"Yes."
"I thought so. I am fond of danger, I have told you. It braces me up; it--why are you so pale?"
"You have been kind to me, and you have saved me from indignity.
Pray take your men away at once."
"They will not go, and I will not desert them."
"For my sake--do!"
"A song! a song! No more love-making tonight, Captain. A song from the farmer"s pretty la.s.s!" cried out the men.
And then Sophie began to sing again, this time a love-song, the song of a maiden waiting for her soldier boy to come back from the wars; a maiden waiting for him, listening for him, hearing the tramp of his regiment on the way toward her. She looked at Captain Guy as she sang, and with much entreaty in her gaze, and he looked back at her from under the c.o.c.k of his hat, which he had pulled over his brows; then he wavered and stole out of the room. Kits was at the door, still with his mug of brandy in his hand. Guy seized him by the ear and took him out with him into the fresh air, where the white frost was and where the white moon was shining now.
"The soldiers are after us and know where we are, Kits. Pitch that stuff away."
"Not if--"
"And get the horses ready--quick! I will be with you in a moment."
He walked along the garden path in front of the big old farm, swung wide the farm gates, and propped them open. Then he went down on all fours and put his ear to the frost-bound country road and listened. "Yes," he added, "two miles away, and coming on sharp.
Why not let them come? What does it matter how soon?" He strode back, however, with quick steps. Five minutes afterward he was at the door of the farm parlour again, with his cloak over his shoulder and his riding-whip in his hand.
"Boys, the redcoats are upon us!" he shouted "Each man to his horse."
"We are betrayed then!"
"We won"t go and leave all the good things in this house," cried Stango. "Why, it"s like the Bank of England upstairs, and I have the keys. I--"
"Stango, I shall certainly put a bullet through your head if you attempt to do anything more save to thank our worthy hose for his hospitality and give him up his keys. Do you hear?" he thundered forth. "Will you hang us all, you fool, by your delay?"
The highwaymen were scurrying out of the room now, a few in too much haste to thank the givers of the feast, the others bowing and shaking hands in mock burlesque of their chief. Stango had thrown down his keys and run for it.
"Sorry we must leave you, Master Pemberthy," said the captain, "but I certainly have the impression that a troop of horse soldiers is coming in this direction. Pure fancy, probably; but one cannot risk anything in these hard times. Your purse, sir, which I took this afternoon--I shall not require it. Buy Mistress Sophie a wedding with it. Good-night."
He bowed low, but he did not smile till he met Sophie"s frightened looks; then he bowed still lower, hat in hand, and said good-night with a funny break in his voice and a longing look in his dark eyes that Sophie did not readily forget.
It was all like a dream after the highwaymen had put spurs to their horses and galloped away from Maythorpe Farm.
It will be fifteen years come next winter-time since the "Minions of the Moon" held high carnival at the farm of Reuben Pemberthy.
Save that the trees about the homestead are full of rustling green leaves and there is sunshine where the white frost lay, the farm looks very much the same; the great thatched roof has taken a darker tinge, and all the gold in it has turned to gray, and the walls are more weather-beaten than of yore; but it is the old farm still, standing "foursquare," with the highroad to Finchley winding over the green hill yonder like a great, white, dusty snake Along the road comes a horseman at full speed, as though anxious to find a shelter before nightfall, for the king"s highway in this direction is no safer than it used to be, and people talk of Abershaw and Barrington, and a man with sixteen strings to his hat, who are busy in this direction. But the days are long now, and it wants some hours before sundown, when the traveller leaps from his horse and stands under the broad eaves of the porch, where the creepers are growing luxuriantly and are full of fair white flowers.
The traveller is a good horseman, though he has pa.s.sed the heyday of his youth. It is not for some three minutes afterward that his man-servant, hot and blown and powdered thick with dust, comes up on horseback after him and takes charge of his master"s steed. The master is a man of forty years or more, and looking somewhat older than his years, his hair being very gray. He stoops a little between the shoulders too when off his guard, though he can look straight and stalwart enough when put to it. He is very dark,--a fiercer sun than that which shines on England has burned him a copper colour,--and he has a moustache that Munchausen might have envied.
He knocks at the door, and asks if Master Reuben Pemberthy can be seen at a moment"s notice. The maid-servant looks surprised, but says, "My mistress is within, sir."
"Reuben Pemberthy"s wife, that is," he mutters, pulling thoughtfully at his long moustache; "ah, well, perhaps she will see me."
"What name shall I say?"
"Sir Richard Isshaw; but she will not know the name."
He stands in the hall, looking about him critically; his man-servant, still mounted, goes slowly back toward the roadway with his master"s horse and his own, where he remains in waiting. Presently, Sir Richard Isshaw is shown into the farm parlour, very cool and full of shadow, with great green plants on the broad recesses of the open window, and bees buzzing about them from the outer world.
A young woman in deep widow"s weeds rises as he enters, and makes him one of those profound courtesies which were considered appropriate for the fair s.e.x to display to those in rank and honour in the good old days when George was king. Surely a young woman still, despite the fifteen years that have pa.s.sed, with a young supple figure and a pleasant unlined face. Eighteen years and fifteen only make thirty-three, and one can scarcely believe in time"s inroads looking upon Sophie Pemberthy. The man cannot. He is surprised and he looks at her through tears in his dark eyes.
"You asked to see Mr. Reuben Pemberthy," she says, sadly. "You did not know that--"
"No, I did not know," he says, a little huskily; "I am a stranger to these parts; I have been long abroad."
"May I inquire the nature of your errand, Sir Richard?" she asks, in a low voice. "Though I am afraid I cannot be of any service as regards any business of the farm."
"How is that?" he asks, steadily keeping gaze upon her.
"The farm pa.s.ses to Mr. Pemberthy"s cousin in a few days" time."
"Indeed! Then you--"
He pauses half-way for a reply, but it is long in coming. Only the humming of the bees disturbs the silence of the room.
"Then you leave here?" he concludes at last.
"Yes. It is only the male Pemberthys who rule," she says.
"Your--your children?"
"My one little boy, my dear Algy, died before his father. It was a great disappointment to my husband that he should die. We female Pemberthys," she says, with a sudden real bright little smile that settles down into sadness again very quickly, "do not count for a great deal in the family."
"How long has Mr. Pemberthy been dead?"
"Six months."
"You are left poor?" he says, very quickly now.
"I--I don"t think you have a right to ask me such a question, sir."
"I have no right," he replies. "These are foreign manners. Excuse them, please; don"t mind me."
Still he is persistent.
"From son to son"s son, and the women left anywhere and anyhow--that is the Pemberthy law, I expect. I have seen the workings of such a law before. Not that I ought to complain," he adds, with a forced laugh,--a laugh that Mrs. Pemberthy seems suddenly to remember,--"for I have profited thereby."
"Indeed!" says the farmer"s widow, for the want of a better answer at the moment.
"I am a younger son; but all my brothers have been away by wars or pestilence, and I am "sent" for in hot haste--I, who had shaken the dust of England from my feet for fifteen years."
"Fifteen years?"
"Almost. Don"t you recollect the last time I was in this room?"