But this catastrophe had another side. And to my mind it was not unpleasant. It was supplied by the behaviour of Miss Prue. When the cheerful Corporal was in the midst of his depredations in the closet, that young lady grew a lively red with rage, and doubled up her not unsubstantial but mittened fists, and shook them in the Corporal’s direction.
“Gad!” she whispered, whilst Emblem and myself had to put forth desperate efforts to restrain her, “I would give a golden guinea to be Anthony Dare for just two minutes. I’d smash as many bones in his drunken carcase as he hath smashed these bits of furniture.”
Captain Grantley’s threat was executed to the letter. They sought the prisoner or evidence of him in every nook and cranny from the cellar to the skylight, but became none the wiser for their pains. Ruefully they told this to their commander, fuming in his fetters. I also went and told the Captain this.
Conducting my friend Miss Prue to the tea-table of my aunt, I was charmed more than I can express to notice how immediately this young lady ordered her bearing and her conversation to a harmony that accorded with the dowager’s personality and her own. Launching these ladies properly on a topic on which they were both well qualified to speak, to wit, the relations then existing between the Church of England and the Church of Rome, I tripped forth to the library to carry my compliments to its occupant. He was still in the exact posture in which I had previously seen him. But he was not writing now. Instead, his fingers were tapping the table in their impotence, and his eyes were red and fierce. He looked the picture of the tiger caged, and fretting away his heart in his captivity. His cheeks were wan and hollow, for the whole affair was a bitter load upon his mind. Indeed, he made a quite pathetic figure, chafing in a strict confinement at a time when it was desperately necessary that he should be abroad.
“Captain, how’s the knee?” I began, with sweetness.
“It gives me no trouble I assure you, my dear lady,” he answered, smoothly, “but it is really very good of you to ask.” He gently smiled, for he was well aware that I positively knew that it troubled him exceedingly, and that my inquiry did not spring from any kindly impulse.
“I am here to tell you, sir,” says I, and observed the poor wretch keenly to catch him wincing, “that those fine troopers of yours have failed completely in their expedition. Completely failed, sir! And as you have had the goodness to confer ignominy on this household and myself by insinuating that we are harbouring a rebel, I am here to thank you for it.”
“Yes,” he sighed, “I know they’ve failed.” He looked at his knee reproachfully.
“Captain,” says I, in a voice that was angelical; “how unfortunate it is that you yourself could not have led this man-hunt. I’ll warrant that you would have run this fugitive to earth.”
’Twas more than the fellow could endure.