“I was hiding; trying to get down to the coast and make my way back to France. The soldiers have been hunting me for days, but I have escaped so far.”
“To get back to France?” said Waller. “But are you not English?”
“Yes, of course. Don’t I speak like an Englishman?”
“Well, there is a little something queer about it,” said Waller—“a sort of accent.”
“I said English,” continued the other, “but my family, the Boynes, are of Irish descent, and staunch followers of the Stuarts.”
“Yes; but that’s all over now, you know,” said Waller. “Don’t you think you had better give all that up and go back?”
“I was trying to go back,” said the lad despairingly.
“Or stop here.”
“You talk like a follower of the Pretender,” said the lad bitterly.
“That I don’t!” cried Waller indignantly. “My father is a magistrate, and a staunch supporter of King George. But there, I didn’t mean to talk like that,” he cried, as he noted the change that came over his companion’s face. “Here, I say, never mind about politics. You look—well, very ill. Hadn’t you better go home?”