CHAPTER XIV.

IN THE WARDER'S ROOM.

Ding! Like some guilt-stricken creature Ruth stood with her hands upon the half-closed pane.

Lingeringly and drearily the sound died in a low angry growl of wind, that came sweeping up muffled and sullen as some vexed human voice. Hark! hark! surely that is a human voice!--voices! And that? No steady drip-drip of the rain from the mullions of the casement, but footsteps stealthily passing along the arched way below, and beginning to ascend the stair winding to the Warder's Room!

Impossible! Sure she must be growing more fanciful than old Maudlin's self? No, no; 'tis but the tiresome rats again, holding their witches' sabbath? What else can it be?

The sudden flash of a torch full across her window illumines the pitchy blackness below; and then, as if hurled by some violent and angry hand, the torch falls into the water and is extinguished.

[Sidenote: Ruth on the watch.]

Not quickly enough, however, to conceal from Ruth the gigantic outlines of the drawbridge, gliding higher and closer, till it is lost in the shadow of the wall, and at the same time the clank of its chains, more felt than heard, with their dull familiar vibrating, ceases.

Who can have been tampering with them? Surely not Adam Lockit. Rather than be unfaithful to his trust, and let down his bridge after sunset, he would dispute every ounce of it with his life's blood. But what about Barnaby? Barnaby! and even at that moment Ruth cannot forbear a smile at the bare notion of Master Diggles' Dutch courage displaying its mettle within six hours of either side of midnight. Even supposing he could have performed the miracle of stealing a march on Lockit, and getting possession of the gatehouse keys.

No. One alone, beside Adam Lockit, has the means of working those chains--the master of the Rye House himself.

Spell-bound and breathless, Ruth stands listening to the stealthy but heavy tramp tramp of those feet mounting the stone stair which leads from the arched door in the wall of the gateway to the Warder's Room.

Soon the sounds cease; to be quickly broken again by hurried whispers and the low hum of voices. Muffled and indistinctly as they reach her ear, the tones seem familiar to Ruth, and her heart stands still. What--what if Lawrence--?

Hardly has his name escaped her pale parted lips before with swift noiseless tread she has stolen to the wall, and falling on her knees before the sliding panel, slips it back, and stepping into the darkness beyond, crouches down.

Not an instant too soon, if movements so cautious and catlike as hers could have betrayed her; and that was possible, judging by the distinctness with which she on her part can catch every syllable that is being uttered in the Warder's Room by the party of men gathering, as she can plainly see through a long crack in the wood, about the long table.

[Sidenote: A cold welcome.]

"All right, Master Hannibal," says a voice she does not know. "We wait your pleasure."

"Nay," objected another, which Ruth at once recognized for one of those she had heard upon the bridge, "your commands, Master Rumbold."

"By my faith! there you speak by the book, colonel, like the good soldier you are," shiveringly said a voice, whose delicate tones were also not strange to Ruth. "Pleasure's a fish that I for one should be for angling after in other preserves than the slush and bog of the Rye. Hu! hu!" shuddered the speaker. "And not so much as a stick of a blaze on your sepulchre of a hearth here, Master Hannibal! A merry welcome truly to bid your boys! and all of us as wringing wet as any of the rat vermin in your styx of a moat below there. I'm drenched to my skin."

"Had I imagined it to be so thin," dryly returned the deep tones of the maltster, "I would never have invited your lordship to join our company."

"And the place smells as mouldy as a vault," fretfully continued the nobleman. "I can tell you, had I known it was such a stretch from my house I'd in any case have spared you my company to-night."

[Sidenote: A wrangle.]

"We could have dispensed with such fine-weather friends," began a gruff surly voice, "if--"

"Hold thy peace," interrupted Rumbold, "and save your wit, Master West, till my Lord of Escrick here can find his own to measure with it."

"Of a truth, I confess my brains seem all washed out," said Howard more good-temperedly, "by that last slush hole I floundered into, when I set off in pursuit of the jack-o'-lanthorn, some idiot among you said was a light in the Rye House."

"My Lord of Escrick makes a rare pother about a sprinkle of rain," said the voice which was strange to Ruth; "if he'd been jolted all the way from Fleet Street, as I have been, atop of the raw bones of a pack-horse like a sack of husks--"

"Hush! by your leave, Master West," for the remembrance of his sufferings warmed the speaker's eloquence. "Not so loud. Some one sleeps in the adjoining chamber."

"Marry! 'twould have been as well then," rejoined West, in sour, but considerably lowered tones, "if you had thought fit to entertain us in some other part of your ramshackle house here, less conveniently adapted for eavesdropping--"

"And for getting off if we should be surprised," said Rumbold quietly. "Have I not explained often enough, that this chamber is in direct communication with the subterranean way to Nether Hall? You shall judge it for yourself presently, as I promised you."

"And besides," put in Walcot, "we are safe, Master Rumbold said, from being overlooked on this side."

"The place seems Scylla or Charybdis," said Howard laughing, "and a veritable vermin trap to boot--if one may judge by the snuffling in there," and he pointed to the wainscot, "eh, Master Hannibal?"

"The four-legged pests do somewhat overabound here, my lord," answered Rumbold; "but my own friends are safe enough, I pledge you my word. I did but entreat Master West to be a bit careful. His voice is scarce so still and small as caution behoves."

"Liken it rather unto that of a trumpet," piped the shrill tones of Ferguson, "which shall blare to the uttermost walls--"

[Sidenote: Walls have ears.]

"All in its good time, Master Ferguson," interrupted Walcot; "meanwhile remember walls have ears."

"And so have listeners," growled West, still sorely put about with himself for his own forgetfulness, "long as asses' ones."

"Nay," said Rumbold, "they'd have to be longer and sharper too, to pierce these walls. More than three feet and a half thick I know them to be."

"And all of pure stone?" inquired a voice.

"No, of oak, Master Sheriff, which is at least as trustworthy."

"It is a strange omen," said Walcot ruminatively,

"A what?" derisively chorused half a dozen voices.

"'Tis not the first time oak has served Charles a good turn in his evil hour."

"What's the man maundering about?" said West.

"I know not," growled Rumsey. "Unless it be of that accursed Boscobel oak-tree. Well, well, I'll warrant root and branch shall be lopped this time close enough, eh, Master Rumbold? and we'll bring its fine acorns into the mud. Come, to business. Are we all here?"

"I do not see my friend of the other night," said Howard looking round. "The young gentleman who so deftly rendered my hand that surgeon's service."

"Lawrence Lee, you mean, my lord?"

"Ay, that was his name. A likely young fellow he seemed. A neighbour of yours, I think you said, Master Hannibal?"

"He should have been here," said the maltster; "but 'tis no matter, we can do without him. He is--"

[Sidenote: Noisy rats.]

"To be trusted, let us hope," growled West. "I swear, Master Rumbold," and he glowered towards the wainscot, "your rats are the noisiest I ever heard."

Poor Ruth shivered with terror. She had but stirred to avert the worse crash of a slip she had nearly made in that cramped space.

"The vane atop of this roof, creaking in the wind," said Rumbold carelessly.

"If we should find these Rye House rats of the spy genus, we'll spit them on it," said West.

"And you along with them, Master Rumbold," said a voice which had not yet spoken.

[Sidenote: A chest of tools.]

"Your insinuations waste precious time, Sir Thomas Armstrong," said Rumbold, a frown of offended dignity puckering his brows as he turned and, crossing to the great oaken chest standing between the windows, raised its ponderous lid with both hands. "I would not be held a boaster; but those who have known Richard Rumbold longer than you have, will tell you that he is not the man to put his hand to the plough and draw it back. See," he went on, addressing the rest, who greeted his last words with a low murmur of applause, "here lie our tools," and he pointed into the open chest, "all in order; not forgetting the last cargo--muskets, bayonets, blunderbusses, and all."