But my first crucial battle had been fought with Adam Waggett in the garden at Lyndsey. He had neither the courage nor even the cowardice to gainsay me. After a tedious siege of his sluggish wits, greed for the reward I promised him, the assurance that if we were discovered the guilt should rest on me, and maybe some soupçon of old sake’s sake won him over. The branches of the trees swayed and creaked above us in the sunshine; and at last, looking down on me with a wry face, Adam promised to do my bidding.
Six had but just struck that evening when there came the rap of his knuckles on my bedroom door. He found me impatiently striding up and down in a scintillating bodice and skirts of scarlet, lemon, and silver—as gay and gaudy an object as the waxen Russian Princess I had seen in one of Mrs. Monnerie’s cabinets. My flaxen hair was plaited German-wise, and tied in two thumping pigtails with a green ribbon; I stood and looked at him. He fumblingly folded his hands in front of him as he stood and looked back at me. I was quivering like a flame in a lamp. And never have I been so much flattered as by the silly, stupefied stare on his face.
How I was to be carried to the circus had been one of our most difficult problems. This cunning creature had routed out from some lumber-room in the old house a capacious old cage—now rusty, but stout and solidly made—that must once have housed the aged Chakka.
“There, miss,” he whispered triumphantly; “that’s the ticket, and right to a hinch.”
I confess I winced at his “ticket.” But Adam had cushioned and padded it for me, and had hooded it over with a stout piece of sacking, leaving the ring free. Apart from our furtive preparations, evening quiet pervaded the house. The maids were out sweethearting, he explained. Mrs. French had retired as usual to her own sitting-room; Fortune seemed to be smiling upon me.
“Then, Adam,” I whispered, “the time has come. Jerk me as little as possible; and if questions are asked, you are taking the cage to be mended, you understand? And when we get there, see no one but the man or the woman who spoke to you at the gates.”
“Well, miss, it’s a rum go,” said Adam, eyeing me with a grotesque grimace of anxiety.
I looked up at him from the floor of the cage. “The rummer the go is, Adam, the quicker we ought to be about it.”
He lowered the wiry dome over my head; I bunched in my skirts; and with the twist of a few hooks I was secure. The faint squeak of his boots told me that he had stolen to the door to listen.
“All serene,” he whispered hoarsely through the sacking. I felt myself lifted up and up. We were on our way. Then, like flies, a cloud of misgivings settled upon my mind. As best I could I drove them away, and to give myself confidence began to count. A shrill false whistling broke the silence. Adam was approaching the lodge; a mocking screech of its gates, and we were through. After that, apart from the occasional beat of hoofs or shoes, a country “good night,” or a husky cough of encouragement from Adam, I heard nothing more. The gloom deepened. The heat was oppressive; I became a little seasick, and pressing my mouth to a small slit between the bars, sucked in what fresh air I could.
Midway on our journey Adam climbed over a stile to rest a while, and, pushing back a corner of the sacking, he asked me how I did.
“Fine, Adam,” said I, panting. “We are getting along famously.”
The fields were sweet and dusky. It was a clear evening, and refreshingly cool.
“You may smoke a pipe, Adam, if you wish,” I called softly. And while he puffed, and I listened to the chirping of a cricket, he told me of a young housemaid that was always chaffing and ridiculing him at No. 2. “It may be that she has taken a passing fancy to you,” said I, looking up into the silent oak tree under which we were sitting. “On the other hand, you may deserve it. What is she like, Adam?”
“Black eyebrows,” said Adam. “Shows her teeth when she laughs. But that’s no reason why she should make a fool of a fellow.”
“The real question is, is she a nice modest girl?” said I, and my bangles jangled as I raised my hand to my hair. “Come, Adam, there’s no time to waste; are you ready?”
He grunted, his mind still far away. “She’s a fair sneak,” he said, rapping his pipe-bowl on a stone. And so, up and on.
Time seemed to have ceased to be, in this jolting monotony, unbroken except by an occasional giddying swing of my universe as Adam transferred the cage from hand to hand. Swelteringly hot without, but a little cold within, I was startled by a faraway blare of music. I clutched tight the slender bars; the music ceased, and out of the quiet that followed rose the moaning roar of a wild beast.
My tongue pressed itself against my teeth; the sacking trembled, and a faint luminousness began to creep through its hempen strands. Shouting and screaming, catcalls and laughter swelled near. And now by the medley of smells and voices,
