Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/97

 *turbed the almost tragic hush, and assailed my ears so horridly that I hastily withdrew them and shut the window down. The poor lad's pursuers were shouting and holloaing from a distant meadow. In half an hour at most they must run the wretch to earth, for they were horsed, and he was not; besides, his painful gait told how nearly he was beaten.

They say that the deeds of women are the fruit of sentiment, and after this strange night I, for one, will not dispute with the doctors on that theory. There was no particular reason why I should give a second thought to the fate of this hunted rebel, this baker's son, this proletariat. Nay, the sooner he was retaken the better for myself and my papa. Yet at three of the clock that snowy morning I did not review his end with such a cold, complacent heart. His affairs seemed very much my own. Once when I had played the friend to him his brave eyes had delighted and inspired me. No, I would not sit down tamely and let him perish. Why should I—I whose spirit was adventurous?

Therefore, my determination taken, I wisely put the lamp out, that its brightness might not attract attention from those enemies scouring the fields, then proceeded silently but swiftly to get into my clothes. Never was I drest less carefully, but haste meant the salvation of a friend. Warmly shod and clad, I descended the stairs with expeditious quietude, groped to the left at the bottom of the staircase, through dark doors and the ghostly silence of moonlit and deserted passages, until I