They shut him up in the fuel shed and locked the door. Pride and anger
filled him. He could think of nothing but that one good thrust for the
good cause. But presently he remembered.
He had brought his cousins here--he must get them back safely. But how?
On a quiet evening on the road Beale had taught him how to untie hands
tied behind the back. He remembered the lesson now and set to work--but
it was slow work. And all the time he was thinking, thinking. How could
he get out? He knew the fuel shed well enough. The door was strong,
there was a beech bar outside. But it was not roofed with tile or lead,
as the rest of the Castle was. And Dickie knew something about thatch.
Not for nothing had he watched the men thatching the oast-house by the
Medway. When his hands were free he stood up and felt for the pins that
fasten the thatch.
Suddenly his hands fell by his side. Even if he got out, how could he
find his cousins? He would only be found by the rebels and be locked
away more securely. He lay down on the floor, lay quite still there. It
was despair. This was the end of all his cleverness. He had brought
Edred and Elfrida into danger, and he could not get them back again. His
anger had led him to defy the Roundheads, and to gratify his hate of
them he had sacrificed those two who trusted him. He lay there a long
time, and if he cried a little it was very dark in the fuel house, and
there was no one to see him.
He was not crying, however, but thinking, thinking, thinking, and trying
to find some way out, when he heard a little scratch, scratching on the
corner of the shed. He sat up and listened. The scratching went on. He
held his breath. Could it be that some one was trying to get in to help
him? Nonsense, of course it was only a rat. Next moment a voice spoke so
close to him that he started and all but cried out.
"Bide where you be, lad, bide still; 'tis only me--old Mouldiwarp of
Arden. You be a bold lad, by my faith, so you be. Never an Arden better.
Never an Arden of them all."
"Oh, Mouldiwarp, dear Mouldiwarp, do help me! I led them into this--help
me to get them back safe. Do, do, do!"
"So I will, den--dere ain't no reason in getting all of a fluster. It
ain't fitten for a lad as 'as faced death same's what you 'ave," said
the voice. "I've made a liddle tunnel for 'e--so I 'ave--'ere in dis
'ere corner--you come caten wise crose the floor and you'll feel it. You
crawl down it, and outside you be sure enough."
Dickie went towards the voice, and sure enough, as the voice said, there
was a hole in the ground, just big enough, it seemed, for him to crawl
down on hands and knees.
"I'll go afore," said the Mouldiwarp, "you come arter. Dere's naught to
be afeared on, Lord Arden."
"Am I really Lord Arden?" said Dickie, pausing.
"Sure's I'm alive you be," the mole answered; "yer uncle'll tell it you
with all de lawyer's reasons to-morrow morning as sure's sure. Come
along, den. Dere ain't no time to lose."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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