One of the things a soldier learns soonest is to take his rest when and as he can; and after peering curiously into the nooks and corners of my garret to make sure I was alone, I flung myself a-sprawl on the broad settle and was dropping off into forgetfulness when I heard a tapping at the wainscot.
It fetched me wide awake with a start, and I was up and weaponed instantly--having taken the precaution to lay my sword in easy reach before blowing out the candle. Groping my way cautiously to the secret door, I crouched and listened. All was silent save for the intermittent clamor of the wa.s.sailers in the room beneath. After waiting a full minute I opened the door and looked without. The high dormer window in the end of the corridor made the darkness something less than visible, and I could see that the pa.s.sage was empty. But on the floor at my feet was my supper; a roasted fowl on a server, hot from the spit, with maize bread and garnishings fit for an epicure.
Since, as an appanage of Appleby Hundred, this was mine own house, and, by consequence, the fowl was mine, I ate as a hungry man should, making no scruple on the score of pride. Nor did I forget to be grateful to my lady; though when I remembered that this was doubtless but another leaf out of her duty-book, the meat was like to choke me. And it was this thought that made me resolve thrice over to loose her from the onerous burden of me so soon as ever the morning light should come to help me find the way out of my covert prison.
None the less, for all my fine resolves to be astir and off by daybreak, the sun was shining broadly in at my garret window when I awoke.
Seeing the sun, I tumbled out of my settle-bed, with a malediction on the sloth that had bound me so fast, and made for the door. But some one had been before me, entering whilst I slept. On a broken chair were a basin and ewer, with soap and towels; beside the chair was my portmanteau; and on a deal box, neatly covered with a linen cloth, was my breakfast.
You, my dears, who have your maid or man to tell you when your bath is ready, and to lay out the fresh, clean garments sweet from the laundering, may wonder that I put away the thought of flight and let the breakfast cool whilst I shaved and washed and scrubbed, and doffed the vagabond and donned the gentleman. I did it; did it leisurely, rolling the privilege as a sweet morsel under my tongue. They say the raiment never makes the man; "tis a half-truth only. For in his own regard, at least, the man is vagabond or gentleman as he may dress the one part or the other. And I am sure of this; that when I drew up another of the cast-off chairs to sit at meat, freshly groomed, and clad in the field uniform of a captain of her Apostolic Majesty"s Hussars, I was the fitter by many transmigrations to cope with fate or any other adversary.
And now, the claims of decency paid in full, and the keen edge of hunger somewhat dulled, I was free to think of my sweet lady"s loving-kindness to one she hated--and to wonder what she would do and be for one she loved. As you would guess, there were dregs of bitterness in that cup; and I was once again set sharp upon relieving her of the burden of me.
Having my Austrian uniform, I was now ready to move in that venture outlined in part to Colonel Davie; but to set my plan in action I must first get free of the house unseen by my Lord or any of his suite. How to do this unaided I could not determine; and, since any fresh blundering would surely breed new trouble for Margery, I was forced to wait for her return.
I made sure she would come, if only to be the sooner quit of me; and so she did, tapping at the wainscot door whilst I was dallying with the breakfast leavings. "Twas worth something to see her start of surprise when I opened to her; but she was far too true a lady to be one thing to the unwashed vagabond and another to the gentleman-clad.
I gave her good morning, and was beginning in some formal fashion to thank her for her thoughtful care, when she cut me short.
""Tis my bounden duty, sir," she said, tw.a.n.ging once again upon that frayed string. "You are my guest and my--husband; though G.o.d knows I would you were neither."
"_Merci, Madame_," said I; stung so sharply that the retort would out in spite of everything. "As once before, I am your poor misfortunate pensioner; but this time you are not less willing to give than I am to receive."
She gave me a look that I could not fathom, and for a flitting instant I could have sworn there was a mocking smile a-lurk at the back of the beautiful eyes. Then she went straight to the subject-matter of her errand, brushing aside the small pa.s.sage at arms as if it had not been.
"You are in a most perilous situation, Captain Ireton; do you know it?
News of your presence in Charlotte has got abroad, and at this very moment Tarleton"s dragoons are making a house-to-house search for you."
"So; some one has betrayed me?"
She nodded.
"Do you know who it was?"
She nodded again.
I considered of it for a little time, and then said: "I must not be taken here. Will your--ah--_duty_ stretch the length of showing me an unwatched door?"
"There are no doors unwatched. You must stay here till nightfall."
"Nay, that I will not. Will you tell me who it was set them on?"
""Twas a man you hate--and who hates you heartily in return. He saw you come here last night; he knows you are here now--or guesses it."
I had no right to pry into her confidence as a thief would break into a house. But I was loath to fight my battle in the dark if she, or any one, could give me light.
"His name, if you may give it, Mistress Margery. It may point the way out of this coil."
""Tis Owen Pengarvin. He was here last night when you came."
Now I remembered the little man in black whom I had seen coming down the stair whilst I knocked at the door. But this left me in a greater maze than ever.
"If he knows I am here, why does he let them search elsewhere?"
At this she looked away from me, and I made sure I saw the sweet chin quiver when she spoke.
"He has reasons of his own; reasons of--of--" but instead of telling me what they were she broke off to say: "But now you know why all the doors of this house are under guard."
"Truly," said I; and therewith I fell to pacing up and down the narrow clear-way in the garret, striving to see how I might come off with nothing worse than the loss of my burdensome life.
"Twas easy to guess how this shaveling lawyer had discomfited me.
Forewarned is forearmed in any soldier camp; and through his blabbing, the plan by which I had hoped to lull resentment and forestall suspicion was nipped in the bud. I saw the far-reaching consequences, and was made to know how a trapped rat will turn and fight in sheer desperation whilst the terrier is shaking him to death.
When that leaven began to work in me I was fit for the daringest thing that offered; so I paused to ask if my Lord Cornwallis were yet in the house.
"He is writing letters in his bed-room," was her answer.
"If you will show me the way thither I shall be your poor debtor by that much more."
"I will not--unless you first tell me what you mean to do." She said it firmly, but now I was fronting death and could be as firm as she.
"If you will not show me the way, I shall find it for myself." So much I said; but as for telling her that I meant to save his Lordship and all the others the trouble of running me down, I could not do that.
"You are going to give yourself up," she said; and when I would not deny it, she darted before me and set her back against the wainscot door.
""Tis folly, folly!" she cried. "He would but pull the bell-cord and--"
"And give the order that Colonel Tarleton"s sentence be executed upon me, you would say. Be it so. But in that event I can at least clear you and your father of any complicity in my hiding."
"I say you shall not go!"
What touch of savagery is it in a man that will not suffer him to let a woman, loved or unloved, stand in the last resort against his will? At any other time I would have pleaded with her; would have ended, mayhap, by weakly deferring to her wish. But now--well, you must remember, my dears, that I was the trapped rat. I took her gently in my arms, set her aside, and stepped out into the corridor.
I looked for nothing less than a volcano-burst of righteous indignation to pay me out for this piece of tyranny. But now, as twice or thrice before, my lady showed me how little a man may know of a woman"s moods.
"You need not be so masterful rough with me," she said, with a pouting of the sweet lips that set me back upon that thought of a wayward child wanting to be kissed. "If you say I must, I am in duty bound to show you the way." And so she led on and I followed, in a deeper maze than any she had ever set me in.
Arrived at a pair of doors in the main pa.s.sage, she showed me the one that opened to my Lord"s bed-chamber and ran away; ran with her hands to her face as if to shut out a sight which would not bear looking upon.
I turned my back stiffly upon this newer wonder, pulled myself together and rapped on the door. A voice within bade me enter; the door opened under my hand and I stood in the presence of the man who, as I made no doubt, would shortly summon his guards and have me out to my rope and tree.
x.x.xIV
HOW I MET A GREAT LORD AS MAN TO MAN
The room in which I found myself was the guest-chamber, furnished luxuriously, for that day and place, in French-fashioned mahogany and gilt. The bed was high and richly canopied, as befitted a peer"s resting place; there was a square of Turkish drugget on the floor, a cheerful fire burning in the chimney arch, and on the small table whereat the occupant of the guest-room had lately breakfasted, a goodly display of the Ireton silver.