“Why have you brought me here, Gogo?”
“Because,” he answered, “there was no nearer and surer refuge.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Ah, child! But you have not heard the story.”
“Well,” I murmured, reassured, though still shy of him, “if you will
keep your promise and be good, you shall tell it me by and by.”
He gave a great sigh, and, gently disengaging myself, I stole to the
door, while he followed me with his agitated eyes, and peered out. It
was Shole, indeed, and the familiar village green that I saw beneath
me, looking down the long wintry slope. Quiet and deserted in the
chill mists of dawn, no view apparently less tragic, less harmful,
could have greeted me. I returned to my companion, who received me
with a pathetic relief. He was quite pale and trembling.
“If my arms had the reach of my heart!” he said. “Well, you have come
back; and so--for breakfast.”
“Patty’s pot,” said I merrily. “The dear shall put new heart into me,
as her wont was.”
He had bread, and some bottles of wine, a little of which I drank
mixed with water. It was the loveliest, most intoxicating meal; and,
when it was over, full of a new grace I bid Gogo to my side.
“Now,” said I, “tell me your story.”
“Well, first,” he said with a grunt, “for your safety here. It was the
astrologer’s, and now is ours. He was carried away in a thunderstorm,
on a red cloud.”
“What do you mean, Gogo, please?”
“I repeat the common superstition. Anyhow, he is gone, and the place
is haunted and avoided since. Not a clown but myself will come within
a mile of it; and as for me, I have lived here for a month undisturbed
already.”
“You? But I know where the poor wretch was taken, and where he died.”
“In the asylum, eh? It is what I supposed; and the red earl comes to
his own. Tell me about it.”
“By and by. I want to know first what brought you here.”
“The wish to lose myself and be lost, where I could devise a plan for
your rescue.”
“You knew where I had been taken, then?”
“No perspicacity of mine. It was the common report. You had lost your
head over love unrequited, and it had become necessary to confine you
for a while.”
“O, indeed! Go on.”
“I hear your little white teeth clicking. Rest content. You are
avenged: he has married her.”