“Fool!” roared another burly fellow, “down with both lots, say I; starve ’em both out, and let’s keep our homes free from such vermin.”
This provoked a perfect babel of retorts of every description, except “the retort courteous.”
Happily, at that moment the Vicar pushed his way through the throng, and taking a torch from one of the bystanders, said in his mellow, hearty voice:
“My friends, while we stand here idle our visitors are waiting cold and supperless after a long march; for the honour of Bosbury let us each do what we can to feed the hungry. I have yet to learn that there is anything political in a stomach, and you’ll be following the only true Leader if you do as you’d be done by. I’ll be bound you fellows feel the pangs of appetite beneath your orange scarves just the same as if they were red—eh?”
His hearty, cheerful manner took the men’s fancy; they laughed, the villagers laughed, and, as if by magic, harmony prevailed. Before long not a soldier was to be seen save the sentries, who were bound to keep guard in case of an attack.
Meanwhile, Hilary was hard at work with Mrs. Durdle, preparing something more sustaining than the simple fare that was to have sufficed for their evening meal. To own the truth she would have complied less willingly with her uncle’s request had not a wild hope that Gabriel might possibly be with this regiment, begun to stir in her heart. She had no reason to think he would be with Governor Massey, but to youth all desirable things seem possible, and her sadness, and the sense of desolation that had expressed her all the afternoon, made her crave the support of her lover’s strength and quiet fortitude.
So she took keen interest in the supper; did not, as the Vicar had naughtily suggested, pepper the broth, but, on the contrary, thickened it with oatmeal in a way which Gabriel specially liked. She robbed the store-room of several eggs, and bade Durdle make a large dish of eggs and bacon; and, finally, herself prepared the bread and cheese from which, at the last moment, the housekeeper was to make that particularly favourite dainty of their childhood—“Welsh rarebit.”
Then she flew back to the sitting-room, and piled fresh wood on the dogs in the fireplace, and by the time everything was ready, had become convinced that all would soon be well, and that her lover would really appear.
And now the Vicar’s steps were heard without, and his pleasant voice. Hilary’s heart throbbed wildly, for surely the courteous reply spoken by his companion was in Gabriel’s very tone.
The door was thrown open.