“We helped her with the linen,” she said, “but I fear this is a more difficult matter; but it makes my heart bleed for the poor innocent and she only twelve years old. We can manage to feed her, but the child will pine away shut up there. I cannot think what to do.”
“The thing would be to get Mistress Audry back,” said Janet. “That would be something.”
“Ay, that would it,” Elspeth assented.
They talked it over for some time and Elspeth decided that she would try and say something in an indirect way to Master Mowbray, which might result in his sending for his daughter.
When she was gone John turned to his mother,—“Mother, somehow I believe Walter Margrove is the man to help us, and he told us to let him hear how things went and they have gone a deal worse than any of us could have dreamed. He knows the world and he knows, too, what the real risk is. Even if Mistress Audry comes back, methinks that will not alter the true danger.”
“Ay,” said his mother, “but Master Walter was here but yesterday, how are we to get him?”
John thought for a time and then said,—“I have no regular work here and Silas, who sees to my hours, is one of our faith. I would even risk telling him something; although I need not say it is for Mistress Aline that I want to see Walter.”
“But how would you find Walter even if you did consult Silas?” said his mother.
“That should not be difficult,” said John. “He always calls at Carlisle on his rounds and I think I heard him say that he expected to be there this time within a sennight. In any case, however, he gets there long enough before he gets here. He generally stays with one, Timothy Fenwick, at the sign of the Golden Keys.”
“How will you go,” said his mother, “round by Middleton?”