Three times over, after listening at the head of the stairs for sounds from below where her prisoner was confined, Celia had crept on tiptoe to her father’s door, only to shrink away again not daring to speak.
For what would he say to her? She thought. She had no right to be downstairs watching the acts of the smugglers, and she dreaded to make a confession of her knowledge of these nocturnal proceedings.
At last, bewildered, anxious, and worn-out, she knelt down by her bed, to consider with her head in her hands, ready for kindly nature to bring her comfort, for when she started up again the sun was streaming brightly in at her window.
She pressed her hands to her temples, and tried to think about the business of the past night, and by degrees she collected her thoughts, and recalled that the smugglers had come to take up their kegs and bales from the temporary store to carry them further inland, that she had discovered the young midshipman watching, and to save her father she had shut their enemy in the lower corner room.
Celia stood with her cheeks burning, trembling and anxious, and after bathing her face and arranging her hair, she went out into the broad passage and listened at her father’s door.
It was too soon for him to be stirring yet, and determining at last to go and declare his innocency, and make an appeal to the frank-looking lad, she crept timidly down the grand old flight of stairs, trying to think out what she would say.
There were two flights to descend, and the first took a long time; but she worked out a nice little speech, in which she would tell the cutter’s officer that her father had once been rich, but he had espoused the young Pretender’s cause, and the result had been that he had become so impoverished that there had been a time when they had had hardly enough to keep them and the old maid-servant who still clung to their fallen fortunes.
By the time she was at the bottom of the second flight she was ready and quite hopeful, and, with the tears standing in her eyes, she felt sure that the frank, gentlemanly lad would be merciful, forgive her, and save her father from a terrible disgrace.
She had, then, her speech all ready, but when she spoke everything was condensed in the one exclamation—
“Oh!”