"Oh! willingly--willingly," cried Sir John, giving him the key, and drawing back behind the bed. "For heaven's sake, do not let him find me!"
The earl took the key, and approached the door; but before we relate what followed, we must turn for a moment to explain the sudden appearance of Captain Barecolt.
[CHAPTER XXI.]
Captain Barecolt was not, according to the old proverb, like a garden full of weeds; for, although he was undoubtedly a man of words, he was also a man of deeds, as the reader may have already remarked, and the deeds which he had performed since we last left him sitting in the parlour of Mrs. White were manifold and various. His first expedition was to the chamber of Arrah Neil, where the worthy landlady's sense of decorum, as well as her privilege of curiosity, kept her present during the conference.
Poor Arrah--although at one time she certainly had not been impressed with the deepest sense of the personal merits of Captain Deciduous Barecolt--had seen enough of his conduct in the skirmish which took place at the bridge, to entertain a much higher respect for him than before; and even had not such been the case, there is something in the very sight of persons whom we have beheld in companionship with those we love, which, by awakening sweet associations--those pleasant door-keepers of the heart--renders their presence cheering to us in the hour of misfortune and distress.
Mrs. White, too, upon Captain Barecolt's own statement, had assured Arrah, that he came expressly to deliver her; and she looked upon her escape from the clutches of Mr. Dry as now quite certain, with the aid of the good landlady, and the more vigorous assistance of Barecolt's long arm and long sword. She greeted him gladly, then, and with a bright smile; but Barecolt, when he now saw her, could scarcely believe that she was the same person with whom he had marched two days during the absence from Bishop's Merton, not alone from the change in her dress, though that of course made a very great difference, but from the look of intelligence and mind which her whole countenance displayed, and from the total absence of that lost and bewildered expression which had been before so frequently present on her face. Her great beauty, which had then been often clouded by that strange shadow that we have so frequently mentioned, was now lighted up--like a fair landscape first seen in the dim twilight of the morning, when the sun rises upon it in all the majesty of light.
"Do not be the least afraid, my dear young lady," said Captain Barecolt, after the first congratulations of their meeting were over, and he had quieted down his surprise and admiration. "Do not be at all afraid. I will deliver you, if the gates should be guarded by fiery dragons. Not only have I a thousand times accomplished enterprises to which this, of circumventing the dull burgesses of Hull, is no more than eating the mites of a cheese off the point of a knife; but here we have to assist us good Mrs. White, one of the most excellent women that ever lived upon the face of this earth. It is true I have but had the pleasure and honour of her acquaintance for the space of one hour and three-quarters; but when you come to consider that I have been called upon to converse and deal with, and investigate and examine, in the most perilous circumstances, and in the most awful situations, many millions of my fellow-creatures, of every different shade, variety, and complexion of mind, you will easily understand that it needs but a glance for me to estimate and appreciate the excellence of a person so well disposed as Mrs. White."
"Oh, yes!" cried Arrah, interrupting him; "I know that she is kind and good, and will do everything she can to help and deliver me. She was kind to me long ago, and one can never forget kindness. But when shall we go, Captain Barecolt? Cannot we go to-night?"
"That is impossible, my dear young lady," replied Barecolt; "for there are many things to be done. In the first instance, these papers, which Mrs. White talks of--they must be obtained, if possible. Has this man got them about him, do you think?"
"I cannot tell," replied Arrah; "I do not even know that he has got them at all. I only know that the cottage was stripped when I came back, and that they, with everything else, were gone."