"It is in vain," said Todd; "my safety is wound up now with the safety of this little one. If you would save it, you will save me." "Oh, no, no. Why should it be so? I cannot save you."
"You can, I think. At all events, I will be satisfied if you make the effort to do so. I tell you I am pursued by the officers of the law. It does not matter to you what I am, or who I am, or what crime it is that they lay to my charge; your child's life is as dear to you in any case. Hide me in the cottage, and deny my being seen here, and the child shall live. Betray me, and as sure as the sun gives light, it dies."
"Oh, no, no, no!"
"But, I say, yes. Your course is easy. It is all but certain that my prosecutors will come to this cottage, as it is the only habitation on the route that I have taken. They will ask you if you have seen such a man as I am, and they will tell you that you may earn a large reward by giving such information as may deliver me into the hands of justice; but what reward—what sum of money would pay you for your child's life?"
"Oh, not all the world's worth!"
"So I thought; and so you will deny seeing me, or knowing ought of me, for your child's sake? Is it agreed?"
"It is—it is! God knows who you are, or what you have done that the hands of your fellow creatures should be raised against you; but I will not betray you. You may depend upon my word. If you are found in this place, it shall not be by any information of mine."
"Can you hide me?"
"I will try to do so. Come into the cottage. Ah! what noise is that? I hear the tread of feet, and the shouts of men!"
Todd paused to listen. He shook for a moment or two; and then, with a bitter tone, he said—
"My pursuers come! They begin to suspect the trick that I have played them!—they now know—or think they know, that I have turned upon my route. They come—they come!"
"Oh, give me the child! I swear to you that I will hide you to the utmost of my means; but give me the child!"
"Not yet."
The woman looked at him in an agony of tears.
"Listen to me," she said. "If they discover you it will not be my fault, nor the fault of this little innocent—you feel that! Ah! then tell me upon what principle of justice can you take its life?"
"I will be just," said Todd. "All I ask of you is, to hide me to the best of your ability, and to keep secret the fact of my presence here. If, after you have done all that, you still find that I am taken, it will be no fault of yours. I do not ask impossibilities of any one, nor do I threaten punishment against you for not performing improbable feats. Come in—come in at once! They come—they come! Do you not hear them now?"
It was quite evident now that a number of persons were approaching, and beating the bushes as they came on. The tread of a horse's feet, too, upon the road convinced Todd that among his foes, now, was the mounted man whom he had seen, and whom he thought he saw point to him as he lay crouching down behind the hedge, half hidden in the ditch.
With the little child still in his arms, he rushed into the cottage, and the woman followed him, wringing her hands with terror. And yet Todd was gentle with the child. He knew that from the mother he had everything to hope, and everything to dread, and he did not wish to drive her to despair by any display of harshness to the little one.
"This way," she cried, "this way," as she led the way into an inner-room. "There is a cupboard here in which you can conceal yourself. If they do not search the house, they will not find you, and I will do all that I can to prevent them."
"That will do," said Todd; "but, remember, I will have the child near me, so that upon the least symptom of treachery from you, I can put it to death; and I shall not, under any circumstances, at all scruple so to do. Where is this cupboard that you speak of?"
"It is here—it is here!"
"Ah! that will do." Todd now cast his eyes around the room, and perceived a little cot, that, at night, was devoted to the slumbers of the child. "Take that," he said, pointing to it, "and place it against the door of the cupboard with the child in it. It will seem then not likely that I am hidden here."
"I will do so."
Todd did not feel any apprehension of treachery from the mother of the child. He was not slow to perceive that every other feeling was in her breast weak in comparison with the all-absorbing one of love for the infant; and so he calculated that, rather than run the shadow of a risk of injury to it, she would do all that he required. The cupboard was a deep one; but it was not high enough for Todd quite to stand upright in. That, however, was a trifling inconvenience, and he got into it at once. The child's cot was placed against the door; and the young mother, with a thousand fears tugging at her heart, pretended to busy herself about her household affairs.
The little interval that now ensued, before Todd's pursuers reached the spot, was certainly to him rather a fearful one; and he felt that his fate hung upon the proceedings of the next few moments. He called to the woman in an earnest tone—
"Courage—courage—all will be well."
"Oh, peace—peace!" she said. "They come!"
Todd quite held his breath now in the painful effort that he made to listen, so that not the slightest sound that might be indicative of the approach of his enemies might escape him; and he gave such a start, that he nearly threw open the cupboard-door, and upset the cot, as he heard a hoarse man's voice suddenly call out from the garden—
"Hilloa!—House here—house—Hilloa!"
"Now—now," he gasped. "Now I live or die! Upon the next few moments hangs my fate!"
The cold dew of intense fear stood upon his brow, and his sense of hearing appeared to be getting preternaturally acute. Not a word that was said escaped him, although it was right away in the garden that this, to him, fearfully interesting conversation took place.
"What is the matter?" he heard the woman say, and then the rough voice replied to her—
"We are the police, my good woman, and we are in search of a man who is hidden somewhere about this neighbourhood. Has any one come into your place, or have you seen a tall man pass the cottage?"
"No," said the woman.
Todd breathed a little more freely.
"It's very odd," said another voice; "for he must be about this spot, that is quite clear, as he was dodging about the field at the back of here, and hiding in the hedge. We must have passed him."
"Well, he can't get away," said a third; "but after all, he may be lying down somewhere in the garden, for all we know to the contrary."
"I don't think it," said the woman.
At this moment, the child began to cry violently.
"Oh, confound you for a brat!" said Todd, "I wish it was only safe to throttle you.&quo............