“You’ve missed your way, sir. This is where my uncle, Mr. Lukens lives, and the prisoners go not beyond the turn in the corridor, where the lantern hangs against the wall.”
“I know it, mistress; I have missed my way. Will you please to conduct me to the common room of the prisoners?”
“Now, look here, young gentleman,” said Bess, suddenly adopting an authoritative tone, “you’d best keep away from that gang. You’re new to it,—that I see with half an eye,—and if it’s going with those people in the common room you are, you’ll soon be in a bad way.”
“Mistress,” replied Roger, with great respect, “May I ask if you are head nurse in this little nursery? And what will you do with me in case I do not obey you? Give me a switching, perhaps.”
The ever-ready blood poured into Bess’s smooth cheek, and sparks flew from her red-brown eyes. She seemed about to speak impetuously, but checked herself, and then said, pointing with a contemptuous finger,—
“Go back to where the lantern hangs, then turn to the right, and straight ahead.”
She scudded back to her wheel, began to turn it violently, and burst into a song by way of showing her indifference. But, singing, she turned her head stealthily, and saw Roger’s graceful figure, with his light-brown curls floating over his shapely shoulders, disappearing rapidly into the gloom of the corridor, where not even the May sunshine could penetrate.
As soon as he was out of sight and sound she stopped spinning and singing, and resting her chin on her hand thought,—
“Poor young gentleman. That is the very gentleman they brought in yesterday, and who got so drunk last night.”
Bess Lukens was reckoned hard-hearted toward the other sex, although willing enough to do them a kindness provided she could hector over them in the act of doing it; but a strange softness came into her heart as she thought about Roger Egremont. He looked a man, every inch; and the saucy reply he gave Bess she secretly liked. But Bess had no time to waste in sentimental reflections. She was by nature one of the most energetic of mortals, with a passion for clean linen, order, and industry. Soon her wheel began to buzz again; but she could still see Roger Egremont’s figure standing in the doorway, against the blackness of the corridor behind him, with the light shining full on his debonair face. As for Roger, he sped toward the scene of his degradation of the night before as if a thousand devils were after him, and gave not one thought to Red Bess, the turnkey’s niece.