The Splendid Spur<br />Being Memoirs of the Adventures of Mr. John Marvel, a Servant of His Late Maj by Arthur Quiller-Couch (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📖

kept silence; and the Colonel in return would tell me nothing of what had befallen Delia.

One fine, frosty morning, then, when I had lain in this distress just four weeks, the door of my cell open'd, and there appear'd a young woman, not uncomely, bringing in my bread and water. She was the jailer's daughter, and wore a heavy bunch of keys at her girdle.

“Oh, good morning!” said I: for till now her father only had visited me, and this was a welcome change.

Instead of answering cheerfully (as I look'd for), she gave a little nod of the head, rather sorrowful, and answered:—

“Father's abed with the ague.”

“Now you cannot expect me to be sorry.”

“Nay,” she said; and I caught her looking at me with something like compassion in her blue eyes, which mov'd me to cry out suddenly—-

“I think you are woman enough to like a pair of lovers.”

“Oh, aye: but where's t'other half of the pair?”

“You're right. The young gentlewoman that was brought hither with me—I know not if she loves me: but this I do know—I would give my hand to learn her whereabouts, and how she fares.”

“Better eat thy loaf,” put in the girl very suddenly, setting down the plate and pitcher.

'Twas odd, but I seem'd to hear a sob in her voice. However, her back was toward me as I glanc'd up. And next moment she was gone, locking the iron door behind her.

I turn'd from my breakfast with a sigh, having for the moment tasted the hope to hear something of Delia. But in a while, feeling hungry, I pick'd up the loaf beside me, and broke it in two.

To my amaze, out dropp'd something that jingled on the stone floor.

'Twas a small file: and examining the loaf again, I found a clasp-knife also, and a strip of paper, neatly folded, hidden in the bread.

“Deare Jack,

“Colonel Essex, finding no good come of his interrogatories, hath set me at large; tho' I continue under his eye, to wit, with a dowager of his acquaintance, a Mistress Finch. Wee dwell in a private house midway down St. Thomas his street, in Redcliffe: and she hath put a dismal dress upon me (Jack, 'tis hideous), but otherwise uses me not ill. But take care of thyself, my deare friend: for tho' the Colonel be a gentilman, he is press'd by them about him, and at our last interview I noted a mischief in his eye. Canst use this file?—(but take care: all the gates I saw guarded with troopers to-day.) This by one who hath been my friend: for whose sake tear the paper up. And beleeve your cordial, loving comrade

“D. K.”

After reading this a dozen times, till I had it by heart, I tore the letter into small pieces and hid them in my pocket. This done, I felt lighter-hearted than for many a day, and (rather for employment than with any farther view) began lazily to rub away at my window bar. The file work'd well. By noon the bar was half sever'd, and I broke off to whistle a tune. 'Twas—-

“Vivre en tout cas, C'est le grand soulas—”

and I broke off to hear the key turning in my lock.

The jailer's daughter enter'd with my second meal. Her eyes were red with weeping.

Said I, “Does your father beat you?”

“He has, before now,” she replied: “but not to-day.”

“Then why do you weep?”

“Not for that.”

“For what then?”

“For you—oh, dear, dear! How shall I tell it? They are going to—to—-” She sat down on the chair, and sobb'd in her apron.

“What is't they are going to do?”

“To—to—h-hang you.”

“The devil! When?”

“Tut-tut-to-morrow mo-horning!”

I went suddenly very cold all over. There was silence for a moment, and then I heard the noise of some one dropping a plank in the courtyard below.

“What's that?”

“The gug-gug—-”

“Gallows?”

She nodded.

“You are but a weak girl,” said I, meditating.

“Aye: but there's a dozen troopers on the landing below.”

“Then, my dear, you must lock me up,” I decided gloomily, and fell to whistling——

“Vivre en tout cas, C'est le grand soulas—”

A workman's hammer in the court below chim'd in, beating out the tune, and driving the moral home. I heard a low sob behind me. The jailer's daughter was going.

“Lend me your bodkin, my dear, for a memento.”

She pull'd it out and gave it to me.

“Thank you, and now good-bye! Stop: here's a kiss to take to my dear mistress. They shan't hang me, my dear.”

The girl went out, sobbing, and lock'd the door after her.

I sat down for a while, feeling doleful. For I found myself extremely young to be hang'd. But soon the whang—whang! of the hammer below rous'd me. “Come,” I thought, “I'll see what that rascal is doing, at any rate,” and pulling the file from my pocket, began to attack the window bar with a will. I had no need for silence, at this great height above the ground: and besides, the hammering continued lustily.

Daylight was closing as I finish'd my task and, pulling the two pieces of the bar aside, thrust my head out at the window.

Directly under me, and about twenty feet from the ground, I saw a beam projecting, about six feet long, over a sort of doorway in the wall. Under this beam, on a ladder, was a carpenter fellow at work, fortifying it with two supporting timbers that rested on the sill of the doorway. He was merry enough over the job, and paused every now and again to fling a remark to a little group of soldiers that stood idling below, where the fellow's workbag and a great coil of rope rested by the ladder's foot.

“Reckon, Sammy,” said one, pulling a long tobacco pipe from his mouth and spitting, “'tis a long while since thy last job o' the sort.”

“Aye, lad: terrible disrepair this place has fall'n into. But send us a cheerful heart, say I! Instead o' the viper an' owl, shall henceforward be hangings of men an' all manner o' diversion.”

I kept my head out of sight and listen'd.