When my Cousin Dorothy said that, we all became upon the instant as
still as mice; and I saw my Cousin Tom's mouth suddenly hang open and
his eyes to become fixed. For myself, I cannot say precisely what I
felt; but it would be foolish to say that I was not at all frightened.
For to be crept upon in the dark, when all is quiet, in a solitary
country place; and to know, as I did, that behind all the silence there
is the roar of a mob--(as it is called)--for blood, and the Lord Chief
Justice's face of iron and his bitter murderous tongue, and the scaffold
and the knife--this is daunting to any man. I made no mistake upon the
matter. If this were Dangerfield himself, my life was ended; he would
not have come here, so far, and with such caution; he would not have
been at the pains to smell me out at all, unless he were sure of his
end; and, indeed, my companying so much with the Jesuits and my
encounter with Oates, and my seeking service with the King, and for no
pay too--all this, in such days, was evidence enough to hang an angel
from heaven.
This passed through my mind like a picture; and then I remembered that
it was no more than a step on a paved path.
"If it is they," I whispered, "they will be round the house by now. We
had best look from a dark window."
But my Cousin Tom seized me suddenly by the arm in so fierce a grip that
I winced and all but cried out; and so we stood.
"If you have brought ruin on me--" he began presently in a horrid kind
of whisper; and then he gripped me again; for again, so that no man
could mistake it, came a single step on the paved path; and in my mind I
saw how two men had crossed from lawn to lawn, to get all round the
house, each stepping once upon the stones. They must have entered from
the yard.
In those moments there came to me too a knowledge, of the truth of
which I neither had nor have any doubt at all, that my Cousin Tom was
considering whether he might save himself or no by handing me forthwith
to the searchers. But I suppose he thought not; for presently his hand
relaxed.
"In with you," he whispered; and made a back for me to climb up into the
hiding-hole. I looked at my Cousin Dolly, and she nodded at me ever so
gently; so I set my foot on my Cousin Tom's broad back, and my hands to
the ledge, and raised myself up. It was a pretty wide space within,
sufficient to hold three or four men, though my clothes and a few books
covered most of the floor; but the only light I had was from the candle
that my Cousin Dolly carried in her hand. As I turned to the door again,
I caught a sight of her face, very pretty and very pale, looking up at
me: I remember even now the shadow on her eyes and beneath her hair; and
then the door was put to quickly, and I was all in the dark.
* * * * *
It was a very strange experience to lie there and to hear all that went
on in the house, scarcely a hand's-breadth away.
I lay there, I should think, ten minutes or a quarter of an hour before
the assault was made; and during that time too I could tell pretty well
all that went on. There remained for a minute or thereabouts, a line of
light upon the roof of my little chamber from the candle that my Cousin
Dolly carried; (and that line of light was as a star to me); then I
heard a little whispering; the light went out; and I heard soft steps
going upstairs. Then I heard first the door of my Cousin Dolly's chamber
close, and then another door which was my Cousin Tom's. Then followed
complete silence; and I knew that the two would go to bed, and be found
there, as if ignorant of everything.
The assault was made on two doors at once, at front and back. They had
another man or two, I have no doubt, in the stable-yard; and more
beneath the windows everywhere, so that I could not escape any way.
There came on a sudden loud hammerings and voices shouting altogether;
but I could not tell what it was that they cried; but I suppose it must
have been, "Open in the King's name!"
Then the house awakened, all, that is, that were asleep; and the rest
feigned to do so. I heard steps run down the stairs, and voices
everywhere; as the maids over the kitchen awakened and screamed as maids
will, and the men awakened and ran down from the garret. Then, overhead,
across the lobby I heard my Cousin Tom's footsteps, and I nearly laughed
to myself at the thought of the part that he must play, and of how ill
he would play it. And all the while the beating on the doors went on;
and I heard voices through the lath and plaster from the back-hall; and
then the sound of unbolting, and the knocking ceased on that side,
though it still went on upon the, other.
My hiding-hole, as I have said, was in the very centre of the house; one
side faced upon the back-hall; and the opposite down the front passage;
and, of the other two, one upon the stairs and one upon the kitchen
passage, and these two had the doors in them. Above me was the lobby;
and beneath me, first the little way into the back-hall, and beneath
that the cellars. It was strange how prominent the place was, and yet
how well concealed. One might live ten years in the house without
suspecting its presence.
Presently the whole house was full of talking; and the front door was
opened; and I heard a gentleman's voice speaking. He was Mr. Harris, I
learned afterwards, a Justice of the Peace from Puckeridge, whom
Dangerfield had brought with him.
Much of what was said I could not hear; but I heard enough to understand
why I was being looked for, and what would be the charges against me.
Now the voices came muffled; and now clear; so that I would hear half a
sentence and no more, as the speaker moved on.
"I tell you he left for Rome to-night," I heard my Cousin Tom say (which
was an adroit lie indeed, as no one could tell whether I had or no),
"and he hath taken his man with him."
"That is very well--" began the gentleman's voice; and then no more.
Presently I heard one of the men of the house, named Dick--a good friend
of mine, ask what they were after me for; and some fellow, as he went
by, answered:
"--Consorting with the Jesuits, and conspiring--" and no more.
So, then, I lay and listened. Much that I heard had no relevance at all,
for it was the protesting of maids and such-like. The footsteps went
continually up and down; sometimes voices rose in anger; sometimes it
was only a whisper that went by. I heard presses open and shut; and once
or twice the noise of hammering overhead; and then silence again; but no
silence was for long.
Here again I find it very hard to say all that I felt during that
search. My thoughts came and went like pictures upon the dark. Now my
heart would so beat that it sickened me, of sheer terror that I should
be found; and this especially when a man would stay for a while talking
on the stairs within an arm's length of where I lay: now it was as I
might say, more of the intellect; and I pondered on what I heard my
Cousin Tom say, and marvelled at his shrewdness; for fear, if it does
not drive away wits, sharpens them wonderfully. He had, of course, put
me in greater peril, by saying that I was gone to Rome; but he had saved
himself very adroitly, for no witness in the house could tell that I had
not done so; for here was my chamber empty, and I and my man and my
clothes and my books and my horses all vanished away. At one time, then,
I was all eyes and ears in the muffled dark, hearing my heart thump as
it had been another's; at another time I would be looking within and
contemplating my own fear.
Again and again, however, I thought of my Cousin Dorothy and wondered
where she was and what she was at. I had not heard her voice all that
time; and, on a sudden, after the men had been in the house near an hour
I should say, I heard her sob suddenly, close to me, in a terrified kind
of voice.
"Keep them, Nancy, keep them here as long as you can. It will give
him--"
"Eh?" said a man's voice suddenly beneath. "What was that?"
"I said nothing," stammered my Cousin Dolly's voice.
Well; there was a to-do. The fellow beneath called out to Mr. Harris,
who was upstairs; and I heard him come down. My Cousin Dolly was sobbing
and crying out, and so was the maid Nancy to whom she had spoken. At
first I could make nothing of it, nor why she had said what she had; and
then, as I heard them all go into the parlour together, I understood
that if my Cousin Tom had been shrewd, his daughter had been shrewder;
and had said what she had, knowing that a man was within earshot.
But there was nothing for me to do but to lie there still; for I could
hear nothing from the parlour but a confused sound of voices, now three
or four speaking at once, now a man's voice (which I took to be the
magistrate's), and now, I thought my Cousin Dolly's. I heard, too, above
me, my Cousin Tom speaking very angrily, and understood that he was kept
from his daughter--which was the best thing in the world for me, since
he might very well have spoiled the whole design. At last I heard Dolly
cry out very loud; then I heard the parlour-door open and three or four
men came tumbling out, who ran beneath my hiding-hole and out through
the kitchen passage to the stable. I was all a-tremble now, especially
at my cousin's cry; but I gave her credit for being as shrewd still as I
had heard her to be on the stairs; and I proved right in the event; for
almost immediately after that my Cousin Tom was let come downstairs, and
I heard every word, of the colloquy.
"Well, Mr. Jermyn," said the gentleman's voice, immediately without my
little door, "I am sorry indeed to have troubled you in this way; but I
am the King's justice of the peace and I must do my duty. Which way did
you say Mr. Mallock was gone?"
"By...by Puckeridge," stammered poor Tom.
"Ah! indeed," said the other voice, with something of a sneer in it.
"Why Mistress Dorothy here says it was by Barkway and so to Harwich; and
of the two versions I prefer the lady's. For, first, we should have seen
him if he had come by Puckeridge, since we have been lying there since
three o'clock this afternoon; and second, no such man in his senses
would go to Rome by London. I am sorry I cannot commend your
truthfulness, Mr. Jermyn, as much as your professions of loyalty."
"I tell you--" began my Cousin Tom, angrily enough.
"I need no telling, Mr. Jermyn. Your cousin is gone by Barkway; and my
men are gone to get the horses out to follow him. We shall catch him
before Newmarket, I make no doubt."
Then I heard Dolly's sobbing as she clung to her father.
"Oh! father! father!" she mourned. "The gentleman forced it out of me. I
could not help it. I could not help it!"
(As for me, I smiled near from ear to ear in the dark, to hear how well
she feigned grief; and I think I loved my Cousin Dolly then as never
before. It would have made a cat laugh, too, to hear the gentleman's
chivalry in return.)
"Mistress Dorothy," he said, "I grieve to have troubled you like this.
But you have done your duty as an English maid should; and set your
loyalty to His Majesty before all else."
Mistress Dorothy sobbed so admirably in return that my own eyes filled
with tears to hear her; and I was a little sorry for the poor gentleman
too. He was so stupid, and yet so well mannered too now that he had got
all that he wanted, or thought he had.
"Well, mistress, and Mr. Jermyn, I must not delay any longer. The horses
will be ready."
They moved away still talking, all except my Cousin Dolly who sank upon
the stairs still sobbing. She cried out after Mr. Harris to have mercy;
and then fell a-crying again. When the door of the kitchen passage
shut--for they were all gone out by now--her crying ceased mighty soon;
and then I heard her laugh very softly to herself, and break off again,
as if she had put her hand over her mouth. But I dared not speak to her
yet.
I listened very carefully--for all the house was still now--for the
sound of the horses' feet; and presently I heard them, and reckoned that
a dozen at least must have come after me; and I heard the voices of the
men too as they rode away, grow faint and cease. Then I heard my Cousin
Dolly slip through the door beneath me, and she gave me one little rap
to the floor of my hiding-hole as she went beneath it.
I did not hear her come back; for Cousin Tom's footsteps were loud in
the kitchen passage; and the men too were tramping in and upstairs,
while the maids went back to bed through the kitchen; and then, when all
was quiet again I heard her voice speak suddenly in a whisper.
"You can open now, Cousin Roger, they be all gone away." I unbolted and
pushed open the little door quickly enough then; and though I was dazed
with the candlelight the first thing that I saw was Dolly's face, her
eyes as bright as stars with merriment and laughter, and her cheeks
flushed to rose, looking up at me.