Mr. Snark rubbed his hands with satisfaction. Meantime down below, the inevitable consequence had followed the flowing blood and the free exchange of blows. The guard had entirely lost control of the crowd collected about the scaffold, which immediately seized its opportunity of getting even with the law. Not only did it offer the rebel and his escort every facility to escape, but was at equal pains to impede the soldiers, the Sheriff, and the officials of the gaol in their efforts to arrest the condemned man’s flight. And this they succeeded very well in doing. A bodyguard of hard-hitting rogues formed about the rescued rebel and hurried him at a double through the friendly mob, that gave way right gallantly before them.
It made me almost wild with joy to behold my young lover and his company of sturdy dogs cleave through the kind-intentioned press till they came in safety to the door of the very house in which I was. At the moment that he approached the threshold, I wheeled about, and almost overturned a lord as I ran from the chamber and darted down the stairs. His liberators, faithful to the implicit instructions of Mr. Snark, had already got him in the house.
There was a great press of people on his heels pouring in through the open door as I came down the stairs. However, I was able to breast my progress through the throng, and fervently clasp my intrepid lover’s hand.
“Quick! quick!” I whispered. “Do not dally. Get through to the back. A horse awaits you. Do not draw rein till you are at the ‘White Hart,’ Dover. Here’s a purse to meet your needs; and here is Mr. Snark. Heed every word of his instructions. Good-bye, lad, and God go with you!”
Straightway Mr. Snark stepped forth, and led his charge to where the horse awaited him, whilst as he did so, he threw a cloak about his shoulders, and poured a volume of instructions into his receptive ear. And with such alacrity was the full affair accomplished that the soldiers were yet wrestling with the mob, and I had barely time to reascend the stairs, and withdraw with divers of my friends to an adjacent chamber which commanded a view of Piper’s Alley instead of Tyburn Tree, ere the rebel was on his horse, and fleeing through London for his life. It seemed that there was also a second horse in readiness, and he who mounted it was no less a person than the celebrated Mr. Snark. ’Twas he that accompanied my dearest Anthony.
“There he goes!” cries I to my dear friend Hilda Flummery as the sorrel’s hoofs rang out upon the stones. “There goes my future husband! He’ll be in France before to-morrow.”
“Your future what, dear Bab?” cries she.
“My future husband, dear,” says I, demurely.
All who heard shook their heads, of course, or smiled broadly at the jest that they chose to call it. But they were not aware that I had made my mind up on this point, and I have writ a little epilogue to this strange memoir of my wooing to prove to those who may not know, how formidable I do become when I make my mind up on any point soever.