"I should do, Miss Joan, seeing I was reared i' this country before I went to Nappa."
"Then ride for it. You'll find Squire Metcalf and his men there. Tell him that his son is sitting on a bench at Ripley, tied hand and foot."
After the loiterers of the village had watched Miss Grant's carriage out of sight, they turned again to baiting Christopher, until this diversion was interrupted by Drinkwater coming with his men from supper in the tavern. Whether the man's digestion was wrong, or his heart out of place, only a physician could have told; but it happened always that a full meal brought out his worst qualities.
"Tired of sitting on a bench, lad?" he asked, with what to him was pleasantry.
"No," said Kit, "I'm glad to have a bench under me, after the riding I've done lately. A bench sits quiet—not like a lolopping horse that shakes your bones at every stride."
"About this message that you carry in your head? Would a full meal bribe you?"
"The message has gone to Lady Ingilby, as it happens. There's consolation, Puritan, in having the last laugh."
For a moment it seemed that Drinkwater would strike him on the mouth, but he conquered that impulse.
"So the message was to Lady Ingilby?" he said. "I guessed as much."
Kit reddened. To salve his vanity, under the humiliation he was suffering, he had blurted out a name that should have been kept secret. What would the old Squire say of such imprudence?