“No,” said the other, with a touch of insolence in his voice. “So your master may find, one of these fine days.” Being mindful of the Duke's honour, I told the man to mind his own business, which he said he meant to do, without asking my opinion. After that we rode on together a little heated, till we were out of sight of the combe, where I had had such a startling adventure.
After another hour of riding, we pulled up at the garden gate of an old grey handsome house which stood at some distance from the road. I asked one of the troopers who lived in this house. He said that it was an old Abbey, which belonged to Squire; but that we were to leave word there of the Duke's movements, “for Squire be very 'tached to the Protestants; besides he'll give us a breakfast. Sure to.” We left our horses at the gate while we walked up to the house. A pretty girl, who seemed to know one of the men, told us to come in, while she got breakfast for us. “Squire,” she said, “would be glad to hear what was going on; for he was that given up to the soldiers we couldn't hardly believe.” We were shown down a long flagged corridor to a little cool room which looked as though it had once been the abbot's cell. It had a window in it, looking out upon a garden in full flower, a little rose garden, covered with those lovely bushes of old English red single roses, the most beautiful flower in the world. The window was large, but the space of it was broken up by stone piers, so that no pane of glass was more than six inches wide. I mention this now, because of what happened later. There was not much furniture in the room; but what there was was very good. There was an old Dutch pewter jug, full of sweet-williams, on the table. On the wall' there was a picture of a Spanish gentleman on a cream-coloured, fat handsome little horse. Together they looked very like Don Quixote out for a ride with his squire. The two troopers left me in this room, while they went off to the kitchen. Presently the servant came in again, bringing me a noble dish of breakfast, a pigeon pie, a ham, a jar of preserved quince, a honeycomb, a great household loaf, newly baked, a big quart jug full of small beer. I made a very honest meal. After eating, I examined the room. There was tapestry over one part of the wall. It concealed a little low door which led to what had once been the abbot's fishpond, now a roofed-in bath-house, where one could plunge into eight feet or so of (bitterly cold) spring water. This bath-house was some steps lower than the little dining room. It was lighted by a skylight directly over the bath. It had no other window whatever. After examining the bath, wishing that I had known of it before eating, I went back to the dining room, where the servant was clearing away the food.
“I hope you enjoyed your breakfast, sir,” she said.
“Yes, thank you, very much indeed,” I answered.
“Squire will be down d'reckly, sir,” she said. “If you will please to make yourself at home.” I made myself at home, as she desired, while she, after a few minutes, took away the soiled plates, leaving all the other things on the side-board, ready for dinner. I noticed that she smiled in a rather strange way as she drew to the door behind her.
I loitered away about half an hour, waiting for the squire to come. As he did not come, I turned over the books on the shelves, mostly volumes of plays, the Spanish Tragedy, the Laws of Candy, Love Lies a Bleeding, etc., four plays to a volume in buckram covers. I was just getting tired of All for Love, when I heard a footstep in the passage outside. I thought that I would ask the passenger, whoever it might be, for how much longer the squire would keep me waiting. I was anxious about getting back to the army. It was dangerous to straggle too far from the Duke's camps when unbeaten armies followed on both his wings. So I went to the door to learn my fate at once. To my great surprise I found that I could not open it. It was locked on the outside. The great heavy iron lock had been turned upon me. I was a prisoner in the room there. Thinking that it had been done carelessly, I beat upon the door to attract the man who passed down the passage, calling to him to turn the key for me so that I might get out. The footsteps did not pause. They passed on, down the corridor, as though the man were deaf. After that a fury came upon me. I beat upon the door for five minutes on end, till the house must have rung with the clatter; but no one paid any attention to me, only, far away, I heard a woman giggling, in an interval when I had paused for breath. The door was a heavy, thick oak door, bound with iron. The lock was a bar of steel at least two inches thick; there was no chance of getting it open. Even firing into the lock with my little pistol would not have helped me; it would only have jammed the tongue of steel in its bed. I soon saw the folly of trying to get out by the door; so I turned to the window, which was more difficult still, or, if not more difficult, more tantalizing, since it showed me the free garden into which one little jump would suffice to carry me. But the closely placed piers of stone made it impossible for me to get through the window. It was no use trying to do so. I should only have stuck fast, midway. I began at once to pick out the mortar of the pier stones with my knife point. It was hopeless work, though, for the old monks had used some cement a good deal harder than the stones which it bound together. I could only dig away a little dust from its surface. That way also was barred to me. Then I went down to the bathing-chamber, hoping that there would be some way of escape for me there. I hoped that the escape pipe of the bath might be a great stone conduit leading to a fish-pond in the garden. It was nothing of the sort. It was a little miserable leaden pipe. I beat all round the walls, praying for some secret door, but there was nothing of any use to me, only a little iron ventilator high up, big enough to take my head, but nothing more. As for the skylight over the bath, it was beyond my reach, high up. For the moment I could see no means of getting to it. I went back to the dining room to give another useless pounding to the door. My head was full of miserable forebodings; but as yet I suspected merely that I had been caught by some sudden advance of militia. Or perhaps the squire had laid plans to get information from one who knew the Duke. Perhaps I had been lured away specially by one hungry for the King's good opinion. Or could it be Aurelia? Whatever it was, I was trapped, that was the terrible thing. I was shut up there till my enemy, whoever it was, chose to deal with me. I was in arms against the ruling King of England; everybody's hand would be against me, unless my own hands helped me before my enemies came. My first thought was to get the table down the steps, to make a bridge across the bath, from which I could reach the skylight. This I could not do at first; for being much flustered, I did not put the table-leaves down. Until I knocked them down in my hurry they kept me from dragging the table from the dining room. When I got it at last into the bath-room, I found that it would not stretch across the water: the legs were too close together, as I might have seen had I kept my wits about me. I could think of no other way of getting out.
I went back disheartened to the dining room, dragging my coat behind me. The first thing which I saw was a letter addressed to me in a hand already known to me. The letter lay on the floor on the space once covered by the table. As it had not been there when I dragged the table downstairs, someone must have entered the room while I was away. I opened the letter in a good deal of flurry. It ran as follows:
“Dear Martin Hyde:—As you will not take a sincere friend's advice, you have to make the best of a sincere adviser's friendship. You did me a great service. Let me do you one. I hope to keep you an amused prisoner until your captain is a beaten man. By about three weeks from this 26th of June we shall hope to have made you so much our friend that you will not think of leaving us. May I make a compact with you? Please do not shoot me with that pistol of yours when I bring you some supper tonight. That is one part of it. The other is this. Let us be friends. We know all about you. I have even talked to Ephraim about you. So let us make it up. We have been two little spit fires. At any rate you have. Let us be friends. What sorts of books do you like to read? I shall bring you some story-books about ghosts, or about red Indians. Which do you like best? I like red Indians myself. I suppose you, being a man, like ghosts best. Your sincere friend Aurelia Carew. Who by the by thinks it best to warn you that you had not better try to get up the chimney, as it is barred across. She hopes that the table did not fall into the bath.”