Sure enough, towards him ambled a middle-aged fellow, smiling as he pushed along a wheel-barrow filled with bulbs.
Joshua walked up to him, extending his right hand.
“My friend,” said he, “I am an officer escaping from some seamen who wish my life because of a duel in which I recently engaged over the hand of a fair lady. Here is a guinea. It is all that I possess. And—if you could but pilot me to the waterside and will not tell of my whereabouts—I will bless you to my dying day.”
The good-humored man-of-the-soil smiled benignly.
“Prithee, but follow me,” said he, “and we’ll soon see that you pass by the way of the water gate. Your money is most welcome, sir, for my wife is just now ill and doctors must be paid, sir. That you know right well.”
Barney breathed easier as they walked towards the sea; for out of the corner of his eye he saw a guard—sent to capture him—tramping along the other side of the hedge over which he had leaped.
“Good-bye and good luck!” cried the kind-hearted servant as he closed the private gate which led to the waterside. And, with a wave of the hand, the fleeing American was soon hastening to the winding river, over which he must cross in order to get on to Plymouth.
Luck was still with him. A butcher who was ferrying some beeves by water, took him in his boat, and, as night fell, the keen-witted privateersman crept through the back door of the old clergyman’s house at Plymouth—from which he had started. For the time being, he was safe.
Strange to relate, the two friends of the fishing-smack adventure here joined him once more, for they, also, had run away from the crew of the privateer, and—as they sat around the supper-table—the town-crier went by the house, bawling in harsh and discordant tones:
“Five guineas reward for the capture of Joshua Barney; a rebel deserter from Mill Prison! Five guineas reward for this deserter! Five guineas! Five guineas!”