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What if Ted Guthrie, the fat, funny, facetious Ted, did slide down a hill and take most of the hill with her? or if Nettie Brocton climbing a tree for dogwood berries attempted to fly by the merest accident? She had no choice but to drop into an ugly hole otherwise, so she spread out and gave a flying leap to the side of safety and made it.
"Master Wheatman, I will not pretend to misunderstand you, and indeed, I thank you, but you are going to put your bed here," stamping her foot, "so that we can talk without raising our voices. I am much more willing to sleep in the same barn with you than in the same town with my Lord Brocton. Where's your share of the sacks?"
Then there was the look, a signal-look beyond a doubt, which I had surprised him giving his bully, Major Pimple-face, and which was followed by the latter's attempt to embroil the stranger from London in a row. "It is useless, Master Wheatman, to speculate further on what Lord Brocton is doing," said my mistress at last. "He has his ends. I am one of them.
No amount of discussion gave us any key to the one great mystery. When Brocton had captured Colonel Waynflete at Milford, the obvious thing to do with him was to send him prisoner to the Duke at Lichfield. Though the Colonel carried no papers which made his purpose clear, Brocton knew well what the object of his journey was, and the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act put the Colonel in his power.
But a sly glance of challenge gave Judith answer, as Bobbie hurried away to dance with Nettie Brocton. Music and laughter, youth and happiness! What a splendid affair the dance turned out to be! Even the staid faculty, acting as patronesses, looked on with generous smiles of absolute approval.
"The best friend and hardest hitter in broad Staffordshire," added Jack heartily. I stepped into the horseshoe and made a bow general to the company, and a lower one for the benefit of my Lord Brocton, who sat next to the hearth in pride of place and comfort.
I could almost have hopped across it, but by dawdling aslant the stream I had her sweet face near mine in the moonlight, and my arms round her proud body, for a couple of minutes. "Yokel blood or not," I thought, "this is something my Lord Brocton will never do." A quarter of an hour later, after helping her up a short, steep scarp, we stood and looked back on the little town.
Master Freake was now wringing my shackled hands delightedly, and a little, deft man, whom I knew on sight to be Dot Gibson, was searching his unresisting lordship's pockets for the key of the irons. A minute later he banged them on the floor and said, "And how do you find yourself, sir?" There's no more to be said about Brocton.
"Egad, Tiverton," said I to the Marquess, who now first observed me, "you had the cards that time with a vengeance. Are you playing on? What about your engagement with me?" The Marquess coloured slightly at my veiled rebuke. He looked doubtfully at his watch, then at me, and finally at Brocton. "Have you had enough?" he asked. "Enough?" cried Brocton.
Dot was sent on his track and learned that Brocton was here, the house being a hunting-lodge belonging to a crony of his who was an officer in the Cumberland militia. They had ridden out that morning to see him, at which point her tale linked up with mine and ended. "I am greatly indebted to you, Margaret," said I, very lamely, slipping out her name at unawares. "Nonsense!" she cried.
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