Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/136

 *fore us with a degree of humility and pride that looked mightily becoming.

"Madam," he says, with a boy's simplicity, which was a great contrast to what I had been used to, "I shall not try to thank you, because I'm not good at words. But wait, madam, only wait, and you shall not lack for gratitude."

It was most amusing to witness this frail and tender lad go striding up and down the chamber, looking fierce as any giant-killer. The vanity of boys is a very fearful thing.

"I am afraid I shall, poor Master Jack," says I next moment in a falling voice, "for I am here to tell you that the soldiers are in this house; that as soon as they have taken a little rest they will search it from the bottom to the top, and leave not a stick unturned; and that as matters stand there is not a power on earth that now can save you."

He took this cruel news with both fortitude and courage.

"Well, then, madam," says he, walking up and down the room again, but this time with his face unpleasant, "if it is not to be that I shall give you gratitude, at least I think I can show you what a good death is. For at the worst it will be a better one than Tyburn Tree."

"Then you are not afraid of death?" I asked.

I thought I saw his white face grow more pallid at the question, but his answer was: "No, oh no! At least—do you suppose, madam, that I would tell you if I were?"