a little heavy-eyed or so; all I ask for is a towel and cold water." So saying, with many a screw of the lips, and many a hiccough, he made an effort to rise, but tumbled back—with an expression of the most heavenly benevolence—into his chair, knocking his head with an audible sound upon the back of it, and at the same time overturning one of the candles.
"Pull the bell, dearly beloved," said he, with a smile and a hiccough—"a basin of water and a towel."
"Devil broil you, for a drunken beast," said Chancey, seriously alarmed at the condition of the couple-beggar; "he'll never be fit for his work to-night."
"Fifteen minutes, neither more nor less," hiccoughed the divine, with the same celestial smile—"towel, basin of cold water, and fifteen minutes."
Chancey did procure the cold water and a napkin, which, being laid before the clergyman, he proceeded with much deliberation, while various expressions of stupendous solemnity and beaming benevolence flitted in beautiful alternations across his expressive countenance, to prepare them for use. He doffed his wig, and first bathing his head, face, and temples completely in the cool liquid, saturated the towel likewise therein, and wound it round his shorn head in the fashion of a Turkish turban; having accomplished which feat, he leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and became, to all intents and purposes, for the time being, stone dead.
Leaving his reverend companion undisturbed to the operation of his own hydropathic treatment, Gordon Chancey drew his seat near to the fire, and filling his pipe anew with tobacco, leaned back in the chair, crossed his legs, and more than half closing his eyes, prepared himself luxuriously for what he called "a raal elegant draw of particular pigtail."
Chapter LVIII.
The Signal
Flora Guy peeped eagerly through the keyhole of her lady's chamber into the little apartment in which the two boon companions were seated. After reconnoitring for a very long time, she moved lightly to her mistress's side, and said, in a low but distinct tone,—
"Now, my lady, you must get up and rouse yourself—for God's sake, mistress dear, shake off the heaviness that's over you, and we have a chance left still."
"Are they not in the next room to us?" inquired Mary.
"Yes, my lady," replied the maid, "but the parson gentleman is drunk or asleep, and Mr. Chancey is there alone—and—and has the four keys beside him on the table; don't be frightened, my lady, do you stay quite quiet, and I'll go into the room."
Mary Ashwoode made no answer, but pressed the poor girl's hand in her cold fingers, and without moving, almost without breathing, awaited the result. Flora Guy, meanwhile, opened the door, and passed into the outer apartment, assuming, as she did so, an air of easy and careless indifference. Chancey turned as she entered the room, fanning the smoke of his tobacco pipe aside with his hand, and eying her with a jealous glance.
"Well, my little girl," said he, "and what makes you leave your young lady, my dear?"
"An' is a body never to get an instant minute to themselves?" rejoined she, with an indignant toss of her head; "why then, I tell you what it is, Mr. Chancey, I'm tired to death, so I am, sitting in that little room the whole blessed day, and not a word, good or bad, will the young lady say—she's gone stupid like."
"Is the door locked?" said Chancey, suspiciously, and at the same time rising and approaching the young lady's chamber.
As he did so, Flora Guy, availing herself instantly of this averted position, snatched up, without waiting to choose, one of the four great keys which lay upon the table, and replaced it dexterously with that which she had but a short time before shown to her mistress; in doing so, however, spite of all her caution, a slight clank was audible.
"Well, is it locked?" inquired the damsel, hoping by the loud tone in which she uttered the question to drown the suspicious sounds which threatened her schemes with instant detection.
"Yes, it is locked," rejoined Chancey, glancing quickly at the keys; "but what do you want there? move off from my place, will you?" and shambling to the table he hastily gathered the four keys in his grasp, and thrust them into his deep coat pocket.
"You're in a mighty quare humour, so you are, Mr. Chancey," said the girl, affecting a saucy tone, through which, had his ear been listening for the sound, he might have detected the quaver of extreme agitation, "you usedn't to be so cross by no means at the Columbkil, but mighty pleasant, so you used."
"Well, my little girl," said Chancey, whose suspicions were now effectually quieted, "I declare to God you're the first that ever said I was bad tempered, so you are—will you have something to drink?"
"What have you there, Mr. Chancey?" inquired she.
"This is brandy, my little girl, and this is sack, dear," rejoined Chancey, "both of them elegant; you must have whichever you like—which will you choose, dear?"
"Well, then, I'll have a little drop of the sack, mulled, I thank you, Mr. Chancey," replied she.
"There's nothing to mull it in here, my little girl," objected the barrister.
"Oh, but I'll get it in a minute though," replied she, "I'll run down for a saucepan."
"Well, dear, run away," replied he, "but don't be long, for Miss Ashwoode might want you, my little girl, and it wouldn't do if you were out of the way, you know."
Without waiting to hear the end of this charge, Flora Guy ran down the staircase, and speedily returned with the utensil required.
"Maybe I'd better go in for a minute first, and see if she wants me," suggested the girl.
"Very well, my dear," replied Chancey.
And accordingly, she turned the key in the chamber door, closed it again, and stood by the young lady's side; such was her agitation that for three or four seconds she could not speak.
"My lady," at length she said, "I have one of the keys—when I go in next I'll leave your room door unlocked, only closed just, and no more—the lobby door is ajar—I left it that way this very minute; and when you hear me saying 'the sack's upset!'—do you open your door, and cross the room as quick as light, and out on the lobby, and stop by the stairs, my lady, and I'll follow you as fast as I can. Here, my lady," continued the poor girl, bringing a small box from her mistress's toilet; "your rings, my lady—they'll be wanted—mind, your rings, my lady—there is the little case, keep it in your pocket; if we escape, my lady, they'll be wanted—mind, Mr. Chancey has ears like needle points. Keep up your heart, my lady, and in the name of God we'll try this chance."
"Into His hands I commit myself," said the young lady, with a tone and air of more firmness and energy than she had shown for days; "my heart is strengthened, my courage comes again—oh, thank God, I am equal to this dreadful hour."
Flora Guy made a gesture of silence, and then, opening the door briskly, and shutting it again with an ostentatious noise, and drawing the key from the lock, she crossed the room to where Chancey, who had watched her entrance, was sitting.
"Well, my dear," said he, "how is that delicate young lady in there?"
"Why, she's raythur bad, I'm afraid," rejoined the girl; "she's the whole day long in a sort of a heavy dulness like—she don't seem to mind anything."
"So much the better, my dear," said Chancey, "she'll be the less inclined to gad, or to be troublesome—come, mix the spices and the sugar, dear, and settle the liquor in the saucepan—you want some refreshment, so you do, for I declare to God, I never saw anyone so pale in all my life as you are this minute."
"I'll not be long so," said the girl, affecting a tone of briskness, and proceeding to mingle the ingredients in the little saucepan, "for I think if I was dead itself, let alone a little bit tired, a cup of mulled sack would cheer me up again."
So saying, she placed the little saucepan on the bar.