“Just as you say, my dear,” he replied meekly.
“And you will put your arms round me and not fall off.”
“Don’t worry, I shan’t fall off.”
Eustacie, finding a conveniently fallen tree trunk, led her weary horse to it, and by using it as a mounting-block contrived to get into the saddle. She then rode back to Ludovic, and adjured him to mount behind her. He managed to do this, but the effort very nearly brought on another swooning fit. He had recourse to the brandy again, which cleared his head sufficiently to enable him to say: “Follow this track; it’ll bring us out on to the pike road, north of Hand Cross. If you can wake old Nye at the Red Lion he’ll take me in.”
“What shall I do if I see an Exciseman?” inquired Eustacie.
“Say your prayers,” he replied irrepressibly.
No Exciseman, however, was encountered on the track that led through the Forest, and by the time they came out on to the turnpike road, a mile from Hand Cross, Eustacie was far too anxious about her cousin to have much thought to spare for a questing Excise-officer. Ludovic seemed to stay in the saddle more by instinct than by any conscious effort. Eustacie dared not urge Rufus even to a trot. She had drawn Ludovic’s sound arm round her waist, and held it there, clasping his slack hand. It seemed an interminable way to Hand Cross, but at last the lonely inn came into sight, a dark huddle against the sky. It was by now long after midnight, and no light shone behind the shuttered windows. Eustacie pulled Rufus up before the door and let go of Ludovic’s hand. It fell nervelessly to his side; she realized that he must have swooned again; he was certainly sagging against her very heavily; she hoped he would not fall out of the saddle when she dismounted. She slid down, and was relieved to find that he only fell forward across Rufus’s neck. The next moment she had grasped the bellpull and sent an agitated peal ringing through the silent inn.
It was answered so speedily that Eustacie, who had heard rumours that Joseph Nye, of the Red Lion, knew more about the free traders that he would admit, instantly suspected that he had been waiting up for the very convoy she had met. He opened the door in person, fully dressed, and holding a lantern, and looking a good deal startled. When he saw Eustacie he stared as though he could not believe his eyes, and gasped: “Miss! Why, Miss! ”
Eustacie grasped his arm urgently. “Please help me at once! I have brought my cousin Ludovic, and he said you would take him in, but he is wounded, and I think dying!” With which, because she had been through a great deal of excitement and was quite worn out by it, she burst into tears.