I.
Alison was in the death chamber, where Sir Nicholas’s body lay stiff and stark in its shroud. They had prepared him for his burial, Alison and old Barbara, with as much care as if he had been like to be buried with all the pomp and ceremony that is the due of a man of rank. The good old knight lay in his finest night clothes, the best linen the house afforded was spread on his bed, and they had lighted candles on either side of him, and hung the walls with black cloth. And since everything in that room was so mournful I would not talk there, but took my cousin down the stairs to the hall, where I made her sit near the fire while I addressed myself to her on the business then troubling me. She was looking pale and wearied, which was no matter of surprise, seeing that there had been precious little rest for anybody in that house since the investment began.
“Now, cousin,” says I, “there is need for some counsel ’twixt you and me. We are come to a sharp pass, cousin,” I says, “and unless we use our wits we are like to be undone.”
“What is it?” she says. “Has aught of moment happened to us?”
“Why,” says I, “’tis difficult to say what is and what is not of moment—one thing so leads to another. But I fear that the worst will happen to us in the morning.”
“The worst?” she says. “And what is that?”
“We killed their captain this afternoon,” says I. “As pleasant a fellow as e’er I spoke to, poor gentleman! And now I hear from that knave Wiggleskirk—though, indeed, he has done us more than one good turn—that another commander is coming with the dawn, and will bring cannon with him.”
She raised her head and looked at me steadily.
“So we shall have the old house tumbling about our ears?”
“We shall,” says I.
“Well?” says she, after regarding me again at some length.
“Well?” says I.
“Is that all you had to say?” she asks.
“Nay,” says I, not seeing aught of her meaning, “I wanted to speak with you of our escape.”
She lifted her head somewhat, and stared at me for a full minute ere she broke into a shrill laughter.
“Escape?” she said. “Escape? Did you say escape, Master Richard? So you would flee the old house, eh, and leave”—she turned and pointed her hand towards the stair—“and leave his body to—come, I think you did not mean escape?” she says, with a searching look at me.
“Faith!” says I, not taking her at all, “but I did, cousin. Bethink you—what can we do against cannon? The old walls will be shattered to pieces with half a score discharges. ’Tis our duty, I take it, to think of our own lives—and besides, there are those in the house,” I says, “that we must needs consider, for we’ve no right to peril their lives for the sake of ours.”
“Let them begone, then,” says she. “Did I ever ask them to come here? Escape? We might be rats that have crept to the very bottom o’ the stack!” she says, with a flash of the old temper.
“Egad!” says I, laughing in spite of myself. “And that’s a marvellous neat comparison, cousin. Rats we are, and prettily caged, too, and so——”
“And so keep your comparisons to yourself, Master Richard,” says she, rising with a mighty fine air of dignity and marching across the hall. “And your escape, too,” she says, with a glance over her shoulder. “As for me,” she says, pausing with one foot on the stair and looking me steadily in the face, “here I am, and here I stay while one stone stands on another,” and she went up the staircase and vanished, leaving me there full of wonder. “What the devil am I to do?” says I, biting my nails with vexation. “Was ever such a contrary piece of woman flesh? And I thought she was beginning to show me some softness—Lord!” I says, with a sigh that seemed to come from my boots, “the vagaries of these women——”
However, there was no good to be got in standing there, so I went out into the kitchen and sent for old Gregory, whom I presently led into a quiet corner. “Gregory,” says I, “set your wits to work, for, faith, there’s need!” And I told him of the news that I had received from Merciful Wiggleskirk and of my cousin’s attitude.
“Was ever such a coil?” says I. “You see, Gregory, I swore to my uncle that I would defend and protect her, and how can I do that if she won’t listen to reason? I must get her out of this house and across country to her father’s, and there might be some manner of doing it if only she were not so averse to the notion.”
“True,” says he, “but I would not trouble myself over much with that, Master Richard. The best way with women,” says he, “is to make ’em do a thing without argument about it.”
“Humph!” says I, feeling somewhat doubtful on that score.
“What we want to find out,” says he, “is whether there is some manner of escape that we can avail ourselves of. Is there any chance of leaving the house during the night?” says he.
“Not the least,” says I. “They have patrols on every side, and our doors and windows are so barricaded that we could not remove the barricades without attracting the enemy’s notice.”
“Then what was it that you had in your mind, Master Richard?” says he.
“Faith!” says I, “I don’t know, Gregory. We’re in as pretty a trap as e’er I heard of. Now I come to think on it,” I says, “I don’t see how we are to escape.”
He sat silent for a time, stroking his chin, which was his habit when he thought hard. “Master Dick,” says he at last, “did you ever hear of that old passage that leads from our cellar to Farmer Wood’s house?”
“A passage?” says I. “Do you mean that there’s an underground passage betwixt our house and Farmer Wood’s? No,” I says, “I never heard of it that I know of, Gregory.”
“But there is one,” says he, nodding his head. “When I first came here—and that’s nigh on to sixty years since, Master Richard—it was open at one end, and I’ve been in it. Sir Nicholas’s father had it closed up. ’Twas a relic of the Popish days,” he says, “and there was some old woman’s tale about it that I ha’ forgotten.”
“But if it’s closed up?” says I.
“It was only a matter o’ stout boarding put over the mouth,” says he. “I make no doubt that it’s open all the rest of the way, though I say naught as to Wood’s end on’t. If we could get a clear passage,” he says, looking at me, “there’s an easy deliverance out of our present difficulties, Master Richard.”
“Marry, so there is!” says I. And indeed there was naught that could be easier. I sat thinking the matter over for a moment. “Egad, Gregory!” I says, “if only this passage is open we can circumvent the enemy and put Mistress Alison in safety with no trouble beyond a trifling discomfort. Come,” I says, starting up, “let’s down into the cellars and examine things for ourselves.”
Now, I am a bit slow at taking some things in, as for instance, a woman’s meaning, which always seems to me to be the exact opposite of what it really is, but at contrivances and strategies I am, I think, as sharp as any, and I lost no time in making up my mind as to what I would do supposing this passage proved open to us. Our position was this—the Manor House stood at the west side of East Hardwick village, some one hundred and twenty yards away from Wood’s farmstead, which was the only considerable house in the place beside our own. Between the two houses stood certain cottages, tenanted by labourers that worked in the fields. Beyond Wood’s house the land dropped away to the foot of Went Hill, a long low range of hillside extending from Darrington Mill to the village of Wentbridge. If Alison and I could escape by the passage and make our way across the fields to Wentbridge, we should there come into the Great North Road which ran thence in a straight course, through Barnsdale, to Francis French’s house, where I could deliver her in safety. It was possible that we might find horses or some conveyance at the “Blue Bell,” on Wentbridge Hill, but if that plan failed we were neither of us unfitted to walk some twelve miles in the darkness.
But as we went down the steep steps into the cellar my thoughts turned back to Mistress Alison. If it was her pleasure to stand by the old house, how on earth was I going to persuade or oblige her to leave it? It was all very well for Gregory to say that a woman must be commanded and not argued with, but there was something in me that whispered grave doubts as to the wisdom of trying his advice on my cousin. “But I’ll leave that till last,” thinks I; “the passage comes first,” and I hastened to join Gregory, who was fumbling at the cellar door.