Fortunately David Donner had so far progressed, if not toward recovery, then at least toward change, that he slept for hours, like a weary child, waking after dreamless slumber all pink and prattling. He was thus asleep when she came to the house. She was therefore soon on her way to the prison, her simples in a small basket, hung on her arm.
The hour was unusual for any one thus to be visiting the jailer’s wife, so that the good woman, when Garde came in, after knocking, was obviously surprised at the honor.
“Oh, Mrs. Weaver,” said the girl, hurriedly, “I heard you had been having trouble here to-day, and I knew how it always upsets you, and Goody had given me all these simples to bring, three days ago, so I thought I had better bring them to you the moment I knew you were being so worried.”
It was a fact that the jailer’s wife was invariably very much distressed when guests were thrust upon their hospitality. She always feared at first that they would get away, and afterward that they would not, as her abhorrence and then her sympathy came respectively into play. She also conjectured all manner of terrible things that might at any moment happen to Blessedness Weaver, her worthy husband. To-night she was particularly nervous, owing to the sudden increase in the jail’s population and the blood-freezing details and rumors afloat as to the nature of the company assembled under the roof of the building.
“Dear me, lassie,” she said, in answer to Garde’s well-chosen speech, “do come in directly. I am that fidgety and poorly, the night! Lauk, lassie, but you are a dear, thoughtful heart, and I shall never forget you for this. And we have such terrible gentlemen, the night!”
She always called the guests gentlemen, till she found out which way lay the sympathies of a given visitor, when they all became rogues, forthwith, if she found herself encouraged to this violent language. Later on, again, when her sympathies for their plight were aroused, they were restored to their former social appellations.
“Oh, I am so sorry for you!” said Garde. “I had heard of one prisoner; but could you have had more than one?”
“Lauk, yes,” said the woman rolling her eyes heavenward. “They took the principal rogue in the woods, I believe, but they captured his two brutal companions at the Crow and Arrow in the afternoon.”
This was news to Garde. She recognized the beef-eaters from this vivid description. If Adam had his friends at his side, he must be much more contented, and they would all be planning to escape.
“And so all three are under lock and key, safely together?” she said, innocently. “How fortunate!”