I know now that there never was a man in whom the natural propensity
to side with the weaker party was by custom and exercise more highly
developed than in my late lord, in whose presence I then stood; who,
indeed, carried that virtue to such an extent that if any fault could
be found with his public carriage--which I am very far from admitting,
but only that such a colour might be given to some parts of it by his
enemies--the flaw was attributable to this excess of generosity. Yet
he has since told me that on this occasion of our first meeting, it
was neither my youth nor my misery--in the main at any rate--that
induced him to take so extraordinary a step as that of seeing me
alone; but a strange and puzzling reminiscence, which my features
aroused in him, and whereto his first words, when we were left
together, bore witness. "Where, my lad," said he, staring at me, "have
I seen you before?"
As well as I could, for the dread of him in which I stood, I essayed
to clear my brain and think; and in me also, as I looked at him, the
attempt awoke a recollection, as if I had somewhere met him. But I
could conceive one place only where it was possible I might have seen
a man of his rank; and so stammered that perhaps at the Rose Inn, at
Ware, in the gaming-room I might have met him.
His lip curled, "No," he said coldly, "I have honoured the
Groom-Porter at Whitehall once and again by leaving my guineas with
him. But at the Rose Inn, at Ware--never! And heavens, man," he
continued in a tone of contemptuous wonder, "what brought such as you
in that place?"
In shame, and aware, now that it was too late, that I had said the
worst thing in the world to commend myself to him, I stammered that I
had gone thither--that I had gone thither with a friend.
"A woman?" he said quickly.
I allowed that it was so.
"The same that led you into this?" he continued sharply.
But to that I made no answer: whereon, with kindly sternness he bade
me remember where I stood, and that in a few minutes it would be too
late to speak.
"You can trust me, I suppose?" he continued with a fine scorn, "that I
shall not give evidence against you. By being candid, therefore, you
may make things better, but can hardly make them worse."
Whereon I have every reason to be thankful, nay, it has been matter
for a life's rejoicing that I was not proof against his kindness; but
without more ado, sobbing over some parts of my tale, and whispering
others, I told him my whole story from the first meeting with my
temptress--so I may truly call her--to the final moment when, the
money gone, and the ladder removed, I was rudely awakened, to find
myself a prisoner. I told it, I have reason to believe, with feeling,
and in words that carried conviction; the more as, though skilled in
literary composition, and in writing _secundum artem_, I have little
imagination. At any rate, when I had done, and quavered off
reluctantly into a half coherent and wholly piteous appeal for mercy,
I found my young judge gazing at me with a heat of indignation in
cheek and eye, that strangely altered him.
"Good G----!" he cried, "what a Jezebel!" And in words which I will
not here repeat, he said what he thought of her.
True as the words were (and I knew that, after what I had told him,
nothing else was true of her), they forced a groan from me.
"Poor devil," he said at that. And then again, "Poor devil, it is a
shame! It is a black shame, my lad," he continued warmly, "and I would
like to see Madam at the cart-tail; and that is where I shall see her
before all is done! I never heard of such a vixen! But for you," and
on the word he paused and looked at me, "you did it, my friend, and I
do not see your way out of it."
"Then must I hang?" I cried desperately.
He did not answer.
"My lord! My lord!" I urged, for I began to see whither he was
tending, and I could have shrieked in terror, "you can do anything."
"I?" he said.
"You! If you would speak to the judge, my lord."
He laughed, without mirth. "He would whip you instead of hanging you,"
he said contemptuously.
"To the King, then."
"You would thank me for nothing," he answered; and then with a kind of
contemptuous suavity, "My friend, in your Ware Academy--where
nevertheless you seem to have had your diversions--you do not know
these things. But you may take it from me, that I am more than
suspected of belonging to the party whose existence Sir Baldwin
denies--I mean to the Whigs; and the suspicion alone is enough to damn
any request of mine."
On that, after staring at him a moment, I did a thing that surprised
him; and had he known me better a thing that would have surprised him
more. For the courage to do it, and to show myself in colours unlike
my own, I had to thank neither despair nor fear, though both were
present; but a kind of rage that seized me, on hearing him speak in a
tone above me, and as if, having heard my story, he was satisfied with
the curiosity of it, and would dismiss the subject, and I might go to
the gallows. I know now that in so speaking he had not that intent,
but that brought up short by the certainty of my guilt, and the
impasse as to helping me, in which he stood, he chose that mode of
repressing the emotion he felt. I did not understand this however: and
with a bitterness born of the misconception, and in a voice that
sounded harsh, and anyone's rather than mine, I burst into a furious
torrent of reproaches, asking him if it was only for this he had seen
me alone, and to make a tale. "To make a tale," I cried, "and a jest?
One that with the same face with which you send me out to be strangled
and to rot, and with the same smile, you'll tell, my lord, after
supper to Sir Baldwin and your like. Oh, for shame, my lord, for
shame!" I cried, passionately, and losing all fear of him in my
indignation. "As you may some day be in trouble yourself--for great
heads fall as well as low ones in these days, and as little pitied--if
you have bowels of compassion, my lord, and a mother to love you----"
He turned on me so swiftly at that word, that my anger quailed before
his. "Silence!" he cried, fiercely. "How dare you, such as you,
mention----. But there, fellow--be silent!"
I caught the ring of pain as well as anger in his tone, and obeyed
him; though I could not discern what I had said to touch him so
sorely. He on his side glowered at me a moment; and so we stood, while
hope died within me, and I grew afraid of him again, and a shadow fell
on the room as it had already fallen on his face. I waited for nothing
now but the word that should send me from his presence, and thought
nothing so certain as that I had flung away what slender chance
remained to me. It was with a start that when he broke the silence I
was aware of a new sound in his voice.
"Listen, my lad," he said in a constrained tone--and he did not look
at me. "You are right in one thing. If I meant to do nothing for you,
I had no right to your confidence. I do not know what it was in your
face induced me to see you. I wish I had not. But since I have I must
do what I can to save you: and there is only one way. Mind you," he
continued in a sudden burst of anger, "I do not like it! And I do it
out of regard for myself, not for you, my lad! Mind you that!"
"Oh, my lord!" I cried, ready to fall down and worship him.
"Be silent," he answered, coldly, "and when my back is turned go
through that window. Do you understand? It is all I can do for you.
The alley on the left leads to the stables. Pass through them boldly;
if you are not stopped you will in a minute be on the high road. The
turn, to the left at the cross-roads, leads to Tottenham and London.
That on the right will take you to Little Parndon and Epping. That is
all I have to say; while I look for a piece of paper to sign your
commitment, you would do well to go. Only remember, my man, if you are
retaken--do not look to me."
He suited the action to the words by turning his back on me, and
beginning to search in a bureau that stood beside him. But so sudden
and so unexpected was the proposal he had made, that though he had
said distinctly "Go!" I doubt if, apart from the open window, I should
have understood his purpose. As it was I came to it slowly--so slowly
that he lost patience, and with his head still buried among the
pigeon-holes, swore at me.
[Illustration: WHEN MY BACK IS TURNED GO THROUGH THAT WINDOW]
"Are you going?" he said. "Or do you think that it is nothing I am
doing for you? Do you think it is nothing that I am going to tell a
lie for such as you? Either go or hang, my lad!"
I heard no more. A moment earlier nothing had been farther from my
thoughts than to attempt an escape, but the impulse of his will
steadied my wavering resolution, and with set teeth and a beating
heart, I stepped through the window. Outside I turned to the left
along a shady green alley fenced by hedges of yew, and espying the
stable-yard before me, walked boldly across it. By good luck the
grooms and helpers were at supper and I saw only one man standing at a
door. He stared at me, mouthing a straw, but said nothing, and in a
twinkling I had passed him, left the curtilage behind me, and had the
park fence and gate in sight.
Until I reached this, not knowing whose eyes were on me, I had the
presence of mind to walk; though cold shivers ran down my back, and my
hair crept, and every second I fancied--for I was too nervous to look
back--that I felt Dyson's hand on my collar. Arriving safely at the
gate, however, and the road stretching before me with no one in sight,
I took to my heels, and ran a quarter of a mile along it; then leaping
the fence that bounded it on the right, I started recklessly across
country, my aim being to strike the Little Parndon highway, to which
my lord had referred, at a point beyond the cross-roads, and so to
avoid passing the latter.
I am aware that this mode of escape, this walking through a window and
running off unmolested, sounds bald and commonplace; and that if I
could import into my story some touch of romance or womanish disguise,
such as--to compare great things with small--marked my Lord
Nithsdale's escape from the Tower three years ago, I should cut a
better figure. Whereas in the flight across the fields on a quiet
afternoon, with the sun casting long shadows on the meadows, and for
my most instant alarms, the sudden whirring up before me of partridge
or plover, few will find anything heroic. But let them place
themselves for a moment in my skin, and remember that as I sweated and
panted and stumbled and rose again, as I splashed in reckless haste
through sloughs and ditches, and tore my way through great
blackthorns, I had death always at my heels! Let them remember that in
the long shadows that crossed my path I saw the gallows, and again the
gallows, and once more the gallows; and fled more quickly; and that it
needed but the distant bark of a dog, or the shout of a boy scaring
birds, to persuade me that the hue and cry was coming, and to fill me
with the last extremity of fear.
I believe that the adventurer, and the knight of the road, when it
falls to their lot to be so hunted--as must often happen, though more
commonly such an one is taken _securus et ebrius_ in the arms of his
mistress--find some mitigation of their pains in the anticipation of
conflict, and in the stern joy which the resolve to sell life dearly
imparts to the man of action. But I was unarmed, and worn out with my
exertions; no soldier, and with no heart to fight. My flight therefore
across the quiet fields was pure terror, the torture of unmitigated
fear. Fear spurred me and whipped me; and yet, had I known it, I might
have spared my terror. For darkness found me, weak and exhausted, but
still free, in the neighbourhood of Epping in Essex, where I passed
the night in the Forest; and before noon next day, believing that they
would watch for me on the Tottenham Road, I had found courage to slink
in to London by way of Chingford, and in the heart of that great city,
whose magnitude exceeded all my expectations, had safely and
effectually lost myself.