He refilled his glass and then, leisurely and with his eyes dreamily fixed on the fire, loaded his pipe with a new charge of tobacco, and went on smoking.
"Are you a Jacobite?" suddenly asked Margaret, looking inquiringly at Master Freake.
"Dear me, no, Mistress Margaret," was the frank reply. "But you need not curl those sweet lips of yours, for neither am I a Hanoverian."
"Then what are you?" she asked again, with the same uncompromising directness.
"A Freakeiteian," said he with a smile.
"It puzzles me," was her brief comment.
"Let me explain," said he simply. "A Jacobite wants Charles to win; a Hanoverian wants George to win; a Freakeiteian wants to know who is going to win."
By this time Margaret was no more puzzled than I was. Yesterday when I stood on the river-bank watching my cork, I cared not a rap whether George or Charles won, and that was an understandable position; but why a man should be spending money in handfuls, and roughing it in the wilds of Staffordshire, merely in order to know who was going to win, was beyond my poor wits.
"You do not understand?" he said.
"No," said Margaret and I together.