“They’ve got as much information, pretty near, as they want,” said Neal. “They are going to arrest three men to-night.”
“God’s curse on Eustace St. Clair, him whom men call the Lord of Dunseveric,” said Micah Ward.
“Spare your curse,” said Neal. “It wasn’t Lord Dunseveric who brought the yeomen on us, and what’s more, only for Lord Dunseveric you’d be arrested yourself along with the others.”
“What’s that you are saying, Neal?”
“I’m saying that the yeomen brought orders from Belfast to arrest you, and me, too, and that Lord Dunseveric refused to execute them.”
“And so I owe my liberty to him! I must thank him for sparing me. I must fawn on him as my benefactor, I suppose. But I will not. I refuse his mercy. I scorn it. I cast it from me. I shall go out and offer myself to the yeomen. They are to take my friends, my people, and spare me. I will not be spared. Am I the hireling who fleeth when the wolf cometh? I go to deliver myself into their hands.”
“You’ll be a bigger fool than I take you for if you do,” said Donald. “Listen to me now. From what Neal has told us it’s evident that you’re wrong about Lord Dunseveric. It wasn’t he who brought the yeomen on us. There is someone else giving information, and it’s someone who knows a good deal. Come now, brother Micah, cudgel your brains; think, man, think, who is it?”
Micah sat down at his writing-table and passed his hand over his forehead.
“I cannot think,” he said. “I cannot, I will not believe that any of our people are traitors.”
“These orders which Neal speaks of came from Belfast,” said Donald. “Who has lately left this place and gone to Belfast?”