"I fancy Mr. Clavering was right," says she, with a bubble of delight, "and it is a very uncommon owl."
And I was allowed to carry the ladder back to the outhouse.
CHAPTER XIV.
[I DROP THE CLOAK.]
The lesson, however, was lost on me, or rather, to speak by the book, had the very reverse effect to that it aimed at. For my solemnity was increased thereby. I reflected that Dorothy would never have played this trick upon an enemy, or even upon an unconsidered acquaintance, but only upon one whom she thought of as a friend. And there was the trouble. I held her in that reverence that it irked me intolerably to masquerade to her, though the masquerading was to my present advantage in her esteem. I had, of course, no thought that ever I could win her, since I saw myself hourly either doomed to the gallows, or, if I failed of that, to a more disgraceful existence. But I was fain that she should know me through and through for no better than I was; and so I wore her friendship as a stolen cloak.
Now, a thief, if the cloak galls him, may restore it. That I could not do without telling her the whole story; and the story I could not tell, since it was not I alone whose honour was concerned in it, but a woman with me. Or the thief may drop the cloak by the roadside without a word, and get him into the night. Over that alternative I pondered a long, dreary while.
But while I was yet tossed amidst these perplexities, news came to hand which quite turned the current of my thoughts. It was the 18th day of September, and Mr. Curwen, I remember, had left Applegarth early that morning on horseback, and, though it was now past nightfall, had not yet returned; the which was causing both his daughter and myself no small uneasiness at the very time when Tash rapped upon the door. He brought me a letter. I mind me that I stood in the hall staring in front of me, holding the open letter in my hand. It seemed that I saw the lock fall from a door, and the door opening on an unimagined dawn.
"What is it?" cried Dorothy, and for a second she laid a gentle hand upon my arm.
"It is," I exclaimed, drawing in a breath, "it is that the Earl of Mar—the duke, God bless him! for now one may give him his proper title—has raised King James's standard at Kirkmichael in Braemar."
Dorothy gave a cry of delight, and I joined in with it. For if the duke did but descend into England, if England did but rise to welcome him—why, there would be the briefest imprisonment for those lying under charge, whether true or false, of conspiring for King James.