"Dinna fash yoursel' about Madge, Richard Jennifer. She's meat for your betters, sir!" rasped the old man, lapsing into the mother tongue, as he did now and then in fear or anger.
"Still I would know what you mean when you say she is safe," says Richard, whose determination to crack a nut was always proportioned to the hardness of the shell.
Gilbert Stair cursed him roundly for an impertinent jackanapes, and then gave him his answer.
"'Tis none of your business, Dickie Jennifer, but you may know and be hanged to you! She rode home with the Witherbys last night after the rout, and will be by this safe away in t'other Carolina where your cursed Whiggeries darena lift head or hand."
"Of her own free will?" Dick persisted.
"Damme! yes; bag, baggage, serving wench and all. Now will you be off about your business before some spying rascal lays an information against me for harboring you?"
Richard joined me on the door-stone. The dawn was in its twilight now, and the great trees on the lawn were taking gray and ghostly shapes in the dim perspective.
"You heard what he had to say?" said he.
I nodded.
"It seems we have missed our cue on all sides," he went on, not without bitterness. "I would we might have had a chance to fire a shot or two before the ship went down."