"But how will they find him? Maybe, Katharine wont inform."
"Oh, she"ll tell; women always do."
The poor young mother behind the door was quaking with fear, and chilled through and through with the cold. Her teeth chattered so loudly that she lost the next few words; but those that followed were horrible enough.
"Did you ever see a person hung?"
"Yes; once."
"Wall!"
"Don"t ask me about it; the rope broke, and--"
"Hark! wasn"t that a voice?"
"No; it"s one of the icicles falling from the eaves."
"It seemed to come from the stairs, I thought; suppose we look."
"Oh, be still. It"s the ice, I tell you. Just hand me a drink of that ginger cider. This talk about hanging makes the cold chills run over me."
There was a moment"s silence, then a deep, satisfied breath, and the jingle of a pewter mug as it was set down between the andirons.
CHAPTER x.x.xIX.
OUT IN THE DEPTHS OF THE NIGHT.
How she got to her room, Katharine never knew; but little Paul sat with his back to the door which led from her chamber to his, and heard faint shudderings with that icy sound which had disturbed the men, for a long time after she entered the room. It troubled him so much at last that he went into the outer garret and sought Jube, who stood like a bronze statue by a window in the gable.
"Jube, I"m sure that she is up now, you can hear her tremble through the door."
Jube put a finger to his lip, and lifting Paul in his arms, pointed through the window. The end of a ladder rested against the sill, and Tom sat perched on one of the upper rounds, motioning to Jube that he must stoop down and help him in.
The moment after he stood in a broad s.p.a.ce of moonlight that paved the garret, whispering eagerly:
"I"ve come before the time, I have, and hain"t got a sign of a wagon nor sleigh; for, consarn him, par locked the stable door to-night, the first time he ever did it in his life, I"m a"most sartin. But it"s got to be done. Them constables will be arter her to-morrow, sartin. We"ll get her out somehow this very night, and trust to luck arterward."
"What shall we do?" inquired Paul, full of generous courage. "Jube has got the gold."
"That"s half," answered Tom, promptly. "Now, Paul, you go into the room and tell her to get right up and huddle on all the furs, and cloaks, and things that she"s got, and tell her to be still as twenty mice. Them chaps below are as wide awake as nighthawks. I"ve been watching "em through the winder since twelve o"clock; but they"ve just begun to pitch into the hot ginger and cider, and that"ll put "em to sleep, sure."
"But if she wont come?" said Paul.
"Wont? she must, or stay here and be----oh, I can"t bear to think of it.
Now get along, Paul, and do as I tell you."
Paul went softly into Katharine"s room. She was sitting on the bed in her long nightgown, cold and still, frozen, as it were, in the moonlight, which fell over her from a near window.
Paul shrunk back at first, her face looked so deathly; but he found courage, and took the cold hands that lay clasped on her lap.
What he said in those low, eager whispers, the boy himself scarcely knew; but after the first words she bent down, listening greedily.
Friends in the outer room, a ladder at the window, money to take her from that guarded house, life, liberty, away from the terrible shadow of those men, clear from that gaunt horror which they talked about so calmly. Yes, she would go. Life was very sweet, and she so young. Out to sea in a vessel bound for a long voyage. Thus, she would in time meet her husband, whose name her silence had saved from disgrace. She began to love herself for this thought, and, gathering fresh energy, put on her outer garments.
Paul went into the garret and told his friends that Katharine was getting ready. His voice was raised imprudently, it penetrated to a room at the other end of the garret, and might have disturbed the guards, but their deep potations at the warm cider had, as Tom predicted, thrown them into a sound sleep.
All this while Mrs. Allen had been lying in the back of her daughter"s bed with her face to the wall. The wearing effect of nights without sleep and days of hara.s.sing labor lay heavily upon her. At most times she was a sound sleeper, but now it seemed as if death itself had taken possession of her faculties. She knew nothing of Katharine"s absence from the room--nothing of Paul"s entrance, but the first cold touch of the fugitive"s hand was enough. The gray eyes opened wildly in the moonlight, and she started up in bed.
Katharine stood before her fully dressed, and with some heavy dark garment in her hand. Mrs. Allen heard Paul speaking in the garret outside, and comprehended the scene.
"Mother, I am going. They want to kill me; I am innocent, and have a right to my life. I am going away, mother."
The whispers in which Katharine spoke were broken, and came gasping from her lips. Mrs. Allen started from the bed and began to put on her clothes.
"Yes," she muttered, wildly, "I have thought of this night and day. One does not see a lamb go to the slaughter without a wish to help it. The child of one"s old age is better than a lamb. I said to myself, if the instincts of innocence lead her to it, she shall escape. She has forfeited nothing--her life is her own--G.o.d gave it to her, and G.o.d will instruct her how to keep it."
Tom opened the door, and came into the room on tiptoe.
"Hush! don"t, Mrs. Allen. We can hear you a muttering clear into the garret. Them men down-stairs love cider, but they ain"t moles. Just give "em a chance, and they"ll be after us full split afore you know it--hish!"
Mrs. Allen did not speak again, but took a heavy cloak from the wall and folded it over the garments which she had just put on. She took Katharine"s hand in her own firm grasp, and led her into the garret. The gable window was open, and a cold, sharp wind came sweeping through, while the moonlight thus let in fell half across the garret.
Jube was on the ladder outside, waiting. Paul stood aside from the light, but the eager fire of his eyes could be seen even in the darkness. The mother and child were half way across the garret, when Katharine broke away suddenly, and went back, her face uplifted, as if she were counting the rafters. She disappeared in the gloom, and her hand made a creaking noise, as it pa.s.sed along the torn shingles projecting themselves from one of the rafters. But she darted back into the moonlight with a sc.r.a.p of paper in her hand, which rustled to the wind like a dead leaf.
"I am ready now, mother," she whispered.
"Hist! he! he!"
It was like the lowest hiss of a serpent, the sound with which Tom warned his allies, and signified that all was ready.
Mrs. Allen lifted her daughter in both arms, held her one moment in a clinging embrace, then pa.s.sed her through the window, and leaned out till Jube stood with her at the foot of the ladder. After that, she followed, while Paul and Tom crept after, noiselessly as shadows.
"Come this way," said Tom. "It"s a glare of ice all around, but I scattered ashes along here, so keep straight ahead, while I take a peep, and see if them old chaps are sleeping yet."
The little group drew close together, and moved quickly along the path which Tom had made safe with wood ashes. Directly that youngster joined them, chuckling to himself, and rubbing his yarn mittens gleefully together.
"They"re in for it! Oh, Miss Allen, that cider of your"n must be scrumptious stuff. They"ve drunk up the hull bilin of it, and there the great pewter mug lies atween "em, upsot on the harth, a little gingery stream a running and a hissing from it into the fire. There they set, each of "em, with his legs half way across the harth, and the toes of his boot a sticking up, sliding off from them chairs till their boots eenamost touch, and each on "em has got his head pitched forward and his face hid in his bosom, and snoring like all nature. Oh, Paul, I"d a gin the world to have boo-hood right out as loud as I wanted to."
All this was said in a loud whisper that sounded sharp and distinct on the frosty air, but no one heeded it. The two women hurried forward in dead silence; Paul and Jube went before, making a path, for they had turned into the field, and had instinctively crept within the shadow of the stone wall which Katharine had fled along on that fearful day. They were fast approaching the old b.u.t.ternut tree, when Katharine, whose breath had come quick and short with each step, reeled and fell back against the wall.
"I can"t go this road," she gasped, pointing to the b.u.t.ternut tree, which flung its gaunt skeleton shadow far out on the snow. "Take me any road but this."
Tom, who had been running along in the moonlight, came up, speaking for the first time in his full voice.
"That"s right; we may as well stop and make up our minds what to do next, as Robinson Crusoe did when he reached that ere uninhabited island; for the old soger warn"t much wuss off than we are, I reckon, "specially now that we"ve got another woman "tached onto the consarn."