It was not until I was in the Square and close to the Piazza that I bethought me how imprudent I was to re-visit the scene of last night's adventure; a place where it was common knowledge that the Jacobites held their assignations; and where I might be recognised. To reinforce this late-found discretion, and blow up the spark of alarm already kindled, I had not stood hesitating while a man could count ten, before my eye fell on the very same soldierly gentleman, with the handkerchief hanging out of his pocket, to whom I had been sent the evening before. He was alone, walking under the dimly-lighted Piazza, as he had walked then; but as I caught sight of him two others came up and joined him: and in terror lest these should be the two I had met before, I retreated hastily into the shadow of St. Paul's Church, and so back the way I had come.
However, I was not to get off so easily. Though the hour was late, the market closed, and the pavement in front of the taverns deserted, or fringed only by a chair waiting for a belated gamester, I ran a greater risk of being recognised, as I passed, than I thought; and had not gone ten paces along King Street before I heard a light foot following me, and a hand caught my arm. Turning in a fright I found it was only a girl; and, at first sight, was for wresting myself from her, glad that it was no worse: but she muttered my name, and looking down I recognised to my astonishment the girl I had seen at Ferguson's earlier in the evening.
At that, I remember, a dread of the man and his power seized me and chilled my very heart. This was the third time this girl, whom I never saw at other seasons, had arisen out of the ground to confront me and pluck me back when on the point of betraying him. I stared at her, thinking of this, with I know not what of affright and shrinking; and could scarcely command either voice or limbs.
And yet as she stood looking at me with the dark length of the street stretching to the market behind her, it must be confessed that there was little in her appearance to cause terror. The night being cold, and a small rain falling, she had a shawl drawn tightly over her head, whence her face, small and pale as a child's, peered at me. I thought to read in it a sly and elfish triumph such as became Ferguson's minion: instead I discerned only a weariness that went ill with her years--and a little flicker of contempt in eye and lip. The weariness was also in her voice when she spoke. "Well met, Mr. Price," she said. "I am in luck to light on you."
I shivered in my shoes; but without seeming to mark me, "I want this note taken to Mr. Watkins," she continued, rapidly pressing a scrap of paper into my hand. "He is in the tavern there, the Seven Stars. Ask for the Apollo Room, and you will find him."
"But, one minute," I protested, as in her eagerness she pushed me that way with her hand, "did Mr. Ferguson----Is it from him?"
"Of course, fool," she answered, sharply. "Do you think that I have been standing here for the last half-hour in cold and wet for my own pleasure?"
"But if he sent it?" I remonstrated, feebly, "perhaps he may not like me to interfere--to----"
"Like me to?" she retorted, sharply, mocking my tone. "Who said he would? Cannot you understand that it is I who do not like to? That I am not going into that place at this time of night, and half in the house drunken brutes? It is bad enough to be here, loitering up and down as if I were what I am not--and free to be spoken to by every impudent blood that passes! Go, man, and do it, and I will wait so long. What do you fear?"