For while we were yet at breakfast, Mr. Curwen returned to the subject, and was for sending out Mary Tyson to fetch in one of the shepherds in order to oust the bird.

"Yes, indeed," cries Dorothy, with a delighted little clap of the hands and a quick meaning glance at Mary Tyson.

The shepherds were all on the hillside; not one of them was within reach, said Mary, with suspicious prompt.i.tude.

"But we have a ladder," said Dorothy, speaking at me, and her eyes sparkling and dancing.

I made as though I had not heard the suggestion.

"Then I will myself hunt him out," said Mr. Curwen, with a ready eagerness to make proof of his activity.

"Father, that cannot be," says she. "It would put us to shame. Rather I will take it in hand;" and again she looked at me.

There was no escape.

"It is a duty which naturally falls to me," said I, not with the best grace in the world.

"Nay," said she, "we cannot admit of duties in our guests. It must be a pleasure to you before we allow you to undertake it."

"Then it will be a pleasure," I agreed lamely.

"We will endeavour to make it one," she replied, with a malicious nod of the head.

I tried, you may be sure, to defer this chase for an owl which I knew did not exist, and hoped by talking very volubly upon other topics to drive the thought of it from their minds, and to that end lingered over my breakfast, even after the rest had for some while finished.

But the moment we did rise from the table: "There is no time like present," hinted Dorothy, plainly; and Mr. Curwen warmly seconding her--for he began to show something of excitement, like a child when some new distraction is offered to it--I fetched the ladder from an outhouse and reared it against the wall of Applegarth, at a spot she pointed out close to my window. Accordingly I mounted, the while Mr.

Curwen and his daughter remained at the foot--he quite elated, she very sedate and serious. But no sooner had I reached the topmost rungs, than Dorothy discovers the nest a good twenty feet away; and I must needs descend, like the merest fool, shift the ladder, and mount again. And when once more I was at the top, she discovers it at a third place, and so on through the morning. I know not how many times I ran up and down that accursed ladder, but my knees ached until I thought they would break. Once or twice I stopped, as if I would have no more of it, whereupon she covered me with the tenderest apologies and regrets.

"But it is a farce," said I, laughing in spite of myself.

"Of course you are very tired," said she, reproachfully. "It is a shame that I should put you to so much trouble;" and she pops her foot upon the lowest rung of the ladder. So there was no other course, but up I must go again, until at last she was satisfied, and I beaten with fatigue.

"It is a strange thing," said Mr. Curwen, scratching his forehead, "that we cannot discover it."

"I fancy Mr. Clavering was right," says she, with a bubble of delight, "and it is a very uncommon owl."

And I was allowed to carry the ladder back to the outhouse.

CHAPTER XIV.

I DROP THE CLOAK.

The lesson, however, was lost on me, or rather, to speak by the book, had the very reverse effect to that it aimed at For my solemnity was increased thereby. I reflected that Dorothy would never have played this trick upon an enemy, or even upon an unconsidered acquaintance, but only upon one whom she thought of as a friend. And there was the trouble. I held her in that reverence that it irked me intolerably to masquerade to her, though the masquerading was to my present advantage in her esteem. I had, of course, no thought that ever I could win her, since I saw myself hourly either doomed to the gallows, or, if I failed of that, to a more disgraceful existence. But I was fain that she should know me through and through for no better than I was; and so I wore her friendship as a stolen cloak.

Now, a thief, if the cloak galls him, may restore it. That I could not do without telling her the whole story; and the story I could not tell, since it was not I alone whose honour was concerned in it, but a woman with me. Or the thief may drop the cloak by the roadside without a word, and get him into the night. Over that alternative I pondered a long, dreary while.

But while I was yet tossed amidst these perplexities, news came to hand which quite turned the current of my thoughts. It was the 18th day of September, and Mr. Curwen, I remember, had left Applegarth early that morning on horseback, and, though it was now past nightfall, had not yet returned; the which was causing both his daughter and myself no small uneasiness at the very time when Tash rapped upon the door. He brought me a letter. I mind me that I stood in the hall staring in front of me, holding the open letter in my hand. It seemed that I saw the lock fall from a door, and the door opening on an unimagined dawn.

"What is it?" cried Dorothy, and for a second she laid a gentle hand upon my arm.

"It is," I exclaimed, drawing in a breath, "it is that the Earl of Mar--the duke, G.o.d bless him! for now one may give him his proper t.i.tle--has raised King James's standard at Kirkmichael in Braemar."

Dorothy gave a cry of delight, and I joined in with it. For if the duke did but descend into England, if England did but rise to welcome him--why, there would be the briefest imprisonment for those lying under charge, whether true or false, of conspiring for King James.

Through the open doorway sounded the tramp of a horse.

"My father!" said Dorothy.

I crammed the letter into my pocket without a glance at its conclusion, and ran down the pathway to the gate. As I opened the gate Mr. Curwen rode up to it.

"I am glad to have this chance of speaking to you alone," said he, as he dismounted. "I have been to-day to Whitehaven. My ship, the _Swallow_, is fitting out I have given orders that the work should be hurried, and the crew shipped with the least delay. The Swallow will sail the first moment possible, and lie off Ravengla.s.s until you come.

It is an arduous journey from here to Ravengla.s.s, but safe."

A farm-servant came up and led away the horse.

"The _Swallow_ should be at Ravengla.s.s in six weeks from to-day," he continued.

"But, sir," said I in a whisper, though I felt an impulse to cry the news out, "there will be no need, I trust, for the _Swallow_. There is the grandest news to tell you;" and I informed him of the contents of my letter.

Mr. Curwen said never a word to me, but dropped upon his knees in the pathway.

"G.o.d save the King!" he cried in a quavering voice, and the fervour of it startled me. His hands were clasped and lifted up before him, and by the starlight I saw that there were tears upon his cheek. Then he stood up again and mopped his face with his handkerchief, leaning against the palings of the garden fence. "Mr. Clavering, I could add with a full heart, 'Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,' but that there is work even for an arm as old and feeble as mine." At that he stopped, and asked, in a very different tone of trepidation, "Does Mary Tyson know?"

"Miss Dorothy does."

"Ah, of course, of course," he said with resignation, "It is all one;"

and he walked slowly up the path. At the door he turned to me, and set a hand on my shoulder. "There is work, Mr. Clavering, for the feeblest arm?" he asked wistfully.

Now, all my instincts urged me to say "Yes," but, on the other hand, I remembered certain orders which had been given to me in a very decided voice, so that I stood silent. With a sorrowful shake of the head, Mr.

Curwen pa.s.sed through the door.

"Maybe you are right," said he, disconsolately; and then, "But the question is worth proving"--this bracing his shoulders and making a cut in the air with an imaginary sabre. However, Mary Tyson bustled forward to help him off with his great-coat, and scolded all the boldness out of him in the s.p.a.ce of a minute, drawing such a picture of the anxiety into which his early outgoing and late home-coming had thrown the household, as melted him to humility.

"It was to do me a service," said I, interposing myself.

"And the more shame to you," says she, bluntly; "white hairs must wait on young legs!" and off she flung to the kitchen.

It was not until the following morning that Dorothy made allusion to his absence.

"I went on business to Whitehaven," he replied with a prodigious wink at me, which twisted the whole side of his face--his daughter could not but have observed it--"though the business might have waited;" and he added hurriedly, "However, I bring a message for you, my dear, for I chanced to meet old Mr. Aislabie in the street, and he sent his love to Miss Cherry-cheeks."

"Cherry-cheeks!" cried she, indignantly, "Cherry-cheeks! How dare he?

Is it a b.u.mpkin, a fat country milk-maid he takes me for?"

"My dear," said Mr. Curwen, with the gentlest spice of raillery, "you certainly deserve the charming t.i.tle now."