Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/464

 "I'm sure," said she, "I wouldn't have taken the liberty of coming to trouble your honour, but I thought as you would like to know, Sir Marmaduke, being as it concerns Sir George Hamilton, who's aunt's landlord, you know, Sir Marmaduke, and his sweet lady; and if they were to come for to be taken and carried to London town with their feet tied under their horses' bellies, Sir Marmaduke, why whatever would become of us all?"

The picture that Alice conjured up was too much for her, and she dried her tears on her apron.

Sir Marmaduke opened his eyes wider than he had done since he closed them for his afternoon nap. "Sir George Hamilton!" he repeated, in great astonishment; "how can he be implicated? What d'ye mean, my dear? Dry your eyes, there's a good girl, and tell your story from the beginning."

She had recovered her composure now, and made her statement lucidly and without reserve. She detailed the whole circumstances of her lover's dispute with Captain Bold, and the latter's threats, from which she gathered, reasonably enough, that another Jacobite rising was imminent, in which their party were to be successful, whereby the loyal subjects of King George, including the Hamiltons, Slap-Jack, her aunt, and herself, were to be ruined, and utterly put to confusion. She urged Sir Marmaduke to lay his hands at once on the conspirators within reach. Three of them, she said, would be together at the "Hamilton Arms" that very evening. She did not suppose two of the gentlemen would make much resistance, as they seemed to be priests; and fighting, she thought, could not be their trade; while as for the red-nosed captain, with his bay mare, though he talked very big, and said he had served in every country in Europe, why, she would not be afraid to promise that cook and herself could do his business, for that matter, with a couple of brooms and a slop-pail.

Sir Marmaduke laughed, but he was listening very attentively now, altogether changed from the self-indulgent slumberer of half an hour ago. As she continued her story his interest became more and more excited, the expression of his face cleared from lazy indifference into shrewd, penetrating common sense, and denoted the im