I swept her into my arms.
"I love you for it, granny. Never shall I forget your kindness and the welcome you gave to the stranger from the night."
She kissed me tenderly.
"I am an old woman, Master Harry," she said, "and I may not live to see it; but the day will come when you will be no longer a fugitive from justice. So be not disheartened."
"And how could I be disheartened," I demanded, as I set her down, "with two friends such as I may boast of?"
There was a mist before my eyes, and I was not sorry when Juggins broke in upon our farewells.
"Come, come," says he. "You will be unmanning the lad, granny——"
"'Tis to his credit he hath so much sentiment," she returned, wiping clear her eyes with a shaky hand. "But 'tis time he went, Robert."
"Aye, John Waterman will be waiting us at the Temple Stairs, and we have little time to spare if we are to get aboard before the other passengers. This de Veulle would recognize him, I fear, even in his disguise."
I could not forbear a grimace at the reference to my get-up, a linsey-woolsey shirt, with homespun jacket and breeches and a bobbed scratch-wig, the whole designed to give me a rustic appearance, which there can be no doubt that it did.