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I remembered the reticencies of her statement at the Hanyards, and began to see dimly some of the connecting links in her story. My Lord Brocton's character was well enough known to be the subject of common talk at our market ordinaries.
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.
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.
These King's men, belonging to my Lord Brocton's regiment of dragoons, attacked us; we refused to surrender, and the rascally sergeant in command smoked us out. I pray you, sir, to run the wagon up to the window that I may hand them down, since the door is heavily barricaded." It was done immediately, and he and I ran up to the window together. "You young dog," said the Colonel.
I returned to the window, clambered out, hung at arm's length, and dropped to the ground. Striding up to the sergeant, I said carelessly, "Your turn this time, sergeant. To-day to thee, to-morrow to me it's neater in the Latin but you wouldn't understand it and all Brocton's dragoons shan't save your ugly neck." "Where the hell's your coat?" he demand fiercely.
"Master Wheatman means," explained Mistress Waynflete, "that he saved me from my Lord Brocton's clutches at the imminent risk of his own life." She stretched out her hands and touched the holes in my coat with her white, slender fingers. "My lord's rapier made these," she said. "An inch to the left, my friend," quoth Master Freake, "and you'd have been as dead as mutton.
"John Freake joking in money matters?" said he, smiling. "Tell it not when you get to town, Oliver, or you'll be the ruin of a hard-won reputation. I sent you sixty guineas odd." "Yes, sir." "Which is, to be precise, slightly less than two per cent of what you saved me when you snatched me out of the dirty grip of Brocton's rascals.
Two of them were soldiers, and Brocton's dragoons at that, a sample of the town-sweepings Jack had complained of. One seized the reins, the other held a carbine point-blank at the horseman's head. These were plainly deserters or freebooters, acting after their kind, and they had picked up a strange partner during their foray.
This is the mere skeleton of it, for I have no skill to give body and soul to such devotion. The Colonel brought the news of my capture by Brocton, pieced together from the stories of my men, who got back unhurt, and of one of Brocton's dragoons who was luckily taken prisoner in order to be questioned.
Brocton's 'yokel blood' gibe had put murder into my blows, but it had truth enough in it to make it rankle like a poisoned arrow. Yet here was this wonder-woman, trustful as a child and meeker than a milkmaid. My work was new, but at any rate I had sometimes dreamed that I could do a man's work when I got my chance, and I had limbs of leather and steel to do it with.
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