Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/87

 for the name of me, prime agent and offender, was not allowed to once appear; nor were the inconvenient details set down at any length, but in the sum it said that the whole of the responsibility rested with my papa, the Earl, and he had affixed the peculiar scrawl that was his signature upon this preposterous indictment. The familiar way in which this was irresolutely writ, in his trembling, old, and gouty hand, affected me most strangely. There seemed a sort of nobility about the behaviour of this old barbarian; and a strain of the hero in a man delights me more than anything, and generally fills me with a sort of emulation.

"This means the Tower!" says I, brandishing the paper.

"It does," my lord says, inclined to be amused at my impetuosity.

"Then, sir," says I, "I will be mentioned in it fully as is my due. I did the deed, and I will take the recompense. If its reward is to be the Tower, I will claim it as my own. Therefore erase your name from this document, my lord, and insert the name of her who hath duly earned her place there."

"Nay, Bab, not so," says he. "I gave the soldiers of the King my hospitality, and now they must give me his."

"Which they never shall," cries I, with my cheeks a-flaming. "I will go and see the Captain and insist upon his keeping to the truth. Oh, these politics! 'Tis well said that there is no such thing as rectitude in politics. But in the meantime I will