“He’ll get no good by doing that!” cried Ann, sharply. “Miss Joan’ll never tell aught to harm us, for my mother’s sake; ’twas she came herself to tell us, t’other day, that the red-coats were on their way hither.”
“Ay,” said Tom, “but ’tis not for information ’gainst us the lieutenant hangs about the Parsonage. ’Tis for Miss Joan’s bright eyes, I’m thinking.”
“Pshaw!” said Ann, contemptuously.
“She’s a handsome, winsome lady,” went on Tom, “and all the gentlemen be raving mad about her shape and her fine eyes. So ’tis no such wonder if he’s struck, too.”
“Miss Joan’s well enough,” returned Ann, though in a rather grudging tone; “but I think the lieutenant’s got something better to do than run after a lass just now. Leastways, if he hasn’t, we can find him something!” she added with acerbity.
“Ho, ho, ho! That can we!” roared Ben the Blast, laughing lustily.
In the midst of his mirth, in which the other men joined, there was an interruption. Some one ran in panting, and apparently in sufficient disorder to warrant a feeling of alarm among the rest.
“Well, how now, Bill? What has frighted thee?” said Robin Cursemother; and his companions added their questions to the panting newcomer.
At last, when there was a pause, he blurted out—
“There’s spies about, mates; there’s eyes been a-watching us while we was at our work in the barn to-night!” Instantly there was a confusion of tongues, so great that for a few moments he was allowed to get breath, while his companions pressed round him, with oaths and abrupt questionings. When he was able to go on, he said, “’Twas a lad from the village yonder as told me, young Will Bramley, that lives down by the mash’es, and works up at Parsonage.”