The Northern Iron

by George A. Birmingham

Maurice rose to his feet.

“I understand, gentlemen, that this is a public room in which any traveller may be supplied with what he calls for. I have no wish to push myself into your company. I trust that you will allow me to enjoy my own unmolested.”

The intoxicated proposer of the toast laid his hand on his sword, blustered out an oath or two, and was pulled down again into his seat. There was good feeling enough left among the better class of his companions to understand that a stranger should be treated with civility. There was sense enough among the rest to recognise that Maurice was not the kind of man whom it would be safe to bully. The girl returned and informed Maurice that his groom was in the kitchen, but refused to attend him.

Maurice rose and sought the man himself. The reason of the refusal was sufficiently obvious. The kitchen was full of troopers who had advanced much further on the way to absolute drunkenness than their officers. James, Lord Dunseveric’s groom, was decidedly the most drunken of the party, but Maurice wanted the man, and was prepared to take some trouble to reduce him to a condition of serviceableness again. He grasped him by the collar of the coat, and pushed him through the back door into the yard. A delighted stable boy worked the pump handle while Maurice held the groom under the stream of cold water. The cure was ineffective. Maurice walked him up and down the yard for half an hour, and then put him under the pump again. The man remained obstinately drunk. Maurice flung him down in a corner of a stable and left him.

He returned to the room where the feasters sat, and looked in. The company had advanced rapidly since he had seen them last. The squire who had proposed the toast was under the table. Several others were lying back helplessly in their chairs. Those who could talk were talking loud and all together. The amount of liquor still to be consumed was considerable. Maurice smiled. These officers and gentlemen were little likely to interfere with anything he chose to do at midnight. He went out of doors and sat on the stone bench in front of the inn.

He had no plan in his head for the rescue of Neal Ward, only he was quite determined to accomplish it somehow before morning. He did not even know where his friend was imprisoned, or how he was guarded. His father had spoken of a cellar somewhere in the inn. He supposed that foe would sooner or later be able to find it, overpower the sentry, and set Neal free. In the meanwhile, he had nothing to do but wait.

He felt a touch on his shoulder, and looked round to see the girl, the inn servant, standing beside him.

“You’re the gentleman,” she whispered, “that was speaking till the young man here the morn—the young man that I give the basket to, that is a friend o’ Jemmy Hope’s?”

Maurice recollected the incident very well.

“He’s here the now,” whispered the girl again. “He’s down in the wine cellar, and the door’s locked on him, and there’s a man with a gun forninst the door, and, the Lord save us, it’s goin’ to hang him they are.”