Waghorn groaned. “Mercy! Mercy! Oh, my head! My head! Remember I’ve a sore head.”
“You’ve no head at all, you gaping fool, or you wouldn’t have made such a cursed mess of this matter. Did you not ask, I say? Could no man give you news of him?”
Freeing himself and groaning as he adjusted his bandages, the wood-carver replied, sullenly, “I have news of him. When you will leave me time to speak, I will tell you all.”
“Speak then,” said Norton, impatiently.
“I am a righteous avenger,” said Waghorn, with an air of offended dignity, “and, though thrice baulked, I will yet lay hands on the ungodly man that dallies with malignants, and doth not destroy graven images. ‘Let his days be few, and let another take his office!’”
“Go to! You are not preaching on a tub, you fool, but speaking to a King’s officer,” said Norton, with an angry frown.
Waghorn continued deliberately. “When I could think of aught but my clouted head, I sought to pursue Captain Harford, asking from one and another if they had seen a wounded Parliament officer on a bay horse. At length I fell in with some troopers who vowed they had pursued him in this direction, but had lost all trace of him and were returning to Prince Rupert.”
“They had seen him this way?” said Norton, musingly.
Waghorn turned his piercing eyes on Hilary and looked at her fixedly. She tried bravely to keep an unmoved face.
“Doubtless he had his reasons for riding towards Bosbury,” said the spy, with scornful emphasis.