“Papa,” says I, severely, “you are become profane. Do not jest with such sacred names as ‘High Treason,’ ‘Old Bailey,’ and the ‘Tower.’”
“Bab,” says he, “a woman’s head is far too pretty to understand these ugly matters. But ’tis enough that ’twas I that let that prisoner out in the middle of the night; ’tis my name that Captain Grantley has done me the special favour of inserting in his dispatches to the Minister of War, and it will be my body that will be committed in dishonour to the Tower. And now, my pretty Bab, suppose we wash our hands of these dirty politics, and solace ourselves with a little game of backgammon and a dish of tea?”
There was only one person in the world that this delightful mirror of the graces could not deceive with his urbanity. She chanced to be his daughter Bab. That young person’s eyes could penetrate his embroidered vest and look into his heart, or any substitute that he wore for that important organ. His countenance I never saw more easy and serene, and was good enough to cheat the devil with, but behind that mask his every nerve was quivering with an agony of shame. His sensibility to politics astonished me. This worldly man, this polished heathen, this ancient fop, this hard-bit roué, who feared not God nor anybody; this scandalous Court chronicle of sixty years of Stuartry to be laid prone and bleeding by a frolic of his daughter Bab’s. ’Twas impossible, you’ll say, and that is what I also said, but there it was.
“Oh, these politics!” cries I, in a passion. “A pestilence upon ’em! Confound these politics! And what in the world is there to make so wry a face about, my lord? The matter might be serious. Do I not repeat, sir, that the thing was but a piece of mischief? Call it fun, my lord, bravado, diablerie, what you will, but I want you to understand that ’twas a piece of mischief.”
“’Tis perfectly correct,” says he; “an infernal piece of mischief.”
“Then might I ask, my lord, what there is to make a song about? True, the rebel is escaped, but I’m not sorry in the least for that; indeed, betwixt ourselves, I am somewhat glad of it. He is a very handsome lad, and will make a prettier man than any that I’ve seen. But what is there to make a ballad of, I ask? Is he the only rebel in the world then? There are thousands of rebels up and down the earth, and I’m sure not a man jack of ’em’s so handsome as that lad. Why,” laughs I, “he hath an eye that is a rival to my own. No, ’twould not be truthful of me to say that I am sorry for it. As for the bullet that traversed Captain Grantley’s knee, I do indeed regret that very deeply, but I ask you, my lord, is his the first knee that hath had a bullet through it? And is it going to be the last? Why, at that same instant a portion of the same discharge hit my shoulder, too, so he is not the only sufferer. Pah! ’twas only a piece of mischief, and my maid Emblem will tell you quite the same, and she should know, for she put my cloak on and saw me down the stairs. Why, if it comes to argument, my lord, the King, nor you, nor politics, nor precious Captain Grantley hath a leg to stand on, and ’tis argument they say that is the only thing that is considered in a court of justice. Come, tell me is it not so, Mr. Custos Rutulorum?”
“Faith, that is so!” laughed his lordship, heartily, and he hath been on four occasions High Sheriff of the County; “and if they shall find a lawyer who may prevail against this argument of yours, my delightful criminal, it will have to be a woman, a second Portia let us say, for the man hath not been fashioned yet who could possibly chop logic with you; nay, if it comes to that,” and my papa stood up and bowed to the bright buckles of his shoes in the most flattering fashion, “the combined genius of our sex could never hope to overcome in argument the dialectics of you fair, unfathomable, amazing ladies.”
Yet despite his smiling speeches the hard-wrought look still sat in his eyes. Then I grew Tower-haunted. Could it be possible that my frolic had so greatly shocked old, indignant, sober-sided Politics? But if any proof were needed to the Earl’s assertion that my night’s work was criminal, it was at my elbow. On the table I saw a sheet of the official blue with a brief statement of the prisoner’s escape upon it. It was a rather garbled version, for the name of me, prime agent and offender, was not allowed to once appear; nor were the inconvenient details set down at any length, but in the sum it said that the whole of the responsibility rested with my papa, the Earl, and he had affixed the peculiar scrawl that was his signature upon this preposterous indictment. The familiar way in which this was irresolutely writ, in his trembling, old, and gouty hand, affected me most strangely. There seemed a sort of nobility about the behaviour of this old barbarian; and a strain of the hero in a man delights me more than anything, and generally fills me with a sort of emulation.
“This means the Tower!” says I, brandishing the paper.
“It does,” my lord says, inclined to be amused at my impetuosity.