We rode on together in silence after that, and were come to the bank of the river before we spoke again. But here Dick went back to my warning, saying, whilst we let the horses drink: "'Tis patrolled on the other bank, you say?"
"It was when I passed it a few days agone."
"Then I will turn back and cross at Beattie's. 'Twill make you a risk you need not take—to have me with you."
But I thought now that the upper ford might be guarded as well; and if there must be a cutting of a road through the enemy's outpost line for Dick, two could do it better than one. So I said:
"No; we are here now, and if need be I can lend you the weight of a second blade to see you safe through."
"And you with your head humming like a basket of bees, as I make no doubt it will?"
I laughed. "I should be but a sorry soldier and a sorrier friend if I should let a love-tap with the flat of a blade make me fail you at the pinch."
He reached across the little gap that parted us and grasped my hand.
"By God!" he swore, most feelingly, "you are as true as the steel you carry, Jack Ireton!"
"Nay," said I, in honest shame; "I do confess I was thinking less of my friend than of the importance of the errand he rides on."