“Madam, if you are too ill to leave the bed,” the captain then said, rather sternly, “I must have in four of my men to lift you off in the sheet: I must examine this bed, in a word; papers may be hidden in a bed as elsewhere; we know that very well and——”
Here it was her ladyship's turn to shriek, for the captain, with his fist shaking the pillows and bolsters, at last came to “burn”, as they say in the play of forfeits, and wrenching away one of the pillows, said, “Look, did not I tell you so? Here is a pillow stuffed with paper.”
“Some villain has betrayed us,” cried out my lady, sitting up in the bed, showing herself full dressed under her night-rail.
“And now your ladyship can move, I am sure; permit me to give you my hand to rise. You will have to travel for some distance, as far as Hexton Castle to-night. Will you have your coach? Your woman shall attend you if you like—and the japan-box?”
“Sir! you don't strike a man when he is down,” said my lady, with some dignity: “can you not spare a woman?”
“Your ladyship must please to rise and let me search the bed,” said the captain; “there is no more time to lose in bandying talk.”
And, without more ado, the gaunt old woman got up. Harry Esmond recollected to the end of his life that figure, with the brocade dress and the white night-rail, and the gold-clocked red stockings, and white red-heeled shoes sitting up in the bed, and stepping down from it. The trunks were ready packed for departure in her ante-room, and the horses ready harnessed in the stable: about all which the captain seemed to know, by information got from some quarter or other; and, whence, Esmond could make a pretty shrewd guess in after-times, when Dr. Tusher complained that King William's Government had basely treated him for services done in that cause.
And here he may relate, though he was then too young to know all that was happening, what the papers contained, of which Captain Westbury had made a seizure, and which papers had been transferred from the japan-box to the bed when the officers arrived.
There was a list, of gentlemen of the county in Father Holt's handwriting—Mr. Freeman's (King James's) friends—a similar paper being found among those of Sir John Fenwick and Mr. Coplestone, who suffered death for this conspiracy.
There was a patent conferring the title of Marquis of Esmond on my Lord Castlewood, and the heirs male of his body; his appointment as lord lieutenant of the county, and major-general.[7]