“So we are to desert the house?” she says, looking at me.
“Let’s have no more of that, cousin,” says I. “We must leave the house within half-an-hour. Cloak yourself warmly, and cause Barbara to prepare you a flask of wine and some food in a parcel. In twenty minutes from now,” I says, “You will meet me in the kitchen.”
I watched her go slowly up the staircase ere I hurried back into the hall, where the four men were hastily filling up my uncle’s grave. When they had finished I sent them all to the kitchen, bidding them refresh themselves, and then shutting myself into the hall, I proceeded to take up the hearthstone, according to Sir Nicholas’s directions, and to secure the treasure which he had spoken of. In a strong box I found three hundred guineas in gold, together with a casket of jewels, to which I immediately added those which we had discovered in the passage. When I had replaced the hearthstone I called Gregory to me, and put in his hands fifty guineas to be divided amongst the servants for their present necessities. But John and Humphrey Stirk, whom I approached on the same subject, would take naught, having done what they had out of pure neighbourly feeling.
And now all was ready for our flight, and I arranged the last details with Gregory and the Stirks. Alison and I were to start at once and make what speed we could towards her father’s house; John and Humphrey were to follow soon afterwards and return to their farm at Thorpe (’gad, who could ha’ thought that it was but three days since I ran in upon them to crave their help!), and at daybreak Gregory was to surrender the house, craving leave for the servants to go their ways unmolested. This settled there was naught for us but to say farewell to each other, and for Alison and myself to descend into the cellar with Gregory, who was in readiness to light us to the passage.
Now I had said naught to my cousin of the passage itself, but had merely told her that I had found a sure means of escape. She trembled somewhat as we crossed the slimy floor of the great cellar and came to the entrance to the passage. “We are to pass through this?” says she, looking at me. “’Tis our only means, cousin,” says I, and turned to take the light from Gregory. I shook his hand—faith, it was the last time, for I never saw him again!—and bade her follow me. Then we turned into the passage, and I heard Gregory’s voice, calling down God-speed on us, die away as we advanced.
Within a few minutes the bones of the dead man’s skeleton gleamed white in the light of the lanthorn. “Cousin,” says I, “take my hand, and shut your eyes for a while. There is in the path what I have no mind for you to see.” And so we passed by, and ere long I put out the light for the patch of grey sky showed at the mouth of the tunnel. “Would it had been a darker night!” says I, as I went first and looked about me. But all was still and quiet, and so I helped her out of the passage, and together we stole across the land. As we hurried along behind the tall hedgerows an owl hooted from Matthew Wood’s barn. “An omen!” thinks I, but said naught to her save to encourage her to press forward. Thus we dipped into the meadows, wet and marshy with the November fogs and mists, and made with what speed we could for the foot of Went Hill, that loomed before us through the night.
| Chapter VII | Of our Adventures under the Bridge and the Privations we there Endured, and of my Interview with Fairfax and its Sad Results. |