We went up the narrow stair—that is, Miss Irma and I—because, since I carried my father’s blunderbuss, Agnes Anne would not come, but stopped half-way, where the little Louis lay asleep in his cot-bed. On the top of the tower, and swinging on a kind of iron tripod bolted into the battlements, we found an iron basket, like that in which sea-coal is burned, but wider in the mesh. Then, in the “winnock cupboard” at the turn of the stair-head, were all the necessaries for a noble blaze—dry wood properly cut, tow, tar, and a firkin of spirit, with some rancid butter in a brown jar. There was even a little kindling box of foreign make, all complete with flint, steel and tinder lying on a shelf, enclosed in a small bag of felt.

Whoever had placed these things there was a person of no small experience, and left nothing to chance. It was obvious that such a beacon lit on the tower of the ancient house of Marnhoul would be seen far and near over the country.

Who should come to our rescue, supposing us to be beset, was not so clear. I did not believe that we could depend on the people of the village. They would, if I knew them, cuddle the closer between their blankets, while as for Constable Jacky, by that time of night he would certainly be in no condition to know his right hand from his left.

“And the message fixed to the front door with the knife—of which my sister told me,” I suggested to Miss Irma, “what did it threaten?”For in spite of her obvious reluctance to tell me even necessary things, I was resolved to make her speak out. She hesitated, but finally yielded, when I pointed out that we must decide whether it came from a friendly or an unfriendly hand.

She handed it to me out of the pocket of her dress, the two of us standing all the while on the top of the tower, the rusty basket wheezing in the wind, and her blown hair whipping my cheek in the sharp breeze from the north.

I may say that just at that moment I was pretty content with myself. I do not deny that I had fancied this maid and that before, or that some few things that might almost be called tender had passed between me and Gerty Greensleeves, chiefly cuffing and pinching of the amicable Scottish sort. Only I knew for certain that now I was finally and irrevocably in love—but it was with a star. Or rather, it might just as well have been, for any hope I had with Miss Irma Maitland, with her ancient family and her eyes fairly snapping with pride. What could she ever have to say to the rather stupid son of a village school-master?

But I took the paper, and for an instant Irma’s eyes rested on mine with something different in them from anything I had ever seen there before. The contemptuous chill was gone. There was even a kind of soft appeal, which, however, she retracted and even seemed to excuse the next moment.

“Understand,” she said, “it is not for myself that I care. It is for—for my brother, Sir Louis.”

“But, Miss Irma, do not forget that I——” The words came bravely, but halted before the enormity of what I was going to say. So I had perforce to alter my formation in face of my dear enemy, and only continued lamely enough, “I had better see what the letter says.”

“Yes,” she answered shortly, “I suppose that is necessary.”

The letter was written on a sheet of common paper, ruled vertically in red at either side as for a bill of lading. It had simply been folded once, not sealed in the ordinary way, but thrust through sharply with the knife which had pinned it to the wood, traversing both folds. The knife, which I saw afterwards down-stairs, was a small one, with a broadish blade shaped and pointed like a willow leaf. I had it a good while in my hand, and I can swear that it had been lately used in cutting the commonest kind of sailor tobacco.

The message read in these words exactly, which I copied carefully on my killivine-tablets—

“The first danger is for this night, being the eve of Saint John. Admit no one excepting those who bring with them friends you can trust. Fear not to use the signal agreed upon. Help will be near.”

Now this seemed to me to be very straightforward. None but a friend to the children would speak of the beacon so familiarly, yet so discreetly—“the signal agreed upon.” Nor would an enemy advise caution as to any being admitted to the house.

But Miss Irma had not passed through so many troubles without acquiring a certain lack of confidence in the fairest pretences. She shook her head when I ventured to tell her what I thought. She was willing to take my help, but not my judgment.

The words, “Admit no one, excepting those who bring with them friends you can trust,” did not ring true in her ear. And the phrase, “the signal agreed upon,” might possibly show that while the writer made sure of there being a signal of some kind, he was ignorant of its nature.

In face of all this there seemed nothing for it but to wait—doors shut, windows barred, “King George” ready charged, and the stuff for the beacon knowingly arranged.

And this last I immediately proceeded to set in order. I had had considerable experience. For during the late French wars we of Eden Valley, though the most peaceful people in the world, had often been turned upside down by reports of famous victories. After each of these every one had to illuminate, if it were only with a tallow dip, on the penalty of having his windows broken by the mob of loyal, but stay-at-home patriots. At the same time, all the boys of Eden Valley had full permission to carry off old barrels and other combustibles from the houses of the zealous, or even to commandeer them without permission from the barns and fences of suspected “black-nebs” to raise nearer heaven the flare of our victorious bonfires.

With all the ingredients laid ready to my hand, it was exceedingly simple for me to put together such a brazier as could be seen over half the county. Not the least useful of my improvements was the lengthening of the chain, so that the whole fire-basket could be hoisted to the top of the tripod, and so stand clear of the battlements of the tower, showing over the tree-tops to the very cliffs of Killantringan, and doubtless far out to sea.

Last of all, before descending, I covered everything over with a thick mat of tarred cloth, which would keep the fuel dry as tinder even in case of rain, or the dense dews that pearled down out of the clear heavens on these short nights of a northern June.It is a strange thing, watching together, and in the case of young people it is apt to make curious things hop up in the heart all unexpectedly. It was so, at least, with myself. As to Miss Irma I cannot say, and, of course, Agnes Anne does not count, for she sat back in the shelter of a great cupboard, well out of range of “King George,” and went on with her knitting till she fell asleep.

However, Miss Irma and I sat together in the jutting window, where, as the night darkened and the curtains of the clouds drew down to meet the sombre tree-tops, a kind of black despair came over me. Would “King George” really do any good? Would I prove myself stout and brave when the moment came? Would the beacon we had prepared really burn, and, supposing it did, would any one see it, drowned in woods as we were, and far from all folk, except the peaceable villagers of Eden Valley?

But I had the grace to keep such thoughts to myself, and if they visited Miss Irma, she did the like. The crying of the owls made the place of a strange eeriness, especially sometimes when a bat or other night creature would come and cling a moment under the leaden pent of the window.

Such things as these, together with the strain of the waiting on the unknown, drew us insensibly together—I do not mean Agnes Anne—but just the two of us who were shut off apart in the window-seat. No, whatever her faults and shortcomings (too many of them recorded in this book), Agnes Anne acted the part of a good sister to me that night, and her peaceful breathing seemed to wall us off from the world.

“Duncan?” queried Miss Irma, repeating my name softly as to herself; “you are called Duncan, are you not?”I nodded. “And you?” I asked, though of course I knew well enough.

“Irma Sobieski,” she answered. And then, perhaps because everything inside and out was so still and lonely, she shivered a little, and, without any reason at all, we moved nearer to each other on the window-seat—ever so little, but still nearer.

“You may call me Irma, if you like!” she said, very low, after a long pause.

Just then something brushed the window, going by with a soft woof of feathers.

“An owl! A big white one—I saw him!” I said. For indeed the bird had seemed as large as a goose, and appeared alarming enough to people so strung as we were, with ears and eyes grown almost intolerably acute in the effort of watching.

“Are you not frightened?” she demanded.

“No, Irma—no, Miss Irma!” I faltered.

“Well, I am,” she whispered; “I was not before when the mob came, because I had to do everything. But now—I am glad that you are here” (she paused the space of a breath), “you and your sister.”

I was glad, too, though not particularly about Agnes Anne.

“How old are you, Duncan?” she asked next.

I gave my age with the usual one year’s majoration. It was not a lie, for my birthday had been the day before. Still, it made Irma thoughtful.

“I did not think you were so much older than your sister,” she said musingly; “why, you are older than I am!”

“Of course I am,” I answered, gallantly facing the danger, and determined to brave it out.

On the spot I resolved to have a private interview with Agnes Anne as soon as might be, and, after reminding her of my birthday just past, tell her that in future I was to be referred to as “going on for twenty”—and that there was no real need to insert the words “going on for.”

Irma Sobieski considered the subject a while longer, and I could see her eyes turned towards me as if studying me deeply. I wondered what she was thinking about with a brow so knotted, and I knew instinctively that it must be something of consequence, because it made her forget the letter nailed to the door, and the warning which might veil a threat. She fixed me so long that her eyes seemed to glow out of the pale face which made an oval patch against the darkness of the trees. Irma’s face was only starlit, but her eyes shone by their own light.

“Yes, I will trust you,” she said at last. “I saw you the day when the mob came. You were ashamed, and would have helped me if you could. Even then I liked your face. I did not forget you, and when Agnes Anne spoke of her brother who was afraid of nothing, I was happy that you should come. I wanted you to come.”

The words made my heart leap, but the next moment I knew that I was a fool, and might have known better. This was no Gerty Gower, to put her hand on your arm unasked, and let her face say what her lips had not the words to utter.

“I want a friend,” she said; “I need a friend—a big brother—nothing else, remember. If you think I want to be made love to, you are mistaken. And, if you do, there will be an end. You cannot help me that way. I have no use for what people call love. But I have a mission, and that mission is my brother, Sir Louis. If you will consent to help me, I shall love you as I love him, and you—can care about me—as you care about Agnes Anne!”

Now I did not see what was the use of bringing Agnes Anne into the business. At home she and I were quarrelling about half our time. But since it was to be that or nothing, of course I was not such a fool as to choose the nothing.

All the same, after the promising beginning, I was enormously disappointed, and if only it had been lighter, doubtless my chagrin would have showed on my face. It seemed to me (not knowing) the death-blow to all my hopes. I did not then understand that in all the unending and necessarily eternal game of chess, which men and women play one against the other, there is no better opening than this.

But I was still crassly ignorant, intensely disappointed. I even swore that I would not have given a brass farthing to be “cared about” by Irma as I myself did about Agnes Anne.

Dimly, however, I did feel, even then, that there was a fallacy somewhere. And that, however much human beings with youthful hearts and answering eyes may pretend they are brother and sister, there is something deep within them that moves the Previous Question—as we are used to say in the Eden Valley Debating Parliament, which Mr. Oglethorpe and my father have organized on the model of that in the Gentleman’s Magazine.

But Irma, at least, had no such fear. She had, she believed, solved for ever a difficult and troublesome question, and, on easy terms, provided herself with a new relative, useful, safe and insured against danger by fire. Perhaps the underwriters of the city would not have taken the latter risk, but at that moment it seemed a slight one to Irma Sobieski.At any rate, to seal the new alliance, in all sisterly freedom she gave me her hand, and did not appear to notice how long I kept it in the darkness. This was certainly a considerable set-off against the feeling of loneliness, and, if not quite content, I was at least more so. I wondered, among other things, if Irma’s heart kept knocking in a choking kind of way against the bottom of her throat.

At least mine did, and I had never, to my knowledge, felt just so about Agnes Anne. Indeed, I don’t think I had ever held Agnes Anne’s hand so long in my life, except to pick a thorn out of it with a needle, or to point out how disgracefully grubby it was.