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From Dublin I wrote home. I had laid one strict injunction on Margaret. She was not to go to the Hanyards, or write there, or allow anyone else to do either. I would not suffer her to know, or to run any chance of knowing, about Jack. She was greatly troubled over the matter, but I was so decided that she consented to my demand. It cost me a world of pains to write.
It was a great comfort to know they were safe, for there were sad relics of my escapade in London the row of ghastly, grinning heads over Temple Bar. Soon after my arrival, Master Freake had sent for his lawyers and delivered to me in full possession the Upper Hanyards and the huge tale of guineas which the rascal old earl had disgorged as the price of the letter.
About four o'clock on a December day, just over a year since leaving home, I leaped the mare over a hedge and was at the old gate. More of the dream was untrue. The winter sun was dropping down to the hill-tops like a great carbuncle set in gold, and the Hanyards was all aglow in its flaming rays.
I looked at the wall as half expecting the sword of Captain Smite-and-spare-not Wheatman to rattle to the ground under this awful insinuation. "The only use our family has found for priests, madam," I said, "has been, I fear, to hunt them like vermin. As a Wheatman of the Hanyards, I'm afraid I'm a degenerate." "You'll not even be that much longer if I keep you from getting into some dry clothes.
I was to smile, was I? And when our Kate got the news at the Hanyards, the smile would die out of her eyes for ever, for Jack, dear, splendid Jack, was the weft that had been woven into the warp of her being. "I do not smile to order, madam," said I. She flicked the mare sharply and cantered up to the level, whither Maclachlan raced after her with the speed of a hound.
"This is Master Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards, father," said Margaret, in so low a tone that the host, lingering, hand on door-knob, nearly a dozen paces behind us, could not have heard her. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, sir," he said, repeating his bow.
So much of my dream had at least not come true, and I gave the lie to more of it by leaving the high road and wandering devious ways till, within four or five miles of home, I left even the by-ways and kept to the fields. So keen was I on my little stratagems that I rode over the Upper Hanyards without once recalling the fact that it was now mine as it had been my father's before me.
"The man with the slit face has been," said Mistress Waynflete composedly. "He came hunting for quarters, but Mistress Tonks frightened him off. At any rate, he soon left." "Did he recognize you as 'Moll' of the Hanyards?" "I'm quite sure that he did not. I turned my back the moment he entered, and my hood was up. Moreover, I did not speak a word.
The only good thing is we've got a first-rate drill sergeant. He's Brocton's toady, and for that I don't like him, but he does know his business, I must say that for him." "Big-headed man, with a mouth slit up to his left ear?" said I, seizing the welcome opportunity. "How the deuce do you know?" asked Jack, astonished. "He came searching the Hanyards this afternoon for a Jacobite spy, a woman.
I pressed him to stay and 'have a good set to, but he refused, and after drinking enough to keep me dizzy for a week, he nipped out and ordered his men to horse. I walked to the gate with him. He thanked me for my help and good cheer, and said it was quite clear that the spy was nowhere in or near the Hanyards. I renewed my greetings to Cornet Dobson and even sent my respects to his lordship.
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