At the moment in which Lord Armitage partially rose to make his way toward the sole weapon of defence at hand—one of the three-legged stools—an inspiration came to him. He recollected the void above him; the uncertainty of candle-light—the inaccuracy of eyes dulled with wine. He drew off, in the twinkling of an eye, the brogues Gilbert Boyd had loaned him. Holding these between his teeth, he stepped a yard or so beyond the panel, so dangerously ajar for the success of the daring plan he had suddenly devised. He thrust his feet into the crevices of the rude masonry, searching noiselessly with fingers and toes for the numberless rough projections. In a few seconds he had readily gained a height of eight or ten feet. Clinging to the stones, he raised his hand to feel for some further coign of vantage. His hand struck an object that he had little suspected, but instantly bethought him was almost certain to be there, discoverable in any room so constructed in such a house—a strong iron brace traversing the Nest at a height considerably above the low entrance and running from wall to wall. He laid hold of it. Would it break? He had no time to test it. He took his fate in his hands.
With rigid muscles, and jaws aching from the strain of holding the shoes, he drew himself up, got astride of it, and at last stood with both feet upon it!
It was rusted, but it did not even bend. He balanced himself. Before climbing he had knotted the latchets of the brogues together; he now hung them across the bar, close to the black wall. So far so good!
Again must he attempt the dangerous, but far from impracticable, feat, that he began to feel convinced was his succor. Could those outside hear him as he climbed? No—it would seem not. He could have cried aloud for joy as he felt, at arm's length above his head, a second iron brace, evidently another essential in the support of the wall, to which he clove like a human fly. To this second aid he pulled himself up, and stood upright on it, with palms pressing the stones. At that height, perhaps twenty feet from the floor he could, he dared hope, defy the candle-light the intruders might introduce. It proved that he could. Motionless, afraid to breathe, he presently saw their entrance, and blessed Andrew for the additional security the fallen candle brought about; and it was from up there, exhausted but safe from capture, if not death, that he marked the troopers' departure from beneath his very feet. Then was it that, wishing to enlighten Andrew as to his resource and its merciful success, he ventured to send down to the boy's quick ears that repeated name—"Andrew—Andrew."[*]
[*]The escape of Lord Geoffry Armitage has its foundation in the experience of a Jacobite refugee, of inferior extraction, who participated in the Insurrection of 1715. [Back]
CHAPTER VII.
PRISONER AND SENTRY.
"It was a miracle—a miracle!" repeated Gilbert Boyd, lost in wonder and gratitude, some twenty minutes after the return of Captain Jermain and his friends to their glasses down in the dining-parlor, whither Boyd, in a state of utter bewilderment, had escorted them. The sound of their laughter and raillery penetrated to the place where the fugitive with Andrew and Gilbert now sat—a small lumber-room, windowless and unceiled, in the attic of the rambling Manor, partitioned off in one of its gables. Lord Armitage's self-extrication from the Nest had been dangerously prompt. Andrew hurried up the staircase and came upon Lord Geoffry creeping about in the dark hall; through the boy's suggestion this uppermost retreat had been gained, and hither, too, hastened Gilbert from the festivities recommenced in the dining-parlor.
"Miracle? Ay—it seems a trifle like one," responded Lord Armitage, laughing already; "what's the verse of Holy Writ about they who shall bear up the righteous in their arms? Surely, I may count myself a better man than I dared, and take courage forever."