Words break no bones!" the landlady said without ceremony--and not
+without an angry look at the clerk, who raised his pen as if he would
+interpose. "Don't you make a fool of yourself. But do you tell them
+what they want to know. And your friends will settle with them.
+Murder, indeed! Pack of boddles!"
+
+"Very good advice," said the magistrate, smiling indulgently.
+"But----"
+
+"But you must not interfere!" snapped the clerk--who kept the books of
+the Salutation in Ambleside and not of the Low Wood Inn.
+
+"Haven't you sense to see the girl is fainting?" the landlady replied
+wrathfully.
+
+"Oh, well----"
+
+"I am better now," Henrietta said bravely. And she drew a deep breath.
+A little colour--induced perhaps by Hornyold's unsparing gaze--was
+coming back to her cheeks. "Would you--can I have a glass of water?"
+she murmured.
+
+Mrs. Gilson was bustling to the door to give the order when it opened,
+and Mr. Bishop, who had gone to it a moment before, took in a glass of
+wine, and, secretly pleased that he had anticipated the need, handed
+it to her. Mrs. Gilson took it with a grunt of distrust, and made the
+girl swallow it; while the magistrate waited and watched, and thought
+that he had never seen a young woman who was so handsome, pale or red,
+fainting or fierce. And so fresh! so admirably, astonishingly fresh
+for the companion of such a man. A good many thoughts of various kinds
+flitted through his mind as he watched her, marking now the luxuriance
+of her fair hair, now the white chin, small but firm, and now the
+faint, faint freckles that, like clots in cream, only added to the
+delicacy of her complexion. He waited without impatience until the
+girl had drunk the wine, and when he spoke it was in a tone
+approaching the paternal.
+
+"Now, my dear," he said, "you are going to be a good girl and
+sensible, I am sure. We don't want to send you to prison to herd with
+people with whom, to judge from your appearance, you have not been
+wont to mix. And therefore we give you this opportunity--there's no
+need we should, you know--of telling us who you are, and whence you
+come, and what you know; that if it appears that you have fallen into
+this man's company in ignorance, and not knowing what manner of man he
+was, we may prevent this charge appearing, and instead of committing
+you to Appleby, place you here or elsewhere under bond to appear.
+Which, in a case so serious as this, is not a course we could adopt
+were you not so very young, and," with a humorous look at the group by
+the door, "so very good-looking! So now be a good girl and don't be
+afraid, but tell me at once who you are, and where you joined this
+man."
+
+"If I do not," Henrietta said, looking at him with clear eyes, "must I
+go to prison?"
+
+"Appleby gaol," said the clerk, glancing over his glasses.
+
+"Then you must send me there," she replied, a little faintly. "For I
+cannot tell you."
+
+"Don't be a fool!" growled Mrs. Gilson in her ear.
+
+"I cannot tell you," Henrietta repeated more firmly.
+
+Mr. Hornyold stared. He was growing angry, for he was not accustomed
+to be set at naught. After their fashion they all stared.
+
+"Come, come, my dear," the runner remonstrated smoothly. "If you don't
+tell us, we shall think there's more behind."
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"And that being so, it's only a matter of time to learn what it is,"
+the runner continued cunningly. "Tell us now and save time, because we
+are sure to get to know. Young women as pretty as you are not hard to
+trace."
+
+But she shook her head. And the face Bishop called pretty was
+stubborn. The group by the door, marking for future gossip every
+particular of her appearance, the stuff of her riding-habit, the
+fineness of her linen, the set of her head, made certain that she was
+no common trollope. They wondered what would happen to her, and hoped,
+the more tender-hearted, that there would be no scene, and no
+hysterics to end it.
+
+The clerk raised his pen in the air. "Understand," he said, "you will
+be remanded to Appleby gaol--it's no very comfortable place, I can
+tell you--and later, you will be brought up again and committed, I've
+very little doubt, to take your trial on these charges. If the
+principal offender be taken, as he is likely to be taken before the
+day is out, you'll be tried with him. But it is not necessary. Now do
+you understand?" he continued, speaking slowly. "And are you still
+determined to give no evidence--showing how you came to be with this
+man?"
+
+Henrietta's eyes were full of trouble. She shivered.
+
+"Where shall I be tried?" she muttered in an unsteady voice.
+
+"Appleby," the clerk said curtly. "Or in His Majesty's Bench at
+Westminster! Now think, before it is too late."
+
+"It is too late," she answered in a low tone, "I cannot help it now."
+
+The magistrate leant forward. What a fool the girl was! If she went to
+Appleby he would see no more of her, save for an hour or two when she
+was brought up again before being committed. Whereas, if she spoke and
+they made her a witness, she might be lodged somewhere in the
+neighbourhood under surveillance. And she was so handsome and so
+young--the little fool!--he would not be sorry to see more of her.
+
+
+[Illustration: "I give you a last chance," he said.]
+
+
+"I give you a last chance," he said.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+The magistrate shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Then make the committal out!" he said. "There's enough to justify
+it." It was some satisfaction to think that locked up with half a
+dozen sluts at Appleby she would soon be sorry for herself. "Make it
+out!" he repeated.
+
+If the hysterics did not come now he was very much mistaken if they
+did not come later, when the gaol doors were shut on her. She was
+evidently of respectable condition; a curate's daughter, perhaps,
+figged out by the man who had deceived her, or a lady's lady, spoiled
+by. her mistress, and taught ideas above her station. On such, the
+gaol, with its company and its hardships, fell severely. It would
+soon, he fancied, bring her to her senses.
+
+The clerk dipped his pen in the ink, and after casting a last glance
+at the girl to see if she would still yield, began to write. She
+watched him with fascinated eyes, watched him in a kind of stupor. The
+thought throbbed loudly and more loudly in her head, "What will become
+of me? What will become of me?" Meanwhile the silence was broken only
+by the squeaking of the pen and a single angry "Lord's sakes!" which
+fell from the landlady. The others awaited the end with whatever of
+pity, or interest, or greedy excitement came natural to them. They
+were within, and others were without; and they had a delicious sense
+of privilege. They would have much to tell: For one does not every day
+see a pretty girl, young, and tenderly nurtured, as this girl seemed
+to be, and a lady to the eye, committed to the common gaol on a charge
+of murder--murder, and treason felony, was it, they called it? Treason
+felony! That meant hanging, drawing, and quartering. Lord's sakes,
+indeed; poor thing, how would she bear it? And though it is likely
+that some among them--Mrs. Gilson for one--didn't think it would come
+to this, there was a frown on the landlady's brow that would have done
+honour to the Lord Chancellor Eldon himself.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII
+
+                        CAPTAIN ANTHONY CLYNE
+
+
+Mr. Bishop of Bow Street alone watched the clerk's pen with a look of
+doubt. He had his own views about the girl. But he did not interfere,
+and his discontent with the posture of affairs was only made clear
+when a knock came at the door. Then he was at the door, and had raised
+the latch before those who were nearest could open.
+
+"Have you got him?" he asked eagerly. And he thrust his head into the
+passage.
+
+Even Henrietta turned to catch the answer, her lips parting. Her
+breath seemed to stop. The clerk held his pen. The magistrate by a
+gesture exacted silence.
+
+"No, but----"
+
+"No?" the runner cried in chagrin.
+
+"No!" The voice sounded something peremptory. "Certainly not. But I
+want to see--ahem!--yes, Mr. Hornyold. At once!"
+
+Henrietta, at the first word of the answer, had turned again. She had
+turned so far that she now had her back full to the door, and her face
+to the farthest corner. But it was not the same Henrietta, nor the
+same face. She sat rigid, stiff, turned to stone; she was scarlet from
+hair to neck-ribbon. Her very eyes burned, her shoulders burned. And
+her eyes were wild with insupportable shame. To be found thus! To be
+found thus, and by him! Better, far better the gaol, and all it meant!
+
+Meanwhile the magistrate, after a brief demur and a little whispering
+and the appearance of a paper with a name on it, rose. He went out. A
+moment later his clerk was summoned, and he went out. Bishop had gone
+out first of all. Those who were left and who had nothing better to do
+than to stare at the girl's back, whispered together, or bade one
+another listen and hear what was afoot outside. Presently these were
+joined by one or two of the boldest in the passage, who muttered
+hurriedly what they knew, or sought information, or stared with double
+power at the girl's back. But Henrietta sat motionless, with the same
+hot blush on her cheeks and the same misery in her eyes.
+
+Presently Mrs. Gilson was summoned, and she went out. The others,
+freed from the constraint of her presence, talked a little louder and
+a little more freely. And wonder grew. The two village constables, who
+remained and who felt themselves responsible, looked important, and
+one cried "Silence" a time or two, as if the court were sitting. The
+other explained the law, of which he knew as much as a Swedish turnip,
+on the subject of treason felony. But mixing it up with the _Habeas
+Corpus_ which was then suspended, he was tripped up by a neighbour
+before he could reach the minutiae of the punishment. Which otherwise
+must have had much interest for the prisoner.
+
+At length the door opened, the other constable cried, "Silence!
+Silence in the court!" And there entered--the landlady.
+
+The surprise of the little knot of people at the back of the room was
+great but short-lived.
+
+Mrs. Gilson turned about and surveyed them with her arms akimbo and
+her lower lip thrust out. "You can all just go!" she said. "And the
+sooner the better! And if ever I catch you"--to the more successful of
+the constables, on whose feet her eye had that moment alighted--"up my
+stairs with those dirty clogs, Peter Harrison, I'll clout you! Now,
+off you go! Do you think I keep carpets for loons like you?"
+
+"But--the prisoner?" gasped Peter, clutching at his fast-departing
+glory. "The prisoner, missus?"
+
+"The goose!" the landlady retorted with indescribable scorn. "Go you
+down and see what the other ganders think of it. And leave me to mind
+my business! I'll see to the prisoner." And she saw them all out and
+closed the door.
+
+When the room was clear she tapped Henrietta on the shoulder. "There's
+no gaol for you," she said bluntly. "Though it is not yourself you've
+got to thank for it. They've put you in my charge and you're to stay
+here, and I'm to answer for you. So you'll just say straight out if
+you'll stay, or if you'll run."
+
+Had the girl burst into tears the landlady had found it reasonable.
+Instead, "Where is he?" Henrietta whispered. She did not even turn her
+head.
+
+"Didn't you hear," Mrs. Gilson retorted, "that he had not been taken?"
+
+"I mean--I mean----"
+
+"Ah!" Mrs. Gilson exclaimed, a little enlightened. "You mean the
+gentleman that was here, and spoke for you? Yes, you are right, it's
+him you've to thank. Well, he's gone to Whitehaven, but he'll see you
+tomorrow."
+
+Henrietta sighed.
+
+"In the meantime," Mrs. Gilson continued, "you'll give me your word
+you'll not run. Gilson is bound for you in fifty pounds to show you
+when you're wanted. And as fifty pounds is fifty pounds, and a mint of
+money, I'd as soon turn the key on you as not. Girls that run once,
+run easy," the landlady added severely.
+
+"I will not run away," Henrietta said meekly--more meekly perhaps than
+she had ever spoken in her life. "And--and I am much obliged to you,
+and thankful to you," in a very small voice. "Will you please to let
+me go to my room, and you can lock me in?"
+
+She had risen from her seat, and though she did not turn to the
+landlady, she stole, shamed and askance, a look at her. Her lip
+trembled, her head hung. And Mrs. Gilson, on her side, seemed for a
+moment on the verge of some unwonted demonstration; she stood awkward
+and large, and perhaps from sheer clumsiness avoided even while she
+appeared to invite the other's look. But nothing happened until the
+two passed out, Henrietta first, like a prisoner, and Mrs. Gilson
+stiffly following.
+
+Then there were half a dozen persons waiting to stare in the passage,
+and the way Mrs. Gilson's tongue fell loose was a warning. In two
+seconds, only one held her ground: the same dark girl with the
+gipsy-like features whose mocking smile had annoyed Henrietta as she
+dressed that morning. Ah, me! what ages ago that morning seemed!
+
+To judge from Mrs. Gilson's indignation, this girl was the last who
+should have stood.
+
+"Don't you black-look me!" the landlady cried. "But pack! D'you hear,
+impudence, pack! Or not one drop of milk do I take from your old
+skinflint of a father! And he'll drub you finely, if he's not too old
+and silly--till you smile on the other side of your face! I'd like to
+know what's taken you to-day to push yourself among your betters!"
+
+"No harm," the girl muttered. She had retreated, scowling, half-way
+down the stairs.
+
+"And no good, either!" the landlady retorted. "Get you gone, or I'll
+make your ears ring after another fashion!"
+
+Henrietta heard no more. She had shrunk from the uproar and fled
+quickly to her room. With a bursting heart and a new humility she
+drew the key from the wards of the lock and set it on the outside,
+hoping--though the hope was slender--to avoid further words with the
+landlady. The hope came nearer fulfilment, however, than she expected;
+for Mrs. Gilson, after panting upstairs, only cried through the door
+that she would send her up supper, and then went down again--perhaps
+with a view to catching Bess Hinkson in a fresh trespass.
+
+Bess was gone, however. But adventures are for the brave, and not ten
+minutes passed before the landlady was at issue with a fresh
+adversary. She found the coach-office full, so full that it overflowed
+into the hall. Modest Ann, called this way and that, had need of four
+hands to meet the demands made upon her; so furious were the calls for
+the lemons and rum and Old Geneva, the grateful perfume of which
+greeted Mrs. Gilson as she descended. Alas, something else greeted
+her: and that was a voice, never a favourite with her, but now
+raised in accents particularly distasteful. Tyson, the Troutbeck
+apothecary--a flashy, hard-faced young man in pepper-and-salt, and
+Bedford cords--had seized the command and the ear of the company in
+the coach-office, and was roasting Long Tom Gilson upon his own
+hearth.
+
+"Not know who she is?" he was saying in the bullying tone which made
+him hated of the pauper class. "You don't ask me to believe that, Tom?
+Come! Come!"
+
+"It's what I say," Gilson answered.
+
+He sat opposite the other, his hands on his knees, his face red and
+sulky. He did not like to be baited.
+
+"And you go bail for her?" Tyson cried. "You have gone bail for her?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And don't know her name?"
+
+"Well--no."
+
+The doctor sat back in his chair, his glass in his hand, and looked
+round for approbation.
+
+"Well, gentlemen," he said, "what do you think of that for a
+dalesman?"
+
+"Well, it wasn't long-headed, Tom," said one unwillingly. "Not to call
+long-headed, so to speak," with north-country caution. "I'd not go
+bail myself, not for nobody I'd not know."
+
+"No," several agreed. "No, no!"
+
+"No, but----"
+
+"But what, Tom, what?" the doctor asked, waiting in his positive
+fashion for the other to plunge deeper into the mire.
+
+"Captain Clyne, that I do know," Gilson continued, "it was he said 'Do
+it!' And he said something to the Rector, I don't doubt, for he was
+agreeable."
+
+"But he did not go bail for her?" the apothecary suggested
+maliciously.
+
+"No," Tom answered, breathing hard. "But for reason she was not there,
+but here. Anyway," he continued, somewhat anxious to shift the
+subject, "he said it and I done it, and I'd do it again for Captain
+Clyne. I tell you he's not a man as it's easy to say 'No' to, Mr.
+Tyson. As these Radicals i' Lancashire ha' found out, 'od rot 'em!
+He's that active among 'em, he's never a letter, I'm told, but has a
+coffin drawn on it, and yeomanry in his house down beyond both day and
+night, I hear!"
+
+"I heard," said one, "in Cartmel market, he was to be married next
+week."
+
+"Ay," said the doctor jocosely, "but not to the young lady as Tom is
+bail for! I tell you, Tom, he's been making a fool of you just to keep
+this bit of evidence against the Radicals in his hands."
+
+"Why not send her to Appleby gaol, then?" Tom retorted, with a fair
+show of sense.
+
+"Because he knows you'll cosset her here, and he thinks to loose her
+tongue that way! They can gaol her after, if this don't answer."
+
+"Oh, indeed!"
+
+"Ay, while you run the risk! If it's not that, what's he doing here?"
+
+"Why should he not be here?" Gilson asked slowly. "Hasn't he the old
+house in Furness, not two miles from Newby Bridge! And his mother a
+Furness woman. I do hear that the boy's to be brought there for safety
+till the shires are quieter. And maybe it's that brings Captain
+Anthony here."
+
+"But what has that to do with the young woman you're going bail for?"
+the doctor retorted. "Go bail, Tom, for a wench you don't know, and
+that'll jump the moon one of these fine nights! I tell you, man, I
+never heard the like! Never! Go bail for a girl you don't know!"
+
+"And I tell you," cried a voice that made the glasses ring, "I have
+heard the like! And I'll give you the man, my lad!" And Mrs. Gilson,
+putting aside the two who blocked the doorway, confronted the
+offending Tyson with a look comparable only to that of Dr. Keats of
+Eaton when he rolled up his sleeves. "I'll give you the name, my lad!"
+she repeated.
+
+"Well," the doctor answered, though he was manifestly taken aback,
+"you must confess, Mrs. Gilson----"
+
+"Nay, I'll confess nothing!" the landlady retorted. "What need, when
+you're the man? Not give bail for a woman you don't know? Much you
+knew of Madge Peters when you made her your wife! And wasn't that
+going bail for her? Ay, and bail that you'll find it hard to get out
+of, my man, though you may wish to! For the matter of that, it's small
+blame to her, whatever comes of it!" Mrs. Gilson continued, setting
+her arms akimbo. "If all I hear of your goings-on is true! What do you
+think she's doing, ill and sick at home, while you're hanging about
+old Hinkson's? Ay, you may look black, but tell me what Bess Hinkson's
+doing about my place all this day? I never saw her here twice in a day
+in all my life before, and----"
+
+"What do you mean?" Tyson cried violently. To hear a thing which he
+thought no one suspected brought up thus before a roomful of men! He
+looked black as thunder at his accuser.
+
+"I mean no harm of your wife," the terrible landlady answered;
+something--perhaps this roasting of her husband on his own hearth--had
+roused her beyond the ordinary. "None, my gentleman, and I know none.
+But if you want no harm said of her, show yourself a bit less at
+Hinkson's. And a bit less in my house. And a bit more in your own! And
+the harm will be less likely to happen!"
+
+"I'll never cross your doorstep again!" Tyson roared.
+
+
+[Illustration: He neither cared nor saw who it was whom he had
+jostled]
+
+
+And stumbling to his feet he cast off one or two who in their well
+meaning would have stayed him. He made for the door. But he was not to
+escape without further collision. On the threshold he ran plump
+against a person who was entering, cursed the newcomer heartily, and
+without a look pushed violently by him and was gone.
+
+He neither cared nor saw who it was whom he had jostled. But the
+company saw, and some rose to their feet in consternation, while
+others, carried their hands to their heads. There was an involuntary
+movement of respect which the new comer acknowledged by touching his
+hat. He had the air of one who knew how to behave to his inferiors;
+but the air, also, of one who never forgot that they were his
+inferiors.
+
+"Your friend seems in a hurry," he said. His face was not a face that
+easily betrayed emotion, but he looked tired.
+
+"Beg your honour's pardon, I am sure," Gilson answered. "Something's
+put him out, and he did not see you, sir."
+
+Mrs. Gilson muttered that a pig could have seen. But her words were
+lost in the respectful murmur which made the company sharers in the
+landlord's apology.
+
+Not that for the most part they knew the strange gentleman. But there
+is a habit of authority which once gained becomes a part of the man.
+And Anthony Clyne had this. He retained wherever he went some shadow
+of the quarter-deck manner. He had served under Nelson, and under
+Exmouth; but he had resisted, as a glance at his neat, trim figure
+proved, that coarsening influence which spoiled for Pall Mall too many
+of the sea-dogs of the great war. Like his famous leader, he had left
+an arm in the cockpit; and the empty sleeve which he wore pinned to
+the lappel of his coat added, if possible, to the dignity of the
+upright carriage and the lean, shaven face. The death of his elder
+brother had given him the family place, a seat in the House, a chair
+at White's, and an income handsome for his day. And he looked all this
+and more; so that such a company as now eyed him with respect judged
+him a very perfect gentleman, if a little distant.
+
+But from Clyne Old Hall, where he lived, he could see on the horizon
+the smoke of toiling cities; and in those cities there were hundreds
+who hated his cold proud face, and thousands who cursed his name. Not
+that he was a bad man or a tyrant, or himself ground the faces of the
+poor. But discipline was his watchword, and reform his bugbear. To
+palter with reform, to listen to a word about the rights of the
+masses, was to his mind to parley with anarchy. That governors and
+governed could be the same appeared to his mind as absurd as that His
+Majesty's ships could be commanded from the forecastle. All for the
+people and nothing by the people was his political maxim, and one
+amply meeting, as he believed, all eventualities. Lately he had had it
+carved on a mantel-piece, and the prattle of his only child, as the
+club-footed boy spelled it out syllable by syllable, was music to his
+ears.
+
+Whoever wavered, therefore, whoever gave to the violence of those
+times, he stood firm. And he made others stand. It was his honest
+belief that a little timely severity--in other words, a whiff of
+grape-shot--would have nipped the French Revolution in the bud; and
+while he owned that the lower orders were suffering and times were
+bad, that bread was dear and work wanting, he was for quelling the
+least disorder with the utmost rigour of the law.
+
+Such was the man who accepted with a curt nod Tom Gilson's apology.
+Then "Have you a room ready?" he asked.
+
+"The fire is still burning in Mr. Rogers's room," Mrs. Gilson
+answered, smoothing at once her apron and her brow. "And it'll not be
+used again to-night. But I thought that you had gone on, sir, to
+Whitehaven."
+
+"I shall go on to-morrow," he answered, frowning slightly.
+
+"I'll show your honour the way," Tom Gilson said.
+
+"Very good," he answered. "And dinner, ma'am, as soon as possible."
+
+"To be sure, sir." And "This way, your honour." And taking two candles
+Gilson went out before Captain Clyne, and with greater ceremony than
+would be used in these days, lighted him along the passage and up the
+stairs to Mr. Rogers's room in the south wing.
+
+The fire had sunk somewhat low, but the room which had witnessed so
+many emotions in the last twenty-four hours made no sign. The table
+had been cleared. The glass fronts of the cupboards shone dully; only
+a chair or two stood here or there out of place. That was all. But had
+Henrietta, when she descended to breakfast that morning, foreseen who
+would fill her chair before night, who would dine at her table and
+brood with stern unseeing eyes on the black-framed prints, for whom
+the pale-faced clock would tick off depressing seconds, what--what
+would she have thought? And how would she have faced her future?
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII
+
+                           STARVECROW FARM
+
+
+The company at Mrs. Gilson's, impressed by the appearance of a
+gentleman of Captain Clyne's position, scarce gave a second thought to
+the doctor's retreat. But to Tyson, striding homewards through the mud
+and darkness, the insult he had suffered and the feeble part he had
+played filled the world. For him the inn-parlour still cackled at his
+expense. He saw himself the butt of the evening, the butt of many
+evenings. He was a vain, ill-conditioned man, who among choice spirits
+would have boasted of his philandering. But not the less he hated to
+be brought to book before those whom he deemed his inferiors. He could
+not deny that the landlady had trounced him, and black bile whelmed
+all his better feelings as he climbed the steep track behind the inn.
+"D----d shrew!" he growled, "D----d shrew!" and breathing hard, as
+much in rage as with exertion, he stood an instant to look back and
+shake his fist before he plunged into the darkness of the wooded dell
+through which the path ascended.
+
+Two or three faint lights marked the position of the inn a couple of
+fields below him. Beyond it the pale surface of the lake reflected a
+dim radiance, bestowed on it through some rift in the clouds invisible
+from where he stood. A far-away dog barked, a curlew screamed on the
+hill above him, the steady fall of a pair of oars in the rowlocks rose
+from the lake. The immensity of the night closed all in; and on the
+thoughtful might have laid a burden of melancholy.
+
+But Tyson thought of his wrongs, not of the night, and with a curse he
+turned and plunged into the wood, following a path impossible for a
+stranger. As it was he stumbled over roots, the saplings whipped him
+smartly, a low bough struck off his hat, and when he came to the
+stream which whirled through the bottom of the dingle he had much ado
+to find the plank bridge. But at length he emerged from the wood,
+gained the road, and mounted the steep shoulder that divided the Low
+Wood hamlet from the vale of Troutbeck.
+
+Where his road topped the ridge the gaunt outline of a tall, narrow
+building rose in the gloom. It resembled a sentry-box commanding
+either valley. It was set back some twenty paces from the road with
+half a dozen ragged fir trees intervening; and on its lower side--but
+the night hid them--some mean farm-buildings clung to the steep. With
+the wind soughing among the firs and rustling through the scanty
+grass, the place on that bleak shoulder seemed lonely even at night.
+But in the day its ugliness and barrenness were a proverb. They called
+it "Starvecrow Farm."
+
+Nevertheless, Tyson paused at the gate, and with an irresolute oath
+looked over it.
+
+"Cursed shrew!" he said, for the third time. "What business is it of
+hers if I choose to amuse myself?"
+
+And with his heart hardened, he flung the gate wide, and entered. He
+had not gone two paces before he leapt back, startled by the fierce
+snarl of a dog, that, unseen, flung itself to the end of its chain.
+Disappointed in its spring, it began to bay.
+
+The doctor's fright was only momentary.
+
+"What, Turk!" he cried. "What are you doing here? What the blazes are
+you doing here? Down, you brute, down!"
+
+The dog knew his voice, ceased to bark, and began to whimper. Tyson
+entered, and assured that the watchdog knew him, kicked it brutally
+from his path. Then he groped his way between the trees, stumbled down
+three broken steps at the corner of the house, and passing round the
+building reached the door which was on the further side from the road.
+He tried it, but it was fastened. He knocked on it.
+
+A slip-shod foot dragged across a stone floor. A high cracked voice
+asked, "Who's there?"
+
+"I! Tyson!" the doctor answered impatiently. "Who should it be at this
+hour?"
+
+"Is't you, doctor?"
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"Who's wi' ye?"
+
+"No one, you old fool! Who should there be?"
+
+A key creaked in the lock, and the great bar was withdrawn; but
+slowly, as it seemed to the apothecary, and reluctantly. He entered
+and the door was barred behind him.
+
+"Where's Bess?" he asked.
+
+The bent creeping figure that had admitted him replied that she was
+"somewheres about, somewheres about." After which, strangely clad in a
+kind of bedgown and nightcap, it trailed back to the settle beside the
+turf and wood fire, which furnished both light and warmth. The fire,
+indeed, was the one generous thing the room contained. All else was
+sordid and pinched and mean. The once-whitened walls were stained, the
+rafters were smoked in a dozen places, the long dresser--for the room
+was large, though low--was cracked and ill-furnished, a brick
+supported one leg of the table. Even in the deep hearth-place, where
+was such comfort as the place could boast, a couple of logs served for
+stools and a frowsy blanket gave a squalid look to the settle.
+
+Tyson stood on the hearth with his back to the fire, and eyed the room
+with a scowl of disgust. The old man, bent double over a stick which
+he was notching, breathed loudly and laboriously.
+
+"What folly is this about the dog?" Tyson asked contemptuously.
+
+The old man looked up, cunning in his eyes.
+
+"Ask her," he said.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+The miser bending over his task seemed to be taken with a fit of
+silent laughter.
+
+"It's the still sow sups the brose," he said. "And I'm still! I'm
+still."
+
+"What are you doing?" Tyson growled.
+
+"Nothing much! Nothing much! You've not," looking up with greed in his
+eyes, "an old letter-back to spare?"
+
+Tyson seldom came to the house unfurnished with one. He had long known
+that Hinkson belonged to the class of misers who, if they can get a
+thing for nothing, are as well pleased with a scrap of paper, a length
+of string, or a mouldy crust, as with a crown-piece. The poor land
+about the house, which with difficulty supported three or four cows,
+on the produce of which the Hinksons lived, might have been made
+profitable at the cost of some labour and a little money. But labour
+and money were withheld. And Tyson often doubted if the miser's store
+were as large as rumour had it, or even if there were a store at all.
+
+"Not that," he would add, "large or small, some one won't cut his
+throat for it one day!"
+
+He produced the old letter, and after showing it, held it behind him.
+
+"What of the dog now?" he said.
+
+"Na, na, I'll not speak for that!"
+
+"Then you won't have it!"
+
+But the old fellow only cackled superior.
+
+"What's--what's--a pound-note a week? Is't four pound a month?"
+
+"Ay!" the doctor answered. "It is. That's money, my lad!"
+
+"Ay!"
+
+The old man hugged himself, and rocked to and fro in an ecstasy.
+
+"That's money! And four pound a month," he consulted the stick he was
+notching, "is forty-eight pound a year?"
+
+"And four to it," Tyson answered. "Who's paying you that?"
+
+"Na, na!"
+
+"And what's it to do with the dog?"
+
+Hinkson looked knavish but frightened.
+
+"Hist!" he said. "Here's Bess. I'd use to wallop her, but now----"
+
+"She wallops you," the visitor muttered. "That's the ticket, I
+expect."
+
+The girl entered by the mean staircase door and nodded to him coolly.
+
+"I supposed it was you," she said slightingly.
+
+And for the hundredth or two-hundredth time he felt with rage that he
+was in the presence of a stronger nature than his own. He could treat
+the old man, whose greed had survived his other passions, and almost
+his faculties, pretty much as he pleased. But though he had sauntered
+through the gate a score of times with the intention of treating Bess
+as he had treated more than one village girl who pleased him, he had
+never re-crossed the threshold without a sense not only of defeat, but
+of inferiority. He came to strut, he remained to kneel.
+
+He fought against that feeling now, calling his temper to his aid.
+
+"What folly is this about the dog?" he asked.
+
+"Father thinks," she replied demurely, "that if thieves come it can be
+heard better at the gate."
+
+"Heard? I should think it could be heard in Bowness!"
+
+"Just so."
+
+"But your father----"
+
+"Father!" sharply, "go to bed!" And then to the visitor, "Give him a
+ha'penny," she muttered. "He won't go without!"
+
+"But I don't care----"
+
+"I don't care either--which of you goes!" she retorted. "But one of
+you goes."
+
+Sullenly he produced a copper and put it in the old man's quivering
+hand--not for the first time by several. Hinkson gripped it, and
+closing his hand upon it as if he feared it would be taken from him,
+he hobbled away, and disappeared behind the dingy hangings of the
+box-bed.
+
+"And now what's the mystery?" Tyson asked, seating himself on one of
+the stools.
+
+"There is none," she answered, standing before him where the firelight
+fell on her dark face and gipsy beauty. "Call it a whim if you like.
+Perhaps I don't want my lads to come in till I've raddled my cheeks!
+Or perhaps"--flippantly--"Oh, any 'perhaps' you like!"
+
+"I know no lad you have but me," he said.
+
+"I don't know one," she answered, seating herself on the settle, and
+bending forward with her elbows on her knees and her face between her
+hands. It was a common pose with her. "When I've a lad I want a man!"
+she continued--"a man!"
+
+"Don't you call me a man?" he answered, his eyes taking their fill of
+her face.
+
+"Of a sort." she rejoined disdainfully. "Of a sort. Good enough for
+here. But I shan't live all my life here! D'you ever think what a
+God-forsaken corner this is, Tyson? Why, man, we are like mice in a
+dark cupboard, and know as much of the world!"
+
+"What's the world to us?" he asked. Her words and her ways were often
+a little beyond him.
+
+"That's it!" she answered, in a tone of contemptuous raillery. "What's
+the world to us? We are here and not there. We must curtsey to parson
+and bob to curate, and mind our manners with the overseers! We must be
+proud if Madam inquires after our conduct, but we must not fancy that
+we are the same flesh and blood as she is! Ah, when I meet her," with
+sudden passion, "and she looks at me to see if I am clean, I--do you
+know what I think of? Do you know what I dream of? Do you know what I
+hope"--she snapped her strong white teeth together--"ay, hope to see?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"What they saw twenty years ago in France--her white neck under the
+knife! That was what happened to her and her like there, I am told,
+and I wish it could happen here! And I'd knit, as girls knitted there,
+and counted the heads that fell into the baskets! When that time comes
+Madam won't look to see if I am clean!"
+
+He looked at her uncomfortably. He did not understand her.
+
+"How the devil do you come to know these things?" he exclaimed. It was
+not the first time she had opened to him in this strain--not the first
+by several. And the sharp edge was gone from his astonishment. But she
+was not the less a riddle to him and a perplexity--a Sphinx, at once
+alluring and terrifying. "Who told you of them? What makes you think
+of them?" he repeated.
+
+"Do you never think of them?" she retorted, leaning forward and fixing
+her eyes on his. "Do you never wonder why all the good things are for
+a few, and for the rest--a crust? Why the rector dines at the squire's
+table and you dine in the steward's room? Why the parson gives you a
+finger and thinks he stoops, and his ladies treat you as if you were
+dirt--only the apothecary? Why you are in one class and they in
+another till the end of time?"
+
+"D----n them!" he muttered, his face a dull red. She knew how to touch
+him on the raw.
+
+"Do you never think of those things?" she asked.
+
+"Well," he said, taking her up sullenly, "if I do?"
+
+She rocked herself back on the settle and looked across at him out of
+half-closed eyes.
+
+"Then--if you do think," she answered slowly, "it is to be seen if you
+are a man."
+
+"A man?"
+
+"Ay, a man! A man! For if you think of these things, if you stand face
+to face with them, and do nothing, you are no man! And no lad for me!"
+lightly. "You are well matched as it is then. Just a match and no more
+for your white-faced, helpless dumpling of a wife!"
+
+"It is all very well," he muttered, "to talk!"
+
+"Ay, but presently we shall do as well as talk! Out in the world they
+are doing now! They are beginning to do. But here--what do you know in
+this cupboard? No more than the mice."
+
+"Fine talk!" he retorted, stung by her contempt. "But you talk without
+knowing. There have been parsons and squires from the beginning, and
+there will be parsons and squires to the end. You may talk until you
+are black in the face, Bess, but you won't alter that!"
+
+"Ay, talk!" she retorted drily. "You may talk. But if you do--as they
+did in France twenty years gone. Where are their squires and parsons
+now? The end came quick enough there, when it came."
+
+"I don't know much about that," he growled.
+
+"Ay, but I do."
+
+"But how the devil do you?" he answered, in some irritation, but more
+wonder. "How do you?" And he looked round the bare, sordid kitchen.
+The fire, shooting warm tongues up the black cavernous chimney, made
+the one spot of comfort that was visible.
+
+"Never you mind!" she answered, with a mysterious and tantalising
+smile. "I do. And by-and-by, if we've the spirit of a mouse, things
+will happen here! Down yonder--I see it all--there are thousands and
+tens of thousands starving. And stacks burning. And mobs marching, and
+men drilling, and more things happening than you dream of! And all
+that means that by-and-by I shall be knitting while Madam and Miss and
+that proud-faced, slim-necked chit at the inn, who faced us all down
+to-day----"
+
+"Why," he struck in, in fresh surprise, "what has she done to you
+now?"
+
+"That's my business, never you mind! Only, by-and-by, they will all
+smile on the wrong side of their face!"
+
+He stared morosely into the fire. And she watched him, her long lashes
+veiling a sly and impish amusement. If he dreamed that she loved him,
+if he fancied her a victim of his bow and spear, he strangely, most
+strangely, misread her. And a sudden turn, a single quick glance
+should have informed him. For as the flames by turns lit her face and
+left it to darkness, they wrought it to many expressions; but never to
+kindness.
+
+"There's many I'd like to see brought down a piece," he muttered at
+last. "Many, many. And I'm as fond of my share of good things as most.
+But it's all talk, there's nought to be done! Nor ever will be! There
+have been parsons and squires from the beginning."
+
+"Would you do it," she asked softly, "if there were anything to be
+done?"
+
+"Try me."
+
+"I doubt it. And that's why you are no lad for me."
+
+He rose to his feet in a temper at that. He turned his back on the
+fire.
+
+"What's the use of getting on this every time!" he cried. And he took
+up his hat. "I'm weary of it. I'm off. I don't know that I shall come
+back again. What's the use?" with a side-long glance at her dark,
+handsome face and curving figure which the firelight threw into
+prominence.
+
+"If there were anything to do," she asked, as if he had never spoken,
+never answered the question, "would you do it?" And she smiled at him,
+her head thrown back, her red lips parted, her eyes tempting.
+
+"You know I would if----" He paused.
+
+"There were some one to be won by it?"
+
+He nodded, his eyes kindling.
+
+"Well----"
+
+No more. For as she spoke the word, and he bent forward, something
+heavy fell on the floor overhead; and she sat up straight. Her eyes,
+grown suddenly hard and small--perhaps with fright--held Tyson's eyes.
+
+"What's that?" he cried, frowning suspiciously. "There's nobody
+upstairs?"
+
+"Father's in bed," she said. She held up a finger for silence.
+
+"And there's nobody else in the house?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Who should there be?" she said. "It's the cat, I suppose."
+
+"You'd better let me see," he rejoined. And he took a step towards the
+staircase door.
+
+"No need," she answered listlessly, after listening anew. "I'm not
+afraid. The cat is not here; it must have been the cat. I'll go up
+when you are gone, and see."
+
+"It's not safe," he grumbled, still inclined to go. "You two alone
+here, and the old man said to be as rich as a lord!"
+
+"Ay, said to be," she answered, smiling "As you said you were going
+ten minutes ago, and you are not gone yet. But----" she rose with a
+yawn, partly real and partly forced, "you must go now, my lad."
+
+"But why?" he answered. "When we were just beginning to understand one
+another."
+
+"Why?" she answered pertly. "Because father wants to sleep. Because
+your wife will scratch my eyes out if you don't. Because I am not
+going to say another word to-night--whatever I may say to-morrow. And
+because--it's my will, my lad. That's all."
+
+He muttered his discontent, swinging his hat in his hand, and making
+eyes at her. But she kept him at arm's length, and after a moment's
+argument she drove him to the door.
+
+"All the same," he said, when he stood outside, "you had better let me
+look upstairs."
+
+But she laughed.
+
+"I dare say you'd like it!" she said; and she shut the door in his
+face and he heard the great bar that secured it shot into its socket
+in the thickness of the wall. In a temper not much better than that in
+which he had left the inn, he groped his way round the house, and up
+the three steps at the corner of the building. He swore at the dog
+that it might know who came, and so he passed into the road. Once he
+looked back at the house, but all was dark. The windows looked the
+other way.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX
+
+                              PUNISHMENT
+
+
+Anthony Clyne came to a stand before her, and lifted his hat.
+
+"I understand," he said, without letting his eyes meet hers--he was
+stiffness itself, but perhaps he too had his emotions--"that you
+preferred to see me here rather than indoors?"
+
+"Yes," Henrietta answered. And the girl thanked heaven that though the
+beating of her heart had nearly choked her a moment before, her tone
+was as hard and uncompromising as his. He could not guess, he never
+should guess, what strain she put on nerve and will that she might not
+quail before him; nor how often, with her quivering face hidden in the
+pillow, she had told herself, before rising, that it was for once
+only, once only, and that then she need never see again the man she
+had wronged.
+
+"I do not know," he continued slowly, "whether you have anything to
+say?"
+
+"Nothing," she answered. They were standing on the Ambleside road, a
+short furlong from the inn. Leafless trees climbed the hill-side above
+them; and a rough slope, unfenced and strewn with boulders and dying
+bracken, ran down from their feet to the lake.
+
+"Then," he rejoined, with a scarcely perceptible hardening of the
+mouth, "I had best say as briefly as possible what I am come to say."
+
+"If you please," she said. Hitherto she had faced him regally. Now she
+averted her eyes ever so slightly, and placed herself so that she
+looked across the water that gleamed pale under the morning mist.
+
+Yet, even with her eyes turned from him, he did not find it easy to
+say what he must say. And for a few seconds he was silent. At last "I
+do not wish to upbraid you," he began in a voice somewhat lower in
+tone. "You have done a very foolish and a very wicked, wicked thing,
+and one which cannot be undone in the eyes of the world. That is for
+all to see. You have left your home and your friends and your family
+under circumstances----"
+
+She turned her full face to him suddenly.
+
+"Have they," she said, "empowered you to speak to me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"They do not wish to see me themselves?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor perhaps--wish me to return to them?"
+
+"No."
+
+She nodded as she looked away again; in sheer defiance, he supposed.
+He did not guess that she did it to mask the irrepressible shiver
+which the news caused her.
+
+He thought her, on the contrary, utterly unrepentant, and it hardened
+him to speak more austerely, to give his feelings freer vent.
+
+"Had you done this thing with a gentleman," he said, "there had been,
+however heartless and foolish the act, some hope that the matter might
+be set straight. And some excuse for yourself; since a man of our
+class might have dazzled you by the possession of qualities which the
+person you chose could not have. But an elopement with a needy
+adventurer, without breeding, parts, or honesty--a criminal, and
+wedded already----"
+
+"If he were not wedded already," she said, "I had been with him now!"
+
+His face grew a shade more severe, but otherwise he did not heed the
+taunt.
+
+"Such an--an act," he said, "unfits you in your brother's eyes to
+return to his home." He paused an instant. "Or to the family you have
+disgraced. I am bound--I have no option, to tell you this."
+
+"You say it as from them?"
+
+"I do. I have said indeed less than they bade me say. And not more, I
+believe on my honour, than the occasion requires. A young
+gentlewoman," he continued bitterly, "brought up in the country with
+every care, sheltered from every temptation, with friends, with home,
+with every comfort and luxury, and about to be married to a gentleman
+in her own rank in life, meets secretly, clandestinely, shamefully a
+man, the lowest of the low, on a par in refinement with her own
+servants, but less worthy! She deceives with him her friends, her
+family, her relatives! If"--with some emotion--"I have overstated one
+of these things, God forgive me!"
+
+"Pray go on!" she said, with her face averted. And thinking that she
+was utterly hardened, utterly without heart, thinking that her outward
+calm spelled callousness, and that she felt nothing, he did continue.
+
+"Can she," he said, "who has been so deceitful herself, complain if
+the man deceives her? She has chosen a worthless creature before her
+family and her friends? Is she not richly served if he treats her
+after his own nature and her example? If, after stooping to the
+lawless level of such a poor thing, she finds herself involved in his
+penalties, and her name a scandal and a shame to her family!"
+
+"Is that all?" she asked. But not a quiver of the voice, not a tremour
+of the shoulders, betrayed what she was feeling, what she suffered,
+how fiercely the brand was burning into her soul.
+
+"That is all they bade me say," he replied in a calmer and more gentle
+tone. "And that they would make arrangements--such arrangements as may
+be possible for your future. But they would not take you back."
+
+"And now--what on your own account?" she asked, almost flippantly.
+"Something, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes," he said, answering her slowly, and with a steady look of
+condemnation. For in all honesty the girl's attitude shocked and
+astonished him. "I have something to say on my own account. Something.
+But it is difficult to say it."
+
+She turned to him and raised her eyebrows.
+
+"Really!" she said. "You seem to speak so easily."
+
+He did not remark how white, even against the pale shimmer of the
+lake, was the face that mocked him; and her heartlessness seemed
+dreadful to him.
+
+"I wish," he said, "to say only one thing on my own account."
+
+"There is only one thing you must not say," she retorted, turning on
+him without warning and speaking with concentrated passion. "I have
+been, it may be, as foolish as you say. I am only nineteen. I may have
+been, I don't know about that, very wicked--as wicked as you say. And
+what I have done in my folly and in my--you call it wickedness--may be
+a disgrace to my family. But I have done nothing, nothing, sir,"--she
+raised her head proudly--"to disgrace myself personally. Do you
+believe that?"
+
+And then he did notice how white she was.
+
+"If you tell me that, I do believe it," he said gravely.
+
+"You must believe it," she rejoined with sudden vehemence. "Or you
+wrong me more cruelly than I have wronged you!"
+
+"I do believe it," he said, conquered for the time by a new emotion.
+
+"Then now I will hear you," she answered, her tone sinking again. "I
+will hear what you wish to say. Not that it will bend me. I have
+injured you. I own it, and am sorry for it on your account. On my own
+I am unhappy, but I had been more unhappy had I married you. You have
+been frank, let me be frank," she continued, her eyes alight, her tone
+almost imperious. "You sought not a wife, but a mother for your child!
+A woman, a little better bred than a nurse, to whom you could entrust
+the one being, the only being, you love, with less chance of its
+contamination," she laughed icily, "by the lower orders! If you had
+any other motive in choosing me it was that I was your second cousin,
+of your own respectable family, and you did not derogate. But you
+forgot that I was young and a woman, as you were a man. You said no
+word of love to me, you begged for no favour; when you entered a room,
+you sought my eye no more than another's, you had no more softness for
+me than for another! If you courted me at all it was before others,
+and if you talked to me at all it was from the height of wise
+dullness, and about things I did not understand and things I hated!
+Until," she continued viciously, "at last I hated you! What could be
+more natural? What did you expect?"
+
+A little colour had stolen into his face under the lash of her
+reproaches. He tried to seem indifferent, but he could not. His tone
+was forced and constrained when he answered.
+
+"You have strange ideas," he said.
+
+"And you have but two!" she riposted. "Politics and your boy! I
+cared," with concentrated bitterness, "for neither!"
+
+That stung him to anger and retort.
+
+"I can imagine it," he said. "Your likings appear to be on a different
+plane."
+
+"They are at least not confined to fifty families!" she rejoined. "I
+do not think myself divine," she continued with feverish irony, "and
+all below me clay! I do not think because I and all about me are dull
+and stupid that all the world is dull and stupid, talking eternally
+about"--and she deliberately mocked his tone--"'the licence of the
+press!' and 'the imminence of anarchy!' To talk," with supreme scorn,
+"of the licence of the press and the imminence of anarchy to a girl of
+nineteen! It was at least to make the way very smooth for another!"
+
+He looked at her in silence, frowning. Her frankness was an outrage on
+his dignity--and he, of all men, loved his dignity. But it surprised
+him at least as much as it shocked him. He remembered the girl
+sometimes silly, sometimes demure, to whom he had cast the
+handkerchief; and he had not been more astonished if a sheep had stood
+up and barked at him. He was here, prepared to meet a frightened,
+weeping, shamefaced child, imploring pardon, imploring mediation; and
+he found this! He was here to upbraid, and she scolded him. She marked
+with unerring eye the joints in his armour, and with her venomous
+woman's tongue she planted darts that he knew would rankle--rankle
+long after she was gone and he was alone. And a faint glimpse of the
+truth broke on him. Was it possible that he had misread the girl; whom
+he had deemed characterless, when she was not shy? Was it possible
+that he had under-valued her and slighted her? Was it possible that,
+while he had been judging her and talking down to her, she had been
+judging him and laughing in her sleeve?
+
+The thought was not pleasant to a proud nature. And there was another
+thing he had to weigh. If she were so different in fact from the
+conception he had formed of her, the course which had occurred to him
+as the best, and which he was going to propose for her, might not be
+the best.
+
+But he put that from him. A name for firmness at times compels a man
+to obstinacy. It was so now. He set his jaw more stiffly, and--
+
+"Will you hear me now?" he asked.
+
+"If there is anything more to be said," she replied. She spoke wearily
+over her shoulder.
+
+"I think there is," he rejoined stubbornly, "one thing. It will not
+keep you long. It refers to your future. There is a course which I
+think may be taken and may be advantageous to you."
+
+"If," she cried impetuously, "it is to take me back to those----"
+
+"On the contrary," he replied. He was not unwilling to wound one who
+had shown herself so unexpectedly capable of offence. "That is quite
+past," he continued. "There is no longer any question of that. And
+even the course I suggest is not without its disadvantages. It may
+not, at first sight, be more acceptable to you than returning to your
+home. But I trust you have learnt a lesson, and will now be guided."
+After saying which he coughed and hesitated, and at length, after
+twice pulling up his cravat, "I think," he said--"the matter is
+somewhat delicate--that I had better write what I have in my mind."
+
+Under the dead weight of depression which had succeeded to passion,
+curiosity stirred faintly in her. But--
+
+"As you please," she said.
+
+"The more," he continued stiffly, "as in the immediate present
+there is nothing to be done. And therefore there is no haste. Until
+this"--he made a wry face, the thing was so hateful to him--"this
+inquiry is at an end, and you are free to leave, nothing but
+preliminaries can be dealt with; those settled, however, I think there
+should be no delay. But you shall hear from me within the week."
+
+"Very well." And after a slight pause, "That is all?"
+
+"That is all, I think."
+
+Yet he did not go. And she continued to stand with her shoulder turned
+towards him. He was a man of strong prejudices, and the habit of
+command had rendered him in some degree callous. But he was neither
+unkind by nature, nor, in spite of the story Walterson had told of
+him, inhuman in practice. To leave a young girl thus, to leave her
+without a word of leave-taking or regret, seemed even to him, now it
+came to the point, barbarous. The road stretched lonely on either side
+of them, the woods were brown and sad and almost leafless, the lake
+below them mirrored the unchanging grey above, or lost itself in
+dreary mist. And he remembered her in surroundings so different! He
+remembered how she had been reared, by whom encircled, amid what
+plenitude! And though he did not guess that the slender figure
+standing thus mute and forlorn would haunt him by night and by day for
+weeks to come, and harry and torment him with dumb reproaches--he
+still had not the heart to go without one gentler word.
+
+And so "No, there is one thing," he said, his voice shaking very
+slightly, "I would like to add--I would like you to know. It is that
+after next week I shall be at Rysby in Cartmel--Rysby Hall--for about
+a month. It is not more than two miles from the foot of the lake, and
+if you are still here and need advice----"
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"----or help, I would like you to know that I am there."
+
+"That I may apply to you?" she said without turning her head.
+
+He could not tell whether at last there were tears in her voice, or
+whether she were merely drawing him on to flout him.
+
+"I meant that," he said coldly.
+
+"Thank you."
+
+Certainly there was a queer sound in her voice.
+
+He paused awkwardly.
+
+"There is nothing more, I think?" he said.
+
+"Nothing, thank you."
+
+"Very well," he returned. "Then you will hear from me upon the matter
+I mentioned--in a day or two. Good-bye."
+
+He went then--awkwardly, slowly. He felt himself, in spite of his
+arguments, in spite of his anger, in spite of the wrong which she had
+done him, and the disgrace which she brought on his name,--he felt
+himself something of a cur. She was little more than a child, little
+more than a child; and he had not understood her! Even now he had no
+notion how often that plea would ring in his ears, and harass him and
+keep him wakeful. And Henrietta? She had told herself before the
+interview that with it the worst would be over. But as she heard his
+firm tread pass slowly away, down the road, and grow fainter and
+fainter, the pride that had supported her under his eyes sank low. A
+sense of her loneliness, so cruel that it wrung her heart, so cruel
+that she could have run after him and begged him to punish her, to
+punish her as he pleased, if he would not leave her deserted, gripped
+her throat and brought salt tears to her eyes. The excitement was
+over, the flatness remained; the failure, and the grey skies and
+leaden water and dying bracken. And she was alone; alone for always.
+She had defied him, she had defied them all, she had told him that
+whatever happened she would not go back, she would not be taken back.
+But she knew now that she had lied. And she crossed the road, her step
+unsteady, and stumbled blindly up the woodland path above the road,
+until she came to a place where she knew that she was hidden. There
+she flung herself down on her face and cried passionately, stifling
+her sobs in the green damp moss. She had done wrong. She had done
+cruel wrong to him. But she was only nineteen, and she was being
+punished! She was being punished!
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER X
+
+                          HENRIETTA IN NAXOS
+
+
+Youth feels, let the adult say what he pleases, more deeply than
+middle age. It suffers and enjoys with a poignancy unknown in later
+life. But in revenge it is cast down more lightly, and uplifted with
+less reason. The mature have seen so many sunny mornings grow to
+tearful noons, so many days of stress close in peace, that their moods
+are not to the same degree at the mercy of passing accidents. It is
+with the young, on the other hand, as with the tender shoots; they
+raise their heads to meet the April sun, as naturally they droop in
+the harsh east wind. And Henrietta had been more than girl, certainly
+more than nineteen, if she had not owned the influence of the scene
+and the morning that lapped her about when she next set foot beyond
+the threshold of the inn.
+
+She had spent in the meantime three days at which memory shuddered.
+Alone in her room, shrinking from every eye, turning her back on the
+woman who waited on her, she had found her pride insufficient to
+support her. Solitude is a medium which exaggerates all objects, and
+the longer Henrietta brooded over her past folly and her present
+disgrace, the more intolerable these grew to the vision.
+
+Fortunately, if Modest Ann's heart bled for her, Mrs. Gilson viewed
+her misfortunes with a saner and less sensitive eye. She saw that if
+the girl were left longer to herself her health would fail. Already,
+she remarked, the child looked two years older--looked a woman. So on
+the fourth morning Mrs. Gilson burst in on her, found her moping at
+the window with her eyes on the lake, and forthwith, after her
+fashion, she treated her to a piece of her mind.
+
+"See here, young miss," she said bluntly, "I'll have nobody ill in my
+house! Much more making themselves ill! In three days Bishop's to be
+back, and they'll want you, like enough. And a pale, peaking face
+won't help you, but rather the other way with men, such fools as they
+be! You get your gear and go out."
+
+Henrietta said meekly that she would do so.
+
+"There's a basket I want to send to Tyson's," the landlady went on.
+"She's ailing. It's a flea's load, but I suppose," sticking her arms
+akimbo and looking straight at the girl, "you're too much of a lady to
+carry it."
+
+"I'll take it very willingly," Henrietta said. And she rose with a
+spark of something approaching interest in her eyes.
+
+"Well, I've nobody else," said cunning Mrs. Gilson. "And I don't
+suppose you'll run from me, 'twixt here and there. And she's a poor
+thing. She's going to have a babby, and couldn't be more lonely if she
+was in Patterdale." And she described the way, adding that if
+Henrietta kept the road no one would meddle with her at that hour of
+the morning.
+
+The girl found her head-covering, and, submitting with a good grace to
+the basket, she set forth. As she emerged from the inn--for three days
+she had not been out--she cast a half-shamed, half-defiant look this
+way and that. But only Modest Ann was watching her from a window; and
+if ever St. Martin procured for the faithful a summer day,
+_intempestive_ as the chroniclers have it, this was that day. A warm
+sun glowed in the brown hollows of the wood, and turned the dying fern
+to flame, and spread the sheen of velvet over green hill-side and grey
+crag. A mild west wind enlivened the surface of the lake with the
+sparkle of innumerable wavelets, and all that had for days been lead
+seemed turned to silver. The air was brisk and clear; in a heaven of
+their own, very far off, the great peaks glittered and shone. The
+higher Henrietta climbed above the inn-roofs, and the cares that
+centred there, the lighter, in spite of herself--how could it be
+otherwise with that scene of beauty stretched before her?--rose her
+heart.
+
+Half a dozen times as she mounted the hill she paused to view the
+scene through the tender mist of her own unhappiness. But every time
+she stood, the rare fleck of cloud gliding across the blue, or the
+dancing ripple of the water below, appealed to her, and caused her
+thoughts to wander; and youth and hope spoke more loudly. She was
+young. Surely at her age an error was not irreparable. Surely things
+would take a turn. For even now she was less unhappy, less ashamed.
+
+When she came to the summit of the shoulder, the bare gauntness of
+Hinkson's farm, which resisted even the beauty of sunshine, caused her
+a momentary chill. The dog raved at her from the wind-swept litter of
+the yard. The blind gable-end scowled through the firs. Behind lay the
+squalid out-buildings, roofless and empty. She hurried by--not without
+a backward glance. She crossed the ridge, and almost immediately saw
+in a cup of the hills below her--so directly below her that roofs and
+yards and pig-styes lay mapped out under her eye--another farm. On
+three sides the smooth hill-turf sloped steeply to the walls. On the
+fourth, where a stream, which had its source beside the farm, found
+vent, a wood choked the descending gorge and hid the vale and the lake
+below.
+
+Deep-seated in its green bowl, the house was as lonely in position as
+the house on the shoulder, but after a warmer and more sheltered
+fashion. Conceivably peace and plenty, comfort and happiness might
+nestle in it. Yet the nearer Henrietta descended to it, leaving the
+world of space and view, the more a sense of stillness and isolation
+and almost of danger, pressed upon her. No sound of farm life, no
+cheery clank of horse-gear, no human voice broke the silence of the
+hills. Only a few hens scratched in the fold-yard.
+
+She struck on the half-open door, and a pair of pattens clanked across
+the kitchen flags. A clownish, dull-faced woman with drugget
+petticoats showed herself.
+
+"I've come to see Mrs. Tyson," Henrietta said. "She's in the house?"
+
+"Oh, ay."
+
+"Can I see her?"
+
+"Oh, ay."
+
+"Then----"
+
+"She's on the settle." As she spoke the woman stood aside, but
+continued to stare as if her curiosity grudged the loss of a moment.
+
+The kitchen, or house place--in those days the rough work of a
+farmhouse was done in the scullery--was spacious and clean, though
+sparsely and massively furnished. The flag floor was outlined in white
+squares, and the space about the fire was made more private by a tall
+settle which flanked the chimney corner and averted the draught. These
+appearances foretold a red-armed bustling house-wife. But they were
+belied by the pale plump face framed in untidy hair, which half in
+fright and half in bewilderment peered at her over the arm of the
+settle. It was a face that had been pretty after a feeble fashion no
+more than twelve months back: now it bore the mark of strain and
+trouble. And when it was not peevish it was frightened. Certainly it
+was no longer pretty.
+
+The owner of the face got slowly to her feet "Is it me you want?" she
+said, her tone spiritless.
+
+"If you are Mrs. Tyson," Henrietta answered gently.
+
+"Yes, I am."
+
+"I have brought you some things Mrs. Gilson of the inn wished to send
+you."
+
+"I am obliged to you," with stiff shyness.
+
+"And if you do not mind," Henrietta continued frankly, "I will rest a
+little. If I do not trouble you."
+
+"No, I'm mostly alone," the young woman answered, slowly and
+apathetically. And she bade the servant set a chair for the visitor.
+That done, she despatched the woman with the basket to the larder.
+
+Then "I'm mostly alone," she repeated. And this time her voice
+quivered, and her eyes met the other woman's eyes.
+
+"But," Henrietta said, smiling, "you have your husband."
+
+"He's often away," wearily. "He's often away; by day and night. He's a
+doctor."
+
+"But your servant? You have her?"
+
+"She goes home, nights. And then----" with a spasm of the querulous
+face that had been pretty no more than a year before, "the hours are
+long when you are alone. You don't know," timidly reaching out a hand
+as if she would touch Henrietta's frock--but withdrawing it quickly,
+"what it is to be alone, miss, all night in such a house as this."
+
+"No, and no one should be!" Henrietta answered.
+
+She glanced round the great silent kitchen and tried to fancy what the
+house would be like of nights; when darkness settled down on the
+hollow in the hills, and the wood cut it off from the world below; and
+when, whatever threatened, whatever came, whatever face of terror
+peered through the dark-paned window, whatever sound, weird or
+startling, rent the silence of the distant rooms, this helpless woman
+must face it alone!
+
+She shuddered.
+
+"But you are not alone all night?" she said.
+
+"No, but----" in a whisper, "often until after midnight, miss. And
+once--all night."
+
+Henrietta restrained the words that rose to her lips.
+
+"Ah, well," she said, "you'll have your baby by-and-by."
+
+"Ay, if it lives," the other woman answered moodily--"if it lives.
+And," she continued in a whisper, with her scared eyes on Henrietta's
+face, and her hand on her wrist, "if I live, miss."
+
+"Oh, but you must not think of that!" the girl protested cheerfully.
+"Of course you will live."
+
+"I've mostly nought to do but think," Tyson's wife answered. "And I
+think queer things--I think queer things. Sometimes"--tightening
+her hold on Henrietta's arm to stay her shocked remonstrance--"that
+he does not wish me to live. He's at the house on the
+shoulder--Hinkson's, the one you passed--most nights. There's a girl
+there. And yesterday he said if I was lonely she should come and bide
+here while I laid up, and she'd be company for me. But"--in a wavering
+tone that was almost a wail--"I'm afraid!--I'm afraid."
+
+"Afraid?" Henrietta repeated, trembling a little in sympathy, and
+drawing a little nearer the other. "Of what?"
+
+"Of her!" the woman muttered, averting her eyes that she might watch
+the door. "Of Bess. She's gypsy blood, and it's blood that sticks at
+nothing. And she'd be glad I was gone. She'd have him then. I know!
+She made a sign at me one day when my back was turned, but I saw it.
+And it was not for good. Besides----"
+
+"Oh, but indeed," Henrietta protested, "indeed, you must not think of
+these things. You are not well, and you have fancies."
+
+Mrs. Tyson shook her head.
+
+"You'd have fancies," in a gloomy tone, "if you lived in this house."
+
+"It is only because you are so much alone in it," the girl protested.
+
+"That's not all," with a shudder. The woman leant forward and spoke
+low with her eyes glued to the door. "That's not all. You don't know,
+nobody knows. Nobody knows--that's alive! But once, after I came to
+live here, when I complained that he was out so much and was not
+treating me well, he took and showed me--he took and showed me----"
+
+"What?" Henrietta spoke as lightly as she could. "What did he show
+you?" For the woman had broken off, and with her eyes closed seemed to
+be on the point of fainting.
+
+"Nothing--nothing," Mrs. Tyson said, recovering herself with a sudden
+gasp. "And here's the basket, miss. Meg lives down below. Shall she
+carry the basket to Mrs. Gilson's? It is not fitting a young lady like
+you should carry it."
+
+"Oh, no; I will take it," Henrietta answered, with as careless an air
+as she could muster.
+
+And after a moment's awkward hesitation, under the eyes of the dull
+serving-maid, she rose. She would gladly have stayed and heard more;
+for her pity and curiosity were alike vividly roused. But it was plain
+that for the present she could neither act upon the one nor assuage
+the other. She read a plea for silence in the eyes of the weak,
+frightened woman; and having said that probably Mrs. Gilson would be
+sending her that way again before long, she took her leave.
+
+Wondering much. For the low-ceiled kitchen, with its shadowy
+chimney-corner and its low-browed windows, had another look for her
+now; and the stillness of the house another meaning. All might be the
+fancy of a nervous, brooding woman. And yet there was something. And,
+something or nothing, there were unhappiness and fear and cruelty in
+this quiet work. As she climbed the track that led again to the lip of
+the basin, and to sunshine and brisk air and freedom, she had less
+pity for herself, she thought less of herself. She might have lain at
+the mercy of a careless, faithless husband, who played on her fears
+and mocked her appeals. She, when in her early unbroken days she
+complained, might have been taken and scared by--heaven knew what!
+
+She was still thinking with indignation of the woman's plight when she
+gained the road. A hundred paces brought her to Hinkson's. And there,
+standing under the firs at the corner of the house, and looking over
+her shoulder as if she had turned, in the act of entering, to see who
+passed, was the dark girl; the same whose insolent smile had annoyed
+her on the morning of her arrival, before she knew what was in store
+for her.
+
+Their eyes met. Again Henrietta's face, to her intense vexation,
+flamed. Then the dog sprang up and raved at her, and she passed on
+down the road. But she was troubled. She was vexed with herself for
+losing countenance, and still more angry with the girl whose mocking
+smile had so strange a power to wound her.
+
+"That must be the creature we have been discussing," she thought. "Odd
+that I should meet her, and still more odd that I should have seen her
+before! I don't wonder that the woman fears her! But why does she look
+at me, of all people, after that fashion?"
+
+She told herself that it was her fancy, and trying to forget the
+matter, she tripped on down the road. Presently, before her cheeks or
+her temper were quite cool, she saw that she was going to meet some
+one--a man who was slowly mounting the hill on horseback. A moment
+later she made out that the rider who was approaching was Mr.
+Hornyold, and her face grew hot again. The meeting was humiliating.
+She wished herself anywhere else. But at the worst she could bow
+coldly and pass by.
+
+She reckoned without the justice, who was wont to say that when he
+wore a cassock he was a parson, and when he wore his top-boots he was
+a gentleman. He recognised her with a subdued "View halloa!" and
+pulled up as she drew near. He slid from his saddle--with an agility
+his bulk did not promise--and barred the way.
+
+With a grin and an over-gallant salute, "Dear, dear, dear," he said.
+"Isn't this out of bounds, young lady? Outside the rules of the bench,
+eh? What'd Mother Gilson be saying if she saw you here?"
+
+"I have been on an errand for her," Henrietta replied, in her coldest
+tone.
+
+But she had to stop. The road was narrow, and he had, as by accident,
+put his horse across it.
+
+"An errand?" he said, smiling more broadly, "as far as this? She is
+very trusting! More trusting than I should be with a young lady of
+your appearance, who twist all the men round your finger."
+
+Henrietta's eyes sparkled.
+
+"I am returning to her," she said, "and I am late. Please to let me
+pass."
+
+"To be sure I will," he said. But instead of moving aside he drew a
+pace nearer; so that between himself, the horse, and the bank, she was
+hemmed in. "To be sure, young lady!" he continued. "But that is not
+quite the tone to take with the powers that be! We are gentle as
+sucking doves--to pretty young women--while we are pleased; and ready
+to stretch a point, as we did the other day, for our friend Clyne, who
+was so deuced mysterious about the matter. But we must have our _quid
+pro quo_, eh? Come, a kiss! Just one. There are only the birds to see
+and the hedges to tell, and I'll warrant"--the leer more plain in his
+eyes--"you are not always so particular."
+
+Henrietta was not frightened, but she was angry and savage.
+
+"Do you know who I am?" she cried, for the moment forgetting herself
+in her passion.
+
+"No!" he answered, before she could say more. "That is just what I
+don't know, my girl. I have taken you on trust and you are pretty
+enough! But I know Clyne, and he is interested in you. And his taste
+is good enough for me!"
+
+"Let me pass!" she cried.
+
+He tried to seize her, but she evaded his grasp, slipped fearlessly
+behind the horse's heels and stood free. Hornyold wheeled about, and
+with an oath:
+
+"You sly baggage!" he cried. "You are not going to escape so easily!
+You----"
+
+There he stopped. Not twenty yards from him and less than that
+distance beyond her, was a stranger. The sight was so little to be
+expected in that solitary place, he had been so sure that they were
+alone and the girl at the mercy of his rudeness, that he broke off,
+staring. The stranger came slowly on, and when almost abreast of
+Henrietta raised his hat and paused, dividing his regards between the
+scowling magistrate and the indignant girl.
+
+"Good morning," he said, addressing her. "If I am not inopportune, I
+have a letter for you from Captain Clyne."
+
+"Then be good enough," she answered, "first to take me out of the
+company of this person." And she turned her shoulder on the justice,
+and taking the stranger with her--almost in his own despite--she
+sailed off; and, a very picture of outraged dignity, swept down the
+road.
+
+Mr. Hornyold glared after her, his bridle on his arm. And his face was
+red with fury. Seldom had he been so served.
+
+"A parson, by heaven!" he said. "A regular Methody, too, by his
+niminy-piminy get-up! Who is he, I wonder, and what in the name of
+mischief brought him here just at that moment? Ten to one she was
+looking to meet him, and that was why she played the prude, the little
+cat! To be sure. But I'll be even with her--in Appleby gaol or out! As
+for him, I've never set eyes on him. And I've a good notion to have
+him taken up and lodged in the lock-up. Any way, I'll set the runners
+on him. Not much spirit in him by the look of him! But she's a
+spit-fire!"
+
+Mr. Hornyold had been so long accustomed to consider the girls of the
+village fair sport, that he was considerably put out. True, Henrietta
+was not a village girl. She was something more, and a mystery; nor
+least a mystery in her relations with Captain Clyne, a man whom the
+justice admitted to be more important than himself. But she was in
+trouble, she was under a cloud, she was smirched with suspicion; she
+was certainly no better than she should be. And not experience only,
+but all the coarser instincts of the man forbade him to believe in
+such a woman's "No."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI
+
+                         CAPTAIN CLYNE'S PLAN
+
+
+For a full hundred yards Henrietta walked on with her head in the air,
+too angry to accost or even to look at her companion; who, on his
+part, tripped meekly beside her. Then a sense of the absurdity of the
+position--of his position rather than her own, for she had whirled him
+off whether he would or no--overcame her. And she laughed.
+
+"Was ever anything so ridiculous?" she cried. And she looked at him
+askance and something ashamed. The quick movement which had enabled
+her to escape had loosened the thick mass of her fair hair, and this,
+with her flushed cheeks and kindled eyes, showed her so handsome that
+it was well the impetuous justice was no longer with her.
+
+The stranger was apparently less impressionable.
+
+"I am glad," he said primly, "that my coming was so opportune."
+
+"Oh! I was not afraid of him," Henrietta answered, tossing her head.
+
+"No?" he rejoined. "Indeed. Still, I am glad that I came so
+opportunely."
+
+He was a neat, trim man in black, of a pale complexion, and with the
+small features and the sharp nose that indicate at once timidity and
+obstinacy; the nose that in the case of the late Right Honourable
+William Pitt, whom he was proud to resemble, meant something more. But
+for a pair of bright eyes he had been wholly mean, and wholly
+insignificant; and Henrietta saw nothing in him either formidable or
+attractive. She had a notion that she had seen him somewhere; but it
+was a vague notion, and how he came to be here or commissioned to her
+she could no more conjecture than if he had risen from the ground.
+
+"You are a stranger here?" she said at last, after more than one
+side-long glance.
+
+"Yes, I descended from the coach an hour ago."
+
+"And came in search of me?"
+
+"Precisely," he replied. "Being empowered to do so," he continued,
+with a slight but formal bow, "by Captain Anthony Clyne, to whom I
+have the honour--my name is Sutton--of being related in the capacity
+of chaplain."
+
+She coloured more violently with shame than before with anger: and all
+her troubles came back to her. Probably this man knew all; knew what
+she had done and what had happened to her. It was cruel--oh, it was
+cruel to send him! For a moment she could not collect her thoughts or
+master her voice. But at last,
+
+"Oh!" she said confusedly. "I see. A lovely view from here, is it
+not?"
+
+"Yes, to be sure," he replied, with the same precision with which he
+had spoken before. "I ought to have noticed it."
+
+"And you bring me a letter?"
+
+"It was Captain Clyne's wish that I----" he hesitated, and was plainly
+embarrassed--"that I should, in fact, offer my company for a day or
+two. While you are under the care of the good woman at the inn."
+
+She turned her face towards him, and regarded him with a mixture of
+surprise and distaste. Then,
+
+"Indeed?" she said coldly. "In what capacity, if you please?"
+
+But the words said, she felt her cheeks grow hot. They thought so ill
+of her, she had so misbehaved herself, that a duenna was not enough;
+a clergyman must be sent to lecture her. By-and-by he would talk
+goody-goody to her, such as they talked to Lucy in _The Fairchild
+Family!_ Save that she was grown up and Lucy was not!
+
+"But it does not matter," she continued hurriedly, and before he could
+answer, "I am obliged to you, but Mrs. Gilson is quite able to take
+care of me."
+
+"And yet I came very opportunely--just now," he said. "I am glad I
+came so opportunely."
+
+Reminded of the insolence to which her loneliness had exposed her,
+Henrietta felt her cheek grow hot again.
+
+"Oh," she said, "I did not need you! But I thought you said you
+brought a letter?"
+
+"I have a letter. But I beg leave--to postpone its delivery for a day
+or two."
+
+"How?" in astonishment. "If it is for me?"
+
+"By Captain Clyne's directions," he answered.
+
+She stopped short and faced him, rebellion in her eyes.
+
+"Then why," she said proudly, "seek me out now if this letter is not
+to be delivered at once?"
+
+"That, too, is by his order," Mr. Sutton explained in the same tone.
+"And pardon me for saying," he continued, with a meaning cough, "that
+I have seen enough to be assured of Captain Clyne's forethought. Apart
+from which, in Lancashire, at any rate, the times are so troubled, the
+roads so unsafe, the common people so outrageous, that for a young
+lady to walk out alone is not safe."
+
+"He should have sent a servant, then!" she answered sharply.
+
+A faint colour rose to the chaplain's cheeks.
+
+"He thought me more trustworthy, perhaps," he said meekly. "And it is
+possible he was under the impression that my company might be more
+acceptable."
+
+"If I may be plain," she answered tartly, "I am in no mood for a
+stranger's company."
+
+"And yet," he said, with a gleam of appeal in his eyes, "I would fain
+hope to make myself acceptable."
+
+She gave him no direct answer; only,
+
+"I cannot understand, I really cannot understand," she said, "of what
+he was thinking. You had better give me the letter now, sir. I may
+find something in that which may explain."
+
+But he only cast down his eyes.
+
+"I am afraid," he said, "that I must not disobey the directions which
+Captain Clyne laid upon me."
+
+"Very good," she retorted; "that is as you please. Only--our paths
+separate here. The road we are on will take you to the inn--you cannot
+miss it. My path lies this way."
+
+And with a stiff little bow she laid her hand on the gate which gave
+entrance to the field-path; the same path that led down through the
+coppice to the back of the Low Wood inn. She passed through.
+
+He hesitated an instant, then he also turned in at the gate. And as
+she halted, eyeing him in displeasure--
+
+"I really cannot let you stray from the high-road alone," he said.
+"You will pardon me, I am sure, if I seem intrusive. But it is not
+safe. I have seen enough," with a smirk, "to know that--that beauty
+unattended goes in danger amid these lovely"--he waved his hand in
+kindly patronage of the lake--"these lovely, but wild surroundings."
+
+"You mean," she answered, with a dangerous light in her eyes, "that
+you will force your company on me, sir? Whether I will or no?"
+
+"Not force, no! No! No! But I must, I can only do as I am ordered. I
+should not presume of myself," he continued, with a touch of real
+humility--"even to offer my company. I should not look so high. I
+should think such an honour above me. But I was led to believe----"
+
+"By Captain Clyne?"
+
+"Yes, that--that, in fact, you were willing to make what amends you
+could for the injury done to him. And that, if only for that reason, I
+might expect a more favourable reception at your hands."
+
+"But why, sir?--why?" she cried, cut to the quick. To suffer this man,
+this stranger, to talk to her of making amends!" What good will it do
+to Captain Clyne if I receive you ever so favourably?"
+
+He looked at her humbly, with appeal in his eyes.
+
+"If you would deign to wait," he said, and he wiped his forehead, "I
+think I could make that more clear to you afterwards."
+
+But very naturally his persistence offended her. That word amends,
+too, stuck in her throat. Her pride, made restive by her encounter
+with Hornyold, was up in arms.
+
+"I shall not wait a moment," she said. "Not a moment! Understand, sir,
+that if you accompany me against my will, my first act on reaching the
+inn will be to complain to the landlady, and seek her protection."
+
+"Surely not against Captain Clyne's pleni--plenipotentiary?" he
+murmured abjectly. "Surely not!"
+
+"I do not know what a pleni-plenipotentiary is," she retorted. "But if
+you follow me, you follow at your peril!"
+
+And she turned her back on him, and plunged downwards through the
+wood. She did not deign to look behind; but her ears told her that he
+was not following. For the rest, all the beauty of the wood, shot
+through with golden lights, all the cool loveliness of the dell, with
+its emerald mosses and flash of jewelled wings, were lost upon her
+now, so sore was she and so profoundly humiliated. Twice in one
+morning she had been insulted. Twice in one hour had a man shown her
+that he held her fair game. Were they right, then, who preached that
+outside the sanctum of home no girl was safe? Or was it her story, her
+conduct, her disgrace, known to all for miles round, that robbed her
+of the right to respect?
+
+Either way she was unhappy, frightened, nay, shocked; and she longed
+to be within doors, where she need not restrain herself. Too proud to
+confide in Mrs. Gilson, she longed none the less for some one to whom
+she could unburden herself. Was she to go through the world exposed to
+such scenes? Must she be daily and hourly on her guard against rude
+insult, or more odious gallantries? And if these things befell her in
+this quiet spot, what must she expect in the world, deserted as she
+was by all those who would once have protected her?
+
+She looked to gain her room without further unpleasantness; for the
+path she followed led her to the back door, and she could enter that
+way. But she was not to be so fortunate. In the yard, awaiting her
+with his hat in his hand and the flush of haste on his pallid face,
+was Mr. Sutton.
+
+Poor Henrietta! she ground her small teeth together in her rage, and
+her face was scarlet. But her mind was made up. If Mr. Sutton counted
+on her being worse than her word she would show him his mistake.
+
+"I shall send for the landlady," she said; and beckoning to a
+stable-help who was crossing the yard with a bucket, "Fetch Mrs.
+Gilson," she said. "Tell her----"
+
+"One moment!" Mr. Sutton interposed with meek firmness. "I am going to
+give you the letter. It will explain all, and I hope justify my
+conduct, which I cannot believe to have been offensive."
+
+"That is a matter of opinion," Henrietta said loftily. She held out
+her hand. "The letter, sir, if you please."
+
+"One favour, I beg," he said, with a gesture that deprecated her
+impatience. He waved the groom out of hearing. "This is not a fit
+place for you or"--with a return of dignity--"for the business on
+which I am here. Do me the favour of seeing me within or of walking a
+few yards with me. There is a seat by the lake, if you will not admit
+me to your apartments."
+
+She frowned at him. But she saw the wisdom of concluding the matter,
+and she led the way into the road and turned to the right.
+Immediately, however, she remembered that the Ambleside road would
+lead her to the spot where Captain Clyne had taken leave of her, and
+she turned and walked the other way until she came to the place where
+the Troutbeck lane diverged. There she stood.
+
+"The letter, if you please," she said. She spoke with the contemptuous
+hardness which youth, seldom considerate of others' feelings, is prone
+to display.
+
+He held it an instant in his hand as if he could not bear to part with
+it. But at last, with a dismal look and an abject sentence or two, he
+gave it up.
+
+"I beg you, I implore you," he muttered as she took it, "to announce
+no hasty decision. To believe that I am something more and better than
+you think me now. And that ill as I have set myself before you, I
+would fain labour to show myself more--more worthy!"
+
+The words were so strange, his manner was so puzzling, that they
+pierced the armour of her dislike. She paused, staring at him.
+
+"Worthy!" she exclaimed. "Worthy of what?"
+
+"The letter----"
+
+"Yes, the letter will tell me."
+
+And with a haughty air she broke the seal. As she read she turned
+herself from him, so that he saw little more of her face than her
+firmly moulded chin. But when she had carried her eyes some way down
+the sheet he noticed that her hands began to shake.
+
+
+"Henrietta," so Captain Clyne began,--"for to add any term of
+endearment were either too little or too much--I have thought long and
+painfully, as becomes one who expected to be by this time your
+husband, on the situation in which you have placed yourself by an
+escapade, the consequences of which, whatever action be taken, must be
+permanently detrimental. Of these, as they touch myself, I say
+nothing, the object of these lines being to indicate a way by which I
+trust your honour and character may be redeemed. The bearer, whom I
+know for a man of merit and respectability, saw you by chance on the
+occasion of your visit to my house, and, as I learned by a word
+indiscreetly dropped, admired you. He has been admitted to the secret
+of your adventure, and is willing, without more and upon my
+representation of the facts of the case, to make you his wife and to
+give you the shelter of his name. After long thought I can devise no
+better course, whereby, innocent of aught but folly, as I believe you
+to be, the honour of the family can be preserved. Still, I would not
+suggest or advise the step were I not sure that Mr. Sutton, though
+beneath us by extraction, is a person of parts and worth in whose
+hands your future will be safe, while his material prosperity shall be
+my care. I have advised him to take such opportunities as offer of
+commending himself to you before delivering this note. Gladly would I
+counsel you to take the advice of your brother and his wife were I not
+aware how bitter is their resentment and how complete their
+estrangement. I, on the other hand, whose right to advise you may
+question---- But it were idle to say more than that I forgive you, as
+I hope to be forgiven. Nor will your interests ever be indifferent to
+
+                                  "Your kinsman,
+
+                                    "ANTHONY CLYNE."
+
+
+Mr. Sutton noted the growing tremour of the hands which held the
+paper--he could hear it rustle. And his face, usually so pallid,
+flushed. Into the greyness of a life that had been happier if the
+chaplain had possessed less of those parts for which Captain Clyne
+commended him, had burst this vision of a bride, young, beautiful, and
+brilliant; a daughter of that world which thought him honoured by the
+temporary possession of a single finger, or the gift of a careless
+nod. Who could blame him if he succumbed? Aladdin, on the point of
+marriage with the daughter of the Sultan, bent to no greater
+temptation; nor any barber or calendar of them all, when on the verge
+of a like match. He had seen Henrietta once only, he had viewed her
+then as a thing of grace and refinement meet only for his master. At
+the prospect of possessing her, such scruples as rose in his mind
+faded quickly. He told himself that he would be foolish indeed if he
+did not carry the matter through with a bold face; or if for fear of a
+few hard words, or a pouting beauty, he yielded up the opportunity of
+a life.
+
+On the hill he had proved himself equal to the call. Not so now. He
+had pictured the girl taking the news in many ways, in scorn, in
+anger, with shallow coquetry, or in dull resignation. But he had never
+anticipated the way in which she did take it. When she had read the
+letter to the end she turned her back on him and bent her head.
+
+"Oh!" she cried; and broke into weeping--not passionate nor bitter, he
+was prepared for that--but the soft and helpless weeping of a broken
+thing.
+
+That they, that Anthony Clyne, above all, should do this to her! That
+he should think of her as a chattel to be handed from one to another,
+a girl so light that all men were the same to her, if they were men!
+That they, that he should hold her so cheap, deem her so smirched by
+what had passed, misread her so vilely as to think that she had fallen
+to this! That with indifference she would give herself to any man, no
+matter to whom, if she could that way keep her name and hold up her
+head!
+
+It hurt her horribly. Nay, for the time it broke her down. The mid-day
+coach swept by to the inn door, and the parson, standing beside her,
+ashamed of himself and conscious of the passengers' curious glances,
+wished himself anywhere else. But she was wounded too sorely to care
+who saw or who heard; and she wept openly though quietly until the
+first sharpness of the pain was blunted. Then he thought, as her
+sobbing grew less vehement, that his time was come, that he might yet
+be heard. And he murmured that he was grieved, he was sorely grieved.
+
+"So am I!" she said, dabbing her eyes with her wet handkerchief. She
+sobbed out the words so humbly, so weakly, that he was encouraged.
+
+"Then may I--may I return presently?" he murmured, with a nervous
+cough. "You must stand in need of advice? And--and by some one near
+you? When you are more composed perhaps? Yes. Not that there is any
+hurry," he added quickly, frightened by a movement of her shoulders.
+"Not at all. I'll not say another word now! By-and-by, by-and-by, dear
+young lady, you will be more composed. To-morrow, if you prefer it, or
+even the next day. I shall wait, and I shall be here."
+
+She gave her eyes a last dab and turned.
+
+"I do not blame you," she said, her voice broken by a sob. "You did
+not know me. But you must go back--you must go back to him at once and
+tell him that I--that he has punished me as sharply as he could wish."
+She dabbed her face again. "I do not know what I shall think of him
+presently, but I---- Oh, oh!" with a fresh burst of tears, "that he
+should do this to me!--that he should do this!"
+
+He did not know her, as she said; and, small blame to him, he misread
+her. Because she neither stormed nor sneered, but only wept in this
+heart-broken fashion, like a child cowed by a beating, he fancied that
+the task before him was not above his powers. He thought her plastic,
+a creature easily moulded; and that already she was bending herself to
+the fate proposed for her. And in soothing tones, for he was genuinely
+sorry for her, "There, there, my dear young lady," he said, "I know it
+is something hard. It is hard. But in a little while, a very little
+while, I trust, it will seem less hard. And there is time before us.
+Time to become acquainted, time to gain knowledge of one another.
+Plenty of time! There is no hurry."
+
+She lowered her handkerchief from her eyes and looked at him, over it,
+as if, without understanding, she thanked him for his sympathy. With
+her tear-washed eyelashes and rumpled hair and neck-ribbon she looked
+more childish, she seemed to him less formidable. He took heart of
+grace to go on.
+
+"Captain Clyne shall be told what you feel about it," he said,
+thinking to soothe and humour her. "He shall be told all in good time.
+And everything I can say and anything I can do to lighten the burden
+and meet your wishes----"
+
+"You?"
+
+"----I shall do, be sure!"
+
+He was beginning to feel his feet, and he spoke earnestly. He spoke,
+to do him justice, with feeling.
+
+"Your happiness," he said, "will be the one, at any rate the first,
+and main object of my life. As time goes on I hope and believe that
+you will find a recompense in the service and devotion of a life,
+although a humble life; and always I will be patient. I will wait, my
+dear young lady, in good hope."
+
+"Of what?"
+
+The tone of the two words shook Mr. Sutton unpleasantly. He reddened.
+But with an effort,
+
+"In what hope?" he answered, embarrassed by the sudden rigidity of her
+face. "In the hope," with a feeble smile, "that in no long time--I am
+presumptuous, I know--you will see some merit in me, my dear young
+lady. And will assent to my wishes, my humble, ardent wishes, and
+those of my too-generous patron."
+
+There were no tears in her eyes now. She seemed to tower above him in
+her indignation.
+
+"Your wishes, you miserable little man?" she cried, with a look which
+pierced his vanity to the quick. "They are nothing to me! Go back to
+your master!"
+
+And before he could rally his forces or speak, she was gone from him
+into the house. He heard a snigger behind the hedge, but by the time
+he had climbed the bank--with a crimson face--there was no one to be
+seen.
+
+He stood an instant, brooding, with his eyes on the road.
+
+"A common man would give up," he muttered. "But I shall not! I am no
+common man. I shall not give up."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XII
+
+                             THE OLD LOVE
+
+
+Mr. Sutton was a vain man and sensitive, and though he clung to hope,
+Henrietta's words hurt him to the quick. The name of Chaplain was
+growing obsolete at this time; it was beginning to import unpleasant
+things. With this chaplain in particular his dependence on a patron
+was a sore point; for with some capacity, he lacked, and knew that he
+lacked, that strength of mind which enables a man to hold his own, be
+his position what it may. For an hour, writhing under the reflection
+that even the yokels about him were aware of his discomfiture, he was
+cast down to the very ground. He was inclined to withdraw his hand and
+let the dazzling vision pass.
+
+Then he rallied his forces. He bethought him how abnormal was the
+chance, how celestial the dream, how sweet the rapture of possessing
+the charms that now flouted him. And he took heart of grace. He raised
+his head, he enlisted in the cause all the doggedness of his nature.
+He recalled stories, inaccurately remembered, of Swift and Voltaire
+and Rousseau, all dependants who had loved, and all men of no greater
+capacity, it was possible, than himself. What slights had they not
+encountered, what scornful looks, and biting gibes! But they had
+persisted, having less in their favour than he had; and he would
+persist. And he would triumph as they had triumphed. What matter a
+trifling loss of countenance as he passed by the coach-office, or a
+burning sensation down the spine when those whom he had left tittered
+behind him? He laughed best who laughed last.
+
+For such a chance would never, could never fall to him again. The
+Caliph of Bagdad was dead, and princesses wedded no longer with
+calendars. Was he to toss away the one ticket which the lottery of
+life had dropped in his lap? Surely not. And for scruples--he felt
+them no longer. The girl's stinging words, her scornful taunt, had
+silenced the small voice that on his way hither had pleaded for her;
+urging him to spare her loneliness, to take no advantage of her
+defenceless position. Bah! If that were all, she could defend herself
+well.
+
+So Henrietta, when she came downstairs, a little paler and a little
+prouder, and with the devil, that is in all proud women, a little
+nearer to urging her on something, no matter what, that might close a
+humiliating scene, was not long in discovering a humble black presence
+that by turns followed and evaded her. Mr. Sutton did not venture to
+address her directly. To put himself forward was not his _role_. But
+he sought to commend himself by self-effacement; or at the most by
+such meek services as opening the door for her without lifting his
+eyes above the hem of her skirt, or placing a thing within reach
+before she learned her need of it. Nevertheless, whenever she left her
+room she caught sight of him; and the consciousness that he was
+watching her, that his eyes were on her back, that if her gown caught
+in a nail of the floor he would be at hand to release it, wore on her
+nerves. She tried to disregard him, she tried to be indifferent to
+him. But there he always was, pale, obstinate, cringing, and waiting.
+And so great is the power of persistence, that she began to fear him.
+
+Between his insidious court and the dread of Mr. Hornyold's
+gallantries she was uncomfortable as well as wretchedly unhappy. The
+position shamed her. She felt that it was her own conduct which she
+had to thank for their pursuit; and for Anthony Clyne's more cruel
+insult, which she swore she would never forgive. She knew that in the
+old life, within the fence where she had been reared, no one had ever
+dared to take a liberty with her or dreamed of venturing on a freedom.
+Now it was so different. So different! And she was so lonely! She
+stood fair game for all. Presently even the village louts would nudge
+one another when she passed, or follow her in the hope of they knew
+not what.
+
+Already, indeed, if she passed the threshold she had a third follower;
+whose motives were scarcely less offensive than the motives of the
+other two. Mr. Bishop had been away for nearly a week scouring the
+roads between Cockermouth and Whitehaven, and Maryport and Carlisle.
+He had drawn, as he hoped, a net round the quarry--if it had not
+already escaped. In particular, he had made sure that trusty men--and
+by trusty men Mr. Bishop meant men who would not refuse to share the
+reward with their superiors--watched the most likely places. These
+arrangements had taken his brown tops and sturdy figure far afield: so
+that scarce a pot-house in all that country was now ignorant of the
+face of John Bishop of Bow Street, scarce a saddle-horse was unversed
+in his weight. Finally he had returned to the centre of his spider's
+web, and rather than be idle he was giving himself up to stealthy
+observation of Henrietta.
+
+For he had one point in common with Mr. Sutton. While the Low Wood
+folk exhausted themselves in surmises and believed in a day a dozen
+stories of the girl who had dropped so strangely among them, the
+runner knew who she was. Perforce he had been taken into confidence.
+But thereupon his experience of the criminal kind led him astray. He
+remembered how stubbornly she had refused to give her name, to give
+information, to give anything; and he suspected that she knew where
+Walterson lay hid. He thought it more than likely that she was still
+in relations with him. A girl of her breeding, the runner argued, does
+not give up all for a romantic stranger unless she loves him: and once
+in love, such an one sticks at nothing. So he too haunted her
+footsteps, vanished when she came, and appeared when she retreated;
+and all with an air of respect which maddened the victim and puzzled
+the onlookers.
+
+But for this she had been able to spend these days of loneliness and
+incertitude in wandering among the hills. She was young enough to feel
+confinement irksome, and she yearned for the open and the unexplored.
+She fancied that she would find relief in plunging into the depths of
+woods where, on a still day, the leaves floated singly down to mingle
+with the dying ferns. She thought that in long roaming, with loosened
+hair and wind-swept cheeks, over Wansfell Pike, or to the upper world
+of the Kirkstone or the Hog-back beyond Troutbeck, she might forget,
+in the wilds of nature, her own small woes and private griefs. At
+least on the sheep-trodden heights there would be no one to reproach
+her, no one to fling scorn at her.
+
+And two mornings later she felt that she must go; she must escape from
+the eyes that everywhere beset her. She marked down Mr. Bishop in the
+road before the house, and, safe from him, she slipped out at the
+back, and, almost running, climbed the path that led to the hills. She
+passed through the wood and emerged on the shoulder; and drew a deep
+breath, rejoicing in her freedom. One glance at the lake spread out
+below her--and something still and sullen under a grey sky--and she
+passed on. She had a crust in her pocket, and she would remain abroad
+all day--for it was mild. With the evening she would return footsore
+and utterly weary. And she would sleep.
+
+She was within a few yards of the gate of Hinkson's farm when she saw
+coming towards her the last man whom she wished to meet--Mr. Hornyold.
+He was walking beside his nag, with the rein on his arm and his eyes
+on the road. His hands were plunged far into the fobs of his breeches,
+and he was studying something so deeply that he did not perceive her.
+
+The memory of their last meeting--on that very spot--was unpleasantly
+fresh in Henrietta's mind, and the impulse to escape was strong.
+Hinkson's gate was within reach of her arm, the dog was asleep in the
+kennel; in a twinkling she was within and making for the house. Any
+pretence would do, she thought. She might ask for a cup of water,
+drink it, and return to the road. By that time he would have gone on
+his way.
+
+She knew that the moment she had passed the corner of the house she
+was safe from observation. And seeing the front so grim, so
+slatternly, so uninviting, she paused. Why go on? Why knock? After
+giving Hornyold time to pass she might slip back to the road without
+challenging notice.
+
+She would have done this, if her eyes, as she hesitated, had not
+met those of a grimy, frowsy scarecrow who seemed to be playing
+hide-and-seek with her from the shelter of the decaying bushes that
+stood for a garden. She saw herself discovered, and not liking the
+creature's looks, she returned to her first plan. She knocked on the
+half-open door, and receiving no answer, pushed it open and stepped
+in--as she had stepped into cottages in her own village scores of
+times.
+
+For an instant the aspect of the interior gave her pause; so bare,
+with the northern bareness, so squalid with the wretchedness of
+poverty, was the great dark kitchen. Then, telling herself that it was
+only the sudden transition from the open air and the wide view that
+gave a sinister look to the place, she rapped on the table.
+
+Some one moved overhead, crossed the floor slowly, and began to
+descend the stairs. The door at the foot of the staircase was ajar,
+and Henrietta waited with her eyes fixed on it. She wondered if the
+step belonged to the girl whose bold look had so displeased her; or to
+a man--the tread seemed too heavy for a woman. Then the door was
+pushed open a few inches only, a foot at most. And out of the grey
+gloom of the stairway a face looked at her, and eyes met her eyes.
+
+The face was Stewart's! Walterson's!
+
+She did not cry out. She stood petrified, silent, staring. And after a
+whispered oath wrung from him by astonishment, he was mute. He stood,
+peering at her through the half-open door; the dangerous instinct
+which bade him spring upon her and secure her curbed for the moment by
+his ignorance of the conditions. She might have others with her. There
+might be men within hearing. How came she there? And above all, what
+cursed folly had led him to show himself? What madness had drawn him
+forth before he knew who it was, before he had made certain that it
+was Bess's summons?
+
+
+[Illustration: The face was Stewart's]
+
+
+It was she who broke the spell. She turned, and with no uncertainty or
+backward glance she went out slowly and softly, like a blind person,
+passed round the house, and gained the road. Hornyold had gone by and
+was out of sight; but she did not give a thought to him.
+
+The shock was great. She was white to the lips. By instinct she turned
+homewards--wandering abroad on open hills was far from her thoughts
+now. But even so, when she had gone a little way she had to stand and
+steady herself by a gate-post--her knees trembled so violently under
+her. For by intuition she knew that she had escaped a great danger.
+The wretched creature cowering in the gloom of the stairway had not
+moved hand or foot after his eyes met hers; but something in those
+eyes, a gleam wild and murderous, recurred to her memory. And she
+shuddered.
+
+Presently the first effects of the shock abated and left her free to
+think. She knew then that a grievous thing had happened, and a thing
+which must add much to the weight of unhappiness she had thought
+intolerable an hour before. To begin, the near presence of the man
+revolted her. The last shred of the romance in which she had garbed
+him, the last hue of glamour, were gone; and in the creature whom she
+had espied cowering on the stairs, with the danger-signal lurking in
+his eyes, she saw her old lover as others would see him. How she could
+have been so blind as to invest such a man with virtue, how she could
+have been so foolish as to fancy she loved _that_, passed her
+understanding now! Ay, and filled her with a trembling disgust of
+herself.
+
+Meantime, that was the beginning. Beyond that she foresaw trouble and
+embarrassment without end. If he were taken, he would be tried, and
+she would be called to the witness box, and the story of her
+infatuation would be told. Nay, she would have to tell it herself in
+face of a smiling crowd; and her folly would be in all the journals.
+True, she had had this in prospect from the beginning, and, thinking
+of it, had suffered in the dark hours. But his capture had then been
+vague and doubtful and the full misery of her exposure had not struck
+her as it struck her now, with the picture of that man on the stairs
+fresh in her mind. To have disgraced herself for that!--for that!
+
+She was thinking of this and was still much agitated when she came to
+the spot where the path through the wood diverged from the road. There
+with his hand on the wicket-gate, unseen until she was close upon him,
+stood Mr. Bishop.
+
+He raised his hat and stepped aside, as if the meeting took him by
+surprise, as if he had not been watching her face through a screen of
+briars for the last thirty seconds. But that due paid to politeness,
+the runner's sharp eyes remained glued to her face.
+
+"Dear me, miss," he said, in apparent innocence, "nothing has
+happened, I hope! You don't look yourself! I hope," respectfully,
+"that nobody has been rude to you."
+
+"It is nothing," she made shift to murmur. She turned her face aside.
+And she tried to go by him.
+
+He let her go through the gate, but he kept at her side and
+scrutinised her face with side-long glances. He coughed.
+
+"I am afraid you have heard bad news, miss?" he said.
+
+"No!"
+
+"Oh, perhaps--seen some one who has startled you?"
+
+"I have told you it is nothing," she answered curtly. "Be good enough
+to leave me."
+
+But he merely paused an instant in obedience to the gesture of her
+hand, then he resumed his place beside her. In the tone of one who had
+made up his mind to be frank--
+
+"Look here, miss," he said, "it is better to come to an understanding
+here, where there is nobody to listen. If it is not that somebody has
+been rude to you, I'm clear that you have heard news, or you have seen
+somebody. And it is my business to know the one or the other."
+
+She stopped.
+
+"I have nothing to do with your business!" she cried.
+
+He made a wry face, and spread out his hands in appeal.
+
+"Won't you be frank?" he replied. "Come, miss? What is the use of
+fencing with me? Be frank! I want to make things easy for all. Lord,
+miss, you are not the sort, and we two know it, that suffers in these
+things. You'll come out all right if you'll be frank. It's that I'm
+working towards; to put an end to it, and the sooner the better. You
+can't--a wife and four children, miss, and a radical to boot--you
+can't think much of him! So why not help instead of hindering?"
+
+"You are impudent!" Henrietta said, with a fine colour in her cheeks.
+"Be good enough to let me pass."
+
+"If I knew where he was"--with his eyes on her face--"I could make all
+easy. All done, and nothing said, my lady; just 'from communications
+received,' no names given, not a word of what has happened up here!
+Lord bless you, what do they care in London--and it is in London he'll
+be tried--what happens here!"
+
+"Let me pass!" she answered breathlessly.
+
+He was so warm upon the scent he terrified her.
+
+But he did not give way.
+
+"Think, miss," he said more gravely. "Think! A wife and six children!
+Or was it four? Much he cared for any but himself! I'm sure I'm
+shocked when I think of it!"
+
+"Be silent!" she cried.
+
+"Much he cared what became of you! While Captain Clyne, if you were to
+consult his wishes, miss, I'm sure he'd say----"
+
+"I do not care what he would say!" she retorted passionately, stung at
+last beyond reticence or endurance. "I never wish to hear Captain
+Clyne's name again: I hate him; do you hear? I hate him! Let me pass!"
+
+Then, whether he would or no, she broke from him. She hurried,
+panting, and with burning cheeks, down the steep path; the briars
+clutching unheeded at her skirts, and stones rolling under her feet.
+He followed at her heels, admiring her spirit; he even tried to engage
+her again, begging her to stop and hear him. But she only pushed on
+the faster, and presently he thought it better to desist, and he let
+her go.
+
+He stood and wiped his brow, looking after her.
+
+"Lord, what a spirit she has!" he muttered. "A fine swelling figure,
+too, and a sway with her head that makes you feel small! And feet that
+nimble! But all the same, I'm glad she's not Mrs. Bishop! Take my word
+for it, she'll be another Mother Gilson--some day."
+
+While Henrietta hurried on at her best pace, resentment giving way to
+fear and doubt and a hundred perplexities. Betray the man she could
+not, though he deserved nothing at her hands. She was no informer, nor
+would become one. The very idea was repulsive to her. And she had
+woven about this man the fine tissue of a girl's first fancy; she had
+looked to be his, she had let him kiss her. After that, vile as he
+was, vilely as he had meant by her, it did not lie with her to betray
+him to death.
+
+But his presence near her was hateful to her, was frightful, was
+almost intolerable. Not a day, not an hour, but she must expect to
+hear of his capture, and know it for the first of a series of ordeals,
+painful and humiliating. She would be confronted with him, she would
+be asked if she knew him, she would be asked this and that; and she
+would have to speak, would have to confess--to those clandestine
+meetings, to that kiss--while he listened, while all listened. The
+tale that was known as yet to few would be published abroad. Her folly
+would be in every mouth, in every journal. The wife and the four
+children, and she, the silly, silly fool whom this mean thing had
+captivated, taking her as easily as any doe in her brother's park--the
+world would ring with them!
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XIII
+
+                           A JEALOUS WOMAN
+
+
+Meanwhile the man whom she had left in the gloom of the staircase
+waited. The sound of the girl's tread died away and silence followed.
+But she might be taking the news, she might be gone back to those who
+had sent her. He knew that at any moment the party charged with his
+arrest might appear, and that in a few seconds all would be over. And
+the suspense was intolerable. After enduring it a while he pushed the
+door open, and he crept across the floor of the living-room. He
+brought his haggard face near the casement and peeped cautiously
+through a lower corner. He saw nothing to the purpose. Nothing moved
+without, except the old man, whose rags fluttered an instant among the
+bushes and vanished again. Probably he was dragging up some treasured
+scrap and hiding it anew with as little sane purpose and as much
+instinct as the dog that buries a bone.
+
+The man with the price on his head stole back to the foot of the
+stairs, reassured for the moment; but with his heart still fluttering,
+his cheeks still bloodless. He had had a great fright. He could not
+yet tell what would come of it. But he knew that in the form of the
+girl whom he had tricked and sought to ruin he had seen the gallows
+very near.
+
+He had not quite regained the staircase when the sound of a foot
+approaching the door drove him to shelter in a panic. Bess Hinkson had
+to call twice before he dared to descend or to run the risk of a
+second mistake.
+
+The moment she saw his face she knew that something was wrong.
+
+"What is it?" she asked quickly. "What is the matter, lad?"
+
+"I've seen some one," he answered. "Some one who knew me!" He tried to
+smile, but the smile was a spasm; and suddenly his teeth clicked
+together. "Knew me by G--d!" he said.
+
+"Bishop?"
+
+"No, but--some one."
+
+Her face cleared.
+
+"What's took you?" she said. "There is no one else here who knows
+you."
+
+"The girl."
+
+She stared at him. "The girl?" she repeated--and the master-note in
+her voice was no longer fear, but suspicion. "The girl! How came she
+here? And how," with sudden ferocity, "came she to see you, my lad?"
+
+"I heard her below and thought that it was you."
+
+"But how came she here?"
+
+"I don't know," he answered sullenly, "unless she was sent."
+
+"I don't believe you," Bess answered coarsely. And the jealousy of her
+gipsy blood sparkled in her dark eyes. "She was not sent! But maybe
+she was sent for! Maybe she was sent for!"
+
+"Who was there I could send for her?" he said.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Nor I!" he answered. He shrugged his shoulders in disgust at her
+folly. To him, in his selfish fear, it seemed incredible folly.
+
+"But you talked with her?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"I say," Bess repeated with a furious look, "you did! You talked with
+her! I know you did!"
+
+"Have your own way, then," he answered despairingly, "though may
+heaven strike me dead if there was a word! But she'll he talking
+soon--and they'll be here. And she"--with a quavering, passionate rise
+in his voice--"she'll hang me!"
+
+"She'd best not!" the girl replied, with a gleam of sharp teeth. "I
+hate her as it is. I hate her now! I'd like to kill her! But then----"
+
+"Then?" he retorted, his anger rising as hers sank. "What is the use
+of _then?_ It's now is the point! Curse You! while you are talking
+about hating her, and what you'll do, I'll be taken! They'll be here
+and I'll hang!"
+
+"Steady, steady, lad," she said. The fear had flown from his face to
+hers. "Perhaps she'll not tell."
+
+"Why not? Why'll she not tell?"
+
+She did not reply that love might close the girl's mouth. But she knew
+that it was possible. Instead:
+
+"Maybe she'll not," she repeated. "If she did not come on purpose--and
+then they'd be here by now--it will take her half an hour to go back
+to the inn, and she'll have to find Bishop, and he'll have to get a
+few together. We've an hour good, and if it were night, you might be
+clear of this and safe at Tyson's in ten minutes."
+
+"But now?" he cried, with a gesture of wrathful impatience. "It's
+daylight, and maybe the house is watched. What am I to do now?"
+
+"I don't know," she said. And it was noticeable that she was cool,
+while he was excited to the verge of tears, and was not a mile from
+hysterics. "It was for this I've been fooling Tyson--to get a safe
+hiding-place. But if you could get there, I doubt if he is quite ripe.
+I'd like to commit him a bit more before we trust him."
+
+"Then why play the fool with him?" he answered savagely.
+
+"Because a day or two more and his hiding-hole may be the saving of
+you," she retorted. "Sho!" shrugging her shoulders in her turn, "the
+game is not played to an end yet! She'll not tell! She is proud as
+horses, and if she gives you up she'll have to swear against you. And
+she'll not stomach that, the little pink and white fool. She'll keep
+mum, my lad!"
+
+The hand with which he wiped the beads of sweat from his brow shook.
+
+"But it she does tell?" he muttered. "If she does tell?"
+
+She did not answer as she might have answered. She did not remind him
+of those stories of hair-breadth escapes and of coolness in the shadow
+of the gallows, which, as much as his plausible enthusiasm, had won
+her wild heart. She did not hint that his present carriage was hardly
+at one with them. For when women love, their eyes are slow to open,
+and this man had revealed to Bess a new world--a world of rarest
+possibilities, a world in which she and her like were to have justice,
+if not vengeance--a world in which the mighty were to fall from their
+seats, and the poor to be no more flouted by squires' wives and
+parsons' daughters! If she did not still think him all golden, if the
+feet and even the legs of clay were beginning to be visible, there was
+glamour about him still. The splendid plans, the world-embracing
+schemes with which he had dazzled her, had shrunk indeed into a
+hole-and-corner effort to save his own skin. But his life was as dear
+to her as to himself; and doubtless, by-and-by, when this troublesome
+crisis was past, the vista would widen. She was content. She was glad
+to put full knowledge from her, glad of any pretext to divert her own
+mind and his.
+
+"Lord, I had forgotten!" she cried, after a gloomy pause, "I've a
+letter! There was one at last!" She searched in her clothes for it.
+
+"A letter?" he cried, and stretched out a shaking hand. "Good lord,
+girl, why did you not say so before? This may change all. Thistlewood
+may know a way to get me off. Once in Lancashire, in the crowd, let me
+have a hiding-place and I'm safe! And Thistlewood--he is no cur! He
+sticks at nothing! He is a good man! I was sure he would do something
+if I could get a word to him! Lord, I shall cheat them yet!" He was
+jubilant.
+
+He ripped the letter open. His eyes raced along the lines. The girl,
+who could scarcely read, watched him with admiration, yet with a
+sinking heart. The letter might save him, but it would take him from
+her.
+
+Something between a groan and an oath broke from him. He struck the
+paper with his hand.
+
+"The fool!" he cried. "The fools! They are coming here!"
+
+"They?" she answered, staring in astonishment.
+
+"Thistlewood, Lunt--oh!" with a violent execration--"God knows who!
+Instead of getting me off they are bringing the hunt on me! Lancashire
+is too hot for them, so they are coming here to ruin me. And I'm to
+send a boat for them to-morrow night to Newby Bridge. But, I'll not!
+I'll not!" passionately. "You shall not go!"
+
+The girl looked at him dubiously.
+
+"After all," she said presently, "if Thistlewood is what you say he
+is----"
+
+"He's a selfish fool! Thinking only of himself!"
+
+"Still, if he and the rest are men--it'll not be one man, nor two, nor
+five will take you--with them to help you!"
+
+But the thought gave him no comfort.
+
+"Much good that will do!" he answered. And passionately flinging down
+the paper, "I'll not have them! They must fend for themselves."
+
+"Do they say why they are coming?" she asked after a pause.
+
+"Didn't I tell you?" he replied querulously, "because it's too hot for
+them there! One of the justices, Clyne, if you must know----"
+
+"Clyne!" she ejaculated in astonishment. "Clyne again?"
+
+"Ay!"
+
+"The man--you took the girl from?" she asked in a queer voice.
+
+"The same. He's the deuce down there. He'll get his house burnt over
+his head one of these nights! He has sworn an information against
+them, and they swear they'll have their revenge. But in the meantime
+they must needs come here and blow the gaff on me. Fine revenge!" with
+scorn.
+
+"And they want you to send a boat for them to Newby Bridge?"
+
+"Ay, curse them! I told them I had a boat I could take quietly, and
+come down the lake in the dark. And they say the boat can just as well
+fetch them."
+
+"To-morrow night?"
+
+"Ay."
+
+"Well, it can be done," she said coolly, "if the wind across the lake
+holds. I can steal a boat as I planned for you, and nobody will be the
+wiser. There's no moon, and the nights are dark; and who's to trace
+them from Newby Bridge? After all, it's not from them the danger will
+come, but from the girl."
+
+He groaned.
+
+"I thought you were sure she wouldn't tell," he sneered.
+
+"Well, she has not told yet, or they had been here," Bess answered.
+"But she may speak--by-and-by."
+
+"Curse her!"
+
+"And that is why I am not so sorry your folks are coming," she
+continued, with a queer look at him. "If they'll help us, we'll stop
+her mouth. And she'll not speak now, nor by-and-by."
+
+He looked up, startled.
+
+"You don't mean--no!" he cried sharply, "I'll not have it."
+
+"Bless her pretty, white fingers!" she murmured.
+
+"I'll not have her hurt!" he repeated, with vehemence. "I've done her
+harm enough."
+
+"Not so much harm as you would have done her, if you'd had your way!"
+she replied. And her face grew hard. "But now she's to be sacred, is
+she? Her ladyship's pretty, white fingers are not to be pinched--if
+you swing for it! Very well! It's your neck will be pulled, not mine."
+
+He fidgeted on his stool, but he did not answer. His eyes roved round
+the bare miserable room, with its low ceiling, its deep shadows, and
+its squalor. At last:
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked querulously. "Why can't you speak plain?"
+
+"I thought I had spoken plain enough," she replied. "But if she's not
+to be touched, there's an end of it."
+
+"What would you do?"
+
+"What I said--shut her mouth."
+
+He shuddered and his face, already sallow from long confinement, grew
+greyer.
+
+"No," he said, "I'll not do it."
+
+She laughed in scorn of him.
+
+"I don't mean that," she said. "I would get her into our hands, hold
+her fast, stow her somewhere where she'll not speak! Maybe in Tyson's
+hiding-hole. She'll catch a cold, but what of that? 'Twill be no worse
+for her than for you, if you've to go there. And the men may be a bit
+rough with her," Bess continued, with a malignant smile, while her
+eyes scrutinized his face, "I'll not forbid them, for I don't love
+her, and I'd like well to see her brought down a bit! But we'll not
+squeeze her pretty throat, if that is what you had in your mind."
+
+He shivered.
+
+"I wouldn't trust you!" he muttered.
+
+She laughed as if he paid her a compliment.
+
+"Wouldn't you, lad?" she said. "Well, perhaps not. I'd not be sorry to
+spoil her beauty. But the men--men are such fools--'ll be rather for
+kissing than killing!"
+
+"All the same, I don't like it," he muttered.
+
+"You'll like hanging less!" she retorted.
+
+He felt, he knew that he played a sorry part. But it was not he who
+had brought Henrietta to the house, it was fate. It was not his fault
+that she had seen him; it was his misfortune. Could he be expected to
+surrender his life to spare her a little fright, a trifling
+inconvenience, an inconsiderable risk? Why should he? Would she do it
+for him? On the contrary, he recalled the look of horror which she had
+bent on him; she who had so lately laid her head on his shoulder, had
+listened to his blandishments, had thought him perfect. He was vain,
+and that hardened him.
+
+"I don't see how you'll do it," he said slowly.
+
+"Leave that to me," Bess answered. "Or rather, do what I tell you--and
+the bird will come to the whistle, my lad!"
+
+"What'll you do?"
+
+She told him, and when she had told him she put before him pen and ink
+and paper; the pen and ink and paper which had been obtained that he
+might write to Thistlewood. But when it came to details and he knew
+what he was to write and what lure to throw out, he flung the pen from
+him. He told her angrily that he would not do it. After all, Henrietta
+had believed in him, had trusted him, had given up all for him.
+
+"I'll not do it," he repeated. "I'll not do it! You want to do the
+girl a mischief!"
+
+She flared up at that.
+
+"Then you'll hang!" she cried brutally, hurling the words at him.
+"And, thank God, it will be she will hang you! Why, you fool," she
+continued vehemently, "you were for doing her a worse turn, just to
+please yourself! And not a scruple!"
+
+"No matter," he answered, thrusting his hands in his pockets and
+looking sullenly before him. "I'll not do it!"
+
+Her face was dark with anger, and cruel. What is more cruel than
+jealousy?
+
+"And that is your last word?" she cried.
+
+He scowled at the table, aware in his heart that he would yield. For
+he knew--and he resented the knowledge--that he and Bess were changing
+places; that the upper hand which knowledge and experience and a
+fluent tongue had given him was passing to her for whom Nature
+intended it. The weak will was yielding, the strong will was asserting
+itself. And she knew it also; and in her jealousy she was no longer
+for humouring him. Brusquely she pushed together the pen and ink and
+paper.
+
+"Very good," she said. "If that is your last word, be it so; I've
+done!"
+
+But "Wait!" he protested feebly. "You are so hasty."
+
+"Wait?" she retorted. "What for? What is the use? Are you going to do
+it?"
+
+He fidgeted on his stool.
+
+"I suppose so," he muttered at last. "Curse you, you won't listen to
+what a man says."
+
+"You are going to do it?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Then why not say so at once?" she answered. "There, my lad," she
+continued, thrusting the writing things before him, "short and sweet,
+as nobody knows better how to do it than yourself! Half a dozen lines
+will do the trick as well as twenty."
+
+To his credit be it said, he threw down the pen more than once,
+sickened by the task which she set him. But she chid, she cajoled, she
+coaxed him; and grimly added the pains she was at to the account of
+her rival. In the end, after a debate upon time and place, in which he
+was all for procrastination--feeling as if in some way that salved his
+conscience--the letter was written and placed in her hands.
+
+Then "What sort is this Thistlewood?" she asked. "A gentleman?"
+
+"You wouldn't know, one way or the other," he answered, with
+ill-humour.
+
+"Maybe not," she replied; "but would you call him one?"
+
+"He's been an officer, and he's been to America, and he's been to
+France. I don't suppose," looking round him with currish scorn, "that
+he's ever been in such a hole as this!"
+
+"But he's in hiding. Is he married?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She frowned as if the news were unwelcome.
+
+"Ah!" she muttered. And then, "What of the others?"
+
+"Giles and Lunt----"
+
+"Ay."
+
+"There's not much they'd stick at," he replied. "They are low brutes;
+but they are useful. We've to do with all sorts in this business."
+
+"And why not?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Ay! Didn't you tell me the other day, there was no one so mean, if we
+succeed, he may not rise to the top? nor any one so great he may not
+fall to the bottom?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"That's what I like about it."
+
+"Well, it's true, anyway; Henriot"--he was on a favourite topic and
+thought to reinstate himself by long words--"Henriot, who was but a
+poor pike-keeper, came to be general of the National Guard and Master
+of Paris. Tallien, the son of a footman, ruled a province. Ney--you've
+heard of Ney?--who began as a cooper, was shot as a Marshal with a
+score of orders on his breast and as much thought of as a king! That's
+what happens if we succeed."
+
+"And some came down?" she said, smacking her lips.
+
+"Plenty."
+
+"And women too?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ah," she said slowly, "I wish I had been there."
+
+Not then, but later, when the letter had passed into her hands, he
+fancied that he saw the drift of her questions. And he had qualms, for
+he was not wholly bad. He was not cruel, and the thought of
+Henrietta's fate if she fell into the snare terrified him. True,
+Thistlewood, dark and saturnine, a man capable of heroism as well as
+of crime, was something of a gentleman. He might decline to go far. He
+might elect to take the girl's part. But Giles and Lunt were men of a
+low type, coarse and brutish, apt for any villainy; men who, drawn
+from the slums of Spitalfields, had tried many things before they took
+up with conspiracy, or dubbed themselves patriots. To such, the life
+of a spy was no more than the life of a dog: and the girl's sex, in
+place of protecting her, might the more expose her to their
+ruthlessness. If she fell into their hands, and Bess, with her
+infernal jealousy and her furious hatred of the class above her, egged
+them on, swearing that if Henrietta had not already informed, she
+might inform--he shuddered to think of the issue. He shuddered to
+think of what they might be capable. He remembered the things that had
+been done by such men in France: things remembered then, forgotten
+now. And he shuddered anew, knowing himself to be a poor weak thing,
+of no account against odds.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIV
+
+                              THE LETTER
+
+
+We left Mr. Bishop standing in the middle of the woodland track and
+following Henrietta with his eyes. He had suspected the girl before;
+his suspicions were now grown to certainties. Her agitation, her
+alarm on meeting him, her refusal to parley, her anxiety to be gone,
+all--and his keen eyes had missed no item of her disorder--all pointed
+to one thing, to her knowledge of her lover's hiding-place. Doubtless
+she had been to visit him. Probably she had just left him.
+
+"But she's game, she's very game," the runner muttered sagely. "It's
+breed does it." And plucking a scrap of green stuff from a briar he
+chewed it thoughtfully, with his eyes on the spot where he had lost
+the last wave of her skirt.
+
+Presently he faced about. "Now where is he?" he asked himself. He
+scanned the path by which she had descended, the briars, the thorns,
+the under-growth. "There's hiding here," he thought; "but the nights
+are cold, and it'd kill him in the open. And she'd been on the hill.
+In a shepherd's hut? Possibly; and it's a pity I was not after her
+sooner. But we searched the huts. Then there's Troutbeck? And the
+farms? But how'd he know any one here? Still, I'll walk up and look
+about me. Strikes me we've been looking wide and he's under our
+noses--many a hare escapes the hounds that way."
+
+He retraced his steps to the road, and strolled up the hill. His air
+was careless, but his eye took note of everything; and when he came to
+the gate of Starvecrow Farm he stood and looked over it. The bare and
+gloomy aspect of the house and the wide view it commanded impressed
+him. "I don't wonder they keep a dog," he thought. "A lonely place as
+ever I saw. Sort of house the pedlar's murdered in! Regular Red Barn!
+But that black-eyed wench the doctor is gallivanting after comes from
+here. And if all's true he's in and out night and day. So the other is
+not like to be here."
+
+Still, when he had walked a few yards farther he halted. He took
+another look over the fence. He noted the few sombre pines that masked
+the gaunt gable-end, and from them his eye travelled to the ragged
+garden. A while he gazed placidly, the bit of green stuff in his
+mouth. Then he stiffened, pointing like a game dog. Slowly, almost
+imperceptibly, his hand went to the pocket in his skirts, where he
+carried the "barker" without which he never stirred.
+
+On the other side of the breast-high wall, not six paces from him, a
+man was crouching low, trying to hide behind a bush.
+
+Mr. Bishop had a stout heart. He had taken many a man in the midst of
+his cronies in the dark courts about St. Giles's; and with six hundred
+guineas in view it was not a small danger that would turn him. Yet he
+was alone, and his heart beat a little quicker as he proceeded, with
+his eyes glued to the bush, to climb the wall. The man he was going to
+take had the rope about his neck--he would reck little of taking
+another life. And he might have backers. Possibly, too, there was
+something in the silence of this hill-side--so different from the
+crowded alleys in which he commonly worked--that intimidated the
+officer.
+
+Yet he did not flinch. He was of the true bull-dog breed. He, no more
+than my Lord Liverpool and my Lord Castlereagh, was to be scared by
+uncertain dangers, or by the fear of those over whom he was set. He
+advanced slowly, and was not more than four yards from the bush, he
+was even poising himself to leap on his quarry, when the man who was
+hiding rose to his feet.
+
+Bishop swore. And some one behind him chuckled. He turned as if he had
+been pricked. And his face was red.
+
+"Going to take old Hinkson?" laughed Tyson, who had come up unseen,
+and been watching his movements.
+
+"I wanted a word with him," the runner muttered. He tried to speak as
+if he were not embarrassed.
+
+"So I see," Tyson answered, and pointing with his finger to the
+pistol, he laughed.
+
+Mr. Bishop, with his face a fine port-wine colour, lowered the weapon
+out of sight. Then he laughed, but feebly.
+
+"Has he any sense?" he asked, looking with disgust at the frowsy old
+creature, who mopping and mowing at him was holding out a crooked
+claw.
+
+"Sense enough to beg for a penny," Tyson answered.
+
+"He knows enough for that?"
+
+"He'd sell his soul for a shilling."
+
+The runner hooked out a half-penny--a good fat copper coin, to the
+starveling bronze of these days as Daniel Lambert to a dandy. He put
+it in the old scarecrow's hand.
+
+"Here's for trespass," he said, and turning his back on him he
+recrossed the wall.
+
+"That'll stop his mouth," Tyson grinned. "But what are you going to
+give me to stop mine?"
+
+Bishop laughed on the wrong side of his face.
+
+"A bone and a jorum whenever you'll come and take it," he said.
+
+"Done with you," the doctor replied. "Some day, when that old beldame,
+mother Gilson, is out, I'll claim it. But if you think," he continued,
+"that your man is this side of the hill you are mistaken, Mr. Bishop.
+I'm up and down this road day and night, and he'd be very clever if he
+kept out of my sight."
+
+"Ay?"
+
+"You may take my word for that. I'll lay you a dozen wherever he is,
+he's not this side."
+
+The runner nodded. At this moment he was a little out of conceit with
+himself, and he thought that the other might be right. Besides, he
+might spend a week going from farm to farm, and shed to shed and be no
+wiser at the end of it. Yet, the girl knew, he was convinced; and
+after all, that was his way to it. She knew, and he'd to her again and
+have it out of her one way or another. And if she would not speak, he
+would shadow her; he would follow her hour by hour and minute by
+minute. Sooner or later she would be sure to try to see her man, and
+he would nab them both. There were no two ways about it. There was
+only one way. An old hand should have known better than to go wasting
+time in random searchings.
+
+He returned to the inn, more fixed than ever in his notion. With an
+impassive face he told Mrs. Gilson that he must see the young lady.
+
+"She's come in, I suppose?" he added.
+
+"Ay, she's come in."
+
+"Well, you'll please to tell her I must see her."
+
+"I fancy _must_ will be your master," Mrs. Gilson replied, with her
+usual point. "But I'll tell her." And she went upstairs.
+
+Henrietta was seated at the window with her back to the door. She did
+not turn.
+
+"Here's the Bow-Street man," Mrs. Gilson said, without ceremony.
+"Wants to know if he can see you. Shall I tell him yes, or no, young
+lady?"
+
+"No, if you please," Henrietta answered, with a shiver.
+
+Mrs. Gilson went down.
+
+"She says 'No, on no account,'" she announced, "unless you've got a
+warrant. Her room's her room, she says, and she'll none of you."
+
+"Hoity-toity!"
+
+"That's what she said," Mrs. Gilson repeated without a blush. "And for
+my part I don't see why she's to be persecuted. What with you and that
+sneaking parson, who's for ever at her skirts, and another that shall
+be nameless----"
+
+"Just so!" said Bishop, nodding.
+
+But whereas he meant Walterson, the good woman meant Mr. Hornyold.
+
+"----her life's not her own!" the landlady ended.
+
+"Well, she's to be brought up next Thursday," the runner replied in
+dudgeon. "And she'll have to see me then." And he took a seat near the
+foot of the stairs, more firmly determined than ever that the girl
+should not give him the slip again a second time. "He's here," he
+thought. "He's not a mile from me, I'll stake my soul on it! And
+before Thursday it's odds she'll need to see him, and I'll nab them!"
+And he began to think out various ways of giving her something which
+she would wish to communicate.
+
+Meanwhile Henrietta, seated at her window in the south gable, gazed
+dolefully out; on the grey expanse of water, which she was beginning
+to hate, on the lofty serrated ridge, which must ever recall
+humiliating memories, on the snow-clad peaks that symbolised the
+loneliness of her life. She would not weep, but her lip quivered. And
+oh, she thought, it was a cruel punishment for that which she had
+done. In the present she was utterly alone: in the future it would be
+no better. And yet if that were all, if loneliness were all, she
+could bear it. She could make up her mind to it. But if not today,
+to-morrow, and if not to-morrow, the day after, the man would be
+taken. And then she would have to stand forth and tell her shameful
+tale, and all the world, her world, would learn with derision what a
+fool she had been, for what a creature she had been ready to give up
+all, what dross that was which she had taken for gold! And that which
+had been romantic would be ridiculous.
+
+Beside this aching dread the insult which Captain Clyne had put upon
+her lost some of its sting. Yet it smarted at times and rankled,
+driving her into passing rages. She had wronged him, yet, strange to
+say, she hated to think that she had lost his esteem. And perhaps for
+this reason, perhaps because he had shown himself less inhuman at the
+outset than her family, his treatment hurt her to a point she had not
+anticipated, nor could understand.
+
+The one drop of comfort in her cup sprang from a source as unlikely as
+the rock which Moses struck. It came from the flinty bosom of Mrs.
+Gilson. Not that the landlady was outwardly kind; but she was
+brusquely and gruffly inattentive, trusting the girl and leaving her
+to herself. And in secret Henrietta appreciated this. She began to
+feel a dependence on the woman whom she had once dubbed an odious and
+a hateful thing. She read kindness between the lines of her harsh
+visage, and solicitude in the eye that scorned to notice her. She
+ceased to tremble when the voice which flung panic through the Low
+Wood came girding up the stairs. And though no word of acknowledgement
+passed her lips, she was conscious that in other and smoother hands
+she might have fared worse.
+
+The open sympathy of Modest Ann was less welcome. It was even a
+terrible plague at times. For the waiting-maid never came into the
+girl's presence without full eyes and a sigh, never looked at her save
+as the kind-hearted look at lambs that are faring to the butcher,
+never left her without a gesture that challenged Heaven's pity. Ann,
+indeed, saw in the young lady the martyr of love. She viewed her as a
+sharer in her own misfortunes; and though she was forty and the girl
+nineteen, she found in her echoes of her own heart-throbs. There was
+humour in this, and, for some, a touch of the pathetic; but not for
+Henrietta, who had a strong sense of the ridiculous and no liking for
+pity. In her ordinary spirits she would have either laughed at the
+woman or rated her. Depressed as she was, she bore with her none too
+well.
+
+Yet Ann was honestly devoted to her heroine, and continually dreamed
+of some romantic service--such as the waiting-maid in a chap-book
+performs for her mistress. Given the occasion, she would have risen to
+it, and would have cut off her hand before she betrayed the girl's
+secrets. But her buxom form and square, stolid face did not commend
+her; they were at odds with romance. And Henrietta did not more than
+suffer her, until the afternoon of this day, when it seemed to the
+girl that she could suffer her no longer.
+
+For Ann, coming in with wood for the fire, lingered behind her in a
+way to try a saint. Her sighs filled the air, they were like a
+furnace; until Henrietta turned her head and asked impatiently if she
+wanted something.
+
+"Nothing, miss, nothing," the woman answered. But she gave the lie to
+her words by laying her finger on her lip and winking. At the same
+time she sought for something in an under-pocket.
+
+Henrietta rose to her feet.
+
+"Nothing!" she repeated. "Then what do you----"
+
+"Nothing, miss," Ann rejoined loudly. "I'm to make up the fire." But
+she still sought and still made eyes, and at last, with an
+exaggeration of mystery, found what she wanted. She slipped a letter
+into Henrietta's hand. "Not a word, miss," she breathed, with a face
+of rapturous enjoyment. "Take it, miss! Lor'!" she continued in the
+same tone of subdued enthusiasm, "I'd die for you, let alone do this!
+Even missus should not wring it from me with wild horses!"
+
+Henrietta hesitated.
+
+"Who gave it you?" she whispered. "I don't wish"--she drew back--"I
+don't wish to receive anything unless I know who sends it."
+
+"You read it," Ann answered in an ecstasy of benevolence. "It's all
+right, trust me for that! Bless your heart, it comes from the right
+place. As you will see when you open it!" And with absurd precaution
+she tip-toed to the fire-place, took up her wood-basket, banged a log
+on the dogs, and went out.
+
+Henrietta waited with the letter hidden in her hand until the door
+closed. Then she looked at the paper and grew pale, and was on the
+verge of tears. Alas! she knew the handwriting. She knew, whether
+there was a right place or not, that this came from the wrong.
+
+"Shall I open it?" she asked herself. "Shall I open it?"
+
+A fortnight before she had opened it without a thought of prudence,
+without a glance at the consequences. But a fortnight, and such a
+fortnight, had taught her much. And to-day she paused. She eyed the
+coarse paper askance--with repugnance, with loathing. True, it could
+no longer harm her. She had seen the man as he was, stripped of his
+disguises. She had read in his face his meanness, his falseness, his
+cowardice. And henceforth his charms and cajoleries, his sweet words
+and lying looks were not for her. But she had to think what might be
+in this letter, and what might come of it, and what she should do. She
+might burn it unread--and perhaps that were the safer course. Or she
+might hand it to the Bow Street runner, or she might open it and read
+it.
+
+Which should she do?
+
+One course she rejected without much thought. To hand the letter to
+Bishop might be to betray the man to Bishop. And she had made up her
+mind not to betray the man.
+
+Should she burn it?
+
+Her reason whispered that that was the right, that that was the wise
+course. But then she would never know what was in the letter; and she
+was a woman and curious. And reason, quickly veering, suggested that
+to burn it was to incur unknown risks and contingencies. It might be
+equivalent to giving the man up. It might--in a word, it opened a
+world of possibilities.
+
+And after all she could still burn the letter when she had read it.
+She would know then what she was doing. And what danger could she
+incur, seeing that she was proof against the man's lying tongue, and
+shuddered at the thought of contact with him?
+
+She made up her mind. And roughly, hating the task after a fashion,
+she tore the letter open. With hot cheeks--it could not be otherwise,
+since the writing was his, and brought back such memories--she read
+the contents. There was no opening--she was glad of that--and no
+signature. Thus it ran:--
+
+
+"I have treated you ill, but men are not as women, and I was tempted,
+God knows. I do not ask you to forgive me, but I ask you to save me. I
+am in your hands. If you have the heart to leave me to a violent
+death, all is said. If you have mercy, meet my messenger at ten
+to-morrow evening, where the Troutbeck lane comes down to the lake. As
+I hope to live you run no risk and can suffer no harm. If you are
+merciful--and oh, for God's sake spare me--put a stone before noon
+to-morrow on the post of the second gate towards Ambleside."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV
+
+                              THE ANSWER
+
+
+When Henrietta had read this letter twice, shivering and drawing in
+her breath as often as she came to the passionate cry for mercy that
+broke its current, she sat gazing at the paper. And her face was
+rigid. Had he made appeal to her affection, to the past, to that which
+had been between them, still more had he assumed that the spell was
+unbroken and her heart was his, her pride had revolted and revolted
+passionately. She had spurned the letter and the writer. And perhaps,
+when it was too late, she had repented.
+
+But that cry, wrung, it seemed, from the man's heart in his own
+despite, pierced her heart. How could she refuse, if his life hung on
+her act, if by lifting her finger, she could save him without risk to
+herself? The thought of him was repugnant to her, shamed her, filled
+her with contempt of herself. But she had loved him once, or had
+fancied in her folly that she loved him; and he asked for his life.
+He, a man, lay at the mercy of a woman, a girl; how could she refuse?
+If her heart were obdurate, her sex spoke for him.
+
+"And oh! for God's sake spare me!"
+
+She read the words again and again, and shuddered. If she refused, and
+afterwards when it was too late, when nothing could be done, she
+repented? If when judgment had passed upon him, and the day was come
+and the hour and the minute--and in her brain, though she were one
+hundred miles away, St. Sepulchre's bell tolled--if she repented then
+how would she bear it?
+
+She would not be able to bear it.
+
+And then other considerations not less powerful, and all pointing in
+the same direction, arose in her mind. If she did this thing, whatever
+it was, the man would escape. He would vanish from the country and
+from her knowledge and ken. There would be an end of him, and the
+relief would be great. Freed from the shameful incubus of his presence
+she would breathe again. She might make a new start then, she might
+frame some plan for her life. She was too young to suppose that she
+could ever be happy after this, or that she would live to smile at
+these troubles. But at least she would not be harassed by continual
+fears, she would not be kept in a panic by the thought of that which
+every hour might bring forth. She would be spared the public trial,
+the ordeal of the witness-box, the shame of open confession. Should
+she do, then, that which he wished? Ay, a thousand times, ay. Her
+heart cried, ay, her mind was made up. And rising, she walked the room
+in excitement. Her pulse beat high, her head was hot, she was in a
+fever to begin, to be doing, to come to an end of the thing and be
+safe.
+
+But the thing? Her heart sank a little when she turned to that, and
+conned the note again and marked the hour. Ten? The evenings were long
+and dark, and the house was abed by ten. How was she to pass out? Nor
+was that all. What of her position when she had passed out? She shrank
+from the thought of going alone to meet she knew not who in the
+darkness by the lonely edge of the water. There would be no help
+within call at that hour; nor any, if she disappeared, to say which
+way she had gone or how she had met her fate. If aught happened to her
+she would vanish and leave no trace. And they would think perhaps that
+she had fled to him!
+
+The prospect was terrifying. And nine girls out of ten, though of
+ordinary courage, would have shrunk hack. But Henrietta had a
+spirit--too high a spirit or she had not been here!--and she fancied
+that if ever it behoved her to run a risk, it behove her to run one
+now. And that not for the man's sake only, but for her own. She rose
+above her momentary alarm, therefore, and she asked herself what she
+had to fear. True, when she had met him that morning she had imagined
+in the gloom of the kitchen that she read murder in his eyes. But for
+an instant only; now she laughed at the notion. Safe in her chamber
+she found it absurd: the bizarre creation of her fancy or her
+timidity, aided by some shadow cast athwart his face. And for the
+matter of that, why should he harm her? Her presence at the
+trysting-place would be his surety that she had no mind to betray him;
+but that on the contrary she was willing to help him.
+
+"I will go, I must go," she thought. "I must go."
+
+Yet vague alarms troubled her; and she hesitated. If there had been no
+menace in his eyes that morning--the eyes that had so often looked
+into hers and languished on her with a lover's fondness--why had she
+fled so precipitately? And why had her knees shaken under her? Pshaw,
+she had been taken by surprise. It was repugnance rather than fear
+which she had felt. And because she had been foolish once, and
+imagined things, because she was afraid, like a child, of the dark,
+because she shrank from meeting a stranger after nightfall, surely,
+surely she was not going to let a man perish whom she could save with
+one of her fingers!
+
+And still, prudence whispered her, asking why he fixed so late an
+hour. Why had he not fixed five or six, if it were only out of respect
+for her? At five it was already dark, yet the world was awake and
+astir, respectable folk were abroad, and help was within call. She
+would have met him without hesitation at five or at six. But there,
+how stupid she was! It was the very fact that the world was astir and
+awake that made an early hour impossible. If she went at five or at
+six she would be followed, her movements would be watched, her
+companion would be noted. The very air would be full of eavesdroppers.
+She knew that, for the fact irritated her hourly and daily. And
+doubtless he too, hedged about by fears and suspicions, knew it.
+
+The lateness of the hour was natural, therefore. Still, it rendered
+her task more difficult. She dared not interfere with the heavy bars
+that secured the two doors which looked on the lake. She would be
+heard, even if the task were not beyond her strength. And to gain the
+back entrance she must thread a labyrinth of passages guarded by
+wakeful dogs and sleeping servants; for servants in those days slept
+on the stairs or in any odd place. She would be detected before she
+had undone a single bolt.
+
+Then what was she to do? Her bedroom was on the second floor, and exit
+by the window was not possible. On which, some, surveying the
+situation, would have sat still, and thought themselves justified. But
+Henrietta was of firmer stuff; and for such where there is a will
+there is a way. Mr. Rogers's room, of which she had still the use, was
+on the first floor of the south wing and somewhat remote from the main
+part of the house. Outside the door was a sash window which gave light
+to the passage; and owing to the rise of the hill on every side of the
+house save the front, the sill of this window was not more than six
+feet above the garden. She could drop from it with safety. Return was
+less easy, but with the help of a chair, which she could lower before
+she descended, she might manage to climb in again. The feat seemed
+easy and she did not feel afraid. Whether she would feel afraid when
+the time came was another matter.
+
+In the meantime she had to wait, and sleeping ill that night, she had
+many uneasy dreams, and waking before daybreak thought herself into a
+fever. All the dreadful things that might befall her rose before her
+in the liveliest shapes; and long before the house awoke--there is no
+fear like five-o'clock-in-the-morning fear--she had given up the
+notion. But when the dull November day peered in at the bedroom
+window, and she had risen, she was herself again. She chid herself for
+the childish terrors in which she had indulged, and lest she should
+give way to them again she determined to take a decisive step. Long
+before noon she slipped out of the house and turned towards Ambleside.
+
+Unfortunately it was a wet morning, and she feared that her promenade
+in such weather must excite suspicion. Eyes, she was sure, were on her
+before she had gone a dozen paces. To throw watchers off the scent and
+to prove herself careless of espial she would not look back; but when
+she reached the first corner she picked up a stone, and threw it at an
+imaginary object on the edge of the lake. She stood an instant with
+her wet-weather hood drawn about her face as if to mark the effect of
+her shot. Then she picked up another stone and poised it, but did not
+throw it. Instead, she walked on with the stone in her hand. All
+without looking back.
+
+She came to the second gate on the Ambleside road. It was out of sight
+of the inn, and it seemed an easy and an innocent thing to lay the
+stone on the head of the pillar--gate-posts in that country are of
+stone--and to go on her way. But she heard a footstep behind her and
+panic seized her. She felt that nothing in the world would be so
+suspicious, so damning as such an act. She hesitated, and was lost.
+She walked on slowly with the stone in her hand, and the fine rain
+beating in her face.
+
+Her follower, a country clown, passed her. She loitered until he was
+out of sight; then she turned and retraced her steps. A half-minute's
+walking brought her again to the gate. There was no one in sight and
+in a fever lest at the last some one should take her in the act she
+set the stone on the top of the post, and passed on.
+
+Half-way back to the inn she stopped. What if the stone had not kept
+its place? She had merely thrust out her hand as she passed, and
+deposited the stone without looking. Now she was sure that her ear had
+caught the faint sound which the stone made in striking the sodden
+turf. She turned and walked back.
+
+When she reached the gate she was thankful that she had had that
+thought. The stone had fallen. Fortunately there was no one in sight,
+and it was easy to pick up the first stone that came to hand and
+replace the signal. Then she walked back to the inn, inclined to laugh
+at the proportions to which her simple task had attained in her mind.
+
+She would have laughed after another fashion had she known that her
+movements from beginning to end had been watched by Mr. Sutton. The
+chaplain, ashamed yet pursuing, had sneaked after her when she left
+the inn, hoping that if she went far he might find in some lonely
+place, where she could not escape, an opportunity of pleading his
+cause. He fancied that the lapse of three days, and his patient,
+mournful conduct, might have softened her; to say nothing of the
+probable effect on a young girl of such a life as she was leading--of
+its solitude, its dullness, its weariness.
+
+On seeing her turn, however, he had had no mind to be detected, and he
+had slipped into the wood. From his retreat he had seen her deposit
+the stone: he had seen also her guilty face--it was he, indeed, who
+had removed the stone. He had done so, expecting to find a note under
+it, and he was all but surprised in the act. When she placed the
+second, he was within three paces of her, crouching with a burning
+face behind the wall. The thought of her contempt if she discovered
+him so appalled him that, cold as it was, he sweated with shame; nor
+was it until she had gone some distance that he dared to lift his eyes
+above the wall. Then he saw that she had put another stone on the
+gate-post.
+
+He took it in his hand and compared it with the one which he still
+held. They were as common stones as any that lay in the road. And
+there was no letter. The conclusion was clear. The stone was a signal.
+Nor could he doubt for whom it was intended. The London officer was
+right. Walterson was in the neighbourhood and she was in communication
+with him. The girl's infatuation still ruled her.
+
+That hardened him a little in his course of action. But he was not at
+ease, and when some one coughed--slightly but with meaning--while he
+gazed at the stone, he jumped a yard. He stood, with all the blood in
+his body flown to his face. The cough had come from the wood behind
+him; and ten paces from him, peeping over the bush, was Mr. Bishop.
+
+The runner chuckled. "Very well done, reverend sir," he said. "Very
+well done. You've the makings of a very tidy officer about you. I
+could not have done it much neater myself. But now, suppose you leave
+the coast clear, or maybe you'll be scaring the other party."
+
+Mr. Sutton, with his face the colour of beetroot--for he was heartily
+ashamed of the part he had been playing--began to stammer an
+explanation.
+
+"I saw the young lady, and didn't--I couldn't understand----"
+
+"What the lay was," Mr. Bishop answered, grinning at the other's
+discomfiture. "Just so. Same with me. But suppose in the meantime,
+reverend sir," with unction, "you leave the ground clear for the other
+party? We can talk as well elsewhere as here, and without queering the
+pitch."
+
+The chaplain swallowed his vexation as well as he could and
+complied--but stiffly. The two made their way back in silence to the
+gap in the wall by which the chaplain had entered. There, having first
+ascertained that the road was clear, they stepped out. By that time
+Mr. Sutton was feeling better. After all, he had been right to follow
+the girl. Left to herself, and a slave to the villain who had
+fascinated her, she might suffer worse things than a friendly
+espionage. He determined to take the bull by the horns. "What do you
+make of it?" he asked, still blushing.
+
+"Queer lay," Bishop answered drily.
+
+"You understand it, then?"
+
+"Middling well. Gipsy patter that." He pointed to the stone.
+
+"You think the young lady is communicating--"
+
+"With another party? I do. Leastways I know it. And the party----"
+
+"Is Walterson?"
+
+"Just so," the runner answered. "Why not? Young ladies are but women,
+after all, reverend sir, and much like other women, only sometimes
+more so. I began, I confess, by being of your way of thinking. The
+lady is so precious snowy and so precious stiff you would not believe
+ice would melt in her mouth. But when I came to think it all over, and
+remembered how she stood by it at first, and would not give her name,
+nor any clue by which we could trace where she came from--so that till
+Captain Clyne turned up I was altogether at a loss--and how she made
+light of what Walterson had done, when it was first told her, and a
+lot of little things like that, I began to see how the land lay,
+innocent as she looks. And after all, come to think of it, if she
+liked the man well enough to go off with him--why should she cut him
+adrift? When she had, so to speak, paid the price for him, your
+reverence? How does that strike you?"
+
+"But Captain Clyne," Sutton answered slowly, "who knew her well, and
+knows her well----"
+
+"I know."
+
+"He does not share your opinion. He is under the belief," the chaplain
+continued, "that her eyes are open. And that she hates the very
+thought of the man, and of the mistake she made. His view is that she
+is only anxious to behave herself."
+
+Bishop winked. "Ay, but Captain Clyne," he said, "is in love with her,
+you see."
+
+Mr. Sutton stared. The colour rose slowly to his cheeks.
+
+"I don't think so," he said. "In fact, I may say I know that it is not
+so. He has long given up the remotest idea of the--of the match that
+was projected."
+
+"May be, may be," the runner answered lightly. "I don't say that that
+is not so. But it is just when a man has given up all thought of a
+thing that he thinks of it the most, Mr. Sutton. Anyway, there is the
+stone, and there is the post, and I'll ask you plain for whom it is
+meant, if it is not meant for Walterson?"
+
+Mr. Sutton nodded. But his thoughts were still engaged with Captain
+Clyne's feelings. The more he considered the point the more inclined
+he was to think that the runner was right. Clyne's insistence on the
+girl's innocence, the extreme bitterness that had once or twice broken
+through his reticence, and an unusual restlessness of manner when he
+had made the remarkable proposal that Mr. Sutton should take his
+place, all pointed that way. And this being so, it was strange how the
+suspicion sharpened the chaplain's keenness to win the prize. If she
+had still so great a value in the eyes of his patron, how enviable
+would he be if by hook or crook he could gain her! How very enviable!
+And was it not for her own good that he should gain her; even if he
+compassed his end by a little man[oe]uvring, by stooping a little, by
+spying a little? Ay, even, it might be, by frightening her a little.
+In love, as in war, all was fair, and if he did not love her he
+desired her. She was so desirable, so very desirable, he might be
+forgiven somewhat if he stooped to conquer: seeing that if he failed
+this dangerous man held her in his power.
+
+So when Bishop asked for the second time, "Will you help me to keep an
+eye on her? You can do it more easily than I can," he was ready with
+his answer, though he blushed a little.
+
+"I will stay here and note who passes," he replied. "Yes, I will do
+that."
+
+"You can do it with less risk of notice than I can," the officer
+answered. "And I must get back and keep her in view. It is just
+possible that this is a ruse, and that the man we want is the other
+way."
+
+"I will remain," said Mr. Sutton curtly. And he stayed. But he was so
+taken up with this new view of his patron's feelings that though Bess
+Hinkson rowed along the shore before his eyes, and looked hard at him,
+he never saw her.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVI
+
+                          A NIGHT ADVENTURE
+
+
+Henrietta sat and listened to the various sounds which told of a
+household on its way to bed; and she held her courage with both
+hands. Slip-shod feet moved along the passages, sleepy voices bade
+good-night, distant doors closed sharply. And still, when she thought
+all had retired, the clatter of pot or pan in the far-off offices
+proclaimed a belated worker. And she had to wait and listen and count
+the pulsations of her heart.
+
+The two wax candles, snuff them as she might, cast but a dull and
+melancholy light. The clock ticked in the silence of the room with
+appalling clearness. Her own movements, when she crept to the door to
+listen, scared her by their stealthiness. It seemed to her that the
+least of the sounds she made must proclaim her vigil. One moment she
+trembled lest the late burning of her light arouse suspicion; the next
+lest the cloak which she had brought in and cast across a chair should
+have put some one on the alert. Or she tormented herself with the
+fancy that the snow with which the evening sky had been heavy would
+fall before she started and betray her footsteps.
+
+Of one thing she tried not to think. She would not dwell on what might
+happen at the meeting-place. She felt that if she let her thoughts run
+on that, she would turn coward, she would not go. And one thing at a
+time, she told herself. There lay her cloak, the window was not three
+paces from her, the chair which she meant to use stood by the door. In
+three minutes she could be outside, in half an hour she might be back.
+But in the meantime, the room was lonesome and creepy, the creak of a
+board made her start, the fall of the wood-ash stopped her breath.
+Like many engaged in secret deeds she made her own mystery and
+trembled at it.
+
+At length all seemed abed.
+
+She extinguished one of the candles and took up her cloak. As she
+put it on before the pale mirror she saw that her white face and
+high-piled hair showed by the light of the remaining candle like the
+face of a ghost; and she shivered. But that was the last tribute to
+weakness. Her nature, bold to recklessness, asserted itself now the
+moment for action was come. She set the candle on the floor and shaded
+it so that its light might not be seen. Then, taking the chair in her
+hands she stepped into the dark passage, and closed the door behind
+her. The close, heavy smell of the house assailed her as she listened;
+but all was still, and she raised the sash of the window. She passed
+the chair through the aperture and leaning far out that it might not
+strike the wall lowered it gently. She felt it touch the ground and
+settle on its legs. Then she climbed over the sill and let herself
+down until her feet rested on the chair. She made certain that she
+could draw herself in again, then she sprang lightly to the ground.
+
+The chair cracked as her weight left it, and for a moment she crouched
+motionless against the wall. But she had little to fear. Snow had not
+yet fallen, but it was in the air and the night was as dark as pitch.
+She could not see a yard and when she moved, she had not gone two
+steps from the wall before it vanished, and all that remained to her
+was some notion of its position. Above, below, around was a darkness
+that could be felt. Still, she found the garden-gate with a little
+difficulty, and she passed into the road, and turned to the left.
+She knew that if she walked in that direction she must come to the
+place--a furlong away--where the Troutbeck lane ran up from the
+lake-side.
+
+But the blackness was such that lake and hill were all one, and she
+had to go warily, now feeling for the bank on her left, now for the
+ditch on her right. Not a star showed, and only in one place a patch
+of lighter sky broke the darkness and enabled her to discern the
+shapes of the trees as she passed under them. It was a night when any
+deed might be done, any mischief executed beside that lonely water;
+and no eye see it. But she tried not to think of this. She tried not
+to think of the tracts of lonely hill that stretched their long arms
+on her left, or of the deep, black water that lurked on her right. And
+she had compassed more than a hundred yards when a faint sound, as of
+following feet, caught her ear.
+
+She halted, and shook the hood back from her ears. She listened. She
+fancied that she heard the pattering cease, and she peered into the
+darkness, striving to embody the thing that followed. But she could
+see nothing, she could now hear nothing. She had her handkerchief in
+her hand, and as she stood, peering and listening, she wiped the
+wind-borne moisture from her face.
+
+Still she heard nothing, and she turned and set off again. But her
+thoughts were with her follower, and she had not taken three steps
+before she ran against the bank, and hardly saved herself from a fall.
+
+She felt that with a little more she would lose her head, and, astray
+in the boundless night, not know which direction to take. She must
+pull herself together. She must go on. And she went on. But twice she
+had the sickening assurance that something was moving at her heels.
+Nor, but for the thought which by-and-by occurred to her, that her
+follower might be the person she came to meet, could she have kept to
+her purpose.
+
+She came at length, trembling and clutching her hood about her, to
+the foot of the lane. She knew the place by the colder, moister air
+that swept her face, as well as by the lapping of the water on the
+strand. For the road ran very near the lake at this point. It was a
+mooring-place for two or three boats, belonging for the most part to
+Troutbeck; and she could hear a loose oar in one of the unseen craft
+roll over with a hollow sound. But no one moved in the darkness, or
+spoke, or came to her; and with parted lips, striving to control
+herself, she halted, leaning with one hand against the angle of the
+bank. Then--she could not be mistaken--she heard her follower halt.
+
+Thirty seconds--it seemed an age--she was silent, and forced herself
+to listen, straining her ears. Then she could control herself no
+longer.
+
+"Is it you?" she whispered, her voice strained and uncertain, "I am
+here."
+
+No one answered. And when she had waited awhile glaring into the night
+where she had last heard the footsteps she shuddered violently. For a
+space she could not speak, she leant against the bank.
+
+Then, "Is it you?" she whispered desperately, turning her face this
+way and that. "Speak if it is! Speak! For God's sake, speak to me!"
+
+No one answered, but out of the gloom came the low creep of the wind
+among the reeds, and the melancholy lapping of the water on the
+stones. Once more the oar in the boat rolled over with a hollow
+coffin-like echo. And from a distance another sound, the flap and beat
+of a sail as the rudder was put over, came off the surface of the
+lake. But she did not heed this. It was with the darkness about her,
+it was with the skulking thing a pace or two from her, it was with the
+arms stretched out to clutch her, it was with the fear that was
+beginning to stifle her as the thick night stifled her, that she was
+concerned.
+
+Once more, striving fiercely to combat her fear, to steady her voice,
+she spoke.
+
+"If you do not answer," she cried unsteadily, "I shall go back! You
+hear? I shall go back!"
+
+Still no answer. And on that, because a frightened woman is capable of
+anything, and especially of the thing which is the least to be
+expected, she flung herself forward with her hands outstretched and
+tried to grapple with the thing that terrified her. She caught
+nothing: all that she felt was a warm breath on her cheek. She
+recoiled then as quickly as she had advanced. Unfortunately her skirt
+brushed something as she fell back and the contact, slight as it was,
+drew a low shriek from her. She leant panting against the bank,
+crouching like a thing at bay. The beating of her heart seemed to
+choke her, the gloom to stretch out arms about her. The touch of a
+moth on her cheek would have drawn a shriek. And on the lake--but near
+the shore now, a bowshot from where she crouched, the sail of the
+unseen boat flapped against the mast and began to descend. The light
+of a shaded lanthorn beamed for an instant on the dark surface of the
+water, then vanished.
+
+She did not see the lanthorn, she did not see the boat, for she was
+glaring in the other direction, the direction in which she had heard
+the footsteps. All her senses were concentrated on the thing close to
+her. But some reflection of the light, glancing off the water, did
+reveal a thing--a dim uncertain something--man or woman, dead or
+alive, standing close to her, beside her: and with a shriek she sprang
+from the thing, whatever it was, gave way to blind panic, and fled.
+For some thirty yards she kept the road. Then she struck the bank and
+fell, violently bruising herself. But she felt nothing. In a moment
+she was on her feet again and running on, running on blindly, madly.
+She fancied feet behind her, and a hand stretched out to seize her
+hair; and in terror, that terror which she had kept at bay so long and
+so bravely, she ran on at random, until she found herself, she knew
+not how, clinging with both hands to the wicket-gate of the garden. A
+faint light in one of the windows of the inn had directed her to it.
+
+She stood then, still trembling in every limb, but drawing courage
+from the neighbourhood of living things. And as well as her laboured
+breathing would let her, she listened. But presently she caught the
+stealthy trip-trip of feet along the road, and in a quick return of
+terror she opened the gate and slipped into the garden. She had the
+presence of mind to close the gate after and without noise. But that
+done, woman's nerves could bear no more. Her knees were shaking under
+her, as she groped her way to her window, and felt for the chair which
+she had left beneath it.
+
+The chair was gone. Impossible! She could not have found the right
+window; that was it. She felt with her hands along the wall, felt
+farther. But there was no chair--anywhere. She had made no mistake.
+Some one had removed the chair.
+
+Strange to say, the moment she was sure of that, the fear which had
+driven her in headlong panic from the water-side left her. She thought
+no more of her stealthy attendant. Her one care now was to get in--to
+get in and still to keep secret the fact that she had been out! She
+had trembled like a leaf a few moments before, in fear of the
+shapeless thing that crouched beside her in the night. Now, with no
+more than the garden-fence between her and it, she feared it no more
+than a feather. She regained her ordinary plane, and foresaw all the
+suspicion, all the inconvenience, to which her position, if she could
+not re-enter, must subject her. And the smaller, the immediate fear
+expelled the greater and more remote.
+
+She leant against the wall and tried to think. Who had, who could have
+removed the chair? She could not guess. And thinking only increased
+her eagerness, her anxiety to enter and be safe. She must get in
+somehow, even at a little risk.
+
+She tried to take hold of the sill above her, and so to raise herself
+to the window by sheer strength. But she could not grasp the sill,
+though she could touch it. Still, if she had something in place of the
+chair, if she had something a foot high on which to raise herself she
+could succeed. But what? And how was she to find anything in the dark?
+She peered round, compelling herself to think. Surely she might find
+something. With a single foot of height she was saved. Without that
+foot of height she must rouse the house; and that meant disgrace and
+contumely, and degrading suspicion. Her cheeks burned at the prospect.
+For no story, no explanation would account satisfactorily for her
+absence from the house at such an hour.
+
+She was about to grope her way round the house to the yard at the
+back--where with luck she might find a chicken coop or a stable
+bucket--when five paces from her the latch of the wicket clicked
+sharply. By instinct she flattened herself against the wall; but she
+had scarcely time to feel the sudden leap of her heart before a mild
+voice spoke out of the gloom.
+
+"I'm afraid I have taken your chair," it murmured, "pray forgive me. I
+am Mr. Sutton, and I--I am very sorry!"
+
+"You followed me!"
+
+"I----"
+
+"You followed me!" Her voice rang imperative with anger. "You followed
+me! You have been spying on me! You!"
+
+"No! No!" he muttered. "I meant only----"
+
+"How dare you! How dare you!" she cried in low fierce tones. "You have
+been spying on me, sir! And you removed the chair that--that I might
+not enter without your help."
+
+He was silent a moment, standing, though she could not see him, with
+his chin on his breast. Then:
+
+"I confess," he said in a low tone. "I confess it was so. I spied on
+you."
+
+"And followed me!"
+
+"Yes," he admitted it, his hands extended in unseen deprecation, "I
+did."
+
+"Why?" she cried. "Why, sir?"
+
+"Because----"
+
+"But I do not want to know," she retorted, cutting him short as she
+remembered the time, and place, "I want to know nothing, to hear
+nothing from you! The chair, sir! The chair, if you do not wish to add
+further outrage to your unmanly conduct. Set me the chair and go!"
+
+"But hear at least," he pleaded, "why I followed you, Miss Damer.
+Why----"
+
+She stamped her foot on the ground.
+
+"The chair!" she repeated.
+
+He was most anxious to tell her that though other motives had led him
+to spy on her and watch her window, he had followed her out of a pure
+desire to protect her. But her insistence overrode him, silenced him.
+He set the chair under the passage window and murmured submissively
+that it was there.
+
+That was enough for her. She felt for it, found it, and without
+thought of him or word to him, she climbed nimbly in. That done she
+stooped and drew the chair up, and closed the window down upon him and
+secured it. Next, feeling for the door of Mr. Rogers's room she got
+rid of the chair, and seized her hidden candle and crept out and up
+the stairs. Apparently all the house, save the man who had detected
+her, slept. But she did not dare to pause or prove the fact. She had
+had her lesson and a severe one; and she did not breathe freely until
+the door of her chamber was locked behind her, and she knew herself
+once more within the bounds of the usual and the proper.
+
+Then for a brief while, as she tore off her damp clothes, her thoughts
+ran stormily on Mr. Sutton: nor did she dream, or he, from what things
+he had saved her. The man was a wretch, a spy, a sneak trying to worm
+himself into her confidence. She would box his ears if he threatened
+her or referred to the matter again. And if he told others--she did
+not know what she would not do! For the rest, she had let herself be
+scared by a nothing, by a step, by a sound; and she despised herself
+for her cowardice. But--she had that consolation--she had played her
+part, she had gone to the rendezvous, she had not failed. The fault
+lay with him who should have met her there, and who had not met her.
+
+And so, shivering and chilled--for bedroom fires were not yet, and she
+was worn out with fright and exposure--she hid herself under the heavy
+patchwork quilt and sought comfort in the sleep of exhaustion. It was
+not long in coming, for she suspected no more than she knew. Like the
+purblind insect that creeps upon the crowded pavement and is missed by
+a hundred feet, she discerned neither the dangers which she had so
+narrowly escaped, nor those into which her late action was fated to
+hurry her.
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII
+
+                        THE EDGE OF THE STORM
+
+
+It was daylight when she awoke; but it had not been daylight long. Yet
+some one was knocking; and knocking loudly at the door of her bedroom.
+She rose on her elbow, and looking at the half-curtained window
+decided that it was eight o'clock, perhaps a little later. But not so
+much later that they need raise the house in waking her.
+
+"Thank you," she cried petulantly. "That will do! That will do! I am
+awake." And she laid her head on the pillow again, and closing her
+eyes, sighed deeply. The events of the night were coming back to
+her--and with them her troubles.
+
+But, "Please to open the door, miss!" came the answer in gruff
+accents. "I want to speak to you, by your leave."
+
+Henrietta sat up, her hair straggling from under the nightcap that
+framed her pretty features. The voice that demanded entrance was Mrs.
+Gilson's: and even over Henrietta that voice had power. She parleyed
+no longer. She threw a wrap about her, and hastily opened the door.
+
+"What is it?" she asked. "Mrs. Gilson, is it you?"
+
+"Be good enough," the landlady answered, "to let me come in a minute,
+miss."
+
+Her peremptory tone astonished Henrietta, who said neither Yes nor No,
+but stood staring. The landlady with little ceremony took leave for
+granted. She entered, went by the girl to the window, and dragging the
+curtains aside, let in the full light. The adventures of the night had
+left Henrietta pale. But at this her colour rose.
+
+"What is it?" she repeated.
+
+"You know best," Mrs. Gilson answered with more than her usual
+curtness. "Deal of dirt and little profit, I'm afraid, like Brough
+March fair! It's not enough to be a fool once, it seems! Though I'd
+have thought you'd paid pretty smartly for it. Smart enough to know
+better now, my lass!"
+
+"I don't know what you mean," Henrietta faltered.
+
+"You don't?" Mrs. Gilson rejoined, and with her arms set akimbo she
+stared severely at the girl, who, in her night-clothes with her cloak
+thrown about her and her colour coming and going, looked both guilty
+and frightened. "I fancy your face knows, if you don't. Where were you
+last night? Ay, after dark last night, madam? Where were you, I say?"
+
+"After dark?" Henrietta stammered.
+
+"Ay, after dark!" the landlady retorted. "That's English, isn't it?
+But never mind. Least said is soonest mended. Where are your shoes?"
+
+"My shoes?"
+
+Mrs. Gilson lost patience, or appeared to lose it.
+
+"That is what I said," she replied. "You give them to me, and then
+I'll tell you why I want them. Ah!" catching sight of them and bending
+her stout form to lift them from the floor. "Now, if you want to know
+what is the matter, though I think you know as well as the miller
+knows who beats the meal sack--you come with me! There is no one on
+this landing. Come you, as you are, to the window at the other end.
+'And you'll know fast enough, and why they want your shoes."
+
+"They?" Henrietta murmured, hanging back and growing more alarmed. It
+was a pity that there was no man there to see how pretty she looked in
+her disorder.
+
+"Ay, they!" the landlady answered. And a keen ear might have detected
+sorrow as well as displeasure in her tone. "There's many will be
+poking their noses into your affairs now you'll find--when it's too
+late to prevent them. But do you come, young woman!" She led the way
+along the landing to a window which looked down on the side-garden.
+After a brief hesitation Henrietta followed, her face grown sullen.
+Alas! when she reached the window it needed but a look to enlighten
+her.
+
+One of the things, which she had feared the previous day, had come to
+pass! A little snow had fallen while she was absent from the house; so
+very little that she had not noticed it. But it had lain, and on its
+white surface was published this morning in damning characters the
+story of her flittings to and fro. And worse, early as it was, the
+story had readers! Leaning on the garden wicket were two or three men
+discussing the appearances, and pointing and arguing; and forty or
+fifty yards along the road towards Bowness, a man, bent double, was
+tracing the prints of her feet, as if he followed a scent.
+
+It was for that, then, that they wanted her shoes. She understood, and
+her first impulse was to indignation. It was an outrage! An insult!
+
+"What is it to them?" she cried. "How dare they!"
+
+Mrs. Gilson looked keenly at her under her vast bushy eyebrows.
+
+"I'm afraid," she said, "that you'll find they'll dare a mort more
+than that before they've done, my girl. And what they want to know
+they'll learn. These," coolly lifting the shoes to sight, "are to help
+them."
+
+"But why should they--what is it to them if I----" she stopped,
+unwilling to commit herself.
+
+"You listen to me a minute," the landlady said. "You've brought your
+pigs to a poor market, that's plain: and there is but one thing can
+help you now, and that is a clean breast. Now you make up your mind to
+it! There's nought else can help you, I say again, and that I tell
+you! It's no child's play, this! The truth, the whole truth, and
+nothing but the truth, as they say at the assizes, is the only thing
+for you, if you don't want to be sorry for it all the rest of your
+life."
+
+She spoke so seriously that Henrietta when she answered took a lower
+tone; though she still protested.
+
+"What is it to any one," she asked, "if I was out of the house last
+night?"
+
+"It's little to me," Mrs. Gilson answered drily. "But it will be much
+to you if you don't tell the truth. Your own conscience, my girl,
+should speak loud enough."
+
+"My conscience is clear!" Henrietta cried. But her tone, a little too
+heroic, fitted ill with her appearance.
+
+At any rate Mrs. Gilson, who did not like heroics, thought so. "Then
+the best thing you can do," she replied tartly, "is to go and dress
+yourself! A clear conscience! Umph! Give me clean hands! And if I were
+you I'd be quite sure about that conscience before I came down to
+answer questions."
+
+"I shall not come down."
+
+"Then they'll come up," the landlady retorted. "And 'twon't be more
+pleasant. You'd best think twice about that."
+
+Henrietta was thinking. Behind the sullen, pretty face she was
+thinking that if she made a clean breast of it, she must betray the
+man. She must say where she had seen him, and why she had gone to meet
+him. And that was the thing which she had resolved not to do--the
+thing which she was still determined not to do. There is a spice
+of obstinacy in all women: an inclination to abide by a line once
+taken, or an opinion once formed. And Henrietta, who was naturally
+head-strong, and who had run some risk the previous night and gone to
+some trouble that the man might escape, was not going to give him up
+to-day. They had found her out, they had driven her to bay. But
+nothing which they could do would wound her half as much as that
+public ordeal, that confrontation with the man, that exhibition of his
+unworthiness and her folly, which must follow his capture. For the man
+himself, she was so far from loving him, that she loathed him, she was
+ashamed of him. But she was not going to betray him. She was not going
+to turn informer--a name more hateful then, when blood-money was
+common, than now! She who had been kissed by him was not going to have
+his blood on her hands!
+
+Such were her thoughts; to which Mrs. Gilson had no clue. But the
+landlady read recalcitrancy in the girl's face, and knowing some
+things which Henrietta did not know, and being at no time one to brook
+opposition, she took the girl the wrong way. If she had appealed to
+her better feelings, if she had used that influence with her which
+rough but real kindness had won, it is possible that she might have
+brought Henrietta to reason. But the sight of that sullen, pretty face
+provoked the landlady. She had proof of gross indiscretion, she
+suspected worse things, she thought the girl unworthy. And she spoke
+more harshly to her than she had ever spoken before.
+
+"If you were my girl," she said grimly, "I'd know what to do with you!
+I'd shake the humours out of you, if I had to shake you from now till
+next week! Ay, I would! And you'd pretty soon come to your senses and
+find your tongue, I warrant! Didn't you pretend to me and maintain to
+me a week ago and more that you'd done with the scamp?"
+
+"I have done with him!" Henrietta cried, red and angry.
+
+"Ay, as the foot has done with the shoe--till next time!" Mrs. Gilson
+retorted, drawing her simile from the articles in her hand. "For
+shame. For shame, young woman!" severely. "When it was trusting to
+that I kept you here and kept you out of gaol!"
+
+Henrietta had not thought of that side of the case; and the reminder,
+finding a joint in her armour, stung her.
+
+"You don't know to whom you are talking!" she cried.
+
+"I know that I am talking to a fool!" the landlady retorted. "But
+there," she continued irefully, "you may talk to a fool till you are
+dead and 'twill still be a fool! So it's only one bit of advice I'll
+give you. You dress and come down or you'll be dragged down! And I
+suppose, though you are not too proud to trapse the roads to meet your
+Joe--ay," raising her voice as Henrietta turned in a rage, and fled,
+"you may slam the door, you little vixen, for a vixen you are! But
+you've heard some of my opinion of you, and you'll hear more! I'm not
+sure that you're not a thorough bad 'un!" Mrs. Gilson continued,
+lowering her voice again and speaking to herself--though her words
+were still audible. "That I'm not! But any way there'll be one here
+by-and-by you'll have to listen to! And he'll make your ears burn, my
+lady, or I'm mistaken!"
+
+It was bad enough to hear through the ill-fitting door such words as
+these. It was worse to know that plainer words might be used
+downstairs in the hearing of man and maid. But Henrietta had the sense
+to know that her position would be made worse by avoiding the issue,
+and pride enough to urge her to face it. She hastened to dress
+herself, though her fingers shook with indignation as well as with
+cold.
+
+It was only when she was nearly ready to descend that she noticed how
+large was the crowd collected before the inn. She could hardly believe
+that her escapade--much as it might interest the police officer--was
+the cause of this. And a chill of apprehension, a thrill of
+anticipation of she knew not what, kept her for a moment standing
+before the window. She had done, she told herself, no harm. She had no
+real reason to fear. And yet she was beginning to fear. Anger was
+beginning to give place to dismay. For it was clear that something out
+of the common had happened; besides the group in the road, three or
+four persons were inspecting the boats drawn up on the foreshore. And
+on the lake was a stir unusual at this season. Half a mile from the
+shore a boat under sail was approaching the landing-place from the
+direction of Wray Woods. It was running fast before the bitter lash of
+the November wind that here and there flecked the grey and melancholy
+expanse with breakers. And round the point from the direction of
+Ambleside a second boat was reaching, with the wind on her quarter.
+She fancied that the men in these boats made signs to those on the
+shore; and that the excitement grew with their report. While she gazed
+two or three of the people in the road walked down to the water. And
+with a puckered brow, and a face a shade paler than usual, she
+hesitated; wishing that she knew what had happened and was sure that
+the stir had not to do with her.
+
+She would have preferred to wait upstairs until the boats arrived. But
+she remembered Mrs. Gilson's warning. Moreover, she was beginning to
+comprehend--as men do, and women seldom do--that there is a force
+which it is futile to resist--that of the law. Sooner or later she
+must go down. So taking her courage in both hands she opened her door,
+and striving to maintain a dignified air she descended the stairs, and
+made her way past the passage window to Mr. Rogers's room.
+
+It was empty, and first appearances were reassuring. Her breakfast was
+laid and waiting, the fire was cheerful, the room tended to
+encouragement. But the murmur of excited voices still rose from the
+highway below, and kept her uneasy: and when she went to the
+side-window to view the scene of last night's evasion, she stamped her
+foot with vexation. For where the tracks of feet were clearest they
+had been covered with old boxes to protect them from the frosty
+sunshine which the day promised; and the precaution smacked so
+strongly of the law and its methods that it had an ill look. Not
+Robinson Crusoe on his desert island had made a more ridiculous fuss
+about a foot-print or two!
+
+She was still knitting her brows over the device when there came a
+knock at the door. She turned and confronted Bishop. The man's manner
+as he entered was respectful enough, but he had not waited for leave
+to come in. And she had a sickening feeling that he was taking
+possession of her, that he would not leave her again, that from this
+time she was not her own. The gravity of the bluff red face did not
+lessen this feeling. And though she would fain have asked him his
+business and challenged his intrusion she could not find a word.
+
+"I take it, you'd as soon see me alone, miss," he said. And he closed
+the door behind him, and stood with his hat in his hand. "You'd best
+go on with your breakfast, for you look a bit peaky--you're a bit
+shaken, I expect, by what has happened. But don't you be afraid," with
+something like a wink, "there's no harm will happen to you if you are
+sensible. Meanwhile I'll talk to you, by your leave, while you eat. It
+will save time, and time's much. I suppose," he continued, as she
+forced herself to take her seat and pour out her tea, "there's no need
+to tell you, miss, what has happened?"
+
+She would have given much to prevent her hand shaking, and something
+to be able to look him in the face. She did succeed in maintaining
+outward composure; for agitation is more clearly felt than perceived.
+But she could not force the colour to her cheeks, nor compel her
+tongue to utterance. And he let her swallow some tea before he
+repeated his question.
+
+"I suppose there is no need, miss, to tell you what has happened?"
+
+"I do not know"--she murmured--"to what you refer. You must speak more
+plainly."
+
+"It's a serious matter," he said. He appeared to be looking into his
+hat, but he was really watching her over its edge, "A serious matter,
+miss, and I hope you'll take it as it should be taken. For if it goes
+beyond a point the Lord only can stop it. So if you know, miss, and
+have no need to be told, it's best for you to be frank. We know a good
+deal."
+
+The warm tea had given her command of herself.
+
+"If you mean," she said, "that I was out last night, I was."
+
+"We know that, of course."
+
+"You have my shoes," with a little shrug of contempt.
+
+"Yes, miss, and your footprints!" he answered. "The point on which we
+want information--and the sooner we have it the better--is, where did
+you leave him?"
+
+"Where did I leave--whom?" sharply.
+
+"The person you met."
+
+"I met no one."
+
+The runner shook his head gently. And his face grew longer.
+
+"For God's sake, miss," he said earnestly, "don't fence with me. Don't
+take that line! Believe me, if you do you'll be sorry. Time's the
+thing. Tell us now and it may avail. Tell us to-morrow and it may be
+of no use. The harm may be done."
+
+She stared at him. "But I met no one," she said.
+
+"There are the footprints, coming and going," he answered with
+severity. "It is no use to deny them."
+
+"A man's--with mine?"
+
+"For certain."
+
+She looked at him with a startled expression. But gradually her face
+cleared, she smiled.
+
+"Ah," she said. "Just so. You have the man's tracks coming and going?
+And mine?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"But are not his tracks as well as mine more faint as they go from the
+house? More clear as they come back to the house? Because snow was
+falling while I was out as well as before I started. So that he as
+well as I went from the house and returned to the house!"
+
+He frowned. "I noticed that," he said.
+
+"Then," with a faint ring of amusement in her tone, "you had better
+search the house for him."
+
+The difficulty had occurred to Mr. Bishop before he entered. But it
+did not fall in with his theory, and like many modern discoverers he
+had set it on one side as a detail which events would explain. Put to
+him crudely it vexed him.
+
+"See here, miss, you're playing with us," he said. "And it won't do.
+Tell us frankly----"
+
+"I will tell you frankly," she answered, cutting him short with
+spirit, "whose tracks they are. They are Mr. Sutton's. Now you know.
+And Mr. Sutton is the only person I saw last night. Now you know that
+too. And perhaps you will leave me." She rose as she finished.
+
+"Mr. Sutton was with you?"
+
+"I have said so. You have my shoes. Get his. What I say is easily
+tested and easily proved."
+
+She had the pleasure of a little triumph. The runner looked taken
+aback and ashamed of himself. But after the first flush of
+astonishment he did not waste a minute. He turned, opened the door,
+and disappeared.
+
+Henrietta listened to his departing steps, then with a sigh of relief
+she returned to her breakfast. Her spirits rose. She felt that she had
+exaggerated her troubles; that she had allowed herself to be alarmed
+without cause. The landlady's rudeness, rather than any real
+perplexity or peril, had imposed on her. Another time she would not be
+so lightly frightened. For, after all, she had done nothing of which
+even Mr. Sutton, if he told the truth, could make much. They might
+suspect that she had stolen out to meet Walterson; but as she had not
+met him, they could prove nothing. They might conclude from it, that
+he was in the neighbourhood; but as Bishop already held that belief,
+things were left where they were before. Except, to be sure, that for
+some reason she had lost the landlady's favour.
+
+The girl had arrived at this comfortable stage in her reasoning when
+the shuffling of feet along the passage informed her that Bishop was
+returning. Nor Bishop only. He brought with him others, it was clear,
+and among them one heavy man in boots--she caught the harsh ring of a
+spur. Who were they? Why were they coming? Involuntarily she rose to
+her feet, and waited with a quickened heart for their appearance.
+
+The sounds that reached her were not encouraging. One of the men
+stumbled, and growled an oath; and one laughed a vulgar common laugh
+as at some jest in doubtful taste. Then the door opened wide, and with
+little ceremony they followed one another into the room, one, two,
+three.
+
+
+[Illustration: ... he touched his brow with his whip handle]
+
+
+Bishop first, with his bluff, square face. Then a stranger, a tall
+bulky man, heavy-visaged and bull-dog jawed, with harsh, over-bearing
+eyes. He wore an open horseman's coat, and under it a broad leather
+belt with pistols; and he touched his brow with his whip-handle in a
+half familiar, half insolent way. After him came the pale, peaky face
+of Mr. Sutton, who looked chap-fallen and ashamed of himself.
+
+The moment all had entered,
+
+"Mr. Chaplain, close the door," said the stranger in a broad
+Lancashire accent, and with an air of authority. "Now, Bishop, suppose
+you tell the young lady--damme, what's that?" turning sharply, "Who is
+it?"
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XVIII
+
+                           MR. JOSEPH NADIN
+
+
+The words were addressed to Mr. Sutton, who did not seem able to shut
+the door. But the answer came from the other side of the door.
+
+"By your leave,"--the voice, a little breathless, was Mrs.
+Gilson's--"I'm coming in too." And she came in at that, and brusquely.
+"I think you are over many men for one woman," she continued, setting
+her cap straight, and otherwise not a whit discomposed by the men's
+attitude. "You'll want me before you are done, you'll see."
+
+"Want you?" the strange man answered with sarcasm. "Then when we want
+you we'll send for you."
+
+"No you'll not, Joe Nadin," she retorted, coolly, as she closed the
+door behind her. "For I'll be here. What you will be wanting," with a
+toss of her double chin, "will be wit. But that's not to be had for
+the sending."
+
+Nadin--he was the deputy-constable of Manchester, and the most famous
+police officer of that day, a man as warmly commended by the Tory
+party as he was fiercely hated by the Radicals--would have given an
+angry answer. But Bishop was before him.
+
+"Let her be," he said--with friendly deference. "We may want her, as
+she says. And the young lady is waiting. Now, miss," he continued,
+addressing Henrietta, who stood at the table trying to hide the
+perturbation which these preliminaries caused her, "I've brought Mr.
+Sutton to tell us in your presence what he knows. I doubt it won't go
+far. So that when we have heard him we shall want a good deal from
+you."
+
+"Ay, from you, young lady," the Manchester man struck in, taking the
+word out of the other's mouth. "It will be your turn then. And what we
+want we must have, or----"
+
+"Or what?" she asked, with an air of dignity that sat strangely on one
+so young. They did not guess how her heart was beating!
+
+"Or 'twill be Appleby gaol!" he answered. "That's the long and the
+short of it. There's an end of shilly-shallying! You've to make your
+choice, and time's precious. But the reverend gentleman has first say.
+Speak up, Mr. Chaplain! You followed this young lady last night about
+ten o'clock? Very good. Now what did you see and hear?"
+
+Mr. Sutton looked miserably downcast. But he was on the horns of a
+dilemma, and while he knew that by speaking he forfeited all chance of
+Henrietta's favour, he knew that he must speak: that he had no choice.
+Obstinate as he could be upon occasion, in the grasp of such a man as
+Nadin he succumbed. He owned that not the circumstances only but the
+man were too strong for him. Yet he made one effort to stand on his
+own legs. "I think Miss Damer would prefer to tell the tale herself,"
+he said, with a spark of dignity. "In that case I have nothing to
+say."
+
+"I do not know what you mean," Henrietta answered, her lip curling.
+And she looked at him as she would have looked at Judas.
+
+"Still," he murmured, with a side-glance at Nadin, "if you would be
+advised by me----"
+
+"I have nothing to say," she said curtly.
+
+"Mind you, I've told her nothing." Mrs. Gilson said, intervening in
+time to prevent an outburst on Nadin's part. "I was bid to get her
+shoes, and I got her shoes. I held my tongue."
+
+"Then she knows nothing!" the chaplain exclaimed.
+
+"Oh, she knows enough," Nadin struck in, his harsh, dogmatic nature
+getting the better of him. "If she did not know we should not come to
+her. We know our business. Now, where's the man hiding? For there the
+boy will be. Where did you leave him, my lass?"
+
+Mr. Sutton, whom circumstances had forced into a part so distasteful,
+saw a chance of helping the girl; and even of reinstating himself in
+some degree in her eyes.
+
+"I can answer that," he said. "She did not meet him. The young lady
+went to the bottom of Troutbeck Lane, where, I understand, the boat
+came to land. But there was no one there to meet her. And she came
+back without seeing any one. I can vouch for that. And that," the
+chaplain continued, throwing out his chest, and speaking with dignity,
+"is all that Miss Damer did, and I can speak to it."
+
+Nadin exploded.
+
+"Don't tell me that she went to the place for nothing, man!"
+
+"I tell you only what happened," the chaplain answered, sticking to
+his point. "She saw no one, and spoke to no one."
+
+"Hang me if I don't think you are in with her!" Nadin replied in an
+insulting tone. And then turning to Henrietta, "Now then, out with it!
+Where is he?"
+
+But Henrietta, battered by the man's coarse voice and manner, still
+held her ground.
+
+"If I knew I should not tell you," she said.
+
+"Then you'll go to Appleby gaol!"
+
+"And still I shall not tell you."
+
+"Understand! Understand!" Nadin replied. "I've a warrant here granted
+in Lancashire and backed here and in order! A warrant to take him. You
+can see it if you like. Don't say I took advantage of you. I'm rough,
+but I'm square," he continued, his broad dialect such that a
+Southerner would not have understood him. "The lads know me, and
+you'll know me before we've done!"
+
+"Then it won't be for your wisdom!" Mrs. Gilson muttered. And then
+more loudly, "Why don't you tell her what's been done? Happen she
+knows, and happen she doesn't. If she does 'tis all one. If she
+doesn't you're talking to deaf ears."
+
+Nadin shrugged his shoulders and struck his boot with his whip.
+
+"Well," he said, "an old lass with a long tongue will have her way i'
+Lancashire or where it be! Tell her yourself. But she knows, I
+warrant!"
+
+Mrs. Gilson also thought so, but she was not sure.
+
+"See here, miss," she said, "you know Captain Clyne's son?"
+
+Henrietta's colour rose at the name.
+
+"Of course you do," the landlady continued, "for if all's true you are
+some sort of connection. Then you know, Miss, that he's the apple of
+his father's eye, and the more for being a lameter?"
+
+Henrietta could not hear Anthony Clyne's name without agitation;
+without vague apprehensions and a sense of coming evil. Why did they
+bring in the name? And what were they going to tell her about the
+boy--of whom in the old days she had been contemptuously jealous? She
+felt her face burn under the gaze of all those eyes fixed on it. And
+her own eyes sank.
+
+"Well," she muttered indistinctly, "what of him? What has he to do
+with this?"
+
+"He is missing. He has been stolen."
+
+"Stolen?"
+
+Her tone was one of sharp surprise.
+
+"He was carried off last night by two men," Bishop struck in. "His
+nurse was returning to the house near Newby Bridge--hard on nightfall,
+when she met two men on the road. They asked the name of the place,
+heard what it was, and asked who the child was. She told them, and
+they went one way and she another, but before she reached home they
+overtook her, seized her and bound her, and disappeared with the boy.
+It was dusk and she might have lain in the ditch and died. But the
+servants in the house went out when she did not return and found her."
+He looked at Nadin. "That's so, isn't it?"
+
+"Ay, that's it," the other answered, nodding. "You've got it pat."
+
+"When she could speak, the alarm was given, they raised the country,
+the men were traced to Newby Bridge. There we know a boat met them and
+took them off. And the point, miss, is not so much where they landed,
+for that we know--'twas at the bottom of Troutbeck Lane!--as where
+they are now."
+
+She had turned pale and red and pale again, while she listened.
+Astonishment had given place to horror, and resentment to pity. In
+women, even the youngest, there is a secret tenderness for children;
+and the thought of this child, cast lame and helpless into the hands
+of strangers, and exposed, in place of the care to which he had been
+accustomed all his life, to brutality and hardships, pierced the crust
+of jealousy and melted the woman's heart. Her eyes filled with tears,
+and through the tears indignation burned. For a moment even the insult
+which Anthony Clyne had put upon her was forgotten. She thought only
+of the father's misery, his suspense, his grief. She yearned to him.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, "the wretches!" And her voice rang bravely. "But--but
+why are you here? Why do you not follow them?"
+
+Nadin's eyes met Bishop's. He raised his eyebrows.
+
+"Because, miss," he said, "we think there's a shorter way to them.
+Because we think you can tell us where they are if you choose."
+
+"I can tell you where they are?" she repeated.
+
+"Yes, miss. We believe that you can--if you choose. And you _must_
+choose."
+
+The girl stared. Then slowly she comprehended. She grasped the fact
+that they addressed the question to her, that they believed that she
+was at one with the men who had done this. And a change as
+characteristic of her nature as it was unexpected by those who watched
+her, swept over her face. Her features quivered, and, even as when
+Anthony Clyne's proposal wounded her pride to the quick, she turned
+from them, and bowing her head on her hands broke into weeping.
+
+They were all taken aback. They had looked some for one thing, some
+for another; some for rage and scorn, some for sullen denial. No one
+had foreseen this breakdown. Nor was it welcome. Nadin found himself
+checked on the threshold of success, and swore under his breath.
+Bishop, who had broken a lance with her before, and was more or less
+tender-hearted, looked vexed. Mr. Sutton showed open distress--her
+weeping hurt him, and at every quiver of her slight, girlish figure he
+winced. While Mrs. Gilson frowned; perhaps at the clumsiness and
+witlessness of men-folk. But she did not interfere, and the chaplain
+dared not interfere: and Nadin was left to deal with the girl as he
+pleased.
+
+"There, miss," he said, speaking a little less harshly, "tears mend no
+bones. And there's one thing clear in this and not to be denied--the
+men who have taken the lad are friends of your friend. And not a doubt
+he's in it. We've traced them to a place not three hundred yards from
+here. They've vanished where he vanished, and there's no need of magic
+to tell that the same hole hides all. I was on the track of the men
+with a warrant--for they are d----d Radicals as ever were!--when they
+slipped off and played this pretty trick by the way. Whether they have
+kidnapped the lad out of revenge, or for a hostage, I'm in the dark.
+But put-up job or not, you are not the young lady to back up such
+doings. I see that with half an eye," he added cunningly, "and
+therefore----"
+
+"Have you got it from her?"
+
+Nadin turned with a frown--the interruption came from Mr. Hornyold.
+The justice had just entered, and stood booted, spurred, and pompous
+on the threshold. He carried his heavy riding-whip, and was in all
+points ready for the road.
+
+"No, not yet," Nadin answered curtly, "but----"
+
+"You'd better; let me try her, then," the magistrate rejoined, all
+fussiness and importance. "There's no time to be lost. We're getting
+together. I've a dozen mounted men in the yard, and they are coming in
+from Rydal side. We shall have two score in an hour. We'll have the
+hills scoured before nightfall, and long before Captain Clyne is
+here."
+
+"Quite so, squire," Nadin replied drily. "But if the young lady will
+tell us where the scoundrel lies we'll be spared the trouble. Now,
+miss," he continued, forgetting, under the impetus of Hornyold's
+manner, the more diplomatic line he had been following, "we've a
+d----d clear case against you, and that's flat. We can trace you to
+where they landed last night, and we know that you were there within a
+few minutes of the time; for we've their footsteps from the boat to
+the wood above the road, and your footsteps from the boat to the inn.
+There is as much evidence of aiding and abetting as would transport a
+dozen men! So do you be wise, and tell us straight off what we want."
+
+But two words had caught her ear.
+
+"Aiding and abetting?" she muttered. And she turned her eyes, still
+bright with tears, upon him. Her flushed face and ruffled hair gave
+her a strangely childish appearance. "Aiding and abetting? Do you mean
+that you think that I--that I had anything to do with taking the
+child?"
+
+"No, no," Bishop murmured hurriedly, and cast a warning look at his
+colleague. "No, no, not knowingly."
+
+"Nay, but that depends," Nadin persisted obstinately. His fibre was
+coarser, and his perceptions were less acute. It was his habit to gain
+his ends by fear, and he was unwilling to lose the hold he had over
+her. "That depends," he repeated doggedly. "If you speak and tell us
+all you know, of course not. But if you do not speak, we shall take it
+against you."
+
+"You will take it," she cried, "that I--I helped to steal the child?"
+
+"Just so, if you don't speak," Nadin repeated, disregarding his
+fellow's signals. Firmness, he was sure, was all that was needed. Just
+firmness.
+
+She was silent in great agitation. They suspected her! Oh, it was
+wicked, it was vile of them! She would not have touched a hair of the
+child's head. And they suspected Walterson; but it might be as
+falsely, it must be as falsely. Yet if she gave him up, even if he
+were innocent he would suffer. He would suffer on other charges, and
+she would have his blood on her hands though she had so often, so
+often, resolved that she would not be driven to that!
+
+They asked too much of her. They asked her to betray the man to death
+on the chance--and she did not believe in the chance--that it would
+restore the child to its father. She shuddered as she thought of the
+child, as she thought of Anthony Clyne's grief; she would willingly
+have done much to help the one and the other. But they asked too much.
+If it were anything short of the man's life that they asked, she would
+be guided, she would do as they bade her. But this step was
+irrevocable: and she was asked to take it on a chance. Possibly they
+did not themselves believe in the chance. Possibly they made the
+charge for their own purposes, their aim to get the man into their
+power, the blood-money into their purse. She shuddered at that and
+found the dilemma cruel. But she had no doubt which course she must
+follow. No longer did any thought of herself or of the annoyances of
+his arrest weigh with her: thought of the child had outweighed all
+that. But she would not without proof, without clear proof, have the
+man's blood on her hands.
+
+And regarding them with a pale set face,
+
+"If you have proof," she said, "that he--Walterson--" she pronounced
+the name with an effort--"was concerned in carrying off the child, I
+will speak."
+
+"Proof?" Nadin barked.
+
+"Yes," she said. "If you can satisfy me that he was privy to this--I
+will tell you all I know."
+
+Nadin exploded.
+
+"Proof?" he cried with violence. "Why, by G--d, was he not at the
+place where we know the men landed? And didn't you expect to meet him
+there? And at the very hour?"
+
+"He was not there," she cried.
+
+"But----"
+
+"And I was there," she continued, "yet I know nothing. I am innocent."
+
+"Umph! I don't know!" Nadin growled.
+
+"But I do," she replied. "If your proof comes only to that---"
+
+"But the men who took the child are old mates of his!"
+
+"How do you know?" she returned. "You did not see them. They may not
+be the men you wished to arrest. But," scornfully, "I see what kind of
+proof you have, and I shall not tell you."
+
+"Come, miss," Bishop said, staying with difficulty Nadin's furious
+answer. "Come, miss, think! Think again. Think of the child!"
+
+"Oh, sink the child," the Manchester officer struck in. He had seldom
+been so handled. "Think of yourself!"
+
+"You will send me to prison?" she said.
+
+"By heaven we will!" he answered. And Mr. Hornyold nodded.
+
+"It must be so, then," she replied with dignity. "I shall not speak. I
+have no right to speak."
+
+They all cried out on her, Bishop and Mr. Sutton appealing to her,
+Nadin growling oaths, Mr. Hornyold threatening that he would make out
+the warrant that minute. Only the landlady, with her apron rolled
+round her arms, stood grim and silent; a looker-on whose taciturnity
+presently irritated Nadin beyond bearing. "I suppose you think," he
+said, turning to her, "that you could have handled her better?"
+
+"I couldn't ha' handled her worse!" the landlady replied.
+
+"You think yourself a Solomon!" he sneered.
+
+"A girl of ten's a Solomon to you!" the landlady retorted keenly. "It
+canna be for this, it surely canna be for this, Joe Nadin, that they
+pay you money at Manchester, and that 'tis said you go in risk of your
+life! Why, that Bishop, London chap as he is, is a greybeard beside
+you. He does know that Bluster is a good dog but Softly is better!"
+
+"Well, as I live by bread I'll have her in the Stone Jug!" he
+retorted. "And then we'll see!"
+
+"There's another will see before you!" Mrs. Gilson answered drily.
+"And it strikes me he's not far off. If you'd left her alone for just
+an hour and seen what his honour Captain Clyne could do with her,
+you'd have shown your sense!" shrugging her shoulders. "Now, I fear
+you've spoiled his market, my lad!"
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIX
+
+                             AT THE FARM
+
+
+It was night, and the fire, the one generous thing in the house-place
+at Starvecrow Farm, blazed fitfully; casting its light now on
+Walterson's brooding face as he stooped over the heat, now on the
+huddled shrunken form that filled the farther side of the hearth. As
+the flames rose and fell, the shadows of the two men danced
+whimsically behind them. At one moment they sprang up, darkening the
+whole smoke-grimed ceiling and seeming to menace the persons who gave
+them birth, at another they sank into mere hop-o'-my-thumbs, lurking
+in ambush behind the furniture. There was no other light in the room;
+it was rarely the old skinflint suffered another. And to-night the
+shutters were closed and barred that even the reflection of the blaze
+might not be seen without and breed suspicion.
+
+The younger man's face, when the firelight rested on it, betrayed not
+only his present anxiety, but the deep lines of past fear and
+brooding. He was no longer spruce and neat and close-shaven; he was no
+longer the dandy who had turned a feather-head--for there was little
+in this place to encourage cleanliness. Confinement and suspense had
+sharpened his features; his eyes were harder and brighter than of old,
+and the shallow tenderness which had fooled Henrietta no longer
+floated on their depths. A nervous impatience, a peevish irritability
+showed in his every movement; whether he raised his hand to silence
+the old man's crooning, or fell again to biting his nails in moody
+depression. It was bad enough to be confined in this squalid hole with
+an imbecile driveller, and to spend long hours without other company.
+It was worse to know that beyond its threshold the noose dangled, and
+the peril which he had so long and so cleverly evaded yawned for him.
+
+To do Walterson justice, it was not entirely for his own safety that
+he was concerned as he sat over the fire and listened--starting at the
+squeak of a mouse and finding in every sough of the wind the step of a
+friend or foe. He was a heartless man. He would not have scrupled to
+ruin the innocent girl who trusted him: nay, in thought and intention
+he had ruined her as he had ruined others. But he could not face
+without a shudder what might be happening at this moment by the
+waterside. He could not picture without shame what, if the girl
+escaped there, would happen here; when they dragged her through the
+doorway, bound and gagged and at the mercy of the jealous vixen who
+dominated him. Secretly he was base enough to hope that what they did
+they would do in the darkness, and not terrify him with the sight of
+it. For if they brought her here, if they confronted him with her, how
+loathly a figure he must cut even in his own eyes! How poor and
+dastardly a thing he must seem in the eyes of the woman whose will he
+did and to whose vengeance he consented.
+
+The sweat rose on his brow as he pondered this; as he looked with
+terrified eyes at the door and fancied that the scene was already
+playing, that he saw her dragged into that vile place, that he met her
+look. Passionately he wished--as we all wish in like but smaller
+cases--that he had never seen either of the women, that he had never
+played the fool, or that if he must play the fool he had chosen some
+other direction in which to escape with Henrietta. But wishing was
+useless. Wishing would not remove him into safety or comfort, would
+not relieve him from the consequences of his misdeeds, would not
+convert the skulking imbecile who faced him into decent company. And
+even while he indulged his regret, he heard the tread of men outside,
+and he stood up. A moment later the signal, three knocks on the
+shutter, informed him that the crisis which he had been expecting and
+dreading, was come--was come!
+
+Delay would not help him; the old man, mowing and chattering, was
+already on his feet. He went to the door and with a hang-dog face
+opened it. The long bar which ran all its length into the wall
+was scarcely clear, when a woman, swaddled to her eyes in a thick
+drugget shawl, pushed in. It was Bess. After her came a tall man
+cloaked and booted, followed by two others of lower stature and meaner
+appearance. The last who entered bore something in his arms, a pack, a
+bundle--Walterson, shuddering, could not see which. For as Bess with
+the same show of haste with which she had entered, began to secure the
+door against the cold blast, that blew the sparks in clouds up the
+chimney, the cloaked man addressed him.
+
+"You're Walterson? Ah, to be sure, we've met--once, I think. Well," he
+spoke in a harsh, peremptory tone--"you'll be good enough to note," he
+turned and pointed to the other men, "that I have naught to do with
+this! I've neither hand nor part in it! And I'll ask you to remember
+that."
+
+Walterson, with a pallid face and shrinking eyes, looked at the man
+with the bundle.
+
+"What is it?" he muttered hoarsely. "I don't understand."
+
+"Oh, stow this!" Bess cried, turning brusquely from the door which she
+had secured. "The gentleman is very grand and mighty," shrugging her
+shoulders, "but the thing is done now. And I'll warrant if good comes
+of it he'll not be too proud to take his share."
+
+"Not _I_, girl!" the tall man answered. "Not I!"
+
+He took off as he spoke his cloak and hat, and showed a tall, angular
+figure borne with military stiffness. His face was sallow and long,
+and his mouth wide; but the plainness or ugliness of his features was
+redeemed by their power, and by the light of enthusiasm which was
+never long absent from his sombre eyes. A kind of aloofness in speech
+and manner showed that he was in the habit of living among inferiors.
+And not only the men who came with him, but Walterson himself seemed
+in his presence of a meaner mould and smaller sort.
+
+His two companions were stout, short-built men of a coarse type. But
+Walterson after a single glance, paid no heed to them. His eyes, his
+thoughts, his attention were all on the bundle. Yet, it was not
+possible, it could not be what he dreaded. It was too small, too
+small! And yet he shuddered.
+
+"What is it?" he asked in uncertain accents.
+
+"The worth of a man's neck, may be," one of the two men grunted.
+
+"Oh, curse your may-be's!" the other who carried the child struck in.
+"It's a smart bit of justice, master, with no may-be about it! And
+came in our way just when we were ready for it. Let's look at the
+kid."
+
+"The kid?"
+
+Walterson repeated the words, and opened his mouth dumb-founded. He
+looked at Thistlewood.
+
+The tall man, who was warming his back at the fire, shrugged his
+square shoulders.
+
+"I've naught to do with it!" he said. "Ask them!"
+
+"Don't you know what a kid is?" Giles, one of the two others,
+retorted, with a glance of contempt. "A kinchin! a yelper! It's Squire
+Clyne's, if you must know. He'll learn now what it is to see your
+children trodden under foot and your women-kind slashed and cut with
+sabres! He's ground the faces of the poor long enough! D----n him,
+he's as bad as Castlereagh, the devil! But, hallo!" breaking off. "If
+I don't think, mate, you've squeezed his throat a bit too tight!"
+
+He had unwound the wrappings and disclosed the still and inanimate
+form of a boy about six years old, but small for his age. The thin
+bloodless hands were clenched, the head hung back, the eyes were
+half-closed; and the tiny face showed so deathly white--among those
+tanned faces and in that grimy place--that it was not wonderful that
+the man fancied for a moment that the child was dead.
+
+But, "Not I!" the one who had carried it answered contemptuously.
+"It's swooned, like enough. And I'd to stop it shrieking, hadn't I?
+Let the lass look to it."
+
+Bess took it but reluctantly--with an ill grace and no look of
+tenderness or pity. She was of those women who love no children but
+their own, and sometimes do not love their own. While she sprinkled
+water on the poor little face and rubbed the small hands, Walterson
+found his voice.
+
+"What folly--what cursed folly is this?" he cried, his words vibrating
+with rage. "What have we to do with the child or your vengeance, or
+this d----d folly--that you should bring the hunt upon us? We were
+snug here."
+
+"And ain't we snug now?" Lunt, the man who had carried the child,
+asked.
+
+"Snug? We'll be snug behind bars in twenty-four hours!" Walterson
+rejoined, his voice rising almost to a scream, "if that child is
+Squire Clyne's child!"
+
+"Oh, he's that right enough, master," Giles, the other man, struck in.
+A kind of ferocious irony was natural to him.
+
+"Then you'll have the whole country on us before noon to-morrow!"
+Walterson retorted. "I tell you he'll follow you and track you and
+find you, if he follows you to hell's gate! I know the man."
+
+"So do I," said Thistlewood coolly. "And I say the same."
+
+"Yet," Giles retorted impudently, "you've got a neck as well as
+another."
+
+"You can leave my neck out of the question," Thistlewood replied. "And
+me!" And he turned his back on them contemptuously.
+
+"Well, you've got a neck," Giles answered, addressing Walterson, who
+was almost hysterical with rage. "And I suppose you have some care for
+it, if he has none!" with a gesture of the thumb in Thistlewood's
+direction. "You'd as soon as not, keep your neck unstretched, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Sooner," Bess said, flinging a glance of contempt at her lover.
+"Here, let me teach him," she continued bluntly; the child had begun
+to murmur in a low, painful note. "They came on the kid by chance and
+snatched it, and we've put ten miles of water between the place and
+us."
+
+"And snow on the ground!" Walterson retorted, pointing to the thin
+powder that still lay white in the folds of her shawl.
+
+"We came up through the wood," she answered. "Trust us for that!
+But that's not the point. The point is, that your pink-and-white
+fancy-girl never came. She'd more sense than I thought she had. But
+you were willing to snatch her, my lad. And why is the risk greater
+with the child?"
+
+"But----"
+
+"It's less," the girl continued, before he could put his objection
+into words. "It's less, I tell you, for the child's more easily tucked
+away. I've a place we can put it, where they'll not find it if they
+search for a twelvemonth!"
+
+"They'll soon search here," he said sullenly. "There's not a house
+they'll not search if they trace the boat. Nor a bothy on the hills."
+
+"May be," she answered confidently. "But when they search you'll not
+be here, nor the kid. Nor in a bothy!"
+
+"If you are going to trust Tyson----"
+
+"You leave that to me," she replied, bending her brows.
+
+But he was not to be silenced.
+
+"He'll sell you!" he cried. "He'll sell you! He'll give you fair words
+and you think you can fool him. But when he comes to know there's a
+reward out, and what he'll suffer if he is found hiding us, and when
+he knows that all the country is up--and for this child they'd hang us
+on the nearest tree--he'll give us up and you too. Though you do think
+you have bewitched him. And so I tell all here!" he added
+passionately.
+
+With a dark look, "Stow it, my lad," she said, as he paused for want
+of breath. "And leave Tyson to me."
+
+But the men who had listened to the debate looked something startled.
+They glanced at one another, and at last Thistlewood spoke.
+
+"Is this Tyson," he asked, "the man at whose house you said we should
+be better than here, my girl?"
+
+"That's him," Bess answered curtly.
+
+"Well, it seems to me that you ought to tell us a bit more. I don't
+want to be sold."
+
+"I am of that way of thinking myself, captain," Lunt growled. "If the
+man has no finger between the jamb and the door, you can't be sure
+that he won't shut it. No, curse me, you can't! There's other Olivers
+besides him who has sold a round dozen of us to Government. I'll slit
+the throat of the first police spy that comes in my way!"
+
+"And yet you trust me!" the girl flung at him, her eyes scornful. To
+her they all, all seemed cowards.
+
+"Ay, but you are a woman," Giles answered. "And though I'm not saying
+there's no Polly Peachums, I've not come across them. Treat a maid
+fair and she'll treat you fair, that's the common way of it. She'll
+not stretch you, for anything short of another wench. But a man! He's
+here and there and nowhere."
+
+"That's just where this man is," she answered curtly.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Nowhere."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"He's cut his lucky. He's gone to Carlisle to see his brother and keep
+his skin safe--for a week. He's like a good many more I know," with a
+glance which embraced every man in the room: "willing to eat but
+afraid to bite."
+
+"But he has left his house?"
+
+"That's it."
+
+"And who's in it?"
+
+"His wife, no one else. And she's bedridden with a babby, seven days
+old."
+
+"What! And no woman with her?"
+
+"There was," Bess answered, "but there isn't. I quarrelled with the
+serving-lass this afternoon, and at sunset to-day she was to go. If
+she comes back to-morrow I'll send her packing with a flea in her
+ear!"
+
+"But who----"
+
+"Gave me leave to send her?" defiantly. "He did."
+
+Thistlewood smiled.
+
+"And the wife?" he asked. "What'll she say?"
+
+"Say? She'd not say boh to a goose if it hissed at her!" Bess answered
+contemptuously. "She's a pale, fat caterpillar, afraid of her own
+shadow! She'll whine a bit, for she don't love me--thinks I'll poison
+her some fine day for the sake of her man. But she's upstairs and
+there's no one, but nor ben, to hear her whine; and at daybreak I'll
+be there, tending her. Isn't it the natural thing," and she smiled
+darkly, "with this the nearest house?"
+
+"Curse me, but you're a clever lass!" Giles cried. And even
+Thistlewood seemed to feel no pity for the poor woman, left helpless
+with her babe. "I don't know," the ruffian continued, "that I'm not
+almost afraid of you myself!"
+
+"And you think that house will not be searched?"
+
+"Why should it be searched?" Bess answered. "Tyson's well known.
+And if they do search it," she continued confidently, "there's a
+place--it's not of the brightest, but it'll do, and you must lie there
+days--that they'll not find if they search till Doomsday!"
+
+Walterson alone eyed her gloomily.
+
+"And what is the child in this?" he said.
+
+"The kid, my lad? Why, everything. You fine gentlemen can't stay here
+for ever, and when you go north or south or east or west, the kid'll
+stay here until you're safe. And if you don't come safe, he's a card
+you'll be glad to have the use of to clear your necks, my lads!"
+
+Thistlewood turned on his heel again.
+
+"I'll none of it," he said, dark and haughty. "It's no gentleman's
+game, this!"
+
+"Gentleman be hanged!" cried Giles, and Lunt echoed him. "Do you
+call"--with temper--"what you were for this morning a gentleman's
+game? Do you call killing a dozen unarmed men round a dinner-table a
+gentleman's game?"
+
+"It's our lives against theirs!" Thistlewood answered with a sombre
+glance. "And the odds with them, and a rope if we fail! Wrong breeds
+wrong," he continued, his voice rising--as if already he spoke in his
+defence. "Did they wait until we were armed before they rode us down
+at Manchester? or at Paisley? or at Glasgow? No! And, I say, they must
+be removed, no matter how. They must be removed! They are the head and
+front of offence, the head and front of this damnable system under
+which no man that's worth ten pounds does wrong, and no poor man does
+right! From King to tradesman they stand together. But kill a dozen at
+the top, and you stop the machine! You terrify the traders that find
+the money! You bring over to our side all that is timid and fearful
+and fond of ease--and that's nine parts of the country! For myself,"
+extending his arms in a gesture of menace, "I'd as soon cut the
+throats of Castlereagh and Liverpool and Harrowby as I'd cut the
+throats of so many calves! And sooner, by G--d! Sooner! But for
+messing with children I'll none of it! I've said my say." And he
+turned again to the fire.
+
+The girl, as he stirred the logs with his boot-heel, eyed him
+strangely; and in her heart she approved not his arguments, but his
+courage. Here was what she had sighed for--a man! Here was what she
+thought that she had found in Walterson--a man! And Walterson himself
+approved in his heart; and envied the strong man who dared to speak
+out where he with his life at stake dared not. The thing _was_ cruel,
+_was_ dastardly. But then--it might save his neck! For the others,
+they were too low, too brutish to be much moved by Thistlewood's
+words.
+
+"Ah, but we've got necks as well as you!" Giles muttered. "And if we
+risk 'em to please you, we'll save 'em the way we please!"
+
+Then, "Look at the kid!" Lunt muttered. "He's hearing too much, and
+picking it up. Stow it for now!"
+
+The girl turned to the child which she had laid on the bed.
+Thistlewood had knocked the fire together, and the blaze, passing by
+him, fell upon the wide-open eyes that from the bed regarded the scene
+with a look of silent terror, a look that seemed uncanny to more than
+one. Had the boy wept or screamed, or cried for help, had it given way
+to childish panic and tried to flee, they had thought nothing of it.
+They had twitched it back, hushed it by blow or threat, and cursed it
+for a nuisance. But this passive terror, this self-restraint at so
+tender an age, struck the men as unnatural, and taken with its small
+elfish features awoke qualms in the more superstitious.
+
+"Curse the child!" said one, staring at it. "I think it's bewitched!"
+
+"See if it will eat," said another. "Bewitched children never eat."
+
+Some bread was fetched and milk put to it--though Bess set nothing by
+such notions--and, "You eat that, do you hear!" the girl said. "Or
+we'll give you to that old man there," pointing with an undutiful
+finger to the squalid figure of the old miser. "And he'll take you to
+his bogey-hole!"
+
+The child shook pitifully, and the fear in its eyes deepened as it
+regarded the loathsome old man. With a sigh that seemed to rend the
+little heart, it took the iron spoon, and strove to swallow. The spoon
+tinkled violently against the bowl.
+
+"I'll manage him," Bess said with a look of triumph. "You will see,
+I'll have him so in two days that he'll not dare to say who he is, if
+they do find him! You leave him to me, and I'll sort the little imp!"
+
+Perhaps the child knew that he had fallen among his father's enemies.
+Perhaps he knew only that in a second his world was overset and he
+cast on the mercy of the ogres he saw about him. As he looked
+fearfully round the gloomy, fire-lit room with its lights and black
+shadows, a single large tear rolled from each eye and fell into the
+coarse earthen-ware bowl. And for an instant he seemed about to choke.
+Then he went on eating.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX
+
+                            PROOF POSITIVE
+
+
+Anthony Clyne had made no moan, but, both in his pride and his better
+feelings, he had suffered more than the world thought through
+Henrietta's elopement. He was not in love with the girl whom he had
+chosen for his second wife and the mother of his motherless child. But
+no man likes to be jilted. No man, even the man least in love, can
+bear with indifference or without mortification the slur which the
+woman's desertion casts on him. At best there are invitations to be
+cancelled, and servants to be informed, and plans to be altered; the
+condolences of some and the smiles of others are to be faced. And many
+troubles and much bitterness. The very boy, the apple of his eye and
+the core of his heart, had to be told--something.
+
+And Anthony Clyne was proud. No man in Lancashire set more by his
+birth and station, or had a stronger sense of his personal dignity; so
+that in doing all these things he suffered. He suffered much. Nor did
+it end with that. His own world knew him, and took care not to provoke
+him by a tactless word or an inquisitive question. But the operatives
+in his neighbourhood, who hated him and feared him, and thanked God
+for aught that hurt him, gibed him openly. Taunts and jests were flung
+after him in the streets of Manchester; and men whose sweethearts had
+been flung down or roughly used on the day of Peterloo inquired after
+his sweetheart as he passed before the mills.
+
+But he made no sign. And no one dreamed that the suffering went
+farther than the man's pride, or touched his heart. Yet it did.
+Not that he loved the girl; but because she was of his race, and
+because her own branch of the family cast her off, and because the man
+with whom she had fled could do nothing to protect her from the
+consequences of her folly. For these reasons--and a little because of
+a secret nobility in his own character--he suffered vicariously; he
+felt himself responsible for her. And the responsibility seemed more
+heavy after he had seen her; after he had borne away from Windermere
+the picture of the girl left pale and proud and lonely by the lake
+side.
+
+For her figure haunted him. It rose before him in the most troublesome
+fashion and at the most improper times; at sessions when he sat among
+his peers, or at his dinner-table in the middle of a tirade against
+the radicals and Cobbett. It touched him in the least expected and
+most tender points; awaking the strongest doubts of himself, and his
+conduct, and his wisdom that he had ever entertained. It barbed the
+dart of "It might have been" with the rankling suspicion that he had
+himself to thank for failure. And where at first he had said in his
+haste that she deserved two dozen, he now remembered her defence, and
+added gloomily, "Or I! Or I!" The thought of her fate--as of a thing
+for which he was responsible--thrust itself upon him in season and out
+of season. He could not put her out of his mind, he could not refrain
+from dwelling on her. And thinking in this way he grew every day less
+content with the scheme of life which he had framed for her in his
+first contempt for her. The notion of her union with Mr. Sutton, good,
+worthy man as he deemed the chaplain, now jarred on him unpleasantly.
+And more and more the scheme showed itself in another light than that
+in which he had first viewed it.
+
+Such was his state of mind, unsettled if not unhappy, and harassed if
+not remorseful, when a second thunderclap burst above his head, and in
+a moment destroyed even the memory of these minor troubles. He loved
+his child with the love of the proud and lonely man who loves more
+jealously where others pity, and clings more closely where others look
+askance. A fig for their pity! he cried in his heart. He would so rear
+his child, he would so cherish him, he would so foster his mind, that
+in spite of bodily defect this latest of the Clynes should be also the
+greatest. And while he foresaw this future in the child and loved him
+for the hope, he loved him immeasurably more for his weakness, his
+helplessness, his frailty in the present. All that was strong in the
+man of firm will and stiff prejudice went out to the child in a
+passionate yearning to protect it; to shield it from unfriendly looks,
+even from pity; to cover it from the storms of the world and of life.
+
+Personally a brave man Clyne feared nothing for himself. The hatred in
+which he was held by a certain class came to his ears from time to
+time in threatening murmurs, but though those who knew best were
+loudest in warning, he paid no heed. He continued to do what he held
+to be his duty. Yet if anything had had power to turn him from his
+path it had been fear on his son's account; it had been the very, very
+small share which the boy must take in his peril. And so, at the first
+hint he had removed the child from the zone of trouble, and sent him
+to a place which he fancied safe; a place which the boy loved, and in
+the quiet of which health as well as safety might be gained. If the
+name of Clyne was hated where spindles whirled and shuttles flew, and
+men lived their lives under a pall of black smoke, it was loved in
+Cartmel by farmer and shepherd alike; and not less by the rude
+charcoal-burners who plied their craft in the depths of the woods
+about Staveley and Broughton in Furness.
+
+On that side he thought himself secure. And so the blow fell with all
+the force of the unexpected. The summons of the panic-stricken
+servants found him in his bed; and it was a man who hardly contained
+himself, who hardly contained his fury and his threats, who without
+breaking his fast rode north. It was a hard-faced, stern man who
+crossed the sands at Cartmel at great risk--but he had known them all
+his life--and won at Carter's Green the first spark of comfort and
+hope which he had had since rising. Nadin was before him. Nadin
+was in pursuit,--Nadin, by whom all that was Tory in Lancashire
+swore. Surely an accident so opportune, a stroke of mercy and
+providence so unlikely--for the odds against the officer's presence
+were immense--could not be unmeant, could not be for nothing! It
+seemed, it must be of good augury! But when Clyne reached his house in
+Cartmel, and the terrified nurse who knew the depth of his love for
+the boy grovelled before him, the household had no added hope to give
+him, no news or clue. And he could but go forward. His horse was
+spent, but they brought him a tenant's colt, and after eating a few
+mouthfuls he pressed on up the lake side towards Bowness, attended by
+a handful of farmers' sons who had not followed on the first alarm.
+
+Even now, hours after the awakening, and when any moment might end
+his suspense, any turn in the road bring him face to face with the
+issue--good or bad, joy or sorrow--he dared not think of the child. He
+dared not let his mind run on its fear or its suffering, its terrors
+in the villains' hands, or the hardships which its helplessness might
+bring upon it. To do so were to try his self-control too far. And so
+he thought the more of the men, the more of vengeance, the more of the
+hour which would see him face to face with them, and see them face to
+face with punishment. He rejoiced to think that abduction was one of
+the two hundred crimes which were punishable with death: and he swore
+that if he devoted his life to the capture of these wretches they
+should be taken. And when taken, when they had been dealt with by
+judge and jury, they should be hanged without benefit of clergy. There
+should be no talk of respite. His services to the party had earned so
+much as that--even in these days when radicals were listened to over
+much, and fanatics like Wolseley and Burdett flung their wealth into
+the wrong scale.
+
+At Bowness there was no news except a word from Nadin bidding him ride
+on. And without alighting he pressed on, sternly silent, but with eyes
+that tirelessly searched the bleak, bare fells for some movement, some
+hint of flight or chase. He topped the hill beyond Bowness, and drew
+rein an instant to scan the islets set here and there on the sullen
+water. Then, after marking carefully the three or four boats which
+were afloat, he trotted down through Calgarth woods. And on turning
+the corner that revealed the long gabled house at the Low Wood landing
+he had a gleam of hope. Here at last was something, some stir, some
+adequate movement. In the road were a number of men, twenty or thirty,
+on foot or horseback. A few were standing, others were moving to
+and fro. Half of them carried Brown Besses, blunderbusses, or old
+horse-pistols, and three or four were girt with ancient swords lugged
+for the purpose from bacon-rack or oak chest. The horses of the men
+matched as ill as their arms, being of all heights and all degrees of
+shagginess, and some riders had one spur, and some none. But the troop
+meant business, it was clear, and Anthony Clyne's heart went out to
+them in gratitude. Hitherto he had ridden through a country-side
+heedless or ignorant of his loss, and of what was afoot; and the tardy
+intelligence, the slow answer, had tried him sorely. Here at last was
+an end of that. As the honest dalesmen, gathered before the inn,
+hauled their hard-mouthed beasts to the edge of the road to make way
+for him, and doffed their hats in silent sympathy, he thanked them
+with his eyes.
+
+In spite of his empty sleeve he was off his horse in a moment.
+
+"Have they learned anything?" he asked, his voice harsh with
+suppressed emotion.
+
+The nearest man began to explain in the slow northern fashion. "No,
+not as yet, your honour. But we shall, no doubt, i' good time. We know
+that they landed here in a boat."
+
+"Ay, your honour, have no fear!" cried a second. "We'll get him back!"
+
+And then Nadin came out.
+
+"This way, if you please, Squire," he said, touching his arm and
+leading him aside. "We are just starting to scour the hills, but---- "he
+broke off and did not say any more until he had drawn Clyne out of
+earshot.
+
+Then, "It's certain that they landed here," he said, turning and
+facing him. "We know that, Squire. And I fancy that they are not far
+away. The holt is somewhere near, for it is here we lost the other
+fox. I'm pretty sure that if we search the hills for a few hours we'll
+light on them. But that's the long way. And damme!" vehemently,
+"there's a short way if we are men and not mice."
+
+Clyne's eyes gleamed.
+
+"A short way?" he muttered. In spite of Nadin's zeal the Manchester
+officer's manner had more than once disgusted his patron. It had far
+from that effect now. The man might swear and welcome, be familiar, he
+what he pleased, if he would also act! If he would recover the child
+from the cruel hands that held it! His very bluntness and burliness
+and sufficiency gave hope. "A short way?" Clyne repeated.
+
+Nadin struck his great fist into the other palm.
+
+"Ay, a short way!" he answered. "There's a witness here can tell us
+all we want if she will but speak. I am just from her. A woman who
+knows and can set us on the track if she chooses! And we'll have but
+to ride to covert and take the fox."
+
+Clyne laid his hand on the other's arm.
+
+"Do you mean," he asked huskily, struggling to keep hope within
+bounds, "that there is some one here--who knows where they are?"
+
+"I do!" Nadin answered with an oath. "And knows where the child is.
+But she'll not speak."
+
+"Not speak?"
+
+"No, she'll not tell. It's the young lady you were here about before,
+Squire, to be frank with you."
+
+"Miss Damer?" in a tone of astonishment.
+
+"Ay, Squire, she!" Nadin replied. "She! And the young madam knows,
+d----n her! It's all one business, you may take it from me! It's all
+one gang! She was at the place where they landed after dark last
+night."
+
+"Impossible!" Clyne cried. "Impossible! I cannot believe you."
+
+"Ay, but she was. She let herself down from a window when the house
+had gone to bed that she might get there. Ay, Squire, you may look,
+but she did. She did not meet them; she was too soon or too late, we
+don't know which. But she was there, as sure as I am here! And I
+suspect--though Bishop, who is a bit of a softy, like most of those
+London men, doesn't agree--that she was in the thing from the
+beginning, Squire! And planned it, may be, but you'd be the best judge
+of that. Any way, we are agreed that she knows now. That is clear as
+daylight!"
+
+"Knows, and will not tell?" Clyne cried. Such conduct seemed too
+monstrous, too wicked to the man who had strained every nerve to reach
+his child, who had ridden in terror for hours, trembling at the
+passage of every minute, grudging the loss of every second. "Knows,
+and will not tell!" he repeated. "Impossible!"
+
+"It's not impossible, Squire," Nadin answered. "We're clear on it.
+We're all clear on it."
+
+"That she knows where the child is?" incredulously. "Where they are
+keeping it?"
+
+"That's it."
+
+"And will not say?"
+
+Nadin grinned.
+
+"Not for us," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "She may for you. But
+she is stubborn as a mule. I can't say worse than that. Stubborn as a
+mule, Squire!"
+
+Clyne raised his hand to hide the twitching nostril, the quivering lip
+that betrayed his agitation. But the hand shook. He could not yet
+believe that she was privy to this wickedness. But--but if she only
+knew it now and kept her knowledge to herself--she was, he dared not
+think what she was. A gust of passion took him at the thought, and
+whitened his face to the very lips. He had to turn away that the
+coarse-grained, underbred man beside him might not see too much. And a
+few seconds went by before he could command his voice sufficiently to
+ask Nadin what evidence he had of this--this monstrous charge. "How do
+you know--I want to be clear--how do you know," he asked, sternly
+meeting his eyes, "that she left the house last night to meet them?
+That she was there to meet them? Have you evidence?" He could not
+believe that a woman of his class, of his race, would do this thing.
+
+"Evidence?" Nadin answered coolly. "Plenty!" And he told the story of
+the foot-prints, and of Mr. Sutton's experiences in the night; and
+added that one of the child's woollen mits had been found between the
+bottom-boards of a boat beached at that spot--a boat which bore signs
+of recent use. "If you are not satisfied and would like to see his
+reverence," he continued, "and question him before you see her--shall
+I send him to you?"
+
+"Ay, send him," Clyne said with an effort. He had been incredulous,
+but the evidence seemed overwhelming. Yet he struggled, he tried to
+disbelieve. Not because his thoughts still held any tenderness for the
+girl, or he retained any remnant of the troublesome feeling that had
+haunted him; for the shock of the child's abduction had driven such
+small emotions from his mind. But with the country rising about him,
+amid this gathering of men upon whom he had no claim, but who asked
+nothing better than to be brought face to face with the authors of the
+outrage--with these proofs of public sympathy before his eyes it
+seemed impossible that a woman, a girl, should wantonly set herself on
+the other side, and shield the criminals. It seemed impossible. But
+then, when the first news of her elopement with an unknown stranger
+had reached him, he had thought that impossible! Yet it had turned out
+to be true, and less than the fact; since the man was not only beneath
+her, but a radical and a villain!
+
+"But I will see Sutton," he muttered, striving to hold his rage in
+check. "I will see Sutton. Perhaps he may be able to explain. Perhaps
+he may be able to put another face on the matter."
+
+The chaplain would fain have done so; more out of a generous pity for
+the unfortunate girl than out of any lingering hope of ingratiating
+himself with her. But he did not know what to say, except that though
+she had gone to the rendezvous she had not seen nor met any one. He
+laid stress on that, for he had nothing else to plead. But he had to
+allow that her purpose had been to meet some one; and at the weak
+attempt to excuse her Clyne's rage broke forth.
+
+"She is shameless!" he cried. "Shameless! Can you say after this that
+she has given up all dealings with her lover? Though she passed her
+word and knows him for a married man?"
+
+The chaplain shook his head.
+
+"I cannot," he said sorrowfully. "I cannot say that. But----"
+
+"She gave her word! Tome. To others."
+
+"I allow it. But----"
+
+"But what? What?" with hardly restrained rage. "Will you still, sir,
+take her side against the innocent? Against the child, whom she has
+conspired to entrap, to carry off, perhaps to murder?"
+
+"Oh, no, no!" Mr. Sutton cried in unfeigned horror. "That I do not
+believe! I do not believe that for an instant! I allow, I admit," he
+continued eagerly, "that she has been weak, and that she has madly,
+foolishly permitted this wretch to retain a hold over her."
+
+"At any rate," Clyne retorted, his rage at a white heat, "she has lied
+to me!"
+
+"I admit it."
+
+"And to others!"
+
+The chaplain could only hold out his hands in deprecation.
+
+"You will admit that she has continued to communicate with a man she
+should loathe? A man whom, if she were a modest girl, she would
+loathe? That she has stolen to midnight interviews with him, leaving
+this house as a thief leaves it? That she has cast all modesty from
+her?"
+
+"Do not, do not be too hard on her!" Sutton cried, his face flushing
+hotly. "Captain Clyne, I beg--I beg you to be merciful."
+
+"It is she who is hard on herself! But have no fear," Clyne continued,
+in a voice cold as the winter fells and as pitiless. "I shall give her
+fifteen minutes to come to her senses and behave herself--not as a
+decent woman, I no longer ask that, but as a woman, any woman, the
+lowest, would behave herself, to save a child's life. And if she
+behaves herself--well. And if not, sir, it is not I who will punish
+her, but the law!"
+
+"She will speak," the chaplain said. "I think she will speak--for
+you."
+
+He was deeply and honestly concerned for the girl: and full of pity
+for her, though he did not understand her.
+
+"But--suppose I saw her first?" he suggested. "Just for a few minutes?
+I could explain."
+
+"Nothing that I cannot," Captain Clyne answered grimly. "And for a few
+minutes! Do you not consider," with a look of suspicion, "that there
+has been delay enough already? And too much! Fifteen minutes," with a
+recurrence of the bitter laugh, "she shall have, and not one minute
+more, if she were my sister!"
+
+Mr. Sutton's face turned red again.
+
+"Remember, sir," he said bravely, "that she was going to be your
+wife."
+
+"I do remember it!" Clyne retorted with a withering glance. "And thank
+God for His mercy."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXI
+
+                         COUSIN MEETS COUSIN
+
+
+Nadin and the others had not left her more than ten minutes when
+Henrietta heard his voice under the window. She was still flushed and
+heated, sore with the things which they had said to her, bruised and
+battered by their vulgarity and bluster. Indignation still burned in
+her; and astonishment that they could not see the case as she saw it.
+The argument in her own mind was clear. They must prove that Walterson
+had committed this new crime, they must prove that if she betrayed the
+man she would save the child--and she would speak. Or she would speak
+if they would undertake to release the man were he not guilty. But
+short of that, no. She would not turn informer against him, whom she
+had chosen in her folly--except to save life. What could be more
+clear, what more fair, what more logical? And was it not monstrous to
+ask anything beyond this?
+
+She had wrought herself in truth to an almost hysterical stubbornness
+on the point. The romantic bent that had led her to the verge of ruin
+still inclined her feelings. Yet when she heard the father's step
+approaching along the passage, she trembled. She gazed in terror at
+the door. The prospect of the father's tears, the father's
+supplication, shook her. She had to say to herself, "I must not tell,
+I must not! I must not!" as if the repetition of the words would
+strengthen her under the torture of his appeal. And when he entered,
+in the fear of what he might say she was before him. She did not look
+at him, or heed what message his face conveyed--or she had been frozen
+into silence. But in a panic she rushed on the subject.
+
+"I am sorry, oh, I am so sorry!" she cried, tears in her voice. "I
+would do it, if I could, I would indeed. But I cannot," distressfully,
+"I must not! And I beg you to spare me your reproaches."
+
+"I have none to make to you," he said.
+
+It was his tone, rather than his words, which cut her like a whip.
+
+"None!" she cried. "Ah, but you blame me? I am sure you do."
+
+"I do not blame you," he replied in the same cold tone. "My business
+here has nothing to do with reproaches or with blame. I give you
+fifteen minutes to tell me what you know, and all you know, of the man
+Walterson's whereabouts. That told, I have no more to say to you."
+
+She looked at him as one thunderstruck.
+
+"And if I do not do that," she murmured, "within fifteen minutes? If I
+do not tell you?"
+
+"You will go to Appleby gaol," he said, in the same passionless tone.
+"To herd with your like, with such women as may be there." He laid his
+watch on the table, beside his whip and glove; and he looked not at
+her, but at it.
+
+"And you? You will send me?" she answered.
+
+"I?" he replied slowly. "No, I shall merely undo what I did before. My
+coming last time saved you from the fate which your taste for low
+company had earned. This time I stand aside and the result will be the
+same as if I had never come. There is, let me remind you, a minute
+gone."
+
+She looked at him, her face colourless, but her eyes undaunted. But
+the look was wasted, for he looked only at his watch.
+
+"You are come, then," she said, her voice shaking a little, "not to
+reproach me, but to insult me! To outrage me!"
+
+"I have no thought of you," he answered.
+
+The words, the tone, lashed her in the face. Her nostrils quivered.
+
+"You think only of your child!" she cried.
+
+"That is all," he answered. And then in the same passionless tone, "Do
+not waste time."
+
+"Do not----"
+
+"Do not waste time!" he repeated. "That is all I have to say to you."
+
+She stood as one stunned; dazed by his treatment of her; shaken to the
+soul by his relentless, pitiless tone, by his thinly veiled hatred.
+
+He who had before been cold, precise and just was become inhuman,
+implacable, a stone. Presently, "Three minutes are gone," he said.
+
+"And if I tell you?" she answered in a voice which, though low,
+vibrated with resentment and indignation, "if I tell you what you wish
+to know, what then?"
+
+"I shall save the child--I trust. Certainly I shall save him from
+further suffering."
+
+"And what of me?"
+
+"You will escape for this time."
+
+Her breast heaved with the passion she restrained. Her foot tapped the
+floor. Her fingers drummed on the table. Such treatment was not fit
+treatment for a dog, much less for a woman, a gentlewoman! And his
+injustice! How dared he! How dared he! What had she done to deserve
+it? Nothing! No, nothing to deserve this.
+
+Meanwhile he seemed to have eyes only for his watch, laid open on the
+table before him. But he noted the signs, and he fancied that she was
+about to break down, that she was yielding, that in a moment she would
+fall to weeping, perhaps would fall on her knees--and tell him all. A
+faint surprise, therefore, pierced his pitiless composure when, after
+the lapse of a long minute, she spoke in a tone that was comparatively
+calm and decided.
+
+"You have forgotten," she said slowly, "that I am of your blood! That
+I was to be your wife!"
+
+"It was you who forgot that!" he replied.
+
+She had her riposte ready.
+
+"And wisely!" she answered, "and wisely! How wisely you have proved to
+me to-day--you,"--with scorn equal to his own--"who are willing to
+sacrifice me, a helpless woman, on the mere chance of saving your
+child! Who are willing to send me, a woman of your blood, to prison
+and to shame, to herd--you have said it yourself--with such vile women
+as prisons hold! And that on the mere chance of saving your son! For
+shame, Captain Clyne, for shame!"
+
+"You are wasting time," he answered. "You have eight minutes."
+
+"You are determined that I shall go?"
+
+"Or speak."
+
+"Will you not hear," she asked slowly, "what I have to say on my side?
+What reason I have for not speaking? What excuse? What extenuation of
+my conduct?"
+
+"No," he replied. "Your reasons for speaking or not speaking, your
+conduct or misconduct, are nothing to me. I am thinking of my child."
+
+"And not at all of me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Yet listen," she said, with something approaching menace in her tone,
+"for you will think of me! You will think of me--presently! When it is
+too late, Captain Clyne, you will remember that I stood before you,
+that I was alone and helpless, and you would not hear my reasons nor
+my excuses. You will remember that I was a girl, abandoned by all,
+left alone among strangers and spies, without friend or adviser."
+
+"I," he said, coldly interrupting her, "was willing to advise you. But
+you took your own path. You know that."
+
+"I know," she retorted with sudden passion, "that you were willing to
+insult me! That you were willing to set me, because I had committed an
+act of folly, as low as the lowest! So low that all men were the same
+to me! So low that I might be handed like a carter's daughter who had
+misbehaved herself, to the first man who was willing to cover her
+disgrace. That! that was your way of helping me and advising me!"
+
+"In two minutes," he said in measured accents, "the time will be up!"
+
+He appeared to be quite unmoved by her reproaches. His manner was as
+cold, as repellant, as harsh as ever. But he was not so entirely
+untouched by her appeal as he wished her to think. For the time,
+indeed, his heart was numbed by anxiety, his breast was rendered
+insensible by the grip of suspense. But the barbed arrows of her
+reproaches stuck and remained. And presently the wounds would smart
+and rankle, troubling his conscience, if not his heart. It is possible
+that he had already a suspicion of this. If so, it only deepened his
+rage and his hostility.
+
+With the same pitiless composure, he repeated:
+
+"In two minutes. There is still time, but no more than time."
+
+"You have told me that you do not wish to hear my reasons?"
+
+"For silence? I do not."
+
+"They will not turn you," her voice shook under the maddening sense of
+his injustice, "whatever they are?"
+
+"No," he answered, "they will not. And having said that I have said
+all that I propose to say."
+
+"You condemn me unheard?"
+
+"I condemn you? No, the law will condemn you, if you are condemned."
+
+"Then I, too," she answered, with a beating heart--for indignation
+almost choked her--"have said all that I propose to say. All!"
+
+"Think! Think, girl!" he cried.
+
+She was silent.
+
+He closed his watch with a sharp, clicking sound, and put it in his
+fob.
+
+"You will not speak?" he said.
+
+"No!"
+
+Then passion, long restrained, long kept under, swept him away. He
+took a stride forward, and before she guessed what he would be at, he
+had seized her wrist, gripping it cruelly.
+
+"But you shall!--you shall!" he cried. His face full of passion was
+close to hers, he pressed her a pace backwards. "You vixen! Speak
+now!" he cried. "Speak!"
+
+"Let me go!" she cried.
+
+"Speak or I will force it from you. Where is he?"
+
+"I will never speak!" she panted, struggling with him, and trying to
+snatch her arm from him. "I will never speak! You coward! Let me go!"
+
+"Speak or I will break your wrist," he hissed.
+
+He was hurting her horribly.
+
+But, "Never! Never! Never!" She shrieked the word at him, her face
+white with rage and pain, her eyes blazing. "Never, you coward. You
+coward! Let me go!"
+
+He let her go then--too late remembering himself. He stepped back.
+Breathing hard, she leant against the table, and nursed her bruised
+wrist in the other hand. Her face, an instant before white, now flamed
+with anger. Never, never since she was a little child had she been so
+treated, so handled! Every fibre in her was in revolt. But she did not
+speak. She only, rocking herself slightly to and fro, scathed him with
+her eyes. The coward! The coward!
+
+And he was as yet too angry--though he had remembered himself and
+released her--to feel much shame for what he had done. He was too
+wrapt in the boy and his object to think soberly of anything else. He
+went, his hand shaking a little, his face disordered by the outbreak,
+to the bell and rang it. As he turned again,
+
+"Your ruin be on your own head!" he cried.
+
+And he looked at her, hating her, hating her rebellious bearing.
+
+He saw in her, with her glowing cheeks and eyes bright with fury, the
+murderess of his boy. What else, since, if it was not her plan, she
+covered it? Since, if it was not her deed, she would not stay it? She
+must be one of those feminine monsters, those Brinvilliers, blonde and
+innocent to the eye, whom passion degraded to the lowest! Whom a
+cursed infatuation made suddenly most base, driving them to excesses
+and crimes.
+
+While she, her breast boiling with indignation, her heart bursting
+with the sense of bodily outrage, of bodily pain, forgot the anguish
+he was suffering. She forgot the provocation that had exasperated him
+to madness, that had driven him to violence. She saw in him a cowardly
+bully, a man cruel, without shame or feeling. She fully believed now
+that he had flogged a seaman to death. Why not, since he had so
+treated her? Why not, since it was clear that there was no torture to
+which he would not resort, if he dared, to wring from her the secret
+he desired?
+
+And a torrent of words, a flood of scathing reproaches and fierce
+home-truths, rose to her lips. But she repressed them. To complain was
+to add to her humiliation, to augment her shame. To protest was to
+stoop lower. And strung to the highest pitch of animosity they
+remained confronting one another in silence, until the door opened and
+Justice Hornyold entered, followed by his clerk. After these Nadin,
+Bishop, Mr. Sutton, and two or three more trooped in until the room
+was half full of people.
+
+It was clear that they had had their orders below, and knew what to
+expect; for all looked grave, and some nervous. Even Hornyold betrayed
+by his air, half sheepish and half pompous, that he was not quite
+comfortable.
+
+"The young lady has not spoken?" he said.
+
+"No," Clyne answered, breathing quickly. He could not in a moment
+return to his ordinary self. "She refuses to speak."
+
+"You have laid before her reasons?"
+
+He averted his eyes.
+
+"I have said all I can," he muttered sullenly. "I have assured myself
+that she is privy to this matter, and I withdraw the informal
+undertaking which I gave a fortnight ago that she should be
+forthcoming if wanted. Unless, therefore, you are satisfied with the
+landlord's bail--but that is for you."
+
+Mr. Hornyold shook his head.
+
+"With this new charge advanced?" he said. "No, I am afraid not.
+Certainly not. But perhaps," looking at her, "the young lady will
+still change her mind. To change the mind"--with a feeble grin--"is a
+lady's privilege."
+
+"I shall not tell you anything," Henrietta said with a catch in her
+breath. She hid her smarting, tingling wrist behind her. She might
+have complained; but not for the world would she have let them know
+what he had done to her, what she had suffered.
+
+Mr. Sutton, who was standing in the background, stepped forward.
+
+"Miss Damer," he said earnestly, "I beg you, I implore you to think."
+
+"I have thought," she answered with stubborn anger. "And if I could
+help him," she pointed to Clyne, "if I could help him by lifting my
+finger----"
+
+"Oh, dear, dear!" the chaplain cried, appalled by her vehemence.
+"Don't say that! Don't say that!"
+
+"What shall I say, then?" she answered--still she remembered herself.
+"I have told you that I know nothing of the abduction of his child.
+That is all I have to say."
+
+Hornyold shook his sleek head again.
+
+"I am afraid that won't do," he said. "What"--consulting Nadin with
+his eye--"what do the officers say?"
+
+Nadin laughed curtly.
+
+"Not by no means, it won't do!" he said. "What she says is slap up
+against the evidence, sir, and evidence strong enough to hang a man.
+The truth is, your reverence, the young lady has had every chance, and
+all said and done we are losing time. And time is more than money! The
+sooner she is under lock and key the better."
+
+"You apply that she be committed?" Hornyold asked slowly.
+
+"I do, sir."
+
+The Justice looked at Bishop.
+
+"Do you join in the application?" he asked.
+
+The officer nodded, but with evident reluctance.
+
+The clerk, who had taken his seat at the corner of the table and laid
+some papers before him, dipped his pen in the inkhorn, which he
+carried at his button-hole. He prepared to write. "On the charge of
+being accessory?" he said in a low voice. "Before or after, Mr.
+Nadin?"
+
+"Both," said Nadin.
+
+"After," said Bishop.
+
+The clerk looked from one to the other, and then began to write; but
+slowly, and as if he wished to leave as long as possible a _locus
+penitentiae_. It was a feeling shared by all except Captain Clyne. Even
+the Manchester man, hardened as he was by a rude life in the roughest
+of towns, had had jobs more to his taste--and wished it done; while
+the feeling of the greater part was one of pity. The girl was so
+young, her breeding and refinement were so manifest, her courage so
+high, she confronted them so bravely, that they were sensible of
+something cruel in their attitude to her; gathered as they were many
+to one--and that one a woman with no one of her sex beside her. They
+recoiled from the idea of using force to her. And now it was really
+come to the point of imprisoning her, those who had a notion what a
+prison was disliked it most; fearing not only that she might resist
+removal and cause a heart-rending scene, but still more that she had
+unknown sufferings before her.
+
+For the prisons of that day were not the prisons of to-day. There was
+no separation of one class of offenders from another. There were no
+separate cells, there were rarely even separate beds. Girls awaiting
+trial were liable to be locked up with the worst women-felons. Nay,
+the very warders were often old offenders, who had earned their places
+by favour. In small country prisons, conditions were better, but air,
+light, space, and cleanliness were woefully lacking. Something might
+be done, no doubt, to soften the lot of a prisoner of Henrietta's
+class; but indulgence depended on the whim of the jailor--who at
+Appleby was a blacksmith!--and could be withdrawn as easily as it was
+granted.
+
+Suddenly the clerk looked up over his glasses. "The full name," he
+said, "if you please."
+
+"Henrietta Mary Damer." It was Clyne who spoke.
+
+The clerk added the name, and rising from his seat offered the pen to
+the magistrate. But Hornyold hesitated. He looked flurried, and
+something startled.
+
+"But should not----" he murmured, "ought we not to communicate with
+her brother--with--Sir Charles? He must be her guardian!"
+
+"Sir Charles," Clyne answered, "has repudiated all responsibility. It
+would be useless to apply to him. I have seen him. And the matter is a
+criminal matter."
+
+The girl said nothing, but her colour faded suddenly. And in the eyes
+of one or two she seemed a more pitiful figure, standing alone and
+mute, than before. But for the awe in which they held Clyne, and their
+knowledge of his reason for severity, the chaplain and Long Tom
+Gilson, who was one of those by the door, would have intervened. As it
+was, Hornyold stooped to the table and signed the form--or was signing
+it when the clerk spoke.
+
+"One moment, your reverence," he said in a low voice. "The debtors'
+quarters at Appleby, where they'd be sure to put the young lady, are
+as good as under water at this time of the year. Kendal's nearer,
+she'd be better there. And you've power to say which it shall be."
+
+"Kendal, then," Hornyold assented. The name was altered and he signed
+the committal.
+
+As he rose from the table, constraint fell on one and all. They
+wondered nervously what was to come next; and it was left to Nadin to
+put an end to the scene. "Landlord!" he said, turning to the door, "a
+chaise for Kendal in ten minutes. And send your servant to go with the
+young lady to her room, and get together what she'll want. You'd best
+take her, Bishop."
+
+Bishop assented in a low tone, and Gilson went out to give the order.
+Hornyold said something to Clyne and they talked together in low tones
+and with averted faces. Then, still talking, they moved to the door
+and went out without looking towards her. The clerk gathered up his
+papers, handed one to Bishop, and fastened the others together with a
+piece of red tape. That done, he, too, rose and followed the
+magistrate, making her an awkward bow as he passed. Mr. Sutton alone
+remained, and, pale and excited, fidgeted to and fro; he could not
+bear to stay, and he could not bear to leave the girl alone with the
+officers. Possibly--but to do him justice this went for little--he
+might by staying commend himself to her, he might wipe out the awkward
+impression made by the night's adventure. But Clyne put in his head
+and called him in a peremptory tone; and he had to go with a feeble
+apologetic glance at her. She was left standing by the table, alone
+with the officers.
+
+For an instant she looked wildly at the door. Then, "May I go to my
+room now?" she asked in a low tone.
+
+"Not alone," Nadin answered--but civilly, for him. "In a moment the
+woman will be here, and you can go with her. It's not quite regular,
+but we'll stretch a point. But you must not be long, miss! You'll have
+no need," with a faint grin, "of many frocks, or furbelows, where
+you're going."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII
+
+                        MR. SUTTON'S NEW ROLE
+
+
+When the chaise which carried the prisoner to Kendal had left the inn,
+and the search parties had gone their way under leaders who knew the
+country, and the long tail of the last shaggy pony had whisked itself
+out of sight, a dullness exceeding that of November settled down on
+the inn by the lake. The road in front ran, a dull, unbroken ribbon,
+along the water-side; and alone and melancholy the chaplain walked up
+and down, up and down, the last man left. Occasionally Mrs. Gilson
+appeared at the door and looked this way and that; but her eye was
+sombre and her manner did not invite approach or confidence.
+Occasionally, too, Modest Ann's face was pressed against the window of
+the coffee-room, where she was setting out the long table against
+evening; but she was disguised in tears and temper, and before Mr.
+Sutton could identify the phenomenon, or grasp its meaning, she was
+gone. The frosty promise of the morning had vanished, and in its place
+leaden clouds dulled sky and lake, and hung heavy and black on the
+scarred forehead of Bow Fell. Mr. Sutton looked above and below, and
+this way and that, and, too restless to go in, found no comfort
+without. He wished that he had gone with the searchers, though he knew
+not a step of the country. He wished that he had said more for the
+girl, and stood up for her more firmly, though to do so had been to
+quarrel with his patron. Above all, he wished that he had never seen
+her, never given way to the temptation to aspire to her, never started
+in pursuit of her--last of all, that he had never stooped to spy on
+her. He was ill content with himself and his work; ill content with
+the world, his patron, everybody, everything. No man was ever worse
+content.
+
+For Nemesis in an unexpected form was overtaking, nay even as he
+walked the road, had overtaken the chaplain. He had come to marry, he
+remained to love; he had come to enjoy, he remained to suffer. He had
+come, dazzled by the girl's rank and fortune, that rank and that
+fortune which he had thought so much above himself, and to which her
+beauty added so piquant and delicate a charm. And, lo, it was neither
+her rank, nor her fortune, nor her beauty that, as he walked, beat at
+his heart and would be heard, would have entrance; but the girl's
+lonely plight and her disgrace and her trouble. On a sudden, as he
+went helplessly and aimlessly and unhappily up and down the road, he
+recognised the truth; he knew what was the matter with him. His eyes
+filled, his feelings overcame him--and no man was ever more surprised.
+He had to walk a little way down the road before, out of ken of the
+horse, he dared to wipe the tears from his cheeks. Nor even then could
+he refrain from one or two foolish, unmanly gasps.
+
+"I did not think that I was--such a fool!" he muttered. "Such a fool!
+I didn't think it!"
+
+When he regained command of himself he found that his feet had borne
+him to the gate-pillar where so much had happened the previous day. To
+the very place where he had surprised Henrietta as she arranged her
+signal, and where she had so nearly surprised him in the act of
+watching her! In his new-born repentance, in his newborn honesty he
+hated the place; he hated it only less than he hated the conduct of
+which it reminded him. And partly out of sentiment, partly out of some
+unowned notion of doing penance, he turned and slowly retraced her
+course to the inn, treading as far as possible where she had trodden.
+When he reached the door he did not go in, but, unwilling to face any
+one, he went on as far as a seat on the foreshore, where he had seen
+her sit. And the sentiment of her presence still forming the
+attraction, he wondered if she had paused there on that morning, or if
+she had gone indoors at once.
+
+He was so unhappy that he did not feel the cold. The thought of her
+warmed him, and he sat for a minute or two, with his eyes on the
+gloomy face of the lake that, towards the farther shore, frowned more
+darkly under the shadow of the woods. He wished that he understood her
+conduct better, that he had the clue to it. He wished that he
+understood her refusal to speak. But right or wrong, she was in
+trouble and he loved her. Ay, right or wrong! For good or ill! Still
+he sighed, for all was very dark. And presently he went to rise.
+
+His eyes in the act fell on a few scraps of paper which lay at his
+feet and showed the whiter for the general gloom. Letters were not so
+common then as now. It was much if one person in five could write. The
+postage on a note sent from the south of England to the north was a
+shilling; the pages were crossed and recrossed, were often read and
+cherished long. Paper, therefore, did not lie abroad, as it lies
+abroad now; and Mr. Sutton--hardly knowing what he did--bent his eyes
+on the scraps. He was long-sighted, and on one morsel a little larger
+than its neighbours, he read the word "gate."
+
+In other circumstances he would not ten seconds later have known what
+words he had read. But at the moment he had the incident of the
+gate-post in his head--and Henrietta; and he apprehended as in a flash
+that this might be the summons which had called her forth the previous
+night--to her great damage. He conceived that after answering it by
+setting the signal on the gate-post she might have come to this place,
+and before going into the house might have torn up the letter and
+scattered the pieces abroad. If so the secret lay at his feet; and if
+he stooped and took it up, he might help her.
+
+He hung in doubt a few seconds. For he was grown strangely scrupulous.
+But he reflected that he could destroy the evidence if it bore against
+her--he would destroy it! And he gave way. Furtively, but with an
+eager hand, he collected the scraps of paper. There were about a
+score, the size of dice, and discoloured by moisture, strewn here and
+there round the seat. Behind, among the prickly shoots and brown roots
+of a gorse-bush were as many more, as if she had dropped a handful
+there. Another dozen he tracked down, one here, one there, in spots to
+which the wind had carried them. It was unlikely that he had got all,
+even then. But though he searched as narrowly as he dared--even going
+on his knees beside the bush--he could find no more. Doubtless the
+wind had taken toll; and at length, carrying what he had found hidden
+in his hand, he went into the house and sought refuge in his bedroom.
+
+Eagerly, though he had little hope of finding the result to his mind,
+he began to arrange the morsels. He found the task less hard than he
+had anticipated. Guided by the straight edges of the paper, he
+contrived in eight or nine minutes to piece the letter together; to
+such an extent, at any rate, as enabled him to gather its drift. About
+a fifth of the words were missing; and among these missing words were
+the opening phrase, the last two words, and about a score in the body
+of the note. But the gist of the message was clear, its tone and
+feeling survived; and they not only negatived the notion that
+Henrietta was in league with Walterson, but presented in all its
+strength the appeal which his prayer must needs have made to the heart
+of a romantic girl.
+
+
+"... ed you ill, but men are not as women and I was tempted ... I do
+not ask ... forgive ... I ask you to save me. I am in your hands. If
+you ... the heart to leave me to a ... lent death, all is said. If you
+have mercy meet my ... ger at ten to-mor ... ning ... Troutbeck lane
+comes down to the lake. As I hope to live you run no risk and can
+suffer no harm. If you are merci ... spare me ... put a ... stone,
+before noon to-morrow, on the post of the ... gate...."
+
+
+Strange to say, Mr. Sutton's first feeling, when he had assured
+himself of the truth, was an excessive, furious indignation against
+his patron. He forgot, in his pity for the girl, the provocation which
+Captain Clyne had suffered. He forgot the child's peril and the
+pressure which this had laid on the father's feelings. He forgot the
+light in which the girl's stubborn silence had placed her in the eyes
+of one who believed that she could save by a word that which he held
+more precious than his life. The chaplain was a narrow, and in secret
+a conceited man; he had been guilty of some things that ill became his
+cloth. But he had under his cloth a heart that once roused was capable
+of generous passion. And as he stalked up and down the room in a
+frenzy of love and pity and indignation, he longed for the moment
+which should see him face to face with Captain Clyne. The letter once
+shown, he did not conceive that there would be the least difficulty in
+freeing the girl; and he yearned for the return of the search parties.
+It was past four already; in the valley it was growing dusk. Yet if
+Clyne returned soon the girl might be released before night. She might
+be spared the humiliation, it might well be the misery, of a night in
+prison.
+
+His room looked to the back of the inn; and here where all the
+afternoon had been plucking of ducks and fowls, and slicing of
+flitches--for some of the searchers would need to be fed--lights were
+beginning to shine and a cheerful stir and a warm promise of comfort
+to prevail. From the kitchen, where the jacks were turning, firelight
+streamed across the yard, and pattens clicked, and dogs occasionally
+yelped; and now and again Mrs. Gilson's voice clacked strenuously. In
+the heat of his feelings Mr. Sutton compared this outlook with the
+cold quarters that held his Henrietta; and tears rose anew as he
+pictured the dank prison yard and the bare stone rooms, and the
+squalor and the company. After that he could not sit still. He could
+not wait. He must be acting. He must tell his discovery to some one,
+no matter to whom. He arranged the letter between the pages of a book
+and, having arranged it, took the book under his arm and ran
+downstairs. At the door of her snuggery he came upon Mrs. Gilson, who
+had just had words with Modest Ann. She eyed him sourly.
+
+"I want to show you something!" he said impetuously, forgetting his
+fear of her. "I have discovered something, ma'am! A thing of the
+utmost importance."
+
+She grunted.
+
+"If it has to do with the child," she said grudgingly, "I'll hear it,
+and thank you."
+
+"It has naught to do with the child," he answered bluntly. "It has to
+do with Miss Damer."
+
+"Then I'll have naught to do with it!" the landlady retorted with
+equal bluntness, pursing up her lips and speaking as drily as a file.
+"I've washed my hands of her."
+
+"But listen to me!" he replied. "Listen to me, Mrs. Gilson! Here's a
+young lady----"
+
+"That's behaved bad from the beginning--bad!" the landlady answered,
+cutting him short. "As bad as woman could! A woman, indeed, would have
+had some heart, and not have left an innocent child in the hands of a
+parcel of murderous villains! No, no, my gentleman, you'll not
+persuade me. An egg is good or bad, as you find it, and 'tis no good
+saying that the yolk is good when the white is tainted?"
+
+"But see here, ma'am"--he was bursting with indignation--"you are
+entirely wrong! Entirely wrong!"
+
+"Then your reverence had best speak to Captain Clyne, for it's not my
+business!" Mrs. Gilson retorted crushingly. "I'm no scholar and don't
+meddle with writings." And she turned her broad back upon him and the
+book which he proffered her.
+
+Mr. Sutton stood a moment in anger equal to his discomfiture. Then he
+went back slowly to his pacing in the road. After all the woman could
+do nothing, she was nothing. And the search parties would be returning
+soon. For night was falling. The last pale daylight was dying on the
+high fells towards Patterdale; the outlines of the low lands about the
+lake were fading into the blur of night. Here and there a tiny
+rushlight shone out, high up, and marked a hill-farm. Possibly the
+searchers had found the child. In that case, Mr. Sutton's heart, which
+should have leapt at the thought, only mildly rejoiced; and that,
+rather on account of the favourable turn the discovery might give to
+Henrietta's affairs, than for his patron's sake. Not that he was not
+sorry for the child, and sorry for the father; he tried, indeed, to
+feel more sorry. But he was not a man of warm feelings, and his
+sensibilities were selfish. He could not be expected to blossom out in
+a moment in more directions than one. It was something if he had
+learned in the few days he had spent by the lake to think of any other
+than himself.
+
+Had he been more anxious, had it been not he, but the father, who
+paced there in suspense, dwelling on what a moment might bring forth,
+he had been keener to notice things. He had traced, down the shoulder
+of Wansfell, the slow march of a dancing light that marked the descent
+of one of the parties. He had heard afar off the voices of the men,
+who announced from Calgarth that Mrs. Watson's servants had searched
+the woods as far as Elleray, but without success--these, indeed, were
+the first to come in. Hard on them arrived a band, under Mr. Curwen's
+bailiff, which had made the tour of the islands--Belle Isle, Lady
+Holm, Thompson's Holm, and the rest--with the same result; and almost
+at the same moment rode in, with jaded horses, the troop of yeomen who
+had undertaken to traverse the broken country at the head of the lake,
+between the Brathay and the Rotha. Two parties, the Troutbeck
+contingent with which was Captain Clyne, and the riders who had chosen
+Stock Ghyll valley and the Kirkstone, were still out at seven; and as
+the others had met with no success, their return was eagerly awaited.
+For the road between the inn and the lake was astir with life.
+Ostlers' lanthorns twinkled hither and thither, and the place was like
+a fair. A crowd of men, muffled in homespun plaids, blocked the
+doorway, and gabbling over their ale, stared now in one direction, now
+in the other; while the more highly favoured flocked into the snuggery
+and coffee-room and there discussed the chances in stentorian tones.
+The chaplain, with his feelings engaged elsewhere, wondered at the
+fury of some, and the heat of all; and was shocked by their oaths and
+threats of vengeance.
+
+Clyne and his party came in about half-past seven; and as it chanced
+that the Stock Ghyll troop arrived at the same minute, the whole house
+turned out to meet the two, and learn their news. Alas, the downcast
+faces of the riders told it sufficiently; and every head was uncovered
+as Clyne, with stern and moody eyes, rode to the door and dismounted.
+He turned to the throng of faces, and the lanthorn-light falling on
+his features showed them pale and disturbed.
+
+"My friends," he said, "I thank you. I shall not forget this day. I
+shall never forget this day. I----" and then, though he was a
+practised speaker, he could not say more or go on. He made a gesture,
+at once pathetic and dignified, with his single arm, and turning from
+them went slowly up the stairs with his chin on his breast.
+
+
+[Illustration: every head was uncovered as Clyne ... rode to the door]
+
+
+The farmers were Tories to a man. Even Brougham's silver tongue had
+failed (in the election of the year before) to turn them against the
+Lowthers. They were of the class from whom the yeomanry were drawn,
+and they had scant sympathy with the radical weavers of Rochdale and
+Bury, Bolton and Manchester. Had they caught the villains at this
+moment, they had made short work of them. They watched the slight
+figure with its empty sleeve as it passed into the house, and their
+looks of compassion were exceeded only by their curses loud and deep.
+And pitiful indeed was the tale which those, who were forced to leave,
+carried home to their wives and daughters on the fells.
+
+The chaplain, hovering on the edge of the chattering groups, could not
+come at once at his patron, who had no sooner reached the head of the
+stairs than he was beset by Nadin and others with reports and
+arrangements. But as soon as Clyne had gone wearily to his room to
+take some food before starting afresh--for it was determined to
+continue the search as soon as the moon rose--the chaplain went to him
+with his book under his arm.
+
+He found Clyne seated before the fire, with his chin on his hand and
+his attitude one of the deepest despondency. He had borne up with
+difficulty under the public gaze; he gave way, martinet as he was, the
+moment he was alone. The reflection that the child might have been
+within reach of his voice, yet beyond his help, that it might be
+crying to him even now, and crying in vain, that each hour which
+exposed it to hardship endangered its life--such thoughts harrowed the
+father's feelings almost beyond endurance. Sutton suspected from his
+attitude that he was praying; and for a moment the chaplain, touched
+and affected, was in two minds about disturbing him. But he, too, had
+his harassing thoughts. His heart, too, burned with pity. And to turn
+back now was to abandon hope--grown forlorn already--of freeing
+Henrietta that evening. He went forward therefore with boldness. He
+laid his book on the table, and finding himself unheeded, cleared his
+throat.
+
+"I have something here," he said--and his voice despite himself was
+needlessly stiff and distant--"which I think it my duty, Captain
+Clyne, to show you without delay."
+
+Clyne turned slowly and rose as he turned.
+
+"To show me?" he muttered.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What is it? You have not"--raising his eyes with a sudden intake of
+breath--"discovered anything? A clue?"
+
+"I have discovered something," the chaplain answered slowly. "It is a
+clue of a kind."
+
+A rush of blood darkened Clyne's face. He held out a shaking hand.
+
+"To where the lad is?" he ejaculated, taking a step forward. "To where
+they have taken him? If it be so, God bless you, Sutton! God bless
+you! God bless you! I'll never----"
+
+The clergyman cut him short. He was shocked by the other's intense
+excitement and frightened by the swelling of his features. He stayed
+him by a gesture.
+
+"Nay, nay," he cried. "I did not mean, sir, to awaken false hopes.
+Pray pardon me. Pray pardon me. It is a clue, but to Miss Damer's
+conduct this morning! To her conduct throughout. To her reasons for
+silence. Which were not, I am now able to show you, connected with any
+feeling of hostility to you, Captain Clyne, but rather imposed upon
+her----"
+
+But Clyne's face had settled into a mask of stone. Only he knew what
+the disappointment was! And at that word, "I care not what they were!"
+he said in a voice incredibly harsh, "or how imposed! If that be
+all--if that is all you are here to tell me----"
+
+"But if it be all, it is all to her!" Sutton retorted, stung in his
+turn. "And most urgent, sir."
+
+"As to her?"
+
+"As to her. It places her conduct in an entirely different light,
+Captain Clyne, and one which it is your duty to recognise."
+
+"Have I not said," Clyne answered with bitter vehemence, "that I wish
+to hear naught of her conduct? Do you know, sir, in what light I
+regard her?"
+
+"I hope in none that--that----"
+
+"As a murderess," Clyne answered in the same tone of restrained fury.
+"She has conspired against a child! A boy who never harmed her, and
+now never could have harmed her! She is not worthy of the name of
+woman! I thank God that He has helped me to keep her out of my mind as
+I rode to-day. And you--you must needs bring her up again! Know that I
+loathe and detest her, sir, and pray that I may never see her, never
+hear her name again!"
+
+Mr. Sutton raised his hands in horror.
+
+"You are unjust!" he cried. "Indeed, indeed, you are unjust!"
+
+"What is that to you? And who are you to talk to me? Is it your child
+who is missing? Your child who is being tortured, perhaps out of life?
+Who, a cripple, is being dragged at these men's heels? You? You? What
+have you to do with this?"
+
+The tone was crushing. But the chaplain, too, had his stubborn side,
+and resentment flamed within him as he thought of the girl and her
+lot. "Do I understand then," he said--he was very pale--"that you
+refuse to hear what I have by chance discovered--in Miss Damer's
+favour?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"That you will not, Captain Clyne, even look at this letter--this
+letter which I have found and which exonerates her?"
+
+"Never!" Clyne replied harshly. "Never! And, now you know my mind, go,
+sir, and do not return to this subject! This is no time for trifling,
+nor am I in the mood."
+
+But the chaplain held his ground, though he was very nervous. And a
+resolution, great and heroic, took shape within him, growing in a
+moment to full size--he knew not how. He raised his meagre figure to
+its full height, and his pale peaky face assumed a dignity which the
+pulpit had never known. "I, too, am in no mood for trifling, Captain
+Clyne," he said. "But I do not hold this matter trifling. On the
+contrary, I wish you to understand that I think it so important that I
+consider it my duty to press it upon you by every means in my power!"
+
+Clyne looked at him wrathfully, astonished at his presumption. "The
+girl has turned your head," he said.
+
+The chaplain waived the words aside. "And therefore," he continued,
+"if you decline, Captain Clyne, to read this letter, or to consider
+the evidence it contains----"
+
+"That I do absolutely! Absolutely!"
+
+"I beg to resign my office," Mr. Sutton responded, trembling
+violently. "I will no longer--I will no longer serve one, however much
+I respect him, or whatever my obligations to him, who refuses to do
+justice to his own kith and kin, who refuses to stand between a
+helpless girl and wrong! Vile wrong!" And he made a gesture with his
+hands as if he laid something on the table.
+
+If his object was to gain possession of Captain Clyne's attention he
+succeeded. Clyne looked at him with as much surprise as anger.
+
+"She has certainly turned your head," he said in a lower tone, "if you
+are not playing a sorry jest, that is. What is it to you, man, if I
+follow my own judgment? What is Miss Damer to you?"
+
+"You offered her to me," with a trembling approach to sarcasm, "for my
+wife. She is so much to me."
+
+"But I understood that she would not take you," Clyne retorted; and
+now he spoke wearily. The surprise of the other's defiance was
+beginning to wear off. "But, there, perhaps I was mistaken, and then
+your anxiety for her interests is explained."
+
+"Explain it as you please," Mr. Sutton answered with fire, "if you
+will read this letter and weigh it."
+
+"I will not," Clyne returned, his anger rising anew. "Once for all, I
+will not!"
+
+"Then I resign the chaplaincy I hold, sir."
+
+"Resign and be d----d!" the naval captain answered. The day had
+cruelly tried his temper.
+
+"Your words to me," Mr. Sutton retorted furiously, "and your conduct
+to her are of a piece!" And white with passion, his limbs trembling
+with excitement, he strode to the door. He halted on the threshold,
+bowed low, and went out.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXIII
+
+                            IN KENDAL GAOL
+
+
+Bishop, in his corner of the chaise, made his burly person as small as
+he could. He tried his best to hide his brown tops and square-toed
+boots. In her corner Henrietta sat upright, staring rigidly before
+her. For just one moment, as she passed from the house to the
+carriage, under a score of staring eyes, a scarlet flush had risen to
+her very hair, and she had shrunk back. But the colour had faded as
+quickly as it had risen; she had restrained herself, and taken her
+seat. And now the screes of Bow Fell, flecked with snow, were not more
+cold and hard than her face as she gazed at the postilion's moving
+back and saw it not. She knew that she was down now without hope of
+rising; that, the prison doors once closed on her, their shadow would
+rest on her always. And her heart was numbed by despair. The burning
+sense of injustice, of unfairness, which sears and hardens the human
+heart more quickly and more completely than any other emotion, would
+awaken presently. But for the time she sat stunned and hopeless; dazed
+and confounded by the astonishing thing which had happened to her.
+To be sent to prison! To be sent to herd--she remembered his very
+words--with such vile creatures as prisons hold! To be at the beck and
+call of such a man as this who sat beside her. To have to obey; and to
+belong no longer to herself, but to others! As she thought of all
+this, and of the ordeal before her, fraught with humiliations yet
+unknown, a hunted look grew in her eyes, and for a few minutes she
+glanced wildly first out of this window, then out of that. To prison!
+She was going to prison!
+
+Fortunately her native courage came to her aid in her extremity. And
+Bishop, who was not blind to her emotion, spoke.
+
+"Don't you be over-frightened, miss," he said soothingly. "There's
+naught to be scared about. I'll speak to them, and they'll treat you
+well. Not that a gaol is a comfortable place," he continued,
+remembering his duty to his employer; "and if you could see your way
+to speaking--even now, miss--I'd take it on me to turn the horses."
+
+"I have nothing to say," she answered, with a shudder and an
+effort--for her throat was dry. But the mere act of speaking broke the
+spell and relieved her of some of her fears.
+
+"It's the little boy I'm thinking of," Bishop continued in a tone of
+apology. "Captain Clyne thinks the world of him. The world of him!
+But, lord, miss!" abruptly changing his tone, as his eyes alighted on
+her wrist, "what have you done to your arm?"
+
+She hid her wrist quickly, and with her face averted said that it was
+nothing, nothing.
+
+Bishop shook his head sagely.
+
+"I doubt you bruised it getting out of the window," he said. "Well,
+well, miss; live and learn. Another time you'll be wiser, I hope; and
+not do such things."
+
+She did not answer, and the chaise passing by Plumgarth began to
+descend into the wide stony valley. Below them the white-washed walls
+and slated roofs and mills of Kendal could be seen clustering about
+the Castle Bow and the old grey ruin that rises above the Ken river.
+On either hand bleak hills, seamed with grey walls, made up a
+landscape that rose without beauty to a lowering sky. There were few
+trees, no hedges; and somewhere the cracked bell of a drugget factory
+or a dye-works was clanging out a monotonous summons. To Henrietta's
+eye--fresh from the lake-side verdure--and still more to her heart,
+the northern landscape struck cold and cheerless. It had given her but
+a sorry welcome had she been on her way to seek the hospitality of the
+inn. How much poorer was its welcome when she had no prospect before
+her but the scant comfort and unknown hardships of a gaol!
+
+The chaise did not enter the town, but a furlong short of it turned
+aside and made for a group of windowless buildings, which crowned a
+small eminence a bow-shot from the houses. As the horses drew the
+chaise up the ascent to a heavy stone doorway, Henrietta had time to
+see that the entrance was mean, if strong, and the place as
+unpretending as it was dull. Nevertheless, her heart beat almost to
+suffocation, as she stepped out at a word from Bishop, who had
+alighted at once and knocked at the iron-studded door. With small
+delay a grating was opened, a pale face, marked by high, hollow
+temples, looked out; and some three or four sentences were exchanged.
+Then the door was unlocked and thrown open. Bishop signed to her to
+enter first and she did so--after an imperceptible pause. She found
+herself in a small well-like yard, with the door and window of the
+prison-lodge on her left and dead walls on the other sides.
+
+Two children were playing on the steps of the lodge, and some linen,
+dubiously drying in the cold winter air, hung on a line stretched from
+the window to a holdfast in the opposite wall. Unfortunately, the yard
+had been recently washed, and still ran with water; so that these
+homely uses, and even the bench and pump which stood in a corner,
+failed to impart much cheerfulness to its aspect. Had Henrietta's
+heart been capable of sinking lower it had certainly done so.
+
+The children stared open-mouthed at her: but not with half as much
+astonishment as the man in shirt sleeves who had admitted her. "Eh,
+sir, but you've brought the cage a fine bird," he said at last. "Your
+servant, miss. Well, well, well!" with surprise. And he scratched his
+head and grinned openly. "Debtors' side, I suppose?"
+
+"Remand," Bishop answered with a wink and a meaning shake of the head.
+"Here's the warrant. All's right." And then to Henrietta--"If you'll
+sit down on that bench, miss, I'll fix things up for you."
+
+The girl, her face a little paler than usual, sat down as she was
+bidden, and looked about her. This was not her notion of a prison; for
+here were neither gyves nor dungeons, but just a slatternly, damp
+yard--as like as could be to some small backyard in the out-offices of
+her brother's house. Nevertheless, the gyves might be waiting for her
+out of sight; and with or without them, the place was horribly
+depressing that winter afternoon. The sky was grey above, the walls
+were grey, the pavement grey. She was almost glad when Bishop and the
+man in shirt-sleeves emerged from the lodge followed by a tall,
+hard-featured woman in a dirty mob-cap. The woman's arms were bare to
+the elbow, and she carried a jingling bunch of keys. She eyed
+Henrietta with dull dislike.
+
+"That is settled, then," Bishop said, a little overdoing the
+cheerfulness at which he aimed. "Mother Weighton will see to you, and
+'twill be all right. There are four on the debtors' side, and you'll
+be best in the women-felons', she thinks, since it's empty, and you'll
+have it all to yourself."
+
+Henrietta heaved a deep sigh of relief. "I shall be alone, then?" she
+said. "Oh, thank you."
+
+"Ay, you'll be alone," the woman answered, staring at her. "Very much
+alone! But I'm not sure you'll thank me, by-and-by. You madams are
+pretty loud for company, I've always found, when you've had your own a
+bit." Then, "You don't mind being locked up in a yard by yourself?"
+she continued, with a close look at the girl's face and long grey
+riding-dress.
+
+"Oh no, I shall be grateful to you," Henrietta said eagerly, "if you
+will let me be alone."
+
+"Ah, well, we'll see how you like it," the woman retorted. "Here,
+Ben," to her husband, "I suppose she is too much of a fine lady to
+carry her band-box--yet awhile. Do you bring it."
+
+"I am sure," Bishop said, "the young lady will be grateful for any
+kindness, Mrs. Weighton. I will wait till you've lodged her
+comfortably. God bless my soul," he continued, screwing up his
+features, as he affected to look about him, "I don't know that one's
+not as well in as out!"
+
+"Well, there's no writs nor burglars!" the jailor answered with a
+grin. "And the young folks, male nor female, don't get into trouble
+through staying out o' nights. Now, then, missis," to his wife, "no
+need to be all day over it."
+
+The woman unlocked a low door in the wall opposite the lodge, but at
+the inner end of the yard; and she signed to Henrietta to enter before
+her. The girl did so, and found herself in a flagged yard about thirty
+feet square. On her right were four mean-looking doors having above
+each a grated aperture. Henrietta eyed these and her heart sank. They
+were only too like the dungeons she had foreseen! But the jailor's
+wife turned to the opposite side of the yard where were two doors with
+small glazed windows over them. The two sides that remained consisted
+of high walls, surmounted by iron spikes.
+
+"We'll put you in a day-room as they're all empty," the woman
+grumbled. She meant not ill, but she had the unfortunate knack of
+making all her concessions with a bad grace.
+
+Thereupon she unlocked one of the doors, and disclosed a small
+whitewashed room, cold, but passably clean. A rough bench and table
+occupied the middle of the floor, and in a corner stood a clumsy
+spinning-wheel. The floor was of stone, but there was a makeshift
+fireplace, dulled by rust and dirt.
+
+"Get in a bedstead, Ben," she continued. "I suppose," looking abruptly
+at Henrietta, "you are not used to chaff, young woman?"
+
+The girl stared.
+
+"I don't understand, I am afraid," she faltered.
+
+"You are used to feathers, I dare say?" with a sneer.
+
+"Oh, for a bed?"
+
+"What else?" impatiently. "Good lord, haven't you your senses? You can
+have your choice. It's eight-pence for chaff, and a shilling for
+feathers."
+
+"I don't mind paying while I've money," Henrietta said humbly. "If
+you'll please to charge me what is right."
+
+"Well, it's cheap enough, lord knows; for since the changes there's no
+garnish this side. And for the third of the earnings that's left to
+us, I'd not give fippence a week for all!"
+
+The man had dragged in, while she talked, a kind of wooden trough for
+the bed, and set it in a corner. He had then departed for firing, and
+returned with a shovelful of burning coals, for the room was as cold
+as the grave.
+
+"There's a pump in the yard," the woman said, "and a can and basin,
+but you must serve yourself. And there's a pitcher for drinking. And
+you can have from the cook-shop what you like to order in. You'll have
+to keep your place clean; but as long as you behave yourself, we'll
+treat you according. Only let us have no scratching and screaming!"
+she continued. "Tempers don't pay here, I'll warn you. And for
+swoonings we just turn the tap on! So do you take notice." And with a
+satisfied look round, "For the rest, there's many a young woman that's
+not gone wrong that's not so comfortable as you, my girl. And I'd have
+you know it."
+
+Henrietta coloured painfully.
+
+"I shall do very well," she said meekly. "But I've not done anything
+wrong."
+
+"Ay, ay," the woman answered unconcernedly, "they all say that! That's
+of course. But I can't stay talking here. What'd you like for your
+supper? A pint of stout, and a plate of a-la-mode? Or a chop?"
+
+Henrietta reduced the order to tea and a white loaf and butter--if it
+could be got--and asked meekly if she might have something to read.
+
+The _Kendal Chronicle_ was promised. "You'll have your meal at five,"
+Mother Weighton continued. "And your light must be out at eight, and
+you'll have to 'tend service in chapel on Sunday. By rule your door
+should be locked at five; but as you're alone, and the lock's on the
+yard, I'll say naught about that. You can have the run of the yard as
+a favour and till another comes in."
+
+Then with a final look round she went out, her pattens clinked across
+the court, and Henrietta heard the key turned in the outer door.
+
+She stood a moment pressing her hands to her eyes, and trying to
+control herself. At length she uncovered her eyes, and she looked
+again round the whitewashed cell. Yes, it was real. The flagged floor,
+the bench, the table, the odd-looking bed in its wooden trough--all
+were real, hard, bare. And the solitude and the dreary silence, and
+the light that was beginning to fade! The place was far from her crude
+notion of a prison; but in its cold, naked severity it was as far
+outside her previous experience. She was in prison, and this was her
+cell, that was her prison-yard. And she was alone, quite, quite alone.
+
+A sob rose in her throat, and then she laughed a little hysterically,
+as she remembered their way with those who fainted. And sitting limply
+down, she warmed herself at the fire, and dried two or three tears.
+She looked about her again, eyed again the whitewashed walls, and
+listened. The silence was complete; it almost frightened her. And her
+door had no fastening on the inside. That fact moved her in the end to
+rise, and go out and explore the yard, that she might make sure before
+the light failed that no one was locked in with her, that no one
+lurked behind the closed cell doors.
+
+The task was not long. She tried the five doors, and found them all
+locked; she knocked softly on them, and got no answer. The pump, the
+iron basin, a well scrubbed bench, a couple of besoms, and a bucket,
+she had soon reviewed all that the yard held. There was a trap or
+Judas-hole in the outer door, and another, which troubled her, in the
+door of her cell. But on the whole the survey left her reassured and
+more at ease; the place, though cold, bare, and silent, was her own.
+And when her tea and a dip-candle appeared at five she was able to
+show the jailor's wife a cheerful face.
+
+The woman had heard more of her story by this time, and eyed her with
+greater interest, and less rudely.
+
+"You'll not be afraid to be alone?" she said. "You've no need to be.
+You're safe enough here."
+
+"I'm not afraid," Henrietta answered meekly. "But--couldn't I have a
+fastening on my door, please?"
+
+"On the inside? Lord, no! But I can lock you in if you like," with a
+grin.
+
+"Oh no! I did not mean that!"
+
+"Well, then you must just push the table against the door. It's
+against rules," with a wink, "but I shan't be here to see." And
+pulling her woollen shawl more closely about her, she continued to
+stare at the girl. Presently, "Lord's sakes!" she said, "it's a queer
+world! I suppose you never was in a jail before? Never saw the inside
+of one, perhaps?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It's something political, I'm told," snuffing the candle with her
+fingers, and resuming her inquisitive stare.
+
+Henrietta nodded.
+
+"With a man in it, of course! Drat the men! They do a plaguey deal of
+mischief! Many's the decent lass that's been transported because of
+them!"
+
+Henrietta's smile faded suddenly.
+
+"I hope it's not as bad as that," she said.
+
+"Well, I don't know," scrutinising the girl's face. "It's for you to
+say. The officer that brought you--quite the gentleman too--told us it
+was something to do with a murder. But you know best."
+
+"I hope not!"
+
+"Well, I hope not too! For if it be, it'll be mighty unpleasant for
+you. It's not three years since a lad I knew myself was sent across
+seas for just being out at night with a rabbit-net. So it's easy done
+and soon over! And too late crying when the milk's spilt." And once
+more snuffing the candle and telling Henrietta to leave her door open
+until she had crossed the yard, she took herself off. Once more, but
+now with a sick qualm, the girl heard the key turned on her.
+
+"Transportation!" She did not know precisely what it meant; but she
+knew that it meant something very dreadful. "Transportation! Oh, it is
+impossible!" she murmured, "impossible! I have done nothing!"
+
+Yet the word frightened her, the shadow of the thing haunted her.
+These locks and bars, this solitude, this cold routine, was it
+possible that once in their clutch the victim slid on, helpless and
+numbed--to something worse? To-day, deaf to her protests, they had
+sent her here--sent her by a force which seemed outside themselves.
+And no one had intervened in her favour. No one had stepped forward to
+save her or speak for her. Would the same thing befall her again?
+Would they try her in the same impersonal fashion--as if she were a
+thing, a chattel,--and find her guilty, condemn her, and hand her over
+to brutal officials, and--she rose from her bench, shuddering, unable
+to bear the prospect. She had begun the descent, must she sink to the
+bottom? Was it inevitable? Could she no longer help herself? Sick,
+shivering with sudden fear she walked the floor.
+
+"Oh, it is impossible!" she cried, battling against her terror, and
+trying to reassure herself. "It is impossible!" And for the time she
+succeeded by a great effort in throwing off the nightmare.
+
+No one came near her again that evening. And quite early the dip
+burned low, and worn out and tired she went to bed, only partially
+undressing herself. The bedding, though rough and horribly coarse, was
+clean, and, little as she expected it, she fell asleep quickly in the
+strange stillness of the prison.
+
+She slept until an hour or two before dawn. Then she awoke and sat up
+with a child's cry in her ears. The impression was so real, so vivid
+that the bare walls of the cell seemed to ring with the plaintive
+voice. Quaking and perspiring she listened. She was sure that it was
+no dream; the voice had been too real, too clear; and she wondered in
+a panic what it could be. It was only slowly that she remembered where
+she was and recognised that no child's cry could reach her there. Nor
+was it until after a long interval that she lay down again.
+
+Even then she was not alone. The image of a little child, lonely,
+friendless, and terrified, stayed with her, crouched by her pillow,
+sat weeping in the dark corners of the cell, haunted her. She tried to
+shake off the delusion, but the attempt was in vain. Conscience, that
+in the dark hours before the dawn subjects all to his sceptre, began
+to torment her. Had she acted rightly? Ought she to have put the child
+first and her romantic notions second? And if any ill happened to
+it--and it was a delicate, puny thing--would it lie at her door?
+
+Remorse began to rack her. She wondered that she had not thought more
+of the child, been wrung with pity for it, sympathised more deeply
+with its fears and its misery. What, beside its plight, was hers?
+What, beside its terrors, were her fears? Thus tormenting herself she
+lay for some time, and was glad when the light stole in and she could
+rise, cold as it was, and set her bed and her cell in order. By the
+time this was done, and she had paced for half an hour up and down to
+warm herself, a girl of eight, the jailor's child, came with a shovel
+of embers and helped her to light the fire--staring much at her the
+while.
+
+"Mother said I could help you make your bed," she began.
+
+Henrietta, with a smile said that she had made it already.
+
+"Mother thought you'd be too fine to make it," still staring.
+
+"Well, you see I am not."
+
+"I am glad of that," the child answered candidly. "For mother said
+you'd have to come to it and to worse, if you were transported, miss."
+
+Henrietta winced afresh, and looked at the imp less kindly.
+
+"But I'm not going to be transported," she said positively. "You're
+talking nonsense."
+
+"There's never been any one transported from here."
+
+"No?" with relief. "Then why should I be?"
+
+"But there was a man hanged three years ago. It was for stealing a
+lamb. They didn't let me see it."
+
+"And very right, too."
+
+"But mother's promised"--with triumph--"that if you're transported I
+shall see it!" After which there was silence while the child stared.
+At last, "Are you ready for your breakfast now?"
+
+"Yes," said poor Henrietta. "But I am not very hungry--you can tell
+your mother."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV
+
+                          THE ROLE CONTINUED
+
+
+Mr. Sutton slept as ill on the night of his resignation as he had ever
+slept in his life. And many times as he tossed and turned on his bed
+he repented at leisure the step which he had taken in haste. Acting
+upon no previous determination, he had sacrificed in the heat of
+temper his whole professional future. He had staked his all; and he
+had done no good even to the cause he had at heart. The act would not
+bear thinking upon; certainly it would not bear the cold light of
+early reflection. And many, many times as he sighed upon his uneasy
+pillow did he wish, as so many have wished before and since, that he
+could put back the clock. Had he left the room five minutes earlier,
+had he held his tongue, however ungraciously, had he thought before he
+spoke, he had done as much for Henrietta and he had done no harm to
+himself. And he had been as free as he was now, to seek his end by
+other means.
+
+For he had naught to do now but seek that end. He had not Mr. Pitt's
+nose in vain: he was nothing if he was not stubborn. And while
+Henrietta might easily have had a more discreet, she could hardly have
+had a more persevering, friend. Amid the wreck of his own fortunes,
+with his professional future laid in ruins about him, he clung
+steadfastly to the notion of righting her, and found in that and in
+the letter in his book, his only stay. At as early an hour as he
+considered decent, he would apply to Mr. Hornyold, lay the evidence
+before the Justice, and press for the girl's release.
+
+Unfortunately, he lay so long revolving the matter that at daybreak he
+fell asleep. The house was busy and no one gave a thought to him, and
+ten had struck before he came down and shamefacedly asked for his
+breakfast. Mrs. Gilson put it before him, but with a word of girding
+at his laziness; which the good woman could not stomach, when half the
+countryside were on foot searching for the boy, and when the unhappy
+father, after a night in the saddle, had left in a postchaise to
+follow up a clue at Keswick. Blameworthy or not, Mr. Sutton found the
+delay fatal. When he called on Mr. Hornyold, the Justice was not at
+home. He had left the house and would not return until the following
+day.
+
+Sutton might have anticipated this check, but he had not; and he
+walked back to the inn, plunged to the very lips in despondency. The
+activity of the people about him, their eagerness in the search, their
+enthusiasm, all reflected on him and sank him in his own esteem. Yet
+if he would, he could not share in these things or in these feelings.
+He stood outside them; his sympathies were fixed, obstinately fixed,
+elsewhere. And, alas, in the only direction in which he desired to
+proceed, and in which he discerned a possible issue, he was brought to
+a full stop.
+
+He was in the mood to feel small troubles sorely, and as he neared the
+inn he saw that Mrs. Gilson was standing at the door. It vexed him,
+for he felt that he cut a poor figure in the landlady's eyes. He knew
+that he seemed to her a sorry thing, slinking idly about the house,
+while others wrought and did. He feared her sharp tongue and vulgar
+tropes, and he made up his mind to pass by the house as if he did not
+see her. He was in the act of doing this, awkwardly and consciously,
+with his eyes averted--when she called to him.
+
+"If you're looking for Squire Clyne," she said, in very much the tone
+he expected, "he's gone these three hours past and some to that!"
+
+"I was not," he said.
+
+"Oh!" she answered with sarcasm, "I suppose you are looking for the
+boy. You will not find him, I'm afraid, on the King's highroad!"
+
+"I was not looking for him," he answered churlishly.
+
+"More shame to you!" Mrs. Gilson cried, with a spark in her eye. "More
+shame to you! For you should be!"
+
+He flamed up at that, after the passionate manner of such men when
+roused. He stopped and faced her, trembling a little.
+
+"And to whom is it a shame," he cried, "that wicked, foul injustice is
+done? To whom is it a shame that the innocent are sent to herd with
+the guilty? To whom is it a shame--woman!--that when there is good,
+clear evidence put before their eyes, it is not read? Nor used? The
+boy?" vehemently, "the boy? Is he the only one to be considered, and
+sought and saved? Is his case worse than hers? I too say shame!"
+
+Mrs. Gilson stared. "Lord save the man!" she cried, as much astonished
+as if a sheep had turned on her, "with his shames and his whoms! He's
+as full of words as a Wensleydale of mites! I don't know what you are
+in the pulpit, your reverence, but on foot and in the road, Mr.
+Brougham was naught to you!"
+
+"He'd not the reason," the chaplain answered bitterly. And brought
+down by her remark--for his passion was of the shortest--he turned,
+and was moving away, morose and despondent, when the landlady called
+after him a second time, but in a more friendly tone. Perhaps
+curiosity, perhaps some new perception of the man moved her.
+
+"See here, your reverence," she said. "If you've a mind to show me
+this fine evidence of yours, I'm not for saying I'll not read it. Lord
+knows it's ill work going about like a hen with an egg she can't lay.
+So if you've a mind to get it off your mind, I'll send for my glasses,
+and be done with it."
+
+"Will you?" he replied, his face flushing with the hope of making a
+convert. "Will you? Then there, ma'am, there it is! It's the letter
+that villain sent to her to draw her to meet him that night. If you
+can't see from that what terms they were on, and that she had no
+choice but to meet him, I--but read it! Read it!"
+
+She called for her glasses and having placed them on her nose, set the
+nose at such an angle that she could look down it at the page. This
+was Mrs. Gilson's habit when about to read. But when all was arranged
+her face fell. "Oh dear!" she said, "it's all bits and scraps, like a
+broken curd! Lord save the man, I can't read this. I canna make top
+nor tail of it! Here, let me take it inside. Truth is, I'm no scholar
+in the open air."
+
+The chaplain, trembling with eagerness, set straight three or four
+bits of paper which he had deranged in opening the book. Then, not
+trusting it out of his own hands, he bore the book reverently into the
+landlady's snuggery, and set it on the table. Mrs. Gilson rearranged
+her nose and glasses, and after gazing helplessly for a few moments at
+the broken screed, caught some thread of sense, clung to it
+desperately, and presently began to murmur disjointed sentences in the
+tone of one who thought aloud.
+
+"Um--um--um--um!"
+
+Had the chaplain been told a fortnight before that he would wait with
+bated breath for an old woman's opinion of a document, he would have
+laughed at the notion. But so it was; and when a ray of comprehension
+broke the frowning perplexity of Mrs. Gilson's face, and she muttered,
+"Lord ha' mercy! The villain!" still more when an April cloud of
+mingled anger and pity softened her massive features--the chaplain's
+relief was itself a picture.
+
+"A plague on the rascal!" the good woman cried. "He's put it so as to
+melt a stone, let alone a silly child like that! I don't know that if
+he'd put it so to me, when I was a lass, I'd have told on him. I don't
+think I would!"
+
+"It's plain that she'd no understanding with him!" Mr. Sutton cried
+eagerly. "You can see that, ma'am!"
+
+"Well, I think I can. The villain!"
+
+"It's quite clear that she had broken with him!"
+
+"It does look so, poor lamb!"
+
+"Poor lamb indeed!" Mr. Sutton replied with feeling. "Poor lamb
+indeed!"
+
+"Yet you'll remember," Mrs. Gilson answered--she was nothing if not
+level-headed--"he'd the lad to think of! He'd his boy to think of! I
+am sure my heart bled for him when he went out this morning. I doubt
+he'd not slept a wink, and----"
+
+"Do you think she slept either?" the chaplain asked, something
+bitterly; and his eyes glowed in his pale face. "Do you consider how
+young she is and gently bred, ma'am? And where they've sent her, and
+to what?"
+
+"Umph!" the landlady replied, and she rubbed her ponderous cheek with
+the bowl of a punch-ladle, and looked, frowning, at the letter. The
+operation, it was plain, clarified her thoughts; and Mr. Sutton's
+instinct told him to be mute. For a long minute the distant clatter of
+Modest Ann's tongue, and the clink of pattens in the yard, were the
+only sounds that broke the lemon-laden silence of the room. Perhaps it
+was the glint of the fire on the rows of polished glass, perhaps the
+sight of her own well-cushioned chair, perhaps only a memory of
+Henrietta's fair young face and piled-up hair that wrought upon the
+landlady. But whatever the cause she groaned. And then, "He ought to
+see this!" she said. "He surely ought! And dang me, he shall, if he
+leaves the house to-night! After all, two wrongs don't make a right.
+He's to Keswick this morning, but an hour after noon he'll be back to
+learn if there's news. It's only here he can get news, and if he has
+not found the lad he'll be back! And I'll put it on his plate----"
+
+"God bless you!" cried Mr. Sutton.
+
+"Ay, but I'm not saying he'll do anything," the landlady answered
+tartly. "If all's true the young madam has not behaved so well that
+she'll be the worse for smarting a bit!"
+
+"She'll be much obliged to you," said the chaplain humbly.
+
+"No, she'll not!" Mrs. Gilson retorted. "Nor to you, don't you think
+it! She's a Tartar or I'm mistaken. You'll be obliged, you mean!" And
+she looked at the parson over her glasses as if she were appraising
+him in a new character.
+
+"I've been to Mr. Hornyold," he said, "but he was out and will not be
+back until to-morrow."
+
+"Ay, he's more in his boots than on his knees most days," the landlady
+answered. "But what I've said, I'll do, that's flat. And here's the
+coach, so it's twelve noon."
+
+She tugged at the cord of the yard bell, and its loud jangle in a
+twinkling roused the house to activity and the stables to frenzy. The
+fresh team were led jingling and prancing out of the yard, the ostlers
+running beside them. Modest Ann and her underling hastened to show
+themselves on the steps of the inn, and Mrs. Gilson herself passed
+into the passage ready to welcome any visitor of consequence.
+
+Mr. Bishop and two Lancashire officers who had been pushing the quest
+in the Furness district descended from the outside of the coach. But
+they brought no news; and Sutton, as soon as he learned this, did not
+linger with them. The landlady's offer could not have any immediate
+result, since Clyne was not expected to return before two; and the
+chaplain, to kill time, went out at the back, and climbed the hill. He
+walked until he was tired, and then he turned, and at two made his way
+back to the inn, only to learn that Clyne had not yet arrived. None
+the less, the short day already showed signs of drawing in. There was
+snow in the sky. It hung heavy above Langdale Pikes and over the long
+ragged screes of Bow Fell. White cushions of cloud were piled one on
+the other to the northward, and earth and sky were alike depressing.
+Weary and despondent, Sutton wandered into the house, and sitting down
+before the first fire he found, he fell fast asleep.
+
+He awoke with a confused murmur of voices in his ears. The room was
+dark save for the firelight; and for a few seconds he fancied that he
+was still alone. The men whose talk he heard were in another part of
+the house, and soothed by their babble and barely conscious where he
+was, he was sinking away again when a harsh word and a touch on his
+sleeve awoke him. He sprang up, startled and surprised, and saw that
+Captain Clyne, his face fitfully revealed by the flame, was standing
+on the other side of the hearth. He was in his riding boots and was
+splashed to the waist.
+
+His face was paler than usual, and his pose told of fatigue.
+
+"Awake, man, awake!" he repeated. "Didn't you hear me?"
+
+"No, I--I was dozing," the chaplain faltered, as he put back his
+chair.
+
+"Just so," Clyne answered drily. "I wish I could sleep. Well, listen
+now. I have been back an hour, and I have read this." He laid his hand
+on an object on the table, and Sutton with joy saw that the object was
+the book which he had left with Mrs. Gilson. "I am sorry," Clyne
+continued in a constrained tone, "that I did not read it last evening.
+I was wrong. But--God help me, I think I am almost mad! Anyway I have
+read it now, and I credit it, and I think that--she has been harshly
+treated. And I am here to tell you," a little more distinctly, "that
+you can arrange the matter to your satisfaction, sir."
+
+Sutton stared. "Do you mean," he said, "that I may arrange for her
+release?"
+
+"I have settled that," Clyne answered. "Mr. Hornyold is not at home,
+but I have seen Mr. Le Fleming, and have given bail for her appearance
+when required; and here is Le Fleming's order for her release. I have
+ordered a postchaise to be ready and it will be at the door in ten
+minutes."
+
+"But then--all is done?" the chaplain said.
+
+"Except fetching her back," Clyne answered. "She must come here. There
+is nowhere else for her to go. But I leave that to you, since her
+release is due to you. I have done her an injustice, and done you one
+too. But God knows," he continued bitterly, "not without provocation.
+Nor willingly, nor knowingly."
+
+"I am sure of that," the chaplain answered meekly.
+
+"Yes. Of course," Clyne continued, awkwardly, "I shall not consider
+what you said to me as said at all. On the contrary, I am obliged to
+you for doing your duty, Mr. Sutton, whatever the motive."
+
+"The motive----"
+
+"I do not say," stiffly, "that the motive was an improper one. Not at
+all. I cannot blame you for following up my own plan."
+
+"I followed my feelings," Mr. Sutton replied, with a fresh stirring of
+resentment.
+
+"Exactly. And therefore it seems to me that as she owes her release to
+your exertions, it is right that you should be the one to communicate
+the fact to her, and the one to bring her away."
+
+The chaplain saw that his patron, persuaded that there was more
+between them than he had supposed, fell back on the old plan; that he
+was willing to give him the opportunity of pushing his suit. And the
+blood rushed to his face. If she could be brought--if she could be
+brought to look favourably on him! Ah, then indeed he was a happy man,
+and the dark night of despondency would be followed by a morn of joy.
+But with the quickness of light his thoughts passed over the various
+occasions--they were very few--on which he had addressed her. And--and
+an odd thing happened. It happened, perhaps, because with the chaplain
+the matter was no longer a question of ambition, but of love. "You
+have no news?" he said.
+
+"None. And Nadin," with bitterness, "seems to be at the end of his
+resources."
+
+"Then, Captain Clyne," Sutton replied impulsively, "there is but one
+way! There is but one thing to be done. It is not I, but you, who must
+bring Miss Damer back. She may still speak, but not for me!"
+
+"And certainly not for me!" Clyne answered, his face flushing at the
+recollection of his violence.
+
+"For you rather than for any one!"
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"Yes," the chaplain rejoined firmly. "I do not know how I know it," he
+continued with dignity, "but I know it. For one thing, I am not blind.
+Miss Damer has never given me a word or a look of encouragement. If
+she thanks me," he spoke with something like a tear in his eye, "it
+will be much--the kind of thanks you, Captain Clyne, give the servant
+that lacquers your boots, or the dog that fetches your stick. But
+you--with you it will be different."
+
+"She has no reason to thank me," Clyne declared.
+
+"Yet she will."
+
+"No."
+
+"She will!" Sutton answered fervently--he was determined to carry out
+his impulsive act of unselfishness. "And, thank you or not thank you,
+she may speak. She will speak, when released, if ever! She is one who
+will do nothing under compulsion, nothing under durance. But she will
+do much--for love."
+
+Clyne looked with astonishment at the chaplain. He, like Mrs. Gilson,
+was appraising him afresh, was finding something new in him, something
+unexpected. "How do you know?" he asked, his cheeks reddening.
+
+There were for certain tears in Mr. Sutton's eyes now.
+
+"I don't know how I know," he said, "but I do. I know! Go and fetch
+her; and I think, I think she will speak."
+
+Clyne thought otherwise, and had good reason to think otherwise; a
+reason which he was ashamed to tell his chaplain. But in the face of
+his own view he was impressed by Sutton's belief. The suggestion was
+at least a straw to which he could cling. Failing other means--and the
+ardour of his assistants in the search was beginning to flag--why
+should he not try this? Why should he not, threats failing, throw
+himself at the girl's feet, abase himself, humble himself, try at
+least if he could not win by prayer and humility what she had refused
+to force.
+
+It was a plan little to the man's taste; grievous to his pride. But
+for his son's sake, for the innocent boy's sake, he was willing to
+do even this. Moreover, with all his coldness, he had sufficient
+nobility to feel that he owed the girl the fullest amends in his
+power. He had laid hands on her. He had treated her--no matter what
+the provocation--cruelly, improperly, in a manner degrading to her and
+disgraceful to himself. His face flushed as he recalled the scene and
+his violence. Now it was hers to triumph, hers to blame: nor his to
+withhold the opportunity.
+
+"I will go," he said, after a brief perturbed silence. "I am obliged
+to you for your advice. You think that there is a chance she will
+speak?"
+
+"I do," Sutton answered manfully. "I do." And he said more to the same
+purpose.
+
+But later, when the hot fit ebbed, he wondered at himself. What had
+come over him? Why had he, who had so little while his patron had so
+much, given up his ewe lamb, his one chance? Reason answered, because
+he had no chance and it was wise to make a virtue of necessity. But he
+knew that, a day or two before, he would have snapped his fingers at
+reason, he would have clung to his forlorn hope, he would have made
+for his own advantage by the nearest road. What then had changed him?
+What had caused him to set the girl's happiness before his own, and
+whispered to him that there was only one way by which, smirched and
+discredited as she was, she whom he loved could reach her happiness?
+He did not answer the question, perhaps he did not know the answer.
+But wandering in the darkness by the lake-side, with the first
+snowflakes falling on his shoulders, he cried again and again, "God
+bless her! God bless her!" with tears running down his pale,
+insignificant face.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXV
+
+                          PRISON EXPERIENCES
+
+
+When Henrietta rose on the second morning of her imprisonment, and
+opened her door and looked out, she met with an unpleasant surprise.
+Snow had fallen in the night, and lay almost an inch deep in the yard.
+The sheet of dazzling white cast the dingy spiked wall and the mean
+cell-doors into grey relief. But it was not this contrast, nor the
+memory of childish winters with their pleasures--though that memory
+took her by the throat and promised to choke her--that filled her with
+immediate dismay. It was the difficulty of performing the prison
+duties, of going beyond her door, and refilling her water-pitcher at
+the pump. To cross the yard in sandaled shoes--such as she and the
+girls of that day wore--was to spoil her shoes and wet her feet. Yet
+she could not live without water; the more as she had an instinctive
+fear of losing, under the pressure of hardship, those refinements in
+which she had been bred. At length she was about to venture out at no
+matter what cost, when the door of the yard opened, and the jailor's
+wife came stumbling through the snow on a pair of pattens. She carried
+a second pair in her hand, and she seemed to be in anything but a
+pleasant humour.
+
+"Here's a mess!" she said, throwing down the pattens and looking about
+her with disgust. "By rights, you should set to work to clear this
+away, before it's running all of a thaw into your room. But I dare say
+it will wait till midday--it don't get much sun here--and my good man
+will come and do it. Anyways, there are some pattens, so that you can
+get about--there's as good as you have gone on pattens before now! Ay,
+and mopped the floor in them! And by-and-by my girl will bring you
+some fire 'gainst you're ready for your breakfast."
+
+"I'm ready whenever the breakfast is ready," Henrietta answered, as
+cheerfully as she could. She was shivering with cold.
+
+"Ah, well, ah, well, my lass!" the woman answered snappishly, "there's
+worse troubles in the world than waiting for your breakfast. For the
+Lord's sake, don't you get complaining."
+
+"I wasn't complaining, indeed!" Henrietta said.
+
+"Think of the doing we've had this night!"
+
+"I heard," the girl answered. And an involuntary shudder escaped her.
+"It was dreadful! dreadful!"
+
+"You'd ha' thought so," ungraciously, "if you had had to deal with the
+lad yourself! Never was such a Jack o' Bedlam! I wonder all our heads
+aren't broke."
+
+"Is he often like that?" Henrietta asked.
+
+For she had lain awake many hours of the night, trembling and trying
+to close her ears against the ravings of a madman; who was confined in
+the next yard, and who had suffered an access of mania during the
+night. The prisons of that day served also for madhouses.
+
+"No, but once in the month or so," the jailor's wife answered. "And
+often enough, drat him! Doctor says he'll go off in one of these
+Bedlam fits, and the sooner the better, I say! But I'm wasting my time
+and catching my death, gossipping with you! Anyway, don't you
+complain, young woman," severely. "There's worse off than you!" And
+she clattered abruptly away, and Henrietta was left to patten her road
+to the pump and back, and afterwards to finish her toilette in what
+shivering comfort she might.
+
+For a prisoner, she might not have much of which to complain. But
+though that was not the day of bedroom fires, or rubber water-bottles,
+and luxury stopped at the warming-pan, or the heated brick, there are
+degrees of misery, and this degree was new to her.
+
+However, the woman was better than her word, for in a short time her
+child appeared, painfully bearing at arm's length a shovelful of live
+embers. And the fire put a new face on things. Breakfast sent in from
+outside followed, and was drawn out to the utmost for the sake of the
+employment which it afforded. For time hung heavy on the girl's hands.
+She had long exhausted the _Kendal Chronicle_; and a volume of
+"Sermons for Persons under Sentence of Death"--the property of the
+gaol--she had steadfastly refused. Other reading there was none, and
+she was rather gratified than troubled when she espied a thin trickle
+of water stealing under the door. The snow in the yard was melting;
+and it was soon made plain to her that if she did not wish to be
+flooded she must act for herself.
+
+The task was not very congenial to a girl gently bred, and who had all
+her life associated such work with Doll and a mop. But on her first
+entrance into the gaol she had resolved to do, as the lesser of two
+evils, whatever she should be told to do. And the thing might have
+been worse, for there was no one to see her at work. She kilted up her
+skirt and donned the pattens, put on her hood, and taking a broom from
+the corner of the yard began to sweep vigorously, first removing the
+snow from the flags before her door, and then, as the space she had
+cleared grew wider, gathering the snow into a heap at the lower end of
+the yard.
+
+She was soon warm and in the full enjoyment of action. But in no long
+time, as was natural, she tired, and paused to rest and look about
+her, supporting herself by the broom-handle. A robin alighted on a
+spike on the top of the wall, and flirting its tail, eyed her in a
+friendly way, with its head on one side. Then it flew away--it could
+fly away! And at the thought,
+
+"What," she wondered, "would come of it all? What would be the end for
+her? And had they found the boy?"
+
+Already it seemed to her that she had lain a week, a month in the
+gaol. The people outside must have forgotten her. Would she be
+forgotten? Would they leave her there?
+
+But she would not give way to such thoughts, and she set to work again
+with new energy. Swish! swish! Her hands were growing sore, but she
+had nearly finished the task. She looked complacently at the wide
+space she had cleared, and stooped to pin up one side of her gown
+which had slipped down. Then, swish! swish! with renewed vigour,
+unconscious that the noise of her sweeping drowned the grating of the
+key in the lock. So that she was not aware until a voice struck her
+ear, that she was no longer alone.
+
+Then she wheeled about so sharply that, unused to pattens, she
+stumbled and all but fell. The accident added to her vexation. Her
+face turned red as a beet. For inside the door of the yard,
+contemplating her with a smile at once familiar and unpleasant, stood
+Mr. Hornyold.
+
+"Dear, dear," he said, as she glowered at him resentfully, ashamed at
+once of her short skirts and the task that compelled them. "They
+shouldn't have put you to this! Though I'm sure a prettier sight you'd
+go far to see! But your hands are infinitely too white and soft, my
+dear--much too white and pretty to be spoiled by broom-handles! I must
+speak to Mother Weighton about it."
+
+"Perhaps if you would kindly go out a moment," she said with spirit,
+"it were better. I could then put myself in order."
+
+"Not for the world!" Mr. Hornyold retorted, with something between a
+leer and a wink. "You're very well as you are!" with a look at her
+ankles. "There's nothing to be ashamed of, I'm sure, but the contrary.
+I'm told that Lady Jersey at Almack's shows more, and with a hundred
+to see! So you need not mind. And you could not look nicer if you'd
+done it on purpose."
+
+With a jerk she disengaged her shoes from the pattens, dropped the
+broom, and made for the door of her room, with such dignity as her
+kilted skirt left her. But before she reached it:
+
+"Steady, my lady," said Mr. Hornyold in a tone no longer wheedling,
+but harsh and peremptory, "you're forgetting! You are in gaol, and
+you'll be pleased to stop when you're told, and do as you're told!
+Don't you be in such a hurry, my dear. I am here to learn if you have
+any complaints."
+
+"Only of your presence!" she cried, her face burning. "If you have
+come here only to insult me, I have heard enough."
+
+And having gained her cell in spite of him, she tried to slam the door
+in his face.
+
+But he had had time to approach, and he set the handle of his whip
+between door and jamb, and stopped her.
+
+"I'm not come for that, I tell you, you pretty spitfire," he said;
+"I've come to hear if you have any complaints of your treatment here."
+
+"I have not!" she cried.
+
+"Come, come," he rejoined, checking her with a grin, "you must not
+answer the Visiting Justice in that tone. Say, 'I have none, sir, I
+thank you kindly,'--that's the proper form, my dear. You'll know
+better another time. Or"--smiling more broadly as he read the angry
+refusal in her eyes--"we shall have to put you to beat hemp. And that
+were a pity. Those pretty hands would soon lose their softness, and
+those dainty wrists that are not much bigger than my thumbs would be
+sadly spoiled. But we won't do that," indulgently. "We are never hard
+on pretty girls as long as they behave themselves."
+
+She looked round wildly, but there was no escape. She could retreat no
+farther. The man filled the doorway; the room lay open to his insolent
+eyes, and he did not spare to look.
+
+"Neat as a pin!" he said complacently. "Just as it should be. A place
+for everything, and everything in its place. I've nothing but praise
+for it. I never thought that it would ever be my lot to commend Miss
+Damer for the neatness of her chamber! But--good Lord!" with surprise,
+"what's the matter with your wrist, my girl?"
+
+"Nothing," she said, the angry scarlet of her cheek turning a shade
+deeper.
+
+"Nothing? Oh, but there is!" he returned peremptorily.
+
+"Nothing!" she repeated fiercely. "Nothing! It's nothing that
+matters!"
+
+Oh, how she hated the man! How she loathed his red, insolent grin!
+Would he never leave her? Was she to be exposed, day by day, and hour
+by hour, to this horror?
+
+He eyed her shrewdly.
+
+"You haven't been turning stubborn?" he said, "have you? And they've
+had to handle you already? And bring you to your senses? And so they
+have set you to brooming? But Bishop," with a frown, "gave me no
+notion of that. He said you came like a lamb."
+
+"It's not that!" she cried. "It's nothing." It was not only that she
+was ashamed of the mark on her arm, and shrank from showing it. But
+his leering, insolent face terrified her. Though he was not tipsy, he
+had spent the small hours at a club; and the old port still hummed in
+his brain. "It's not that," she repeated firmly, and more quietly,
+hoping to get rid of him.
+
+"Here," he answered, "let me look at it."
+
+"No!"
+
+"Pooh, nonsense!" he replied, pressing his advantage, and entering the
+cell. "Nonsense, girl, let me look at it." He stepped nearer, and
+peremptorily held out his hand. He could touch her. She could feel his
+hot breath on her cheek. "There's no room here for airs and tempers,"
+he continued. "How, if I don't see it, am I to know that they have not
+been ill-treating you? Show me your wrist, girl."
+
+But she recoiled from him into the farthest corner, holding her arms
+behind her. Her face was a picture of passionate defiance.
+
+"Don't touch me!" she cried. "Don't come near me!"
+
+"You've no right to touch me. They have not hurt my wrist. I tell you
+it is nothing. And if you lay a finger on me I will scream!"
+
+"Then," he said coolly, "they'll put you in a strait waistcoat, my
+lass, like the madman next door. That's all! You're mighty particular,
+but you forget where you are."
+
+"You forget that I am a gentlewoman!" she cried. She could not retreat
+farther, but she looked at him as if she could have killed him. "Stand
+back, sir, I say!" she continued fiercely. "If you do not----"
+
+"What will you do?" he asked. He enjoyed the situation, but he was not
+sure how far it would be prudent to push it. If he could contrive to
+surprise her wrist it would be odd if he could not snatch a kiss; and
+it was his experience--in his parish--that once fairly kissed, young
+women came off the high horse, and proved amenable. "What'll you do,"
+he continued facetiously, "you silly little prude?"
+
+"Do?" she panted.
+
+"Ay, Miss Dainty Damer, what'll you do?" with a feigned movement as if
+to seize her. "You're not on the highway now, you know! Nor free on
+bail! Nor is there a parson here!"
+
+There he stopped--a faint, faint sound had fallen on his ear. He
+looked behind him, and stepped back as if a string drew him. And his
+face changed marvellously. In the doorway stood, hat in hand, the last
+person in the world he wished to see there--Captain Clyne.
+
+Clyne did not utter a syllable, but he beckoned to the other to come
+out to him. And, with a chap-fallen look and a brick-red face,
+Hornyold complied, and went out. Clyne closed the door on the
+girl--that she might not hear. And the two men alone in the yard
+confronted one another, Clyne's face was dark.
+
+"I overheard your last words, Mr. Hornyold," he said in a voice low
+but stern. "And you are mistaken. There is a parson here--who has
+forgotten that he is a gentleman. It is well for him, very well, that
+having forgotten that fact he remains a parson."
+
+Hornyold tried to bluster, tried to face the other down and save the
+situation. "I don't understand you!" he said. "What does this mean?"
+He was the taller man and the bigger, but Clyne's air of contemptuous
+mastery made him appear the smaller. "I don't understand you," he
+repeated. "The young lady--I merely came to visit her."
+
+"The less," Clyne retorted, cutting him short, "said about her the
+better! I understand perfectly, sir," with severity, "if you do not!
+Perfectly. And I desire you to understand that it is your cloth only
+that protects you from the punishment you deserve!"
+
+"That's easy said!" Hornyold answered with a poor attempt at defiance.
+"Easy! What! Are we to have all this fuss about a chit that----"
+
+"Silence, sir!" And Clyne's voice rang so loud that the other not only
+obeyed but stepped back, as if he feared a blow. "Silence, sir! I know
+you well enough, and your past, to know that you cannot afford a
+scandal. And you know me! I advise you, therefore, when you have
+passed that door"--he pointed to the door leading to the prison lodge,
+"to keep a still tongue, and to treat this lady's name with respect.
+If not for the sake of your own character, for the sake, at any rate,
+of your ill-earned stipends."
+
+"Fine words!" Hornyold muttered, with a sneer of bravado.
+
+"I will make them good," Clyne answered. And the look and the tone
+were such that the other, high as he wished to carry it, thought
+discretion the better part. He turned, still sneering, on his heel,
+and cutting the air with his whip made his way with what dignity he
+might to the door. He hesitated an instant and then disappeared,
+raging inwardly.
+
+The moment he was gone Clyne's face relaxed. He passed his hand over
+his brow as if to recall his thoughts, and he sighed deeply. Then
+turning he went slowly to Henrietta's door and tapped on it. The girl
+opened. "May I speak to you?" he said.
+
+She did not answer, but she stepped out. She had recovered her
+self-control--quickly and completely, as women do; and her face told
+nothing. Whatever she thought of his intervention and of the manner in
+which he had routed Hornyold, she made no sign. She waited for him to
+speak. Yet she was aware not only of his downcast carriage, but of the
+change which sleepless nights and days of unutterable suspense had
+wrought in his face. His features were thinner and sharper, his
+temples more hollow: and there was a listening, hungry look in his
+eyes which did not quit them even when he dealt with other things than
+his loss.
+
+"I have brought an order for your release," he said without an attempt
+at preface. "I have given bail for your appearance when needed. You
+are free to go. You have not to thank me, however, but Mr. Sutton, who
+discovered the letter that was written to you----"
+
+She interrupted him by an exclamation.
+
+"The letter," he continued mechanically, "that was written to you
+making an appointment."
+
+"Impossible!" she cried. "I destroyed it."
+
+"He put it together again," he answered in the same tone. "I--we are
+all indebted to him. Deeply indebted to him! I don't know that there
+is anything more to be said," he continued dully, "except that I have
+come to take you back. I was coming last evening, but the snow
+prevented me."
+
+"And that is all--you have to say?"
+
+He raised his eyes to hers with so much sadness in their depths, with
+such utter dejection in his looks, that in spite of all her efforts to
+keep it alive, her anger drooped. "Except that I am sorry," he said.
+"I am sorry. We have treated you--badly amongst us."
+
+"You!" she said vindictively.
+
+"I, if you like. Yes, I. It is true."
+
+She called up the remembrance of the severity with which he had judged
+her and the violence of which her wrist still wore the traces. She
+pictured the disgrace of the prison and her fears, the nights of
+apprehension and the days of loneliness, ay, and the insolence of the
+wretch who had just left her--she owed all to him! All! And yet she
+could not keep her anger hot. She tried. She tried to show him
+something of what she felt. "You!" she repeated. "And now you think,"
+bitterly, "that I shall bear to go back to the place from which you
+sent me? Sent me in open disgrace--in that man's charge--with no woman
+with me?"
+
+"God help me!" he said. "I know not what to think or do! I thought
+that if I took you back myself, that would perhaps be best for all."
+
+She was silent a moment, and then, "I have been very, very unhappy,"
+she said in a different tone. And even while she said it she wondered
+why she complained to him, instead of accusing him, and blaming him.
+
+"I believe it," he said slowly. "We have wronged one another. Let it
+stand at that."
+
+"You believe, you do believe now," she said, "that I had no hand in
+stealing him?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And knew naught of it," she insisted earnestly, "before or after?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"I would have cut off my hand first!" she said.
+
+"I believe it," he answered sorrowfully.
+
+Then they were both silent. And she wondered at herself. Why did she
+not hate him? Why did she not pour out on him the vials of her
+indignation? He had treated her badly, always badly. The wrong which
+she had done him in the first place, he had avenged by a gross insult
+to her womanhood. Then not satisfied with that, he had been quick to
+believe the worst of her. He had been violent to her, he had bullied
+her: and when he found that she was not to be wrung to compliance with
+his orders, he had degraded her to a public prison as if she had been
+the worst of her sex--instead of his kith and kin. Even now when his
+eyes were open to his injustice, even now when he acknowledged that he
+owed amends, he came to her with a few poor words, meagre, scanty
+words, a miserable "I am sorry, you are free." And that was all. That
+was all!
+
+And yet her rage drooped cold, her spirit seemed dead. The scathing
+reproaches, the fierce truths which had bubbled to her lips as she lay
+feverish on her prison-bed, the hot tears which had scalded her eyes,
+now that she might give them vent, now that he might be wounded by
+them and made to see his miserableness--were not! She stood mute and
+pale, wondering at the change, wondering at her mildness. And when he
+said meekly, "The chaise is ready, will you make your preparations?"
+she went to do his bidding as if she had done nothing but obey him all
+her life.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI
+
+                           A RECONCILIATION
+
+
+When she had filled her band-box, and with a tearful laugh looked her
+last on the cell, she emerged from the yard. She found Captain Clyne
+awaiting her with his hand on the key of the prison gate. He saw her
+look doubtfully at the closed lodge-door; and he misread the look.
+
+"I thought," he said, "that you would wish to be spared seeing more of
+them. I have," with a faint smile, "authority to open."
+
+"Oh!" she answered, wrinkling her pretty brow in perplexity. "But I
+must see them, please. They have not been unkind to me, and I should
+not like to go without thanking them."
+
+And before he could remonstrate, she had pushed open the lodge door
+and gone within.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Weighton," he heard her cry, "you'll give me a character,
+won't you? I've behaved well now, haven't I?"
+
+"Yes, miss, I'll say that," the woman answered stolidly.
+
+"I haven't scratched nor screamed, and I've done as I've been bid? And
+you've had no use for the pump water?"
+
+"I wish you hadn't swept out the yard," grudgingly; "'twas no order of
+mine, you'll remember. And don't you go and say that I've treated you
+ill!"
+
+"I'll not! Indeed, I'll not!" Henrietta cried in a different tone.
+"I'll say you treated me very well. And that is for your little girl
+to make up for her disappointment. She'll be sorry I'm not going to be
+transported," with a hint of laughter in her voice. "And, Mrs.
+Weighton, I'm going to ask you something."
+
+"Well, miss? If it is to oblige you?"
+
+"Then, will you," in a tone touched by feeling, "if you have some day
+another like me, will you be as good to her? And remember that she may
+not have done anything wrong after all? Will you promise me?"
+
+"I will, miss," Mrs. Weighton answered--very graciously for her. "But
+there, it isn't all has your sense! They takes and runs their heads
+against a brick wall! Either they scratches and screams, or they sulks
+and starves. And then we've to manage them, and we get the blame. I
+see you looked white and shivering when you come in, and I thought
+we'd have trouble with you. But there, you kept yourself in hand, and
+showed your sense--it's breeding does it--and you've naught to
+complain of in consequence. Wishing you well and kindly, miss!"
+
+"I _shall_ come to you for a character!" Henrietta replied with a
+laugh.
+
+And she came out quickly and joined Captain Clyne, who, waiting with
+his hand on the lock, had heard all. He saw that though she laughed
+there was a tear in her eye; and the mingling of gaiety and
+sensibility in her conduct and her words was not lost upon him. She
+seemed to be bent on putting him in the wrong; on proving to him that
+she was not the silly-pated child he had deemed her! Even the praise
+of this jailor's wife, a coarse, cross-grained woman, sounded
+reproachfully in his ears. She was a better judge, it seemed, than he.
+
+He put Henrietta into the chaise--the brisk, cold air of the winter
+morning was welcome to her; and they set off. Gnawed as he was by
+unhappy thoughts, wretchedly anxious as he was, he was silent for a
+time. He knew what he wanted, but he was ashamed to clutch at that
+advantage for the sake of which Sutton had resigned to him the
+mission. And for a long time he sat mute and brooding in his corner,
+the bright reflection of the snow adding pallor to his face. Yet he
+had eyes for her: he watched her without knowing it. And at the third
+milestone from Kendal, a little beyond Barnside, he saw her shiver.
+
+"I am afraid you are cold?" he said, and wondering at the role he
+played, he drew the wraps closer about her--with care, however, that
+his fingers should not touch her.
+
+"No," she answered frankly. "I am not cold. But I remember passing
+that mile-stone. I was almost sick with fright when I passed it. So
+that it was all I could do not to try to get out and escape."
+
+This was a revelation to him; and not a pleasant one. He winced.
+
+"I am sorry," he said. "I am very sorry."
+
+"Oh, I felt better when I was once in the prison," she answered
+lightly. "And with Mrs. Weighton. Before that I was afraid that there
+might be only men."
+
+He suffered, in the hearing, something of the humiliation which she
+had undergone; was she not of his blood and his class--and a woman?
+But he could only say again that he was sorry. He was sorry.
+
+A little later he forgot her in his own trouble: in thoughts of his
+child, thoughts which tortured him unceasingly, and became more active
+as his return to the Low Wood suggested the possibility of news. At
+one moment he saw the lad stretched on a pallet, ill and neglected,
+with no eye to pity, no hand to soothe; at another he pictured him in
+some dark hiding-place with fear for his sole companion. Or again he
+saw him beaten and ill-treated, shrieking for the father who had been
+always to him as heaven, omniscient and omnipotent--but shrieking in
+vain. And then the thought that to one so weak and young a little
+added hardship, another day of fear, an insignificant delay, might
+prove fatal--it was this thought that wrung the heart most powerfully,
+and went far towards maddening the man.
+
+As he sat watching the snow-covered fell slide by the chaise window,
+he was unconscious how clearly his misery was stamped on his features;
+or how pitiful was the hunger that lurked in the hollows under his
+eyes. But when the pace slackened, and the carriage began to crawl up
+the long hill beyond Broadgate, a faint sound caught his ear, and he
+remembered where he was, and turned. He saw that she was crying.
+
+The same words came to his lips.
+
+"I am sorry. I am very sorry," he said. "But it is over now."
+
+"It's not that," she sobbed. "I am sorry for you! And for him! The
+poor boy! The poor boy! Last night--no, it was the night before---I
+thought that he called to me. I thought that he was there in the room
+with me!"
+
+"Don't!" he faltered. "I cannot bear it! Don't!"
+
+But she did not heed.
+
+"Yes," she repeated. "And ever since, ever since I've been thinking of
+him! I've wondered, I've wondered if I did right!"
+
+He was silent, striving to regain control of himself. But at last,
+
+"Eight in saying nothing?" he asked.
+
+His voice shook a little, and he kept his eyes averted.
+
+"Yes. I didn't know"--a little wildly--"I didn't know what to do. And
+then you threatened me, and I--it seemed unreasonable. For I wanted to
+help you, I did, I did indeed. But I dared not, I dared not give him
+up! I could not have his blood on my hands after--you know."
+
+"But you no longer--care for him?"
+
+"I loathe him!" she answered with a shudder. "But you see how it is.
+He trusted me, and I--how can I betray him? How can I? How can I?"
+
+It was his business to prove to her that she could, that she ought,
+that she must; he was here to press her to it, to persuade her, to
+cajole her to it, if necessary. He had come for that. But the words it
+behoved him to use stuck in his throat. And the chaise rolled on, and
+rolled on. And still, but with the sweat standing on his brow, he sat
+silent, looking out on the barren landscape, as the stone fences slid
+quickly by, or open moorland took their place. In ten minutes they
+would be at the Low Wood. Already through her window she could see the
+long stretch of sparkling water, and the wooded isles, and the distant
+smoke of Ambleside.
+
+Their silence was a tragedy. She could save him by a word, and she
+could not say the word. She dared not say it. And he--the pleas he
+should have used died on his lips. It behoved him to cast himself on
+her mercy; he was here for that purpose. It behoved him to work on her
+feelings, to plead with her, to weep, to pray. And he did not, he
+could not. And the minutes passed; the wheels rolled and rolled. Soon
+they would be at the end of their journey. He was like a famishing man
+who sees a meal within reach, but cannot touch it; or like one
+oppressed by a terrible nightmare, who knows that he has but to say a
+word, and he is freed from the incubus--yet his tongue refuses its
+office. And now the carriage, having climbed the rise, began to roll
+more quickly down the hill. In a very few minutes they would be at the
+end of their journey.
+
+Suddenly--"What can we do?" she cried, piteously. "What can we do? Can
+we do nothing? Nothing?"
+
+And neither of the two thought the union of interests strange; any
+more than in their absorption they noted the strangeness of this drive
+in company--over some of the very road which she had traversed when
+she eloped with another to avoid a marriage with him.
+
+He shook his head in dumb misery. Three days of suspense, and as many
+sleepless nights, the wear and tear of many journeys, had told upon
+him. He had had but little rest, and that induced by sheer exhaustion.
+He had taken his meals standing, he had passed many hours of each day
+in the saddle. He could no longer command the full resources of his
+mind, and though he still held despair at arm's length, though he
+still by force of habit commanded himself, and was stern and reticent,
+despondency gained ground upon him. It was she who almost at the last
+moment suggested a plan that if not obvious, was simple, and to the
+purpose.
+
+"Listen," she said. "Listen, sir! Why should not I do this? Go myself
+to--to him, to Walterson?"
+
+"You?" he answered, with undisguised repugnance.
+
+"Yes, I! I! Why not?" she asked. "And learn if he has the child, or
+knows where it is. Then if he be innocent of this last wickedness, as
+I believe him to be innocent, we shall learn the fact without harming
+him; always supposing that I go to him, undetected. And I can do
+that--with your help! That must be your care."
+
+He pondered.
+
+"But if," he said slowly, "you do this and he have the child? What
+then? Have you thought of the consequences to yourself? If he be privy
+to a crime which none but desperate men could commit, what of you? He
+will be capable of harming you. Or if he scruple, there will be
+others, the men who took my child, who will stick at nothing to keep
+their necks out of the noose, and to remove a witness who else might
+hang them."
+
+"I am not afraid," she said firmly.
+
+"God bless you!" he said. "God bless you! But I am."
+
+"What?" she cried, and she turned to him, honestly astonished. "You?
+You dissuade me when it is your child that is in peril?"
+
+"Be silent!" he said harshly. "Be silent! For your own sake, if not
+for mine! Why do you tempt me? Why do you torture me? Do you think,
+Henrietta, that I have not enough to tempt me without your help? No,
+no," more quietly, "I have done you wrong already! I know not how I
+can make amends. But at least I will not add to the wrong."
+
+"I only ask you to leave me to myself," she said hardily. "The rest I
+will do, if I am not watched."
+
+"The rest!" he said with a groan. "But what a rest it is! Why should
+these men spare you if you go to them? They did not spare my boy!"
+
+"They took the boy," she answered, "to punish you. They will not have
+the same motive for harming me. I mean--they will not harm me with the
+idea of hurting you."
+
+"Ay, but----"
+
+"They will know that it will not affect you."
+
+He did not deny the statement, but for some time he drummed on the
+window with his fingers.
+
+"That may be," he said at length. "Yet I'll not do it! And I'll not
+let you do it. Instead, do you tell me where the man is and I will go
+to him myself. And I will tell no tales."
+
+"You will keep his secret?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"But I will not do that!" she answered. And she laughed gaily in the
+reaction of her spirits. She knew in some subtle way that she was
+reinstated; that he would never think very badly of her again. And the
+knowledge that he trusted her was joy; she scarcely knew why. But, "I
+shall not do that!" she repeated. "Have you thought what will be the
+consequence to you if he be guilty? They will be three to one, and
+they will murder you."
+
+"And you think that I can let you run the risk?"
+
+"There will be no risk for me. I am different."
+
+"I can't believe it," he said. "I wish"--despairingly--"I wish to God
+I could believe it!"
+
+"Then do believe it," she said.
+
+"I cannot! I cannot!"
+
+"You have his letter," she replied. And she was going to say more, she
+was going to prove that she could undertake the matter with safety,
+when the chaise began to slacken speed, and she cut her reasoning
+short. "You will let me do it?" she said, laying her hand on his
+sleeve.
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"You have only to draw them off."
+
+"I shall not!" he cried, almost savagely. "I shall not! Do you think I
+am a villain? Do you think I care nothing what happens----"
+
+The jerk caused by the chaise coming to a stand before the inn cut his
+words short. Clyne thrust out his head.
+
+"Any news?" he asked eagerly. "Has anything been heard?"
+
+Mr. Sutton, who had been on the watch for their arrival, came forward
+to the chaise door. He answered Clyne, but his eyes, looking beyond
+his patron, sought Henrietta's in modest deprecation; much as the dog
+which is not assured of its reception seeks, yet deprecates its
+master's glance.
+
+"No," he said, "none. I am sorry for it. Nadin has not yet returned,
+nor Bishop, though we are expecting both."
+
+"Where's Bishop?"
+
+"He has gone with a party to Lady Holm. There's an idea that the isles
+were not thoroughly searched in the first place. But he should be back
+immediately."
+
+A slight hardening of the lines of the mouth was Clyne's only answer.
+He helped Henrietta to alight, and was turning with her to enter the
+house, when he remembered himself. He laid his hand on the chaplain's
+arm.
+
+"This is the gentleman," he said, "whom you have to thank for your
+release, Henrietta."
+
+"I am sure," she said, "that I am greatly obliged to him." But her
+tone was cold.
+
+"He did everything," Clyne said. "He left no stone unturned. Let me do
+him the justice of saying that we two must share the blame of what has
+happened, while the whole credit is his."
+
+"I am very much obliged to him," she said again. And she bowed.
+
+And that was all. That, and a look which told him that she resented
+his interference, that she hated to be beholden to him, that she held
+him linked for ever with her humiliation. He, and he alone, had stood
+by her two days before, when all had been against her, and Captain
+Clyne had been as flint to her. He, and he alone, had wrought out her
+deliverance and reinstated her. And her thanks were a haughty movement
+of the head, two sentences as cold as the wintry day, a smile as hard
+as the icicles that still depended in the shade of the eaves. And when
+she had spoken, she walked to the door without another glance--and
+every step was on the poor man's heart.
+
+Mrs. Gilson had come down two steps to meet her. She had seen all.
+
+"Well, you're soon back, miss?" she said. "Some have the luck all one
+way."
+
+"That cannot be said of me!" Henrietta retorted, smiling.
+
+But her colour was high. She remembered how she had descended those
+steps.
+
+"No?" Mrs. Gilson responded. "When you bring the bad on yourself and
+the good is just a gift?"
+
+"A gift?"
+
+"Ay! And one for which you're not over grateful!" with all her wonted
+grimness. "But that's the way of the world! Grind as you will, miss,
+it's the lower mill-stone suffers, and the upper that cries out!
+Still----"
+
+Mr. Sutton heard no more; for Henrietta had passed with the landlady
+into the house; and he turned himself about with a full heart and
+walked away. He had done so much for her! He had risked his
+livelihood, his patron, his position, to save her! He had paced this
+strand with every fibre in him tingling with pity for her! Ay, and
+when all others had put her out of their thoughts! And for return, she
+went laughing into the house and paid no heed to him--to the poor
+parson.
+
+True, he had expected little. But he had expected more than this. He
+had not hoped for much; or it is possible that he had not resigned the
+opportunity of bringing her back. But he had hoped for more than
+this--for the tearful thanks of a pair of bright eyes, for the clasp
+of a grateful hand, for a word or two that might remain in his memory
+always.
+
+And bitterness welled up in his heart, and at the first gate, at which
+he could stand unseen, he let his face fall on his hands. He cursed
+the barriers of caste, the cold pride of these aristocrats, even his
+own pallid insignificance--since he had as hungry a heart as panted in
+the breast of the handsomest dandy. He could not hate her; she was
+young and thoughtless, and in spite of himself his heart made excuses
+for her. But he hated the world, and the system, and the miserable
+conventions that shackled him; ay, hated them as bitterly for the time
+as the dark-faced gipsy girl whose eyes he found upon him, when at
+last a step caused him to look up.
+
+She grinned at him slyly, and he gave back the look with resentment.
+He had met her once or twice in the lanes and about the inn, and
+marked her for a rustic beauty of a savage type. Now he waited
+frowning for her to pass. But she only smiled more insolently, and
+lifting her voice, sang:
+
+
+             "But still she replied, sir,
+                I pray let me be!
+              If ever I love a man,
+                The master for me!"
+
+
+A dull flush overspread his face. "Go your way!" he said.
+
+"Ay, I'll go!" Bess replied. "And so will she!"
+
+
+              In pin, out trout!
+              Three's a meal and one's nought!
+
+
+"One's nought! One's nought!" she continued to carol.
+
+And laughing ironically, she went up the road--not without looking
+back once or twice to enjoy a surprise which was only exceeded by the
+chaplain's wrath. What did the girl know? And what was it to her? A
+common gipsy drab such as she, how did she come to guess these things?
+And where the joint lay at which to aim the keen shafts of her wit?
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVII
+
+                        BISHOP CAUGHT NAPPING
+
+
+"I will not do it! I will not do it!" Those had been Clyne's last
+words on the subject; uttered and repeated with a heat which proved
+that, in coming to this decision, he fought against his own heart as
+much as against her arguments. "I will not do it! But do you," with
+something of his former violence, "tell me where he is! Tell me at
+once, and I will go and question him."
+
+"And I," she had answered with spirit, "will not tell you."
+
+At that he had looked at her with the old sternness, but her eyes had
+no longer fallen before his. And then he had been called away to
+follow one of the hasty clues, the wild-goose scents which were
+reported from hour to hour--by pedlars coming in from the dales, or by
+hazy parish constables who took every stranger for a rogue. Twice he
+had turned in his saddle, twice reined in his horse, before he passed
+out of sight; and she had known that he wrestled with himself, that he
+was near, very near, to giving way, and sacrificing her upon the altar
+of his child. But he had gone on, and not returned. And though it had
+grieved her to see how drawn and haggard was his face, how near to
+failing the wiry strength of his frame, she had rejoiced on her own
+account. He might say what he liked, forbid as he chose, it would go
+hard with her if she could not find the opportunity she needed, if
+she, who had suffered all along and in the esteem of all, did not make
+use of the means of clearing herself that remained to her.
+
+Courage at least should not be wanting; and she would be cunning, too.
+Already she dreamed of a happy return with the child; and her cheeks
+grew warm and her eyes soft as she conjured up the scene, and imagined
+herself leading the boy to his father and receiving his thanks. Then
+he would confess--more fully than he had yet confessed--how he had
+wronged her, how far from her thoughts had been harm to the boy. And
+she--ah, but she must first do her part. She must first do that which
+she had to do.
+
+So she went craftily about her task, counting up those whom she had to
+fear and ticking them off. Before Clyne had left the house a mile
+behind him she had learned where Nadin was, and a second officer whom
+she suspected of watching her movements. They were abroad and she had
+naught to fear from them. There remained Mr. Sutton and Bishop. For
+the former, "Horrid man!" she thought in her ingratitude, "I suppose
+he will look to be thanked every time I see him!" And she was
+confirmed in this, when she marked him down. He was walking to and fro
+before the door.
+
+"I must go out at the back!" she concluded.
+
+But there still remained the bluff but civil Bishop. She had little
+doubt that he was the Cerberus left to guard her. And no doubt at all
+when she learned from Modest Ann that he was taking his early dinner
+in the coffee-room with the door wide open.
+
+"Waiting to see if I go out," she said.
+
+"Well, miss," Ann answered, "I shouldn't wonder if he was!"
+
+Henrietta looked at her very kindly.
+
+"Don't you think," she asked slowly, "that you could somehow get rid
+of him, Ann?"
+
+The woman looked as much troubled as one of her hard features could
+look.
+
+"No, miss, I don't think I could," she said.
+
+"You are afraid?" gently.
+
+"I'm not afraid of him," with some asperity. "Bless the man, no! I'm
+not afraid of no man nowhere! But I am afraid of the missus?"
+
+"Ah! And you don't think that you could tell him that I wish to see
+him upstairs? And then when he comes up and finds the room empty--that
+I shall be down from my bedroom in five minutes?"
+
+"It wouldn't be true."
+
+"No," softly. "Perhaps not."
+
+Modest Ann looked dreadfully perplexed.
+
+"You'll get me into trouble, miss," she said. "I know you will."
+
+"Then I'll get you out again," the fair tempter retorted. "I will
+indeed, Ann."
+
+"But if you get into trouble yourself, miss? What then?"
+
+Henrietta turned with the air of a martyr to the window and looked
+out.
+
+"I thought you liked me a little," she murmured presently, and dried a
+tear that was not there. "I thought you would do a small thing for
+me."
+
+The woman took her hand and kissed it softly.
+
+"I will, miss, drat me if I don't!" she said. "I'll do what you wish,
+come what may of it! So there."
+
+Henrietta turned to her, her face in a glow. "You dear, kind thing!"
+she cried, "I'll never forget it. You are the only one who is not
+against me."
+
+Ann shook her head.
+
+"I hope I'll not be the one to repent it!" she muttered, with a last
+spark of doubt.
+
+"Indeed, indeed you won't! But now"--naively--"shall I lock him in or
+not?"
+
+"In the room?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Here, miss? Why, miss, he'd rouse the house!"
+
+"Not if we tied up the bell-pull first!" she suggested.
+
+But Modest Ann was aghast at the thought. "Lord, miss, he'd only have
+to open the window and shout! And there's the parson walking up and
+down the road, and the fat'd be in the fire in two twos!"
+
+"So it would," Henrietta admitted reluctantly. "I see. So you must
+just entice him here, and say I'll be down from my bedroom in three
+minutes. And I hope he'll be patient. As for you, you'll know no more
+than that I asked you to fetch him, and said I should be with him at
+once."
+
+"Well, they can't touch me for that," Modest Ann said; and she agreed,
+but with hesitation. "I don't think he'll be so simple," she said.
+"That's a fact. He'll not come up."
+
+But he did. He walked straight into the trap, and Henrietta, who was
+waiting in ambush in the dark passage while he passed, sped
+downstairs, and would have escaped by the back door without meeting a
+soul, if Mrs. Gilson had not by bad luck been crossing the yard. The
+landlady caught sight of the girl, and raising her voice cried to her
+to stop. For an instant Henrietta hesitated. Then she thought it
+prudent to comply. She returned slowly.
+
+"Come, come, miss, this won't do!" the landlady said tartly. "You're
+not going off like that all of a hurry! You bide a bit and consider
+who's bail for you."
+
+"Not you!" Henrietta retorted mutinously. And as this was true, for
+the Gilsons' bail had been discharged, the first hit was hers.
+
+"Oh, so you're saucy now, miss!" the landlady retorted. "Brag's the
+dog, is it?"
+
+"No, but----"
+
+"It's so, it seems! Any way, you'll please to tell me, young lady,
+where you are going in such a hurry."
+
+But Henrietta was at bay. She knew that if she were delayed even two
+minutes her chance was gone; for Bishop would be on her heels. So,
+"That's my business!" she answered. And determined to escape, even by
+force, she turned about, light as a roe, tossed her head defiantly,
+and was off through the gate in a twinkling.
+
+Mrs. Gilson was left gaping. She was not of a figure to take up the
+chase, for like many good housewives of her time, she seldom left her
+own premises except to go to church. But she was none the less certain
+that Henrietta ought to be followed. "There's a fine trollop!" she
+cried. "It won't be long before she runs her head into harm! Where's
+that blockhead, Bishop?" And she bundled away to the coffee-room to
+tell him that the girl was gone.
+
+She arrived scant of breath--and he was not there. The coffee-room was
+empty, and the landlady, knowing that he had stayed in the house on
+purpose to keep an eye on Henrietta's movements, swept out again,
+fuming. In the passage she caught sight of Modest Ann and called her.
+"Where's that man, Bishop?" she asked.
+
+Ann stared as if she had never heard the name.
+
+"Bishop?" she repeated stolidly.
+
+"What else did I say?"
+
+"He's with the young lady."
+
+"He's nothing of the kind!" Mrs. Gilson retorted, her temper rising.
+
+"Well, he went to her," Ann returned. "He went----"
+
+But Mrs. Gilson did not stay to hear. She had caught sight of Mr.
+Sutton walking past the open door, and aware that a second now was
+worth a minute by and by, she hurried out to him. "Your reverence!
+Here!" she cried. And when he turned surprised by the address, "The
+young lady's gone!" she continued. "Slipped out at the back, and
+she'll be God knows where in two minutes! Do you follow, sir, and keep
+her in sight or there's no knowing what may happen!" And she pointed
+through the house to indicate the nearest way.
+
+Mr. Sutton's face turned a dull red. But he did not move, nor make any
+show of acting on the suggestion. Instead, "Miss Damer has gone out?"
+he said slowly.
+
+"To be sure!" the landlady cried, in a fume at the delay. "And if she
+is not followed at once----"
+
+"Where's the officer?" he asked, interrupting her.
+
+"Heaven knows, or I should not come to you!" Mrs. Gilson retorted. "Do
+you go after her before she's beyond catching!"
+
+But Mr. Sutton shook his head with an obstinate look. "No," he said.
+"It's not my business, ma'am. I'd like to oblige you after your
+kindness yesterday, but I've made up my mind not to interfere with the
+young lady. I followed her once," he continued, in a lower tone and
+with a conscious air--"and I've repented it!"
+
+"You'll repent it a deal more if you don't follow her now!" the
+landlady retorted. She was in a towering passion by this time. "You'll
+repent it finely if anything happens to her. That you will, my man!
+Don't you know that Captain Clyne left word that she wasn't to be let
+go out alone? Then go, man, after her, before it is too late. And
+don't be a sawny!"
+
+"I shall not," he answered firmly.
+
+She saw then that he was not to be moved; and with a half-smothered
+word, not of the politest, she turned short about to find Bishop;
+though she was well aware that so much time had been wasted that the
+thing was now desperate. Again she asked Ann, who had been listening
+to the colloquy, where Bishop was.
+
+"He went up to the young lady," Ann answered.
+
+"He did not, I tell you. For she is not up but out!"
+
+"Perhaps he has followed her."
+
+"Perhaps you're a liar!" Mrs. Gilson cried. And advancing on Ann with
+a threatening gesture, "If you don't tell me where he is, I'll shake
+you, woman! Do you hear?"
+
+Ann hesitated; when who should appear at the foot of the stairs but
+Bishop himself, looking foolish.
+
+"Where's the young lady?" he asked. "Where's your wits?" Mrs. Gilson
+retorted. "She's out by the back-door this five minutes. If you want
+to catch her you'd best be quick!" And as with a face of consternation
+he hurried through the house, "She didn't turn Ambleside way!" she
+called after him. "That's all I know!"
+
+This was something, but it left, as Bishop knew, two roads open. For,
+besides the field-path which led up the hill and through the wood, and
+so over the shoulder to Troutbeck, a farm lane turned short to the
+right behind the out-buildings, and ran into the lower road towards
+Calgarth and Bowness. Which had the girl taken? Bishop paused in
+doubt, and gazed either way. She was not to be seen on the slope
+leading up to the wood; but then, she was not to be seen on the other
+path. Still, he espied something there which gave him hope. On the
+hillside the snow had melted, but here and there on the north side of
+a wall, or in a sheltered spot, it lay; and a little way along the
+farm-road was such a patch extending across its width. Bishop hastened
+to the place, and a glance told him that the girl had not gone that
+way. With rising hopes he set off up the hill.
+
+He was stout and short-winded, more at home in Cornhill than on real
+hills, and he did not expect to gain upon her. But he felt sure that
+he should find her track: and its direction where the fells were so
+sparsely peopled must tell him much. He remembered that it was at the
+upper end of the wood that he had surprised her on the occasion when
+her agitation had led him to question her. He resolved to make as
+quickly as possible for that point.
+
+True enough, where the path entered the wood he came upon her
+footsteps imprinted in the snow; and he pushed on, through the covert
+to the upper end. Here, just within the wicket which opened on the
+road, lay some drifted snow; and as much to recover his breath, as
+because he thought it needful, he stopped to note the direction of her
+footprints. Alas, the snow bore no trace of feet! No one, it was
+clear, had passed through the gate that day.
+
+This was a check, and he turned his back on the road, and mopped his
+forehead with a handkerchief which he took from his hat. He gazed,
+nonplussed, into the recesses of the wood through which he had passed.
+The undergrowth, which was of oak--with here and there a clump of
+hollies--still carried a screen of brown leaves, doomed to fall with
+the spring, but sufficient in the present to mask a fugitive.
+Moreover, in the damp bottom, where the bridge spanned the rivulet, a
+company might have lain hidden; and above him, where the wood climbed
+the shoulder, there were knolls and dells, and unprobed depths of
+yellow bracken, that defied the eye. Between him and this background
+the brown trunks stood at intervals, shot with the gold of the
+declining sun, or backed by a cold patch of snow: and the scene had
+been beautiful, in its russet livery of autumn blended with winter, if
+he had had eyes for it, or for aught but the lurking figure he hoped
+to detect.
+
+That figure, however, he could not see. And again he stooped, and
+inspected the snow beside the gate. No, she had not passed, that was
+certain; and baffled, and in a most unhappy mood, he raised himself
+and listened. Above him a squirrel, scared by his approach, was
+angrily clawing a branch; a robin, drawn by the presence of a man,
+alighted near him, and hopped nearer. But no rustle of flying skirts,
+no sound of snapping twigs or falling stones came to him. And, a city
+man by training, and much at a loss here, he mopped his brow and
+swore. Every second was precious, and he was losing minutes. He was
+losing minutes, and learning nothing!
+
+Was she hiding in the wood pending his departure? Or had she doubled
+back the way she had come, and so escaped, laughing and contemptuous?
+Or had she passed out by some gate unknown to him? Or climbed the
+fence? Or was she even now meeting her man in some hiding-place among
+the hollies, or in some fern-clad retreat out of sight and hearing?
+
+Bishop could not tell. He was wholly at a loss. For a few seconds he
+entertained the wild notion of beating, the wood for her; but he had
+not taken a dozen steps before he set it aside, and went back to the
+gate. Henrietta on the occasion when her bearing had confirmed his
+suspicions had descended the road to the wood. He would go up the
+road. And even as he thought of this, and laid his hand on the gate to
+open it, he heard a footstep coming heavily down the road.
+
+He went to meet the man; a tall, grinning rustic, who bore a sheep on
+his shoulders with its fore and hind feet in either hand, so that it
+looked like a gigantic ruff. At a sign from the officer he stopped,
+but did not lower his burden.
+
+"Meet anybody as you came down the road, my lad?" Bishop asked.
+
+"Noa," the man drawled.
+
+"Where have you come from? Troutbeck?"
+
+"Ay."
+
+"You haven't met a young lady?"
+
+"Noa! Met no soul, master!" the man answered, in the accent not only
+of Westmoreland, but of truth.
+
+"Not even a pretty girl?"
+
+The man grinned more widely.
+
+"Noa, not nobody," he said.
+
+And he went on down the road, but twice looked back, turning sheep and
+all, to see what the stranger would be at.
+
+Bishop stood for a few moments pondering the question, and then he
+followed the man.
+
+"If she is not up the road," he argued, "it is ten to one that she
+started up the hill to throw us off the scent. And she's slipped down
+herself towards Calgarth. It's that way, too, she went to meet him at
+night."
+
+And gradually quickening his steps as the case seemed clearer and his
+hopes grew stronger he was soon out of sight.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+                           THE GOLDEN SHIP
+
+
+Two minutes after Bishop had passed from sight, Henrietta rose from a
+dip in the fern; in which she had lain all the time, as snugly hidden,
+though within eyeshot of him, as a hare in its form. She cast a wary
+glance round. Then she hastened to the gate, but did not pass through
+it. She knew too much. She chose a weak place in the fence, scaled it
+with care, and sprang lightly into the road. She glanced up and down,
+but no one was in sight, and pleased with her cleverness, she set off
+at a quick pace up the hill.
+
+The sun lacked an hour of setting. She might count on two hours of
+daylight, and her spirits rose. As the emerald green of the lower
+hills shone the brighter for the patches of snow, harbingers of
+winter, which flecked them, so her spirits rose the higher for
+troubles overpast or to come. She felt no fear, no despondency, none
+of the tremours with which she had entered on her night adventure. A
+gaiety of which she did not ask herself the cause, a heart as light as
+her feet and as blithe as the black-bird's note, carried her on. She
+who had awakened that morning in a prison could have sung and caroled
+as she walked. The beauty of the hills about her, of the lake below
+her, blue here, there black, filled her with happiness.
+
+And the cause? She did not seek for the cause. Certainly she did not
+find it. It was enough for the moment that she had been prisoned and
+was free; and that in an hour, or two hours at most, she would return
+with the child or with news. And then, the sweet vengeance of laying
+it in its father's arms! She whom he had insulted, whom he had
+mishandled, whom he had treated so remorselessly--it would be from her
+hand that he would receive his treasure, the child whom he had told
+her that she hated. He would have some cause then to talk of making
+amends! And need to go about and about before he found a way to be
+quits with her!
+
+She did not analyse beyond that point the feeling of gaiety and joyous
+anticipation which possessed her. She would put him in the wrong. She
+would heap coals of fire on his head. That sufficed. If there welled
+up within her heart another thought, if since morning she had a
+feeling and a hope that thrilled her and lent to all the world this
+smiling guise, she was conscious of the effect, unconscious of the
+cause. The wrist which Clyne had twisted was still black and blue and
+tender to the touch. She blushed lest any eye fall on it, or any guess
+how he had treated her. But--she blushed also, when she was alone, and
+her own eyes dwelt on it. And dwell on it sometimes they would; for,
+strange to say, the feeling of shame, if it was shame, was not
+unpleasant.
+
+She met no one. She reached the gate of Starvecrow Farm, unseen as she
+believed. But heedful of the old saying, that fields have eyes and
+woods have ears, she looked carefully round her before she laid her
+hand on the gate. Then, in a twinkling, she was round the house like a
+lapwing and tapping at the door.
+
+To her first summons she got no answer. And effacing herself as much
+as possible, she cast a wary eye over the place. The garden was as
+ragged and desolate, the house as bald and forbidding, the firs about
+it as gloomy, as when she had last seen them. But the view over
+sloping field and green meadow, wooded knoll and shining lake, made up
+for all. And her only feeling as she tapped again and more loudly was
+one of impatience. Even the memory of the squalid old man whom she had
+once seen there did not avail to alarm her in her buoyant mood.
+
+This was well, perhaps. For when she knocked a third time, in alarm
+lest the person she sought should be gone, and her golden ship with
+him, it was that very old man who opened the door. And, not
+unnaturally, it seemed to Henrietta that with its opening a shadow
+fell across the landscape and blurred the sunshine of the day. The
+ape-like creature who gaped at her, the cavern-like room behind him,
+the breath of the close air that came from him, inspired disgust, if
+not alarm, and checked the girl in the full current of content.
+
+He did not speak. But he moved his toothless gums unpleasantly, and
+danced up and down in an odd fashion from his knees, without moving
+his feet. Meanwhile his reddened eyes thrust near to hers gleamed with
+suspicion. On her side Henrietta was taken aback by his appearance,
+and for some moments she stared at him in consternation. What could
+she expect from such a creature?
+
+At length, "I wish to see Walterson," she said; in a low tone--there
+might be listeners in the house. "Do you understand? Do you
+understand?" she repeated more loudly.
+
+He set his head, which was bald in patches, on one side; as if to
+indicate that he was deaf. And with his eyes on hers, he dropped his
+lower jaw and waited for her to repeat what she had said.
+
+She saw nothing else for it, and she crushed down her repugnance.
+
+"Let me come in," she said. "Do you hear? I want to talk to you. Let
+me come in."
+
+To remain where she was, talking secrets to a deaf man, was to invite
+discovery.
+
+He understood her this time, and grudgingly he opened the door a
+little wider. He stood aside and Henrietta entered. In the act she
+cast a backward look over her shoulder, and caught through the doorway
+a last prospect of the hills and the mid-lake and the green islets off
+Bowness--set like jewels on its gleaming breast--all clear-cut in the
+brisk winter air. She felt the beauty of the scene, but she did not
+guess what things were to happen to her before she looked again upon
+its fellow.
+
+Not that when the door was shut upon her, the room in which she found
+herself did not something appal her. The fire had been allowed to sink
+low, and the squalor and the chill, vapid air of the place wrapped her
+about. But she was naturally fearless, and she cheered herself with
+the thought that she was stronger than the grinning old man who stood
+before her. She was sure that if he resorted to violence she could
+master him. Still, she was in haste. She was anxious to do what she
+had to do, and escape.
+
+And: "I must see Walterson!" she told him loudly, looking down on him,
+and instinctively keeping her skirts clear of the unswept floor. "He
+was here, I know, some days ago," she continued sharply. "Don't say
+you don't understand, because you do! But fetch him, or tell me where
+he is. Do you hear?"
+
+The old man moved his jaw to and fro. He grinned senilely.
+
+"He was here, eh?" he drawled.
+
+"Yes, he was here," Henrietta returned, taking a tone of authority
+with him. "And I must see him."
+
+"Ay?"
+
+"It is to do no harm to him," she explained. "Tell him Miss Damer is
+here. Miss Damer, do you hear? He will see me, I am sure."
+
+"Ay?" he said again in the same half-vacant tone. "Ay?"
+
+But he did not go beyond that; nor did he make any movement to comply.
+And she was beginning to think him wholly imbecile when his eyes left
+hers and fixed themselves on the front of her riding-coat. Then, after
+a moment's silence, during which she patted the floor with her foot in
+fierce impatience, he raised his claw-like hand and stretched it
+slowly towards her throat.
+
+She stepped back, but as much in anger as in fear. Was the man
+imbecile, or very wicked?
+
+"What do you want?" she asked sharply. "Don't you understand what I
+have said to you?"
+
+For the moment he seemed to be disconcerted by her movement. He stood
+in the same place, slowly blinking his weak eyes at her. Then he
+turned and moved in a slip-shod fashion to the hearth and threw on two
+or three morsels of touch-wood, causing the fire to leap up and shoot
+a flickering light into the darker corners of the room. The gleam
+discovered his dingy bed and dingier curtains, and the shadowy
+entrance to the staircase in which Henrietta had once seen Walterson.
+And it showed Henrietta herself, and awakened a spark in her angry
+eyes.
+
+The old man, still stooping, looked round at her, his chin on his
+shoulder. And slowly, with an odd crab-like movement, he edged his way
+back to her. She watched his approach with a growing fear of the
+gloomy house and the silence and the dark staircase. She began to
+think he was imbecile, or worse, and that nothing could be got from
+him. And she was in two minds about retreating--so powerfully do
+silence and mystery tell on the nerves--when he paused in his advance,
+and, raising his lean, twitching hand, pointed to her neck.
+
+"Give it me," he whimpered. "Give it me--and I'll see, maybe, where he
+is."
+
+She frowned.
+
+"What?" she asked. "What do you want?"
+
+"The gold!" he croaked. "The gold! At your neck, lass! That sparkles!
+Give it me!" opening and shutting his lean fingers. "And I'll--I'll
+see what I can do."
+
+She carried her fingers to the neck of her gown and touched the tiny
+gold medal struck to celebrate the birth of the Princess Charlotte,
+which she wore as a clasp at her throat. And relieved to find that he
+meant no worse, she smiled. The scarecrow before her was less of an
+"innocent" than she had judged him. It was so much the better for her
+purpose.
+
+"I cannot give you this," she said. "But I'll give you its value, if
+you will bring me to Walterson."
+
+"No, no, give it me," he whimpered, grimacing at her and making feeble
+clutches in the air. "Give it me!"
+
+"I cannot, I say," she repeated. "It was my mother's, and I cannot
+part with it. But if," she continued patiently, "you will do what I
+ask I will give you its value, old man, another day."
+
+"Give now!" he retorted. "Give now!" And leering with childish
+cunning, "Trust the day and greet the morrow! Groats in pouch ne'er
+yet brought sorrow! Na, na, Hinkson, old Hinkson trusts nobody. Give
+it me now, lass! And I--I know what I know." And in a cracked and
+quavering voice, swaying himself to the measure,
+
+
+             "It is an old saying
+                That few words are best,
+              And he that says little
+                Shall live most at rest.
+              And I by my gossips
+                Do find it right so,
+              Therefore I'll spare speech,
+                But--I know what I know.
+
+
+I know what I know!" he repeated, blinking with doting astuteness,
+
+
+             "Therefore I'll spare speech,
+              But--I know what I know!"
+
+
+Henrietta stared. She would have given him the money, any money in her
+power. But imprudently prudent, she had brought none with her.
+
+"I can't give it you now," she said. "But I will give it you to-morrow
+if you will do what I ask. Otherwise I shall go and you will get
+nothing."
+
+He did not reply, but he began to mumble with his jaws and dance
+himself up and down from his knees, as at her first entrance; with his
+monstrous head on one side and his red-lidded eyes peering at her. In
+the open, in the sunshine, she would not have feared him; she would
+have thought him only grotesque in his anger. But shut up in this
+hideous den with him, in this atmosphere of dimly perceived danger,
+she felt her flesh creep. What if he struck her treacherously, or took
+her by surprise? She had read of houses where the floors sank under
+doomed strangers, or the testers of beds came down on them in their
+sleep. He was capable, she was sure, of anything; even of murdering
+her for the sake of the two or three guineas' worth of gold which she
+wore at her neck. Yet she held her ground.
+
+"Do you hear?" she said with spirit. "If you do not tell me, I shall
+go. And you will get nothing!"
+
+He nodded cunningly.
+
+"Bide a bit!" he said in a different tone. "Sit ye down, lass, sit ye
+down! Bide a bit, and I'll see."
+
+He slippered his way across the floor to get a stool for her. But when
+he had lifted the stool from the floor in his shaking hands, she
+marked with a quick leap of the heart that he had put himself between
+her and the door, and that, with the possession of the stool, his
+looks were altered. The heavy block wavered in his grasp and he seemed
+to pant and stagger under its weight. But there was an ugly light in
+his eyes as he sidled nearer and nearer to her; a light that meant
+murder. She was sure that he was going to leap upon her. And she
+remembered that no one, no one knew where she was, no one had seen her
+enter the house. She had only her own strength to look to, only her
+own courage and coolness, if she would escape this creature.
+
+"Put down that stool!" she said.
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"Put down that stool!" she repeated, firmly. And she kept her eyes on
+him, resisting the fatal temptation to glance at door or window. "Do
+you hear me? Put down that stool!"
+
+He hesitated, but her glance never wavered. And slowly and unwillingly
+he obeyed. Shaking as with the palsy, and with his mouth fallen
+open--so that he looked more imbecile and less human than ever--he
+relinquished the stool.
+
+She drew a deep breath.
+
+"Now," she said bravely, though she was conscious that the
+perspiration had broken out on her brow, "tell me at once where he
+is?"
+
+But the old miser, though his will had yielded to hers, did not
+answer. He seemed to be shaken by his defeat, and to be at once feeble
+and furious. Glaring askance at her, he tottered to the settle on the
+hearth and sat down on it, breathing heavily.
+
+"Curse her! Curse her! Curse her!" he gibbered low, but audibly. And
+he licked his lips and gnashed his toothless gums at her in impotent
+rage. "Curse her! Curse her!" The firelight, now rising, now falling,
+showed him sitting there, mopping and mowing, like some unclean
+Eastern idol; or, again, masked his revolting ugliness.
+
+The girl thought him horrible, thought it all horrible. She felt for
+an instant as if she were going to faint. But she had gained the
+victory, she had mastered him, and she would make one last attempt to
+attain her object.
+
+"You wicked old man," she said, "you would have hurt me! You wicked
+monster! But I am stronger, much stronger than you, and I do not fear
+you. Now I am going unless you tell me at once."
+
+He ceased to gibber to her. He beckoned to her to approach him. But
+she shook her head. He no longer had the stool, but he might have some
+weapon hidden under the seat of the settle. She distrusted him.
+
+"No," she said, "I am not coming near you. You are a villainous old
+man, and I don't trust you."
+
+"Have you no--no money?" he whimpered. "Nothing to give old Hinkson?
+Poor old Hinkson?" with a feeble movement of his fingers on his knees,
+as if he drew bed-clothes about him.
+
+"Where is Walterson?" she repeated. "Tell me at once."
+
+"How do I know?" he whined. "I don't know."
+
+"He was here. You do know. Tell me."
+
+He averted his eyes and held out a palsied hand.
+
+"Give!" he answered. "Give!"
+
+But she was relentless.
+
+"Tell me," she rejoined, "or I go, and you get nothing." She was in
+earnest now, for she began to despair of drawing anything from him,
+and she saw nothing for it but to go and return another time. "Do you
+hear?" she continued. "If you do not speak for me, I--I shall go to
+those who will know how to make you speak."
+
+It was an idle threat; and one which she had no intention of
+executing. But the rage into which it flung him--no rage is so fierce
+as that which is mingled with fear--fairly appalled her. "Eh? Eh?" he
+cried, his voice rising to an inarticulate scream. "Eh? You will, will
+you?" And he rose to his feet and clawed the air as if, were she
+within reach, he would have torn her to pieces. "You devil, you witch,
+you besom! Go!" he cried. "I'll sort you! I'll sort you! I'll fetch
+one as shall--as shall dumb you!"
+
+There was something so demoniacal in the old dotard's passion, in its
+very futility, in its very violence, that the girl shrank like
+Frankenstein before the monster she had aroused. She turned to save
+herself, for, weak as he was, he seemed to be about to fling himself
+upon her; and she had no stomach for the contact. But as she
+turned--with a backward glance at him, and an arm stretched toward the
+door to make sure of the latch--a shadow cast by a figure passing
+before the lattice flitted across the floor between them, and a hand
+rested on the latch.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIX
+
+                            THE DARK MAID
+
+
+The substance followed the shadow so quickly that Henrietta had not
+time to consider her position before the latch rose. The door opened,
+and a girl entered hurriedly. The surprise was common to both, for the
+newcomer had closed the door behind her before she discerned
+Henrietta, and then her action was eloquent. She turned the key in the
+lock, and stood frowning, with her back to the door, and one shoulder
+advanced as if to defend herself. The other hand remained on the
+fastening.
+
+"You here?" she muttered.
+
+"Yes," Henrietta replied, returning her look, and speaking with
+a touch of pride. For the feeling of dislike was instinctive; if
+Bess's insolent smile had not stamped itself on her memory--on that
+first morning at the Low Wood, which seemed so very, very long
+ago--Henrietta had still known that she was in the presence of an
+enemy. "Are you--his daughter?" she continued.
+
+"Yes," Bess answered. She did not move from the door, and she
+maintained her attitude, as if the surprise that had arrested her
+still kept her hand on the key. "Yes," she repeated, "I am. You
+don't"--with a glance from one to the other--"like him, I see!"
+
+"That is no matter," Henrietta answered with dignity. "I am not here
+for him, nor to see him; I wish to see----"
+
+"Your lover?"
+
+Henrietta winced, and her face turned scarlet. And now there was no
+question of the hostility between them. Bess's dark, smiling face was
+insolence itself.
+
+"What? Wasn't he that?" the gipsy girl continued. "If he was
+not"--with a coarse look--"what do you want with him?"
+
+Silenced for the moment by the other's taunt, Henrietta now found her
+voice.
+
+"I wish to see him," she said. "That is enough for you."
+
+"Oh, is it?" Bess replied. She had taken her hand from the key and
+moved a pace or two into the room, so as to confront her rival at
+close quarters. "That's my affair! I fancy you will have to tell me a
+good deal more before you do see him."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Oh, why?" mimicking her rudely. "Why? Because----"
+
+"What are you to him?"
+
+"What you were!" Bess answered.
+
+Henrietta's face flamed anew. But the insult no longer found her
+unprepared. She saw that she was in the presence of a woman dangerous
+and reckless; and one who considered her a rival. On the hearth
+crouched and gibbered that fearful old man. The door was locked--the
+action had not been lost on her; and no living being, no one outside
+that door, knew that she was here.
+
+"You are insolent!" was all she answered.
+
+"But it is true!" Bess said. "Or, if it is not true----"
+
+"It is not true!" with a glance of scorn. She knew even in her
+innocence that this girl had been more to him.
+
+"Then why do you ask for him?" with derision. "What do you want with
+him? What right have you to ask for him?"
+
+"I wish to see him," Henrietta answered. She would not, if she could
+avoid it, let her fears appear. After all, it was daylight, and she
+was strong and young; a match, she thought, for the other if the old
+man had not been there. "I wish to see him, that is all, and that is
+enough," she repeated, firmly.
+
+Bess did not answer at once. Indeed, at this point there came over her
+a change, as if either the other's courage impressed her, or cooler
+thoughts suggested a different course of action. Her eyes still
+brooded malevolently on the other's face, as if she would gladly have
+spoiled her beauty, and her sharp, white teeth gleamed. But to
+Henrietta's last words she did not answer. She seemed to be wavering,
+to be uncertain. And at last,
+
+"Do you mean him fair?" she asked. "That is the question."
+
+"I mean no harm to him."
+
+"Upon your honour?"
+
+"Upon my honour."
+
+"I'd tear you limb from limb if you did!" Bess cried in the old tone
+of violence. And the look which accompanied the words matched them.
+But the next moment, "If I could believe you," she said more quietly,
+"it would be well and good. But----"
+
+"You may believe me. Why should I do him harm?"
+
+Bess bit her nails in doubt; and for the first time since her entrance
+she turned her eyes from her rival. Perhaps for this reason
+Henrietta's courage rose. She told herself that she had been foolish
+to feel fear a few minutes before: that she had allowed herself to be
+scared by a few rude words, such as women of this class used on the
+least provocation. And the temptation to drop the matter if she could
+escape uninjured gave way to a brave determination to do all that was
+possible. She resolved to be firm, yet prudent; and to persevere. And
+when the dialogue was resumed the tone on each side was more moderate.
+
+"Well," Bess said, with a grudging air, "perhaps you may not wish to
+do him harm. I don't know, my lass. But you may do it, all the same."
+
+"How?"
+
+"If you think he is here you are mistaken."
+
+Henrietta had already come to this conclusion.
+
+"Still," she said, "I can go to him."
+
+"I don't see how you are to go to him."
+
+"I will go anywhere."
+
+"Ay," with contempt. "And so will a many more at your heels."
+
+"No one saw me come here," Henrietta said.
+
+"No. But it will be odd if no one sees you leave here. I met Bishop as
+I came, and another with him, hot-foot after you, both, and raising
+the country as fast as they could."
+
+Henrietta frowned. She gazed through the window. Then she looked again
+at Bess.
+
+"Is he far from here?" she asked.
+
+"That's telling, and I'm not going to tell. Far or near, I don't see
+how you are to go to him, unless----" She broke off, paused a moment,
+and then, as if she put away a thought that had occurred to her, "No,"
+she said with decision, "I see no way. There is no way."
+
+To Henrietta, the girl, the situation, the surroundings, and not least
+her own role, were odious. Merely to negotiate with such an one as
+this was a humiliation; but to endure her open scorn, to feel her
+cheeks burn under the fire of her taunts, was hateful. Yet failure in
+the enterprise from which she had let herself expect so much was still
+worse--still worse; and the prospect of it overcame her pride. She
+could not accept the defeat of all her hopes and expectations. She
+could not.
+
+"You said 'unless,'" she retorted.
+
+Bess laughed.
+
+"Ay, but it's an 'unless,'" she answered contemptuously, "that you are
+not the one to fill up."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"What I say," Bess answered impudently. And vaulting sideways on the
+table, she sat swinging her feet, and eyeing the other with a
+triumphant smile.
+
+"Unless what?"
+
+"Unless you like to stay here until it is dark,--ay, dark, my pretty
+peacock; and that won't be for an hour or more. Then you may go to him
+safely. Not before! But you fine ladies," with a look that took in
+Henrietta, from her high-piled hair and flushed face to the hem of her
+skirt, "are afraid of your shadows, I'm told."
+
+"I am not afraid of my shadow," Henrietta answered.
+
+"You're afraid of the dark, or why didn't you come when he asked you?
+And when you could have helped him? Why did you not come then and say
+what you chose to him?"
+
+"I did come," Henrietta answered coldly. "It was he who failed to meet
+me."
+
+"That's a nice flim-flam!" Bess rejoined, with incredulity. "You're
+not one to venture yourself out after moonrise, I'll be bound. And so
+I told him! But any way," sliding to her feet, and speaking with
+decision, "he's not here, and you can't see him! And to tell the
+truth, I'd as lief have your room as your company, that being so."
+
+She turned to the door as if to open it. But Henrietta did not move.
+She was deep in thought. The sneering words, the dark handsome face,
+filled her with distrust; and with something like loathing of herself
+when she reflected that the man she sought had been this girl's lover.
+But they also aroused her spirit. They spurred her to the step which
+the other dared her to take. Was she to show herself as a timid thing,
+as poor a creature as this gipsy girl deemed her? She had come hither
+with her heart set upon a prize; was she to relinquish that prize
+because its pursuit demanded an ordinary amount of courage--such
+courage as this village girl possessed and made naught of?
+
+And yet--and yet she hesitated. She was not afraid of the girl; she
+was not afraid--she told herself--of the man who had once professed to
+be her lover: but there might be others, and it would be dark. If the
+boy were there, there would be others. And she was not sure that she
+was--not afraid. For the old man by the fireside, with his squalid
+clothes and his horrible greediness, made her flesh creep. She
+hesitated, until Bess, with a sneer, bade her to go if she was going.
+
+"I'd as soon see your back," she continued, "and ha' done with it. I
+know your sort! All fine feathers and as much spunk as a mouse!"
+
+Henrietta made up her mind. She sat down on the nearest stool.
+
+"I shall remain," she said, "and go with you to see him."
+
+"Not you! So what's the use of talking?"
+
+"I shall go," Henrietta replied firmly. "It will be dark in an hour. I
+will remain and go with you."
+
+Bess shrugged her shoulders and answered nothing. But had Henrietta
+caught sight of her smile, she had certainly changed her mind.
+
+Even without that, and unwarned, the girl found, as they sat there in
+silence, and the minutes passed and the light faded, much ground for
+hesitation. The words which Clyne had used when he forbade her to risk
+herself, the terms in which he had described the desperate plight of
+the men whom she must beard, the fears that had assailed her when she
+had gone after dark to meet a peril less serious--all these things
+recurred to her memory, and scared her. By pressing her lips together
+she maintained a show of unconcern; but only because the dusk hid her
+loss of colour. She repented--gravely; but she had not the courage to
+draw back. She shrank from meeting--as she must meet, if she rose to
+go--the other's smile of triumph; she shrank from the sense of
+humiliation under which she would smart after she had escaped. She had
+cast the die and must dare. She must see the enterprise through. And
+she sat on. But she was sure that she could hardly suffer anything
+worse than she suffered during those minutes, while her fate still lay
+in her hands, while the power to withdraw was still hers, and
+indecision plucked at her. The man who fights with his back to the
+wall suffers less than when, before he drew his blade, imagination
+dealt him a score of deaths.
+
+The old man continued to grumble over the fire; and seldom, but
+sometimes, he laid his chin on his shoulder and looked back at her.
+Bess, on the contrary, gazed at her as the cat at the mouse; but with
+her back to the light and her own face in shadow, so that whatever
+thoughts or passions clouded her dark eyes, they passed unseen.
+Presently, as the light failed, Bess's head became no more than a dark
+knob breaking the lower line of dusty panes; while through the upper a
+patch of pale green sky, promising frost, held Henrietta's eyes and
+raised a still but solemn voice amid the tumult of her thoughts. That
+morsel of sky was the only clean, pure thing within sight, and it
+faded quickly, and became first grey and then a blur of darkness. By
+that time the room, with its close, fetid odours and its hints at
+gruesome secrets, had sunk into the blackness of night.
+
+The fire gave out a dull glow, but it went no farther than the hearth.
+Yet presently it was the cause of an illusion, if illusion it was,
+which gave Henrietta a shock. Turning her eyes from the window--it
+seemed to her that longer waiting would break her down--she saw the
+outline of the old miser's figure, but erect and much closer to her
+than before--and, unless she was mistaken, with hands outstretched as
+if to clutch her neck. She uttered a low cry, and rose, and stepped
+back. On the instant he vanished. But whether he sank down, or
+retreated, or had never stirred, she could not be sure; while her cry
+found an echo in Bess's mischievous laughter.
+
+"Ha! ha! You're not quite so bold!" Bess cried, with enjoyment, "as
+you were an hour ago, I reckon!"
+
+The jeer gave a fillip to Henrietta's pride.
+
+"I am ready," she said, though her voice shook a little.
+
+"And you'll go?"
+
+"Yes," coldly; "I shall go."
+
+"Did you think he was going to twist your pretty neck?" Bess rejoined.
+"Was that it? But come," in a more sober tone, "we'll go. Good-night,
+old man!" And moving to the door with the ease of one who knew every
+foot of the room, she unlocked it. A breath of fresh, cold air,
+blowing on her cheek, informed Henrietta that the door was open. She
+groped her way to it.
+
+"Do you wait here," Bess whispered, "while I see if the coast is
+clear. You'll hear an owl hoot; then come."
+
+But Henrietta was not going to be left with that old man. She crept
+outside the door and, holding it behind her, waited. The night was
+dark as well as cold, for the moon would not rise for some hours; and
+Henrietta wondered, as she drew her hood about her neck, how they were
+to go anywhere. Presently the owl hooted low, and she released the
+door, and groped her way round the house and between the fir trunks to
+the gate. A hand, rough but small, clutched her wrist and turned her
+about; a voice whispered, "Come!" and the two, Bess acting as guide,
+set off in silence along the road in the direction of Troutbeck.
+
+"How far is it?" Henrietta muttered, when they had gone a distance,
+that in the night seemed a good half mile.
+
+"That's telling," Bess answered. "'Tain't far. Turn here! Right!
+right!" pushing her. "Now wait while I----"
+
+"What are you doing?"
+
+Bess did not explain that she was opening a gate. Instead, she
+impelled the other forward and squeezed her arm to impress on her the
+need of silence. Henrietta felt that the ground over which they were
+passing was at once softer and more uneven, and she guessed that they
+had left the road. A moment later the air met her cheek more coldly,
+and the gloom seemed less opaque. She conjectured that she stood on
+the brow of a hill--or a precipice--and involuntarily she recoiled.
+But Bess dragged her on, down a slope so steep that, although the girl
+trod with caution, she was scarcely able to keep her feet.
+
+Feeling her still hang hack, the gipsy girl plucked at her.
+
+"Hurry!" she whispered. "Hurry, can't you? We are nearly there."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Why, there!"
+
+But the cold and the darkness and the other's hostile tone had shaken
+Henrietta's nerves. She jerked herself free.
+
+"Where?" she repeated firmly. "Where are we going? I shall not go
+farther unless you tell me."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"I shall not."
+
+"Let be! Let be!"
+
+"Tell me this minute!"
+
+"To Tyson the doctor's, if you must know," Bess replied grudgingly.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+She knew now. She stood half way down the smooth side of the hollow in
+which Tyson's farm nestled. She remembered the large kitchen, with the
+shining oaken table and the woman with the pale plump face who had
+crouched on the settle and gone in fear of nights. And though the
+place still stood a trifle uncanny in her memory, and the
+uncomfortable impression which the woman's complaints had made on her,
+had not quite passed from her, the knowledge relieved her.
+
+She knew at least where she was, and that the place lay barely a
+furlong from the road. She might count, too, on the aid of the
+doctor's wife, who was jealous of this very girl. And after all, in
+comparison with the miser's wretched abode, Tyson's house, though
+lonely, seemed an everyday dwelling, and safe.
+
+The news reassured her. When Bess, in a tone of scorn that thinly
+masked disappointment, flung at her the words, "Then you are not
+coming?" she was ready.
+
+"Yes, I am coming," she said. And she yielded herself again to Bess's
+guidance. In less than a minute they were at the bottom of the hollow.
+They skirted the fold-yard and the long, silent buildings that bulked
+somewhat blacker than the night. They turned a corner, and a dog not
+far from them stirred its chain and growled. But Bess stilled it by a
+word, and the two halted in the gloom, where a thin line of light
+escaped beneath a door,
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXX
+
+                            BESS'S TRIUMPH
+
+
+Bess knocked twice, and, stooping to the keyhole, repeated the owl's
+hoot. Presently a bar was drawn back, and after a brief interval,
+which those within appeared to devote to listening, the key was
+turned, and the door was opened far enough to admit one person at a
+time. The two slid in, Bess pushing Henrietta before her.
+
+The moment she had passed the threshold Henrietta stood, dazzled by
+the light and bewildered by what she saw. Nor was it her eyes only
+that were unpleasantly affected. A voice, loud and blustering, hailed
+her appearance with a curse, fired from the heart of a cloud of
+tobacco smoke. And the air was heavy with the reek of spirits.
+
+"By G--d!" the voice which had affrighted her repeated. "Who's this?
+Are you mad, girl?" And the speaker sprang to his feet. He was one of
+two thickset, unshaven men who were engaged in playing cards on a
+corner of the table. His comrade kept his place, but stared, a jug
+half lifted to his lips; while a third man, the only other present, a
+loose-limbed, good-looking gipsy lad, who had opened the door, grinned
+at the unexpected vision--as if his stake in the matter was less, and
+his interest in feminine charms greater. But nowhere, though the
+kitchen was wastefully lighted, and her frightened eyes flew to every
+part of it, was the man to be seen whom she came to meet.
+
+She turned quickly upon Bess, as if she thought she might still
+escape. But the door was already closed behind them, the key turned.
+And before she could speak:
+
+"Have done a minute!" Bess muttered, pushing her aside. "And let me
+deal with them." Then, advancing into the room--but not before she had
+seen the great bar drawn across the locked door--"Shut your trap!" she
+cried to the man who had spoken. "And listen!"
+
+"Who's this?"
+
+"What's that to you?"
+
+"Who is it, I say?" the man cried, even more violently. "And what the
+blazes have you brought her here for?" And he poured out a string of
+oaths that drove the blood from Henrietta's cheeks. "Who is it? Who is
+it?" he continued. "D'you think, you vixen, that because my neck is in
+a noose, I want some one to pull the rope tight?"
+
+"What a fool you are to talk before her!" Bess answered, with quiet
+scorn. "If any one pulls the hemp it's you."
+
+"Lord help you, I'll do more than talk!" the man rejoined. And he
+snatched up a heavy pistol that lay on the table beside the cards.
+"Quick, will you? Speak! Who is it, and why do you bring her?"
+
+"I'll speak quick enough, but not here!" Bess answered,
+contemptuously. "If you must jaw, come into the dairy! Come, don't
+think that I'm afraid of you!" And she turned to Henrietta, who,
+stricken dumb by the scene, recognised too late the trap into which
+she had fallen. "Do you stay here," she said, "unless you want his
+hand on you. Sit there!" pointing abruptly to the settle, "and keep
+mum until I come back."
+
+But Henrietta's terror at the prospect of being abandoned by the girl,
+though that girl had betrayed her, was such that she seized Bess by
+the sleeve and held her back.
+
+"Don't leave me!" she said. And again, with a shadow of the old
+imperiousness, "You are not to leave me! Do you hear? I will come with
+you. I----"
+
+"You'll do what you're bid!" Bess answered. "Go and sit down!" And the
+savage glint in her eyes put a new fear into Henrietta.
+
+She went to the settle, her limbs unsteady under her, her eyes
+glancing round for a chance of escape. Where was the woman of the
+house? Where was Tyson? Chiefest of all, where was Walterson? She saw
+no sign of any of them. And terrified to the heart, she sat shivering
+where the other had ordered her to sit.
+
+Bess opened a side door which led to the dairy, a cold, flagged room,
+lower by a couple of steps than the kitchen. She took up a candle, one
+of five or six which were flaring on the table, and she beckoned to
+the two men to follow her. When they had done so, the one who had
+taken up the pistol still muttering and casting suspicious glances
+over his shoulder, she slammed to the door. But, either by accident,
+or with a view to intimidate her prisoner, she let it leap ajar again;
+so that much of the talk which followed reached Henrietta's ears. It
+soon banished from the unhappy girl's cheeks the blood which the gipsy
+lad's stare of admiration had brought to them.
+
+Lunt's first word was an oath. "You know well enough," he cried, "that
+we want no praters here! Why have you brought this fool here to peach
+on us?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Ay, why?" Lunt repeated. "In two days more we had all got clear, and
+nothing better managed!"
+
+"And thanks to whom?" the girl retorted with energy. "Who has hidden
+you? Who has kept you? Who has done all for you? But there it is! Now
+my lad's gone, and Thistlewood's gone, you think all's yours! And as
+much of yourselves as masterless dogs!"
+
+"Stow it!"
+
+"But I'll not!" she retorted. "Whose house is this?"
+
+"Well, my lass, not yours!" Giles, the less violent of the two,
+answered.
+
+"Nor yours either! And, any way, it's due to me that you are in it,
+and not outside, with irons on you."
+
+"But cannot you see, lass," Giles answered, in a more moderate tone,
+"that you've upset all by bringing the wench here? You'll hear the
+morrow, or the morrow of that, that your lad's got clear to Leith, and
+Thistlewood with him! And then we go our way, and yon gipsy will carry
+off the brat in his long pack, and drop him the devil cares where--and
+nobody'll be the wiser, and his father'll have a lesson that will do
+him good! But, now you've let the girl in, what'll you do with her
+when we get clear? You cannot stow her in the long pack, and the
+moment you let her go her tongue will clack!"
+
+"How do you know it will clack?" Bess asked, in a tone that froze the
+listening girl's blood. "How do you know it will clack?" she repeated.
+"The lake's deep enough to hold both."
+
+"But what's the game, lass?" Giles asked. "Show a glim. Let's see it.
+If you are so fond of us," in a tone of unpleasant meaning, "that
+you've brought her--just to amuse us in our leisure, say it out!
+Though even then I'm not for saying that the game is worth the candle,
+my lass! Since coves in our very particular case has to be careful,
+and the prettiest bit of red and white may hang a man as quick as her
+mother! But I don't think you had that in your mind, Bess."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And that being so, and hemp so cheap, out with it! Show a glim, and
+you'll not find us nasty."
+
+"The thing's pretty plain, isn't it?" Bess answered, coolly. "You've
+had your fun. Why shouldn't I have mine? You'd a grudge, and you've
+paid it. Why am I not to pay mine?"
+
+"What has the wench done to you?"
+
+"What's that to you?" viciously. "Stolen my lad, if you like. Any
+Away, it's my business. If I choose to treat her as you have treated
+the brat, what is it to you? If I've a mind to give her a taste of the
+smugglers' oven, what's that to you? Or if I choose to spoil her
+looks, or break her pride--she's one of those that teach us to behave
+ourselves lowly and reverently to all our betters--and if I choose to
+give her a lesson, is it any business but mine? She's crossed me!
+She's a peacock! And if I choose to have some fun with her and hold
+her nose to the grindstone, what's that to you?"
+
+"But afterwards?" Giles persisted. "Afterwards, my lass? What then?"
+
+"Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies," Bess answered. "For
+the matter of that, if my old dad once gets his fingers round her
+throat she'll not squeak! You may swear to that."
+
+They dropped their voices then, or they moved farther from the door.
+So that the remainder of the debate escaped Henrietta, though she
+strained her ears to the utmost.
+
+She had heard enough, however; enough to know where she stood, and to
+feel the cold grip of despair close upon her. Fortunately she had had
+such preparation as the scene and the change in Bess's demeanor
+afforded; and while her heart thumped to choke her, and she could not
+restrain the glances that like a hunted hare she cast about her, she
+neither fainted nor raised an outcry. The gipsy lad, who lolled beside
+the door and never took his bold eyes from her, detected the sudden
+stillness of her pose and her changed aspect. But, though his gaze
+dwelt as freely as he pleased on her, on the turn of her pale cheek,
+and the curve of her figure, he was deceived into thinking that she
+did not catch the drift that was so clear to him.
+
+"She's frightened!" he thought, smacking his lips. "She's frightened!
+But she'd be more frightened if she heard what they are saying. A
+devil, Bess is, a devil if there ever was one!" And he wondered
+whether, if he told the girl, she would cling to him, and pray to him,
+and kneel to him--to save her! He would like that, for she was a
+pretty prey; and the prettier in his eyes, because she was not
+dark-skinned and black-eyed, like his own women, but a thing of creamy
+fairness.
+
+Henrietta heard all, however, and understood. And for a few moments
+she was near to swooning. Then the very peril in which she found
+herself steadied her, and gave her power to think. Was there any
+quarter to which she could look for help--outside or in? Outside the
+house, alas, none; for she had taken care, fatal care, to blind her
+trail, and to leave no trace by which her friends could find her! And
+inside, the hope was as slight. Walterson, to whose pity she might
+have appealed--with success, if all chivalry were not dead in him--was
+gone, it seemed. There remained only--a feeble straw indeed to which
+to cling--the woman of the house; the white-faced woman who had gone
+in fear, and thought this very girl Bess had designs on her life!
+
+But was the woman here? She had been very near her time, yet no cry,
+no whimper bore witness to the presence of child life in the house.
+And the room in its wild and wasteful disorder gave the lie to the
+presence of any housewife, however careless. The flagged floor,
+long uncleaned and unwhitened, was strewn with broken pipe-stems,
+half-burned pipe-lights, gnawed bones and dirty platters. The bright
+oaken table, the pride of generations of thrifty wives, was a litter
+of dog's-eared cards and over-set bottles, broken loaves, and pewter
+dishes. One of the oat-cake springs hung loose, tearing the ceiling;
+in one corner a bacon chest gaped open and empty. In another corner a
+pile of dubious bedding lay as its occupant had left it. The chimney
+corner was cumbered with logs of wood. Greasy frying-pans and
+half-cleaned pots lay everywhere; and on the whole, and on a medley of
+tattered things too repulsive to mention, a show of candles, that
+would have scared the least frugal dame, cast a useless glare.
+
+In a word, everything within sight proved that the house was at the
+mercy of the gang who surrounded her. And if that were so? If no help
+were possible? For an instant panic gripped her. The room swam round,
+and she had to grasp the settle with her hands to maintain her
+composure. What was she to do? What could she do, thus trapped? What?
+What?
+
+She must think--for her own sake, for the child's sake, who, it was
+clear, was also in their power. But it was hard, very hard, to think
+with that man's eyes gloating on her; and when with every second the
+door of the dairy, where they were conferring, might open, and--she
+knew not what horror might befall her. And--and then again there was
+the child!
+
+For she spared it a thought of pity, grudgingly taken from her own
+need. And then the door opened. And Bess, carrying the light above her
+head, came up the steps, followed by the two men.
+
+"We'll let her down soft!" she said, as she appeared. "We'll make her
+drudge first and smart afterwards! And she'll come to it the quicker."
+
+"Nay, Bess," one of the men answered with a grin, "but you'll not
+spoil her pretty fingers."
+
+"Oh, won't we?" Bess answered. And turning to Henrietta, and throwing
+off the mask, "Now, peacock!" she said, "I've got you here and you
+can't escape. I am going to put your nose to the grindstone. I'm going
+to see if you are of the same stuff as other people! Can you cook?"
+
+Henrietta did not know what to answer; nor whether she dared assert
+herself. She tried to frame the words, "Where is Walterson? Where is
+Walterson? If he is not here, let me go!" But she knew that they would
+not let her go. And, unable to speak, she stood dumb before them.
+
+"Ah, well, we'll see if you can," Bess said, scoffingly. "I see you
+know what's what, and where you are. Come, slice that bacon! And fry
+it! There's the knife, and there's the flitch, and let's have none of
+your airs, or--you'll have the knife across your knuckles. Do you
+hear, cat? Do you understand? You'll do as you are bid here. We'll see
+how you like to be undermost."
+
+The men laughed.
+
+"That's the way, Bess," one said. "Break her in, and she'll soon come
+to it!"
+
+"Anyways, she'll not take my lad again!" Bess said, as Henrietta,
+bending her head, took the knife with a shaking hand. "We'll give her
+something to do, and she'll sleep the sounder for it when she goes to
+bed."
+
+"Ay," said Giles, with a smile. "Hope she'll like her room!"
+
+"She'll lump it' or like it!" said Bess. "She's one of them that
+grinds our faces. We'll see how she likes to be ground!"
+
+Involuntarily Henrietta, stooping with a white face to her work,
+shuddered. But she had no choice. To beg for mercy, it was clear, was
+useless; to resist was to precipitate matters, while every
+postponement of the crisis offered a chance of rescue. As long as
+insult was confined to words she must put up with it--how foolish, how
+foolish she had been to come! She must smile--though it were awry--and
+play the sullen or the cheerful, as promised best. The door was locked
+on her. She had no friends within reach. Help there was none. She was
+wholly at the mercy of these wretches, and her only hope was that, if
+she did their bidding, she might awaken a spark of pity in the breast
+of one or other of them.
+
+Still, she did not quite lose her presence of mind. As she bent over
+her task, and with shaking fingers hacked at the tough rind of the
+bacon, the while Bess rained on her a shower of gibes and the men
+grinned at the joke, her senses were on the alert. Once she fancied a
+movement and a smothered cry in the room above; and she had work to
+keep her eyes lowered when Bess immediately went out. She might have
+thought more of the matter; but left alone with the three men she had
+her terrors. She dared not let her mind or her eyes wander. To go on
+with the task, and give the men not so much as a look, seemed the only
+course.
+
+For the present the three limited their coarse gallantries to words.
+Nay, when the gipsy lad would have crept nearer to her, the others
+bade him have done; adding, that kissing the cook-maid never cleaned a
+dish.
+
+Then Bess came back and forced her to hold the pan on the fire, though
+the heat scorched her cheeks.
+
+"We've to do it! See how you like it!" the girl cried, standing over
+her vindictively. "And see you don't drop it, my lass, or I'll lay the
+pan to your cheek. You're proud of your pink and white"--thrusting her
+almost into the fire--"see how it will stand a bit of cook-maid's
+work!"
+
+Pride helped Henrietta to restrain the rising sob, the complaint. And
+luckily it needed but another minute to complete the cooking. Bess and
+the three men sat down to the table, and Bess's first humour was to
+make her wait on them. But a moment later she changed her mind, forced
+the girl to sit down, and, will she, nill she, Henrietta had to
+swallow, though every morsel seemed to choke her, the portion set for
+her.
+
+"Down with it!" Bess cried, spitefully. "What's good enough for us is
+good enough for you! And when supper's done I'll see you to your
+bedroom. You're a mile too dainty, like all your sort! Ah, you'd like
+to kill me this minute, wouldn't you? That's what I like! I've often
+thought I should like to have one of you peacocks--who look at me as
+if I were dirt--and put my foot upon her face! And now I've got
+you--who stole my lad! And you'll see what I'll do to you!"
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXI
+
+                          A STRANGE BEDROOM
+
+
+The men followed Bess's lead, and as they supped never ceased to make
+Henrietta the butt of odious jests and more odious gallantries; until,
+now pale, now red, the girl was eager to welcome any issue from a
+position so hateful. Once, stung beyond reason, she sprang up and
+would have fled from them, with burning ears. But Bess seized her by
+the shoulders and thrust her back violently into her seat; and,
+sobered by the force used to her, and terrified lest the men should
+lay hands on her, she resigned herself.
+
+Strangely, the one of the four who said nothing, was the one whom she
+feared the most. The gipsy lad did not speak. But his eyes never left
+her, and something in their insolent freedom caused her more misery
+than the others' coarsest jests. He marked her blushes and pallor, and
+her one uncontrollable revolt; and like the bird that flutters under
+the spell of the serpent that hopes to devour it, she was conscious of
+this watching. She was conscious of it to such an extent, that when
+Bess cried, "Now it's time you had your bedroom candlestick, peacock!"
+she did not hear, but sat on as one deaf and blind; as the hare sits
+fascinated by the snake's eye.
+
+The gipsy smiled. He understood. But Bess did not, and she tugged the
+girl's hair with sufficient roughness to break the spell.
+
+"Up!" she cried. "Up when I speak! Don't dream you're a fine lady any
+longer! Wait till I get your bed candlestick--eh, lads?--and you'll be
+wiser to-morrow, and tamer, too. See, my lass, that's for you!" And
+she held up a small dark-lanthorn, and opening it, kindled the wick
+from one of the candles. "Now come! And do you--no, not you!" to the
+gipsy, who had stepped forward--"you!" to Giles, "come with me and see
+her safely into her bedroom!"
+
+Lunt growled a word or two.
+
+"Stow it!" Bess answered, as she darkened the lanthorn. "It's to be as
+I say. Here, give me your wrist, girl."
+
+But at that, fear gripped Henrietta. She hung back with a white face.
+
+"What are you going to do with me?" she cried. "What are you----"
+
+"In two minutes you'll see!" Bess retorted. And with a quick movement
+she grasped the girl's arm. "And be as wise as I am. Lay hold of her
+other arm," she continued to Giles. "It's no use to struggle, my
+lady!--and if she cries out down her at once. You hear, do you?" she
+continued, addressing Henrietta, who with terror found herself as
+helpless as a doe in the hound's fangs. "Then mum, and it'll be the
+better for you. Here, do you take the lanthorn," she went on, handing
+it to Giles, "and I'll carry the victuals. You can hold her?"
+
+"I'll break her wrist if she budges," the man replied. "But, after
+all, isn't she as well here?"
+
+"No, she's not!" Bess answered, with decision. "Do you"--to
+Lunt--"open the yard door for us, and stand by till we come in again.
+No, not you," to the gipsy, who had again stepped forward. "You're too
+ready, my lad, and I don't trust you."
+
+Fortunately for Henrietta, the sight of the plate of food relieved her
+of her worst fears. She was not to be done to death, but in all
+probability to be consigned to the hiding place which held the boy.
+And though the prospect was not cheerful, and Bess's manner was cruel
+and menacing, Henrietta felt that if this were the worst she could
+face it. She could bear even what the child bore, and by sharing its
+hardships she might do something to comfort it. Always, too, there was
+the chance of escape; and from the place, be it out-house or stable,
+in which they held the boy confined, escape must be more feasible than
+from the house, with its bolts and bars.
+
+She had time to make these calculations between the kitchen and the
+yard door; through which they half-led, half-pushed her into the
+night. With all a woman's natural timidity on finding herself held and
+helpless in the dark, she had to put restraint upon herself not to try
+to break loose, not to scream. But she conquered herself and let them
+lead her, unresisting and as one blindfold, where they pleased.
+
+It was clear that they knew the place well. For, though the darkness
+in the depths of this bowl in the hills was absolute, they did not
+unmask the lanthorn; but moved confidently for a distance of some
+fifty yards. The dog, kenneled near, had given tongue as they left the
+house. But once only. And when they paused, all was so still in the
+frosty mist that wrapped them about and clutched the throat, that
+Henrietta's ear caught the trickle of water near at hand.
+
+"Where are we?" she muttered. "Where are we?" She hung back in sudden,
+uncontrollable alarm.
+
+"Mum, fool!" Bess hissed in her ear. "Be still, or it will be the
+worse with you. Have you," she continued, in the same low tone,
+"undone the door, lad?"
+
+For answer a wooden door groaned on its hinges.
+
+"Right!" Bess murmured. "Bend your head, girl!"
+
+Henrietta obeyed, and pushed forward by an unseen hand, she advanced
+three paces, and felt a warmer air salute her cheek. The door groaned
+again; she heard a wooden bolt thrust home. Bess let her hand go and
+unmasked the lanthorn.
+
+Henrietta shivered. She was in a covered well-head, whence the water,
+after filling a sunken caldron, about which the moss hung in dark,
+snaky wreaths, escaped under the wooden door. Some yeoman of bygone
+days had come to the help of nature, and after enlarging a natural
+cavity had enclosed it, to protect the water from pollution. The place
+was so small that it no more than held the three who stood in it, nor
+all of them dry-shod. And Henrietta's heart sank indeed before the
+possibility of being left to pass the night in this dank cave.
+
+Bess's next movement freed her from this fear. The girl turned the
+light on the rough wall, and seizing an innocent-looking wooden peg,
+which projected from it, pushed the implement upwards. A piece of the
+wall, of the shape and size of a large oven door, fell downwards and
+outwards, as the tail of a cart falls. It revealed a second cavity of
+which the floor stood a couple of feet higher than the ground on which
+they were. It was very like a spacious bread-oven, though something
+higher and longer; apparently it had been made in the likeness of one.
+
+But Henrietta did not think of this, or of its shape or its purpose.
+For the same light, a dim, smoky lamp burning at the far end of the
+place, which revealed its general aspect, disclosed a bundle of straw
+and a forlorn little form.
+
+She gasped. For that any human creature, much more a child, should be
+confined in such a place, buried in the bowels of the earth, seemed so
+monstrous, so shocking, that she could not believe it!
+
+"Oh!" she cried, forgetting for the moment her own position and her
+own fate, forgetting everything in her horror and pity. "You have not
+left the child here! And alone! For shame! For shame!" she continued,
+turning on them in the heat of her indignation and fearing them no
+more than a hunter fears a harmless snake--which excites disgust, but
+not terror. "What do you think will happen to you?"
+
+For a moment, strange to say, her indignation cowed them. For a moment
+they saw the thing as she saw it; they were daunted. Then Bess
+sneered:
+
+"You don't like the place?"
+
+"For that child?"
+
+"For yourself?"
+
+She was burning with indignation, and for answer she climbed into the
+place, and went on her hands and knees to the child's side. She bent
+over it, and listened to its breathing.
+
+"Is't asleep?" Bess asked. There was a ring of anxiety in her tone.
+And when Henrietta did not answer, "It's not dead?" she muttered.
+
+"Dead? No," Henrietta replied, with a shudder. "But it's--it's----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"It breathes, but--but----" She drew its head on to her shoulder and
+peered more closely into the small white face. "It breathes, but--but
+what is the matter with it? What have you done to it?"--glancing
+at them suspiciously. For the boy, after returning her look with
+lack-lustre eyes, had averted his face from the light and from hers.
+
+"It's had a dose," Bess answered roughly--she had had her moment of
+alarm. "In an hour or two it will awake. Then you can feed it. Here's
+the porridge. And there's milk. It was fresh this morning and must be
+fresh enough now. Hang the brat, I'm sure it has been trouble enough.
+Now you can nurse it, my lass, and I wish you joy of it, and a gay
+good-night! And before morning you'll know what it costs to rob Bess
+Hinkson of her lad!"
+
+"But the child will die!" Henrietta cried, rising to her feet--she
+could stand in the place, but not quite erect. "Stay! Stay! At least
+take----"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Take the child in! And warm and feed it! Oh, I beg you take it!"
+Henrietta pleaded. "It will die here! It is cold now! I believe it is
+dying now!"
+
+"Dying, your grand-dam!" the girl retorted, scornfully. "But if we
+take it, will you stay?"
+
+"I will!" Henrietta answered. "I will!"
+
+"So you will! And the child, too!" Bess retorted. And she slammed-to
+the door. But again, while Henrietta, appalled by her position, still
+stared at the place, the shutter fell, and Bess thrust in her dark,
+handsome face. "See here!" she said. "If you begin to scream and
+shout, it will be the worse for you, and do you remember that! I shall
+not come, but I shall send Saul. He's took a fancy to you, and will
+find a way of silencing you, I'll bet!" with an unpleasant smile. "So
+now you know! And if you want his company you'll shout!"
+
+She slammed the shutter to again with that, and Henrietta heard the
+bolt fall into its place.
+
+The girl stood for a moment, staring and benumbed. But presently her
+eyes, which at first travelled wildly round, grew more sober. They
+fell on her tiny fellow-prisoner, and, resting on that white,
+unconscious cheek, on those baby hands clenched in some bygone
+paroxysm, they filled slowly with tears.
+
+"I will think of the child! I will think of the child!" she murmured.
+And, crouching down, she hugged it to her with a sensation of relief,
+almost of happiness. "I thank God I came! I thank God I am here to
+protect it!"
+
+And resolutely averting her eyes from the low roof and oven-like
+walls, that, when she dwelt too long on them, seemed, like the famous
+dungeon of Poe, to contract about her and choke her, she devoted
+herself to the child; and as she grew scared by its prolonged torpor,
+she strove to rouse it. At first her efforts were vain. But she
+persisted in them. For the vision which she had had in the cell at
+Kendal--of the child holding out pleading hands to her--rose to her
+memory. She was certain that at that moment the child had been crying
+for aid. And surely not for nothing, not without purpose, had the cry
+come to her ears who now by so strange a fate was brought to the boy's
+side.
+
+At intervals she felt almost happy in this assurance; as she pressed
+the child to her, and watched by the dim, yellow light its slow
+recovery from the drug. Her present danger, her present straits, her
+position in this underground place, which would have sent some mad,
+were forgotten. And the past and the future filled her thoughts; and
+Anthony Clyne. Phrases of condemnation and contempt which _he_ had
+used to her recurred, as she nursed his child; and she rejoiced to
+think that he must unsay them! The bruises which he had inflicted
+still discoloured her wrist, and moved strange feelings in her, when
+her eyes fell upon them. But he would repent of his violence soon!
+Very soon, very soon, and how completely! The thought was sweet to
+her!
+
+She was in peril, and a week before she had been free as air. But then
+she had been without any prospect of reinstatement, any hope of
+regaining the world's respect, any chance of wiping out the
+consequences of her mad and foolish act. Now, if she lived, and
+escaped from this strait, he at least must thank her, he at least must
+respect her. And she was sure, yes, she dared to tell herself,
+blushing, that if he respected her, he would know how to make the
+world also respect her.
+
+But then again she trembled. For there was a darker side. She was in
+the power of these wretches; and the worst--the thought paled her
+cheek--might happen! She held the child more closely to her, and
+rocked it to and fro in earnest prayer. The worst! Yes, the worst
+might happen. But then again she fell back on the reflection that _he_
+was searching for them, and if any could find them he would. He was
+searching for them, she was sure, as strenuously, and perhaps with
+more vengeful purpose than when he had sought the child alone! By this
+time, doubtless, she was missed, and he had raised the country, flung
+wide the alarm, set a score moving, fired the dalesmen from Bowness to
+Ambleside. Yes, for certain they were searching for her. And they must
+know, careful as she had been to hide her trail, that she could not
+have travelled far; and the scope of the search, therefore, would be
+narrow, and the scrutiny close. They could hardly fail, she thought,
+to visit the farm in the hollow; its sequestered and lonely position
+must invite inquiry. And if they entered, a single glance at the
+disordered kitchen would inform the searchers that something was
+amiss.
+
+So far Henrietta's thoughts, as she clasped the boy to her and strove
+to warm him to life against her own body, ran in a current chequered
+but more or less hopeful. But again the supposition would force itself
+upon her--the men were desperate, and the woman was moved by a strange
+hatred of her. What if they fled, and left no sign? What if they
+escaped, and left no word of her? The thought was torture! She could
+not endure it. She put the child down, and rising to her knees, she
+covered her eyes with her hands. To be buried here underground! To die
+of hunger and thirst in this bricked vault, as far from hope and help,
+from the voices and eyes of men and the blessed light of the sun, as
+if they had laid her alive in her coffin!
+
+Oh, it was horrible! She could not bear it; she could not bear to
+think of it. She sprang, forgetting herself, to her feet, and the blow
+which the roof dealt her, though her thick hair saved her from injury,
+intensified the feeling. She was buried! Yes, she was buried alive!
+The roof seemed to be sinking upon her. These brick walls so cunningly
+arched, and narrowing a t either end, as the ends of a coffin narrow,
+were the walls of her tomb! Those faint lines of mortar which
+seclusion from the elements had preserved in their freshness,
+presently she would attack them with her nails in the frenzy of her
+despair. She glared about her. The weight, the mass of the hill above,
+seemed to press upon her. The air seemed to fail her. Was there no
+way, no way of escape from this living tomb--this grave under the tons
+and tons and tons of rock and earth?
+
+And then the child--perhaps she had put him from her roughly, and the
+movement had roused him--whimpered. And she shook herself free--thank
+God--free from the hideous dream that had obsessed her. She remembered
+that the men were not yet fled, nor was she abandoned. She was
+leaping, thank Heaven, far above the facts. In a passion of relief she
+knelt beside the child, and rained kisses on him, and swore to him, as
+he panted with terror in her arms, that he need not fear, that he was
+safe now, and she was beside him to take care of him! And that all
+would be well if he would not cry. All would be well. For she
+bethought herself that the child must not know how things stood. Fear
+and suffering he might know if the worst came; but not the fear, not
+the mental torture which she had known for a few moments, and which in
+so short a time had driven her almost beside herself.
+
+The boy's faculties were still benumbed by the hardships which he had
+undergone; perhaps a little by the narcotic he had taken. And though
+he had seen Henrietta at least a dozen times in the old life, he could
+not remember her. Nevertheless she contrived to satisfy him that she
+was a friend, that she meant him well, that she would protect him. And
+little by little, in spite of the surroundings which drew the child's
+eyes again and again in terror to the dimly-lit vaulting, on which the
+shadow of the girl's figure bulked large, his alarm subsided. His
+heart beat less painfully, and his eyes lost in a degree the strained
+and pitiful look which had become habitual. But his little limbs still
+started if the light flickered, or the oil sputtered; and it was long
+before, partly by gentle suasion, partly by caresses, she succeeded in
+inducing the child--nauseated as he was by the drug--to take food.
+That done, though she still believed him to be in a critical state,
+and dreadfully weak, she was better satisfied. And soon, soothed by
+her firm embrace and confident words, her charge fell into a troubled
+sleep.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXII
+
+                              THE SEARCH
+
+
+To return to Bishop. Thrown off the trail in the wood, he pushed along
+the road as far as Windermere village. There, however, he could hear
+nothing. No one of Henrietta's figure and appearance had been seen
+there. And in the worst of humours, with the world as well as with
+himself, he put about and returned to the inn. If the girl had come
+back during his absence, it was bad enough; he had had his trouble for
+nothing, and might have spared his shoe-leather. Hang such pretty
+frailties for him! But if, on the other hand, she had not come back,
+the case was worse. He had been left to watch her, and the blame would
+fall on him. Nadin would say more than he had said already about
+London officers and their uselessness. And if anything happened to
+her! Bishop wiped his brow as he thought of that, and of his next
+meeting with Captain Clyne. It was to be hoped, be devoutly hoped,
+that nothing had happened to the jade.
+
+It wanted half an hour of sunset, when he arrived, fagged and fuming,
+at the inn; and if his worst fears were not realised, he soon had
+ground to dread that they might be. Miss Damer had not returned.
+
+"I've no truck with them rubbishy radicals," Mrs. Gilson added
+impersonally, scratching her nose with the handle of a spoon--a
+sign that she was ill at ease. "But they're right enough in one
+thing, and that is, that there's a lot of useless folk paid by the
+country--that'd never get paid by any one else! And for brains, give
+me a calf's head!"
+
+Bishop evaded the conflict with what dignity he might.
+
+"The Captain's not come in?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, he's come in," the landlady answered.
+
+"Well," sullenly, "the sooner I see him the better, then!"
+
+"You can't see him now," Mrs. Gilson replied, with a glance at the
+clock. "He's sleeping."
+
+Bishop stared.
+
+"Sleeping?" he cried. "And the young lady not come back?"
+
+"He don't know that she has so much as gone out," Mrs. Gilson answered
+with the utmost coolness. "And what's more, I'm not going to tell him.
+He came in looking not fit to cross a room, my man, let alone cross a
+horse! And when I went to take him a dish of tea I found him asleep in
+his chair. And you may take it from me, if he's not left to have out
+his sleep, now it's come, he'll be no more use to you, six hours from
+this, than a corpse!"
+
+"Still, ma'am," Bishop objected, "the Captain won't be best
+pleased----"
+
+"Please a flatiron!" Mrs. Gilson retorted. "Best served's best
+pleased, my lad, and that you'll learn some day." And then suddenly
+taking the offensive, "For the matter of that, what do you want with
+him?" she continued. "Ain't you grown men? If Joe Nadin and you and
+half a dozen redbreasts can't find one silly girl in an open
+countryside, don't talk to me of your gangs! And your felonies! And
+the fine things you do in London!"
+
+"But in London----"
+
+"Ay, London Bridge was made for fools to go under!" Mrs. Gilson
+answered, with meaning. "It don't stand for nothing."
+
+Bishop tapped his top-boot gloomily.
+
+"She may come in any minute," he said. "There's that."
+
+"She may, or she mayn't," Mrs. Gilson answered, with another look at
+the clock.
+
+"She's not been gone more than an hour and a half."
+
+"Nor the mouse my cat caught this afternoon," the landlady retorted.
+"But you'll not find it easily, my lad, nor know it when you find it."
+
+He had no reply to make to that, but he carried his eye again to the
+clock. He was very uncomfortable--very uncomfortable. And yet he
+hardly knew what to do or where to look. In the meantime the girl's
+disappearance was becoming known, and caused, indoors and out, a
+thrill of excitement. Another abduction, another disappearance! And at
+their doors, on their thresholds, under their noses! Some heard the
+report with indignation, and two in the house heard it with remorse;
+many with pity. But in the breasts of most the feeling was not wholly
+painful. The new mystery revived and doubled the old; and blew to a
+white heat the embers of interest which were beginning to grow cold.
+In the teeth of the nipping air--and sunset is often the coldest hour
+of the twenty-four--groups gathered in the yard and before the house.
+And while a man here and there winked at his neighbour and hinted that
+the young madam had slunk back to the lover from whom she had been
+parted, the common view was that mischief was afoot and something
+strong should be done.
+
+Meanwhile uncertainty--and in a small degree the absence of Captain
+Clyne and Nadin--paralysed action. At five, Bishop sent out three or
+four of his dependants; one to watch the boat-landing, one to keep an
+eye on the entrance to Troutbeck village, and others to bid the
+constables at Ambleside and Bowness be on the watch. But as long as
+the young lady's return seemed possible--and some still thought the
+whole a storm in a tea-cup--men not unnaturally shrank from taking the
+lead. Nor until the man who took all the blame to himself interposed,
+was any real step taken.
+
+It was nearly six when Bishop, talking with his friends in the
+passage, found himself confronted by the chaplain. Mr. Sutton was in a
+state of great and evident agitation. There were red spots on his
+cheek-bones, his pinched features were bedewed with perspiration, his
+eyes were bright. And he who usually shunned encounter with coarser
+wits, now singled out the officer in the midst of his fellows.
+
+"Are you going to do nothing," he cried, "except drink?"
+
+Bishop stared.
+
+"See here, Mr. Sutton," he said, slowly and with dignity, "you must
+not forget----"
+
+"Except drink?" the chaplain repeated, without compromise. And taking
+Bishop's glass, which stood half-filled on the window-seat beside him,
+he flung its contents through the doorway. "Do your duty, sir!" he
+continued firmly. "Do your duty! You were here to see that the lady
+did not leave the house alone. And you permitted her to go."
+
+"And what part," Bishop answered, with a sneer, "did your reverence
+play, if you please?" He was a sober man for those times, and the
+taunt was not a fair one.
+
+"A poor part," the chaplain answered. "A mean one! But now--I ask only
+to act. Say what I shall do, and if it be only by my example I may
+effect something."
+
+"Ay, you may!" Bishop returned. "And I'll find your reverence work
+fast enough. Do you go and tell Captain Clyne the lady's gone. It's a
+task I've no stomach for myself," with a grin; "and your reverence is
+the very man for it."
+
+Mr. Sutton winced.
+
+"I will do even that," he said, "if you will no longer lose time."
+
+"But she may return any minute."
+
+"She will not!" Mr. Sutton retorted, with anger. "She will not! God
+forgive us for letting her go! If I failed in my duty, sir, do you do
+yours! Do you do yours!"
+
+And such power does enthusiasm give a man, that he who these many days
+had seemed to the inn a poor, timid creature, slinking in and out as
+privately as possible, now shamed all and kindled all.
+
+"By jingo, I will, your reverence!" Bishop cried, catching the flame.
+"I will!" he repeated heartily. And he turned about and began to give
+orders with energy.
+
+Fortunately Nadin arrived at that moment; and with his burly form and
+broad Lancashire accent, he seemed to bring with him the vigour of
+ten. In three minutes he apprehended the facts, pooh-poohed the notion
+that the girl would return, and with a good round oath "dommed them
+Jacobins," to give his accent for once, "for the graidliest roogs and
+the roofest devils i' all Lancashire--and that's saying mooch! But we
+mun ha' them hanged now," he continued, striding to and fro in his
+long, rough horseman's coat. "We mun ha' them hanged! We'll larn
+them!"
+
+
+[Illustration: In ten minutes the road twinkled with lights ...]
+
+
+He formed parties and assigned roads and brought all into order. The
+first necessity was to visit every house within a mile of the inn on
+the Windermere side; and this was taken in hand at once. In ten
+minutes the road twinkled with lights, and the frosty ground rang
+under the tread of ironshod boots. It was ascertained that no boat had
+crossed the lake that afternoon; and this so far narrowed the area to
+be searched, that the men were in a high state of excitement, and
+those who carried firearms looked closely to their priming.
+
+"'Tis a pity it's neet!" said Nadin. "But we mun ha' them, we mun ha'
+them, afoor long!"
+
+Meanwhile, Mr. Sutton had braced himself to the task which he had
+undertaken. Challenged by Bishop, he had been anxious to go at once to
+Clyne's room and tell him; that the Captain might go with the
+searchers if he pleased. But he had not mounted three steps before
+Mrs. Gilson was at his heels, bidding him, in her most peremptory
+manner, to "let his honour be for another hour. What can he do?" she
+urged. "He's but one more, and now the lads are roused, they'll do all
+he can do! Let him be, let him be, man," she continued. "Or if you
+must, watch him till he wakes, and then tell him."
+
+"It will be worse then," the chaplain said.
+
+"But he'll be better!" she retorted. "Do you be bidden by me. The man
+wasn't fit to carry his meat to his mouth when he went upstairs. But
+let him be until he has had his sleep out and he'll be another man."
+
+And Mr. Sutton let himself be bidden. But he was right. Every minute
+which passed made the task before him more difficult. When at last
+Captain Clyne awoke, a few minutes after eight o'clock, and startled,
+brought his scattered senses to a focus, he saw sitting opposite him a
+man who hid his face in his hands, and shivered.
+
+Clyne rose.
+
+"Man, man!" he said. "What is it? Have you bad news?"
+
+But the chaplain could not speak. He could only shake his head.
+
+"They have not--not found----"
+
+Clyne could not finish the sentence. He turned away, and with a
+trembling hand snuffed a candle--that his face might be hidden.
+
+The chaplain shook his head.
+
+"No, no!" he said. "No!"
+
+"But it is--it's bad news?"
+
+"Yes. She's--she's gone! She's disappeared!"
+
+Clyne dropped the snuffers on the table.
+
+"Gone?" he muttered. "Who? Miss Damer?"
+
+"Yes. She left the house this afternoon, and has not returned. It was
+my fault! My fault!" poor Mr. Sutton continued, in a tone of the
+deepest abasement. And with his face hidden he bowed himself to and
+fro like a man in pain. "They asked me to follow her, and I would not!
+I would not--out of pride!"
+
+"And she has not returned?" Clyne asked, in an odd tone.
+
+"She has not returned--God forgive me!"
+
+Clyne stared at the flame of the nearest candle. But he saw, not the
+flame, but Henrietta; as he had seen her the morning he turned his
+back on her, and left her standing alone on the road above the lake.
+Her slender figure under the falling autumn leaves rose before him;
+and he knew that he would never forgive himself. By some twist
+of the mind her fate seemed the direct outcome of that moment, of
+that desertion, of that cruel, that heartless abandonment. The
+after-events, save so far as they proved her more sinned against than
+sinning, vanished. He had been her sole dependence, her one protector,
+the only being to whom she could turn. And he had abandoned her
+heartlessly; and this--this unknown and dreadful fate--was the result.
+Her face rose before him, now smiling and defiant, now pale and drawn;
+and the piled-up glory of her hair. And he remembered--too late, alas,
+too late--that she had been of his blood and his kin; and that he had
+first neglected her, and later when his mistake bred its natural
+result in her act of folly, he had deserted and punished her.
+
+Remorse is the very shirt of Nessus. It is of all mental pains the
+worst. It seizes upon the whole mind; it shuts out every prospect. It
+cries into the ear with every slow tick of the clock, the truth that
+that which had once been so easy can never be done now! That
+reparation, that kind word, that act of care, of thoughtfulness, of
+pardon--never, never now! And once so easy! So easy!
+
+For he knew now that he had loved the girl; and that he had thrown
+away that which might have been the happiness of his life. He knew now
+that only pride had blinded him, giving the name of pity to that which
+was love--or so near to love that it was impossible to say where one
+ended and the other began. He thought of her courage and her pride;
+and then of the womanliness that, responding to the first touch of
+gentleness on his side, had wept for his child. And how he had wronged
+her from the first days of slighting courtship! how he had
+misunderstood her, and then mistrusted and maligned her--he, the only
+one to whom she could turn for help, or whom she could trust in a land
+of strangers--until it had come to this! It had come to this.
+
+Oh, his poor girl! His poor girl!
+
+A groan, bitter and irrepressible, broke from him. The man stood
+stripped of the trappings of prejudice; he saw himself as he was, and
+the girl as she was, a creature of youth and spirit and impulse. And
+he was ashamed to the depths of his soul.
+
+At last, "What time did she go out?" he muttered.
+
+The chaplain roused himself with a shiver and told him.
+
+"Then she has been missing five hours?" There was a sudden hardening
+in his tone. "You have done something, I suppose? Tell me, man, that
+you have done something!"
+
+The chaplain told him what was being done. And the mere statement gave
+comfort. Hearing that Mrs. Gilson had been the last to speak to her,
+Clyne said he would see the landlady. And the two went out of the
+room.
+
+In the passage a figure rose before them and fled with a kind of
+bleating cry. It was Modest Ann, who had been sitting in the dark with
+her apron over her head. She was gone before they were sure who it
+was. And they thought nothing of the incident, if they noticed it.
+
+Downstairs they found no news and no comfort; but much coming and
+going. For presently the first party returned from its quest, and
+finding that nothing had been discovered, set forth again in a new
+direction. And by-and-by another returned, and standing ate something,
+and went out again, reinforced by Clyne himself. And so began a night
+of which the memory endured in the inn for a generation. Few slept,
+and those in chairs, ready to start up at the first alarm. The tap ran
+free for all; and in the coffee-room the table was set and set again.
+The Sunday's joints--for the next day was Sunday--were cooked and
+cold, and half-eaten before the morning broke; and before breakfast
+the larder of the Salutation at Ambleside was laid under contribution.
+At intervals, those who dozed were aware of Nadin's tall, bulky
+presence as he entered shaking the rime from his long horseman's coat
+and calling for brandy; or of Bishop, who went and came all night, but
+in a frame of mind so humble and downcast that men scarcely knew him.
+And now and again a fresh band of searchers tramped in one behind the
+other, passed the news by a single shake of the head, and crowding to
+the table ate and drank before they turned to again--to visit a more
+distant, and yet a more distant part.
+
+Even from the mind of the father, the boy's loss seemed partly effaced
+by this later calamity. The mystery was so much the deeper: the riddle
+the more perplexing. The girl had gone out on foot in the full light
+of a clear afternoon; and within a few hundred yards of the place to
+which they had traced the boy, she had vanished as if she had never
+been. Clyne knew from her own lips that Walterson was somewhere within
+reach. But this did not help much, since no one could hit on the
+place. And various were the suggestions, and many and strange the
+solutions proposed. Every poacher and every ne'er-do-well was visited
+and examined, every house was canvassed, every man who had ever said
+aught that could be held to savour of radical doctrine, was
+considered. As the search spread to a wider and yet wider area, the
+alarm went with it, and new helpers arrived, men on horseback and men
+on foot. And all through the long winter's night the house hummed; and
+the lights of the inn shone on the water as brightly and persistently
+as the stars that in the solemn firmament wheeled and marched.
+
+But lamps and stars were alike extinguished, and the late dawn was
+filtering through the casements on jaded faces and pale looks, when
+the first gleam of encouragement showed itself. Clyne had been out for
+some hours, and on his return had paused at the door of the snuggery
+to swallow the cup of hot coffee, which the landlady pressed upon him.
+Nadin was still out, but Bishop was there and the chaplain, and two or
+three yeomen and peasants. In all hearts hope had by this time given
+way to dejection; and dejection was fast yielding to despair. The
+party stood, here and there, for the most part silent, or dropped now
+and again a despondent word.
+
+Suddenly Modest Ann appeared among them, with her head shrouded in her
+apron. And, "I can't bear it! I can't bear it!" the woman cried
+hysterically. "I must speak!"
+
+A thrill of amazement ran through the group. They straightened
+themselves.
+
+"If you know anything, speak by all means!" Clyne said, for surprise
+tied Mrs. Gilson's tongue. "Do you know where the lady is?"
+
+"No! no!"
+
+"Did she tell you anything?"
+
+"Nothing! nothing!" the woman answered, sobbing wildly, and still
+holding the apron drawn tightly over her face. "Missus, don't kill me!
+She told me naught! Naught! But----"
+
+"Well--what? What?"
+
+"There was a letter I gave her some time ago--before--oh,
+dear!--before the rumpus was, and she was sent to Kendall! And I'm
+thinking," sob, sob, "you'd maybe know something from the person who
+gave it me."
+
+"That's it," said Bishop coolly. "You're a sensible woman. Who was
+it?"
+
+"That girl--of Hinkson's," she sobbed.
+
+"Bess Hinkson!" Mrs. Gilson ejaculated.
+
+"Ay, sure! Oh, dear! oh, dear! Bess said that she had it from a man on
+the road."
+
+"And that may be so, or it may not," Bishop answered, with quiet
+dryness. He was in his element again. And then in a lower tone, "We're
+on it now," he muttered, "or I am mistaken. I've seen the young lady
+near Hinkson's once or twice. And it was near there I lost her. The
+house has been visited, of course; it was one of the first visited.
+But we'd no suspicion then, and now we have. Which makes a
+difference."
+
+"You're going there?"
+
+"Straight, sir, without the loss of a minute!"
+
+Clyne's eyes sparkled. And tired as they were, the men answered to the
+call. Ten minutes before, they had crawled in, the picture of fatigue.
+Now, as they crossed the pastures above the inn, and plunged into the
+little wood in which Henrietta had baffled Bishop, they clutched their
+cudgels with as much energy as if the chase were but opening. It
+mattered not that some wore the high-collared coats of the day, and
+two waistcoats under them, and had watches in their fobs; and that
+others tramped in smock frocks drawn over their fustian shorts. The
+same indignation armed all, great and small, rich and poor; and in a
+wonderfully short space of time they were at the gate of Starvecrow
+Farm.
+
+The house that, viewed at its best, had a bald and melancholy aspect,
+wore a villainous look now--perched up there in bare, lowering
+ugliness, with its blind gable squinting through the ragged fir-trees.
+
+Bishop left a man in the road, and sent two to the rear of the crazy,
+ruinous outbuildings which clung to the slope. With Clyne and the
+other three he passed round the corner of the house, stepped to the
+door and knocked. The sun's first rays were striking the higher hills,
+westward of the lake, as the party, with stern faces, awaited the
+answer. But the lake, with its holms, and the valley and all the lower
+spurs, lay grey and still and dreary in the grip of cold. The note of
+melancholy went to the heart of one as he looked, and filled it with
+remorse.
+
+"Too late," it seemed to say, "too late!"
+
+For a time no one came. And Bishop knocked again, and more
+imperiously; first sending a man to the lower end of the ragged garden
+to be on the look-out. He knocked a third time. At last a shuffling of
+feet was heard approaching the door, and a moment later old Hinkson
+opened it. He looked, as he stood blinking in the daylight, more
+frowsy and unkempt and to be avoided than usual. But--they noted with
+disappointment that the door was neither locked nor bolted; so that
+had they thought of it they might have entered at will!
+
+"What is't?" he drawled, peering at them. "Why did you na' come in?"
+
+Bishop pushed in without a word. The others followed. A glance
+sufficed to discover all that the kitchen contained; and Bishop, deaf
+to the old man's remonstrances, led the way straight up the dark,
+close staircase. But though they explored without ceremony all the
+rooms above, and knocked, and called, and sounded, and listened, they
+stumbled down again, baffled.
+
+"Where's your daughter?" Bishop asked sternly.
+
+"She was here ten minutes agone," the old man answered. Perhaps
+because the day was young he showed rather more sense than usual. But
+his eyes were full of spite.
+
+"Here, was she?"
+
+"Ay."
+
+"And where's she now?"
+
+"She's gone to t' doctor's. She be nursing there. They've no lass."
+
+"Nursing! Who's she nursing?" incredulously.
+
+The old man grinned at the ignorance of the question.
+
+"The wumman and the babby," he said.
+
+"At Tyson's?"
+
+"Ay, ay."
+
+"The house in the hollow?"
+
+"That be it."
+
+While they were talking thus, others had searched the crazy outhouses,
+but to no better purpose. And presently they all assembled in the road
+outside the gate.
+
+"Where's your dog, old lad?" asked one of the dalesmen.
+
+The miser had shuffled after them, holding out his hand and begging of
+them.
+
+"At the doctor's," he answered. "Her be fearsome and begged it. Ye'll
+give an old man something?" he added, whining. "Ye'll give something?"
+
+"Off! Off you go, my lad!" Bishop cried. "We've done with you. If
+you're not a rascal 'tis hard on you, for you look one!" And when the
+old skinflint had crawled back under the fir-trees, "Worst is, sir,"
+he continued, with a grave face, "it's all true. Tyson's away in the
+north--with a brother or something of that kind--so I hear. And his
+missus had a baby this ten days gone or more. He's a rough tyke, but
+he's above this sort of thing, I take it. Still, we'll go and question
+the girl. We may get something from her."
+
+And they trooped off along the road in twos and threes, and turning
+the corner saw Tyson's house, below them--so far below them that it
+had, as always, the look of a toy house on a toy meadow at the bottom
+of a green bowl. Below the house the little rivulet that rose beside
+it bisected the meadow, until at the end of the open it lost itself in
+the narrow wooded gorge, through which it sprang in unseen waterfalls
+to join the lake below.
+
+They descended the slope to the house; sharp-eyed but saying little. A
+trifle to one side of the door, under a window, a dog was kenneled. It
+leapt out barking; but seeing so many persons it slunk in again and
+lay growling.. A moment and the door was opened and Bess showed
+herself. She looked astonished, but not in any way frightened.
+
+"Eh, masters!" she said. "What is it? Are you come after the young
+lady again?"
+
+"Ay," Bishop answered. "We are. We want to know where you got the
+letter you gave Ann at the inn--to give to her?"
+
+Perhaps Bess looked for the question and was prepared. At any rate,
+she betrayed no sign of confusion.
+
+"Well," she said, "I can tell you what he was like that gave it me."
+
+"A man gave it you?"
+
+"Ay, and a shilling. And," smiling broadly, "he'd have given me
+something else if I'd let him."
+
+"A kiss, I bet!" said Bishop.
+
+"Ay, it was. But I said that'd be another shilling."
+
+Clyne groaned.
+
+"For God's sake," he said, "come to the point. Time's everything."
+
+Bishop shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Where did you see him, my girl?" he asked.
+
+"By the gate of the coppice as I was bringing the milk," she answered
+frankly. "'I'm her Joe,' he said. 'And if you'll hand her this and
+keep mum, here's a shilling for you.' And----"
+
+"Very good," said Bishop. "And what was he like?"
+
+With much cunning she described Walterson, and Bishop acknowledged the
+likeness. "It's our man!" he said, slapping his boot with his loaded
+whip. "And now, my dear, which way did he go?"
+
+But she explained that she had met him by the gate--he was a
+stranger--and she had left him in the same place.
+
+"And you can't say which way he went?"
+
+"No," she answered. "Nor yet which way he came. I looked back to see,
+to tell the truth," frankly. "But he had not moved, and he did not
+move until I was out of sight. And I never saw him again. The boy had
+not been stolen then," she continued, "and I thought little of it."
+
+"You should have told," Bishop answered, eyeing her severely. "Another
+time, my lass, you'll get into trouble." And then suddenly, "Here, can
+we come in?"
+
+She threw the door wide with a movement that disarmed suspicion.
+
+"To be sure," she said. "And welcome, so as you don't make a noise to
+waken the mistress."
+
+But when they stood in the kitchen it wore an aspect so neat and
+orderly that they were ashamed of their suspicions. The fire burned
+cheerfully on the wide hearth, and a wooden tray set roughly, but
+cleanly, stood on the corner of the long, polished table. The door of
+the shady dairy stood open, and afforded a glimpse of the great leaden
+milk-pans, and the row of shining pails.
+
+"The mistress is just overhead," she said. "So you'll not make much
+noise, if you please."
+
+"We'll make none," said Bishop. "We've learned what we want." And he
+turned to go out.
+
+All had not entered. Those who had, nodded, turned with gloomy faces,
+and followed him out. The dog, lurking at the back of its kennel, was
+still growling.
+
+"I'd be afeared to sleep here without him," Bess volunteered.
+
+"Ay, ay."
+
+"He's better 'n two men."
+
+"Ay?"
+
+They looked at the dog, and some one bade her good-day. And one by one
+the little troop turned and trailed despondently from the house, Clyne
+with his chin sunk on his breast, Bishop in a brown study, the other
+men staring blankly before them. Half-way up the ascent to the road
+Clyne stopped and looked back. His face was troubled.
+
+"I thought----" he began. And then he stopped and listened, frowning.
+
+"What?"
+
+"I don't know." He looked up. "You didn't hear anything?"
+
+Bishop and the men said that they had not heard anything. They
+listened. They all listened. And all said that they heard nothing.
+
+"It was fancy, I suppose," Clyne muttered, passing his hand over his
+eyes. And he shook his head as if to shake off some painful
+impression.
+
+But before he reached the road he paused once again and listened. And
+his face was haggard and lined with trouble.
+
+It occurred to no one that Bess had been too civil. To no one. For
+shrewd Mrs. Gilson was not with them.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+                         THE SMUGGLERS' OVEN
+
+
+Henrietta crouched beside the lamp, lulling the child from time to
+time with a murmured word. She held the boy, whom she had come to
+save, tight in her arms; and the thought that she held him was bliss
+to her, though poisoned bliss. Whatever happened he would learn that
+she had reached the child. He would know--even if the worst came--what
+she had done for him. But the worst must not come. Were she once in
+the open under the stars, how quickly could she flee down the road
+with this light burden in her arms--down the road until she saw the
+star-sprinkled lake spread below her! In twenty minutes, were she
+outside, she might be safe. In twenty minutes, only twenty minutes,
+she might place the child in his arms, she might read the joy in his
+eyes, and hear words--ah, so unlike those which she had heard from
+him!
+
+There were only two doors between herself and freedom. Her heart beat
+at the thought. In twenty minutes how different it might be with
+her--in twenty minutes, were she at liberty!
+
+She must wait until the child was sound asleep. Then when she could
+lay him down she would examine the place. The purity of the air proved
+that there was either a secret inlet for the purpose of ventilation,
+or that the door which shut off their prison from the well-head fitted
+ill and loosely. In the latter case it was possible that her strength
+might avail to force the door and make escape possible. They might not
+have given her credit for the vigour which she felt that she had it in
+her to show if the opportunity offered itself.
+
+In the meantime she scrutinised, as she sat, every foot of the walls,
+without discovering anything to encourage hope or point to a second
+exit. The light of the dim lamp revealed only smooth courses of
+bricks, so near her eyes, so low upon her head, so bewildering in
+their regularity and number, that they appalled her the more the
+longer she gazed on them. It was to seek relief that she rose at last,
+and laying the sleeping child aside, went to the door and examined it.
+
+Alas! it presented to the eye only solid wood, overlapping the
+aperture which it covered, and revealing in consequence neither hinges
+nor fastening. She set her shoulder against it, and thrust with all
+her might. But it neither bent nor moved, and in despair she left it,
+and stooping low worked her way round the walls. Her closest scrutiny
+revealed nothing; not a slit as wide as her slenderest finger, not a
+peg, nor a boss, nor anything that promised exit. She returned to the
+door, and made another and more desperate attempt to burst it. But her
+strength was unequal to the task, and to avoid a return of the old
+panic, which threatened to overcome her, she dropped down beside the
+child, and took him again in her arms, feeling that in the appeal
+which the boy's helplessness made to her she had her best shield
+against such terrors.
+
+The next moment, with a flicker or two, the light went out. She was in
+complete darkness.
+
+She fought with herself and with the impulse to shriek; and she
+conquered. She drew a deep breath as she sat, and with the unconscious
+child in her arms, stared motionless before her.
+
+"They will come back," she murmured steadfastly; "they will come back!
+They will come back! And in the meantime I must be brave for the
+child's sake. I have only to wait! And they will come back!"
+
+Nevertheless, it was hard to wait. It was hard not to let her thoughts
+run on the things which might prevent their return. They might be put
+to flight, they might be discovered and killed, they might be taken
+and refuse to say where she was. And then? Then?
+
+But for the child's sake she must not, she would not, think of that.
+She must dwell, instead, on the shortness of the time that had elapsed
+since they left her. She could not guess what the hour was, but she
+judged that it was something after midnight now, and that half of the
+dark hours were gone. Even so, she had long to wait before she could
+expect to be visited. She must have patience, therefore. Above all,
+she must not think of the mountain of earth above her, of the two
+thick doors that shut her off from the living world, of the vault that
+almost touched her head as she sat. For when she did the air seemed to
+fail her, and the grip of frenzied terror came near to raising her to
+her feet. Once on her feet and in that terror's grasp, she knew that
+she would rave and shriek, and beat on the walls--and go mad!
+
+But she would not think of these things. She would sit quite still and
+hold the child more tightly to her, and be sensible. And be sensible!
+Above all, be sensible!
+
+She thought of many things as she sat holding herself as it were; of
+her old home and her old life, the home and the life that seemed so
+far away, though no more than a few weeks divided her from them. But
+more particularly she thought of her folly and of the events of the
+last month; and of the child and of the child's father, and--with a
+shudder--of Walterson. How silly, how unutterably silly, she had been!
+And what stuff, what fustian she had mistaken for heroism; while,
+through all, the quiet restraint of the true master of men had been
+under her eyes.
+
+Not that all the fault had been hers. She was sure of that even now.
+Captain Clyne had known her as little as she had known him, and had
+misjudged her as largely. That he might know her better was her main
+desire now; and that he might know it, whatever the issue, she had an
+inspiration. She took from her neck the gold clasp which had aroused
+old Hinkson's greed, and she fastened it securely inside the child's
+dress. If the child were rescued, the presence of the brooch would
+prove that she had succeeded in her quest, and been with the boy.
+
+After that she dozed off, and presently, strange to say, she slept.
+Fortunately, the child also was worn out; and the two slept as soundly
+in the grim silence of the buried vault, with the load of earth above
+them and the water trickling from the well-hole beside them, as in the
+softest bed. They slept long, yet when Henrietta at last awoke it was
+happily to immediate consciousness of the position and of the need of
+coolness. The boy had been first to rouse himself and was crying for a
+light, and for something to quench his thirst. A little milk remained
+in the can, and with infinite precaution she groped for the vessel and
+found it. The milk was sour, but the boy lapped it eagerly, and
+Henrietta wetted her own lips, for she, too, was parched with thirst.
+She could have drunk ten times as much with pleasure, but she denied
+herself, and set the rest in a safe place. She did not know how long
+she had slept, and the fear that they might be left to meet a dreadful
+death would lift its head, hard as she strove to trample on it.
+
+She gave the child a few spoonfuls of porridge and encouraged him to
+crawl about in the darkness. But after some restless, querulous
+moanings he slept again, and Henrietta was left to her thoughts, which
+continually grew more uneasy. She was hungry; and that seemed to prove
+that the morning was come and gone. If this were so were they to
+remain there all day? And if all day, all night? And all next day? And
+if so, if they were not discovered by next day, why not--forever?
+
+Again she had to struggle against the hysterical terror that gripped
+and choked her. And resist it without action she could not. She
+rose, and in the dark felt her way to the hatchway by which she had
+entered. Again she passed her fingers down the smooth edges where it
+met the brickwork. She sought something, some bolt, some peg, some
+hinge--anything that, if it did not lead to freedom, might hold her
+thoughts and give her occupation. But there was nothing! And when she
+had set her ear against the thick wood, still there was nothing. She
+turned from it, and went slowly and doggedly round the prison on her
+knees, feeling the brickwork here and there, and in very dearth of
+hope, searching with her fingers for that which had baffled her eyes.
+Round, and round again; with just a pause to listen and a stifled sob.
+But in vain. All, as she might have known, was toil in vain. All was
+futile, hopeless. And then the child awoke, and she had to take him up
+and soothe him and give him the last of the milk and the porridge. He
+seemed a little stronger and better. But she--she was growing
+frightened--horribly frightened. She must have been hours in that
+place; and she was very near to that breakdown, which she had kept at
+bay so long.
+
+For she had no more food. And, worse, with the sound of water almost
+in her ears, with the knowledge that it ran no more than a few feet
+from her in a clear and limpid stream, she had nothing more with which
+she could quench the boy's thirst or her own. And she had no light.
+That frantic struggle to free herself, that strength of despair which
+might, however improbably, have availed her, were and must be futile
+for her, fettered and maimed by a darkness that could be felt. She
+drew the child nearer and hugged him to her. He was her talisman, her
+all, the tie that bound her to sanity, the being outside herself for
+whom she was bound to think and plan and be cool.
+
+She succeeded--for the moment. But as she sat, dozing a little at
+intervals, with the child pressed closely to her, she fell from time
+to time into fits of trembling. And she prayed for light--only for
+light! And then again for some sound, some change in the cold, dead
+stillness that made her seem like a thing apart, aloof, removed from
+other things. And she was very thirsty. She knew that presently the
+child would grow thirsty again. And she would have nothing to give
+him.
+
+The thought was torture, and she seemed to have borne it an age
+already; supported by the fear of rousing the boy and hastening the
+moment she dreaded. She would have broken down, she must have broken
+down, but for one thought; that, long as the hours seemed to her, and
+far distant as the moment of her entrance appeared, she might be a
+great way out in her reckoning of time. She might not have been shut
+up there so very long. The wretches who had put her there might not
+have fled. They might not have abandoned her. If she knew all she
+might be rid in an instant of her fears. All the time she might be
+torturing herself for nothing.
+
+She clung passionately to that thought and to the child. But the
+prolonged uncertainty, the suspense, the waiting, tried her to the
+utmost of her endurance. Her ears ached with the pain of listening;
+her senses hungered for the sound of the footstep on which all
+depended. Would that sound never come? Once or twice she fancied that
+she heard it; and mocked by hope she stilled the very beating of her
+heart, that she might hear more keenly. But nothing followed, nothing.
+Nothing happened, and her heart sickened.
+
+"Presently," she thought, "I shall begin to see things. I shall grow
+weak and fancy things. The horror of being buried alive will master
+me, and I shall shriek and shout and go mad. But that shall not be
+until the child's trouble is over--God helping me!"
+
+And then, dazzling her with its brightness, a sudden thought flashed
+through her brain. Fool! Fool! She had succumbed in despair when a cry
+might release her! She had laid herself down to die, when she had but
+to lift up her voice, and the odds were that she would be heard. Ay,
+and be freed! For had not the girl threatened her with the man's
+coarse gallantries if she screamed? And to what purpose, if she were
+buried so deep that her complaints could not be heard?
+
+The thought lifted a weight from her. It revived her hopes, almost her
+confidence. Immediately a current of vigour and courage coursed
+through her veins. But she did not shout at once. The child was
+asleep; she would await his awakening, and in the meantime she would
+listen diligently. For if she could be heard by those who approached
+the place, it was possible that she could hear them.
+
+She had barely conceived the thought, when the thing for which she had
+waited so long happened. The silence was broken. A sound struck her
+ear. A grating noise followed. Then a shaft of light, so faint that
+only eyes long used to utter darkness could detect it, darted in and
+lay across the brickwork of the vault. In a twinkling she was on her
+knees and scrambling with the child in her arms towards the hatch. She
+had reached it and was touching it, when the bolts that held up the
+door slid clear, and with a sharp report the hatch fell. A burst of
+light poured in and blinded her. But what was sight to her? She, who
+had borne up against fear so bravely had now only one thought, only
+one idea in her mind--to escape from the vault. She tumbled out
+recklessly, fell against something, and only through the support of an
+unseen hand kept on her feet as she alighted in the well-head.
+
+A man whom her haste had pushed aside, slapped her on the shoulder.
+
+"Lord, you're in a hurry!" he said. "You've had enough of bed for
+once!"
+
+"So would you," came the answer--in Bess's voice--"if you'd had
+twenty-four hours of it, my lad. All the same, she'll have to go
+back."
+
+Trembling and dazed, Henrietta peered from one to the other. Mistress
+of herself two minutes before, she was now on the verge of hysteria,
+and controlled herself with an effort.
+
+"Oh!" she cried. "Oh! thank God you've come! Thank God you've come! I
+thought you had left me."
+
+She was thankful--oh, she was thankful; though these were no rescuers,
+but the two who had consigned her to that horrible place. Bess raised
+the lanthorn so that its light fell on the girl's haggard, twitching
+face.
+
+"We could not come before," she said, with something like pity in her
+tone. "That's all."
+
+"All!" Henrietta gasped. "All! Oh, I thought you had left me! I
+thought you had left me!"
+
+Bess considered her, and there was beyond doubt something like
+softening in the girl's dark face. But her tone remained ironical.
+
+"You didn't," she said, "much fancy your bedroom, I guess?"
+
+Henrietta's teeth chattered.
+
+"Oh, God forgive you!" she cried. "I thought you had left me! I
+thought you'd left me!"
+
+"It was your own folks' fault," Bess retorted. "They've never had
+their eyes off the blessed house, one or another of them, from dawn to
+dark! We could not come. But now here's food, and plenty!" raising the
+light. "How's the child?"
+
+"Bad! Bad!" Henrietta muttered.
+
+She was coming to her senses. She was beginning to understand the
+position; to comprehend that no rescuers were here, no search party
+had found her; and that--and that--had not one of them dropped a word
+about her going back? Going back meant going back to that--place! With
+a sudden gesture she thrust the food from her.
+
+"Ain't you going to eat?" Bess asked, staring. "I thought you'd be
+famished."
+
+"Not here! Not here!" she answered violently.
+
+"Oh, nonsense!" the other rejoined. "Don't be a fool! You're clemmed,
+I'll be bound. Eat while you can."
+
+But, "Not here! Not here!" Henrietta replied. And she thrust the food
+away.
+
+The man interposed.
+
+"Stow it!" he said, in a threatening tone. "You eat while you can and
+where you can!"
+
+But she was desperate.
+
+"I'll not eat here!" she cried. "I'll not eat here! And I'll not go
+back!" her voice rising. "I will die before I will go back. Do you
+hear?" with the fierceness of a wild creature at bay. "I do not care
+what you do! And the child is dying. Another night--but I'll not
+suffer it! And if you lay a finger on me"--repelling Bess, who had
+made a feint of seizing her--"I will scream until I am heard! Ay, I
+will!" she repeated, her eyes sparkling. "But take me to the house and
+I will go quietly! I will go quietly!"
+
+It was plain that she was almost beside herself, and that fear of the
+place in which she had passed so many hours had driven out all other
+fear. The two, who had not left her alone so long without misgiving,
+looked at one another and hesitated. They might overpower her. But the
+place was so closely watched that a single shriek might be heard; then
+they would be taken red-handed. Nor did Bess at least wish to use
+force. The position, and her views, were changed. All day curious eyes
+had been fixed on the house, and inquisitive people had started up
+where they were least expected. Bess's folly in bringing this hornets'
+nest about their ears had shaken her influence with the men; and the
+day had been one long exchange of savage recriminations. She owned to
+herself that she had done a foolish thing; that she had let her spite
+carry her too far. And in secret she was beginning to think how she
+could clear herself.
+
+She did not despair of this; for she was crafty and of a good courage.
+She did not even think it would be hard; but she must, as a _sine qua
+non_, conciliate the girl whom she had wronged. Unluckily she now saw
+that she could not conciliate her without taking her to the house. And
+she could not with safety take her to the house. The men were
+irritated by the peril which she had brought upon them; they were
+ferocious and out of hand; and terribly suspicious to boot. They
+blamed her, Bess, for all: they had threatened her. And if she was not
+safe among them, she was quite sure that Henrietta would not be safe.
+
+There was an alternative. She might let the girl go there and then.
+And she would have done this, but she could not do it without Giles's
+consent; and she dared not propose it to him. He was wanted for other
+offences, and the safe return of Henrietta and the child would not
+clear him. He had looked on the child, and now looked on the girl, as
+pawns in his game, a _quid pro quo_ with which--if he were taken while
+they remained in his friends' hands--he might buy his pardon. Bess,
+therefore, dared not propose to free Henrietta: and what was she to do
+if the girl was so foolish as to refuse to go back to the place where
+she was safe?
+
+"Look here," she said at last. "You're safer here than in the house,
+if you will only take my word for it."
+
+But there is no arguing with fear.
+
+"I will not!" Henrietta persisted, with passion. "I will not! Take me
+out of this! Take me out! The child will die here, and I shall go
+mad!--mad!"
+
+"You're pretty mad now," the man retorted. But that said, he met
+Bess's eyes and nodded reluctantly. "Well," he said, "it's her own
+lookout. But I think she'll repent it."
+
+"Will you go quiet?" Bess asked.
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"And you'll not cry out? Nor try to break away?"
+
+"I will not! I will not indeed!"
+
+"You swear it?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And by G--d," the man interposed bluntly, "she'd better keep to it."
+
+"Very well," Bess said. "You have it your own way. But I tell you
+truly, I put you in here for the best. And perhaps you'll know it
+before you're an hour older. However, all's said, and it's your own
+doing."
+
+"Why don't you let me go?" Henrietta panted. "Let me go, and let me
+take the child!"
+
+"Stow it!" the man cried, cutting her short. "It's likely, when
+we're as like as not to pay dear for taking you. Do you shut your
+talking-trap!"
+
+"She'll be quiet," Bess said, more gently. "So douse the glim, lad.
+And do you give me the child," to Henrietta.
+
+But she cried, "No! No!" and held it more closely to her.
+
+"Very good! Then take my hand--you don't know the way. And not a
+whisper, mind! Slip the bolt, Giles! And, mum, all!"
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+                          IN TYSON'S KITCHEN
+
+
+The distance to the house was short. Before Henrietta had done more
+than taste the bliss of the open night, had done more than lift her
+eyes in thankfulness to the dark profundity above her, she was under
+the eaves. A stealthy tap was answered by the turning of a key, a door
+was quickly and silently opened, and she was pushed forward. Bess
+muttered a word or two--to a person unseen--and gripping her arm,
+thrust her along a passage. A second door gave way as mysteriously,
+and Henrietta found herself dazzled and blinking on the threshold of
+the kitchen which she had left twenty-four hours before. It was
+lighted, but not with the wastefulness and extravagance of the
+previous evening. Nor did it display those signs of disorder and riot
+which had yesterday opened her eyes.
+
+She was sinking under the weight of the child, which she had hugged to
+her that it might not cry, and she went straight to the settle and
+laid the boy on it. He opened his eyes and looked vacantly before him;
+but, apparently, he was too far gone in weakness, or in too much fear,
+to cry. While Henrietta, relieved of the weight, and perhaps of a
+portion of her fears, sank on the settle beside him, leant her face on
+her arms and burst into passionate weeping.
+
+It was perhaps the best thing in her power. For the men had followed
+her into the kitchen; and Lunt, with brutal oaths, was asking why she
+was there and what new folly was this. Bess turned on him--she well
+knew how to meet such attacks; and with scornful tongue she bade him
+wait, calling him thick-head, and adding that he'd learn by-and-by, if
+he could learn anything. Then, while Giles, ill-content himself,
+gave some kind of account of the thing, she began--as if it were a
+trifle--to lay the supper. And almost by force she got Henrietta to
+the table.
+
+"It's food you want!" she said bluntly. "Don't play the silly! Who's
+hurt you? Who's going to hurt you? Here, take a sip of this, and
+you'll feel better. Never heed him," with a contemptuous glance at
+Lunt. "He's most times a grumbler."
+
+For the moment Henrietta was quite broken, and the pressure which the
+other exerted was salutary. She did what she was bidden, swallowing a
+mouthful of the Scotch cordial Bess forced on her, and eating and
+drinking mechanically. Meanwhile the three men had brought their heads
+together, and sat discussing the position with unconcealed grudging
+and mistrust.
+
+At length:
+
+"You've grown cursed kind of a sudden!" Lunt swore, scowling at the
+two women. The child, in the presence of the men, sat paralysed with
+terror. "What's this blamed fuss about?"
+
+"What fuss?" Bess shot at him over her shoulder. And going to the
+child she bent over it with a bowl of bread and milk.
+
+"Why don't you lay 'em up in lavender?" the man sneered. "See here,
+she was a peacock yesterday and you'd grind her pretty face under your
+heel! To-day---- What does it mean? I want to know."
+
+"I suppose you don't want 'em to die?" the girl returned, in the same
+tone of contempt.
+
+"What do I care whether they die?"
+
+"They'd be much use to us, dead!" she retorted.
+
+Giles nodded assent.
+
+"The girl's right there," he said in a low tone. "Best leave it to
+her. She's a cunning one and no mistake."
+
+"Ay, cunning enough!" Lunt answered. "But whose game is she playing?
+Hers or ours?"
+
+"Didn't know you had one!" Bess flung at him. And then in an
+undertone, "Dolt!" she muttered.
+
+"It's all one, man, it's all one!" Giles said. On the whole he was for
+peace. "Best have supper, and talk it over after."
+
+"And let the first that comes in through the door find her?" Lunt
+cried.
+
+"Who's to come?"
+
+"Didn't they come here this morning? And last night? And if she'd been
+here, or the child--
+
+"Ay, but they weren't!" Bess answered brusquely. "And that's the
+reason the coves won't come again. For the matter of that," turning
+fiercely on them, "who was it cleaned up after you, you dirty dogs,
+and put this place straight? Without which they'd have known as much
+the moment they put their noses in--as if the girl had been sitting on
+the settle there. Who was it thought of that, and did it? And hid you
+safe upstairs?"
+
+"You did, Bess--you did!" the gipsy answered, speaking for the first
+time. "And a gay, clever wench you are!" He looked defiantly at Lunt.
+"You're a game cove," he said, "but you're not fly!"
+
+Lunt for answer fired half a dozen oaths at him. But Giles interposed.
+
+"We're all in one boat," he said. "And food's plenty. Let's stop
+jawing and to it!"
+
+Two of the men seemed to think the advice good. And they began to eat,
+still debating. The third, Saul, continued to listen to his
+companions, but his sly eyes never left Henrietta, who sat a little
+farther down the table on the opposite side. She was not for some time
+aware of his looks, or of their meaning. But Bess, who knew his
+nature--he was her cousin--and who saw only what she had feared to
+see, frowned as she marked the direction of his glances. In the act of
+sitting down she paused, leant over the table, and with a quick
+movement swept off the Hollands bottle.
+
+But the gipsy, with a grin, touched Lunt's elbow. And the ruffian
+seeing what she was doing, fell into a fresh fury and bade her put the
+bottle back again.
+
+"I shall not," she said. "You've ale, and plenty. Do you want to be
+drunk if the girl's folks come?"
+
+"Curse you!" he retorted. "Didn't you say a minute ago that they
+wouldn't come?"
+
+Giles sided with him--for the first time.
+
+"Ay, that's blowing hot and cold!" he said. "Put the gin back, lass,
+and no two words about it."
+
+She stood darkly hesitating, as if she meant to refuse. But Lunt had
+risen, and it was clear that he would take no refusal that was not
+backed by force. She replaced the Dutch bottle sullenly; and Giles
+drew it towards him and with a free hand laced his ale.
+
+"There's naught like dog's nose," he said, "to comfort a man! The lass
+forgets that it's wintry weather and I've been out in it!"
+
+"A dram's a dram, winter or summer!" Lunt growled. And he followed the
+example.
+
+But Bess knew that she had lost the one ally on whom she had counted.
+She could manage Giles sober. But drink was the man's weakness; and
+when he was drunk he was as brutal as his comrade; and more dangerous.
+
+She had satisfied her grudge against Henrietta. And she was aware now,
+only too well aware, that she had let it carry her too far. She had
+nothing to gain by further violence; she had everything to lose by it.
+For if the girl were ill-treated, there would be no mercy for any of
+the party, if taken; while escape, in the face of the extraordinary
+measures which Clyne was taking and of the hostility of the
+countryside, was doubtful at the best. As she thought of these things
+and ate her supper with a sombre face, she wished with all her heart
+that she had never seen the girl, and never, to satisfy a silly spite,
+decoyed her. Her one aim now was to get her out of the men's sight,
+and to shut her up where she might be safe till morning. It was a
+pity, it was a thousand pities, that Henrietta had not stayed in the
+smugglers' oven! And Bess wondered if she could even now persuade her
+to return to it. But a glance at Henrietta's haggard face, on which
+the last twenty-four hours had imprinted a stamp it would take many
+times twenty-four hours to efface, warned her that advice--short of
+the last extremity--would be useless. It remained to remove the girl
+to the only place where she might, with luck, lie safe and unmolested.
+
+In this Henrietta might aid her--had she her wits about her. But
+Henrietta did not seem to be awake to the peril. The insolence of the
+gipsy's glances, which had yesterday brought the blood to her cheeks,
+passed unnoted, so complete was her collapse. Doubtless strength would
+return, nay, was even now returning; and presently wit would return.
+For her nerves were young, and would quickly recover their tone. But
+for the moment, she was almost comatose. Having eaten and drunk, she
+sat heavily, with her elbow on the table, her head resting on her
+hand. The sleeve had fallen back from her wrist, and the gipsy lad's
+eyes rested long and freely on the white roundness of her arm. Her
+fair complexion seduced him as no dark beauty had power to seduce. He
+eyed her as the tiger eyes the fawn before it springs from covert.
+Bess, who read his looks as if they had been an open book, and who saw
+that Giles, her one dependence, was growing more sullen and dangerous
+with every draught, could have struck Henrietta for her fatuous
+stolidity.
+
+One thing was clear. The longer she put off the move, the more
+dangerous the men were like to be. Bess never lacked resolution, and
+she was quick to take her part. As soon as she had eaten and drunk her
+fill, she rose and tapped Henrietta on the shoulder.
+
+"We're best away," she said coolly. "Will you carry the brat upstairs,
+or shall I?"
+
+For a moment she thought that she had carried her point. For no one
+spoke or objected. But when Henrietta rose and turned to the settle to
+take up the boy, the gipsy muttered something in Lunt's ear. The
+ruffian glared across at the girls, and struck the haft of his knife
+with violence on the board.
+
+"Upstairs?" he roared. "No, my girl, you don't! We keep together! We
+keep together! S'help me, if I don't think you mean to peach!"
+
+"Don't be a fool," she answered. And she furtively touched Henrietta's
+arm, as a sign to her to be ready. Then to the gipsy lad, in a tone
+full of meaning, "The gentry mort," she said, in thieves' patter, "is
+not worth the nubbing-cheat. I'm fly, and I'll not have it. Stow it,
+my lad, and don't be a flat!"
+
+"And let you peach on us?" he answered, smiling.
+
+Lunt struck the table.
+
+"Stop your lingo!" he said. "Here, you!" to Giles. "Are you going to
+let these two sell us? The lass is on to peaching, that's my belief!"
+
+"We'll--soon stop that," Giles replied, with a hiccough. "Here,
+I'll--I'll take one, and you--you t'other! And we'll fine well stop
+their peaching, pretty dears!" He staggered to his feet as he spoke,
+his face inflamed with drink. "Peach, will they?" he muttered, swaying
+a little, and scowling at them over the dull, unsnuffed candles.
+"We'll stop that, and--and ha' some fun, too."
+
+"S'help us if we don't!" cried Lunt, also rising to his feet. "Let's
+live to-day, if we die to-morrow! You take one and I'll take the
+other!"
+
+The gipsy lad grinned.
+
+"Who's the flat now?" he chuckled. He alone remained seated, with his
+arms on the table. "You've raised your pipe too soon, my lass!"
+
+"Stow this folly!" Bess answered, keeping a bold face. "We're going
+upstairs," she continued. "Do you"--to Henrietta--"bring the child."
+
+But, "Curse me if you are!" Giles answered. Drink had made him the
+more dangerous of the two. He lurched forward as he spoke, and placed
+himself between the girls and the foot of the open staircase that led
+to the upper floor. "We're one apiece for you and one over! And you're
+going to stay, my girls, and amuse us!"
+
+And he opened his arms, with a tipsy laugh.
+
+If Henrietta had been slow to see the danger, she saw it now. And the
+shock was the greater. The men's flushed faces and vinous eyes, still
+more the dark face of the smiling gipsy who had raised the tempest for
+his own ends, filled her with fear. She clutched the child to her, but
+as much by instinct as from calculation; and she cast a desperate look
+round her--only to see that retreat was cut off. The girls were hemmed
+in on the hearth between the fire and the long table, and it was hard
+to say which of the men she most dreaded. She had gone through much
+already and she cowered, white to the lips, behind her companion, who,
+for her part, looked greater confidence than she felt. But whatever
+Bess's fears, she rallied bravely to the occasion, being no stranger
+to such scenes.
+
+"Well," she said, temporising, "we'll sit down a bit if you'll mind
+your manners. But we'll sit here, my lads, and together."
+
+"No, one apiece," Giles hiccoughed, before she had finished speaking.
+"One apiece! You come and sit by me--'twon't be the first time, my
+beauty! And--and t'other one by him!"
+
+Bess stamped her foot in a rage.
+
+"No!" she cried, "I will not! You'll just stay on your own side! And
+we on ours!"
+
+"You'll just do as I say!" the man answered, with tipsy obstinacy.
+"You'll just do--as I say!"
+
+And he lurched forward, thinking to take her by surprise and seize
+her.
+
+Henrietta screamed, and recoiled to the farthest corner of the chimney
+nook. Bess stood her ground, but with a dark face thrust her hand into
+her bosom--probably for a knife. She never drew it, however. Before
+Giles could touch her, or Lunt, who was coasting about the long table
+to come at Henrietta, had compassed half the distance--there was a
+knock at the door.
+
+It was a small thing, but it was enough. It checked the men as
+effectually as if it had been the knell of doom. They hung arrested,
+eye questioning eye; or, in turn, tip-toeing to gain their weapons,
+they cast looks of menace at the women. And they listened with murder
+in their eyes.
+
+"If you breathe a word," Giles hissed, "I'll throttle you!"
+
+And he raised his hand for silence. The knock was repeated.
+
+"Some one must go," the gipsy lad muttered.
+
+His face was sallow with fear.
+
+"Go?" Bess answered, in a low tone, but one of fierce passion. "Who's
+to go but me? See now where you'd be without me!"
+
+"And do you see here," Lunt made answer, and he drew a pistol from his
+pocket, and cocked it, "one word more than's needful, and I'll blow
+your brains out, my lass. If I go, you go first! So mark me, and speak
+'em fair!"
+
+And with a gesture he pointed to the dairy, and beckoned to the other
+men to retire thither.
+
+He seemed to be about to command Henrietta to go with them. But he saw
+that in sheer terror she would disobey him, or he thought her
+sufficiently hidden where she was. For when he had seen the other men
+out he followed them, and holding the door of the dairy half open
+showed Bess the pistol.
+
+"Now," he said, "and by G--d, remember. For I'll keep my word."
+
+Bess had already, with a hasty hand, removed some of the plates and
+mugs from the table. She made sure that Henrietta was all but
+invisible behind the settle. Then she went to the door.
+
+"Who's there?" she cried aloud.
+
+No one answered, but the knock was repeated.
+
+Henrietta raised her white face above the level of the settle. She
+listened, and hope, terrified as she was, rose in her heart. Who was
+likely to visit this lonely house at so late an hour? Was it not
+almost certain that her friends were there? And that another minute
+would see her safe in their hands?
+
+Giles's dark face peering from the doorway of the dairy answered that
+question. The muzzle of his weapon now covered her, now Bess. Sick at
+heart, almost fainting, she sank again behind the settle and prayed.
+While Bess with a noisy hand thrust back the great bar, and opened the
+door.
+
+There was no inrush of feet, and Bess looked out.
+
+"Well, who is it?" she asked of the darkness. "You're late enough,
+whoever you are."
+
+The entering draught blew the flames of the candles awry. Then a
+woman's voice was heard:
+
+"I've come to ask how the missus is," it said.
+
+"Oh, you have, have you? And a fine time this!" Bess scolded, with
+wonderful glibness. "She's neither better nor worse. So there! I hope
+you think it's worth your trouble!"
+
+"And the baby? I heard it was dead."
+
+"Then you heard a lie!"
+
+The visitor, who was no other than Mrs. Tyson's old servant, the
+stolid woman who had once admitted Henrietta to the house, seemed at a
+loss what to say next. After an awkward pause:
+
+"Oh," she said, "well, I am glad. I was not sure you hadn't left her.
+And if she can't get out of her bed----"
+
+"You thought there'd be pickings about!" Bess cried, in her most
+insolent tone. "Well, there ain't, my girl! And don't you come up
+again scaring us after dark, or you'll hear a bit more of my mind!"
+
+"You're not easy scared!" the woman retorted contemptuously. "Don't
+tell me! It takes more than the dark to frighten you!"
+
+"Anyway, nine o'clock is my hour for getting scared," Bess returned.
+"And as it's after that, and you've a dark walk back---- D'you come
+through the wood?"
+
+"Ay, I did."
+
+"Then you'd best go back that way!" Bess replied.
+
+And she shut the door in the woman's face, and flung the bar over with
+a resounding bang.
+
+And quickly, before the men, heaving sighs of relief, had had time to
+emerge from their retreat, she was across the floor, and had dragged
+Henrietta to her feet.
+
+"Up the stairs!" she whispered. "The door on the left! Knock! Knock!
+I'll keep them back."
+
+Taken by surprise as she was, Henrietta's courage rose. She bounded to
+the open stairs, and was half-way up before the men took in the
+position and understood that she was escaping them. They rushed
+forward then, falling over one another in their eagerness to seize
+her. But they were too late, Bess was before them. She sprang on to
+the widest of the lower steps where the staircase turned in the corner
+of the room, and flashing her knife in their eyes, she swore that she
+would blind the first man who ascended. They knew her, and for the
+moment fell back daunted and dismayed; for Giles had put up his
+pistol. He bethought himself, indeed, of pulling it out, when he found
+parley useless; but it was then too late. By that time Bess's ear told
+her that Henrietta was safe in Mrs. Tyson's room, with the bolt shot
+behind her.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXV
+
+                           THROUGH THE WOOD
+
+
+Behind the closed door the two haggard-faced women looked at one
+another. Mrs. Tyson had not left her bed for many days. But she had
+heard the knocking at the outer door and the answering growl of the
+dog chained under her window; and hoping, yet scarcely daring to
+expect, that the nightmare was over and her husband or her friends
+were at hand, she had dragged herself from the bed and opened the door
+as soon as the knocking sounded in turn at that.
+
+For days, indeed, one strand, and one only, had held the feeble,
+frightened woman to life; and that strand was the babe that lay beside
+her. The sheep will fight for its lamb, the wren for its fledglings.
+And Mrs. Tyson, if she had not fought, had for the babe's sake borne
+and endured; and surrounded by the ruffians who had the house at their
+mercy, she had survived terrors that in other circumstances would have
+driven her mad.
+
+True, Bess had not ill-treated her. On the contrary, she had been
+almost kind to her. And lonely and ill, dependent on her for
+everything, the woman had lost much of her dread of the girl; though
+now and again, in sheer wantonness, Bess would play with her fears.
+Certain that the weak-willed creature would not dare to tell what she
+knew, Bess had boasted to her of Henrietta's presence and her danger
+and her plight. When Henrietta, therefore, the moment the door was
+unfastened, flung herself into the room, and with frantic fingers
+helped to secure the door behind her, Mrs. Tyson was astonished
+indeed; but less astonished than alarmed. She was alarmed in truth,
+almost to swooning, and showed a face as white as paper.
+
+Luckily, Henrietta had resumed the wit and courage of which stupor had
+deprived her for a time. She had no longer Bess at her elbow to bid
+her do this or that. But she had Bess's example and her own spirit.
+There was an instant of stricken silence, during which she and the
+woman looked fearfully into one another's faces by the light of the
+poor dip that burned beside the gloomy tester. Then Henrietta took her
+part. She laid down the child, to which she had clung instinctively;
+and with a strength which surprised herself, she dragged a chest, that
+stood but a foot on one side of the opening, across the door. It would
+not withstand the men long, but it would check them. She looked
+doubtfully at the bed, but mistrusted her power to move it. And before
+she could do more, a sound reached them from an unexpected quarter,
+and struck at the root of her plans. For it came from the window; and
+so unexpectedly, that it flung them into one another's arms.
+
+Mrs. Tyson screamed loudly. They clung to one another.
+
+"What is it? What is it?" Henrietta cried.
+
+Then she saw a spectral face pressed against the dark casement. A hand
+tapped repeatedly on a pane.
+
+Henrietta put Mrs. Tyson from her and approached the window. She
+discovered that the face was a woman's face, and with fumbling fingers
+she slid aside the catch that secured the window.
+
+"Tell the missus not to be scared," whispered an anxious voice. "Tell
+her it's me! I got up the pear tree to see her, and I saw you. I knew
+that Bess was lying, and I thought I'd--I thought I'd just get up and
+see for myself!"
+
+"Thank God!" Henrietta cried, clinging to the sill in a passion of
+relief as she recognised the stolid-faced servant. "You know me?"
+
+"You're the young lady that's missing?" the woman answered, taking a
+securer hold of the window-frame, and bringing her head into the room.
+"I know you. I was thinking if I dared scare the missus, when I see
+you tumble in--I nigh tumbled down with surprise! I'll go hot-foot and
+take the news, miss!"
+
+"No, no, I shall come!"
+
+"You let me go and fetch 'em! I'll bet, miss, I'll be welcome. And do
+you bide quiet and safe. Now we know where you are, they'll not harm
+you."
+
+But Henrietta had heard a footstep on the stairs, and she was not
+going to bide quiet. She had no belief in her safety.
+
+"No," she said resolutely. "I am coming. Can you take the child?"
+
+"Well, if you must, but----"
+
+"I must! I must!"
+
+"Lord, you are frightened!" the woman muttered, looking at her face.
+And then, catching the infection, "Is't as bad as that?" she said.
+"Ay, give me the child, then. And for the Lord's sake, be quick, miss.
+This pear is as good as a ladder, and the dog knows me as well as its
+own folk!"
+
+"The child! The child!" Henrietta repeated. Again her ear had caught
+the sound of shuffling feet, and of whispering on the stairs. She
+carried the child, which seemed paralysed by fear, to the sill, and
+delivered it into the other's arm.
+
+The sill of the window was barely ten feet from the ground, and an old
+pear tree, spread-eagled against the wall, formed a natural ladder.
+The dog, which had been chained under the window to guard against
+egress, knew the woman and did no more than stand below and wag its
+tail. In two minutes Henrietta was safe on the ground, had taken the
+child from the other's arms, and was ready for flight.
+
+But the servant would not leave until she had made sure that her
+mistress had strength to close the window. That done, she turned to
+Henrietta.
+
+"Now come!" she said. "And don't spare yourself, miss, for if they
+catch us after this they'll for certain cut our throats!"
+
+Henrietta had no need of the spur, and at their best pace the two fled
+down the paddock, the servant-wench holding Henrietta by the elbow and
+impelling her. The moon had risen, and Mrs. Tyson, poor, terrified,
+trembling woman, watching them from the window, could follow them down
+the pale meadow, and even discern the dark line of the rivulet, along
+the bank of which they passed, and here and there a patch of higher
+herbage, or a solitary boulder left in the middle of the turf for a
+scratching-post. Perhaps she made, in leaning forward, some noise
+which irritated the dog; or perhaps the moonlight annoyed it. At any
+rate, it began to bay.
+
+By that time, however, Henrietta and her companion had gained the
+shadow of the trees at the upper end of the wooded gorge through which
+the stream escaped. They stood there a brief while to take breath, and
+the woman offered to carry the child. But Henrietta, though she felt
+that her strength was uncertain, though she experienced an odd
+giddiness, was unwilling to resign her charge. And after a pause they
+started to descend the winding path which followed the stream, and
+often crossed and re-crossed it.
+
+They stumbled along as fast as they could. But this was not very fast.
+For not only was it dark in the covert, but the track was beset with
+projecting roots, and overhead branches hung low and scraped their
+faces. More than once startled by a rabbit, or the gurgle of the
+falling water, they stopped to listen, fancying that they were
+pursued. Still they went fast enough to feel ultimate safety certain;
+and Henrietta, as she held an end of the other's petticoat between her
+fingers and followed patiently, bade herself bear up a little longer
+and it would be over. It would soon be over, and she--she would put
+his child in his arms. It would soon be over, and she would be able to
+sink down upon her bed and rest. For she was very weary--and odd.
+Very, unaccountably weary. When she stumbled or her foot found the
+descent longer than she expected, she staggered and swayed on her
+feet.
+
+But, "We shall soon be safe! We shall soon be safe!" she told herself.
+"And the child!"
+
+Meanwhile they had passed the darkest part of the little ravine. They
+had passed the place where the waterfalls made the descent most
+arduous. They could even see below them a piece of the road lying
+white in the moonlight.
+
+On a sudden Henrietta stopped.
+
+"You must take the child," she faltered, in a tone that startled her
+companion. "I can't carry--it any farther."
+
+"I'll take it. You should have given it me before!" the woman scolded.
+"That's better. Quiet, my lad. I'll not hurt you!" For the child,
+silent hitherto, had begun to whimper. "Now, miss," she continued
+sharply, "bear up! It's but a little way farther."
+
+"I don't think--I can," Henrietta said. The crisis over, she felt her
+strength ebbing away in the strangest fashion. She swayed, and had to
+cling to a tree for support. "You must go on--without me," she
+stammered.
+
+"I'll not go on without you," the woman answered. She was loath to
+leave the girl helpless in the wood, where it was possible that she
+might still come to harm. "You come down to the road, miss. Pluck up!
+Pluck up! It's but a step!"
+
+And partly by words, partly by means of a vigorous arm, the good
+creature got the girl to the bottom of the wood, and by a last effort,
+half lifted, half dragged her over the stile which closed the gap in
+the wall. But once in the road, Henrietta seemed scarcely conscious
+where she was. She tottered, and the moment the woman took her hands
+from her, she sank down against the wall.
+
+"Leave me! Leave me!" she muttered, with a last exertion of sense.
+"And take the child! I'm--giddy. Only giddy! I shall be better in a
+minute." Then, "I think--I think I am fainting."
+
+"I think you are," the woman answered drily. She stooped over her.
+"Poor thing!" she said. "There's no knowing what has happened to her!
+But she'll freeze as she is!"
+
+And whipping off her thick drugget shawl--they made such shawls in
+Kendal--she wrapped it about the girl, snatched up the child, and set
+off running and walking along the road. The Low Wood Inn lay not more
+than four furlongs away, and she counted on returning in twenty
+minutes.
+
+"Ay, in twenty minutes!" she muttered, and then, saving her breath,
+she kept on steadily along the moonlit road, soothing the child with a
+word when it was necessary. In a very brief time she was out of sight.
+
+For a while all was still as death. Then favoured by the recumbent
+position, Henrietta began to recover; and presently, but not until
+some minutes had elapsed, she came to herself.
+
+She sighed deeply, and gazing upward at the dark sky, with its
+twinkling stars, she wondered how she came to be in such a strange
+place; but without any desire to rise, or any wish to solve the
+riddle. A second sigh as deep as the first lifted the oppression from
+her breast; and with returning strength she wondered what was the long
+dark line that bounded her vision. Was it, could it be, the head-board
+of her bed? Or the tester?
+
+It was, in fact, the wall that bounded the wood, but she was not able
+to take that in. And though the nipping air, blowing freely on her
+face, was doing its best to refresh her, and she was beginning to
+grope in her memory for the past, it needed a sound, a voice, to
+restore to her, not her powers, but her consciousness. The event soon
+happened. Two men drew near, talking in low fierce tones. At first,
+lying there as in a dream, she heard without understanding; and then,
+still powerless under the spell, she heard and understood.
+
+"Why didn't you," Lunt's voice growled hoarsely, "loose the dog, as I
+told you? We'd have had her by now."
+
+"Ay, and have had the country about our ears, too," Giles answered
+angrily.
+
+"And shan't we have it about our ears when that vixen has told her
+tale?" the other cried. "I swear my neck aches now!"
+
+"She couldn't carry the brat far, nor fast."
+
+"No, but--what's that?" There was alarm in Lunt's tone.
+
+"Only the lad following us," Giles answered. "He's brought the
+lanthorn."
+
+Perhaps the three separated then: perhaps not. She could not rise to
+see. She was paralysed. She lay as in a nightmare, and was conscious
+only of the yellow gleam of the lanthorn as it quartered the ground
+this way and that, and came nearer and nearer. At last the man who
+carried it was close to her; on the other side of the wall. He raised
+the lanthorn above his head, and looked over the wall. By evil chance,
+the light focussed itself upon her.
+
+She knew that she was discovered. And her terror was the greater
+because she knew that the man who held the lanthorn was the
+gipsy--whom she feared the most of all. But she was not capable of
+motion or of resistance; and though he held the light steadily on her,
+and for a few seconds she saw in the side-glow his dark features
+gleaming down at her, she lay fascinated. She waited for him to
+proclaim his discovery.
+
+He shut off the light abruptly.
+
+"So--ho! back!" he cried. "She's not this way! Maybe she's in the
+bushes above!"
+
+"This way?"
+
+"Ay!"
+
+"Then, burn you, why don't you bring the light, instead of talking?"
+Lunt retorted. And from the sound he appeared to be kicking the nearer
+bushes, and probing them with a stick.
+
+The gipsy answered impudently, and the three, blaming one another,
+moved off up the wood.
+
+"You should have brought the dog," one cried.
+
+"Oh, curse the dog!" was the answer. "I tell you she can't be far
+off! She can't have come as low as this." The light was thrown hither
+and thither. "She's somewhere among the bushes. We'll hap on her
+by-and-by."
+
+"And s'help me when we do," Lunt answered, "I'll----"
+
+And then, mercifully, the voices grew indistinct. The flicker of the
+lanthorn was lost among the trees. With wonder and stupefaction
+Henrietta found herself alone, found herself faint, gasping, scarcely
+sensible--but safe! Safe!
+
+She could not understand the why or the wherefore of her escape, and
+she had not energy to try to fathom it. She lay a few seconds to rest
+and clear her head, and then she thought that she would try to rise.
+She was on her knees, and was supporting herself with one hand against
+the cold, rough surface of the wall, when every fibre in her cried
+suddenly, Alarm! Alarm! He was coming back. Yes, he was coming back,
+leaping and running, bursting his way through the undergrowth. And she
+understood. He had led the others away and he was coming back--alone!
+
+She fell back feeling deadly faint. Then she tried to rise, but she
+could not, and she screamed. She screamed hoarsely once and again,
+and, oh, joy! even as the gipsy clambered over the stile, sprang into
+the road and came to seize her, and all her being arose in revolt
+against him, a voice answered her, feet came racing up the road, a man
+appeared, she was no longer alone.
+
+It was the chaplain, panting and horrified. He had been the first to
+be alarmed by the woman's tale, and running out of the house unarmed
+and hatless he had come in time, in the nick of time! Across her
+lifeless body, for at last she had swooned quite away, the gipsy and
+he looked at one another by the light of the moon. And without
+warning, without a word said, the gipsy came at him like a wildcat, a
+knife in his hand. Sutton saw the gleam of the weapon, and the gleam
+of the man's savage eyes, but he held his ground gallantly. With a
+yell for help he let the man close with him, and, more by luck than
+skill, he parried the blow which the other had dealt him with the
+knife. But the gipsy, finding his arm clutched and held, struck his
+enemy with his left fist a heavy blow between the eyes. The poor
+chaplain fell stunned and breathless.
+
+The gipsy stood over him an instant to see if he would rise. But he
+did not move; and the man turned to the girl, who lay insensible
+beside the wall. He stooped to raise her, with the intention of
+putting her over the wall. But in the act he heard a shout, and he
+lifted his head to listen, supposing that his comrades had got wind of
+the skirmish.
+
+It was not his comrades; for despairing of retaking the girl, they had
+hurried back to the house to attend to their own safety. He stooped
+again; but this time he heard the patter of footsteps coming up the
+road, and a man came in sight in the moonlight. With every passion
+roused, and determined, since he had risked so much, that he would not
+be balked, the gipsy lifted the girl none the less, and had raised her
+almost to the level of the top of the wall, when the man shouted anew.
+Perforce the ruffian let the girl down again, and with a snarl of rage
+turned and faced the newcomer with his knife.
+
+But Clyne--for it was he--had not come unarmed. For many days he had
+not gone so much as a step unarmed. And the stranger's attitude as he
+let the girl fall, and the gleam of his knife, were enough. The man
+rushed at him, as he had rushed at the chaplain, with the ferocity of
+a wild beast. But Clyne met him with a burst of flame and shot, and
+then with a second shot; and the gipsy whirled round with a muffled
+cry and fell--at first it seemed backwards. But when he reached the
+ground he lay limp and doubled up with his face to his knees, and one
+arm under him.
+
+Clyne, with the smoking pistol in his hand, bent over him, ready, if
+he moved, to beat out his brains. But there was no need of that third
+blow, which he would have given with hearty good-will. And he turned
+to the girl. Something, perhaps the pistol-shot, had brought her to
+herself. She had raised herself against the wall, and holding it, was
+looking wildly about her; not at the dead man, nor at the chaplain,
+who stirred and groaned. But at Clyne. And when he approached her she
+threw herself on his breast and clung to him.
+
+"Oh, don't let me go! Oh, don't let me go!" she cried.
+
+He tried to soothe her, he tried to pacify her; keeping himself
+between her and the prostrate man.
+
+"I won't," he said. "I won't. You are quite safe. You are quite safe."
+
+He had fired with a hand as steady as a rock, but his voice shook now.
+
+"Oh, don't let me go!" she repeated hysterically. "Oh, don't let me
+go!"
+
+"You are safe! you are safe!" he assured her, holding her more
+closely, and yet more closely to him.
+
+And when Bishop and Long Tom Gilson, and three or four others, came up
+at a run, breathing fire and slaughter, he was still supporting her;
+and she was crying to him, in a voice that went to the men's hearts,
+"Not to let her go! Not to let her go!"
+
+Alas, too, that was the sight which met the poor chaplain's swimming
+gaze when he came to himself, and, groaning, felt the bump between his
+eyes--the bump which he had got in her defence.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+                            TWO OF A RACE
+
+
+It was Thursday, and three days had passed since the Sunday, the day
+of many happenings, which had cleared up the mystery and restored
+Henrietta to Mrs. Gilson's care. The frost still held, the air was
+brisk and clear. The Langdale Pikes lifted themselves sharp and
+glittering from the line of grey screes that run southward to
+Wetherlamb and the Coniston Mountain. A light air blew down the lake,
+ruffling the open water, and bedecking the leafless woods on Wray
+Point with a fringe of white breakers. The morning was a perfect
+winter morning, the sky of that cloudless, but not over-deep blue,
+which portends a long and steady frost. Horses' hoofs rang loud on the
+road; and rooks gathered where they had passed. Men who stopped to
+talk hit their palms together or swung their arms. The larger and
+wiser birds had started betimes for salt water and the mussel
+preserves on the Cartmel Sands.
+
+The inquest on the gipsy had been held, but something perfunctorily,
+after the fashion of the day. Captain Clyne and the chaplain had told
+their stories, and after a few words from the coroner, a verdict of
+justifiable homicide had been heartily given, and the jury had
+resolved itself into a "free and easy" in the tap-room; while the
+coroner had delivered himself of much wisdom, and laid down much law
+in Mrs. Gilson's snuggery.
+
+Henrietta had not been made to appear; for carried upstairs, in a
+state as like death as life, on Sunday evening, she had kept her room
+until this morning. She would fain have kept it longer, but there were
+reasons against that. And now, with the timidity which a retreat from
+every-day life breeds--and perhaps with some flutterings of the heart
+on another account--she was pausing before her looking-glass, and
+trying to gather courage to descend and face the world.
+
+She was still pale; and when she met her own eyes in the mirror, a
+quivering smile, a something verging on the piteous in her face, told
+of nerves which time had not yet steadied. Possibly, her reluctance to
+go down, though the hour was late, and Mrs. Gilson would scold, had a
+like origin. None the less, she presently conquered it, opened her
+door and descended; as she had done on that morning of her arrival, a
+few weeks back, and yet--oh, such a long time back!
+
+Now, as then, when she had threaded the dark passages and come to the
+door of Mr. Rogers's room, she paused faint-hearted, and, with her
+hand raised to the latch, listened. She heard no sound, and she opened
+the door and went in. The table was laid for one.
+
+She heaved a sigh of relief, and--cut it short midway. For Captain
+Clyne came forward from one of the windows at which he had been
+standing.
+
+"I am glad that you are better," he said stiffly, and in a constrained
+tone, "and able to come down."
+
+"Oh yes, thank you," she answered, striving to speak heartily, and
+repressing with difficulty that proneness of the lip to quiver. "I
+think I am quite well now. Quite well! I am sure, after this long
+time, I should be."
+
+And she turned away and affected to warm her hands at the fire.
+
+He did not look directly at her--he avoided doing so. But he could see
+the reflection of her face in the oval-framed mirror, as she stood
+upright again. He saw that she had lost for the time the creamy warmth
+of complexion that was one of her chief beauties. She was pale and
+thin, and looked ill.
+
+"You have been very severely shaken," he said. "No doubt you feel it
+still!"
+
+"Yes," she answered, "a little. I think I do."
+
+"Perhaps you had better be alone?"
+
+She did not know what to say to that. Perhaps she did not know what
+she wished. Her lip quivered. This was very unlike what she had
+expected and what she had dreaded. But it was worse. He seemed to be
+waiting for her answer--that he might go. What could she say?
+
+"Just as you like," she murmured at last.
+
+"Oh, but I wish to do what you like!" he replied, with a little more
+warmth; but still awkwardly and with constraint.
+
+"So do I," she replied.
+
+"I shall stay then," he answered. And he lifted a small dish from the
+hearth and carried it to the table. "I had Mrs. Gilson's orders to
+keep this hot for you," he said.
+
+"It was very kind of you."
+
+"I am afraid," more lightly, "that it was fear of Mrs. Gilson weighed
+on me as much as anything."
+
+He returned to the hearth when he had seen her seated. And she began
+her breakfast with her eyes on the table. With the first draught of
+coffee a feeling of warmth and courage ran through her; and he,
+standing with his elbow on the mantel-piece and his eyes on the
+mirror, saw the change in her.
+
+"The boy is better," he said suddenly. "I think he will do now."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I think so. But he will need great care. He will not be able to leave
+his bed for a day or two. We found your brooch pinned inside his
+clothes."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+He turned sharply and for the first time looked directly at her.
+
+"Of course, we knew why you put it there. It was good of you. But
+why--don't you ask after him, Henrietta?" in a different tone.
+
+She felt the colour rise to her cheeks--and she wished it anywhere
+else.
+
+"I saw him this morning," she murmured.
+
+"Oh!" he replied in surprise. And he turned to the mirror again. "I
+see."
+
+She began to wish that he would leave her, for his silence made her
+horribly nervous. And she dared not start a subject herself, because
+she could not trust her voice. The hands of the white-faced clock
+jerked slowly on, marking the seconds, and accentuating the silence.
+She grew so nervous at last that she could not lift her eyes from her
+plate, and she ate though she was scarcely able to swallow, because
+she dared not leave off.
+
+It did not occur to her that Anthony Clyne was as ill at ease as she
+was; and oppressed, moreover, to a much greater degree by the memory
+of certain scenes which had taken place in that room. Her nervousness
+was in part the reflection of his constraint. And his constraint arose
+from two feelings widely different.
+
+The long silence was becoming painful to both, when he forced himself
+to break it.
+
+"I am so very, very deeply beholden to you," he said, in a constrained
+tone, "that--that I must ask you, Henrietta, to listen to me for a few
+minutes--even if it be unpleasant to you."
+
+She laughed awkwardly.
+
+"If it is only," she answered, "because you are beholden to
+me--that--that you feel it necessary to thank me at length, please
+don't. You will only overwhelm me."
+
+"It is not for that reason only," he said. And he knew that he spoke,
+much against his will, with dreadful solemnity. "No. Naturally we must
+have much to say to one another. I, in particular, who owe to you----"
+
+"Please let that be," she protested.
+
+"But I cannot. I cannot!" he repeated. "You have done me so great a
+service, at a risk so great, and under circumstances so--so----"
+
+"So remarkable," she cried, with something of her old girlish manner,
+"that you cannot find words in which to describe them! Then please
+don't." And then, more seriously: "I did not do what I did to be
+thanked."
+
+"Then why?" he asked quickly. "Why did you do it?"
+
+"Did you think," she protested, "that I did it to be thanked?"
+
+"No, but--why did you do it, Henrietta?" he asked persistently. "Such
+a risk, such men, such circumstances, might have deterred any woman.
+Nay, almost any man."
+
+She toyed with her teaspoon; there had come a faint flush of colour
+into her cheeks.
+
+"I think it was--I think it was just to reinstate myself," she
+murmured.
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"You gave me to understand," she explained, "that you thought ill of
+me. And I wished you to think well of me; or better of me, I should
+say, for I did not expect you to think quite well of me after--you
+know!" in some confusion.
+
+"You wished to be reinstated?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I wonder," he said slowly, "how much you mean by that."
+
+"I mean what I say," she answered, looking at him.
+
+"Yes, but do you mean that you--wish to be reinstated altogether?"
+
+She did not remove her eyes from his face, but she blushed to the
+roots of her hair.
+
+"I am not sure that I understand," she said with a slight air of
+offence.
+
+"No?" he said. "And perhaps I did not quite mean that. What I did
+mean, and do mean, what I am hoping, what I am looking forward to,
+Henrietta----" and there he broke off.
+
+He seemed to find it necessary to begin again:
+
+"Perhaps I had better explain," he said more soberly. "You told me
+that morning by the lake some home-truths, you remember? You showed me
+that what had happened was not all your fault; was perhaps not at all
+your fault. And you showed me this with so much energy and power, that
+I went away with the first clear impression of you I had had in my
+life. Yes, with the feeling that I had never known you until then." He
+dropped his eyes, and looked thoughtfully at something on the table.
+"And one of the things I remember best, and which I shall always
+remember, was your saying that I had never paid any court to you."
+
+"It was true," she said, in a low voice.
+
+And she too did not look at him, but kept her eyes bent on the spoon
+with which she toyed.
+
+"Yes. Well, if you will let the old state of things be so far
+reinstated as to--let me begin to pay my court to you now, I am not
+confident, I am very far from confident, that I can please you. I am
+rather old, for one thing"--with a rueful laugh--"to make love
+gracefully, and rather stiff and--political. But owing to the trouble
+I have brought upon you in the past----"
+
+"I never said but that we both brought it!" Henrietta objected
+suddenly.
+
+"Well, whoever brought it----"
+
+"We both brought it!" she repeated obstinately.
+
+"Very well. I mean only that the trouble----"
+
+"Makes it unlikely that I shall find another husband?" she said. "Pray
+be frank with me! That," rising and going to the window, and then
+turning to confront him, "is what you mean, is it not? That is exactly
+what you mean, I am sure?"
+
+"Something of that kind, perhaps," he admitted.
+
+"But you forget Mr. Sutton!" she said--and paused. She took one step
+forward, and her eyes shone. "You forget Mr. Sutton, Captain Clyne.
+The gentleman to whom you handed me over! To whom you gave so clear a
+certainty that I was for the first comer who was willing. He is
+willing, quite willing!"
+
+"But----"
+
+"And it cannot be said that he did not behave gallantly on Sunday
+night! I am told----"
+
+"He behaved admirably."
+
+"And he is willing!" she flung the word at him--"quite willing to
+marry me--disgraced as I am! As you have always, always hinted I am!
+And not out of pity, Captain Clyne. Let us be frank with one another.
+You were very frank with me once--more than frank." She held out her
+wrist, which was still faintly discoloured. "When a man does that to a
+woman," she said, "she either loves him, sir, or hates him."
+
+"Yes," he said slowly--very slowly. "I see. Your mind is made up,
+then----"
+
+"That I will not accept your kind offer to--pay your court to me?" she
+answered, with derision. "Certainly. I have no mind to be wooed by
+you!" Again she held out her wrist. "You know the stale proverb: 'He
+that will not when he may, when he will he shall have nay!'" And she
+made him a little bow, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks bright.
+
+He turned his back on her, and stood for a moment looking from the
+window which was the nearer to the fire--the one looking over the
+lake. The words of her proverb--stale enough in truth--ran very
+sorrowfully in his ears. "He that will not when he may! He that will
+not when he may!" No, he might have known that she was not one to
+forget. He might have known that the words he had said, and the things
+that he had done, would rankle. And that she who had not hesitated to
+elope--to punish him for his neglect of her--would not hesitate to
+punish him for worse than neglect. He stood a long minute watching the
+tiny waves burst into white lines at the foot of Hayes Woods. No, she
+could not forget--nor forgive. But she could act, she had acted, as if
+she had done both. She had saved his child. She had risked her life
+for it. And if she had done that with this resentment, this feeling in
+her heart, if she had done it, moved only by the desire to show him
+that he had misjudged her--in a sense it was the nobler act, and one
+like--ay, he owned it sorrowfully--like herself! At any rate, it did
+not become him to cast a word of reproach at her. She had saved his
+child.
+
+He turned at length, and looked at her. He saw that her figure had
+lost its elation, and her cheeks their colour. She was leaning against
+the side of the window, and looked tired and ill, and almost as she
+had looked when she came into the room. His heart melted.
+
+"I would like you to know one thing," he said, "before I go. Your
+triumph is greater, Henrietta, than you think, and your revenge more
+complete. It is no question of pity with me, but of love." He paused,
+and laughed awry. "The worse for me, you will say, and the better for
+you. _Vae victis!_ Still, even if you hate me----"
+
+"I did not say that I hated you!"
+
+"You said----"
+
+"I did not! I did not!" she repeated, with a queer little laugh. And
+she sat down on the window seat, and turned quickly with a pettish
+movement, so that he could only see the side of her face. "I said
+nothing of the kind."
+
+"But----"
+
+"I said something very different!"
+
+"You said----"
+
+"I said that when a man pinches a girl's wrist black and blue, and
+swears at her--yes, Captain Clyne," firmly, "you swore at me, and
+called me----"
+
+"Don't!" he said.
+
+
+[Illustration: She was leaning against the side of the window ...]
+
+
+"I only said," she continued breathlessly, "that when a man does that,
+the woman either loves him or hates him!"
+
+"Henrietta!"
+
+"Captain Clyne!"
+
+After a long pause, "I think I understand you," he said slowly, "but
+if you--if there were any feeling, the least feeling of that kind on
+your part, you would not have forbidden me to--to think of seeking you
+for my wife."
+
+"I didn't!" she answered. "I told you that you should not pay your
+court to me. And you shall not! You cannot," half laughing and half
+crying, "woo what's won, can you? If you still think it is worth the
+winning! Only," stopping him by a gesture as he came towards her, "you
+are not to give me over to Mr. Sutton again, whatever I do! You must
+promise me that."
+
+"I won't!" he said.
+
+"You are quite sure, sir? However I behave? And even if I run away
+from you?"
+
+"Quite sure!"
+
+And a few minutes later, "Poor Sutton!" he said. "We must try to make
+it up to him."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"It is a good thing you did not set out to woo me," she answered. "For
+you would not have shone at it. Make it up to him indeed! Make it up
+to him! What a thing, sir, to say to--me!"
+
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+It was not made up to Mr. Sutton; though the best living that could be
+procured by an exchange with the Bishop of Durham--and there were fat
+livings in Durham in those days, and small blame if a man held two of
+them--was found for the chaplain. He married, too, a lady of the
+decayed house of Conyers of Sockburn, beside which the Damers and the
+Clynes were upstairs. And so both in his fortune and his wife's family
+he did as well--almost--as he had hoped to do. But though he accepted
+his patron's gift, he came seldom to Clyne Old Hall; and some held him
+ungrateful. Moreover, a little later, when to be a radical was not
+counted quite so dreadful a thing, he turned radical in all but the
+white hat. And Clyne was disappointed, but not surprised. Henrietta,
+however, understood. Though children running about her knees had tamed
+her wildness and caged her pride, she was still a woman, and the
+memory of a past conquest was not ungrateful. She had no desire to see
+the pale replica of Mr. Pitt, but she sometimes thought of him, and
+always kindly and with gratitude.
+
+There was a third lover, of whom she never thought without
+unhappiness.
+
+"You will never tell the children? You will never tell the children?"
+was her prayer to her husband when Walterson was in question.
+
+And though he answered with gravity, "Not unless you do it again, my
+dear," the sting of remembrance did not cease to rankle.
+
+Walterson was traced to Leith--and thence to Holland. There the trail
+was lost, and it is believed that he did not live to return to
+England. Whether he did return or not--and Bow Street, and Mr. Bishop
+in particular, kept watch for him long--he never re-entered
+Henrietta's life. As the memory of the French Revolution faded from
+men's minds, the struggle for reform fell into more reputable and less
+violent hands. Silly and turbulent men of the type of him who had
+turned the girl's young head no longer counted; or, rising to the top
+at moments of public excitement, vanished as quickly, and no man knew
+whither.
+
+Giles and Lunt were not taken on that Sunday night. They escaped, it
+was supposed, to Scotland, by way of Patterdale and the Moors. Less
+fortunate, however, than Walterson, they returned to London and fell
+in again with Thistlewood. They yielded to the fascination of that
+remarkable and unhappy man, took part in his schemes, and were taken
+with him in the loft over the stable in Cato Street, when the attempt
+to murder the cabinet at Lord Harrowby's house in Grosvenor Square
+miscarried. He and they got a fair trial, but little pity. And it is
+not to be supposed that upon the scaffold in the Old Bailey, they
+thought much of the lonely house in the hollow at Troutbeck, or of the
+helpless woman whom they had terrorised. To their credit, be it said,
+they died more worthily than they had lived; and with them came to a
+close the movement which sought to reach reform by the road of
+violence, and to that end held no instruments too cheap or vile.
+
+Tyson came out of the adventure a wiser and perhaps a better man. For
+on his return from the north he found it hard to free himself from the
+charge of complicity in the acts of those who had used his house; nor
+did he succeed until he had lain some weeks in Appleby gaol. He would
+fain have avenged himself on Bess, but for reasons to be stated, he
+could not enjoy this satisfaction. And his neighbours sent him to
+Coventry. Had he been a strong man he might have defied them and
+public opinion. But he was only a braggart, and that which must have
+embittered many, tamed him. He turned to his wife for comfort, sought
+his home more than before, and gradually settled down into a tolerable
+citizen and a high Tory.
+
+Bess saved herself by her own wit and courage. The Monday's light saw
+her dragged to Kendal prison, where they were not so gentle with her
+as they had been with Henrietta. Her story went with her, and, "They
+say you stole a child," the little girl murmured, standing at her knee
+and staring at her, "and 'll be hanged at the March fair."
+
+"Not I," said Bess. "It's almost a pity, too, ain't it? There'd be a
+fine crowd to see!"
+
+The child's eyes sparkled.
+
+"Yes," she said. "There'd be a crowd, too."
+
+But Bess played a fine stroke. She sent for her rival on the Friday,
+and Henrietta, twenty-four hours betrothed, and very far from unhappy,
+took that road once more, and went to her.
+
+"I saved you," said Bess, with coolness. "Yes, I did. Don't deny it!
+Now do you save me."
+
+And Henrietta moved heaven and earth and Anthony Clyne to save her.
+She succeeded. Bess went abroad--to join Walterson, it was rumoured.
+If so, she returned without him, for on the old miser's death she
+appeared on Windermere, sold Starvecrow Farm and all its belongings,
+and removed to the south, but to what part is not known, nor are any
+particulars of her later fortunes within reach. Some said that she
+played a part in the great riots at Bristol twelve years later, but
+the evidence is inconclusive, and dark women possessing a strain of
+gipsy blood are not uncommon.
+
+Nor are women with a sharp tongue and a warm heart. Yet when Mrs.
+Gilson died in the year of those very riots, and at a good age, there
+was a gathering to bury her in Troutbeck graveyard as great as if she
+had been a Lowther. The procession, horse and foot, was a mile long.
+And when those who knew her least wondered whence all these moist eyes
+and this flocking to do honour to a woman who had been quick of temper
+and rough of tongue--ay, were it to Squire Bolton of Storrs, or the
+rich Mr. Rogers himself--there was one who came a great distance to
+the burying who could have solved the riddle.
+
+It was Henrietta.
+
+
+
+
+                               THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Starvecrow Farm, by Stanley J. Weyman
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