“Let me come in,” said her visitor, shortly. “I have something to say to you.”
And as she spoke, Joan made fast the horse’s bridle to an iron staple in the wall of the porch, and entered the great kitchen.
“You have no one here?” she asked, as she glanced around the big room, and peered into the dim corners where the kegs were piled high.
“You see I have no one, Miss Joan,” answered Ann, in a somewhat constrained tone. “But you had better hasten, if you would not meet some of our rough folks; they’ll be in here ere long.”
“I know,” said Joan. And she turned abruptly to meet Ann’s eyes, with a face full of anxiety. “They’re outside, searching the neighborhood on all sides; and I can conjecture for whom they search.”
Ann looked down on the floor.
“Come, Ann, I can trust you to tell me what I would fain know,” went on Joan, quickly. “Lieutenant Tregenna—know you aught of him? He said he should come hither, by your invitation.”
“Ay, and you were so anxious to know what I should do with him, that you sent a lad, Will Bramley, to be on the watch against his coming! Bill, that they call ‘Plunder,’ did find the lad, and learnt his errand, ere he let him go back to you.”
“’Tis true. I sent Will to see that he came to no harm. Even as I would not suffer the lieutenant to do harm to you or to poor Tom, for your mother’s sake and for the sake of Tom’s kindness when I was a child; so would not I have you do harm to him, since I know him for a brave man, and one that but does his duty in pursuing you and your kindred.”
“And ’tis for him you have taken this journey, by yourself, on a night like this? Sure, Miss Joan, the lieutenant would feel flattered did he but know.”