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ME, AND KISSED ME.]
Besides, Clara had praised me for creeping where she could fly: now I
might show her that I could creep where she could not fly.
'I will try,' I returned, putting one leg through an embrasure, and
holding on by the adjoining battlement.
'Do take care, Wilfrid,' she cried, stretching out her hands, as if to
keep me from falling.
A sudden pulse of life rushed through me. All at once I became not only
bold, but ambitious.
'Give me a kiss,' I said, 'before I go.'
'Do you make so much of it?' she returned, stepping back a pace.--How
much a woman she was even then!
Her words roused something in me which to this day I have not been able
quite to understand. A sense of wrong had its share in the feeling; but
what else I can hardly venture to say. At all events, an inroad of
careless courage was the consequence. I stepped at once upon the
buttress, and stood for a moment looking at her--no doubt with
reproach. She sprang towards me.
'I beg your pardon,' she said.
The end of the buttress was a foot or two below the level of the leads,
where Clara stood. She bent over the battlement, stooped her face
towards me, and kissed me on the mouth. My only answer was to turn and
walk down the buttress, erect; a walk which, as the arch of the
buttress became steeper, ended in a run and a leap on to the gutter of
the hall. There I turned, and saw her stand like a lady in a ballad
leaning after me in the moonlight. I lifted my cap and sped away, not
knowing whither, but fancying that out of her sight I could make up my
mind better. Nor was I mistaken. The moment I sat down, my brains began
to go about, and in another moment I saw what might be attempted.
In going from roof to roof, I had seen the little gallery along which I
had passed with Mrs Wilson on my way to the library. It crossed what
might be called an open shaft in the building. I thought I could
manage, roofed as it was, to get in by the open side. It was some time
before I could find it again; but when I did come upon it at last, I
saw that it might be done. By the help of a projecting gargoyle,
curiously carved in the days when the wall to which it clung had formed
part of the front of the building, I got my feet upon the wooden rail
of the gallery, caught hold of one of the small pillars which supported
the roof, and slewed myself in. I was almost as glad as when I had
crossed the buttress, for below me was a paved bottom, between high
walls, without any door, like a dry well in the midst of the building.
My recollection of the way to the armoury, I found, however, almost
obliterated. I knew that I must pass through a bedroom at the end of
the gallery, and that was all I remembered. I opened the door, and
found myself face to face with a young girl with wide eyes. She stood
staring and astonished, but not frightened. She was younger than Clara,
and not so pretty. Her eyes looked dark, and also the hair she had been
brushing. Her face would have been quite pale, but for the rosy tinge
of surprise. She made no exclamation, only stared with her brush in her
hand, and questions in her eyes. I felt far enough from comfortable;
but with a great effort I spoke.
'I beg your pardon. I had to get off the roof, and this was the only
way. Please do not tell Mrs Wilson.'
'No,' she said at once, very quietly; 'but you must go away.'
'If I could only find the library!' I said. 'I am so afraid of going
into more rooms where I have no business.'
'I will show you the way,' she returned with a smile; and laying down
her brush, took up a candle, and led me from the room.
In a few moments I was safe. My conductor vanished at once. The glimmer
of my own candle in a further room guided me, and I was soon at the top
of the corkscrew staircase. I found the door very slightly fastened:
Clara must herself have unwittingly moved the bolt when she shut it. I
found her standing, all eagerness, waiting me. We hurried back to the
library, and there I told her how I had effected an entrance, and met
with a guide.
'It must have been little Polly Osborne,' she said. 'Her mother is
going to stay all night, I suppose. She's a good-natured little goose,
and won't tell.--Now come along. We'll have a peep from the
picture-gallery into the ball-room. That door is sure to be open.'
'If you don't mind, Clara, I would rather stay where I am. I oughtn't
to be wandering over the house when Mrs Wilson thinks I am here.'
'Oh, you little coward!' said Clara.
I thought I hardly deserved the word, and it did not make me more
inclined to accompany her.
'You can go alone,' I said. 'You did not expect to find me when you
came.'
'Of course I can. Of course not. It's quite as well too. You won't get
me into any more scrapes.'
'_Did_ I get you into the scrape, Clara?'
'Yes, you did,' she answered laughing, and walked away.
I felt a good deal hurt, but comforted myself by saying she could not
mean it, and sat down again to the Seven Champions.
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