"No, thanks," I said; "you gentlemen are too much for me. I must hasten. Eh?" (A pause.) "I shall be back by nine o'clock, but I must hurry." Then I charged up the steps as if the devil was after me. The grenadier had hardly time to salute me; and I rushed past the other two at the end of the causeway at the same pace. They made some remark after I had gone by, but I did not catch it. More leisurely I descended the steps on the outside of the wall, and crossed the little foot-bridge to where the last sentry stood. His musket barred my path, but it was a respectful attitude.
"The word, sir?" he said, slurring the usual challenge.
"Defoe," I answered. He hesitated. "Daniel Defoe," I repeated, restraining with difficulty a mad impulse to close with him and pitch him headlong into the ditch.
The response to this was a backward step on the sentry's part, and a stiff attitude of present arms. I replied with somewhat of a flourish, and hastened down the path. It led across a sort of common, bordered by twinkling lights shining from some vine-covered houses, and in the stillness I heard the sound of a fiddle played somewhere, and from another direction the voice of an infant crying at top lung. What was I to do? I had a good fund of general information, perhaps, owing to my reading, and I had made up by this time the hiatus caused by my being out of the world those two years at Belair; but I knew little or nothing of the geography of England, and to save my soul I could not have imagined which would be the best direction to take.
My one idea was to put as much space between me and the prison-yard as I could, so I walked away from it with that end in view alone. It grew very dark, and I kept to the common until I plunged through a thorny hedge and made the road. It seemed to lead straight to the northward, which was as good for me as any other point of the compass, so I hastened along as fast as my legs could carry me.
The big military hat wobbled unsteadily on my head, and I thought how difficult it would be to make any sort of a fight with such an encumbrance to quick motions. But I reasoned I would attract a great deal of attention if I should discard it, so I slung it over my back by the plume, ready to clap it on if necessary, and went forward at a dog-trot.
The villages in this part of the country were so close together that I seemed hardly to leave one before I saw the lights of another. I was evidently on the highway, however, and, strange to say, I met but a few country people walking. They looked at me rather curiously, but did not speak. Thus I had traversed some twelve miles or more before midnight, and as there was a town of some size in the distance, judging by the lights and the sounds of two separate sets of chimes striking the hour, I determined to find some place where I could rest and think over the situation.
At first glance I might pass for one of his Majesty's officers, perhaps, but I could not stand an investigation without discovery. Yet I did not despair, for I was young, and youth builds to suit its fancy. But leg-weariness began to tell on me, and crawling in behind a hedge, I rolled myself in a cloak, and must have fallen to dreaming on the instant, for I began to go over the events of the last two days, and from them my mind strayed back into the past; and among other things, of course, thoughts of Mary Tanner came into my head and drove out all else.
It seemed to me that again I was in a little garden under the shadow of a rose-bush. I could recall Mary's arch smile and the sideway glance of her eye. The imaginary conversation we held continued at great length, and then the scene changed to the sea, and I was the Captain of a ship, sailing, with a fair wind, to some country whose name I could not place, but I knew that there Mary was waiting for me.
All at once I awoke and found myself with one hand in the breast of my brilliant red coat, grasping a little leather bag that was strung around my neck with a thong, containing all that I knew of that I could claim in the way of earthly possessions. These consisted of one of the De Brienne buttons, a single gold piece with the head of King Louis on it, and a package of dried rose leaves twisted into a small bit of paper.