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Colonel Waynflete's connexion with the Jacobite cause had, naturally, been kept secret, but she was almost certain that Lord Brocton had discovered it through a certain spy and toady of his, one Major Tixall. "Pimples all over his face?" broke in Kate. "Yes," said Mistress Waynflete, with a little shudder. "He was in the village this afternoon with Lord Brocton," returned Kate.
"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.
Said it would 'a' burnt 'er fingers. 'More fool yow, says I; 'it'd 'a' soon gotten cowd weather like this'n. But Jin's all rate. Er'll never bre'k 'er arm at church door, wunna Jin." I explained to Mistress Waynflete that a woman who broke her arm at the church door was a housewifely maiden who became a slatternly housewife after marriage.
"I fear that my views, or at any rate my father's views, make me a dangerous guest," said Mistress Waynflete, "though your kindness has made me a welcome one." "Madam," I said coldly, "the only politics I know is that my Lord Brocton is fighting against the Stuart, and if by fighting for the Stuart I can get in a fair blow at my Lord Brocton, I fight for the Stuart."
And so, in the guest-room of the "Rising Sun," I knelt to my sweet mistress, and, before God and in the presence of Christopher Waynflete, Colonel of Horse in the service of the King of Sweden, and John Freake, citizen of London, Margaret, gravely and serenely beautiful, touched my shoulder with the sword and then girded it upon me.
"It is pleasant to learn that Mistress Waynflete is so interested in my doings," said I, with as much coolness and aloofness as I could muster. I would at least keep my foolishness on my own side of my teeth. "Unco pleasant, I hae nae doot," was her dry comment. And she set her red lips aslant as if she were swallowing vinegar. I remembered my new function, and looked at my watch.
I helped her into the domino, pulled the hood over the wonderful hair, and seized my own hat. "Now, Mistress Waynflete," said I, "the northern halt of Staffordshire is before us, and the sooner some of it is behind us the better." With these words I led her to the door, which I closed carefully behind me, and into the street. A little explanation will make our subsequent movements clearer.
A rat in a barn might as justly complain of being tickled by straws as I of jostling into difficulties. The horse without betokened a rider within, and probably some one in the Duke's horse. I beckoned Mistress Waynflete, and by signs indicated that extreme caution was necessary. During the moments I was awaiting her I examined the birding-piece to make sure it was in order.
At last, in a lull in the gale, the Colonel, addressing the Prince, curtly demanded, "Who is the chief military commander of your army, sir?" "My Lord George Murray," answered Charles bitterly. "Then it's time your commander commanded. This spells disaster whether we go on or go back." "It's the plain truth you're telling, Colonel Waynflete," said Lord Ogilvie loudly.
"Damn ye, horse-thief, for the black of a bean I'd blow your brains out," said Colonel Waynflete. "Stick tight, lads; and you, good host, fetch along Master Mayor and the constable, and have me the scoundrel laid by the heels. If this were only my commandery on the Rhine! I'd strappado you and then hang you within the next half-hour. My bonny Sultan! How are you, my precious?"
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