With this thought urging him to get his business done quickly, Montague walked up to his door and knocked. On the instant, three men ran across the road and collared him. The capture was observed by one or two gentlemen, who stopped, and immediately a small crowd began to gather about them.
Montague was prudent enough to waste no time in a useless struggle with the Messengers, and asked them quietly who they were and what they intended. At this moment the door was opened by Mrs. Kilburne's maid, and the Messengers, lifting the Colonel up, carried him into the house. Hutchins, a short, stoutish fellow, who was the chief of the three men, told the Colonel who they were.
'And we hold a warrant for your apprehension under Lord Townshend's seal,' he said, and showed his scutcheon and the warrant.
'Not for my apprehension,' replied Montague. 'There is one without there who can speak for me.' For the door was still open to the street, and amongst the people who thronged the entrance, he now saw very clearly the blue and silver livery of her ladyship. The lackey, however, pushed backwards out of range, and since those who were foremost of the crowd turned about to see who it was that Montague pointed to, Hutchins took the occasion to close the door in their faces.
'You are George Kelly, alias James Johnson, alias Joseph Andrews,' said he, turning again to Colonel Montague, and reading out from the warrant a number of names by which the Parson was known to the honest party.
'It is the first I have heard of it,' replied Montague, and he invited the Messengers up to his rooms on the first floor, where he would be happy to satisfy them of their mistake. Mrs. Kilburne had now joined her maid in the passage, and she followed the Messengers up the stairs, wringing her hands over the disgrace which, through no fault of hers, had fallen upon her house. When they were come within the room, Montague threw open his cloak, which he wore wrapped about his shoulders, and discovered his scarlet coat beneath it.
'I am Colonel Montague,' he said, 'and an officer under the King as well as you. If there is work to be done for the King, I shall be very happy to assist you. I fought for the King at Preston,' and he made a great flourish of his services and valorous acts, not being sure that the Messengers had reinforcements without, and hoping that Mr. Kelly might enter meanwhile and do what was needful. Mrs. Kilburne's tongue and care for the Parson seemed likely to forward this plan, for, with many unnecessary words, she declared how the Colonel had lodged with her for years.
'And as for Mr. Johnson,' she said, 'there was such a man who came and went, but he lodged with Mrs. Barnes in Bury Street, and there you should go if you seek for news of him.'
But the ten minutes were not yet gone. The maid remained downstairs in the passage. She was a perfectly honest poor wench, who would have risked herself for the Parson or for any gentleman in distress. But Montague, however closely he listened, could not hear that she opened the door, or any noise in the room below.
Hutchins made his apologies with a great many 'your honours,' and the Colonel was no less polite in his compliments upon Hutchins's zeal, which he would be sure to make known in the proper quarters. But still the Parson did not come, and Montague could hold the Messengers in talk no longer, though that would have been of little use, as he now discovered.