“Close by the edge of the wood and I think they are coming down this way.”
“Then my questions will keep. You´ll step softly after me, for the young folk are still asleep upstairs, and it would never do they should see you now. I was before Derry myself,” she continued, as she led the way up the ladder to the loft above the kitchen, “but they are well-mannered enough and don´t trouble me now.”
In the loft above were two beds, in one of which three flaxen-headed boys were lying sound asleep, and as Gervase followed her the woman gave a warning gesture, and stopped for a moment to look at them. Then with Gervase´s assistance she noiselessly pulled away the other bed, and disclosed a recess in the wall which was wide enough to admit him. “Get in there,” she said, “and I´ll call you when they are gone. If they haven´t seen you they´ll never think of looking there; if they have, God help me and the children--but I´ll do more than that for the good cause.”
When she had left him and had gone down the ladder after replacing the bed, Gervase began to regret that he had imperilled the safety of the kindly soul who had shown anxiety to assist him. But it was not his own safety that was at stake; it was that of the city and the lives of the citizens.
He lay listening for the sound of his pursuers, but the moments seemed to lengthen into hours and still they did not make their appearance. Meanwhile the good woman downstairs had gone on cooking the breakfast for herself and the children, and had set out the rough earthenware on the table by the window. When she saw the dragoons coming across the fields straight toward the house, she walked to the threshold and met them with an unconcerned smile on her face. “You are early astir this morning,” she said. “Is there to be more trouble in these parts? I´m thinking, Captain Lambert, I´ve seen you before.”
“Troth, that is very possible,” was the answer, “and I don´t think you have seen the last of me either. Now, look here, I want you to tell me the truth, a thing most women find hard enough to do, but the truth I must have or I´ll know the reason, why. Have you seen anybody afoot this morning?”
She looked at him with an air of well-assumed astonishment.--"Why, ´tis barely five, and the children, bless their hearts, are still abed. My good man, you know, is away yonder, and the neighbours don´t trouble me now."
“Come, my lads, we must search the house. We´ll get nothing out of her, she´s as close as perdition.”
“If you´ll tell me what you want,” she said, “I would try and answer you. The boys are sleeping upstairs and there is nobody below but myself.”
“A fellow from the city has come this way, and I´ll take my oath he´s here or hereabouts.”