It was the girl, Lilly Dogger, who stood there looking about her under the canopy of tall trees.
“Hoot, ma’am, ’tis only the child Lilly Dogger—and well pleased I am, for I was thinkin’ this minute how I could get her to me quietly. Here, Lilly—come here, ye goose-cap—d’ye see me?”
So, closing the door behind her, the girl approached with eyes very wide, and a wonderfully solemn countenance. She had been roused and scared by the sounds which had alarmed the house, huddled on her clothes, and seeing Mrs. Tarnley’s figure cross the window, had followed in a tremor.
Mrs. Tarnley walked a few steps towards her, and beckoning with her lean finger, the girl drew near.
“Ye’ll have to go over Cressley Common, girl, to Wykeford. Ye know Wykeford?”
“Yes, please ’m.”
“Well, ye must go through the village, and call up Mark Topham. Ye know Mark Topham’s house with the green door, by the bridge-end?”
“Yes please, Mrs. Tarnley, ma’am.”
“And say he’ll be wanted down here at the Grange—for murder mind—and go ye on to Mr. Rodney at t’other side o’ the river. Squire Rodney of Wrydell. Ye know that house, too?”
“Yes, ’m,” said the girl, with eyes momentarily distending, and face of blanker consternation.
“And ye’ll tell Mr. Rodney there’s been bad work down here, and murder all but done, and say ye’ve told Mark Topham, the constable, and that it is hoped he’ll come over himself to make out the writin’s and send away the prisoner as should go. We being chiefly women here, and having to keep Tom Clinton at home to mind the prisoner—ye understand—and keep all safe, having little other protection. Now run in, lass, and clap your bonnet on, and away wi’ ye; and get ye there as fast as your legs will carry ye, and take your time comin’ back; and ye may get a lift, for they’ll not be walkin’, and you’re like to get your bit o’ breakfast down at Wrydell; but if ye shouln’t, here’s tuppence, and buy yourself a good bit o’ bread in the town. Now, ye understand?”
“Yes, ’m, please.”
“And ye’ll not be makin’ mistakes, mind?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then do as I bid ye, and off ye go,” said Mrs. Tarnley, despatching her with a peremptory gesture.
So with a quaking heart, not knowing what dangers might still be lurking there, Lilly Dogger ran into the yard on her way to her bonnet, and peeped through the kitchen window, but saw nothing there in the pale gray light but “still life.”
With a timid finger she lifted the latch, and stole into the familiar passage as if she were exploring a haunted house. She had quaked in her bed as thin and far away the shrill sounds of terror had penetrated through walls and passages to her bedroom. She had murmured “Lord bless us!” at intervals, and listened, chilled with a sense of danger—associated in her imagination with the stranger who had visited her room and frighted away her slumbers. And she had jumped out of bed, and thrown on her clothes in panic, blessed herself, and pinned and tied strings, and listened, and blessed herself again; and seeing Mrs. Tarnley cross the window accompanied by someone else whom she did not then recognise, and fearing to remain thus deserted in the house more than the risk of being blown up by Mrs. Tarnley, she had followed that grim protectress.
Now, as on tiptoe she recrossed the kitchen with her straw bonnet in her hand she heard on a sudden cries of fury, and words, as doors opened and shut, reached her that excited her horror and piqued her curiosity.
She hastened, however, to leave the house, and again approached and passed by the lady and Mildred Tarnley, having tied her bonnet under her chin, and obeying Mildred’s impatient beckon, and—
“Run, lass, run. Stir your stumps, will ye?”
She started at a pace that promised soon to see her across Cressley Common.
Old Mildred saw this with comfort. She knew that broad-shouldered, brown-eyed lass for a shrewd and accurate messenger, and seeing how dangerous and complicated things were growing, she was glad that fortune had opened so short and sharp a way of getting rid of the troubler of their peace.
“Come in, ma’am, ye’ll catch your death o’ cold here. All’s quiet by this time, and I’ll make the kitchen safe against the world; and Mr. Charles is in the house, and Tom Clinton up, and all safe—and who cares a rush for that blind old cat? Not I for one. She’ll come no nonsense over Mildred Tarnley in her own kitchen, while there’s a poker to rap her ower the pate. Hoot! one old blind limmer; I’d tackle six o’ her sort, old as I am, and tumble ’em one after t’other into the Brawl. Never ye trouble your head about that, ma’am, and I’ll bolt the door on the passage, and the scullery door likewise, and lock ’em if ye like; and we’ll get down old Dulcibella to sit wi’ ye, and ye’ll be a deal less like to see that beast in the kitchen than here. There’s Miss Crane,” by which title she indicated old Dulcibella, “a lookin’ out o’ her window. Ho! Miss Crane—will ye please, Miss Crane, come down and stay a bit wi’ your mistress?”
“Thank God!—is she down there?” exclaimed she.
“Come down, ma’am, please; she’s quite well, and she’ll be glad to see ye.”
Old Dulcibella’s head disappeared from the window promptly.
“Now, ma’am, she’ll be down, and when she comes—for ye’d like to ha’ someone by ye—I’ll go in and make the kitchen door fast.”
“And won’t you search it well, Mrs. Tarnley, and the inner room, that we may be certain no one is hid there? Pray do—may I rely on you—won’t you promise?”
“There’s nothin’ there, that I promise ye.”
“But, oh! pray do,” urged Alice.
“I will, ma’am, just to quiet ye. Ye need not fear, I’ll leave her no chance, and she’ll soon
