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"I was released by a troop of soldiers who were coming in this direction," he said, hurriedly. They have gone on toward Finchley in search of these robbers, but, failing to find them, they will return here as my guests till morning. That was their promise." "Oh!" Sophie could not say more. Reuben had left her side, and was talking and laughing with Stango as though he loved him.
But his oaths had more effect upon his unruly followers than his protests, and they sat looking at him in a half-sullen, half-shamefaced manner, and would have probably succumbed to his influence had not attention been diverted and aroused by the reappearance of Stango, who staggered in with four or five great black bottles heaped high in his arms.
He ate very little, and kept a watchful eye upon his men after Stango and his companion had come in from the stable and completed the number. He exchanged at first but few words with Sophie, though he surveyed her with a grave attention that brought the colour to her cheeks. He was a man upon guard. Presently he said: "You bear your position well. You are not alarmed at these wild fellows?"
"Stango?" said Kits, with far too innocent an expression to be genuine. "Yes, Stango; you know he did." "I dare say he did. I don't gainsay it, Captain, but I don't know where he has gone." "But I will know," cried the captain, striking his hand upon the table and making every glass and plate jump thereon. "I will have no tricks played here without my consent.
"Stango, I shall certainly put a bullet through your head if you attempt to do anything more save to thank our worthy hose for his hospitality and give him up his keys. Do you hear?" he thundered forth. "Will you hang us all, you fool, by your delay?"
Five minutes afterward he was at the door of the farm parlour again, with his cloak over his shoulder and his riding-whip in his hand. "Boys, the redcoats are upon us!" he shouted "Each man to his horse." "We are betrayed then!" "We won't go and leave all the good things in this house," cried Stango. "Why, it's like the Bank of England upstairs, and I have the keys.
He raised his hat and bowed low to Sophie Tarne, not offering to shake hands as the rest of them had done who where crowding around her; then he seemed to stand suddenly between them and their salutations, and to brush them unceremoniously aside. "You see to those horses, Stango and Grapp," he said, singling out the most obtrusive and the most black-muzzled of his gang.
The highwaymen were scurrying out of the room now, a few in too much haste to thank the givers of the feast, the others bowing and shaking hands in mock burlesque of their chief. Stango had thrown down his keys and run for it. "Sorry we must leave you, Master Pemberthy," said the captain, "but I certainly have the impression that a troop of horse soldiers is coming in this direction.
"Hold hard, Stango; there's a woman calling to us. Stop your row, will you?" A sudden cessation of the battering ensued, and some one was heard going rapidly backward over cobblestones amid the laughter of the rest, who had dismounted and were standing outside in the cold, with their hands upon their horses' bridles. "Who is there?" asked Sophie Tarne again.
A tremendous shout of applause and delight heralded his return to the parlour. "We have been treated scurvily, my men," cried Stango, "exceedingly scurvily; the best and strongest stuff in the cellar has been kept back from us. It's excellent I've been tasting it first, lest you should all be poisoned; and there's more where this come from oceans more of it!" "Hurrah for Stango!"
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