CHAPTER VII
CAPTAIN ANTHONY CLYNE

Mr. Bishop of Bow Street alone watched the clerk's pen with a look of doubt. He had his own views about the girl. But he did not interfere, and his discontent with the posture of affairs was only made clear when a knock came at the door. Then he was at the door, and had raised the latch before those who were nearest could open.

"Have you got him?" he asked eagerly. And he thrust his head into the passage.

Even Henrietta turned to catch the answer, her lips parting. Her breath seemed to stop. The clerk held his pen. The magistrate by a gesture exacted silence.

"No, but-"

"No?" the runner cried in chagrin.

"No!" The voice sounded something peremptory. "Certainly not. But I want to see-ahem! – yes, Mr. Hornyold. At once!"

Henrietta, at the first word of the answer, had turned again. She had turned so far that she now had her back full to the door, and her face to the farthest corner. But it was not the same Henrietta, nor the same face. She sat rigid, stiff, turned to stone; she was scarlet from hair to neck-ribbon. Her very eyes burned, her shoulders burned. And her eyes were wild with insupportable shame. To be found thus! To be found thus, and by him! Better, far better the gaol, and all it meant!

Meanwhile the magistrate, after a brief demur and a little whispering and the appearance of a paper with a name on it, rose. He went out. A moment later his clerk was summoned, and he went out. Bishop had gone out first of all. Those who were left and who had nothing better to do than to stare at the girl's back, whispered together, or bade one another listen and hear what was afoot outside. Presently these were joined by one or two of the boldest in the passage, who muttered hurriedly what they knew, or sought information, or stared with double power at the girl's back. But Henrietta sat motionless, with the same hot blush on her cheeks and the same misery in her eyes.

Presently Mrs. Gilson was summoned, and she went out. The others, freed from the constraint of her presence, talked a little louder and a little more freely. And wonder grew. The two village constables, who remained and who felt themselves responsible, looked important, and one cried "Silence" a time or two, as if the court were sitting. The other explained the law, of which he knew as much as a Swedish turnip, on the subject of treason felony. But mixing it up with the Habeas Corpus which was then suspended, he was tripped up by a neighbour before he could reach the minutiæ of the punishment. Which otherwise must have had much interest for the prisoner.

At length the door opened, the other constable cried, "Silence! Silence in the court!" And there entered-the landlady.

The surprise of the little knot of people at the back of the room was great but short-lived.

Mrs. Gilson turned about and surveyed them with her arms akimbo and her lower lip thrust out. "You can all just go!" she said. "And the sooner the better! And if ever I catch you" – to the more successful of the constables, on whose feet her eye had that moment alighted-"up my stairs with those dirty clogs, Peter Harrison, I'll clout you! Now, off you go! Do you think I keep carpets for loons like you?"

"But-the prisoner?" gasped Peter, clutching at his fast-departing glory. "The prisoner, missus?"

"The goose!" the landlady retorted with indescribable scorn. "Go you down and see what the other ganders think of it. And leave me to mind my business! I'll see to the prisoner." And she saw them all out and closed the door.

When the room was clear she tapped Henrietta on the shoulder. "There's no gaol for you," she said bluntly. "Though it is not yourself you've got to thank for it. They've put you in my charge and you're to stay here, and I'm to answer for you. So you'll just say straight out if you'll stay, or if you'll run."

Had the girl burst into tears the landlady had found it reasonable. Instead, "Where is he?" Henrietta whispered. She did not even turn her head.

"Didn't you hear," Mrs. Gilson retorted, "that he had not been taken?"

"I mean-I mean-"

"Ah!" Mrs. Gilson exclaimed, a little enlightened. "You mean the gentleman that was here, and spoke for you? Yes, you are right, it's him you've to thank. Well, he's gone to Whitehaven, but he'll see you tomorrow."

Henrietta sighed.

"In the meantime," Mrs. Gilson continued, "you'll give me your word you'll not run. Gilson is bound for you in fifty pounds to show you when you're wanted. And as fifty pounds is fifty pounds, and a mint of money, I'd as soon turn the key on you as not. Girls that run once, run easy," the landlady added severely.

"I will not run away," Henrietta said meekly-more meekly perhaps than she had ever spoken in her life. "And-and I am much obliged to you, and thankful to you," in a very small voice. "Will you please to let me go to my room, and you can lock me in?"

She had risen from her seat, and though she did not turn to the landlady, she stole, shamed and askance, a look at her. Her lip trembled, her head hung. And Mrs. Gilson, on her side, seemed for a moment on the verge of some unwonted demonstration; she stood awkward and large, and perhaps from sheer clumsiness avoided even while she appeared to invite the other's look. But nothing happened until the two passed out, Henrietta first, like a prisoner, and Mrs. Gilson stiffly following.

Then there were half a dozen persons waiting to stare in the passage, and the way Mrs. Gilson's tongue fell loose was a warning. In two seconds, only one held her ground: the same dark girl with the gipsy-like features whose mocking smile had annoyed Henrietta as she dressed that morning. Ah, me! what ages ago that morning seemed!

To judge from Mrs. Gilson's indignation, this girl was the last who should have stood.

"Don't you black-look me!" the landlady cried. "But pack! D'you hear, impudence, pack! Or not one drop of milk do I take from your old skinflint of a father! And he'll drub you finely, if he's not too old and silly-till you smile on the other side of your face! I'd like to know what's taken you to-day to push yourself among your betters!"

"No harm," the girl muttered. She had retreated, scowling, half-way down the stairs.

"And no good, either!" the landlady retorted. "Get you gone, or I'll make your ears ring after another fashion!"

Henrietta heard no more. She had shrunk from the uproar and fled quickly to her room. With a bursting heart and a new humility she drew the key from the wards of the lock and set it on the outside, hoping-though the hope was slender-to avoid further words with the landlady. The hope came nearer fulfilment, however, than she expected; for Mrs. Gilson, after panting upstairs, only cried through the door that she would send her up supper, and then went down again-perhaps with a view to catching Bess Hinkson in a fresh trespass.

Bess was gone, however. But adventures are for the brave, and not ten minutes passed before the landlady was at issue with a fresh adversary. She found the coach-office full, so full that it overflowed into the hall. Modest Ann, called this way and that, had need of four hands to meet the demands made upon her; so furious were the calls for the lemons and rum and Old Geneva, the grateful perfume of which greeted Mrs. Gilson as she descended. Alas, something else greeted her: and that was a voice, never a favourite with her, but now raised in accents particularly distasteful. Tyson, the Troutbeck apothecary-a flashy, hard-faced young man in pepper-and-salt, and Bedford cords-had seized the command and the ear of the company in the coach-office, and was roasting Long Tom Gilson upon his own hearth.

"Not know who she is?" he was saying in the bullying tone which made him hated of the pauper class. "You don't ask me to believe that, Tom? Come! Come!"

"It's what I say," Gilson answered.

He sat opposite the other, his hands on his knees, his face red and sulky. He did not like to be baited.

"And you go bail for her?" Tyson cried. "You have gone bail for her?"

"Well?"

"And don't know her name?"

"Well-no."

The doctor sat back in his chair, his glass in his hand, and looked round for approbation.

"Well, gentlemen," he said, "what do you think of that for a dalesman?"

"Well, it wasn't long-headed, Tom," said one unwillingly. "Not to call long-headed, so to speak," with north-country caution. "I'd not go bail myself, not for nobody I'd not know."

"No," several agreed. "No, no!"

"No, but-"

"But what, Tom, what?" the doctor asked, waiting in his positive fashion for the other to plunge deeper into the mire.

"Captain Clyne, that I do know," Gilson continued, "it was he said 'Do it!' And he said something to the Rector, I don't doubt, for he was agreeable."

"But he did not go bail for her?" the apothecary suggested maliciously.

"No," Tom answered, breathing hard. "But for reason she was not there, but here. Anyway," he continued, somewhat anxious to shift the subject, "he said it and I done it, and I'd do it again for Captain Clyne. I tell you he's not a man as it's easy to say 'No' to, Mr. Tyson. As these Radicals i' Lancashire ha' found out, 'od rot 'em! He's that active among 'em, he's never a letter, I'm told, but has a coffin drawn on it, and yeomanry in his house down beyond both day and night, I hear!"

"I heard," said one, "in Cartmel market, he was to be married next week."

"Ay," said the doctor jocosely, "but not to the young lady as Tom is bail for! I tell you, Tom, he's been making a fool of you just to keep this bit of evidence against the Radicals in his hands."

"Why not send her to Appleby gaol, then?" Tom retorted, with a fair show of sense.

"Because he knows you'll cosset her here, and he thinks to loose her tongue that way! They can gaol her after, if this don't answer."

"Oh, indeed!"

"Ay, while you run the risk! If it's not that, what's he doing here?"

"Why should he not be here?" Gilson asked slowly. "Hasn't he the old house in Furness, not two miles from Newby Bridge! And his mother a Furness woman. I do hear that the boy's to be brought there for safety till the shires are quieter. And maybe it's that brings Captain Anthony here."

"But what has that to do with the young woman you're going bail for?" the doctor retorted. "Go bail, Tom, for a wench you don't know, and that'll jump the moon one of these fine nights! I tell you, man, I never heard the like! Never! Go bail for a girl you don't know!"

"And I tell you," cried a voice that made the glasses ring, "I have heard the like! And I'll give you the man, my lad!" And Mrs. Gilson, putting aside the two who blocked the doorway, confronted the offending Tyson with a look comparable only to that of Dr. Keats of Eaton when he rolled up his sleeves. "I'll give you the name, my lad!" she repeated.

"Well," the doctor answered, though he was manifestly taken aback, "you must confess, Mrs. Gilson-"

"Nay, I'll confess nothing!" the landlady retorted. "What need, when you're the man? Not give bail for a woman you don't know? Much you knew of Madge Peters when you made her your wife! And wasn't that going bail for her? Ay, and bail that you'll find it hard to get out of, my man, though you may wish to! For the matter of that, it's small blame to her, whatever comes of it!" Mrs. Gilson continued, setting her arms akimbo. "If all I hear of your goings-on is true! What do you think she's doing, ill and sick at home, while you're hanging about old Hinkson's? Ay, you may look black, but tell me what Bess Hinkson's doing about my place all this day? I never saw her here twice in a day in all my life before, and-"

"What do you mean?" Tyson cried violently. To hear a thing which he thought no one suspected brought up thus before a roomful of men! He looked black as thunder at his accuser.

"I mean no harm of your wife," the terrible landlady answered; something-perhaps this roasting of her husband on his own hearth-had roused her beyond the ordinary. "None, my gentleman, and I know none. But if you want no harm said of her, show yourself a bit less at Hinkson's. And a bit less in my house. And a bit more in your own! And the harm will be less likely to happen!"

"I'll never cross your doorstep again!" Tyson roared.

And stumbling to his feet he cast off one or two who in their well meaning would have stayed him. He made for the door. But he was not to escape without further collision. On the threshold he ran plump against a person who was entering, cursed the newcomer heartily, and without a look pushed violently by him and was gone.

He neither cared nor saw who it was whom he had jostled. But the company saw, and some rose to their feet in consternation, while others, carried their hands to their heads. There was an involuntary movement of respect which the new comer acknowledged by touching his hat. He had the air of one who knew how to behave to his inferiors; but the air, also, of one who never forgot that they were his inferiors.

"Your friend seems in a hurry," he said. His face was not a face that easily betrayed emotion, but he looked tired.

"Beg your honour's pardon, I am sure," Gilson answered. "Something's put him out, and he did not see you, sir."

Mrs. Gilson muttered that a pig could have seen. But her words were lost in the respectful murmur which made the company sharers in the landlord's apology.

Not that for the most part they knew the strange gentleman. But there is a habit of authority which once gained becomes a part of the man. And Anthony Clyne had this. He retained wherever he went some shadow of the quarter-deck manner. He had served under Nelson, and under Exmouth; but he had resisted, as a glance at his neat, trim figure proved, that coarsening influence which spoiled for Pall Mall too many of the sea-dogs of the great war. Like his famous leader, he had left an arm in the cockpit; and the empty sleeve which he wore pinned to the lappel of his coat added, if possible, to the dignity of the upright carriage and the lean, shaven face. The death of his elder brother had given him the family place, a seat in the House, a chair at White's, and an income handsome for his day. And he looked all this and more; so that such a company as now eyed him with respect judged him a very perfect gentleman, if a little distant.

But from Clyne Old Hall, where he lived, he could see on the horizon the smoke of toiling cities; and in those cities there were hundreds who hated his cold proud face, and thousands who cursed his name. Not that he was a bad man or a tyrant, or himself ground the faces of the poor. But discipline was his watchword, and reform his bugbear. To palter with reform, to listen to a word about the rights of the masses, was to his mind to parley with anarchy. That governors and governed could be the same appeared to his mind as absurd as that His Majesty's ships could be commanded from the forecastle. All for the people and nothing by the people was his political maxim, and one amply meeting, as he believed, all eventualities. Lately he had had it carved on a mantel-piece, and the prattle of his only child, as the club-footed boy spelled it out syllable by syllable, was music to his ears.

Whoever wavered, therefore, whoever gave to the violence of those times, he stood firm. And he made others stand. It was his honest belief that a little timely severity-in other words, a whiff of grape-shot-would have nipped the French Revolution in the bud; and while he owned that the lower orders were suffering and times were bad, that bread was dear and work wanting, he was for quelling the least disorder with the utmost rigour of the law.

Such was the man who accepted with a curt nod Tom Gilson's apology. Then "Have you a room ready?" he asked.

"The fire is still burning in Mr. Rogers's room," Mrs. Gilson answered, smoothing at once her apron and her brow. "And it'll not be used again to-night. But I thought that you had gone on, sir, to Whitehaven."

"I shall go on to-morrow," he answered, frowning slightly.

"I'll show your honour the way," Tom Gilson said.

"Very good," he answered. "And dinner, ma'am, as soon as possible."

"To be sure, sir." And "This way, your honour." And taking two candles Gilson went out before Captain Clyne, and with greater ceremony than would be used in these days, lighted him along the passage and up the stairs to Mr. Rogers's room in the south wing.

The fire had sunk somewhat low, but the room which had witnessed so many emotions in the last twenty-four hours made no sign. The table had been cleared. The glass fronts of the cupboards shone dully; only a chair or two stood here or there out of place. That was all. But had Henrietta, when she descended to breakfast that morning, foreseen who would fill her chair before night, who would dine at her table and brood with stern unseeing eyes on the black-framed prints, for whom the pale-faced clock would tick off depressing seconds, what-what would she have thought? And how would she have faced her future?