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"Hold!" said one of them, peering through the darkness, "is it not Squire Loring of Tilford?" "That is indeed my name." "Had you spoken it I for one would not have stopped your way. Put down your staff, Wat, for this is no stranger, but the Squire of Tilford." "As well for him," grumbled the other, lowering his cudgel with an inward prayer of thanksgiving.
The young lieutenant had reined in his horse and come to a halt as soon as he reached the road, where he had a full view of the coming detachment. Milton joined him as the men dashed into the road, with Life, who had detailed Corporal Tilford, with the ten men, to guard the prisoners.
Edith was yellow as the ripe corn, blue-eyed, winning, mischievous, with a chattering tongue, a merry laugh, and a smile which a dozen of young gallants, Nigel of Tilford at their head, could share equally amongst them. Like a young kitten she played with all things that she found in life, and some there were who thought that already the claws could be felt amid the patting of her velvet touch.
"The message, mon ami, is that your friend comes into these parts and would have a night's lodging at the manor house of Tilford for the love and respect that he bears your family." "Nay, he is most welcome," said Nigel, "and yet I hope that he is one who can relish a soldier's fare and sleep under a humble roof, for indeed we can but give our best, poor as it is."
They returned mounted in a few minutes, and were placed in charge of the prisoners, under Corporal Tilford.
As to her own future, it had been made easy for her, since it was arranged that a steward should look to the Tilford estate whilst she had at her disposal a suite of rooms in royal Windsor, where with other venerable dames of her own age and standing she could spend the twilight of her days discussing long-forgotten scandals and whispering sad things about the grandfathers and the grandmothers of the young courtiers all around them.
I cannot at this moment buy a suit of plate, and yet I sorely need steel harness on account of a small deed which it is in my mind to do. Now I have at my home at Tilford that very suit of mail of which you speak, with which my father first rode to the wars. Could you not so alter it that it should guard my limbs also?" The armorer looked at Nigel's small upright figure and burst out laughing.
"It is not necessary." Deck then directed Corporal Tilford, another non-commissioned officer, to take twelve men and proceed to the right, through the cornfield, concealing himself behind the hill mentioned by Win, and halt in the grove. At the same signal, a second time given, the corporal was to march his men in haste to the front of the mansion.
"It is no less than a feather-bed, fair sir, which he bears upon his back, for I would fain bring it to Tilford, and yet it is overlarge for me when I take my place with my fellows in the ranks. But indeed this war has been a most excellent one, and I have already sent half a wagonload of my gear back to Bordeaux to await my homecoming.
This being so, methinks, Sir Hubert de Burgh, that the fine hauberk of Milan and the helmet of Bordeaux steel in which you rode to Tilford should remain with our young host as some small remembrance of your visit."
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