I laughed also, but without bitterness.
"You say it feelingly. Do you speak by the book?"
"Aye, that I do. Now here is my lady Madge preaching peace and all manner of patience to me in one breath, and upholding in the next this baronet captain who, though I would have seconded him at a pinch, is but a pattern of his brutal colonel."
I put two and two together.
"So Falconnet is on terms at Appleby Hundred, is he?"
"Oh, surely. Gilbert Stair keeps open house for any and all of the winning hand, as I told you."
The thought of this unspoiled young maiden having aught to do with such a thrice-accursed despoiler of women made my blood boil afresh; and in the heat of it I let my secret slip, or rather some small part of it.
"Sir Francis had ever a sure hand with the women," I said; and then I could have bitten my masterless tongue.
"So?" queried Jennifer. "Then this is not your first knowing of him?"
"No." So much I said and no more.
We rode on in silence for a little s.p.a.ce, and then my youthling must needs break out again in fresh beseechings.
"Tell me what you know of him, and what it was he said of Madge," he entreated. "You can"t deny me now, Jack."
"I can and shall. It matters not to you or to any what he is or has been."
"Why?"
"Because, as G.o.d gives me strength and skill, I shall presently run him through, and so his account will be squared once for all with all men--and all women, as well."
"G.o.d speed you," quoth my loyal ally. "I knew not your quarrel with him was so bitter."
"It is to the death."
"So it seems. In that case, if by any accident he--"
I divined what he would say and broke in upon him.
"Nay, d.i.c.k; if he thrusts me out, you must not take up my quarrel. I know not where you learned to twirl the steel, or how, but you may be sure he would spit you like a trussed fowl in the first bout. I have seen him kill a man who was reckoned the best short sword in my old regiment of the Blues."
"Content yourself," said my young Hotspur, grandly. "If you spare him he shall answer to me for that thing he said of Madge Stair; this though I know not what it was he said."
I smiled at his fuming ardor, and glancing at the pair of pistols hanging from his saddle-bow, asked if he could shoot.
"Indifferent well."
"Then make him challenge you and choose your own weapon. "Tis your only hope, and poor enough at that, I fear. I have heard he can clip a guinea at ten paces."
From that we fell silent again, being but a little way from the rendezvous, and so continued until, at a sudden turn in the road, we came in sight of a rude barricade of felled trees barring the way.
Jennifer saw it first and pulled up short, loosing his pistols in their cases as he drew rein.
""Ware the wood!" he said sharply, and none too soon, for even as he spoke the glade at our left filled as by magic with a motley troop deploying into the road as to surround us.
"Now who are these?" I asked; "friends or foes?"
"Foes who will hang you in your own halter strap; Jan Howart"s Tories--the same that burned the Westcotts in their cabin a fortnight since. Will your horse take that barricade, think you?"
"Aye,--standing, if need be."
"Then at them, in G.o.d"s name. Charge!"
It needed but the word and we were in the thick of it. I remembered my old field-marshal"s maxim, _Von Feinden umringt, ist die Zeit zu zerschmettern_; and truly, being so plentifully outnumbered, we did strike both first and hard.
A line of the ragged hors.e.m.e.n strung itself awkwardly across the road to guard the flimsy barricade, and at this we charged, stirrup to stirrup.
In the dash there was a scattering volley from the wood, answered instantly by the bellowings of Jennifer"s great pistols; and then we came to the steel.
It was my first fleshing of the good old Andrea, and a better balanced blade I had never swung in hand-to-hand mellay. As we closed with the half-dozen defenders of the barrier, Jennifer reined aside to give me room to play to right and left, and in the midst of it went nigh to death because he held his hand to watch a cut and double thrust of mine.
"Over with you!" I shouted, p.r.i.c.king the man who would have mowed him down with a great scythe handled as a sword.
Our horses took the barrier in a flying leap, straining themselves for the race beyond. When we had pulled them down to a foot pace we were safely out of rifle shot and there was s.p.a.ce to count the cost.
There was no cost worth counting. A saddle horn bullet-shattered for me, and the back of Jennifer"s sword hand scored lightly across by another of the random missiles summed up our woundings. d.i.c.k whipped out his kerchief to twist about the scored hand, while I glanced back to see if any Tory cared to follow.
"Lord, Jack! I owe you one to keep and one to pay back," quoth my youngster, warmly. "I never saw a swordsman till this day!"
"Mere tricks, d.i.c.k, my lad; I have had fifteen years in which to learn them. And these were but country yokels armed with farming tools. The two with swords had little wit to use them."
"Oh, come!" said he. "I know a pretty bit of sword play when I see it.
If we come whole out of this adventure with the baronet you shall teach me some of these "mere tricks" of yours."
I promised, glancing back toward the dust-veiled barrier in the distance.
"d.i.c.k, you pa.s.sed this way an hour ago; was that breastwork in the road then?"
"Not a stick of it."
"Then we may dare say our volunteer captain fights unwillingly."
"How so?" he demanded, being much too straightforward himself to suspect duplicity in others.
""Tis plain enough. This was a trap, meant to stop or delay us, and I"ll wager high it was the baronet who set and baited it. It would please him well to be able to say what our failure to come would give him warrant for. Let us gallop a bit, lest we be late and so play into his hand."
Jennifer smiled grimly and gave his horse the rein. "I think you"d charge the Fall of Man to him if that would give you better leave to kill him. I"d hate to own you for my enemy, John Ireton."
For all our swift speeding we were yet a little late at the rendezvous under the tall oaks. When we came on the ground the baronet was walking up and down arm in arm with his second, a broad-shouldered young Briton, fair of skin and ruddy of face.
If Falconnet had set the Tory trap for us he veiled his disappointment at its failure. His face, dark and inscrutable as it always was, was made more sinister by the plasters knitting up his broken cheek, but I was right glad to make sure that my blow had spared his eyes. Richly as he deserved his fate, I thought it would be ill to think on afterward that I had had him at a disadvantage of my own making.
There was little time wasted in the preliminaries. When Falconnet saw us he dropped his second"s arm and began to make ready. I gave my sword to Jennifer, and the seconds went apart together. There was some measuring and balancing of weapons, and then Richard came back.