“Gain? Do you think I need bribing, sir? What kept me silent was the thought of my mother. I dare not go without her leave.”
Salterne made a gesture of impatience.
“I dare not, sir; I must obey my parent, whatever else I do.”
“Humph!” said he. “If others had obeyed theirs as well!—But you are right, Captain Leigh, right. You will prosper, whoever else does not. Now, sir, good-night, if you will let me be the first to say so. My old eyes grow heavy early now-a-days. Perhaps it's old age, perhaps it's sorrow.”
So Amyas departed to the inn, and there, to his great joy, found Cary waiting for him, from whom he learnt details, which must be kept for another chapter, and which I shall tell, for convenience' sake, in my own words and not in his.
CHAPTER XV
HOW MR. JOHN BRIMBLECOMBE UNDERSTOOD THE NATURE OF AN OATH
“The Kynge of Spayn is a foul paynim,
And lieveth on Mahound;
And pity it were that lady fayre
Should marry a heathen hound.”
Kyng Estmere.
About six weeks after the duel, the miller at Stow had come up to the great house in much tribulation, to borrow the bloodhounds. Rose Salterne had vanished in the night, no man knew whither.