I made no effort to suppress, followed Mrs. Harris; who, having declared the news, was already waddling back to the next house. She started at sight of me in her train-as she well might, for it was the busiest time of the day; then asked if anything ailed me.
"No," I said. "I want a word with Jennie."
"Do you?" quoth she, looking hard at me. "So, it would seem, do a good many young fellows. She is a nice handful if ever there was one."
"Why?" I stammered.
"Why?" she answered in a tone very sharp for her. "Why, because-but what have you to do with Jennie, young man?"
"Nothing," I said.
"Then have nothing," she answered promptly, and shook her sides at her sharpness. "That is no puzzle! And as it is no more than half-past ten, and I hear your boys rampaging like so many wild Irishmen-suppose you go back to them, young man!"
I obeyed; but whatever effect her warning might have had earlier-and I shrewdly suspect that it would have affected me as much as water affects a duck's back-it came too late; my one desire now being to see the girl, even as my one hope lay in her advice. Nine had struck that evening, however, and night had fallen, and I grown fairly sick with fear, before my efforts were rewarded, and stealing into the garden on a last desperate search-I think for the twentieth time-I came on her standing in the dusk, beside the fence where I had so often met her.
I sprang to her side, relief at my heart, reproaches on my lips; but it was only to recoil at sight of her face, grown hard and old and pinched, and for the moment almost ugly. "Why, child!" I cried, forgetting my own trouble. "What is it?"
She laughed without mirth, looking at me strangely. "What do you suppose?" she said huskily, and I could see that fear was on her. "Do you think that you are the only one in danger?"
"How?" I exclaimed.
"How?" she replied in a tone of mockery. "Why, do you suppose that stockings and shoes are the only things that cost money? Or that vizor masks, and gloves and hoods grow on bushes? Briefly, fool, if you can give me four guineas, I am saved. If not-"
"My God!" I cried, horror-stricken.
"If not," she continued hardily, "you have taught me to read, and that may save my neck. I suppose I shall be sent to the plantations, to be beaten weekly, and work in the sun, and-"
"Four guineas!" I groaned.
"Yes, seven in all!" she answered with a sneer. "Have you got them?"
"No, nor a groat!" I answered, overwhelmed by the discovery that instead of giving help she needed it. "Not a penny!"
"Then it must be got!" she answered fiercely. "It must be got!" and as she repeated the words, she dropped her mocking tone, and spoke with feverish energy. "It must be got, Dick!" and she seized my hands and held them. "It must be, and can be, if you have a spark of spirit, if you are not the poor mean thing I sometimes think you. Listen! Listen! In the old man's room upstairs-the door is locked and double-locked, I have tried it-are sixty guineas, in a bag! Sixty guineas, in a drawer of the old bureau by the bed!"
"It is death," I cried feebly, recoiling from her as I spoke. "It is death! I dare not! I dare not do it!"
"Then we hang! We hang, man!" she answered fiercely. "You and I! Will it be better to hang for a lamb than a sheep? For seven guineas than for sixty?"
"But if we take it, what shall we be the better for it?" I said weakly. "He returns in the morning."
"By the morning, given the money, we shall be a score of miles away!" she answered, flinging her arms round my neck, and hanging on my breast, while her hot breath fanned my cheek. No wonder I felt my brain reel, and my will melt. "Away from here, Dick," she repeated softly. "Away-and together!"
Yet I made an effort to withstand her. "You forget the door," I said. "If the door is locked, and Mrs. Harris sleeps in the next room, how can it be done?"
"Not by the door, but by the window," she replied. "There is a ladder in the second garden from this; and the latch of the window is weak. The old fool indoors sleeps like a hog. By eleven she will be sound. And oh, Dick!" my mistress cried, breaking down on a sudden and snatching my hands to her bosom, "will you see me shamed? Play the man for ten minutes only-for ten minutes only, and by morning we shall be safe, and far from here! And-and together, Dick! Together!"
Was it likely, I ask, was it possible that I should long resist pleading such as this? That holding her in my arms, in the warm summer night, with her hair on my breast, while the moon sailed overhead and a cricket chirped in the wall hard by-was it likely or possible, I say, that I should steel my heart against her; that I should turn from the cup of pleasure, who had tasted as yet so few delights, and drudged and been stinted all my life? Whose appetite had known no daintier relish than the dull round of dumpling and bacon, or at the best salt meat and spinach; and who for sole companionship had been shut in, June days and December nights alike, with a band of mischievous boys, whom the ancients justly called genus improbum. At any rate I did not; to my shame, great or small, according as I shall be harshly or charitably judged-I did not; but with a beating heart and choked voice, I gave my word and left her; and an hour later I crept down the creaking stairs for the last time, guilty and shivering, a bundle in my hand, and found her waiting for me in the old place.
I confess that the flurry of my spirits in this crisis was such as to disturb my judgment; and my passion for my mistress being no longer of the higher kind, these two things may account for the fact that I felt no wonder or repulsion when she explained to me, coolly and in detail, where the bureau stood, and in what part of it lay the money; even adding that I had better bring away a pair of silver candlesticks which I should find in another place. By the time she had made these things clear to me, the favourable moment was come; the lights of the town had long been extinguished, and the house obscuring the moon cast a black shadow on the garden, that greatly seconded our movements. Yet for myself, and though all went well with us, I trembled at the faintest sound, and started if a leaf stirred; nay, to this day I willingly believe that the smallest trifle, a light at a window or a distant voice, would have deterred me from the adventure. But nothing occurred to hinder or alarm; and the darkness cloaking us only too effectually, and my accomplice directing me where to find the ladder, I fetched it, and with her help thrust it over the fence and climbed over after it.
This was a small thing, the worst being to come. The part of the garden under the wall of the house was paved; it was only with the greatest exertion therefore and the utmost care that we could raise the ladder on it without noise; and but for the surprising strength which Jennie showed, I doubt if we should have succeeded, my hands trembled so violently. In the end we raised it, however; the upper part fell lightly beside the second floor casement, and Jennie whispered to me to ascend.
I had gone too far now to retreat, and I obeyed, and had mounted two steps, when I heard distinctly-the sound coming sharp and clear through the night-the shod hoof of a horse paw the ground, apparently in the road beyond the house. Scared by such a sound at such a time, I slid rapidly down into Jennie's arms. "Hush!" I cried. "Did you hear that? There is someone there!"
But angered by my sudden descent which had come near to knocking her down, she whispered in a rage that I was either the biggest fool or the poorest craven in the world. "Go up! Go up!" she continued fiercely, almost striking me in her excitement. "There are sixty guineas awaiting us up there-sixty guineas, man, and you budge, because a horse stirs."
"But what is it doing there?" I remonstrated. "A horse, Jennie-at this time of night!"
"God knows!" she answered. "What is it to us?"
Still I lingered a moment, unwilling to ascend; but hearing nothing, and thinking I might have been mistaken, I was ashamed to hang back longer, and I went up, though my legs trembled under me, and a bird darting suddenly out of the ivy glued me to the ladder by both hands, with the sweat standing out on my face. Alone, nothing on earth would have persuaded me to it; but with Jennie below I dared not flinch, and the latch of the window proving as weak as she had described it, in a moment the lattice swung open and I climbed over the sill.
Feeling the floor with my feet, I stood an instant in the dark stuffy room, and listened. It smelled strongly of herbs,