Waif leaped from her seat, with flashing eyes, and her hand on the knife she always wore, but sank back laughing wildly, and speaking in short disjointed gasps.
"Good!" she said. "Good! He's the right sort, Fin, this Gorgio. Bid him tell us how he means to set about the job."
Fin Cooper, turning to the Parson, thought he had never seen so wicked a smile as that which gleamed in Gale's eyes, and curled round his mouth while he repeated, "I do it for the sport, lad; he's a right deer, I tell ye; and if I don't set him up to-morrow, I swear I'll never go hunting again."
"That's why you want the roan?" asked Fin, turning the matter over in his mind, as a question of profit and loss.
"Right," answered the Parson; "Dick Boss must be on a good nag, and so must I. If John Garnet should get the wind of us, he'll show a clean pair of heels, you may take your oath. But what of that? Let worst come to worst, four mounted men spreading wide, and knowing every yard of the ground, ought to ride him down, though the grey horse had a wing at each foot instead of an iron shoe. But that's not my plan. Hark ye, Fin; we'll be in the saddle before daybreak, and we'll take him while he's asleep."
Waif stirred uneasily, but only muttered again, "Good! good! Mind what he says, Fin, for surely the Gorgio speaks fair."
"'Tis as easy as drinking out of a glass," continued the Parson, scarce noticing her interruption. "Dick Boss and the roan, his two men riding their own nags, yourself, Fin, on something that can gallop a bit, I never knew you without one—and game old Cassock to bring me along with the best of ye. It would be a rare chase, lad—I could almost wish he might slip through our fingers, and ride for it over the moor, but he'll never have the chance, Fin; he'll never have the chance!"
"Suppose he shows fight, Parson," suggested the gipsy, who was a bold fellow enough on occasion, but regarded such matters with a keen eye to business. "'Tis none of your dunghill fowls this, but a cock of the game, with never a morsel of white in his wing, put him down where you will. Suppose he lugs out on Dick Boss, and whistles a brace of balls into you and me?"
"I'm not afraid of him," answered Gale; "it makes no difference in the reward, Fin, whether we take him dead or alive."
"Come back, Thyra!" exclaimed the gipsy, with more of a husband's authority than was yet permissible in his tone. "Where are you going, lass? Come back, I tell ye."