"Death!" echoed Ruth, her smiles fading.
"Choked," answered Maudlin, slowly nodding her head up and down, "with smoke-damp that'd stifle all the breath out of your body before you were six yards in."
It was Ruth's turn to shudder. "Well, what does it matter?" she said, when having closed and bolted the door of the little bedchamber they had now entered she put her arms round Maudlin's neck and kissed her, "while there's our darling little river and Lawrence's boat. By the way, Maudlin, he's christened her the 'Queen Ruth!'"
"Has he now?" delightedly smiled Maudlin. "That's main pretty of him. Though I doubt Master Rumbold'll be none so pleased. Red rags at a bull's much the same as talk about kings an' queens to him. He's all for lord protectors and cattle o' that colour. But never you fear, sweetheart; there'll be none o' them ever set up while Lawrence Lee's above ground, and he'd send all the lord protectors ever hatched flyin' before they set foot within a hundred miles o' Hoddesdon. He's like his father before him, rest his soul; and all for King Charles."
"You think so?" said Ruth brightly.
"Ay; that's my own blithe ladybird at last," cheerily cried the old woman. "Sunshine makes pretty maids' eyes sweeter than 'clouds, let me tell thee. And for the red roses instead o' white ones—hark!" went on the housekeeper, as the gate tower-clock chimed eight. "There's a long spell o' beauty sleep to be got yet. So have with thee. Say thy prayers, and then shut fast thine eyes, and I'll answer for it we'll be having all the red roses back the morn."
And then returning Ruth's embrace, Maudlin dismissed the young girl to her chamber, which lay immediately beyond.
CHAPTER IV.
THE OLD RYE HOUSE.
When the Rye House was built, or at least its gate-tower wing of which we are now speaking, and which was as old as the time of King Henry the Sixth, probably no dwelling of any importance, with the exception of Nether Hall, a still more ancient baronial structure, stood within miles of it.