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 G.o.ddess, 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, "G.o.d d.a.m.n, I'm on fire!" and the woman shrieked back, "Burn, you foul devil, burn, and be d.a.m.ned!"

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 p.r.o.ngs 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 c.o.c.kerel'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 coa.r.s.e brown mug. The child's cry had brought the mother running back with the pikel, s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 a.s.sist 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 d.a.m.ned 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 b.i.t.c.h," 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 a.s.sistance 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.