Ernest Maltravers | Page 6

stick. But within he had at least a
rude resource in the large kitchen poker that was beside him. At all
events it would be better to wait for the present. He might at any time,
when alone, withdraw the bolt from the door, and slip out unobserved.
Such was the fruit of his meditations while his host plied the fire.
"You will sleep sound to-night," said his entertainer, smiling.
"Humph! Why, I am /over/-fatigued; I dare say it will be an hour or two
before I fall asleep; but when I once am asleep, I sleep like a rock!"
"Come, Alice," said her father, "let us leave the gentleman. Goodnight,
sir."
"Good night--good night," returned the traveller, yawning.
The father and daughter disappeared through a door in the corner of the
room. The guest heard them ascend the creaking stairs--all was still.
"Fool that I am," said the traveller to himself, "will nothing teach me
that I am no longer a student at Gottingen, or cure me of these
pedestrian adventures? Had it not been for that girl's big blue eyes, I
should be safe at ------ by this time, if, indeed, the grim father had not
murdered me by the road. However, we'll baulk him yet: another
half-hour, and I am on the moor: we must give him time. And in the
meanwhile here is the poker. At the worst it is but one to one; but the
churl is strongly built."
Although the traveller thus endeavoured to cheer his courage, his heart
beat more loudly than its wont. He kept his eyes stationed on the door

by which the cottagers had vanished, and his hand on the massive
poker.
While the stranger was thus employed below, Alice, instead of turning
to her own narrow cell, went into her father's room.
The cottager was seated at the foot of his bed muttering to himself, and
with eyes fixed on the ground.
The girl stood before him, gazing on his face, and with her arms lightly
crossed above her bosom.
"It must be worth twenty guineas," said the host, abruptly to himself.
"What is it to you, father, what the gentleman's watch is worth?"
The man started.
"You mean," continued Alice, quietly, "you mean to do some injury to
that young man; but you shall not."
The cottager's face grew black as night. "How," he began in a loud
voice, but suddenly dropped the tone into a deep growl--" how dare you
talk to me so?--go to bed--go to bed."
"No, father."
"No?"
"I will not stir from this room until daybreak."
"We will soon see that," said the man, with an oath.
"Touch me, and I will alarm the gentleman, and tell him that--"
"What?"
The girl approached her father, placed her lips to his ear, and whispered,
"That you intend to murder him."

The cottager's frame trembled from head to foot; he shut his eyes, and
gasped painfully for breath. "Alice," said he, gently, after a
pause--"Alice, we are often nearly starving."
"/I/ am--/you/ never!"
"Wretch, yes, if I do drink too much one day, I pinch for it the next. But
go to bed, I say--I mean no harm to the young man. Think you I would
twist myself a rope?--no, no; go along, go along."
Alice's face, which had before been earnest and almost intelligent, now
relapsed into its wonted vacant stare.
"To be sure, father, they would hang you if you cut his throat. Don't
forget that;--good night;" and so saying, she walked to her own
opposite chamber.
Left alone, the host pressed his hand tightly to his forehead, and
remained motionless for nearly half an hour.
"If that cursed girl would but sleep," he muttered at last, turning round,
"it might be done at once. And there's the pond behind, as deep as a
well; and I might say at daybreak that the boy had bolted. He seems
quite a stranger here--nobody'll miss him. He must have plenty of blunt
to give half a guinea to a guide across a common! I want money, and I
won't work--if I can help it, at least."
While he thus soliloquised the air seemed to oppress him; he opened
the window, he leant out--the rain beat upon him. He closed the
window with an oath; took off his shoes, stole to the threshold, and, by
the candle, which he shaded with his hand, surveyed the opposite door.
It was closed. He then bent anxiously forward and listened.
"All's quiet," thought he, "perhaps he sleeps already. I will steal down.
If Jack Walters would but come tonight, the job would be done
charmingly."
With that he crept gently down the stairs. In a corner, at the foot of the

staircase, lay sundry matters, a few faggots, and a cleaver. He