“’Twas infamous, sir, shameful, to treat you so, after what you had done,” cried she, with a heightened color in her cheeks and the sparkle of indignation in her eyes. “And if they treat you like that again, I’ll be a turncoat myself, and do my best to help you against—Jem.”
“You speak,” said Tregenna, with curiosity, “as if that bit of a lad were the ringleader of the gang.”
Again Joan shot at him a glance in which there was some amusement. But she answered demurely—
“He is old for his years, sir, I believe.”
“Well, Miss Joan, I shall think my experience of yesterday worth the risk if it but bring you to our side, the side of law and of justice.”
By this time he saw that the brigadier had got the ear of the squire, and that he had turned to see why his companion had deserted him. Tregenna, therefore, with a low bow to Joan, re-mounted and rode across the grass to join him.
Squire Waldron, though by no means in the best of humors at this interruption to the serious business of fox-hunting, made out the warrants as desired by Tregenna and General Hambledon; but he took care to twit them with their ill success against the smugglers, and with their failure to catch “Gardener Tom.”
Tregenna took these reproaches modestly, but the brigadier blustered, and said that he was ready to be shot if he did not bring one or more of the ringleaders among the smugglers back to Rye with him that afternoon.
“And, gads my life, sir,” he went on with emphasis which made him purple in the face; “but I’ll warrant me I’ll have it out with Mistress Ann, and make her give up this Jem Bax, if she’s harboring him.”
The squire smiled a little, just as Joan had done at the mention of Jem’s name. And Tregenna was confirmed in his belief that the young ruffian was a relation of Ann’s, and that she would put every possible obstacle in the way of his being given up.