‘Oh, we’ll chance that. When they know what a villain the fellow is, they’ll turn against him. Besides, we said we’d wait here.’
Denny seized on my last words with alacrity. When you are determined to do a rash thing, there is a great comfort in feeling that you are already committed to it by some previous act or promise.
‘So we did,’ he cried. ‘Then that settles it, Hogvardt’
‘His lordship certainly expressed that intention,’ observed Watkins, appearing at this moment with a big loaf of bread and a great pitcher of milk. I eyed these viands.
‘I bought the house and its contents,’ said I; ‘come along.’
Watkins’ further researches produced a large lump of native cheese; when he had set this down he remarked:
‘In a pen behind the house, close to the kitchen windows, there are two goats; and your lordship sees there, on the right of the front door, two cows tethered.’
I began to laugh, Watkins was so wise and solemn.
‘We can stand a siege, you mean?’ I asked. ‘Well, I hope it won’t come to that.’