“Pray God I be in time to warn somebody! We are all in danger, we who were at the preaching to-night, and Mistress Wade most of all, for it was in her house. I’ll go to the King’s Head ere I go home.”
Thus thinking, Elizabeth reached Mrs Silverside’s, and rapped at the door. Once—twice—thrice—four times. Not a sound came from inside, and she was at last sorrowfully compelled to conclude that nobody was at home. Down the lane she went, and came out into High Street at the bottom.
“Then I can only warn Mistress Wade. I dare be bound she’ll let the others know, as soon as morning breaks. I do trust that will be time enough.”
She picked her way across High Street, and had just reached the opposite side, when her arm was caught as if in an iron vice, and she felt herself held fast by greater strength than her own.
“Hussy, what goest thou about?” said the stern voice of her master, Nicholas Clere.
Chapter Fourteen.
Stopped on the way.
Nicholas Clere was a man of one idea at once; and people of that sort do a great deal of good when they get hold of the right idea, and a great deal of harm when a wrong idea gets hold of them. Once let notion get into the head of Nicholas, and no reasoning nor persuasion would drive it out. He made no allowances and permitted no excuses. If a thing looked wrong, then wrong it must be, and it was of no use to talk to him about it. That he should have found Elizabeth, who had been ordered to come home at eight o’clock, running in the opposite direction at half-past eight, was in his eyes an enormity which admitted of no explanations. That she either had been in mischief, or was then on her way to it, were the only two alternatives possible to the mind of her master.