"TREASON HAS DONE HIS WORST."
Black Milsom, otherwise Mr. Maunders, kept a close watch on Raynham
Castle, through the agency of his friend, James Harwood, whose visits
he encouraged by the most liberal treatment, and for whom he was always
ready to brew a steaming jorum of punch.
Mr. Maunders showed a great deal of curiosity concerning the details of
life within the castle, and was particularly fond of leading Harwood to
talk about the excessive care taken of the baby-heiress, and the
precautions observed by Lady Eversleigh's orders. One day, when he had
led the conversation in the accustomed direction, he said:
"One would think they were afraid somebody would try to steal the
child."
"So you would, Mr. Maunders. But you see every situation in life has
its trials, and a child can't be a great heiress for nothing. One day,
when I was sitting in the rumble of the open carriage, I heard Captain
Copplestone let drop in his conversation with Mrs. Morden as how the
child has enemies--bitter enemies, he said, as might try to do her
harm, if she wern't looked after sharp."
"I've known you a good long time now, Mr. Harwood, and you've partaken
of many a glass of rum-punch in my parlour," said Black Milsom,
otherwise Mr. Maunders, of the "Cat and Fiddle "; "and in all that time
you've never once offered to introduce me to one of your
fellow-servants, or asked me to take so much as a cup of tea in your
servants'-hall."
"Begging your pardon, Mr. Maunders," said the groom, in an insinuating
tone; "as to askin' a friend to take a cup of tea, or a little bit of
supper, without leave from Mrs. Smithson, the housekeeper, is more than
my place is worth."
"But you might get leave I should think, eh, James Harwood?" returned
Milsom; "especially if your friend happened to be a respectable
householder, and able to offer a comfortable glass to any of your
fellow-servants."
"I'm sure if I had thought as you'd accept a invitation to the
servants'-'all, I'd have asked leave before now," replied James
Harwood; "but I'm sure I thought as you wouldn't demean yourself to
take your glass of ale, or your cup of tea, any-wheres below the
housekeeper's room--and she's a rare starched one is Mrs. Smithson."
"I'm not proud," said Mr. Milsom. "I like a convivial evening, whether
it's in the housekeeper's room or the servants'-hall."
"Then I'll ask leave to-night," answered James Harwood.
He sent a little scrawl to Milsom next day, by the hands of a
stable-boy, inviting that gentleman to a social rubber and a friendly
supper in the servants'-hall that evening at seven o'clock.
To spend a few hours inside Raynham Castle was the privilege which
Black Milsom most desired, and a triumphant grin broke out upon his
face, as he deciphered James Harwood's clumsy scrawl.
"How easy it's done," he muttered to himself; "how easy it's done, if a
man has only the patience to wait."
The servants'-hall was a pleasant place to live in, but if Mrs.
Smithson, the housekeeper, was liberal in her ideas she was also
strict, and on some points especially severe; and the chief of these
was the precision with which she required the doors of the castle to be
locked for the night at half-past ten o'clock.
On more than one occasion, lately, Mrs. Smithson had a suspicion that
there was one offender against this rule. The offender in question was
Matthew Brook, the head-coachman, a jovial, burly Briton, with
convivial habits and a taste for politics, who preferred enjoying his
pipe and glass and political discussion in the parlour of the "Hen and
Chickens" public-house to spending his evenings in the servants'-hall
at Raynham Castle.
He was rarely home before ten; sometimes not until half-past ten; and
one never-to-be-forgotten night, Mrs. Smithson had heard him, with her
own ears, enter the doors of the castle at the unholy hour of twenty
minutes to eleven!
There was one appalling fact of which Mrs. Smithson was entirely
ignorant. And that was the fact that Matthew Brook had entered the
castle by a little half-glass door on several occasions, half an hour
or more after the great oaken door leading into the servants'-hall had
been bolted and barred with all due solemnity before the approving eyes
of the housekeeper herself.
The little door in question opened into a small ground-floor bed-room,
in which one of the footmen slept; and nothing was more easy than for
this man to shelter the nightly misdoings of his fellow-servant by
letting him slip quietly through his bedroom, unknown to any member of
the household.
James Harwood, the groom was a confirmed gossip; and, of course, he had
not failed to inform his friend, Mr. Maunders, otherwise Black Milsom,
of Matthew Brook's little delinquencies. Mr. Maunders listened to the
account with interest, as he did to everything relating to affairs in
the household of which Harwood was a member.
It was some little time after this conversation that Mr. Milsom was
invited to sup at the castle.
Several friendly rubbers were played by Mrs. Trimmer, the cook; Matthew
Brook, the coachman; James Harwood, and Thomas Milsom, known to the
company as Mr. Maunders. Honest Matthew and he were partners; and it
was to be observed, by any one who had taken the trouble to watch the
party, that Milsom paid more attention to his partner than to his
cards, whereby he lost the opportunity of distinguishing himself as a
good whist-player.
The whist-party broke up while the cloth was being laid on a large
table for supper, and the men adjourned to the noble old stone
quadrangle, on which the servant's-hall abutted. James Harwood, Brook,
Milsom, and two of the footmen strolled up and down, smoking under a
cold starlit sky. The apartments occupied by the family were all on the
garden front, and the smoking of tobacco in the quadrangle was not
forbidden.
Milsom, who had until this time devoted his attention exclusively to
the coachman, now contrived to place himself next to James Harwood, as
the party paced to and fro before the servants' quarters.
"Which is the little door Brook slips in at when he's past his time?"
he asked, carelessly, of Harwood, taking care, however, to drop his
voice to a whisper.
"We're just coming to it," answered the groom; "that little glass door
on my right hand. Steph's a good-natured fellow, and always leaves his
door unfastened when old Mat is out late. The room he sleeps in was
once a lobby, and opens into the passage; so it comes very convenient
to Brook. Everybody likes old Mat Brook, you see; and there isn't one
amongst us would peach if he got into trouble."
"And a jolly old chap he is as ever lived," answered Black Milsom, who
seemed to have taken a wonderful fancy to the convivial coachman.
"You come down to my place whenever you like, Mr. Brook," he said,
presently, putting his arm through that of the coachman, in a very
friendly manner. "You shall be free and welcome to everything I've got
in my house. And I know how to brew a decent jorum of punch when I give
my mind to it, don't I, Jim?"
Mr. James Harwood protested that no one else could brew such punch as
that concocted by the landlord of the "Cat and Fiddle."
The supper was a very cheery banquet; ponderous slices of underdone
roast beef disappeared as if by magic, and the consumption of pickles,
from a physiological or sanitary point of view, positively appalling.
After the beef and pickles came a Titanic cheese and a small stack of
celery; while the brown beer pitcher went so often to the barrel that
it is a matter of wonder that it escaped unbroken.
At a quarter past ten Mr. Maunders bade his new acquaintance good
night; but before departing he begged, as a great favour, to be
permitted one peep at the grand oak hall.
"You shall see it," cried good-natured Matthew Brook. "It's a sight
worth coming many a mile to see. Step this way."
He led the way along a dark passage to a door that opened into the
great entrance-hall. It was indeed a noble chamber. Black Milsom stood
for some moments contemplating it in silence, with a reverential stare.
"And which may be the back staircase, leading to the little lady's
rooms?" he asked, presently.
"That door opens on to the foot of it," replied the coachman. "Captain
Coppletone sleeps in the room you come to first, on the first floor;
and the little missy's rooms are inside his'n."
Gertrude Eversleigh, the heiress of Raynham, was one of those lovely
and caressing children who win the hearts of all around them, and in
whose presence there is a charm as sweet as that which lurks in the
beauty of a flower or the song of a bird. Her mother idolized her, as
we know, even though she could resign herself to a separation from this
loved child, sacrificing affection to the all-absorbing purpose of her
life. Before leaving Raynham Castle, Honoria had summoned the one only
friend upon whom she could rely--Captain Copplestone--the man whose
testimony alone had saved her from the hideous suspicion of murder--the
man who had boldly declared his belief in her innocence.
She wrote to him, telling him that she had need of his friendship for
the only child of his dead friend, Sir Oswald; and he came promptly in
answer to her summons, pleased at the idea of seeing the child of his
old comrade.
He had read the announcement of the child's birth in the newspapers,
and had rejoiced to find that Providence had sent a consolation to the
widow in her hour of desolation.
"She is like her father," he said, softly, after he had taken the child
in his arms, and pressed his shaggy moustache to her pure young brow."
Yes, the child is like my old comrade, Oswald Eversleigh. She has your
beauty, too, Lady Eversleigh, your dark eyes--those wonderful eyes,
which my friend loved to praise."
"I wish to heaven that he had never seen them!" exclaimed Honoria;
"they brought him only evil fortune--anguish--untimely death."
"Come, come!" cried the captain, cheerily; "this won't do. If the
workings of two villains brought about a breach between you and my poor
friend, and resulted in his untimely end, the sin rests on their guilty
heads, not on yours."
"And the sin shall not go unpunished even upon this earth!" exclaimed
Honoria, with intensity of feeling. "I only live for one purpose,
Captain Copplestone, and that is to strip the masks from the faces of
the two hypocrites and traitors, who, between them, compassed my
disgrace and my husband's death; and I implore you to aid me in the
carrying out of my purpose."
"How can I do that?" cried the captain. "When I begged you to let me
challenge that scoundrel, Carrington, and fight him--in spite of our
cowardly modern fashion, which has exploded duelling--you implored me
not to hazard my life. I was your only friend, you told me, and if my
life were sacrificed you would be helpless and friendless. I gave way
in order to satisfy you, though I should have liked to send a bullet
through that French scoundrel's plotting brains."
"And I thank you for your goodness," answered Lady Eversleigh. "It is
not by the bullet of a brave soldier that Victor Carrington should die.
I will pursue the two villains silently, stealthily, as they pursued
me; and when the hour of my triumph comes, it shall be a real triumph,
not a defeat like that which ended their scheming. But if I stoop to
wear a mask, I ask no such service from you, Captain Copplestone. I ask
you only to take up your abode in this house, and to protect my child
while I am away from home."
"You are really going to leave home?"
"For a considerable time."
"And you will tell me nothing about the nature of your schemes?"
"Nothing. I shall do no wrong; though I am about to deal with men so
base that the common laws of honour can scarcely apply to any dealings
with them."
"And your mind is set upon this strange scheme?"
"My mind is fixed. Nothing on earth can alter my resolution--not even
my love for this child."
Captain Copplestone saw that her determination was not to be reasoned
away, and he made no further attempt to shake her resolve. He promised
that, during her absence from the castle, he would guard Sir Oswald's
daughter, and cherish her as tenderly as if she had been his own child.
It was by the captain's advice that Mrs. Morden was engaged to act as
governess to the young heiress during her mother's absence. She was the
widow of one of his brother-officers--a highly accomplished woman, and
a woman of conscientious feelings and high principle.
"Never had any creature more need of your protection than my child
has," said Honoria. "This young life and mine are the sole obstacles
that stand between Sir Reginald Eversleigh and fortune. You know what
baseness and treachery he and his ally are capable of committing. You
cannot, therefore, wonder if I imagine all kinds of dangers for my
darling."
"No," replied the captain; "I can only wonder that you consent to leave
her."
"Ah, you do not understand. Can you not see that, so long as those two
men exist, their crimes undiscovered, their real nature unsuspected in
the world in which they live, there is perpetual danger for my child?
The task which I have set myself is the task of watching these two men;
and I will do it without flinching. When the hour of retribution
approaches, I may need your aid; but till then let me do my work alone,
and in secret."
This was the utmost that Lady Eversleigh told Captain Copplestone
respecting the motive of her absence from the castle. She placed her
child in his care, trusting in him, under Providence, for the
guardianship of that innocent life; and then she tore herself away.
Nothing could exceed the care which the veteran soldier bestowed upon
his youthful charge.
It may be imagined, therefore, that nothing short of absolute necessity
would have induced him to leave the neighbourhood of Raynham during the
absence of Lady Eversleigh.
Unhappily this necessity arose. Within a fortnight after the night on
which Black Milsom had been invited to supper in the servants'-hall,
Captain Copplestone quitted Raynham Castle for an indefinite period,
for the first time since Lady Eversleigh's departure.
He was seated at breakfast in the pretty sitting-room in the south
wing, which he occupied in common with the heiress and her governess,
when a letter was brought to him by one of the castle servants.
"Ben Simmons has just brought this up from the 'Hen and Chickens,'
sir," said the man. "It came by the mail-coach that passes through
Raynham at six o'clock in the morning."
Captain Copplestone gazed at the superscription of the letter with
considerable surprise. The handwriting was that of Lady Eversleigh, and
the letter was marked _Immediate and important_.
In those days there was no electric telegraph; and a letter conveyed
thus had pretty much the same effect upon the captain's mind that a
telegram would now-a-days exercise. It was something special--out of
the common rule. He tore open the missive hastily. It contained only a
few lines in Honoria's hand; but the hand was uncertain, and the letter
scrawled and blotted, as if written in extreme haste and agitation of
mind.
"_Come to me at once, I entreat. I have immediate need of your help.
Pray come, my dear friend. I shall not detain you long. Let the child
remain in the castle during your absence. She will be safe with Mrs.
Morden_.
"_Clarendon Hotel, London_."
This, and the date, was all.
Captain Copplestone sat for some moments staring at this document with
a look of unmitigated perplexity.
"I can't make it out," he muttered to himself.
Presently he said aloud to Mrs. Morden--
"What a pity it is you women all write so much alike that it's
uncommonly difficult to swear to your writing. I'm perplexed by this
letter. I can't quite understand being summoned away from my pet. I
think you know Lady Eversleigh's hand?"
"Yes," answered the lady; "I received two letters from her before
coming here. I could scarcely be mistaken in her handwriting."
"You think not? Very well, then, please tell me if that is her hand,"
said the captain showing Mrs. Morden the address of the missive he had
just received.
"I should say decidedly, yes, that is her hand."
"Humph!" muttered the captain; "she said something about wanting me
when the hour of retribution drew near. Perhaps she has succeeded in
her schemes more rapidly than she expected, and the time is come."
The little girl had just quitted the room with her nurse, to be dressed
for her morning run in the gardens. Mrs. Morden and the captain were
alone.
"Lady Eversleigh asks me to go up to London," he said, at last; "and I
suppose I must do what she wishes. But, upon my word, I've watched over
little Gertrude so closely, and I've grown so foolishly fond of her,
that I don't like the idea of leaving her, even for twenty-four hours,
though, of course, I know I leave her in the best possible care."
"What danger can approach her here?"
"Ah; what danger, indeed!" returned the captain, thoughtfully. "Within
these walls she must be secure."
"The child shall not leave the castle, nor shall she quit my sight
during your absence," said Mrs. Morden. "But I hope you will not stay
away long."
"Rely upon it that I shall not remain away an hour longer than
necessary," answered the captain.
An hour afterwards he departed from Raynham in a post-chaise.
He left without having taken any farewell of Gertrude Eversleigh. He
could not trust himself to see her.
This grim, weather-beaten old soldier had surrendered his heart
entirely to the child of his dead friend. He travelled Londonwards as
fast as continual relays of post-horses could convey him; and on the
morning after he had received the letter from Lady Eversleigh, a
post-chaise covered with the dust of the roads, rattled up to the
Clarendon Hotel, and the traveller sprang out, after a sleepless night
of impatience and anxiety.
"Show me to Lady Eversleigh's rooms at once," he said to one of the
servants in the hall.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the man; "what name did you say?"
"Lady Eversleigh--Eversleigh--a widow-lady, staying in this house."
"There must be some mistake, sir. There is no one of that name at
present staying in the hotel," answered the man.
The housekeeper had emerged from a little sitting-room, and had
overheard this conversation.
"No, sir," she said, "we have no one here of that name."
Captain Copplestone's dark face grew deadly pale.
"A trap!" he muttered to himself; "a snare! That letter was a forgery!"
And without a word to the people of the house, he darted back to the
street, sprang into the chaise, crying to the postillions,
"Don't lose a minute in getting a change of horses. I am going back to
Yorkshire."
The intimacy with the household of Raynham Castle, begun by Mr.
Maunders at the supper in the servants'-hall, strengthened as time went
by, and there was no member of the castle household for whom Mr.
Maunders entertained so warm a friendship as that which he felt for
Matthew Brook, the coachman. Matthew began to divide his custom between
the rival taverns of Raynham, spending an evening occasionally at the
"Cat and Fiddle," and appearing to enjoy himself very much at that
Inferior hostelry.
About a fortnight had elapsed after the comfortable supper-party at the
castle, when Mr. Milsom took it into his head to make a formal return
for the hospitalities he had received on that occasion.
It happened that the evening chosen for this humble but comfortable
entertainment was the evening after Captain Copplestone's departure
from the castle.
The supper was well cooked, and neatly placed on the table. A foaming
tankard of ale flanked the large dish of hissing steaks; and the
gentlemen from the castle set to work with a good will to do justice to
Mr. Maunders's entertainment.
When the table had been cleared of all except a bowl of punch and a
tray of glasses, it is scarcely a matter for wonder if the quartette
had grown rather noisy, with a tendency to become still louder in its
mirth with every glass of Mr. Milsom's excellent compound.
They were enjoying themselves as much as it is in the power of human
nature to enjoy itself; they had proposed all manner of toasts, and had
drunk them with cheers, and the mirth was at its loudest when the clock
of the village church boomed out solemnly upon the stillness of night,
and tolled the hour of ten.
The three men staggered hastily to their feet.
"We must be off, Maunders, old fellow," said the coachman, with a
certain thickness of utterance.
"Right you are, Mat," answered Stephen. "You've had quite enough of
that 'ere liquor, and so have we all. Good night, Mr. Maunders, and
thank you kindly for a jolly evening. Come, Jim. Come, Mat, old
boy--off we go!"
"No, no," cried Mr. Maunders, the hospitable; "I'm not a-going to let
Matthew Brook leave my house at ten o'clock when he can stay as long as
he likes. You and he beat me at whist, but I mean to be even with him
at cribbage. We'll have a friendly hand and a friendly glass, and I'll
see him as far as the gates afterwards. You'll let him in, Plumpton,
come when he will, I know. If he can stay over his time at the other
house, he can stay over his time with me. Come, Brook, you won't say
no, will you, to a friend?" asked Milsom.
Matthew Brook looked at Mr. Milsom, and at his fellow-servants, in a
stupid half-drunken manner, and rubbed his big head thoughtfully with
his big hand.
"I'm blest if I know what to do," he said; "I've promised Stephen I
wouldn't stay out after time again--and--"
"Not as a rule, perhaps," answered Mr. Milsom; "but once in a way can't
make any difference, I'm sure, and Stephen Plumpton is the last to be
ill-natured."
"That I am," replied the good-tempered footman. "Stay, if you like to
stay, Mat. I'll leave my door unfastened, and welcome."
On this, the two other men took a friendly leave of their host and
departed, walking through the village street with legs that were not by
any means too steady.
There was a triumphant grin upon Mr. Milsom's face as he shut the door
on these two departing guests.
"Good night, and a good riddance to you," he muttered; "and now for
Matthew Brook. You'll sleep sound enough to-night, Stephen Plumpton,
I'll warrant. So sound that if Old Nick himself went through your room
you'd scarcely be much wiser."
He went back to the little parlour in which he had left his guest, the
coachman. As he went, he slipped his forefinger and thumb into his
waistcoat pocket, where they closed upon a tiny phial. It contained a
pennyworth of laudanum, which he had purchased a week or so before from
the Raynham chemist, as a remedy for the toothache.
Here he found Matthew Brook seated with his arms folded on the table,
and his eyes fixed on the cribbage-board with that stolid, unseeing
gaze peculiar to drunkenness.
"He's pretty far gone, as it is," Mr. Milsom thought to himself, as he
looked at his guest; "it won't take much to send him further. Take
another glass of punch before we begin, eh, Brook?" he asked, in that
tone of jolly good-fellowship which had made him so agreeable to the
castle servants.
"So I will," cried Matthew; "'nother glass--punish the punch--eh--old
boy? We'll punish glass--'nother punch--hand cribbage--glorious
evenin'--uproarious--happy--glorious--God save--'nother glass."
While Mr. Brook attempted to shuffle the cards, dropping them half
under the table during the process, Black Milsom moved the bowl and
glasses to a table behind the coachman's back.
Here he filled a glass for Mr. Brook, which the coachman emptied at a
draught; but after having done so he made a wry face, and looked
reproachfully at his host.
"What the deuce was that you gave me?" he asked, with some indignation.
"What should it be but rum-punch?" answered Milsom; "the same as you've
been drinking all the evening."
"I'll be hanged if it is," answered Mr. Brook; "you've been playing off
some of your publican's tricks upon me, Mr. Maunders, pouring the dregs
of some stale porter into the bowl, or something of that kind. Don't
you do it again. I'm a 'ver goo'-temper' chap, ber th' man tha'
takes--hic--libert' with--hic--once don't take--hic--libert' with m'
twice. So, don't y' do that 'gen!"
This was said with tipsy solemnity; and then Mr. Brook made another
effort to shuffle the cards, and stooped a great many times to pick up
some of those he had dropped, but seemed never to succeed in picking up
all of them.
"I'll tell you what it is, Maunders," he said, at last; "I'm getting an
old man; my sight isn't what it used to be. I'm bless' if--can tell a
king from--queen."
Before he could complete the shuffling of the cards to his own
satisfaction, Mr. Brook's eyelids began to droop over his watery eyes,
and all at once his head fell forward on the table, amongst the
scattered cards, his hair flopping against a fallen candlestick and
smoking tallow candle.
Mr. Milsom's air of jolly good-fellowship disappeared: he sprang up
suddenly, went to his friend, and shook him, rather roughly for such
friendship.
Matthew snored a little louder, but slept on.
"He's fast as a rock," muttered Black Milsom; "but I must wait till
it's likely Stephen Plumpton will be as sound asleep as this one."
Mr. Milsom went to his kitchen and ordered his only servant--a sturdy
young native of the village--to go off to bed at once.
"I've got a friend in the parlour: but I'll see him out myself when he
goes," said Mr. Milsom. "You pack off to bed as soon as you've put out
the lights in the bar, and shut the back-door."
Mr. Milsom then returned to the apartment where his sleeping guest
reposed.
The coachman's capacious overcoat hung on a chair near where its owner
slept.
Mr. Milsom deliberately put on this coat, and the hat which Mr. Brook
had worn with it. There was a thick woollen scarf of the coachman's
lying on the floor near the chair, and this Black Milsom also put on,
twisting it several times round his neck, so as to completely muffle
the lower part of his face.
He was of about the same height as Matthew, and the thick coat gave him
bulk.
Thus attired he might, in an uncertain light, have been very easily
mistaken for the man whose clothes he wore.
Mr. Milsom gave one last scrutinizing look at the sleeping coachman,
and then extinguished the candle.
The fire he had allowed to die out while he sat smoking: the room was,
therefore, now in perfect darkness.
He paused by the door to look about him. All was alike still and
lonely. The village street could have been no more silent and empty if
the two rows of houses had been so many vaults in a cemetery.
Black Milsom walked rapidly up the village street, and entered the
gardens of the castle by a little iron gate, of which Matthew Brook,
the reprobate and offender, had a key. This key Black Milsom had often
heard of, and knew that it was always carried by Brook in a small
breast-pocket of his overcoat.
From the garden he made his way quickly, silently, to the quadrangle on
which Stephen Plumpton's bed-chamber opened.
Here all was dark and silent.
Milsom went straight to the little half-glass door which served both as
door and window for the small sleeping-chamber of Stephen Plumpton.
He opened this door with a cautious hand, and stepped softly into the
room. Stephen lay with his head half covered with the bed-clothes, and
his loud snoring resounded through the chamber.
"The rum-punch has done the trick for you, my friend," Mr. Milsom said
to himself.
He crossed the room with slow and stealthy footsteps, opened the door
communicating with the rest of the house, and went along the passage
leading to the hall.
With cautious steps he groped his way to the door opening on the
secondary staircase, and ascended the thickly carpeted staircase within.
Here a lamp was left dimly burning all night, and this lamp showed him
another cloth-covered door at the top of the first flight of stairs.
Black Milsom tried this door, and found it also unfastened.
This door, which Black Milsom opened, communicated with the little
passage that had been made across the room usually tenanted by Captain
Copplestone. Within this room there was a still smaller chamber--little
more, indeed, than a spacious closet--in which slept the faithful old
servant, Solomon Grundy.
Both the doors were open, and Black Milsom heard the heavy breathing of
the old man--the breathing of a sound sleeper.
Beyond the short passage was the door opening into the sitting-room
used by the young heiress of Raynham.
Black Milsom had only to push it open. The intruder crept softly across
the room, drew aside a curtain, and opened the massive oak door which
divided the sitting-room from the bed-room.
Mr. Milsom had taken care to make himself familiar with the smallest
details of the castle household, and he had even heard of Mrs. Morden's
habit of sleeping within closely drawn curtains, from his general
informant, James Harwood, the groom, who had received his information
from one of the housemaids, in that temple of gossip--the servants'
hall.
Gertrude Eversleigh slept in a white-curtained cot, by the side of Mrs.
Morden's bed.
Black Milsom lifted the coverlet, threw it over the face of the
sleeping child, and with one strong hand lifted her from her cot, her
face still shrouded by the thick down coverlet, which must effectually
prevent her cries. With the other hand he snatched up a blanket, and
threw it round the struggling form, and then, bundled in coverlet and
blanket, he carried the little girl away.
Only when his feet were on the turf, and the castle stood up black
behind him, did he withdraw the coverlet from the mouth of the
half-suffocated child.