But the Corporal seemed disinclined to move. I understood his muttered reply to be to the effect that he knew his business thoroughly, and further, that he had encountered my kind before. However, I put such majesty in my look, and opened him the door with such an air, that he did my behests against the counsels of his judgment, for soldiers, of all men, cannot prevail against those accustomed to command.
In a few words, then, I calmed the riot in young Anthony. And when he saw what had been my error, and what had been his own, his eyes began to sparkle, and the sunshine came into his face.
“On my soul!” he cried, “I thought you could not be quite the she-devil that you seemed.” And then with a tender gravity at the remembrance of his impending doom: “Bab, I wish I could live and love you. I should be a model of a husband, and we’d make a pretty handsome pair.”
“Well,” says I, fascinated with the bravery of his countenance, “I’ve the very greatest mind to make a husband of you. You are the most wonderfully handsome lad, and headstrong too, and that’s why I so encourage you.”
“I wish there was no Tyburn Tree,” says he, with wistfulness.
Thereupon I gathered all my inches up.
“Tree or no Tree,” says I, “I am going to make a declaration of my policy. Day or night I will not cease in my endeavours. Only keep a stout, cheerful heart, child, and I will show you what devotion is. I’ll bully or persuade, intrigue or ruffle it, but what I’ll save you. I will browbeat the King, my lad, and pass a special law in Parliament, but what you shall escape the Tree. Now here’s my hand on that, and mind you do not quiver until the rope is interfering with your breath.”
This was braggadocio indeed, and designed maybe to brace my poor spirit up to the high fortitude that was his own. And yet, God knows, my ultimatum was sincere, and the hapless captive took it so to be.
Having thus decided on our future course, the lad suddenly fell again to gravity.
“I suppose you do not know,” says he, “that your friend the Captain met his end by murder?”