"Well, my lady," said the maid decisively, "we'll leave the house to-night; they'll not be on their guard against that, and once beyond the walls, you're safe."
"It is, I believe, the only chance of safety left me," replied Mary, distractedly; "and, as such, it shall be tried."
CHAPTER LIV.
THE TWO CHANCES—THE BRIBED COURIER.
"I don't half like the girl you've picked up," said Nicholas Blarden, addressing his favourite parasite, Chancey; "she don't look half sharp enough for our work; she hasn't the cut of a town lass about her; she's too like a milk-maid, too simple, too soft. I've confounded misgivings she's no schemer."
"Well, well—dear me, but you're very suspicious," said Chancey. "I'd like to know did ever anything honest come out of the 'Old Saint Columbkil!' there wasn't a sharper little wench in the place than herself, and I'll tell you that's a big word—no, no; there's not an inch of the fool about her."
"Well, she can't do us much mischief anyway," said Blarden; "the three others are as true as steel—the devil's own chickens; and mind you don't let the door-keys out of your pocket. Honour's all very fine, and ought not to be doubted; but there's nothing to my mind like a stiff bit of a rusty lock."
Chancey smiled sleepily, and slapped the broad skirt of his coat twice or thrice, producing therefrom the ringing clank which betoken the presence of the keys in question.
"So then we're all caged, by Jove," continued Blarden, rapturously; "and very different sorts of game we are too: did you ever see the show-box where the cats and the rats and the little birds are all boxed up together, higgledy-piggledy, in the same wire cage. I can't but think of it; it's so devilish like."