“Oh! no,” said Helena, eagerly. “When once we were out of pistol range it was enjoyable enough; but I hope I may never have to run again as we did that night. Had you not both dragged me on I must have given up.”
Gabriel laughed.
“We were cruel only to be kind, but I grant you that the feeling of being pursued is unpleasant. I had a longing to stay and fight it out with that dastardly Colonel. But it would have been over great a risk for you, and your safety was the main object. However, I have an instinct that I shall meet the fellow again, and then maybe shall have a chance of fighting him.”
At supper, in the panelled room below, Gabriel found himself between Mistress Nell and his hostess, and vis-à-vis with Major Locke, who kept them all merry with his inexhaustible fund of stories.
“Who would think, to hear our laughter, that we were in the midst of a deadly civil war?” said Faith Bennett. “We owe you a debt of gratitude, sir. I have not made so merry for many a day.”
“Tell Mistress Bennett the story of the fisher-boy,” said Helena. “That mightily tickled my fancy.”
“Oh, that is but a simple tale,” said the Major. “We were crossing some wild country in Herefordshire, and, the day being foggy, had lost our bearings, so I sent one of the men to ask the way of a lad that was fishing in the Wye. He came back to say that he couldn’t understand the boy’s language, and knowing something of dialect, I went to him myself and said, ‘Which is the nearest way to Horn Lacy?’
“An unintelligible jabber was the response, so that I thought the lad an innocent until I chanced to notice that he was munching a mouthful of something.
“‘What have you got in your mouth?’ I asked, finding that he made no haste to swallow his meal.
“‘Wumsh for bait,’ he muttered, trying to indicate by signs the nearest road to Horn Lacy.”