listen and hear what was afoot outside. Presently these were joined by one or two of the boldest in the passage, who muttered hurriedly what they knew, or sought information, or stared with double power at the girl's back. But Henrietta sat motionless, with the same hot blush on her cheeks and the same misery in her eyes.
Presently Mrs. Gilson was summoned, and she went out. The others, freed from the constraint of her presence, talked a little louder and a little more freely. And wonder grew. The two village constables, who remained and who felt themselves responsible, looked important, and one cried "Silence" a time or two, as if the court were sitting. The other explained the law, of which he knew as much as a Swedish turnip, on the subject of treason felony. But mixing it up with the Habeas Corpus which was then suspended, he was tripped up by a neighbour before he could reach the minutiæ of the punishment. Which otherwise must have had much interest for the prisoner.
At length the door opened, the other constable cried, "Silence! Silence in the court!" And there entered--the landlady.
The surprise of the little knot of people at the back of the room was great but short-lived.
Mrs. Gilson turned about and surveyed them with her arms akimbo and her lower lip thrust out. "You can all just go!" she said. "And the sooner the better! And if ever I catch you"--to the more successful of the constables, on whose feet her eye had that moment alighted--"up my stairs with those dirty clogs, Peter Harrison, I'll clout you! Now, off you go! Do you think I keep carpets for loons like you?"
"But--the prisoner?" gasped Peter, clutching at his fast-departing glory. "The prisoner, missus?"
"The goose!" the landlady retorted with indescribable scorn. "Go you down and see what the other ganders think of it. And leave me to mind my business! I'll see to the prisoner." And she saw them all out and closed the door.
When the room was clear she tapped Henrietta on the shoulder. "There's no gaol for you," she said bluntly. "Though it is not yourself you've got to thank for it. They've put you in my charge and you're to stay here, and I'm to answer for you. So you'll just say straight out if you'll stay, or if you'll run."
Had the girl burst into tears the landlady had found it reasonable. Instead, "Where is he?" Henrietta whispered. She did not even turn her head.
"Didn't you hear," Mrs. Gilson retorted, "that he had not been taken?"
"I mean--I mean----"
"Ah!" Mrs. Gilson exclaimed, a little enlightened. "You mean the gentleman that was here, and spoke for you? Yes, you are right, it's him you've to thank. Well, he's gone to Whitehaven, but he'll see you tomorrow."
Henrietta sighed.
"In the meantime," Mrs. Gilson continued, "you'll give me your word you'll not run. Gilson is bound for you in fifty pounds to show you when you're wanted. And as fifty pounds is fifty pounds, and a mint of money, I'd as soon turn the key on you as not. Girls that run once, run easy," the landlady added severely.
"I will not run away," Henrietta said meekly--more meekly perhaps than she had ever spoken in her life. "And--and I am much obliged to you, and thankful to you," in a very small voice. "Will you please to let me go to my room, and you can lock me in?"
She had risen from her seat, and though she did not turn to the landlady, she stole, shamed and askance, a look at her. Her lip trembled, her head hung. And Mrs. Gilson, on her side, seemed for a moment on the verge of some unwonted demonstration; she stood awkward and large, and perhaps from sheer clumsiness avoided even while she appeared to invite the other's look. But nothing happened until the two passed out, Henrietta first, like a prisoner, and Mrs. Gilson stiffly following.
Then there were half a dozen persons waiting to stare in the passage, and the way Mrs. Gilson's tongue fell loose was a warning. In two seconds, only one held her ground: the same dark girl with the gipsy-like features whose mocking smile had annoyed Henrietta as she dressed that morning. Ah, me! what ages ago that morning seemed!
To judge from Mrs. Gilson's indignation, this girl was the last who should have stood.
"Don't you black-look me!" the landlady cried. "But pack! D'you hear, impudence, pack! Or not one drop of milk do I take from your old skinflint of a father! And he'll drub you finely, if he's not too old and silly--till you smile on the other side of your face! I'd like to know what's taken you to-day to push yourself among your betters!"
"No harm," the girl muttered. She had retreated, scowling, half-way down the stairs.
"And no good, either!" the landlady retorted. "Get you gone, or I'll make your ears ring after another fashion!"
Henrietta heard no more. She had shrunk from the uproar and fled quickly to her room. With a bursting heart and a new humility she drew the key from the wards of the lock and set it on the outside, hoping--though the hope was slender--to avoid further words with the landlady. The hope came nearer fulfilment, however, than she expected; for Mrs. Gilson, after panting upstairs, only cried through the door that she would send her up supper, and then went down again--perhaps with a view to catching Bess Hinkson in a fresh trespass.
Bess was gone, however. But adventures are for the brave, and not ten minutes passed before the landlady was at issue with a fresh adversary. She found the coach-office full, so full that it overflowed into the hall. Modest Ann, called this way and that, had need of four hands to meet the demands made upon her; so furious were the calls for the lemons and rum and Old Geneva, the grateful perfume of which greeted Mrs. Gilson as she descended. Alas, something else greeted her: and that was a voice, never a favourite with her, but now raised in accents particularly distasteful. Tyson, the Troutbeck apothecary--a flashy, hard-faced young man in pepper-and-salt, and Bedford cords--had seized the command and the ear of the company in the coach-office, and was roasting Long Tom Gilson upon his own hearth.
"Not know who she is?" he was saying in the bullying tone which made him hated of the pauper class. "You don't ask me to believe that, Tom? Come! Come!"
"It's what I say," Gilson answered.
He sat opposite the other, his hands on his knees, his face red and sulky. He did not like to be baited.
"And you go bail for her?" Tyson cried. "You have gone bail for her?"
"Well?"
"And don't know her name?"
"Well--no."
The doctor sat back in his chair, his glass in his hand, and looked round for approbation.
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