“I am told,” said Norton with a cruel smile, “that Sir Francis Doddington hung fourteen rebels at Andover t’other day. And elsewhere twelve of them were strung up to one apple-tree. We might hang Captain Harford from one of those apple-trees yonder; it would be a fitting death for a Herefordshire man.”
With a wild hope of getting him out of the orchard she moved as though to go, trusting that he might follow’. But Norton was too quick for her.
“Come! cheer up and don’t be so silent,” he said, throwing his arm round her waist. “We’ll talk no more of the Puritan. Let us kiss and be friends.”
“Don’t touch me!” she cried, indignantly, wrenching herself from his embrace. “You are worse than a murderer.”
Norton laughed mockingly.
“Now that was a foolish speech, for as I warned you, the game is in my hands.”
“Thank God! there is someone coming,” cried Hilary, catching sight of a man slowly approaching by the path from Ledbury, and running swiftly towards him. “Why, Waghorn! is it you?” she exclaimed, recognising the well-known face of the wood-carver beneath a bandage tied about his forehead. “You have little liking for us, but I know you will help me now.”
“Mistress!” said Waghorn grimly, “I have a word to speak with yonder Governor of Canon Frome, and I cannot serve you.”
Norton strode angrily towards him.
“A word to speak, indeed! What have you been about? Where is your prisoner?”