"Mad!" cried Arrah Neil--"mad! Oh, no! 'Tis he that is wicked, not I that am mad. He and another dragged me away from those who protected me and were good to me--kind Annie Walton, and that noble lord her brother--while they were fighting on the moors beyond Coventry. I his ward! He has no more right to keep me from my friends than the merest stranger. He is a base, bad man--a hypocrite--a cheat. What he wants, what he wishes, I know not; but he had my poor old grandfather dragged away to prison, and he died by the road."
"Your grandfather!" said the widow; "What was his name?"
"Neil," answered the poor girl; "that was the name he always went by."
"Why, that was the old servant," said the hostess. "He had been a soldier, and fought in many battles. I have heard him tell it often. But this man--this man has some object, young lady. He knows more of you than perhaps you think. He told me that you were mad, and his ward; but he knew not that you had a friend so near at hand, who, though she be a poor, humble woman--Hark! there are people speaking at the door. 'Tis he, I dare say. Say not a word to him, and we will talk more by-and-by. Do not be afraid--he shall not take you away again so easily, if there be yet law in the land. But he must not find me with you;" and, thus saying, she opened the door, and lei the room.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
The landlady paused for a moment at the door, laid her finger upon her brow, thought for a minute or two, and then, having settled her whole plan to her own satisfaction, descended to the door, at which Mr. Dry, of Longsoaken, was making sundry inquiries regarding the personage for whose address he had, in the first place, applied to herself, and whom he evidently had not found out in his perambulations through the town. A part of what he said was heard by the hostess as she descended, so that she had a clue to what was going on, and, advancing towards him with a low, smart curtsey, she said--
"The dinner's quite ready, sir; and I have been thinking since you were gone, that I shall be able to-morrow morning to get you the address of the gentleman you wanted, for a man will be here with eggs who used to supply him, I know."
Mr. Dry looked up with a well-satisfied air, saying, "That is providential, Mistress Green."
"White, sir, White," said the landlady, dropping another curtsey; "my name is White, not Green--a different colour, sir; but it all comes to the same thing. Shall I call the young lady to dinner? It is in this room, sir."
"I will go myself, Mistress White," said Dry; and he was advancing towards the stairs, when the landlady, in; low and confidential whisper, added--