“Master Shelton, ye are troublesome,”
replied the earl, severely. “It is an evil
way to prosper in this world. Howbeit, and to
be quit of your importunity, I will once more humour
you. Go, then, together; but go warily, and
get swiftly out of Shoreby town. For this Sir
Daniel (whom may the saints confound!) thirsteth most
greedily to have your blood.”
“My lord, I do now offer you in words my gratitude,
trusting at some brief date to pay you some of it
in service,” replied Dick, as he turned from
the apartment.
When Dick and Lawless were suffered to steal, by a
back way, out of the house where Lord Risingham held
his garrison, the evening had already come.
They paused in shelter of the garden wall to consult
on their best course. The danger was extreme.
If one of Sir Daniel’s men caught sight of
them and raised the view-hallo, they would be run down
and butchered instantly. And not only was the
town of Shoreby a mere net of peril for their lives,
but to make for the open country was to run the risk
of the patrols.
A little way off, upon some open ground, they spied
a windmill standing; and hard by that, a very large
granary with open doors.
“How if we lay there until the night fall?”
Dick proposed.
And Lawless having no better suggestion to offer,
they made a straight push for the granary at a run,
and concealed themselves behind the door among some
straw. The daylight rapidly departed; and presently
the moon was silvering the frozen snow. Now or
never was their opportunity to gain the Goat and Bagpipes
unobserved and change their tell-tale garments.
Yet even then it was advisable to go round by the
outskirts, and not run the gauntlet of the market-place,
where, in the concourse of people, they stood the more
imminent peril to be recognised and slain.
This course was a long one. It took them not
far from the house by the beach, now lying dark and
silent, and brought them forth at last by the margin
of the harbour. Many of the ships, as they could
see by the clear moonshine, had weighed anchor, and,
profiting by the calm sky, proceeded for more distant
parts; answerably to this, the rude alehouses along
the beach (although in defiance of the curfew law,
they still shone with fire and candle) were no longer
thronged with customers, and no longer echoed to the
chorus of sea-songs.
Hastily, half-running, with their monkish raiment
kilted to the knee, they plunged through the deep
snow and threaded the labyrinth of marine lumber;
and they were already more than half way round the
harbour when, as they were passing close before an
alehouse, the door suddenly opened and let out a gush
of light upon their fleeting figures.
Instantly they stopped, and made believe to be engaged
in earnest conversation.
Three men, one after another, came out of the ale-house,
and the last closed the door behind him. All
three were unsteady upon their feet, as if they had
passed the day in deep potations, and they now stood
wavering in the moonlight, like men who knew not what
they would be after. The tallest of the three
was talking in a loud, lamentable voice.
