So we left him, and when, fifty paces down the road, I looked back at him, he was jotting in his notebook again.

"I think he knows something about us," said I.

"Very likely," she replied calmly. "I've seen him once before in London, talking to Major Tixall. Who could forget a face like that?"

"He's uglier than the big-mouthed dragoon."

"The dragoon was at any rate a soldier."

"And the worst of soldiers has, no doubt, some savour of grace in him."

"Quite so," she retorted. "His calling makes it necessary."

"And, so reasoning, you would say, I suppose, that the best of farmers was to seek in the higher reaches of manliness."

"Have I not told you, Master Oliver, that between man's logic and woman's logic there's a great gulf fixed?"

"Minds are minds," said I.

"And hearts are hearts," replied she, and so shut me up to my thinking again.

We turned into a cart-track on our left leading in the direction of Eccleshall. As we turned I saw that Bladder-face had mounted his horse and was coming on toward Stone. There was no doubt that we should be pursued from that quarter before long, and I grew heavy with anxiety as I saw how hardly we were being pressed. The encounter had not, however, disturbed Mistress Waynflete. On the contrary, she became gayer than ever, so gay that, fool-like, I got quite vexed at it, for it was clear that something had relieved her anxiety, and I knew it was nothing that I had done. I worried over it, and at last hit on the explanation. She was rejoicing in the help of the new partner.

"What do you make of Master Freake?" said I boorishly, cutting short a lightsome trill, more Italian maybe.

"Make of what?" said she lightly.

"Master Freake."

"Forgive me, Master Wheatman," she replied, "but I didn't take you as quickly as I ought to have done. I like the look of him. How pretty, pluck them for me."

I stopped to gather the spray of brilliant vermilion berries she fancied, saying meanwhile, "I wonder what he is? Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, or what?"

She seemed much more concerned with her berries, which she praised rapturously, and placed carefully in the bosom of her riding-dress before replying.

"He's no doubt a grave and prosperous citizen of London. I've seen many such, and he looks sworn brother to worthy Alderman Heathcoat. Moreover, he talks merchantlike."

It seemed pretty certain that she had hit the right nail on the head. Her explanation fitted his account of the large sums he was carrying and his stay with and hold over Jack's father. True, Staffordshire seemed the wrong place for such a man. Both he and his money would have been far safer in Change Alley. If her explanation was acute and probable, her manner of making it had convinced me that my explanation of her gaiety was wrong. Of him she certainly had not been thinking. Then there was only one thing left to account for it. What makes a maid as merry as a grig? Didn't our Kate sing all morning when Jack was coming in the afternoon?

It was no concern of mine, and as a man sometimes makes his right hand play his left hand at chess, so I now made stern Oliver lecture paltering Wheatman, but without doing him much good. Naturally all this made me a poor companion on the road, and for a long time Mistress Waynflete bore with me patiently. Then she turned from her tra-la-la-ing to waken me up, roundly declaring that I was bored with her company; and I had no defence, ridiculous as the charge was.

"I've sung every song I know, and sung them my best, too, and you've never once praised me. You'll have to learn, you know, Master Oliver, to smile at a lady even when you really want to smack her. What do you do? You just write on your face as plainly as this"—and here her dainty finger toured her face, ending up where the tear of milk had trembled —"S-M-A-C-K." I roared aloud, she did it so frankly and mirthfully. What a treasury of moods she was! She had stepped across our house-place like a queen, she had fronted that devil, Brocton, like a goddess, and now she was larking like a schoolmaid.

Long as the way was, we seemed to me to be getting over the ground too rapidly. Mistress Waynflete did not tire, and did full credit to her father's soldiership. We circled round the red-tiled roofs of Eccleshall, and at length took shelter in the pines that ringed the great pool. Across the mere lay the road, and on the far side of the road from us was the "Ring of Bells," standing well back, with a little green in front, in the centre of which a huge post carried a board bearing the rudely painted sign of the ale-house.

I scouted ahead, dodging from tree to tree along the edge of the mere, in order to keep out of view of anyone moving on the road. Over against the ale-house I crept still more warily through the wood to the edge of the road. There was no one moving in or about the ramshackle little place, but there was one unexpected thing in sight which gave me pause. Hitched by the reins to a staple in the signpost was the finest horse I had ever set eyes on, a slender, sinewy stallion, champing on his bit and pawing nervously on the stone-hard ground.

Here was the shadow of a new trouble, though, indeed, there was nothing to be surprised at, seeing that the countryside far and near was buzzing with enemy activities. A rat in a barn might as justly complain of being tickled by straws as I of jostling into difficulties. The horse without betokened a rider within, and probably some one in the Duke's horse. I beckoned Mistress Waynflete, and by signs indicated that extreme caution was necessary. During the moments I was awaiting her I examined the birding-piece to make sure it was in order. Caution, however, she flung to the winds, for the moment she set eyes on the horse she joyously shouted 'Sultan' and made a wild, happy dash to cross the road.

I stopped her sternly, and in a brief whisper asked, "Who's Sultan?"

"Father's horse."

"We do not know for sure that your father is in the inn because his horse is outside, and by your leave, madam, we'll make sure first. Keep right behind yon thick tree, and await my return."

She looked calmly at me, but even before she could glide off, there came from the ale-house an appalling volley of oaths and curses. It was a man's voice, yelling in agonized blasphemy, and a woman's shrill treble floated on the surface of the stream of virulence.

I caught Mistress Waynflete's wrist and steadied her. "Not your father, apparently?" I said in a cool voice, though my head was whirling a bit under the strain. "Here," I went on, fetching a fistful out of my pocket, "are some guineas. Follow me, unhitch the horse, and if I shout to you to be off, mount him from yon horse-trough, and away like lightning. That's the road to Eccleshall, along which Master Freake is bound to come."

I thrust the guineas into her hand, gripped my weapon, slipped out of the pines and across the road, circled the horse, and made to peep round the jamb of the open door into the guest-room of the ale-house. As I did so, the man yelled, "God damn, I'm on fire!" and the woman shrieked back, "Burn, you foul devil, burn, and be damned!"

This was enough, and I burst in on a spectacle, strange, serious, on the point of becoming terrible, and yet almost laughable. In the middle of the room, a stout, shock-headed, red-elbowed woman stood, a pikel in her strong outstretched hands. The sergeant of dragoons, with his back to a roaring fire, was pinned against the hearthstead by the pitchfork, the tines of which were stuck in the oak lintel of the chimney-piece, so that a ring of steel encircled his throat like the neckhole of a pillory, and held him there helpless and roasting. When I first caught sight of him he was making a frenzied attempt to wrench the prongs out, but, finding it hopeless, drew his tuck, and lashed out at the woman. She calmly shifted out of reach along the handle of the fork. He then hacked fiercely but without much effect on the wooden handle, and finally, in his despair and agony, poised the tuck and cast it at her javelin-fashion. The woman, cooler than he in both senses of the term, dodged it easily. How she had contrived to pin him in such a helpless manner, I could not imagine. The motive was obvious. A little girl lay writhing and sobbing on the floor amid the fragments of a broken mug and a scattering of copper and silver coins.

"You've got him safe enough, mother," said I, "and it's no good cooking him since you can't eat him."

"Be yow another stinking robber, like this'n?" she demanded. The epithet was as apt as it was vigorous, for the stink of singeing cloth made me sniff. "If y'be," she went on, "I'll shove' im in the fire and set about yow."

"Not a bit of it, mother. I've come to help you, but shift him along a bit out of the heat, and then we'll settle what to do with him." To him I added, "Understand, sergeant, any attempt to fight or fly, and your neck will be wrung like a cockerel's." Then laying down my gun I pulled out the tines and shifted him along the lintel till he was out of danger. The woman, whose fierce determination never faltered, jammed the pikel in again and kept him trapped.

I went to the door and saw Mistress Waynflete standing by Sultan's head, and the proud beauty arching his neck in his joy at finding his mistress near him. I beckoned her.

"An old acquaintance, in a fix. Come in!" said I, and introduced her to the strange scene. "The sergeant, madam," I went on, "and he has been plucked like a brand from the burning." She took in the scene, judged what had happened, and then gathered up the child, who had ceased crying out of curiosity, and mothered the little one so sweetly that the red-elbowed woman cried out hearty thanks.

In brief the story, as collected later from the mother and child, was that the sergeant had ridden up and asked for a meal. After he had had some bread and cheese and ale, he had taken advantage of the alewife's absence to ask the child where mother kept her money, and, receiving no answer, had twisted the poor little one's arm until in her terror and agony she had told him of the secret hole in the chimney where the money was kept in a coarse brown mug. The child's cry had brought the mother running back with the pikel, snatched up on the way, and she, taking him at unawares with the mug in his hand, had darted at him and luckily caught him round the neck, and pinned him against the fireplace as I had found him. Let him go she dared not, for she was alone except for the child, and but for my arrival he would have roasted right enough till he was helpless. As it was the skirts of his coat were smouldering, and he had only just escaped serious injury. In fact, although smarting sore, he was so little damaged that after tearing away the burnt tails, he collected himself and tried to bam me.

"Master Wheatman," he began, "I call upon you in the King's name to aid and assist me. This woman's tale is all a lie. The mug was on the chimney-top for anyone to see, and I only took it down to examine it, being struck with its appearance."

"Also in the King's name, Master Sergeant," was my reply, "I propose to have you handed over to the nearest justice as a rogue and vagabond."

"And you shall explain why you are here with your—" I should have strangled him if his foul tongue had wagged one word of insult, and he saw it in my eyes. He stopped, and his face showed that he had discovered the secret.

"The sergeant recognizes you again, Molly," said I lightly.

"Bammed and beaten by a damned yokel?" he burst out. "Ten thousand devils! Where were my eyes yesterday?" In his anger he began to strain at his steel cravat.

"Virgil for ever! The first town we come to I'll buy me a Latin grammar," said Margaret to me, with a low ripple of laughter.

"How'd on, fool," said the alewife to the sergeant. "Yow wunna be wuth hangin' if y' carry on a this'n."

"If you don't loose me, you old bitch," he shouted, "I'll see you hanged! Loose me, for your neck's sake! These people are Jacobites!"

"Gom, I dunna know what that be, but I wish Stafford-sheer was full on 'em. 'Tinna any good chokin' y'rsen, I shanna let go."

This method of keeping him, however, rendered the alewife useless, so I took her place, and bade her fetch the longest and toughest rope she'd got. She brought me a beauty and with it I trussed the sergeant, tying him securely into a heavy, clumsy chair, and leaving him as helpless as a fowl ready for roasting. Then a thought struck me and I went through his pockets. His very stillness made me careful in my search, but I found only some old bills for fodder and other military papers, and a heavily sealed letter addressed "To HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS." I was not quite Jacobite enough to make me willing to steal a dispatch addressed to the Royal Duke, and I should have thrust it and the oddments of paper back again but for the rattle of hoofs outside. It was probably Master Freake, and I was particularly anxious that the sergeant should not see him, so I rushed out with all the papers in my hand to forestall him.

Hurrying outside I saw Master Freake hitching his horse to the signpost, and Mistress Waynflete already talking to him eagerly. When I got up he delivered his news briefly and to the point, and bad news it was.

He had learned in Stone that the Colonel had again been taken on ahead towards Newcastle in charge of a troop of Brocton's dragoons under the command of Captain Rigby, "last night's table companion of the dead Major," he explained.

"Whatever for?" asked Mistress Waynflete.

Master Freake said nothing, but his eyes were troubled, and I knew there was something he would fain conceal.

"Whatever for?" she repeated. "Could you learn of no reason?"

"I was told," he answered slowly, "that Colonel Waynflete's knowledge and assistance would be invaluable to the royal troops."

"Told that my father had turned traitor! Is that what you mean, sir?" Scorn too great for anger covered her face, veiling its sweetness as with a fiery cloud.

"That is the plain English of what I was told, I must admit." Here was the grave, businesslike nature of the man, plainly posing awkward questions that had to be answered.

"It's a wicked lie!" she burst out. She turned her face proudly to look into mine, and I saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

"Naturally, madam," said I.

"My father's honour is mine, Master Wheatman, and I am your debtor for another splendid courtesy."

"I argue from the flower to the tree. Man's logic, and therefore necessarily imperfect, you would say, but for once I stick to it." I spoke lightly and reminiscently, so as to chase the gloom from her mind, and she was immediately herself again.

Master Freake continued his story, which went from bad to worse. As I had expected, Bladderface had ridden into Stone, and the result of his communication to Captain Rigby had been that orders were issued for our pursuit, and Master Freake had left the town not very far in advance of the squad of horse sent on our track. He had thus been unable to procure horses for us, but at Eccleshall he had managed to obtain a pillion for Margaret's use behind him.

This was awkward indeed, for though Master Freake had ridden hard, the pursuit could not be very far behind, and if, as was almost certain, the dragoons turned up at the "Ring of Bells," the sergeant would be set free, and be after us like a mad bull. There was, however, a margin of time available, and therefore I put this problem out of my mind, and attended only to the urgent one of the Colonel's position.

To me there was only one explanation possible. This continual shifting of the Colonel, ever under the charge of those rascally dragoons, commanded now by a man whose familiarity with Tixall was an evil augury, meant one thing only. Soon, perhaps within an hour or two, there would be fighting, and under cover of that a stab in the back or a bullet in the head would clear the Colonel out of Brocton's path for ever.

"Take these papers, Master Freake," said I. "Mistress Waynflete will tell you what has happened here, and you can give them back to their owner if you choose. But do not, I beg you, on any account let the rascal inside see or hear you."

I raced indoors, seized the sergeant's tuck and took his baldrick from him, heedless of his vile threats. I left him there, choking with foulness, unhitched Sultan, sprang into the saddle, and cantered up to my friends.

"Now, Mistress Margaret," I said, "describe your father so that I shall know him when I see him."

She sketched his portrait in broad, clear outlines, and I fixed the description point by point in my memory.

"That's the road to Newcastle," said I, pointing along the edge of the mere, "and it's fairly straight and good. Follow me there as quickly as you can, and inquire for me at the 'Rising Sun.' I'll have news of the Colonel, if not the Colonel himself, when we meet again."

I bowed to Margaret, dug my heels into Sultan, and was off like a flash.



CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH I SLIP

Sultan was a horse for a man, long and regular in his stride, perfect in action, quick to obey, cat-like at need. I might have ridden him from the day on which the blacksmith drank his colt-ale, for we understood each other exactly, and I was as comfortable on his back as in my bed at the Hanyards. In the open road at the mere-end, he settled down into a steady, loping trot, and I was free to think matters out to the music of his hoof-beats on the road.

It was only eight or nine miles into Newcastle, and as the dragoons would travel slowly and warily there was just a chance that I should be there first. Further, it was wholly unlikely that I should be interfered with, since the only two enemies who knew I was aiding Mistress Margaret were helpless in my rear—Brocton at Stafford, and the sergeant in the "Ring of Bells." I was unknown in the town, not having been there since my schooldays, and then only on rare occasions, as a visit to the town meant a thirty-mile walk in one day.

Plan-making was futile. Everything would depend upon chance, but if chance threw me into touch with the Colonel, it should go hard if I did not free him somehow or other. The most splendid thing would be if I could free him before Margaret overtook me at the "Rising Sun." True, I had only an hour or so to spare, but now strange things happened in an hour of my life, and this great luck might be mine. Then would come my rich and rare reward—the light in her deep, blue eyes and the tremulous thanks on her ripe, red lips.

And then a thought smote me like a blow between the eyes, so that I dizzied a moment, and the day grew grey and the outlook blank. The finding of the Colonel meant the losing of Margaret. Father and daughter reunited, my work would be done; the day of the hireling would be accomplished. Need for me there would be none. The old life would again claim me, justly claim me too, for was I not, though all unworthily and unprofitably, the only son of my sweet mother, and she a widow. I could see her in the house-place at the Hanyards, her calm eyes fixed in sorrow on my empty chair. A man shall leave father and mother, yes, for one particular cause, but the only son of a widowed mother for no cause whatsoever. Christ, I said to myself, would not have raised the young man of Nain merely to get married.

Still there was the work, and I spurned my gloomy thoughts and turned to think of it. And first I took stock of my means of offence. There were loaded pistols in the holsters, fine long weapons with polished walnut stocks inlaid with silver lacery and the initials 'C.W.', the Colonel's without a doubt. At the saddle-bow there hung a sizeable leathern pouch, and this I found to contain a good supply of charges. I was a sure shot, and I tried my skill on a gate as Sultan flew by, splintering the latch at which I aimed to a nicety, the well-trained horse taking no more notice of the shot than of a wink at a passing market-wench. So far so good. Then there was the sergeant's tuck, and I shouted with a schoolboy's glee at having for the first time in my life a sword at my side. Of how to use it I knew nothing, unless many bouts at single-stick with Jack should be some sort of apprenticeship in swordcraft. I practised pulling it out, and then, imitating Brocton, made the forty-inch blade twist and tang in the air, which pleased me greatly. I felt quite a Cavalier now, and said within myself that old Smite-and-spare-not's bones should soon be rustling in their grave with envy.

And so into Meece, wondering if the fat host of the "Black Bull" would recognize in the splendidly mounted horseman the dusty schoolboy of ten years ago. There he was in the porch, grown intolerably fatter, talking to my ancient gossip, Rupert Toms, the sexton, now heavily laden with years and infirmities. I pricked on, having no time to spare for either prayer or provender, since every moment was precious, though a tankard of double October, mulled with spice and laced with brandy, would have been precious too, for the matter of that.

At the tail of the village, where the curve of the road runs into the straight again to climb the long hill, I came for a moment into touch with my affair. A horseman was in sight, rattling down the slope, and I saw that he was an officer, a keen-featured, middle-aged man, with the set face of one who rides on urgent business. Yet he checked his horse when near me, and cried curtly, "What news from Stafford?"

A word with him might be worth while, so I too pulled up and answered very politely, "It's market-day."

"Damn the market! What news of the troops, sir? Is my Lord Brocton still there?"

"I believe he is."

"Then damn my Lord Brocton! Did you chance to see him?"

"I had that honour late last night."

"Anything the matter with him?"

"He'd had enough," said I simply.

"That's what comes of shoving sprigs of your bottle-sucking nobility into the service. Damn his nobility! There's another of them back yonder, as much use as an old tup."

"If I detain you much longer," said I, with exaggerated sweetness, "you'll be damning me."

"Nothing likelier. I damn everything and everybody that don't suit me. That's why I'm captain at fifty instead of colonel at thirty. What of it?"

"Lord Brocton's nine miles off, and I'm not."

"Think I care? Damn you, too, and I'll fight you when we meet again. Like a lark! Wish I'd time now. Good day, sir!"

He dug the rowels into his horse and was off. An earnest, choleric man with his heart in his work, for which I liked him, even to his persistent damning.

I put Sultan to the slope and he kept bravely at it till I eased him off where the rise was steepest. My late encounter clearly meant that affairs were ripening fast farther north, and it might also mean danger behind me sooner than I had looked for. The blood danced in my veins at the prospect of the adventures that awaited me. Ho, for life and work! Would it be long before the blue eyes lanced me through and through again, as when I kissed her hand among the trees by the roadside? I looked at the frosty sun and judged that it was nigh on twenty-four hours since I had stood in the porch and watched mother and Kate across the cobbles into the road —twenty-four hours that had done more for me than the twenty-four years that had gone before them, for they had given me a man's task, a man's thoughts, the stirrings of a man's being, the beginning of a man's agony.

We were at the top now with the open country stretching for miles around us. But the dale beneath, through which the main road ran a mile away to the east, was thick with trees, and I could get no inkling of how things were going. I strained my ears to listen, but no warning sound could I hear. The countryside was still and calm as a frozen sea, and war and its terrors seemed so impossible that for a moment I felt as if it was only a dream-life that I was living and that I must wake soon and hear Joe Braggs trolling out his morning song in honour of Jane. But Sultan craned round his shapely head as if to ask me why I was loitering in the cold, bleak air; so with a cheery slap on his glossy neck, I gave him the reins and away he went, with me spitting ghostly Broctons on the sergeant's tuck. Through the skirts of the woodland he carried me, and then up again till on the top of Clayton Bank I pulled him up a second time for another survey of the situation.

The little town was now in full view a mile ahead, lying on the slope and top of some rising ground. Across the meadows to my right, and now plainly to be seen less than half a mile away, was the main road from Stone. Again I was disappointed. A long, rude post-wagon, pulled by eight horses and driven by a man on an active little nag, was groaning its way south; a solitary horseman was ambling north—and that was all I could see.

What had happened to the Colonel? Were the dragoons in the town or not? I dug my heels into Sultan's flanks and put him to it at his best, and in a few minutes was on the outskirts of the town.

The town consists in the main of two streets. The High Street is simply the town part of the main road from the south and Stone to Congleton and the north—the line along which the Stuart Prince was marching. It deserves its name, for it lies along the edge of the slope on which the town lies. Parallel to it in the dip lies Lower Street, and the road I was on curls past the end of this street and climbs gently to join the upper road. I could thus get into the heart of the town through the poorer quarter of it, and soon the kidney-stones of Lower Street rang under Sultan's hoofs.

The stir and noise of Stafford was completely absent. The townspeople, mainly hatters by trade, were plying their craft indoors as if no enemy were at their gate. In fact, as I learned afterwards, there was no fuss and much fun and good business when the Highlanders actually came on the scene. The farther a town was from them the more it funked them, which was, as everybody knows now, truest of all of London. As I turned up the lane by St. Giles', the church bells chimed two. Past the church in the corner between the lane and the High Street was the "Rising Sun." Once Sultan was safe in its stables I could set about getting news of the Colonel before Margaret and Master Freake arrived.

It was stiff work up the last thirty yards, and Sultan shook himself together after it when he drew out on the level High Street. Here were throngs of people and some signs of trouble toward. In particular I noticed the town fathers in their black gowns of office, and, most conspicuous of all, the crimson and fur of his worship. I judged they were coming from a council meeting in the town hall, which stood in the middle of the wide High Street. There was much high debate, wagging of fingers and smiting of fist in palm, but no approach to the tumult and terror of yesternight. The Mayor stood for a moment confabbing at the door of a grocery, and then shot into it. I saw him struggling out of his gown as he disappeared, and thence inferred that the chief burgess was a grocer in private life.

So much I saw before pulling Sultan round to pass under the archway leading into the yard of the "Rising Sun." I dismounted and called for an ostler. No man appearing, I was about to lead Sultan farther down the yard towards the stables when there was a scurry of feet behind me as if the whole ostler-tribe of the "Rising Sun" was hastening to my assistance. I turned round rattily to find myself looking into the barrel of a pistol, while three or four men pounced on me and pinned me against the wall.

"Damn ye, horse-thief, for the black of a bean I'd blow your brains out," said Colonel Waynflete. "Stick tight, lads; and you, good host, fetch along Master Mayor and the constable, and have me the scoundrel laid by the heels. If this were only my commandery on the Rhine! I'd strappado you and then hang you within the next half-hour. My bonny Sultan! How are you, my precious?"

When a raw youth leaves farming for knight-erranting he must expect sharp turns and rough tumbles, but surely Fate and Fortune were overdoing it now. It was the Colonel beyond doubt, and Margaret had limned him to the life. The hawk-eyes, the hook nose, the leathery skin, the orange-tawny campaign-wig with the grizzled hair peeping under the rim of it, the tall, thin, supple figure, all were there. And if I had been in any doubt of it, Sultan would have settled the matter, for his pleasure at finding his master was delightful to witness.

In hot blood I did not mind a pistol, and in the coldest blood I could easily have kicked loose from the men who had got hold of me. But Margaret kept my limbs idle and my mouth shut. There was no real danger, for that matter, unless Margaret and Master Freake failed to turn up at the "Rising Sun," and there was no reason to suppose they would fail. The Colonel gave me no chance to speak to him privately, and to speak to him publicly might upset his plans. How he had got here a free man, what strange turn things had taken in his favour, I could not imagine. Margaret would be here in an hour and put matters right, so for her sake it would be best and easiest to say nothing. I simply made up my mind that the varlet on my right, whose dirty claws and beery breath were sickening me, should have the direst of drubbings before the day was out.

Mine host bustled off for the Mayor, and, the news having gone around, the yard was filled with people watching the fun and making a mocking-stock of me. The Colonel saw Sultan off to be groomed and baited, and then, without so much as a look at me, went into the inn and sat down to his interrupted meal. I could see him plainly through the window, and hugely admired his coolness. The maids clustered around to have a peep at me. Such as were old and ugly declared off-hand that I was indisputably ripe for the gallows, but a younger one with saucy eyes and cherry-red cheeks blew a kiss, and called out to beery breath to deal gentlier with me. He moved a little in turning to grin at her, and I shot my knee into his wind and doubled him up on the ground. A stouter lad took his place, but his breath was sweet and I gained much in comfort by the change.

The situation had the saving grace of humour. For twenty-four hours I had been on the stretch to save Colonel Waynflete from his enemies. To do it I had left mother and sister, and home and lands. To do it I had come out openly on the side of rebellion and treason. The sword had been at my breast, and the wind of a bullet had stirred the hair of my head. I might have spared my pains. All this pother of mine was over the man sitting yonder, heartily enjoying his dinner. All my heroics had ended in my being arrested as a horse-thief.

I closed my eyes. Picture after picture came before me of Margaret in her changing moods and her unchanging beauty. Gad! How cheaply I had bought this gallery of precious memories!

A throng of lads crowding noisily under the archway heralded the approach of the dignitaries. First came the town beadle, a pompous little fellow who wore a laced brown greatcoat many sizes too large for him, and carried a cudgel of office thick as his own arm, and surmounted by a brass crown the size of a baby's head. His office enabled him to be brave on the cheap, so by dint of digging his weapon into the ribs of all and sundry, they being, as he expressed it, too thick on the clod, he cleared a path for the grocer-mayor, who had gotten himself again into his scarlet gown. His worship was gawky, flustered, and uncertain, and listened like a scared rabbit to mine host, a man of much talk, who explained proudly what was to be done.

"This is 'im, y'r worship," he said. "A dirty 'oss-thief as badly wants 'anging. Copped in the act, y'r worship, of riding into this 'ere yard o' mine, as big as bull-beef, sitting on the very 'oss 'e'd stolen from his lordship 'ere."

His lordship was the Colonel, who had leisurely left his meal again to settle my hash. I can see him now as he stood on the step of the inn-door, carefully flicking a stray crumb or two from his waistcoat, and taking the measure of the man he had to bamboozle, with clear, amused, grey eyes.

"The Mayor of the town, I think," he said softly.

"Yes, your honour," said the good man surreptitiously wiping something, probably sugar, off his hands on the lining of his gown.

"And his beadle, your lordship," added the host, and the under-strapper inside the greatcoat saluted the Colonel with a flourish of his tipstaff.

"I am Colonel Waynflete," he answered in level measured tones, "riding on important business of His Majesty's, and my horse was stolen at an inn, some miles back, beyond Stafford. But for the kindness of my Lord Brocton in providing me with another, His Gracious Majesty's affairs would have been badly disarranged. This fellow came riding in on my horse, Sultan, a few minutes ago and I ordered his arrest. He is now in your worship's hands. I leave him there with confidence, merely remarking, on the warrant of many years' observation in such matters, that he will require a stout rope."

He nodded to his dithering worship, and marched back slowly and calmly to his dinner.

"This beats cock-fighting," said mine host admiringly. He spread himself, happy and conspicuous as a tom-tit on a round of beef, and the crowd, pleasantly anticipating mugs of beer later on, urged the Mayor to be up and doing.

"What have you to say for yourself?" said his grocer-ship to me, with a dim and belated idea, perhaps, that I might be interested in the proceedings.

"The beadle's coat is much too large for him," said I.

"Yes, yes," he replied hurriedly. "Samson Salt was a big man and had only had the coat three years when he died, and we couldn't afford a new one for Timothy. Dear me, but this isn't a council meeting, and what's the beadle's coat got to do with horse-stealing?"

"As much as I have," I replied gravely.

"Yow've 'ad enough, my lad," said the host, "to last y'r the rest of y'r life. The next 'oss you rides'll be foaled of an acorn. Let Timothy put him in clink, Master Mayor, and come and have a noggin of the real thing. Gom, I'm that dry my belly'll be thinking my throat's cut."

"Arrest this man, Timothy Tomkins, and put him in jail till I can take due order for his trial."

Timothy turned up the sleeves of his coat, and arrested me by placing his hand on my arm, and flourishing the brass crown in my face.

"Don't hurt me, Timothy," I said. "I'll come like a lamb, and I'll go slow lest you should tumble over the tail of your coat."

"If you say another word about the blasted coat I'll split your head open," was his angry reply. It was evidently a sore topic with him and a familiar one with his frugal townsmen, for some man in the crowd cried out, "'Tinna big enough for the missis, be it, Timothy?" And while the peppery little beadle's eyes were searching the japer out, another added, "More's the pity, for 'er's a bit of a light-skirt." At this there was a roar of laughter, so I saved the frenzied officer further trouble by saying, "Come along, Timothy. Let's go to jail."

On the Mayor's orders, mine host despoiled me of the sergeant's tuck, and Timothy marched me off to the jail, the rabble following, as full of chatter as a nest of magpies. The jail was a small stone building, standing, like the town hall, in the middle of the street. Arrived there, Timothy thrust me into an ill-lit dirty hole below the level of the street, locked the door behind me, and left me to my reflections.

The only furniture of the den was a rude bench. A nap would do me good, so, after a good pull at Kate's precious cordial, I curled up on the bench and in a few minutes was sound asleep. And in my sleep I dreamed that two blue stars were twinkling at me through a golden cloud.



CHAPTER XII

THE GUEST-ROOM OF THE "RISING SUN"

A wisp of cloud, a long trail of shimmering gold, broke loose, swept with the touch of softest silk across my cheek, and half awakened me. I was lazily and sleepily regretting that such caresses only came in dreams, when I was brought sharply back to full life by a ripple of hearty laughter.

"Gloat on!" said I complacently.

"I knew you'd slip some time or other. Gloat! Of course I shall gloat." And she laughed again. I should have borne it easily enough, coming from her, under any circumstances, but there was one circumstance which made it a pure joy. The white hands were busy with her unruly yellow hair, and I was so far gone foolward that I was in some sort hopeful that they were imprisoning the wisp of golden cloud that had awakened me. I bitterly regretted that I was not as nimble at waking as Jack. He would be sleeping like a leg of mutton one second and, at the touch of a feather, as wide awake as a weasel the next. I took time—it was the Latin rubbish cumbering my brain, he used to say—or I might have made sure.

Mistress Margaret was perched on the edge of my bench. She seemed in no hurry to move, and I could not get up till she did, so I lay still, cradling my head in my hands, and looked contentedly at her. It was now so gloomy that I had evidently been asleep some time.

"I knew you'd slip," she repeated with great zest. "All men do. And I'm glad you slipped, for it proved you human. I was getting quite overawed by the terrible precision with which you did exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. It made me feel so very small and inferior, and no woman likes that. It's not nice."

"Or natural," said I.

"I see you're unmistakably awake, sir!" was the tart reply. She rose and took short turns up and down the cell and went on: "But why slip into jail, Master Wheatman? Why did you not tell father who you were and what you had done for me?"

"And so prove at once to the authorities in the town that he was not what he pretended to be!"

"Ho!" she said, and stopped short.

"Our idea was, I think, to free the Colonel, if we could."

"Yes." She was not gloating now, but wondering.

"Well, madam, I found him free, and the only advantage I can see in your plan is, that I should have had him as a companion in jail. Whereas now I've mended my night's sleep with a refreshing nap, and Master Freake has so lucidly explained things to the Mayor that Timothy of the long coat is kicking his heels at the top of the stairs, and wondering how much longer you're going to be. Shall we once more breathe the upper air, as Virgil would put it? This hole is as bad as a corner in his under-world."

"And I laughed at you for slipping, Master Wheatman! I shall never dare to look you in the face again."

"Don't you believe it, madam," said I airily, leading the way to the steps. "I've heard Copper Nob say the same thing scores of times."

"Who's Copper Nob?"

The question came like the crack of a whip, and I was glad the familiar phrase had slipped out unawares and diverted her.

"Our Kate," I explained.

"Oh indeed, sir! A more beautiful head of hair no woman in this land possesses, and you glibly call her 'Copper Nob.' Doubtless you have selected some nice expressive name for me!"

"I shouldn't dare!" I protested hotly.

"Why not? You do it for her, brazenly and wantonly."

"Yes, madam, but she's my sister."

"How does that assure me?"

"A man's sister isn't a woman," said I, and went ahead and pushed open the door. There, sure enough, was Timothy, looking very uncertain and rueful. The little man's complaisance had given me the greatest wonder of my life—Margaret's silent watching over me as I lay asleep, and I gave him a guinea with much gladness.

"The coat's too big for you, Timothy, and it's no good denying it. I'll speak to his worship about a new one of the right length."

"Thank yer, sir," he said, grinning oafishly as he pouched the guinea. "I'd rather have a new coat than a new missus, and, swelp me bob, I want both."

Margaret joined me, and we at once made our way to the "Rising Sun." Work for the day was over, and the street was now getting thronged and noisy. Many curious looks were bent on us, but no one dared to interfere with a man of my evil reputation, a horse-thief being the last thing in desperadoes. We had only a few yards to go, but my mistress apprised me in sweet whisperings that Master Freake's explanation was that Sultan had been innocently obtained from the real thief, that I was his servant, and, not knowing of the horse deal, had loyally kept silent lest I should make mischief—a happy and reasonably truthful rendering of the real facts.

"After his private talk with Master Mayor," she added, "that worthy man's knees were as hard worked as the hinges of an ale-house door."

"The poor cringeling is but a grocer," said I, as we turned in under the archway of the "Rising Sun." The host saw us through the kitchen window, and ran out to usher us in with the assurance of a brass weathercock.

"Sommat like a jail delivery, eh, y'r 'onour? Gom, if I wudna pinch fifty 'osses to be fetched out o' clink by such a bonny lady, begging your ladyship's pardon."

"She shall fetch you out," said I sourly, "when you're jailed for not stealing."

"His honour's commands are a law unto his handmaiden," said Margaret demurely and icily, addressing him, but aiming point-blank at me. Her shot blew me clean out of the water, and I stood there guggling like a born idiot. "Curse you, will you never get out of your yokel's ways?" said I to myself. It was as if I had said to the sergeant, speaking of Jane, "She shall draw you a mug of beer." I was clean nonplussed, and felt as uncomfortable as a boiling crawfish, but fortunately rattle-pate came to my aid and drowned my confusion in a flood of words.

"And all he said, y'r ladyship, was that Timothy's coat was too big for 'im. Gom, it beat cock-fighting, it did. Swelp me bob it did. I never saw a man so staggered as the Mayor, but he's got over it fine, and gone 'ome, good man, with a crick in his back and near on a pint of my best brandy in his belly. When these 'ere wild Highland rappers and renders come, he's just primed up to make 'em a grand speech at bridge yonder, and if that dunna frighten 'em off, nuthin' wull, and my cellars will be as ill filled with beer as Timothy's coat is with brawn. I'm getting the best supper on the Chester road for yer, y'r honour, and that'll mike you feel as bold as sixpence among sixpenn'orth o' coppers. But come along, y'r ladyship. The Colonel's upstairs. Follow me!"

Words ran out of him like ale out of a stunned barrel. He clacked on incessantly on the way upstairs, and clacked as boldly as ever as he ushered us into the room, where the Colonel was awaiting us alone.

"'Ere 'e is, y'r lordship," he said gustily. "'Ere's the nobby gentleman as didna steal yer 'oss. But yow'd best keep yer eye on 'im, on my say so. He'll pinch sommat o' yow'n yet afore 'e's done."

The Colonel, who was toasting his toes at a roaring fire, rose as I followed Margaret towards him. He made me a precise and formal bow, which I imitated farmer fashion. "This is Master Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards, father," said Margaret, in so low a tone that the host, lingering, hand on door-knob, nearly a dozen paces behind us, could not have heard her.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir," he said, repeating his bow.

"The honour is mine, sir," I replied, repeating mine, and wondering the while if I ever should learn to bend like a willow instead of a jointed doll.

"Nay, I protest, sir." This suavely to me; then, stepping sharply towards the host, he stormed, "Damn ye, man, get on the landlord's side of the door, or I'll rout it down around your lazy ears. Slids! I've shot an innkepeer for less in the Rhineland."

"Them 'ere furriners—" began the host, but the Colonel swamped him with something of which I could make out nothing except that it was a fairly successful attempt to talk and sneeze at the same time. It finished off the host, who retired, beaten with his own weapon. The victor, waiting till the door was closed, tiptoed up to it and listened carefully.

"A rather interesting feature about dad," whispered Margaret with mischief in her eyes, "is that when he's angry he curses in French, and when he's mad he execrates in German."

"Neatly rounding off his daughter's accomplishments," said I.

"And how, sir?"

"Who gibes in English and loves in Italian."

She stabbed me with her eyes, and said, "Your services give you no privileges, sir."

"I know that, madam, but my yokelship does."

I spoke lightly, keeping the bitterness of my heart out of my voice, though it had surged up into my speech. I may have been mistaken, misled by the flickering fire-light, but the anger seemed to melt out of her eyes.

The return of the Colonel ended our cut-and-thrust.

"Soldiering," he said, "is nine-tenths caution and one-tenth devilment. Yon glavering idiot has long ears to match his long tongue. And now, sir, let me greet you as I should."

He seized my hand, shook it warmly, and continued, "A father's thanks, Master Wheatman, for your kindness to my Margaret. Anon she shall tell me the whole story, but I know already that you are a gallant gentleman whom I shall have the honour of turning into a fine soldier, and neither angel, man, nor devil could make you fairer requital."

Praise and promise were far beyond any desert or hope of mine, but I said boldly, "I am no gentleman, but just a plain, few-acred yeoman, who has tried to serve your daughter—"

"Tried?" he snorted. "Tried, indeed! I've been soldiering man and boy these forty odd years, and, slids, I've never known better work." He ran me up and down with his eyes and, turning to Margaret, continued, "By the beard of the prophet, Madge, Master Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards is a vast improvement on the Baron."

Margaret blushed daintily and hastily covered his mouth with her fingers.

"You dare, dad, and I won't kiss you good night."

"Damme," he said, freeing himself and grinning at me with delight. "This is rank mutiny. Prithee note, Master Wheatman, the prepare-to-receive-cavalry look in her eye! The last time I lost her was at Hanover, and she rejoined me, if you please, at Dresden."

"Magdeburg, you libellous old father," said Margaret, pouting.

"So it was," he said heartily, conceding the point. "Escorted by, or escorting, I was never clear which, a fat German baron nearly five feet high, who begged me to horsewhip her into marrying him."

"You shot him?" said I, so very energetically that Margaret's pout turned into a smile.

"Dear me, no," he said, pretending to yawn. "I left him to Madge, poor fellow! I hope you've given her every satisfaction, Master Wheatman."

"That he hasn't," said Margaret briskly. "He's spent far too much time putting me in what he considers my proper place."

"My friend," said he to me gravely, "you're in for a dog's life."

"You're right about the life, dad, but wrong about the dog. Good-bye till supper, you nasty ripper-up of your daughter's character!"

So saying, she kissed him on each cheek, smiled at me, and left us.

"I'd like to sluice the jail feeling off myself," said I to the Colonel.

"Right," he replied, looking at his watch. "You've just half an hour. I find England irksomely restful and law-abiding after the Continent, but I'm glad of it for once. I should be damnably vexed if I'd hanged you, and Madge wouldn't have liked it either."

He had a grave voice, like a judge's, and a quick, pert eye, like a jackdaw's. Outwardly he was as unlike Margaret as the haft of a pike is unlike a lily, but I already saw her spirit in him.

"Sir," said I, "when I am fortified by a good supper, I will venture to indicate my preferences on the subject."

He took out his snuff-box, tapped it carefully, opened it, and held it out to me.

"You have begun well, sir. I hear you are a great scholar, Latin and all that, quite pat. Damme, sir, those ancients understood things. They knew how to honour the gods, for they made soldiers of 'em and set 'em fighting in the clouds. There's divinity for you! You've got twenty-eight minutes."

I laughed and left him.

The room in which my introduction to the Colonel had taken place was immediately over the archway. Its window opened on to a balcony which, supported on thick oak balks, stood over the causeway of the street; its door was in a passage leading from one wing of the house to the other, and in the passage were three leaded lattice-windows of greenish glass, plentifully sprinkled with blobs and nodes, giving on the long inn-yard. The room was thus admirably situated for people in our precarious position, having a look-out back and front, and a way of escape right and left.

The cherry-cheeked lass who had thrown me the kiss was tripping past the door as I opened it. She told me that she had been attending on ''er ladyship,' and willingly led me to a bedroom and brought me thither the things I needed for my sluicing, among them a passable razor and a huckaback fit to fetch the hide off a horse.

"Give me now the kiss you threw me," said I, as she was turning to leave.

"Nay, sir," she said. "You're not in trouble now, and dunna need it."

"Lassie," said I, "that's a right womanly reply, and here's something to buy a ribbon with that shall be worthy of you." And I gave her one of the dead Major's guineas.

"Thank yer, sir," she said. "And besides there's no need for you to be kissing the likes of me."

"You're a sweetly pretty lassie," said I.

"Y' dunna want to be gawpin' around after pennies when there's guineas to be picked up," she replied, with a toss of her head. "Struth, I wish at times I wasna quite so pretty. There's some men, bless you, I know one myself, such fools that they think a pretty wench doesna want kissin'. But, sartin sure, there's never been the like of 'er ladyship in Newcastle in my time. I'll 'ave a ribbon on Sunday as near the colour and shine of 'er ladyship's hair as money can buy, and Sail'll wish 'er'd never been born. I'll Sim 'er."

With this terrible threat she flounced out of the room, and I laughed and wondered who and what 'Sim' was. A decent fellow and a good tradesman, I hoped, and wished him pluck and luck.

While I was tidying myself up, my mind was busy with the strange tangle things were got into. The mysterious Master Freake, after turning the Mayor into his pliant tool, had apparently disappeared. The Colonel had not breathed a word of explanation, and seemed to feel so secure that he was dawdling in the town as if no enemy were at hand. Of the state of affairs in the town itself I knew nothing. The one clear thing was that I had got my neck right into the noose, and Brocton could, and would, pull tight at the first opportunity. What did all this matter? What did any untoward event or result matter? I was going to be a soldier, and, after the fashion of love-lorn Cherry-Cheeks, I said to myself, "I'll Jack him!" I was going to be near Margaret, and, so rejoicing, bethought me of the hapless Roman's "Infelix, properas ultima nosse mala." And what did that matter either? I rubbed myself the colour of a love-apple, humming the while old-time ditties long since driven out of my head by the Latin rubbish. Jack was right. Of course it was rubbish. "Latin be damned," said I gleefully. "Nothing counts but life and love."

There was more than a pinch of swagger in me as I made my way back to the passage overlooking the yard. Arrived there, I cautiously opened the nearest lattice and peered out. The inn-yard was dark and silent, and I was on the point of closing the window when I heard the clatter of hoofs on the stone-paving under the archway. A moment later a man on foot came in sight, and was followed into the yard by two men on horseback, one of them in charge of a led horse.

At once all was bustle. Ostlers ran up with lanterns, and the host came forward, candle in hand and a multitude of words on his tongue, to order things aright.

The man afoot was Master Freake, and it was clear that the riders were men of his, for I heard him ask them if they were quite clear as to their instructions, and both answered respectfully that they were. I could see they wore swords and that their horses were splendid, powerful animals, not much inferior to Sultan himself. Who and what was this man—"plain John Freake," as he called himself,—who carried large sums of money, domineered over self-important burgesses and mayors, who was served by such well-appointed horsemen, whom Master Dobson, a parliament man, feared, and my Lord Brocton had thought it worth while to attempt to put out of the way?

It was a riddle I could not read, but as I stood there, peering round the half-open lattice at the scene below, I was happier than ever I had been in my life. "Poor old Jack," said I to myself, "sweating and swearing over your riff-raff dragooners, and here am I, who envied you yester-morn, on the top rung of life."

"We shall get it if we're late," said Mistress Margaret playfully in my ear. "Not because dad worries whether he eats or not, but because he's so strong on mil-it-ary dis-cip-line." I write the words so, as a poor, paper imitation of the mincing gait she could put into her speech, which was ever one of her delightfulnesses. "You'd have been the better," she went on, "for a bringing-up on a troop-sergeant's switch. See what it's done for me!"

So she challenged me to admire her, and indeed I think that the witch was verily bent on casting a spell over me. No words can paint her as she stood in the dim-lit passage, the infinite sum of womanhood, peerless in every grace and gift; not now the tense, proud Margaret of the quick rebuke and the shattering sarcasm, but the mirthful, trustful, grateful companion of our boy-and-girl escapade.

"I think you're right, madam," said I. "Bloggs, dear old chap, flogged the meaning of Virgil into me, but I wish he had flogged in some of the meaning of life along with it. I feel as helpless as Saul would have felt with David's sling and stones."

"Are you as one fighting a Goliath?"

"I am," said I, not able now to speak lightly, and not daring to look at her. Could any enterprise be more hopeless than the one my heart, against all the strivings of sense and reason, was beginning to set me? Through the open lattice I watched the flicker of lanterns in the yard, where the horses were being upped and whoaed stablewards.

"You will favour me, sir, with your escort into supper," said Margaret.

This brought me to myself with a jerk. I closed the lattice, offered her my arm, and we walked towards the guest-room where the Colonel was awaiting us.

"I think you'd better revise your knowledge of the Scriptures, Master Oliver," said she very quietly as I led her into the room.

"In what respect, Mistress Margaret?"

"You seem to have an imperfect recollection of the way in which Goliath met his death. It's idle to say we're late, dad, when supper's not yet served."

He exploded into words I did not understand. "It's all right, only French," whispered Margaret mischievously. "It means 'name of a dog.' I could swear better myself."

"That's right," stormed the Colonel. "As fast as I curse soldiering into one ear of him, you coax it out of the other! I'll be thankful when you're under Mother Patterson's wing in Chester."

The coming of Cherry-Cheeks and one of the hard-favoured maids with the supper, followed by our host with the wine, followed in turn by Master Freake, put an end to my first lesson in soldiering and the imprecatory wealth of continental languages, and straightway the host slopped over with apologies for the delay in serving the supper.

"Things are a bit upset in the town, y' mun know," he said, "and every wench in the 'Rising Sun' 'as been a devil unknobbed all day. This red-faced hussy here, when 'er was wanted to set the table, was off to see if that spindle-shanked Sim across at the Mayor's was safe and sound. And besides, my lady and y'r 'onours, the famous steak-and-kidney puddin' o' the 'Rising Sun' must be boiled to a bubble or it's dummacked. If one got spiled, the news 'ud run down to Chester and up to London in no time, and the 'Red Lion' 'ud get all my customers. His Grace of Kingston put up at the 'Red Lion' in all innocence until his worship, for old friendship's sake and a bottle of brandy, 'ticed 'im over 'ere to one of my puddin's. 'E started an inch off the table and ate till 'e touched, as we say in Staffordsheer, and then sent for 'is baggage, and 'as lain 'ere ever since in the great bedchamber over y'r yeds, an' I'm thinking to call it the Duke's Room an' charge sixpence extra for it. It's worth another sixpence to sleep in the same bed as a duke's slep' in. If it ain't, by gom, I'd like to know what he is for. Damn if y'r can tell by lukkin' at 'im."

What I have for convenience' sake set down here as a continuous speech addressed to us all, was really a series of remarks addressed to whichever of us appeared for the moment to be listening, and broken by commands, scoldings, and threats addressed to the women. The tail-end of his remarks made me cock my ear, for it indicated that we were at the centre of the danger zone.

"If I were you," interposed Master Freake at last, "I'd coax Prince Charlie to sleep in it and then charge a shilling extra. A prince, and my dislike of his ways doesn't unprince him, is surely worth twice as much as a duke."

"Swelp me bob," cried the delighted host, slapping his thigh in high glee, "that 'ud be better than a murder. It's wunnerful how a murder 'elps a 'ouse. Tek the 'Quiet Woman' o' Madeley. There was a murder there, and a damn poor thing of a murder it was, nothing but a fudge-mounter cuttin' a besom-filer's throat; poor wench, 'er lived up on th' Higherland yonder, and I'll bet it was wuth two-and-twenty barrel of beer to owd Wat. A murder's clean providential to a pub—"

"Damn, get out," vociferated the Colonel, "or I'll provide the murder and you the corpse."

The meal, be it said, was thoroughly good in every way. I'm not the man to despise my belly, and I don't hold with those that do. There are better things in life than steak-and-kidney puddings, but my experience is they want a lot of finding. The Colonel would not hear of any talk about our affairs till supper was over. "I dare say you're all agog to know what I've been doing and what we are going to do," he said to me. "That's because you're a youngster at everything and a mere infant-in-arms at soldiering. When you've had a month's campaigning you'll know that the only things really worth bothering about are supper and bed."

To my great content he immediately fell head over heels into argument with Master Freake, something about bounties on herring busses, if I remember aright, and Margaret and I were left to each other, and a rare treat I had in hearing her lively talk and watching her glowing beauty.

At last, with almost a sigh of satisfaction, and then with a mischief-glint in her eyes, she said, "The pudding has been very good, but I prefer ham and eggs, provided that the right person cooks them."

"I should agree," I replied, "with one other proviso."

"To wit," said she, with a glass of wine half-way to her lips.

"That the right person saves them from frizzling to a cinder."

She sipped her wine steadily, and then, leaning forward till the radiance of her yellow hair made me quiver, she whispered calmly, "Oliver, you're a brute."

"Nay, madam," said I, "only a yokel."

She looked at me again as she had looked at me when I had kissed her hand beneath the hawthorns.

"Hello, there," broke in the Colonel, addressing himself to me, "who was right about the dog's life?"

"I was, of course," said Margaret promptly.

The host was rung for, his supper praised to his heart's content, the table cleared, and a dish of tea ordered for Margaret. Bethinking me of the sergeant's tuck, which might be useful, I asked the host to bring it up, and he did so.

When we were again left to ourselves, the Colonel took the sword, and examined it with his skilful eyes and practised hands.

"Somewhat heavy," said he, "but well balanced and well made, and of the truest steel. Are you a swordsman, Master Wheatman?"

"I never had one in my hand in my life till to-day," was my reply.

"Gird him for the wars, Margaret," said he. "So much of the ancient rules and customs of chivalry as can be observed in these mechanic days shall, by us at any rate, be observed. In strict law you ought to have spent a night in prayer and fasting, but your loyal service to Margaret is a good equivalent. To labour is to pray, say the parsons, and, my lad, always remember in your soldiering that a so-minded man can offer up a powerful prayer between pull of trigger and flash of priming. Kneel, Oliver, and in God's sight you shall be more truly knighted than any capering and chattering of German Geordie's can contrive."

And so, in the guest-room of the "Rising Sun," I knelt to my sweet mistress, and, before God and in the presence of Christopher Waynflete, Colonel of Horse in the service of the King of Sweden, and John Freake, citizen of London, Margaret, gravely and serenely beautiful, touched my shoulder with the sword and then girded it upon me.

"Sirs," she said, addressing her father and Master Freake, "the accolade has never been given to a worthier." Then, bending swiftly as a swallow dips in its flight over the meadows, she whispered emphatically in my ears, "Yokel it no more!"



CHAPTER XIII

PHARAOH'S KINE

"And now to business," said Master Freake.

"To pleasure, sir," said the Colonel. "Business is over."

He was leisurely filling his pipe, an example which Margaret, with a smile and a nod, gave me permission to follow.

"Tell us how you escaped," said Margaret. "Master Wheatman cannot too soon begin to learn the tricks of the trade. Sorry, dad," bending to kiss his hand; "you needn't look at me in German. I mean rudiments of the profession."

"A woman who calls soldiering a trade ought to be forcibly married to a parson," said the Colonel passionately.

"There'll be a reasonable quantity of parsons to choose from at Chester," she retorted, laughing up in his face.

"Chester? Why Chester?" demanded Master Freake, suddenly tense and vigilant.

"I need name no name, but a certain dignitary's lady there, one of our supporters, undertook to take her in charge while this affair was on," explained the Colonel.

Master Freake, it seemed to me, was disappointed with the explanation, and, knowing that what Margaret wanted was to have the rumour of her father's intended treachery blown to pieces by his own account, I said, "There's only one parson in England fit to look at Mistress Margaret, and he's sixty and married. Let me learn, I pray you, sir, the art of slipping out of the hands of a squad of dragoons on a road crowded with soldiery."

"If you think you are to hear a tale that will make you grip the arms of your chairs, you're in for a sad disappointment. Yesterday and through the night, they stuck to me as if Geordie had offered thirty thousand pounds for me, dead or alive, but this morning their hold on me slackened. They might have intended me to escape. I was put on a fresh horse, about the best they'd got; the dragoon in charge of me was three parts drunk when we started; we got mixed up in a crowd of foot retreating south, and separated from our main body, and finding myself alone on the road with one man, and him drunk, I just knocked him off his horse, and cleared off across the fields.

"I rode on until I got a sight of this town, and the main road into it, from a hill-top, and watched for an hour or so to see what was happening. I knew by my pace that I was well ahead of my late escort, and seeing no signs of them, came on to this inn, and was enjoying a good dinner when I saw Sultan and Oliver on him. The rest you know. Not much of a tale. Madge has done better many a time."

"Do you really think the Captain intended you to escape?" It was Margaret who asked the question, looking intently at me as she spoke.

I looked from her to Master Freake and back again, meaning to remind her that I wanted no convincing, but she still kept her eyes on mine, her chin cupped in her long white hands, and I was glad of her insistence for I could look at her without offence. I thought the mellow fire-light made her look more beautiful than ever. The lustrous yellow hair shone like molten gold, and the dark blue eyes became a queenly purple.

"If it were done on purpose it was done cleverly," continued the Colonel, "for the chance which set me free came quite naturally. The horse I rode yesterday was wanted in the usual way by a trooper to whom it belonged, and where so many men were more or less drunk, the choice of my particular drunkard was certainly accidental. And, besides, what possible motive could there be in letting me escape? Brocton knows I'm an experienced soldier of great repute—I state plain facts—and am eagerly expected by the Prince and by my old companion-in-arms, Geordie Murray. They couldn't have planned it better if they had wished it, but it's absurd to say they wished it. There ought to be a cashiered captain and a half-flayed dragoon somewhere south of us. Damme, I merit that at least."

He bent over the hearth to relight his pipe. Master Freake smiled and rubbed his hands gently. Margaret's eyes blazed with triumph, and challenged me, still me, to share it. Woman-logic was clean beyond my poor wits. I was sick for action. These glorious interludes with Margaret gave me no chance. It was like setting me afire and asking me not to burn.

Thinking of the poor, half-flayed devil behind us, made me think of the sergeant, and I asked Master Freake, "Did you give the sergeant his papers and letter?"

"No," was the ready reply. "The papers dealt rather frankly with certain regimental accounts, and, since the sergeant is now very bitterly set against us, may be useful in my hands. I had a shrewd notion that the letter concerned the title to certain lands as to which Lord Brocton and I are at odds, and on opening it I found to my satisfaction that I was right. With your permission, Oliver, I will keep it."

"By all means do so," said I, anxious to burn again, and turning back to Margaret. If this silent, capacious man, so great a stranger yet so clear a friend, had said that the letter was about a new edition of Virgil, I should have believed him, and also, I fear me, have been equally uninterested. Latin be damned!

"Something for you in Oliver's magic-hat," said Margaret smilingly to Master Freake. "He really must fetch something out for himself soon. Staffordshire is by far the most delightful country I have ever been in. Only one little day has gone by, and in that day Staffordshire has given me more and truer friends than Europe gave me in ten years. I shall cross its borders with regret. Shall we make the most of it while we have it and sleep here, dad?"

"Unless we're routed out," was his reply, "and I do not think we shall be, for the enemy have all cleared out of the town. Cumberland is, of course, doing the right thing. He had few men north of Stafford, and fewer still worth powder and shot. Where the Prince is I've no idea."

"Resting for the day at Macclesfield," said Master Freake, "and his plans are not certain, or, at least, not known. The Duke of Kingston has a small body of horse at Congleton and is watching his movements."

"Damme," the Colonel broke in, "I did not know we had enemies north of us. Are you sure?"

"Certain. One of my men reported the facts to me just before supper."

"It's awkward, or rather will be awkward if anyone who knows me turns up. That rascally landlord of ours must have known where Kingston was, but amid all his talk he never told me that. Damme, somebody's got hold of him. Still, you can't take the bull by the horns till his nose is slobbering your waistcoat, so pass the wine, Oliver."

He refilled his glass and then, leisurely and with his eyes dreamily fixed on the fire, loaded his pipe with a new charge of tobacco, and went on smoking.

"Are you a Jacobite?" suddenly asked Margaret, looking inquiringly at Master Freake.

"Dear me, no, Mistress Margaret," was the frank reply. "But you need not curl those sweet lips of yours, for neither am I a Hanoverian."

"Then what are you?" she asked again, with the same uncompromising directness.

"A Freakeiteian," said he with a smile.

"It puzzles me," was her brief comment.

"Let me explain," said he simply. "A Jacobite wants Charles to win; a Hanoverian wants George to win; a Freakeiteian wants to know who is going to win."

By this time Margaret was no more puzzled than I was. Yesterday when I stood on the river-bank watching my cork, I cared not a rap whether George or Charles won, and that was an understandable position; but why a man should be spending money in handfuls, and roughing it in the wilds of Staffordshire, merely in order to know who was going to win, was beyond my poor wits.

"You do not understand?" he said.

"No," said Margaret and I together.

The Colonel took no notice. He was puffing away at his pipe, long-drawn-out, solemn puffs, and gazing at the fire in a brown study.

"Well, Margaret and Oliver," said Master Freake, "this is no time to be giving you lessons in the way the great world wags that neither knows nor cares of outs and ins and party shufflings, but is busy with rents and crops, and incomings and outgoings, and debts and credits, and wivings and thrivings. But, believe me, in being anxious to know who is going to win, I am as plainly and simply doing my duty as is the Colonel who is going to do his best to help his Prince to win. I am one, and, I thank God, not the least, of that great race of men who are destined to mould a mightier England than the sword could ever carve—the merchant of London whose nod is his bond."

He spoke with simple dignity and his word was established. I had trusted him on sight. "His nod was his bond." You saw it in the man's clear, steady eyes and knew it by the set of his firm, square chin. After a warning glance at the silent Colonel, he leaned forward, and Margaret bent to meet him.

"If Charles loses," he murmured, "many heads will be smitten from their shoulders."

The colour left her cheeks instantly and tears welled forth from her eyes.

"But not the Colonel's," he whispered.

I was watching her with the eye of a hawk. A smile dawned on the white face, the sad eyes began to lose their gloom, and my fool of a heart began to flutter.

Yet once more he whispered, "And not Oliver's."

She leaned farther forward still and kissed him.

And it was just at that moment that the door opened smartly and Cherry-Cheeks put her sweet head round it and swiftly and peremptorily beckoned me outside.

Margaret laughed.

In the dim passage, Cherry-Cheeks caught my hand affrightedly and babbled, "Oh, sir, there's the ugliest beast you ever saw spying on her ladyship. Take your boots off, sir, and creep after me!"

I tugged them off and we started. Along the passage she flew and upstairs into the corresponding passage above. Here, outside the Duke's room, she stopped and whispered, "He'll think I'm that bitch Sal. Hide behind me!"

She opened the door and stole into the room with me in tow, holding her skirt and crouching down nearly to the floor.

She was somewhat broad in the beam, like a Dutch hoy, and all I could see was a dull glimmer somewhere ahead in the darkness.

"Ssss-h, damn ye," said the beast fiercely. "Stand still!"

Cherry-Cheeks took care not to stop till near the light, and then, with wonderful ready wit, put her right hand on her hip and I peeped through between arm and waist.

Full length on his belly lay the man from Yarlet Bank. There was a small spy-hole in the floor, on the edge of the hearth, and he had his right ear against it, which was lucky, for it kept his face turned from me. The notebook lay open on the floor near a guttering tallow candle in an iron candlestick, and the stump of pencil was clenched in his dirty yellow teeth.

I threw my handkerchief on the floor, took my fat little Virgil in my left hand, and crept out to him. When near on top of him, I gripped him round the nape of the neck, digging my fingers in his flabby throat, and he went slimy with fright like a great, fat lob-worm. I swooped down on him with my full weight, and pinned him to the floor. His big mouth opened as he fought for breath, and I clapped the Virgil hard and far into it, tying it tight in with my handkerchief, and gagging him effectually.

I looked up and found, to my relief, that Cherry-Cheeks, like a sensible girl, had crept out of the room, and her share in the affair was never even suspected.

Drawing my tuck, I touched the back of his neck with the point. He flinched and squirmed, great drops of sweat larded his nasty face, and I knew the fear of death and hell was in his marrow.

"Do exactly what I say," I whispered, "or through it goes. Understand?"

He could hardly nod his ugly head for the trembling of his body, and I fairly dithered as I knelt on him. I made him rise, and then caught hold of the skirt of his coat. Holding him by it at arm's length, I stuck my point to his neck again, and said, "Forward."

I marched him downstairs and along the passage. There was great risk of being met by some one, and it was the most anxious time I had had since the affair with the sergeant in the house-place at the Hanyards. Oddly enough, as I drove him along, the thought came to me of the bygone days when Jack and I had played horses just like this at the Hanyards, and when my prisoner stuck a trifle at the door of the guest-room, I growled at him, "Come up!" It was a strange trick of the mind. To me he was just play-horse Jack dawdling to look at ten-year-old Kate feeding her chickens.

I got him in unseen without and unnoticed within, for the Colonel and Master Freake were again at their arguments of state, hammer and tongs, and they minded the click of the door behind them no more than the crack of a spark at their feet. Indeed the Colonel said "Pish!" with great vehemence, and Master Freake's "My dear sir!" had a shake of pepper in it. As for me, I like a man who, when he gets into a thing, gets into it up to the neck.

Margaret added to my amusement, for as I pricked my prisoner on into the fire-light, and peeped over his shoulder, he being a good six inches shorter than I, madam leaned forward and became absorbed in the high debate.

"I beg to report, sir," said I, as indifferently as I could manage to speak, "the capture of a spy."

"Hang him at daybreak," said the Colonel, without so much as looking at him. "Pish, man, the trade in salted herrings is no more a nursery of seamen than I'm—Damme, what's this, Oliver? Damme, it's Weir. Your servant, Mister Weir, and I shall vastly relish seeing you strung up."

I gave a brief account of where and how I had found him, making no mention of our helpful girl friend, but pointing out that he had co-scoundrels at work for him in the inn.

"Another good piece of work, Oliver," said the Colonel. "I like the way you use your available material. I've seen many things used as gags, but not a book before; yet it makes a very good one. Keeps him quiet as a stone and withal leaves him free to lick up a few crumbs of learning."

Margaret had not looked at me yet, and indeed seemed bent on keeping her face, heightened in colour by the warmth and glow of the fire, turned away from me. Now a rather big matter had come into my mind, so I said urgently, "Name of a dog," and thus shook her into looking at me. Whereupon, I pointed first to Mr. Freake, then to the spy, and wagged my head sagely. Her quick mind saw at once that I was afraid that our friend would be compromised if we were not careful. She promptly said something to her father in an unknown tongue, and by the cock of his eye I knew he'd taken the point.

"My good friend," he said, "pray step over to his worship the Mayor and ask him to come over and commit this rascally spy to the town jail. Say, I beg, that I am grieved to have to disturb him, but His Majesty's servants must ever be at the disposal of His Majesty's affairs."

I grinned behind the spy's back at this masterly way of getting George's servant to do James's work. Master Freake started at once, and, stepping with him to the door, I whispered, "Give us fifteen minutes."

"Right!" he whispered back again. "Look in your holsters!"

As soon as he had gone, the Colonel ordered me to guard the door, and this gave me the chance of putting on my boots again. The Colonel, cutting off with his sword a good length of bell rope, made a swift and most workmanlike job of tying the spy into a knot. He then opened the window, and, Margaret taking my place meanwhile, he and I cautiously bundled Weir on to the balcony, shut down the window, and left him safe and silent.

"Be in the porch in ten minutes, Margaret, ready to start. Oliver, get the horses there ready in that time. You ride the troop-horse, and Freake has provided a mare for Margaret. Quick's the work and sharp's the motion!"

Margaret and I started together to carry out our orders. Once in the passage we had to go different ways, and I bowed and was going mine without a word, when she put her hand on my arm and stayed me.

"I'm sorry you've lost your Virgil," she said.

I wondered, as already so many times I had wondered, at the somersaults of feeling she was capable of. Where was now the Margaret of the short, disdainful laugh? Not here, in the twilight between the bright room and the black yard. Here was a subtle, mysterious Margaret, half regret and half caprice, with one thought in her eyes and another on her lips.

"So am I, madam. I wish it had been Kate's cookery-book."

She would have mastered me had I stayed another second. I bowed again and left her.

And this is, perhaps, the best place to say that I did not lose my Virgil after all. Here it is on the table as I write, still the dearest of all my books. On each side of the healing an irregular curve of teeth-marks cuts into the yellowing parchment. Dear, brave Cherry-Cheeks sent it home by the hands of a vagrom pedlar, laboriously and exactly writing on the package the inscription she found on the fly leaf:

OLIVER WHEATMAN, Esquire, of the Hanyards, Staffordshire, Aetatis anno 13

I routed out ostlers, and by dint of a judicious blend of cursings and bribings had the horses ready under the archway in time. Margaret was there waiting, with our pretty maid fluttering around her. The Colonel was within, settling with the word-warrior host. I helped Margaret into the saddle and led her horse into the street, turning its head northward. In a moment, her father clattered after her on Sultan. I went back to smile farewell to Cherry-Cheeks and deal out my bribes, but was after them before they had trotted a stone's throw.

They were cantering towards the bridge by which the high street of the town crosses a tiny streamlet and again becomes the high road to the north-west. It was only a pistol-shot from the portico of the "Rising Sun" to the hither side of the bridge, where a group of townsmen were collected round a man with a lantern. We had ridden forth into a strangely quiet town, but before I was half-way to the bridge, and not yet settled down to my saddle, loud shrieks rang out behind me. Looking back, I saw a woman leaning forth, candle in hand, from the Duke's bedroom window. She waved her light and yelled as one distraught. There was no mistaking what had happened. Sal, the sour-faced hussy who wanted me hanged, had learned the fate of the spy. Folks rushed from all quarters to see what was the matter. The sooner we were well out of it the better, and I pricked on to overtake the Colonel and Margaret.

I was near on them at the bridge, where the gossips had lined up to watch them pass. Timothy was there, thankful for once, I thought, of his long coat, while the man who held the lantern was the man to whom I owed a drubbing. I wondered what he was doing there with a lantern, for it was a brilliant moonlight night, and, since he made to run townwards as soon as he saw who was passing, I felt in my bones that he meant mischief and was probably in league with the spy. I turned my horse at him before he was clear of the bridge and tumbled him back headlong on Timothy, who yelled the most astonishing yell I ever heard, snatched the lantern out of Beery Breath's unresisting fingers, and with it smashed into him with such a fury that he beat him to his knees.

I laughed, for the man had got his drubbing after all, through me if not by me. As for the other townies, they enjoyed it like a play.

"Gom!" said one. "He's trod on Tim's gammy toe."

"Damn if he don't turn on 'is missus when 'er does that," said another.

The Colonel and Margaret were looking back when I drew level.

"Anything the matter?" he asked.

"The spy is discovered, sir," I said.

"Does that mean harm to Master Freake?" inquired Margaret.

"Not it," replied the Colonel. "He's got the Mayor in his pocket. Do you know this country, Oliver?"

"No, sir," was my answer. "Only in broad outline. This is the main road to Chester, and away on our right is an open country running up into roughish moorland and hills. Leek lies that way on the Derby road to London. The country to our left I know nothing about."

"Then we'll stick to the main road as long as possible and stop at the first inn after all danger-spots are behind us. Sorry to turn you out, Madge, but it was impossible to stop once Weir found us out, since Kingston and his men might have turned up at any moment, and then we should have been done for. All we have to do is to get north of him. From the south we have nothing to fear now. Brocton's dragoons would have turned up hours ago if there was any intention of trying to recapture me. Freake had sent one of his men down the road to give us time to clear off if Brocton did pursue. That was why I was content to stay on at the inn."

"Weir knows who you are, sir, I take it?" said I.

"Exactly. He's a notorious Government spy, and is busy here worming into our local plans. There are plenty of the honest party hereabouts, and especially over to the west there in Wales."

"Are we still in Staffordshire, Master Wheatman?" asked Margaret.

"Oh yes, for quite a distance ahead," I replied.

"The spirit of prophecy is upon me, gentlemen," she said merrily. "Our Staffordshire luck is not yet out, and this time it's Master Wheatman's turn."

"Well, then, Master Wheatman shall ride ahead and scout for it. About thirty yards, Oliver. Keep your horse well in hand, and be all eyes and ears. Damn this moon! It picks us out like three crows on a field of snow, and this infernal road's as straight and level as a plank. Ride in any available shadow!"

I went ahead and set them an easy pace. Work had begun again, the work of my heart's desire, and all along the Chester road there was no blither spirit than mine that night. I was astride a flaming sorrel, no match for Sultan, but still a good sound horse. He knew I was his master and so I made him a friend, patting his neck, crooning to him, and giving him a lick of sugar out of my hand. The danger we were in was like wine to my heart. Enemies ahead and enemies behind, and this bare, bleak, moon-smitten road between. Now and again, for remembrance' sake and the joy of it, I cocked my ear to pick out the patter of Margaret's mare from the heavier, longer strides of Sultan. Yes, there she was, doubtless murmuring Italian love-ditties to her happy inmost self and thinking of —Pshaw! This was romancing, and another's romance at that, and it deadened me against my will, while here was a man's work to do. So I turned to it and lived.

I examined the holsters, according to Master Freake's orders. I found a pair of pistols which, even in the pale moonlight, looked what they indeed were—handsome, accurate weapons, the best work of the best gunsmith in London. I was the equal of most men with the pistol, and usually had, indeed, a capital pair at the Hanyards, but Jack had taken them off with him on his dragooning. Over and above the pistols and their ammunition I found a sizeable leathern bag, and the feel of it to my fingers showed that it was chock-full of money. When I did turn it out next day, I found near on sixty pounds, mostly in guineas and half-guineas, and a note: