“Oh, ay, Ah’m not afraid o’ Bob Heritage, nor o’ Rough Jock either; an’ me an’ him are loike to coom to an unnerstanding.”
“Weel, ye mun knaw yer own business, Kemm; but Ah wouldn’t tak’ oop wi him mysen,” said the third man, who had scarcely spoken.
“Not till ye gotten t’ chance, eh, lad?” said Josiah stolidly. “Coom an’ have a soop o’ ale; it shall cost ye nowt.”
He led the way out of the room; and the rest, not all at once, but by twos and threes and very quietly, followed him, until Freda was left quite alone. As she leaned upon her elbow, trying to piece together the fragments she had understood of the talk, she heard in the passage, to her great relief, a voice she recognised. It was that of her farmer friend, Barnabas Ugthorpe, who looked in at the kitchen door the next moment.
“Weel, lass,” he said, cheerily, “How are ye gettin on? T’ night’s cleared a bit, an’ Ah can tak’ ye on to Owd Castle Farm. T’ fowks theer are very thick wi’ Capt’n Mulgrave. It isn’t more’n a moile from here.”
Within ten minutes a cart was at the door, and they were on their way. The road lying over a smooth expanse of moorland, and the moon giving a little more light; it was not long before a very curious building came in sight, on rising ground a little to the east of the road as it went northwards.
The front of the house, which faced south, was long and singularly irregular. At each end were the still solid-looking remains of a round tower built of great blocks of rough-hewn stone, roofed in with red tiles. Both were lighted by narrow, barred windows. Between the towers ran an outer wall of the same grey stone, much notched and ivy-grown at the top, and broken through here and there lower down to receive small square latticed windows greatly out of character with the structure. Into a breach in this wall a very plain farm-house building had been inserted, with rough white-washed surface and stone-flagged roof.
Barnabas got down, raised the knocker and gave three sounding raps.
In a few moments Freda heard rapid steps inside, and a woman’s voice, harsh and strident, saying in a whisper:
“That’s not the Captain, surely!”