The Admiral's Daughter

by Margaret Stuart Lane

'A bean't for doing aught of the kind, Mistress,' Zacchary rejoined, a stubbornness in his manner. ''Tis clean gone foolishness, the like as a never heard. More seemly 'twould be to set the horses to the coach and take the little maid home. Arrows, indeed! 'Tis the wild fancy of a maid who've set herself to do a man's work. 'Tain't no job for Mistress Marion. If you'd told me two days gone, Mistress, me and yonder Tony would have done something, and Reuben.'

Mistress Keziah controlled her rising impatience. She had not dreamed that Zacchary would rebel. At once she realised that the old man would have to be argued with, not commanded. His very virtues on which she had counted, his loyalty, his love for Marion and Roger, his fifty years' service at Garth, became a barrier that threatened the advancement of Marion's hopes.

'Don't you see, Zacchary, Master Roger is suffering this fate because he tried to help? Would the lad himself like it, think you, that strangers should be imperilled for his sake? Would he not rather die thrice over than allow Tony and Reuben to be drawn into gaol? And to leave that side of the question, what chance of safety has a secret shared with two such men? How much opportunity have you had of judging their characters? They are not of your county: a Londoner is never trusted by West country folk. A week you have passed in their company; they have proved able grooms on the road, they are mightily pleasant in the kitchen. Is that a reason why they should be entrusted with a mission which means life or death to a man they have never seen, and is of such exceeding danger, that should it fail, they might hang at the next assize? 'Tis a job for a man's friends.'

Zacchary, convinced on the point, but unwilling to own it, was silent. His slow peasant brain was working.

'If a body had ever heard of such a thing afore as bows and arrows to get a man out of gaol,' he said, after a while, 'I'd have some patience thinking on it.'

'By the mercy of Providence,' retorted the old lady, her eyes flashing in her angular old face, ''tis not every day in the week that a lad like Roger Trevannion lies within an hour of death, as you might say, and no help forthcoming. Extreme cases need extreme measures. For my part, I am willing to take all risks to help my niece. I had not expected to find an enemy in you, Zacchary. One might think you were unwilling to hold out to Master Roger a slender chance of life.'

''Tis the little maid I be thinking of now,' said Zacchary abruptly. 'If so be her's taken too, what be I to say to the Admur'l? Her was left in my care in Lunnon. 'Tis a hundred to one Master Roger will go just the same, and liker than not her'll be in gaol at the end on 't.'

'Give her the hundredth chance. And remember, she is a quick-witted, brave woman, playing a woman's game. You are always thinking of her as a little child. And,' added the lady, with an outward show that arrogantly hid her feelings, 'leave her safety to me. Do you think my niece, Admiral Penrock's daughter, will easily be imprisoned?'

Zacchary glanced at the old lady. 'You'm some like the Admur'l, Mistress. Well. How'm you going to hide the lad?'

'We are not going to hide him. To-morrow morning, early, you will take out two horses and wait outside the town. If you are seen, why, you are taking one of my greys up to the Stows. They are for travelling a spell, and one of their chestnuts has fallen lame. That is clear?'