Майн Рид
No Quarter!

Chapter Forty
The Cadgers on the Kymin

“Laws, Jack! fear us be takin’ back bad news to Sir Richard. An worse for the poor young lady at Glo’ster. Rob’s tolt me her wor well-nigh deestract when her heerd he wor took pris’ner. What’ll it be as her get to hear o’ his bein’ bad wounded too? Her knows nothin’ o’ that.”

“Maybe ’tant so much o’ a wownd after all, nothin’ for he to go dead on. Folks allays zagerates sich things. An’ if he live it through, like ’nough ’twon’t be very long fores they git un free o’ his ’prisonment. I ha’ an idea, Winny dear, the letter us ha’ got be relatin’ to that same. Else-wise why shid the Colonel Kyrle, who wor onct on the Parlamenteery side, an’s now on t’other why shid him be writin’ to Sir Richard, or Sir Richard to he? Beside, all this queery business us be a doin’. It seem to mean somethin’ ’bout gittin’ the young gen’lemen out o’ gaol; maybe by changin’ he for another. Don’t ee think so?”

“Like it do.”

She knew it meant that, and more. For Rob Wilde had given her a hint of why they had been sent to Monmouth market – ostensibly cadging on their own account, but in reality as messengers in the pay and employ of Sir Richard Walwyn. Though Jack was personally the bearer of the secret despatches, Winny was the one entrusted with the diplomacy, and knew more than she thought necessary to confide to him.

They were on return from the market – for it was afternoon – and once more climbing a steep hill; this time not the Cat’s but the Kymin– the old Roman Road (Camen), which, crossing the Wye at Monmouth (Blestium), led up to the Forest table-land by Staunton. The ascent commences at the bridge, winding for miles through romantic woods and scenery unsurpassed in England. The bridge as then was a quaint, massive structure, having a towered gate on its tête de pont, with portcullis, draw-arch, and guard-house. A guard of Royalist soldiers were stationed on it; for ever since the breaking out of the war Monmouth had been kept for the King. But the cadgers had found no difficulty in passing this guard, either at going in, or coming out. It was market day, and Jinkum was laden with marketable commodities – a motley collection of farmyard fowls – hens, ducks, and geese – making a very pandemonium in the panniers. Had the soldiers upon the bridge but known what the little limping man carried inside his wooden leg, like enough they would have pitched him over the parapet. It was after getting clear of them, and well uphill, that the brother and sister were unburthening themselves to one another, as above described. The dialogue had commenced by Jack chuckling over the way they had outwitted the bridge guards, and referring back to how they had done the same, some fifteen months before, with the “Cavalières,” encountered on the Bristol road by Berkeley. He was in high glee, jesting about and praising his artificial leg – which had proved worth more to him than the real one – again in pleasant anticipation of a like remunerative result. The sister, however, was not joyous as he; her thoughts just then dwelling on that poor young lady described by Rob Wilde as having been “well-nigh deestract.” That was it which had turned their conversation into the channel it had taken.

There was a short interregnum of silence after Winny’s assenting rejoinder. Broken by Jack with an observation bearing on the same topic of discourse, but about a different place and time.

“’Twor a pity the Captain goed back to Hollymead wi’ so few o’ his sodgers along. I cud a tolt he that wan’t safe, seein’ the Colonel Lingen ha’ his quarters so near by, in Goodrich Castle. Him be a dangerous neighbour, an’ master o’ all round about theer now.”

“Ye be right, Jack; ’twor a pity,” she answered, echoing his first reflection. “But theer wor a good reason for ’t, Rob’s gied me. Seems Master Powell had somethin’ at Hollymead – him wanted gettin’ to Glo’ster, so’s to be safer theer. ’Twor a thing o’ great value him had hid away, fores leavin’ for Bristol that time, an’ the Captain volunteered like to go for it. How could him know o’ the danger frae Goodrich? That wor brought about by treezun; one o’ his men, who stepped away in the night an’ warned the Colonel Lingen. So him got tooked by surprise.”

“Well, they didn’t take he, ’ithout gettin’ a taste of his steel; a sharp taste, too; beside more frae his sodgers, few as they wor. Jim Davis, who wor up to the house, mornin’ after, seed blood all ’bout the place; more’n could a’ comed o’ them as lay killed. The Cavalières had carried away the wounded a’ both sides, wi’ theer own dead; as Jim think a good dozen.”

“That be true enough; more nor a dozen, I ha’ myself heerd. But what do it signify how many o’ Lingen’s wolves be gone dead, if that handsome young gentlemen ha’ to die, too? Sure as we be on Kymin hill, ’twill break Mistress Vaga’s heart.”

“Stuff an’ nonsense! Hearts beant so eezy broke.”

“Ah! that’s all you know about it.”

She could make the remark with confidence in its truth. There was no record of Jerky ever having had sweetheart, or feeling the soft sentiment of love. And for herself, some pangs of jealousy which Rob Wilde had occasioned her, though unconsciously, made her a believer that hearts could be broken. For this great Forest woman loved like a lioness, and could be jealous as a tigress.

“Oh, well!” rejoined the amiable brother, without taking notice of the slur on his lack of his amatory experience, “it mout be as ye say, sister Winny; supposin’ the young gen’leman’s wounds to prove mortyal. But that an’t like, from all us ha’ heerd the day. So let’s we live in hope. An’ I wudn’t wonner,” he added, in a more cheerful tone; “wudn’t a bit wonner, if, inside this timmer leg o’ mine, theer be somethin’ to tell Sir Richard the Captain an’t in any great danger. Maybe to say him will soon be out o’ prison, an’ bade in his saddle, to cut down another Cavalière or two.”

“Hope that’s the news us be takin’ to High Meadow. Whativer ’tis, let we get theer quick’s us can. Whack on the creetur.”

The final admonition referred to Jinkum; and his master, in obedience to it, gave out the customary “yee-up!” accompanied by the less usual application of cudgel.

A good deal of this last the donkey now needed. The morning had been hot, with the panniers full and heavy, toward the market. Now, on return, it was still sultry, and the wicker weighted as ever, Sir Richard Walwyn was not the strategist to let his scheme have a chance of miscarrying; and Jinkum was bearing back into the Forest country a large consignment of grocery goods; for which the consignee would care little, save as to the time of delivery. But about this he would be particular to an instant, as the cadgers knew; and so, on up the Kymin, Jinkum caught stick, in showers thick as had ever rained upon his hips, even when climbing the sharper and more familiar pitches of Cat’s Hill.

Chapter Forty One
By the “Buckstone.”

On the highest point of the Forest of Dean district – just one thousand feet above ocean’s level – is a singular mass of rock known as the “Buckstone.” An inverted pyramid, with base some fifteen feet in diameter, poised upon its apex, which rests on another rock mass of quadrangular shape as upon a plinth. Into this the down-turned apex seems indented so far as to make the apparent surface of contact but a few square feet. In reality the two masses are detached, the superimposed one so loose as to have obtained the character of a “rocking stone.” Many the attempt to rock it; many the party of tourists who had laid shoulders against it to stir it from its equilibrium; not a few taking departure from the place fully convinced they had felt, or seen it, move.

And many the legend belonging thereto, Druidical and demoniac; some assigning it an artificial, others a supernatural, origin.

Alas for these romantic conjectures! the geologist gives them neither credence nor mercy. Letting the light of science upon the Buckstone, he shows how it comes to be there; by the most natural of causes – simply through the disintegration of a soft band of the old red sandstone interposed between strata of its harder conglomerate.

From beside this curious eccentricity of the weather-wearing forces is obtained one of the finest views of all England, or rather a series of them, forming a circular panorama. Turn what way one will the eye encounters landscape as lovely as it is varied. To the east, south-east, and south can be seen the far-spreading champaign country of Gloucester, Somerset, and Devon, here and there diversified by bold, isolated prominences, as the Cotswolds and Mendips, with a noble stream, the Severn, winding snake-like along, and gradually growing wider, till in funnel-shape it espouses the sea, taking to itself the title of Channel.

From the shores of this, stretching away northward, but west from the Buckstone, is a country altogether different. No plains in that direction worth the name, but hills and undulating ridges, rolling up higher and higher as they recede, at length ending in a mountain background, blue black, with a horizontal line which shows many a curious col and summit.

The greater portion of this view is occupied by the shire of Monmouth, its foreground being the valley of the Wye, where this river, after running the gauntlet between English Bicknor and the Dowards, comes out surging and foam-crested as a victorious warrior with his plumes still unshorn. And as he in peaceful times might lay them aside, so the fretted and writhing river, clot after clot, casts off its snowlike froth, and, seemingly appeased, flows in tranquil current through the narrow strip of meadow land on which stands the miniature city of Monmouth.

Although below the Buckstone, at least nine hundred of the thousand feet by which this surmounts the sea’s level, the point blank distance between them is inside the range of modern great guns. And so well within that of a field-glass that from the overhanging Forest heights men could be distinguished in the streets of the town, or moving along the roads that lead out of it.

As already said, one of these is the Kymin, then the main route of travel to Gloucester, by Coleford and Mitcheldean. Near where it attains the Forest elevation, at the picturesque village of Staunton, a lane branches off leading to the higher point on which stands the Buckstone; a path running through woods, only trodden by the tourist and others curious to examine the great balanced boulder.

On that same afternoon and hour when the cadgers were toiling up the Kymin Hill, two personages of very different appearance and character – both men – might have been seen entering into the narrower trackway, and continuing on up towards the rock-crowned summit.

On reaching it one of them drew out a telescope, and commenced adjusting the lens to his sight. If his object was but to view the scenery there was no need for using glass. Enough could be taken in by the naked eye to satisfy the most ardent lover of landscape, though in September the woods still wore their summer livery; for on Wye side it is late ere the foliage loses its greenery, and quite winter before it falls from the trees. Here and there only a dash of yellow, or a mottling of maroon red, foreshadowed the coming change; but no russet-grey as yet. The afternoon was one of the loveliest; not a cloud in the azure sky save some low-lying fleecy cumuli, snow-white but rose-tinted, towards which the sun seemed hastening as to a couch of repose. A cool breeze had succeeded the sultriness of the mid-day hours; and, aroused from its torpor, all animated nature was once more active and joyous. Out of the depths of the High Meadow woods came the whistling call of stag and the bleat of roebuck; from the pastures around Staunton the lowing of kine, mingled with the neighing of a mother mare, in response to the “whigher” of unweaned foal, while in Forest glade might now and then be heard shrill cries of distress, where fierce polecat or marten had sprung upon the shoulders of some hapless hare, there to clutch and cling till the victim dropped dying on the grass.

All the birds were abroad, some upon the trees, singing their evensong, or making their evening meal; others soaring above, with design to make a meal of them. Of these a host; for nowhere are the predatory species more numerously represented than along the lower Wye. More numerous then than now; though still may be seen there the fish-eating osprey; oftener the kite, with tail forked as that of salmon; not unfrequently the peregrine falcon in flight swift as an arrow, and squeal loud as the neigh of a colt; and at all times the graceful kestrel, sweeping the air with active stroke of wing, or poised on quivering pinions, as upon a perch.

In those days, eagles were common enough on the Wye; and just as the two men had taken stand by the Buckstone, a brace of these grand birds came over; the owners of an eyrie in the Coldwell rocks, or the Windcliff. After a few majestic gyrations around the head of Staunton-hill, with a scream, they darted across the river to Great Doward, and thence on to quarter Coppet Wood.

But he using the telescope, as his companion, took no more notice of them than if they had been but skylarks. Nor looked they on that lovely landscape with any eye to its beauties. They were neither tourists nor naturalists, but soldiers; and just then, man, with his ways alone, had interest for them.

Both were in uniform; the elder – though there was no great difference in their ages – wearing that of a Colonel in the Parliamentary army; a rank which, in these modern days, when military titles are so lavishly bestowed, would seem as nothing. But in those times of a truer Conservatism, even though the social fabric was being shaken to its foundation, a colonel held as high command as a major-general now. So with him who had the telescope to his eye; for it was Colonel Edward Massey, the military Governor of Gloucester.

And the other was a colonel, too, on the Parliamentary side; though in uniform of a somewhat irregular kind. Dressed as a Cavalier, but with certain insignia, telling of hostility to the Cavalier’s creed; one especially proclaiming it, with bold openness – this, a bit of gold embroidery on the velvet band of his hat, representing a crown, thrust through and through by a rapier. Fair fingers had done that deft needlework, those of Sabrina Powell. For he who displayed the defiant symbol was Sir Richard Walwyn.

Why the two colonels were together, and there, needs explanation. Many a stirring event had transpired, many a bloody battle been fought, since the surrender of Bristol to Rupert; and among them that most disastrous to him as to the King’s cause – Marston Moor. It had changed everything; as elsewhere, freeing the Forest of Dean from the Royalist marauders, who had been so long its masters. Massey had himself dealt them a deadly blow at Beachley; routing Sir John Wintour’s force, caught there in the act of fortifying the passage a crass the Severn.

That occurred but three days before, and the active Governor of Gloucester having hastened on to Staunton, was now contemplating a descent upon Monmouth.

There was one who had pressed him to this haste, having also counselled him to attempt the capture of the town. This, the man by his side. But a woman, too, had used influence to the same end. Before sallying forth from Gloucester, for Beachley, a girl – a beautiful girl – had all but knelt at his feet, entreating him to take Monmouth. Nor did she make any secret of why she wished this. For it was Vaga Powell, believing that in Monmouth Castle there was a man confined, whose freedom was dear to her as her own. But she feared also for his life, for it had come to that now. The lex talionis was in full, fierce activity, and prisoners of war might be butchered in cold blood, or sent abroad, and sold into slavery – as many were!

Luckily for the young lady, her intercession with Massey was made at the right time, he himself eagerly wishing the very thing she wanted. Ever since becoming Governor of Gloucester, Monmouth had been a sharp thorn in his side, compared with which Lydney was but a thistle. And now, having laid the latter low – as it were, plucked it up by the roots – he meant dealing in like manner with the former. To capture the saucy little city of the Wye would be a coup, worth a whole year’s campaigning. With it under his control, soon would cease to be heard that cry hitherto resonant throughout South Wales, “For the King!” To still the hated shibboleth – alike hated by both – he and Sir Richard Walwyn were now by the Buckstone, with eyes bent upon Monmouth.

Chapter Forty Two
A Reconnaissance

Instead of viewing the rural scenery, the two colonels had come there to make a reconnaissance. The town itself, its fortified enceinte, the gates piercing it, and the roads around, were the objects to which their glances were given. And, for a time, all their attention was engrossed by them, neither speaking a word.

At length Massey, having made survey of them through the telescope, handed it to the knight, saying, —

“So you think there’s a chance of our taking the place?”

Sir Richard but ran the glass around hastily. He had been up there before, and more carefully reconnoitred, their chief object being to ascertain the strength of the garrison.

“Yes, your Excellency,” he rejoined, “a chance, and something more, if Kyrle prove true; or rather should I say, traitor. And,” he added, with a significant smile, “I think we can trust him to do that.”

“As it wouldn’t be the first time for him, no doubt we can. He has twice turned coat already. And’s no doubt itching to give it another shift, if he can but see the way without getting it torn from his back. Marston Moor has had its effect on him, too, I suppose.”

“It has, and our affair at Beachley will strengthen it. He’ll want to be back on what he believes the winning side now more than ever. His communication to me, though carefully worded, means that, if anything. But we’ll be better able to judge when our despatch-bearers report themselves at High Meadow House. I think we may look for a letter from him.”

It was at High Meadow House their men were encamped; the main body under Massey having just arrived, while Sir Richard, with his troopers in advance, had been there overnight. And that same morning the cadgers, hastily summoned from their home at Ruardean, had been despatched to Monmouth market: Jack, or rather the sister, with secret instructions, and Jinkum with full panniers.

“They ought to be back soon now,” added Sir Richard, again raising the glass to his eye, and turning it on the town, his object to see if the market people had all gone away.

When he last looked, they were streaming out through the gates, the commercial business of the market being over long ago. And now there were only some stragglers on the outgoing roads, men who had lingered by the ale-houses in gossip, or standing treat to the ever-thirsty soldiery.

Just then there came within his field of view a group composed of elements altogether different from the home-returning rustics.

“What do you see?” asked Massey, observing the telescope steadied, and the knight looking through it with fixed, earnest gaze.

“A party of horse, carrying the lance – most of them.”

“Where?”

“Just coming out of the northern gate.”

“A patrol, perhaps?”

“No; something more. There are too many of them for that. Over a hundred have passed out already. And – yes; prisoners with them?”

“Let me have a look,” said the Governor, stretching out his hand for the telescope, which, of course, the other surrendered to him. Reluctantly though, as Sir Richard felt more than a common interest in the prisoners so escorted.

“You’re right,” said Massey, soon as sighting them. “Prisoners they have. But whither can they be taking them? That’s the road to Ross.”

“To Hereford also, your Excellency. The route; are the same as far as Whitchurch.”

“Ah, true. Still it’s odd their starting out at such an hour! And why carrying prisoners away to Hereford? Surely Monmouth Castle affords gaol room enough. I hope it’s not so full. If so, all the more reason for our doing what we can to empty it.”

“I don’t think they’re for Hereford, either. If I’m not mistaken, I saw something which tells of a different destination. If your Excellency will allow me another look through the telescope, perhaps – ”

“Oh, by all means, take it!” said the Governor, interrupting, and again handing over the glass.

“Yes! just as I supposed they were – Harry Lingen’s Horse!” exclaimed Sir Richard, after viewing them for a second or two. “And those poor fellows, their prisoners, likely enough are my own men – one of them, though I can’t identify him, my unfortunate troop captain, young Trevor. They’re en route neither for Ross nor Hereford, but Goodrich Castle, where Lingen has his headquarters. It’s but a short six miles, which may account for their setting out so late.”

“But Trevor’s party was taken at a place near Ruardean – Hollymead House, if I recollect aright.”

“True; the house of Master Ambrose Powell. It was there Lingen surprised them, through a scoundrel who turned traitor.”

“Then why were they brought to Monmouth at all? Ruardean’s but a step from Goodrich.”

“Just so, your Excellency, I was puzzled about that myself up till this morning. Now I know why, having got the information from our cadger friends. It appears that when Lingen made his swoop on Hollymead he was on the way to join Wintour at Beachley, so kept straight on through Monmouth, where he dropped his impedimenta of prisoners. On return he’s now picked them up again, and’s taking them on to his own stronghold.”

“That’s it, no doubt,” assented Massey. “But,” he added, with a smile of triumphant satisfaction, “whoever those captives be, pretty sure none of them have been brought up from Beachley. Nor is their escort as large as it might have been had Lingen left Wintour to himself. We gave their ranks a good weeding there – all round.”

“Yes, indeed,” rejoined the knight, rather absently, and with the telescope still at his eye. He was endeavouring to make good the identity of the captive party, and assure himself whether it was really what he had conjectured it to be.

But he could have little doubt, as he had none about the soldiers forming their escort – Lingen’s Horse to a certainty – a partisan troop, variously armed, but most carrying the lance. And while he still continued gazing at them, they commenced the ascent of the Ley’s pitch, which passes over the col between Little Doward and the Table Mount, the road running through woods all the way. Under these they were soon lost to his sight, and as the last lance with its pennon disappeared below the tops of the trees, he lowered his telescope with a sigh, saying, —

“What a pity the river’s between, with a flood on! But for that we might have crossed at Huntsholme, and caught up with them ere they could – ”

He broke off abruptly at sound of footsteps: the tread of heavy boots, with the chink of spurs, and the louder clank of a steel scabbard striking against them.

He making all these formidable noises was Sergeant Rob Wilde, seen ascending the steep pitch, and evidently on some errand that called for haste.

Sir Richard, advancing to meet him, saw that he had something in his hand, with a good guess as to what it was.

“Jerky Jack ha’ brought this, colonel,” said the sergeant, saluting, as he held out a slip of paper, folded and sealed. “He ha’ just got up fra Monnerth; an’, accordin’ to your command, I took it out o’ his leg.”

“You did quite right, sergeant. Was there nothing more in the leg?”

“Only some silver, colonel; the difference o’ the money he got for the fowls an’ what he gied for the grocer goods. He stowed it theer, afeerd o’ the King’s sodgers strippin’ him o’t.”

“A wise precaution on Jerky’s part,” observed the knight, with a smile. “And called for, no doubt.”

Then, returning to where Massey stood awaiting him, he said, —

“We shall know now, your Excellency, what Kyrle means doing. This is from him – I recognise the script.”

The superscription on the letter was only the initials “R.W.,” Sir Richard’s own, who otherwise knew it was for himself, and while speaking had broken open the seal.

Unfolding the sheet, he saw what surprised and at first fretted him – that device borne on his hat and the standard of his troop – the sword-pierced crown. It appeared at the head of the page, in rough pen-and-ink sketch, and might be meant ironically. But no; the writing underneath gave the explanation: —

“By the symbol above R.W. will understand that K. abjures the hatred thing called ‘Kingship’ henceforth and for ever. After this night he will never draw sword in such a cause, and this night only to give it a back-handed blow. R.W.’s proposal accepted. Plan of action thus: – M. at once to retire troops from High Meadow, news of which a messenger already warned will bring hither post haste. But good reason must be given for retiring, else K. might have difficulty getting leave to go in pursuit. Withdrawal appearing compulsory, there will be none. H., who commands here, is a conceited ass, ambitious to cut a figure, and will rush into the trap as a rat after cheese. R.W. may show this to M., and himself feel assured that if the sword of his old comrade-in-arms be again employed in the service of the P., it will cut keen enough to make up for past deficiencies, which K. hopes and trusts will be forgiven and forgotten.”

No name was appended to the singular epistle nor signature of any kind. It needed none. Sir Richard Walwyn knew the writer to be Robert Kyrle, a lieutenant-colonel in the Royalist army, who at the beginning of the war had drawn sword for the Parliament. In days gone by they had fought side by side in a foreign land, – more recently in their own, – and Kyrle could well call Sir Richard an “old comrade-in-arms.” Now they were in opposite camps; but if that letter could be relied upon as a truthful exponent of the writer’s sentiments, they were likely soon to be in the same again. Already there had been a passage of notes between them, and the knight had now a full comprehension of what his anonymous correspondent meant, knew to whom the various initials referred – in short, understood everything purposed and proposed.

“What’s your opinion of it, Colonel Walwyn?” asked the Governor, after hearing the letter read, and receiving some necessary explanations. “Do you think we can trust him?”

“I do, your Excellency; feel sure of it now. I know Kyrle better than most men, and something of his motives for going over to the other side. Nothing base or cowardly in them; instead, rather honourable thin otherwise. For, in truth, it was out of affection for his old father, whose property was threatened with wholesale confiscation. Walford, up the river, this side Ross, is their home. It is within cannon range of Goodrich Castle, right under, and Lingen would have been sure to make a ruin of it had Kyrle not gone over to the King. Now that the chances of war are with us again, and he thinks that danger past, his heart bounds back to what it once warmly beat for. I know it did, as he has oft told me, in tent and by camp fire.”

“To what?” asked Massey, himself a veteran of the Low Country campaigns, and feeling interest in souvenirs of sentiment.

“This?” answered the knight, pointing to the device inside the letter, still in his hand. “I believe he will be true to it now, as he promises; and if we get nothing more by it than his sword, it’s one worth gaining, your Excellency. Than Kyrle I don’t know braver or better soldier.”

“Well, Colonel, since you seem so disposed to this thing, and confident of success, I’m willing we should make the attempt. At the worst we can but fail, though, indeed, failure may cost us a good many of our best men. Best they must be to form the forlorn hope.”

“If your Excellency permit, I and my Foresters will form that. With my confidence in them, and faith in Kyrle, I have no fear of failure – if the details of our scheme be carried out as designed.”

“They shall be, Sir Richard, so far as I can effect it. You may rely upon me for that. Nay, I leave the ordering and arrangement of everything to yourself.”

“Thanks, your Excellency. But the sooner we set about it the better. Kyrle, as you see, counsels the withdrawal at once.”

“But what about the reasons for doing so? Without that, he tells us – ”

“I’ve thought of that, too,” interrupted Sir Richard, now all haste. “It’s part of my plan already arranged. But it will take a little time to procure this reason, so that it may appear plausible – the time it will take a man, mounted on a good horse, to gallop to Coleford and back.”

“I don’t quite comprehend you, Colonel. For what purpose this galloping to Coleford?”

“To get news from Gloucester – telling us it is threatened by Rupert.”

The Governor gave a start, as if actually being told it was so. Then, recovering himself, as he saw the smile on Sir Richard’s face, at the same time catching the purport of his dubious words, he smiled, too, admiringly upon the soldier knight, as he rejoined, —

“An admirable idea! It will do! But, as you say, Colonel, there must be no time lost. The messenger must be despatched at once. So let us back to High Meadow House.”

Saying which, he started off down the hill.

Sir Richard was about to follow when his big sergeant, who had been all the while standing near, stepped up to him, and saluting, said, —

“There be a woman as wants a word wi’ ye, Colonel.”

“A woman! Who, Rob?”

“Cadger Jack’s sister.”

“Where is she?”

“A little ways down the lane. I didn’t like bringin’ she up, fears you or the Governor mightn’t wish bein’ intruded on. Besides, her business be more wi’ yerself, Colonel.”

“Well, Wilde,” half jocularly returned the knight, “your discretion seems on a par with your valour. But let us down, and hear what the cadgeress has to say. If it be a question of squaring the market account, you can take that upon yourself. I give you carte blanche to settle scores; and if they’ve brought back groceries, you may distribute them among the men.”