AN UNWILLING PRISONER.
Mr. Obadiah stood open-mouthed staring at the twins clasped in each
other's arms, unable at first to understand what he saw. Then a
suspicion entered his dull brain, he uttered a growl, put down the
keg, his heavy brows contracted, he shut his mouth, drawing in his
lips so that they disappeared, and he clenched his hands.
"Wait--I'll beat you!" he said.
The upset candle was on the floor, now half molten, with a pond of
tallow burning with a lambent blue flicker trembling on extinction,
then shooting up in a yellow flame.
In that uncertain, changeful, upward light the face of the man looked
threatening, remorseless, so that Judith, in a paroxysm of fear for
her brother and herself dropped, on her knee, and caught at the tin
candlestick as the only weapon of defence accessible. It was hot and
burnt her fingers, but she did not let go; and as she stood up the
dissolved candle fell from it among some straw that littered the
pavement. This at once kindled and blazed up into golden flame.
For a moment the cell was full of light. Mr. Obadiah at once saw the
danger. His casks of brandy were hard by--the fume of alcohol was in
the air--if the fire spread and caught his stores a volume of flame
would sweep up the cellar stair and set his house on fire. He hastily
sprang in, and danced about the cell stamping furiously at the ignited
wisps. Judith, who saw him rush forward, thought he was about to
strike her and Jamie, and raised the tin candlestick in self-defence;
but when she saw him engaged in trampling out the fire, tearing at the
bed to drag away the blankets with which to smother the embers, she
drew Jamie aside from his reach, sidled, with him clinging to her,
along the wall, and by a sudden spring reached the passage, slammed
the door, fastened the hasp, and had the gaoler secured in his own
gaol.
For a moment Mr. Scantlebray was unaware that he was a prisoner, so
busily engaged was he in trampling out the fire, but the moment he did
realize the fact he slung himself with all his force against the door.
Judith looked round her. There was now no light in the cellar but the
feeble glimmer that descended the stair from the candle above. The
flame of that was now burning steadily, for the door opening into the
yard was shut, and the draught excluded.
In dragging Jamie along with her, Judith had drawn forth a scanty
blanket that was about his shoulders. She wrapped it round the boy.
"Let me out!" roared Scantlebray. "Don't understand. Fun--rollicking
fun."
Judith paid no attention to his bellow. She was concerned only to
escape with Jamie. She was well aware that her only chance was by
retaining Mr. Obadiah where he was.
"Let me out!" again shouted the prisoner; and he threw himself
furiously against the door. But though it jarred on its hinges and
made the hasp leap, he could not break it down. Nevertheless, so big
and strong was the man that it was by no means improbable that his
repeated efforts might start a staple or snap a hinge band, and he and
the door might come together crashing down into the passage between
the cells.
Judith drew Jamie up the steps, and on reaching the top shut the
cellar door. Below, Mr. Scantlebray roared, swore, shouted, and beat
against the door; but now his voice, and the sound of his blows were
muffled, and would almost certainly be inaudible in the
dwelling-house. No wonder that Judith had not heard the cries of her
brother. It had never occurred to her that the hapless victim of the
keeper of the asylum might be chastised, imprisoned, variously
maltreated in regions underground, whence no sounds of distress might
reach the street, and apprise the passers-by that all was not laughter
within. Standing in the passage or hall above, Judith said:
"Oh, Jamie! where are your clothes?"
The boy looked into her face with a vacant and distressed expression.
He could not answer, he did not even understand her question, so
stupefied was he by his terrors, and the treatment he had undergone.
Judith took the candle from the floor and searched the hall. Nothing
was there save Mr. Scantlebray's coat, which he had removed and cast
across one of the kegs when he prepared to convey them down to his
cellar. Should she take that? She shook her head at the thought. She
would not have it said that she had taken anything out of the house,
except only--as that was an extreme necessity, the blanket wrapped
about Jamie. She looked into the room that opened beyond the cellar
door. It was a great bare apartment, containing only a table and some
forms.
"Jamie!" she said, "we must get away from this place as we are. There
is no help for it. Do you not know where your clothes were put?"
He shook his head. He clung to her with both arms, as though afraid,
if he held by but one that she would slip away and vanish, as one
drowning, clinging to the only support that sustained him from
sinking.
"Come, Jamie! It cannot be otherwise!" She set down the candle, opened
the door into the yard, and issued forth into the night along with the
boy. The clouds had broken, and poured down their deluge of warm
thunder rain. In the dark Judith was unable to find her direction at
once, she reached the boundary wall where was no door.
Jamie uttered a cry of pain.
"What is it, dear?"
"The stones cut my feet."
She felt along the wall with one hand till she touched the jamb, then
pressed against the door itself. It was shut. She groped for the lock.
No key was in it. She could as little escape from that enclosure as
she could enter into it from without. The door was very solid, and the
lock big and secure. What was to be done? Judith considered for a
moment, standing in the pouring rain through which the lightning
flashed obscurely, illumining nothing. It seemed to her that there was
but one course open to her, to return and obtain the key from Mr.
Obadiah Scantlebray. But it would be no easy matter to induce him to
surrender it.
"Jamie! will you remain at the door? Here under the wall is some
shelter. I must go back."
But the boy was frightened at the prospect of being deserted.
"Then--Jamie, will you come back with me to the house?"
No, he would not do that.
"I must go for the key, dearest," she said, coaxingly. "I cannot open
the door, so that we can escape, unless I have the key. Will you do
something for Ju? Sit here, on the steps, where you are somewhat
screened from the rain, and sing to me something, one of our old
songs--A jolly hawk and his wings were gray? sing that, that I may
hear your voice and find my way back to you. Oh--and here, Jamie, your
feet are just the size of mine, and so you shall pull on my shoes.
Then you will be able to run alongside of me and not hurt your soles."
With a little persuasion she induced him to do as she asked. She took
off her own shoes and gave them to him, then went across the yard to
where was the house, she discovered the door by a little streak of
light below it and the well trampled and worn threshold stone. She
opened the door, took up the candle and again descended the steps to
the cellar floor. On reaching the bottom, she held up the light and
saw that the door was still sound; at the square barred opening was
the red face of Mr. Scantlebray.
"Let me out," he roared.
"Give me the key of the garden door."
"Will you let me out if I do?"
"No; but this I promise, as soon as I have escaped from your premises
I will knock and ring at your front door till I have roused the house,
and then you will be found and released. By that time we shall have
got well away."
"I will not give you the key."
"Then here you remain," said Judith, and began to reascend the steps.
It had occurred to her, suddenly, that very possibly the key she
desired was in the pocket of the coat Mr. Scantlebray had cast off
before descending to the cellar. She would hold no further
communication with him till she had ascertained this. He yelled after
her "Let me out, and you shall have the key." But she paid no
attention to his promise. On reaching the top of the stairs, she again
shut the door, and took up his coat. She searched the pockets. No key
was within.
She must go to him once more.
He began to shout as he saw the flicker of the candle approach. "Here
is the key, take it, and do as you said." His hand, a great coarse
hand, was thrust through the opening in the door, and in it was the
key she required.
"Very well," said she, "I will do as I undertook."
She put her hand, the right hand, up to receive the key. In her left
was the candlestick. Suddenly he let go the key that clinked down on
the floor outside, and made a clutch at her hand and caught her by the
wrist. She grasped the bar in the little window, or he would have
drawn her hand in, dragged her by the arm up against the door, and
broken it. He now held her wrist and with his strong hand strove to
wrench her fingers from their clutch.
"Unhasp the door!" he howled at her.
She did not answer other than with a cry of pain, as he worked with
his hand at her wrist, and verily it seemed as though the fragile
bones must snap under his drag.
"Unhasp the door!" he roared again.
With his great fingers and thick nails he began to thrust at and
ploughed her knuckles; he had her by the wrist with one hand, and he
was striving to loosen her hold of the bar with the other.
"Unhasp the door!" he yelled a third time, "or I'll break every bone
in your fingers!" and he brought his fist down on the side of the door
to show how he would pound them by a blow. If he did not do this at
once it was because he dreaded by too heavy a blow to strike the bar
and wound himself while crushing her hand.
She could not hold the iron stanchion for more than another
instant--and then he would drag her arm in, as a lion in its cage when
it had laid hold of the incautious visitor, tears him to itself
through the bars.
Then she brought the candle-flame up against his hand that grasped her
wrist, and it played round it. He uttered a scream of pain, and let go
for a moment. But that moment sufficed. She was free. The key was on
the floor. She stooped to pick it up; but her fingers were as though
paralyzed, she was forced to take it with the left hand and leave the
candle on the floor. Then, holding the key she ran up the steps, ran
out into the yard, and heard her brother wailing, "Ju! I want you!
Where are you, Ju?"
Guided by his cries she reached the door. The key she put into the
lock, and with a little effort turned it. The door opened, she and
Jamie were free.
The door shut behind them. They were in the dark lane, under a pouring
rain. But Judith thought nothing of the darkness, nothing of the rain.
She threw her arms round her brother, put her wet cheek against his,
and burst into tears.
"My Jamie! O my Jamie!"
But the deliverance of her brother was not complete; she must bring
him back to Polzeath. She could allow herself but a moment for the
relief of her heart, and then she caught him to her side, and pushed
on with him along the lane till they entered the street. Here she
stood for a moment in uncertainty. Was she bound to fulfil her
engagement to Mr. Obadiah? She had obtained the key, but he had
behaved to her with treachery. He had not intended the key to be other
than a bait to draw her within his clutch, that he might torture her
into opening the door of his cell. Nevertheless, she had the key, and
Judith was too honorable to take advantage of him.
With Jamie still clinging to her she went up the pair of steps to the
front door, rang the night-bell, and knocked long and loud. Then, all
at once her strength that had lasted gave way, and she sank on the
doorsteps, without indeed losing consciousness, but losing in an
instant all power of doing or thinking, of striving any more for Jamie
or for herself.