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 n.o.bby 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-k.n.o.b, 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, "d.a.m.n 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 d.a.m.nably 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 G.o.ds, 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 pa.s.sage leading from one wing of the house to the other, and in the pa.s.sage were three leaded lattice-windows of greenish gla.s.s, 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 la.s.s 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 pa.s.sable 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."

"La.s.sie," 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 la.s.sie," 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 d.a.m.ned," said I gleefully. "Nothing counts but life and love."