The afternoon grew grayer and grayer, and was merging into twilight when they rode through a poor village, beyond which, upon a barren swell of highland, they came to a stockade flung around a small manor house. They crossed a rough bridge over a moat, and so, keeping to the left of the house, drew rein at length before a great stable. “Yon’s the captain, now,” spoke the cross-eyed man, peering into the dark of the building.
“Looking to the cocks, I’ll be bound,” muttered he of the sharp face.
“What dog’s mischief have you been loitering about, you knaves?” came from within the stable, and the voice was one Hugh remembered.
“Captain Butler!” he cried, flinging himself from the saddle, and, stumbling through the door, near embraced the big Irishman who came to meet him.
“Good faith, ’tis not—” Butler began.
“I am Edmund Burley,” Hugh interrupted feverishly. “Sure, you remember me, sir?”
Butler pulled him outside, where the light was clearer, and after that instant’s pause turned upon the troopers with a violent demand as to what they meant. One replied, “’Tis he who killed Master Bellasis;” but the captain cut him short with a volley of abuse, that they durst hale thither an innocent man and a friend of his, too, and followed it with threats of a flogging to them all and bluster and oaths, till the three were cowed into a frightened silence.
“Well, I’ll be easy with you this time, you rogues,” Butler resumed after a moment, “for Master Burley is a merciful man, and I’m thinking would be better pleased that you went free. And, faith, he bears so little malice he wishes you all to drink his health.” Thus admonished, Hugh pulled three shillings out of his pocket and tossed them to his late captors before Butler led him away to the house. “Come have a drink with me, Burley,” he said, and added, with a chuckle, “I take it you need it.”
“That was a narrow escape, eh, Gwyeth?” he spoke later, as Hugh was swallowing down a bumper of Spanish wine in the west parlor of the house.
“Narrow as I ever wish,” Hugh replied truthfully.