"My father, indeed, did sail to Rhode Island, but he left me here, with my great-aunt Isham, till he had prepared a home for me there. And then, when I would have followed him, my great-aunt was grown so old and failed, that he deemed it my duty to stay with her to the last. Now she is lately dead, and I am in haste to depart to join my dearest father. Right glad am I you chanced not here a few weeks later, or you might, in good truth, have found but a ghost to welcome you. Indeed, your visit came pat to the minute, for I was just shutting up for the night when you must needs get in the way of the gate," and she laughed saucily. "Had you but come five minutes later, I should have been away at my cowman's cottage, where I dwell now till I am ready to take ship. This house does but serve me for withdrawing-room, when I am weary of old Molly's clack and out of patience with her husband. My poor aunt Isham loved this ruined Inglethorpe too well to leave it till she was carried to the church-yard, but I have no fancy to awake some morning to find I am but another of the Inglethorpe ghosts, and my body buried in the ruins of Inglethorpe Hall. Therefore, I give the preference to the attic in the cottage below there for a state chamber."
"Madam," he answered slowly, "if, indeed, this house is held for uninhabited, and you do purpose leaving the country so soon, methinks it may truly not bring you into danger if I take your generous offer and hide here for to-night. You will scarce be questioned yonder in Providence Plantation concerning the malefactors you harboured in Norfolk, therefore will I thankfully close with your offer."
"That's well," she cried, springing from her seat, and clapping her hands. "I knew no man alive could resist the charm of my dumplings! Now, take patience but a little, and you shall see how well I order things for my visitor!" and she ran gaily out of the room.
A mighty noise above stairs of moving furniture and the patter of light footsteps came to Harrison as he basked by the great fire; and it was not till the evening was growing late that Audrey reappeared, and, dropping a curtsey with a charming air of demureness, prayed leave to marshal his worship to his bedchamber.
He followed her up the stairs to a chamber over the kitchen.
"The real guest-chambers I may not offer you," she sighed, as she poked up the logs that blazed on the rusty andirons; "seeing the rats have made such havoc in them, and 'tis many years since any one slept there. But the rats do not affect this chamber greatly, and the roof is sound; also my aunt's woman slept here and saw no ghosts. And if need comes you should hide—which God forbid—you see this little stair in the corner? It leads up to the great attic that is full of lumber, where you could play hide-and-seek with a regiment; and were you pressed there—see"—and she ran lightly up the stair and pushed open the door into the lumber-room. "Look at those bedsteads and chests and the great loom. They make a very rampart! And if that were forced, the ceiling is all broken at that end, so 'twere easy to scramble up on the rafters and lie hid under the tiles. There, surely no one would follow you; leastways, not our constables from hereabouts. They are too lusty for such mountebank scrambles! And now, sir, your fire burns bright, and I will wish you good night, and God keep you in safety."
CHAPTER VI.
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.
"And ever at the loom of birth
The mighty mother weaves and sings,
She weaves fresh robes for mangled earth,
She sings fresh hopes for desperate things."
C. KINGSLEY.
Long after the light sound of Audrey's step had died away on the garden path, Richard Harrison sat and dreamed. Of late, exhausted by cold and fatigue, he had begun to lose control of his mind: he had sometimes found himself forgetting what dangers threatened him, and in what direction he had decided to turn his steps; and even when he could force himself to think, he had grown too desperate to care what peril might be in wait for him. It might be only the pestilential den men then called a jail; it might be the slave-ship, and the chain-gang in Barbadoes; it might be the gibbet, with the hand of the executioner scrabbling in his entrails. Well, let it be, if it must. His imagination seemed too dull to realize his danger, or work out any coherent scheme of escaping it. It could only brood over one horrible memory, till he felt he could have welcomed the pike thrust of a soldier or the lash of a slave-driver, if only they roused him from the dreams that bordered on insanity. Now, suddenly, he found himself awake. He was his sane self again. A girl's calm voice, a girl's clear eyes seemed to have exorcised the demon that had pursued him. He remembered with a surprise that was full of relief that he had talked to her for long that evening, and his words had been coherent—that he had actually jested! He was not mad! That horrible execution was true; it was no insane dream; but other things were real too. In what strange world had he been living? Had that sullen, desperate wretch been indeed Dick Harrison? He realized that he was alive; he could still enjoy the common comforts of food and fire; he could think; he could plan! His feet were once more treading solid earth; his brain began to spin anew the projects that had delighted him of yore; his heart began to stir with the hopes of old. Across the sea there were still battles to fight, new states to found. Liberty was not an idle word; love might still make life glorious. It seemed as if some healing touch had awakened him from a fevered dream, and recalled him to saner and earlier memories than those that tortured him; and when he stretched his weary limbs on the unwonted luxury of a bed, the old dreams awoke and bore him company all night long.