Chapter Sixteen.
The storm breaks.
When the morning came, Amy’s good temper was restored by her night’s rest, and she was inclined to look on her locking-in as a piece of amusement.
“I vow, Bess, this is fun!” said she, “I’ve twenty minds to get out on the roof, and see if I can reach the next window. It would be right jolly to wake up Ellen Mallory—she’s always lies abed while seven; and I do think I could. Wilt aid me?”
Ellen Mallory was the next neighbour’s daughter, a girl of about Amy’s age; and seven o’clock was considered a shocking late hour for rising in 1556.
“Mistress Amy, I do pray you never think of such a thing,” cried Elizabeth, in horror. “You’ll be killed!”
“Well, I’m not wishful to be killed,” answered Amy lightly: “I only want some fun while we are shut up here. I marvel when Mother shall come to let us out. She’ll have to light the fire herself if she does not; that’s one good thing!”
Elizabeth thought it a very undutiful idea; but she was silent. If she had but had wings like a dove, how gladly would she have flown to warn her friends! She well knew that Mrs Clere was not likely to be in the mood to grant a favour and let her go, after what had happened the night before. To go without leave was a thing which Elizabeth never contemplated. That would be putting herself in the wrong. But her poor friends, would they escape? How if Robert Purcas had been stopped, as she had? I was strange, but her imagination did not dwell nearly so much upon her own friend, Rose, as on little Cissy. If Johnson were taken, if he were martyred, what would become of little Cissy? The child had crept into Elizabeth’s heart, before she was aware. Suddenly Amy’s voice broke in upon her thoughts.
“Come, Bess, art in a better mood this morrow? I’ll forgive thee thy miss-words last night, if thou’lt tell me now.”
All the cross words there had been the night before had come from Amy herself; but Elizabeth let that pass.