Out in the Forty-Five Part 48

"Madam, what will become of Colonel Keith?"

I thought her Ladyship looked rather keenly at me.

"'The sword devoureth one as well as another,'" was her reply. "You know whence that comes, Miss Courtenay."

"Is that all?" I answered. "If any act of mine lead to his death, how shall I answer it to his father and mother, and to Annas?"

"They gave him up to the Cause, my dear, when they sent him forth to join the Prince. A soldier must always do his duty."

"Forgive me, Madam. I was not questioning his duty, but my own."

"Too late for that, Miss Courtenay. My dear, he is ready for death. I would more of us were!"

I read in the superb eyes above me that she was not.

"Forward!" she said, as if giving a word of command.

Somehow, I felt as if I must go. Her Ladyship was right: it was too late to draw back. So Ephraim and I set forth on our dangerous errand.

I cannot undertake to say how we went, or where. It all comes back to me as if I had walked it in a dream: and I felt as if I were dreaming all the while. At last, as we went along, carrying the basket, Ephraim suddenly set it down with, "Hallo! what's that?" I knew then that we must be close to the prison, and that he was about to leave me.

"I say, I must see after that. You go on, Bet!" cried Ephraim; and he was off in a minute--in what direction I could not even see.

"Gemini!" cried I, catching up the word I had heard from Mrs Cropland's Betty. "Joel! I say, Joel! You bad fellow, can't you come back? How am I to lift this great thing, I should like to know?"

A dark shadow close to the wall moved a little.

"Come now, can't one of you lads help a poor maid?" said I. "It's a shame of Joel to leave me in the lurch like this. Come, give us a hand!"

I was trembling like an aspen leaf. Suppose the wrong man offered to help me! What could I do then?

"Want a hand, my pretty maid?" said a voice which certainly was not Colonel Keith's. "I'm your man! Give us hold!"

Oh, what was I to do! This horrid man would carry the basket, and how could I explain to the warder? How could I know which warder was the right one?

"Now then, hold hard, mate!" said a second voice, which I greeted with delight. "Just you let this here young woman be. How do, Betty? Why, wherever's Joel? He's no call to let the likes o' you carry things o'

thisn's."

What had the Colonel done with his Scots accent? I did not hear a trace of it.

"Oh, Will Clowes, is that you?" said I, giving a little toss of my head, which I thought would be in character. "Well, I don't know whether I shall let you carry it."

The next minute I felt how wrong I was to say so.

"Yes, you will," said Colonel Keith, and took the basket out of my hands. I should never have known him, dressed in corduroy, and with a rake over his shoulder. He shouted something, and the great prison door opened slowly, and a warder put his head out.

"Who goes there?"

"Washing for Cartwright's ward."

"Ay, all right. Come within. Cartwright!" shouted the porter.

We went in, and stood waiting a moment just inside the door, till a warder appeared, who desired Colonel Keith to "bring that 'ere basket up, now."

"You can wait a bit, Betty," said the Colonel, turning to me. "Don't be afraid, my girl. n.o.body 'll touch you, and Will 'll soon be back."

They say it is unlucky to watch people out of sight. I hope it is not true. True or untrue, I watched him. Yes, Will Clowes might be back soon; but would Duncan Keith ever return any more?

And then a feeling came, as if a tide of fear swept over me,--Was it right of Flora to ask him to make that promise? I have wondered vaguely many a time: but in that minute, with all my senses sharpened, I seemed to see what a blunder it was. Is it ever right to ask people for such unconditional pledges to a distinct course of action, when we cannot know what is going to happen? To what agony--nay, even to what wrong-doing--may we pledge them without knowing it! It seems to me that influence is a very awful thing, for it reaches so much farther than you can see. May it not be said sometimes of us all, "They know not what they do"? And then to think that when we come out of that Valley of the Shadow into the clear light of the Judgment Bar, all our unknown sins may burst upon us like a great army, more than we can count or imagine-- it is terrible!

O my G.o.d, save me from unknown sins! O Christ, be my Help and Advocate when I come to know them!

How I lived through the next quarter of an hour I can never say to anybody. I sat upon a settle near the door of the prison, praying--how earnestly!--for both of those in danger, but more especially for Colonel Keith. At last I saw a man coming towards me with the empty basket, in which he had inserted his head, like a bonnet, so that it rather veiled his face. I remembered then that I was to "make as much noise as I could," and quarrel with my supposed lover.

"Well, you are a proper young man!" said I, standing up. "How long do you mean to keep me waiting, I should like to know? You think I've nothing in the world to do, don't you, now? And Missis 'll say nought to me, will she, for coming home late? Just you give me that basket-- men be such dolts!"

"Come, my girl,"--in a deprecating tone--said a voice, which I recognised as that of Angus. I hoped n.o.body else would.

"I'm not your girl, and I'll not come unless I've a mind, neither!"

cried I, loudly, trying to put in practice her Ladyship's advice to be as vulgar as I could. "I'm not a-going to have fellows dangling at my heels as keeps me a-waiting--"

"Come, young woman, you just clear out," said the warder Cartwright.

"My word, lad, but she's a spitfire! You be wise, and think better of it. Now then, be off, both of you!"

And he laid his hand on my shoulder, as if to push me through the door, which I pretended to resent very angrily, and Angus flung down the basket and began to strip up his sleeves, as if he meant to fight the warder.

"Now, we can't do with that kind of thing here!" cried another man, coming forward, whom I took to be somewhat above the rest. "Be off at once--you must not offer to fight the King's warders. Turn them out, Cartwright, and shut the door on them."

Angus caught up the basket and dashed through the door, and I followed, making all the noise I could, and scolding everybody. We had only just got outside the gate when Ephraim came running up, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the basket from Angus. There was a few minutes' pretended struggle between them, and then Ephraim chased Angus into a side-street, and came back to me, whom he began to scold emphatically for encouraging such idle ne'er-do-wells as that rascal Clowes. I tried to give him as good as he brought; and so we went on, jangling as we walked, until nearly within sight of Mr Raymond's door. Then, declaring that I would not speak to him if he could not behave better, and that I was not going to walk in his leading-strings, I marched on with my head held very high, and Ephraim trudged after me, looking as sulky as he knew how. We rapped on the back-door, and Mr Raymond's servant let us in. In the parlour we found Mr Raymond and her Ladyship.

"I am thankful to see you safe back!" cried the former; and his manner suggested to me the idea that he had not felt at all sure of doing so.

"Is all well accomplished?"

"Angus Drummond is out, and Keith is in," replied Ephraim. "As to the rest, we must leave it for time to reveal. I am frightfully tired of quarrelling; I never did so much in my life before."

"Has Miss Courtenay done her part well?" asked her Ladyship.

"Too well, if anything," said Ephraim. "I was sadly afraid of a slip once. If that fellow had insisted on carrying in the basket, Cary, we should have had a complete smash of the whole thing."

"Why, did you see that?" said I.

"Of course I did," he answered. "I was never many yards from you. I lay hidden in a doorway, close to. Cary, you make a deplorably good scold! I never guessed you would do that part of the business so well."

"I am glad to hear it, for I found it the hardest part," said I.

Her Ladyship came up and helped me to change my dress.

"The Cause owes something to you to-night, Miss Courtenay," said she.

"At least, if Colonel Keith can escape."