"And shot the sheriff from behind my shoulder," continued Mr. Curwen.
"Father!" she entreated, covering her face with her hands.
"Nay, child," said he, reassuringly. "There was no great harm done. A few weeks with his arm in a sling."
"But I saw the blood redden through his sleeve!" cried she, drawing her hands down from her face and clasping them together. And as though to rid herself of the topic she jogged her bridle and rode forward.
I turned my horse and followed with Mr. Curwen, the while he gave me more precise account of what had happened.
"The sheriff took an absurd and threatening tone when he found the door barred, which suited me very ill. So I bade Dorothy load my pistols while I parleyed with the man. He threatened me in I know not how many Latin words and in a tone of great injury, whereupon, perceiving that, since he spoke a learned tongue and wore the look of a gentleman, it would be no derogation, I threw down my glove as a gage and challenged him to take it up."
I shot a glance at Mr. Curwen, but he spoke in a simple, ordinary voice.
"Instead of doing that," he continued, "he disappointed me greatly by a violent flow of abuse, which was cut short on the instant by Dorothy's pistol. She was standing behind me, who stood on a chair, and fired beneath my arm. 'Oh, the poor dear!' she cried, 'I have hurt him,' and plumped down in a faint. It was indeed the luckiest accident in the world, for the constables, seeing their chief wounded, were sufficiently scared to stay no longer than gave them time to pick him up."
"But all this occurred a month ago!" I exclaimed, "Surely the sheriff's men returned."
"In the evening; but they found no one at Applegarth. Dorothy and I with Mary Tyson were on our way to Carlisle. The other servants I sent to their homes. We have good friends at Carlisle, Mr. Clavering," he said, with one of his prodigiously cunning winks, "very good, safe friends. We said good-bye to them when your army had passed Carlisle, and so returned home."