"Besides," I stammered, "I promised his daughter."
"Ah!" said he, "I told you it would be Dorothy Curwen;" and with that he shook me by the hand. But at the touch I realized of a sudden all the love and friendliness which he had shown to me from my first coming into Cumberland. I had a picture before my eyes of the house on Lord's Island—my Lord and his Lady in the cosy parlour; the children in their cots above. I looked into his face; it was bravely smiling. The chill November evening was crowding upon us as we stood there in the street; the lights began to shine in the windows; close to us a soldier was cursing Mr. Forster; beyond the barrier, down the street, one of Will's dragoons was roaring out a song; and before the Mitre door under the lamp Colonel Cotton was sitting on his horse. I could say nothing to Lord Derwentwater but what would point his misfortunes, and so—
"My lord," I cried simply, "God send that you and I may meet again."
"God send no answer to that wish, Lawrence," he replied solemnly.
He walked lightly to the Mitre door, as lightly as a man to his wedding. He mounted his horse; his face shone clear for a moment beneath the lamp, and that was the last glimpse I had of it. He rode down the street with Colonel Cotton; I made my way in all haste to the apothecary with whom he had lodged.
I had some talk with the apothecary, of which the purport will appear hereafter, and returned for Mr. Curwen, whom I found immediately, and my servant Ashlock, whom I did not find until late in the evening. For he had been employed in carrying gunpowder from barrier to barrier, so that I knew of no fixed spot where I could lay my hands on him. However, as I say, I found him at the last, and when General Wills marched into Preston Market-place at seven o'clock of the Monday morning, Mr. Lawrence Clavering, with a blue apron about his waist, was taking down the shutters from the apothecary's shop, while Mr. Curwen, much broken by fatigue and disappointment, lay abed in an attic of the house, with Ashlock to tend on him.
All that day, which was Monday the 14th of November, I lived in a jumping anxiety. For the shop from morn to night was beset with people seeking remedies for the wounded. These people, however, for the most part, belonged to General Wills' force; and luckily the citizens of the town had so much to distract them in the spectacle of the troops and of the prisoners—now ranged in the market-place, now marched off and locked up in the church—and in their own joy at escaping from the siege with so little damage, that they forgot those trivial ailments which bring them to the apothecary's. So the new journeyman, pounding drugs in a corner as far from the window as he could creep, escaped notice for that day and lay down to sleep beneath the counter with a mind a thought easier than his aching arm.
In something less than a minute, it seemed to me, I felt a tug at my coat. I started up with a cry, and looking to see the red coat of a soldier, beheld the homely brown of my friend the apothecary. His hat was on his head, the door of the shop stood open, and the full daylight poured into it.
"Thomas," he said, with a whimsical glance through his spectacles, "I cannot do with an idle apprentice. I must cancel your indentures."
"What do you mean?" I asked.