“What are you doing with this maid, Merton?” asked the officer sternly. “Stand back from her.”
The soldier growled something between his teeth and sulkily obeyed.
“We would but know where to seek Andrew Shadwell,” went on the Captain courteously to Clotilde. “Surely there is no harm in telling us that!”
She stared at him stonily and deigned to make no answer. She was attempting to feel anger at one who could look so much like her dear Master Sheffield and yet could draw his sword in the cause against Liberty. But it was hard to resist the appeal of those earnest, friendly eyes.
“You see,” commented Merton, “the maid is just as stubborn as are all of these backwoods folk that call themselves patriots. You will get nothing from her by gentleness.”
Through the door, that had been left open, came a low, whining voice speaking in rapid French, and round the edge of the doorpost peered the dark face of the half-breed pedlar.
“There are but women here,” he said, “an old dame who has a tongue like a flail and this young Mademoiselle. It is the best place to learn, not only the road to M’sieur Shadwell’s, which I have missed in this wilderness of snow, but also where lies that handful of rebel troops that we have heard are encamped in the neighbourhood. There are red-coated men enough here to take them twice over.”
The Captain, stepping to the threshold, answered the man in a low voice and in his own tongue.
“Your task was to guide this expedition to the Loyalist headquarters, and not to lose your bearings at the first turning. Yet, as I have been once over the road myself, perhaps I can find the way again. What I wished most to have you discover was the place of encampment of the American troops.”
The French pedlar interrupted quickly with some words that she was not able to hear, although she could guess their purport from the officer’s answer.