At the door of Captain Barecolt's room Nancy put the candle in his hand, and made him a low curtsey, which might be partly in answer to various civil speeches which the worthy and respectable gentleman had addressed to her as they went up-stairs, partly as a hint that she did not intend to go any farther in his company; for to say the truth, the nose of the tall captain was not at all prepossessing in Nancy's eyes.

"I want to speak de leetle vord vid you, my dear," said Captain Barecolt, taking the candle.

The girl, however, only dropped him another curtsey, replying, "Well, sir, what is it? Pray be quick, for missis will want me."

"Tell me, my dear," said Barecolt, lowering his voice, "vat be dat gentleman dat I see come in just now?--he who were vat you call teepsy?"

"Oh, he is a lodger, sir," replied Nancy, turning round to go away.

"Stop, stop!" said Barecolt: "answer me de oder leetle vord. Have he got von young lady vid him?"

"Yes, sir; no more," replied Nancy.

"And in dis house?" asked Captain Barecolt.

"Yes, sir," rejoined the girl again; "just in there: he locks the door upon her, the old vermin!" she added, not at all approving such an abridgment of female liberty, and looking upon Mr. Dry as little better than a Turk in the garb of a Calvinist.

"Ah! he be de monstrous big rogue!" replied Barecolt. "I tought I see him before; I know him, Nancee; I know him vell for one extravagant great tief."

"He is not very extravagant here," answered the maid; "but I must go, sir, upon my word;" and, whisking round, she descended the stairs, at the foot of which her mistress called her into the little parlour, and inquired what that man had been saying to her.

"Oh, he was asking about the gentleman in the chamber, ma'am," was Nancy's reply; "and he says that he is an extravagant thief, that he has seen him before, and knows him."

Mrs. White looked at Mr. O'Donnell, and Mr. O'Donnell at Mrs. White, and then the landlady murmured, "He is not far wrong, I fancy;" to which Mr. O'Donnell assented by a nod.

In the mean while Captain Barecolt entered his bedchamber, set down the candle, and stretched his long limbs upon a chair, after which he fell into a fit of thought, not gloomy, but profound. He was a man who loved adventures, as the reader is aware, and he saw a wonderful provision of them before him, in which he hoped and expected to have an opportunity of developing many of those vast and important qualities which he attributed to himself.

Wit, courage, cunning, presence of mind, dexterity of action, together with his wonderful powers of strategy, were all likely to have full means of displaying themselves in the twofold enterprise of delivering Arrah Neil from the hands of Mr. Dry, of Longsoaken, and Lord Beverley from the clutches of Sir John Hotham. He was well contented with what he had done already. To have cheated a governor of Hull, to have obtained his liberty in five minutes, to have passed for a Frenchman, to have cast off the companionship of the embarrassing Mr. Jenkins, were feats of no light merit in his eyes; and he now proposed to go on, step by step, till he had reached the climax of accomplishment; first using art, then daring, and crowning the whole by some brilliant display of courage, which would immortalize him in the eyes of the royalist party.

After he had thus continued to think for about a quarter of an hour, and had arrived at the point of doubting whether he was in fact Julius CÆsar or Alexander the Great, with some slight suspicion that he might be neither, but Henry IV. of France instead, he opened the door quietly, and, without taking the candle, advanced to the head of the stairs, where, bending down his head, he listened for a moment. There was a dull, heavy sound of people talking, however; and a man's voice was heard, though the words he used could not be made out.

"Ay, that d--d fellow is there still!" murmured Captain Barecolt: "if he does not go soon, I'll walk down and cut his throat." But, just as he was turning to go back to his own room, he heard the door of the little parlour--which, as it closed with a pulley and weight, announced its movements by a prodigious rattle--give indications of its being opened, and the voice of Mr. O'Donnell could be distinguished, as he marched out, saying--

"The first thing to be done, however, Mrs. White, is to get her out of this man's hands."

Captain Barecolt waited till the Irishman's footsteps sounded no longer in the hall, and then, walking downstairs, proceeded straight into the little parlour, and, much to the astonishment of Mrs. White, seated himself before her, saying in good plain English--

"I think so too, Mrs. White."

"Lord, sir! what do you mean?" asked the worthy landlady.

"I mean, the first thing is, to get her out of this man's hands, Mrs. White. So now let me have some supper, and I will tell you all about it."

"Dear me, sir! Why, this is very funny," replied the landlady, with an agitated smoothing of the table-cloth, and a tremulous arranging of the jugs and plates; "I didn't know that any one heard what the gentleman said."

"But I did, though, Mrs. White," replied Barecolt, "loud words will always catch long ears."

"Why, Lord, sir, you speak as good English as I do!" said Mrs. White.

"To be sure I do," answered Barecolt; "I should be a fool if I didn't. But now, my good lady, tell me if I can trust you; for, although my own life is a thing that I care nothing about, and is risked every day wherever it can be risked by shot and steel, in the breach and in the field, there is much more to be perilled by anything like rashness than such a trifle as that. There's this young lady's safety and liberty, and I can tell you that there are a great many very high people who would give no light reward to those who would set her free from this base caitiff who has got her."

"Dear me!" cried Mrs. White; "I wish I had known that before, for here have we been talking of nothing else for the last hour, Mr. O'Donnell and I. Do you know who she is, sir?"

"I know more than I choose to say, Mrs. White," replied Barecolt, who had made it the first principle of his life, from soft childhood to rubicund maturity, never to confess ignorance of anything, and who had frequently made a significant nod or a wise look pass for a whole volume of information; "but what I ask you is, can I trust you, Mrs. White? can I trust to your zeal, fidelity, and discretion? as the Duke of Montmorenci asked me, when he was about So take arms for the deliverance of France from the tyranny of Richelieu. I made him a low bow, Mrs. White, laid my hand upon my heart, and said, 'Perfectly, monseigneur;' rind if he had taken my advice, he would now have had a head upon his shoulders."

"Lord have mercy!" exclaimed Mrs. White, overpowered with the grand and tragic ideas which her strange guest presented to her imagination. "Oh, dear me! yes, sir; you can trust to me perfectly, I assure you. I would risk my house and everything rather than not set the poor dear girl free from that nasty old puritanical creature. Why, this was the very first house she came to after she came over from Ireland, though Mr. O'Donnell says they went to Holland first to escape suspicion. Ay, and here her poor mother died."

"Indeed!" said Captain Barecolt, drinking in all the tidings that he heard; "I did not know that this was the house, Mrs. White. However, I am glad to hear it. A very good house it is, and capital wine. You must know, then, Mrs. White, since I can trust you fully, that I came into Hull for the express purpose of setting this young lady free, and restoring her to her friends, Lord Walton and his sister."

The worthy captain, as the reader will perceive, was never at a loss for a lie, and indeed the habit of telling the exact truth had been so long abandoned, if ever it was possessed, that the worthy professor of the sword might have found no slight difficulty in avoiding every shade of falsehood which his fertile imagination was continually offering him to embellish his various narratives withal. He had no particular object in deceiving Mrs. White, in regard to the real mode, manner, and object of his visit to Hull; but it was his general practice to begin by telling the lie first, and leaving the truth as a sort of strong corps of reserve to fall back upon in case of need.

"Dear me, sir!" cried Mrs. White; "why, Mr. Jenkins told me that you were a Frenchman who had come over to serve our poor good king against these parliamentary folks; that you had been taken prisoner, and now offer to serve the parliament."

"All a lie, all a lie, Mrs. White," replied Captain Barecolt; "it is wonderful what lies people will tell when it is quite as easy to speak the truth. However, in saying I was a Frenchman, he knew no better, poor silly man, for I pretended to be so in order to carry on my schemes the better. But as I see you are true to the royal cause, I will let you know I am an officer in the king's service, and have no intention whatever of being anything else. Neither must you suppose, Mrs. White, that I come here as a spy; for, although I hold that upon certain occasions the office of spy may become honourable, yet it is not one that I would willingly fill. So now, Mrs. White, as I said before, let me have some supper, and then tell me what is to be done for the deliverance of this young lady."

Captain Barecolt had risen wonderfully in the estimation of Mrs. White during the last five minutes; and, such is the effect of our mental affections upon our corporeal faculties, that she began to think him by no means so ugly a man as he had at first appeared: his nose reduced itself into very tolerable and seemly proportions in her eyes, the redness thereof became nothing more than a pleasant glow, and his tall figure and somewhat long, ungainly limbs acquired an air of dignity and command which Mrs. White thought very striking.

Bustling about, then, she prepared to supply him with the comfortable things of this life with great good-will, and was struck with considerable admiration at the vigour and pertinacity with which he assailed the viands placed before him. She was obliged, indeed, to call to Nancy to bring a fresh supply; but Captain Barecolt made a significant sign, by laying his finger on the side of his nose, which organ might be considered indeed as a sort of telegraph erected by nature with a view to such signals; and he afterwards reminded her, in a low voice, that his incognito must be kept up with all others but herself.

"You are the only confidante I shall make in the town of Hull," he added: "one confederate is quite sufficient for a man of genius, and to everybody else I am de same Capitaine Jereval dat came over from France to help de king, but be now villing to help de parliament."

"Lawk, sir, how well you do it!" said the landlady; "but I think you are very right not to tell any one but me; for they are a sad, prying, gossiping race in the town of Hull, and you might soon have your secret blown over the place. But as to poor Miss Arrah, sir, I really do not know what is to be done. I can see very well that Mr. O'Donnell knows more about her than he chooses to say; and I can find that it was through him that the poor lady, her mother, held her communications with Ireland. He won't tell me who she is, though, nor what was her father's name, nor her mother's either, though I tried to pump him as hard as I could. Perhaps you, sir, may be able to tell me."

"There Is such a thing as discretion, Mrs. White," said Captain Barecolt, with a sagacious air; but, suspecting that Mrs. White had some doubts regarding him and his knowledge of Arrah, and was only trying to ascertain how far his information respecting her really extended, he added, "I suppose the young lady is in bed by this time; but I should be glad, Mrs. White, if you would take the first opportunity of telling her, that one of the gentlemen who accompanied Lord Walton from Bishop's Merton is now in Hull, and will not quit the place without setting her free."

"Oh, bless you, sir! I dare say she is not in bed," answered Mrs. White; "and if she be, I should not mind waking her to tell her such good news as that. I'll go directly," she continued, shaking her bunch of keys significantly. "The old hunx locks the door and takes away the key, and then gets as drunk as a beast, so that she might starve for that matter, but I can always get in notwithstanding."

"Ay, ay!" answered Barecolt; "a landlady is nothing without her pass-key, so run and make use of it, there's a dear woman; and if the young lady is up I will go and see her now. If she is not, it must be to-morrow morning."

Mrs. White was absent for about five minutes, during which time Captain Barecolt continued his attack upon the cold beef, so that, by the time the worthy landlady returned, the vast sirloin looked as if a mammoth had been feeding on it.

"Oh, dear sir!" said Mrs. White, "she is so glad to hear that you are here! and she would fain get up and go away with you this very night, but I told her that couldn't be, for the gates are closed and locked."

"Locks are nothing to me, Mrs. White," replied the captain, with a sublime look; "and gates disappear before my hand as if they were made of pasteboard. Did I not, with a single petard, blow open the Porte Nantoise of Ancenis, which weighed three tons weight, and took two men to move it on its hinges?"

"Lord ha' mercy, sir!" exclaimed Mrs. White; "why, you are as bad as Samson."

"A great deal worse," replied the captain; "but, however, I could not go to-night, for there's other business to be done first."

"Oh ay, yes, sir," she said: "to get the papers; for I do not know whether you are aware that that old puritanical wretch has got all the papers and things out of poor Sergeant Neil's cottage--at least we think so; and I don't doubt in the least that all about poor Miss Arrah is to be found there."

"Nor I either, Mrs. White," answered Barecolt; "but can I see the young lady to-night, or must I wait till tomorrow?"

"She will be up in a few minutes, sir," replied the worthy landlady. "She would not hear of waiting, though I told her I could easily get the old man out of the way tomorrow by sending him a wild-goose chase after Hugh O'Donnell."

"Well, then," said Barecolt, "you go and see when she is ready, and in the mean time I'll finish my supper."