The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 Part 18

Looking at him, I saw that he was haggard and strange, and had not the confidence that was his formerly.

"There has been a rising there," I answered him, "and trouble among many?"

"Much trouble," he said with gloom. Then he fell to telling me how such of the neighbours were dead, and others were in hiding, while there were still more that went about their work in fear for their lives, lest any should inform against them.

"Your father's brother was taken on Sedgemoor with a pike in his hand,"

he added, "and your father has been busy ever since, raising money to buy his pardon--for they say that money can do much."

"That is ill news, indeed," I said.

"I have come to London on my own affairs, and been to seek you at your cousin Alstree's. When I learnt of the trouble that had befallen I followed you to this house, and right glad I am that you are safe with so good a woman as Mrs. Gaunt."

"But why should you be in London when the whole countryside at home is in gaol or in mourning? Have you no friend to help? Did you sneak away to be out of it all?" I asked with the silly petulance of a maid that knows nothing and will say anything.

"Yes," he said, hanging his head like one ashamed, "I sneaked away to be out of it all."

It vexed me to see him so, and I went on in a manner that it pleased me little afterwards to remember. "You, that talked so of the Protestant cause! you, that were ready to fight against Popery! you were not one of those that marched for Bristol or fought at Sedgemoor?"

"No," he said, "I did neither of these things."

"Yet you have run away from the sight of your neighbours' trouble--lest, I suppose, you should anyways be involved in it. Well, 'twas a man's part!"

He was about to answer me when we both started to hear a sound in the house. There was a foot on the stairs that I knew well. Tom turned aside and listened, for we had now withdrawn to the kitchen.

"That is a man's tread," he said; "I thought you lived alone with Mrs.

Elizabeth Gaunt."

"Mrs. Gaunt spends her life in good works," I answered, "and shows kindness to others beside me."

I raised my voice in hopes that the man might hear me and come no nearer, but the stupid fellow had waxed so confident that he came right in and stood amazed.

[Sidenote: "You!"]

"You!" he said; and Tom answered, "You!"

So they stood and glared at one another.

"I thought you were in a safe place," said Tom, swinging round to me.

"She is in no danger from me," said the man.

"Are you so foolish as to think so?" asked Tom.

"If you keep your mouth shut she is in no danger," was the answer.

"That may be," said Tom. Yet he turned to me and said, "You must come away from here."

"I have nowhere to go to--and I will not leave Mrs. Gaunt."

"I am myself going away," the man said.

"How soon?"

"To-night maybe; to-morrow night at farthest."

"'Tis a great danger," said Tom, "and I thought you so safe." Again he spoke to me.

"Is there danger from _you_?" the man asked.

"Do you take me for a scoundrel?" was the wrathful reply.

"A man will do much to keep his skin whole."

"There are some things no man will do that is a man and no worse."

"Truly you might have easily been in my place; and you would not inform against a comrade?"

"I should be a black traitor to do it."

Yet there was a blacker treachery possible, such as we none of us conceived the very nature of, not even the man that had the heart to harbour it afterwards.

Tom would not leave me until Mrs. Gaunt came in, and then they had a private talk together. She begged him to come to the house no more at present, because of the suspicions that even so innocent a visitor might bring upon it at that time of public disquiet.

"I shall contrive to get word to her father that he would do well to come and fetch her," he said, in my hearing, and she answered that he could not contrive a better thing.

The man that, as I now understood, we had in hiding went out that night after it was dark, but he came back again; and he did so on the night that followed. Mrs. Gaunt, perceiving that she could not altogether keep him from my company, and that the hope of his safe departure grew less, began to show great uneasiness.

"I see not how I am to get away," the man said gloomily when he found occasion for a word with me; "and the danger increases each day. Yet there is one way--one way."

"Why not take it and go?" I asked lightly.

"I may take it yet. A man has but one life." He spoke savagely and morosely; for his manner was now altered, and he paid me no more compliments.

There came a night on which he went out and came back no more.

"I trust in G.o.d," said Mrs. Gaunt, who used this word always in reverence and not lightly, "that he has made his escape and not fallen into the hands of his enemies."

The house seemed lighter because he was gone, and we went about our work cheerfully. Later, when some strange men came to the door--as I, looking through an upper window, could see--Mrs. Gaunt opened to them smiling, for the place was now ready to be searched, and there was none to give any evidence who the man was that had lately hidden there.

[Sidenote: Arrested]

But there was no search. The men had come for Elizabeth Gaunt herself, and they told her, in my hearing, that she was accused of having given shelter to one of Monmouth's men, and the punishment of this crime was death.

It did not seem to me at first possible that such a woman as Elizabeth Gaunt, that had never concerned herself with plots or politics, but spent her life wholly in good works, should be taken up as a public enemy and so treated only because she had given shelter to a man that had fled for his life. Yet this was, as I now learnt, the law. But there still seemed no possibility of any conviction, for who was there to give witness against her of the chief fact, namely, that she had known the man she sheltered to be one that had fought against the King? Her house was open always to those that were in trouble or danger, and no question asked. There were none of her neighbours that would have spied upon her, seeing that she had the reputation of a saint among them; and none to whom she had given her confidence. She had withheld it even from me, nor could I certainly say that she had the knowledge that was charged against her. For Windham was out of the way now--on my business, as I afterwards discovered; and if he had been nigh at hand he would have had more wisdom than to show himself at this juncture.

When I was taken before the judge, and, terrified as I was, questioned with so much roughness that I suspected a desire to fright me further, so that I might say whatever they that questioned me desired, even then they could, happily, discover nothing that told against my mistress, because I knew nothing.

In spite of all my confusion and distress, I uttered no word that could be used against Elizabeth Gaunt.