“Right, my lad. I know what the Major is. Here’s half-a-crown for you to get a glass.”
“Thank ye.”
James Bell pocketed the coin, and went off back to pack his master’s valise, and load the case of pistols ready to take to the chaise in the evening, after which he went to have one half-pint of ale, for he was suffering from a severe sensation of thirst, one that he often felt come on.
“Just one glass,” he said. “That’s all.”
James Bell partook of his one glass, but it was not all. Then he went back to see to the horses in his charge in a stable near the barracks—two belonging to the Major, and one of the Colonel’s.
The helper was there, and as the extra work would fall to his share that night, there was an excuse for giving him a glass of ale, of which he partook, nothing loth.
The message of Sir Harry Payne had been given, the clothes were packed up, the pistols ready. Yes, every thing had been done; and at last, when it was getting dark, James Bell, looking very stern and determined, and with a tendency to walk extremely straight, as if he were aiming at something right ahead, went off to Moggridge’s, placed the packed valise under the seat of the post-chaise, the pistols in the pockets, and then had a chat with the postboys, and—a glass of ale.
There was an hour yet to the time, so he strolled to the end of the yard, and thought he would just go as far as the stables to see if the helper had properly bedded down the horses; and this proving to be the case, and a shilling still remaining unspent of that half-crown, the dragoon suggested that a pot of the best ale should be fetched, and that they should drink it before he went.
The helper was worthy of his title, and fetched the ale, and then, one seated on a truss of straw, the other upon the corn-bin, the two men finished the ale between them, and just at the time that James Bell should have been at Mrs Pontardent’s gate, he was fast asleep in the stable.
That afternoon Mr Barclay was busy with his partner, when a visitor was announced, and as it was probably a call relating to money matters, Mrs Barclay left the room.