The Weird Of The Wentworths Volume I Part 35

"Hallo, Ned, how are you, old fellow? why damme, prison fare doesn't seem to agree with you, you are as white as a ghost; cheer up, old fellow, I am come to rescue you!"

"Prison thoughts are worse than its fare. I am a different man since I have been here so long."

"Egad, you haven't turned blue, have you? Why, bless my soul, you spoke just like old Power, or some such snivelling Puritan. Come, get rid of all this nonsense, and listen to me. I have come to get you clear of these quarters. Egad they don't agree with one; faugh! how close this cell is; you must get out, and breathe the fresh air."

"I am resolved to abide the worst, Captain; thanks for all your trouble; I will be tried, condemned, and hung; the world will wag on just the same when I am gone."

"Trash--who the devil has put this nonsense into your brains? Has the parson been here? You are right, by G--! a week in prison has changed you a bit, I am d--d if I'd know you to be the same fellow! You sit moping like a girl under sentence of death for murdering her child!

Come, cheer up; I tell you this air is bad for any one. Egad, it is making me feel quite devout. Oh! d-- that accursed thunderstorm"--as a brilliant flash blazed through the cell--"hark at the rain, you and I will have a wet night of it."

"Is it not like the voice of G.o.d calling us to account for our wickedness?"

"The voice of the devil! why I swear you must set up gaol chaplain. What in the name of Heaven has put such ideas into your brainpan? a common bout of thunder the voice of G.o.d,--anything else?"

"Blaspheme not! leave me to my fate--hanging is too good for me; you brought me to this--"

"And I'll bring you out of it again, one good turn deserves another! Do you think I am as great a fool as yourself? What hangs you hangs me also, and I am not so jolly tired of life as you are just now. Wait till you are out of this cursed hole, and you will get like yourself again; life is too sweet to be thrown away like a coat!"

"To you it may be sweet--all that would render it so to me is gone! My love is blighted--my hopes dead--the world would only be 'a wider prison;' let me end my misery with my life, and bury my shame with my body."

"Preaching again! Look you, Ned, it is always the same accursed story, a lot of stuff talked--then you accept, and then retract, and after all go. Now I have no time for this! you shall not be tried--nor condemned--nor hung! I have planned your escape, and by Heaven it was no easy matter, and deuced expensive with bribes! A score of fellows are all ready to play their part, and I am d--d if you shall fail."

"How am I to escape?" said L'Estrange, beginning to feel freedom, after all, was not to be despised; "the walls are high, the watchers vigilant."

"The walls may be as high as Heaven, and the ditches as deep as h.e.l.l, and the sentinels as vigilant as Argus, but I will do them all! Pest, do you take me for a nincomp.o.o.p, or fool, or what? There, what do you think of that?" throwing down a coil of rope--"and of that?" flinging a file on the ground. "Now, I know you are not a fool, and will find out their use and you will promise me to escape! You will find the rope long enough to reach pretty near the rocks below the prison--your window looks south to Arthur's Seat."

"And when I am out--where am I to go?"

"Patience, by G--! and I'll tell you. There are rocks beneath your window; I took a reconnaissance of the whole yesterday; you must then slip down the hill--go through the back slums of the Canongate, get out by Holyrood, and make for the Hunter's Bog; if you are attacked there is a pistol, and a knife for close quarters.--Egad, that was a bright flas.h.!.+ and here comes my man; good-night, it is now close on midnight, Bill will wait till three in the morning--it is a famous night though!

raining buckets, and dark as pitch! Don't let one of those accursed flashes show you dangling by the rope, or some one might spy you. Wait for a good blazer, and then drop like lightning, ha! ha! ha! good-night I'll have a jolly wet ride home."

He then wrung L'Estrange's hand, telling him they would meet at Philippi, or mayhap in Hades if there was such a place; he would find him out if he was above ground anywhere. And, following the turnkey, he left him to manage his escape as he best could.

END OF VOL. I.