Tears, which neither her own danger, or the insults heaped upon her could draw forth, now streamed down the pallid cheek of the Lady Alice.
“Are you men?” she cried, turning to the rude soldiers, “are you men, and can you stand by and see that innocent, helpless lamb inhumanly murdered before your eyes!”
“Ah!” cried Jeffreys, with a hideous leer, “we are used to butchering lambs, madam; bless you, we do it so easy the poor things don’t have time to bleat! Strike, Ratcliffe!”
A scream—a wild scream of agony burst from the heart of Alice Lisle; then dashing off the arm of Jeffreys, in the strength of her despair, as but a feather’s weight, she sprung to the boy, and threw her arms around him.
There was heard at the moment a loud shout from the court-yard, coupled with oaths and imprecations, and one of the troop burst in, waving his cap.
“Hurra, your honor! they’re caught, your worship; we’ve got the rascals—hurra! hurra!”
“Now God help them!” murmured Alice.
“Your life shall answer for this, vile traitress!” muttered Jeffreys, in a voice hoarse with rage, and shaking his fist at the unshrinking heroine. “But where found you the knaves?” he added, turning to the bearer of such fiendish joy.
“Ha, ha, your worship—but I can’t help laughing; we found his reverence, chin-deep, in a malt-tub—ha, ha, ha! and the other rogue we hauled from the kitchen chimney, as black as his master, the Devil!”
“And to his master he shall soon be sent with a crack in his windpipe,” said Jeffreys.