The House of Egremont

by Molly Elliot Seawell

He became conscious of pain in his left wrist, and realized that it was badly wrenched and skinned where it had been dragged through the handcuff. But there was no blood to betray him. He pulled the sleeve of his body-coat down over it, and walked on. When he had gone, he judged, at least three miles down the river, he stopped. There were still vessels to be seen, but they were not thickly clustered as higher up. There were some houses scattered about,—one of them, a small, tumble-down place, quite uninhabited, with its door wide open. He entered it, closed the door as well as he could, looked about him and saw that the decaying windows were fast, and then, after giving thanks, he lay down upon the bare floor, and in two minutes had fallen into that sweet sleep which had ever been the portion of his brave and innocent spirit.

He did not waken until he heard, in the far distance, the chiming of a church clock at nine o’clock in the morning. It was still dark; the fog lay black and heavy over city and river. He peered out of a broken window and saw that he was in a lonely place, with no houses very near. He was ravenously hungry, but he dared not go forth for food.

He spent the day in alternately watching and sleeping. He had neither money, food, nor weapon—was ever fugitive worse provided for flight? Yet his courage did not falter. Truly, there was no cowardice in the Egremont blood.

Toward night of this first day, hunger drove him forth. There were a few scattered houses with cultivated fields along the river bank, and one of these tilled spots was a turnip field. Dicky made for this field in the half darkness, and ate his fill and crammed his pockets with turnips. Then he ran back as fast as his legs would carry him to the deserted house.

In all the waking hours since he had found himself without handcuffs, his mind had been working on the problem of escape. The river before him seemed the only natural and feasible highroad for him. There were many vessels moving about, and at anchor. In particular, there lay, immediately in front of the deserted house, a heavy lugger, such as was used in those days for voyaging between England and the continent. And balancing his slender chances for escape, Dicky thought if he could get on board that vessel it might be well for him. They were always ready to ship a likely young man. Dicky was well-made and active, though short; only, he knew nothing of a sailor’s work, and his injured wrist might betray him.

With this plan in view, Dicky lay down on the bare floor and slept easily and soundly that second night. Luckily, the weather was extremely mild, and the discipline he had known at Clermont and at Paris—to live on meagre fare, to lie on a hard bed, to rise before daylight—stood him in good stead.

He waked at five o’clock, the hour at which he had always been accustomed to rise while at the seminary. The first thought which had occurred to him was that it was the day on which the nine Jacobite gentlemen with whom he had been tried would mount the scaffold. Dicky Egremont wondered at the providence of God which had suffered him alone of them all to escape; him to whom death would be less bitter than to men who left families behind them, whose estates were likely to be sequestrated, their children certain to sink into poverty. Dicky Egremont would have reckoned himself the happiest man on earth could he have exchanged places with any one of those unfortunate gentlemen, and would have gone cheerfully to his death to have spared an agonized wife and weeping children the loss of a husband and father. But God had decreed otherwise; and Dicky, falling upon his knees, prayed long and earnestly for his unfortunate fellow-prisoners, who were to suffer that day.

As soon as it was light he glanced out and saw the lugger still lying at anchor, with no signs of leaving. He spent that second day in prayer, and having but one means of mortification, he ate no turnips that day, and so went fasting.

The day grew foggy, and it was not until the stars were out in the evening that he saw any indications of leaving. Then a boat passed back and forth from the shore, and presently, coming shoreward, stopped as if waiting for some one. And in the dusky April evening, Dicky saw a figure, evidently a seafaring man, walking toward the place where the boat waited.

Dicky surmised that this man was the skipper, and going out of the house, made for him and accosted him boldly but civilly.