CHAPTER THIRTY.
A STRANGE AWAKENING.
There is not much room in a bird's head for brains; but it has plenty ofthinking power all the same, and one of the first things a bird thinksout is when he is safe or when he is in danger. As a consequence ofthis, we have at the present day quite a colony of that shyest of wildbirds, the one which will puzzle the owner of a gun to get withinrange--the wood-pigeon, calmly settled down in Saint James's Park, andfeeding upon the grass, not many yards away from the thousands of busyor loitering Londoners going to and fro across the enclosure, which thebirds have found out is sacred to bird-dom, a place where no gun is everfired save on festival days, and though the guns then are big andmanipulated by artillerymen, the charges fired are only blank.
But Saint James's Park from its earliest enclosure was always a placefor birds--even the name survives on one side of the walk devoted byCharles the Second to his birdcages, where choice specimens were kept;so that a hundred and eighty years ago, when the country was much closerto the old Palace than it is now, there was nothing surprising in the_chink_, _chink_ of the blackbird and the loud musical song of thrushand lark awakening a sleeper there somewhere about sunrise. And to aboy who loved the country sights and sounds, and whose happiest days hadbeen spent in sunny Hampshire, it was very pleasant to lie there in ahalf-roused, half-dreamy state listening to the bird notes floating inupon the cool air through an open window, even if the lark's note didcome from a cage whose occupant fluttered its wings and pretended to flyas it gazed upward from where it rested upon a freshly cut turf.
The sweet notes set Frank Gowan thinking of the broad marshy fields downby the river, bordered with sedge, reed, and butter-bur, where the clearwaters raced along, and the trout could be seen waiting for thebreakfast swept down by the stream--where the marsh marigolds studdedthe banks with their golden chalices, the purple loosestrife grew inbrilliant beds of colour, and the creamy meadow-sweet perfumed themorning air. Far more delightful to him than any palace, more musicalthan the choicest military band, it all sent a restful sense of joythrough his frame, the more invigorating that the window was wide, andthe odour of the burned-down candles had passed away.
He lay imbibing the sweet sounds and freshness through ear and nostril;but for a time his eyes remained fast closed. Then, at a loud thrillingburst from the lark's cage in the courtyard, both eyes opened, and helay staring up at the whitewashed ceiling, covered with cracks, andlooking like the map of Nowhere in Wonderland. For the lark sang verysweetly to charm the wished-for mate, which never came, and Frank smiledand gradually lowered his eyes so that they were fixed upon theuncurtained window till the lark finished its lay.
Then, and then only, did he begin to think in the way a boy muses whenhis senses grow more and more awake. First of all he began to wonderwhy it was that the window was wide-open--not that it mattered, for theair was very cool and sweet; then why it was his bedroom looked sostrange; then why it was that the blanket was close up to his facewithout the sheet; and, lastly, he sat up feeling that horrible sense ofdepression which comes over us like a cloud when there has been troubleon the previous day--trouble which has been forgotten.
For a moment or two he felt that he must be dreaming. But no, he wasdressed, this was Captain Murray's room, there was the door open leadinginto the chamber where Andrew Forbes lay, and yes--Then it all came withcrushing force--he lay wounded after that mad attempt to escape, whilethe friend who had offered to sit with him and watch had calmly laindown and gone to sleep.
"Oh, it is monstrous!" panted the boy, as he threw the blanket aside,and stepped softly, and trembling with excitement, toward the chamber.For now the dread came that something might have happened during thenight, in despite of the doctor's calm way of treating the injury.
The idea was so terrible that, as he reached the door, he stopped short,and turned a ghastly white, not daring to look in. But recalling nowthat he had heard his friend's breathing quite plainly over-night, helistened with every nerve on the strain. Not a sound, till the larkburst forth again.
He hesitated no longer, but, full of shame and self-reproach for thatwhich he could not help, he stepped softly into the room, and then stoodstill, staring hard at the bed, and at a blood-stained handkerchieflying where it had been thrown upon the floor.
For a few moments the lad did not stir--he was perfectly stunned; andthen he began to look slowly round the room for an explanation.
The bed was without tenant. Had Captain Murray, or some other officer,come with a guard while he slept and taken the prisoner away?
Then the truth came like a flash:--
The window in the next room--it was open!
He darted back and ran to the window to thrust out his head and lookdown. Yes, it was easy enough; he could himself have got out, hung byhis hands, and dropped upon the pavement, which would not have beenabove eight feet from the soles of his boots as he hung.
But the wound! How could a lad who was badly wounded in the arm manageto perform such a feat?
He must have been half wild, delirious from fever, to have done such athing. No.
Fresh thoughts came fast now. It stood to reason that if Drew had beenhalf wild with delirium he must have been roused; and he now recalledhow coolly the doctor had taken the injury, and Captain Murray'shalf-contemptuous manner, which he had thought unfeeling. Then, too, itwas strange that Drew should have lain as he did, with his eyes tightlyclosed, just as if he were perfectly insensible, and never making theslightest sign when he had spoken to him.
For a few minutes Frank battled with the notion; but it grew strongerand stronger, and at last he was convinced.
"Then he was shamming," he muttered indignantly, "pretending to be worsethan he really was, so as to throw people off their guard, and then tryagain to escape."
Once more he tried to prove himself to be in the wrong and thoroughlyunjust to the wounded lad; but facts are stubborn things, and one afterthe other they rose up, trifles in themselves, but gaining strength asthe array increased, and at last a bitter feeling of anger filled theboy's breast, as he felt perfectly convinced of the truth that Drew hadlain there waiting till he was asleep, and then, in spite of his wound,had crept out of the window, dropped, and gone.
But how could he? The sentries had stopped him before; why did they notdo so at the second attempt?
And besides, there was the sentry just outside the door. Why had not heheard?
Frank went to the window again, and looked out, to find that it was notdeemed necessary to place a guard over the guardroom and the officers'quarters, save that there was one man at the main doorway, and this wasbeyond an angle from where he stood, while the next sentries were in thecourtyard to his left, and the stable-yard, to his right. So that,covered by the darkness, it was comparatively an easy task to drop downunnoticed, though afterwards it was quite a different thing.
"Then he has gone!" said Frank softly; and he shrank away from thewindow, to stand thinking about how the lad could have managed to getaway unseen by the sentries.
Thoughts came faster than ever; and he, as it were, put himself in hiscompanion's position, and unconsciously enacted almost exactly what hadtaken place. For Frank mentally went through what he would have doneunder the circumstances if he had been a prisoner who wished to getaway.
He would have waited till all was still, and when the sentry at the doorwas pacing up and down, and his footsteps on the stone landing wouldhelp to dull any noise he made, he would slip out of the window, drop onto his toes, and then go down on all fours, and creep along close to thewall beneath the windows, right for the piazza-like place, and alongbeneath the arches, making not for either of the entrance gates, but forthe private garden. There he would be stopped by the wall; but therewas a corner there with a set of iron spikes pointing downward to keeppeople from climbing over, but which to an active lad offered goodfoot-and hand-hold, by means of which he felt that he could easily getto the top. From there he coul
d drop down, go right across the gardento the outer wall, which divided it from the Park, and get on thatsomewhere by the help of one of the trees. Once on the top, he couldchoose his place, and crawl to it like a cat. Then all he had to do wasto lower himself by his hands, and drop down, to be free to walkstraight away, and take refuge with his friends.
"Oh, I could get out as easily as possible, if I wanted to," mutteredFrank. "Poor Drew! what's to become of him now?"
Frank stood thinking still, and saw it all more and more plainly. Drewwould know where his father was, and go and join him. And then?
Frank shuddered, for he seemed to see ruin and misery, and thedestruction of all prospects for his friend; and, in spite of theindignation he felt against him for his deceit, his heart softened, andhe muttered, as he turned to go once more into the bed-chamber:
"Poor old Drew! I did like him so much, after all."
As the boy entered the bedroom something caught his eye on the dressingtable, and he looked at it wonderingly. It was the book he had beenreading in the other room; the book, he knew, was there on the tablewhen he lay down. Could he have taken it into the bed-chamber? No, hewas sure he had not. Besides, there was a pen laid upon it, and it wasopen at the fly-leaf. Frank panted with excitement, for there, writtenin his friend's hand, were the words:
"_Good-bye, old Frank. We'll shake hands some day, when I come back in triumph. I can't forget you, though we did fall out so much. You'll be wiser some day. I can't write more; my wound hurts so much. I'm going to escape. If they shoot me, never mind; I shall have died like a man, crying, `God save King James_!'
"_Drew F_."
The tears rose to Frank's eyes, and he did not feel ashamed of them, ashe closed the book and thrust it into his pocket.
"Poor old Drew!" he said softly; "he believes he is doing right, and itis, after all, what his father taught him. My father taught medifferently, so we can't agree."
What should he do? He must speak out, and it could make no differencenow, for Drew must be safe away. He did not like to summon the sentry,and he shrank too, for he felt that he might be accused of aiding in theescape; but while he was thinking he heard steps crossing the open spacein front, and glancing through the chamber window, he saw Captain Murrayand the doctor coming toward the place.
The next minute their steps were on the stairs, the sentry challenged,the key rattled in the door, and the doctor entered first, to sayjocularly as Frank advanced from the chamber:
"Morning, Gowan. Wounded man's not dead, I hope."
In Honour's Cause: A Tale of the Days of George the First Page 30