It was so extremely unlikely as far as he was concerned, that the mere suggestion brought a fresh paroxysm from the delinquent.
“Oh!” he cried at last—“to think of all these years of a grievance like yours—of the solemn counsels and the wise heads waggin’—and then to learn that the gashly eye of the creature that we turned from lookin’ at should ha’ been the very stone itself!”
Tuke caught himself grinning again, but Luvaine, furiously red in a moment, drew up stiff in his saddle.
“And you find this food for laughter?” he said, in a high voice. “A grievance, quotha!—only a grievance that hath wrought the ruin of two souls, and for me, in the prime of life, a childless and haunted old age!”
“Oh, Luvaine!” said Sir David, struggling for gravity, “I didn’t mean to cheapen you, man, or to withhold my sympathy from the problematic Mrs. L., who—who ‘very imprudently married the barber’”—he added, with a shout of merriment.
Tuke saw fit to put in a hasty word.
“He has earned a laugh. Let it be at you or me, Captain Luvaine; for though I take no loss of the robbery, I swear the knowledge of it has ridden me like a nightmare.”
The soldier waved his hand.
“Bah!” he said—“the crackling of thorns!”
He dismounted to tighten his saddle-girth.