“You don’t think then, mother, there’s any fear of the dear lass going into a waste, like?” asked Farmer Lavender anxiously.
“No, Joe, I don’t; I’ll let you know when I do. At this present I think she’s only coming to her senses a bit.”
The old preacher appeared no more in the pulpit at Darlaston; but so far as Jenny Lavender was concerned, he had done the work for which he was sent there. Jenny had not a single Christian friend except old Persis Fenton; and she kept away from Tom’s aunt, just because she was his aunt. She was therefore shut up to her Bible, which she read diligently; and perhaps she grew all the faster because she was watered direct from the Fountain-Head. Old Mrs Lavender was wise in a moral sense, but not in a spiritual one, beyond having a general respect for religion, and a dislike to any thing irreverent or profane. Farmer Lavender shared this with her; but he looked on piety as a Sunday thing, too good to use every day. So Jenny stood alone in her own family.
While all this was passing at the farm, Colonel Lane and Mrs Jane were speeding, post-haste, to France. The Colonel explained to Featherstone, whom alone of his servants he took with him, that he and his sister having had the honour of performing an important service to the King, their lives were in danger from the resentment of the Parliamentary party.
The King himself was now safe at Paris, where they hoped to join him; and on arriving there, if Featherstone wished to return home, he thought there was no doubt that he could get a passage for him in the suite of some person journeying to England. If, on the contrary, he preferred to remain in France, the Colonel would willingly retain his services.
“I have entered into arrangements,” he concluded, “whereby my rents will be secure, and will be remitted to me from time to time while we remain in France. I trust it may not be long ere the King shall be restored, and we can go back with him.”
Featherstone requested a little time to think the matter over. He certainly had no desire to leave the Colonel before reaching Paris, a city which he wished to see beyond all others.
“Ay, take your time,” answered the Colonel. “My sister will provide herself with a woman when we arrive thither. In truth, it was not for her own sake, but for Jenny’s, that she left her at home.”
This conversation confirmed Featherstone in two opinions which he already entertained. First, he was satisfied that an understanding had been arrived at between the Colonel and his friend Mr Chadderton, whereby the latter was to remit the Colonel’s rents under colour of keeping the estates for himself. Secondly, he was more convinced than ever that Will Jackson had played the traitor, and that it was through him the Parliament had been made aware of the Colonel’s service to the King’s cause, whatever it might be.
Dover was reached in safety, and the party embarked on board the Adventure for Calais. It took them twenty hours to cross; and before ten of them were over, Robin Featherstone would have been thankful to be set down on the most uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean, with no prospect of ever seeing Paris or anything else, might he but have been safe upon dry land. It was in a very limp, unstarched condition of mind and body that he landed on the Calais quay. Colonel Lane, an old traveller, and an excellent sailor, was rather disposed to make merry at poor Robin’s expense; for toothache and sea-sickness are maladies for which a man rarely meets with much sympathy.