Surely— Aye, they had done it. The ruffian on my left leaped back with ear aslant toward the alley entrance.
"Quick, bullies," he yelled. "'Tis the watch!"
With a celerity that was almost uncanny they disengaged their blades and melted into the fog. Their footfalls dwindled around the corner as I detected the clumping footfalls of the approaching guardians of London's peace.
This brought me to my senses. I sheathed my sword and ran across the roadway, glancing to right and left for the best route of escape. But I reckoned without the other participant in our brawl.
"Be at ease, my master," he said in a voice which had a good thick Dorset burr in it—I liked him from that moment. It sounded so homelike; I could fairly see the rolling fields, the water meadows, the copses, all the scenes that had meant so much to me in boyhood, even the sprawling roofs and chimney stacks of Foxcroft House itself.
"I have reasons not to be at ease," I answered dryly, and would have passed him, but he clutched my arm.
"We have seen an end to the rascals," he strove to reassure me. "'Tis only the watch you hear. Hark to the jingling of their staves."
"I know that full well, my friend," I answered him, goose-flesh rising on my neck as the jingling staves and clumping feet drew nearer; and my thoughts fastened upon the dungeons of the Tower about which we had heard frequent tales at St. Germain. "But I happen to have pressing reasons for avoiding the watch."
My friend pursed his lips in a low whistle.
"So sets the wind in that quarter! Yet you came fast to my help against those cut-purses a moment back."