“John,” said the surgeon, “am I not a non-combatant?”[92]
“Whither has the rascal fled?” cried Lawton, impatiently.
“Where you cannot follow—into the wood. But I repeat, John, am I not a non-combatant?”
The disappointed trooper, perceiving that his enemy had escaped him, now turned his eyes, which were flashing with anger, upon his comrade, and gradually his muscles lost their rigid compression, his brow relaxed, and his look changed from its fierce expression to the covert laughter which so often distinguished his countenance. The surgeon sat in dignified composure on his horse, his thin body erect and his head elevated with the indignation of one conscious of having been unjustly treated.
Their desultory discourse was soon interrupted by their arrival at the cottage of Mr. Wharton. No one appearing to usher them into an apartment, the captain proceeded to the door of the parlor, where he knew visitors were commonly received. On opening it, he paused for a moment, in admiration of the scene within. The person of Colonel Wellmere first met his eye, bending towards the figure of the blushing Sarah with an earnestness of manner that prevented the noise of Lawton’s entrance from being heard by either party. Certain significant signs, which were embraced at a glance by the trooper, at once made him a master of their secret, and he and the surgeon retired as silently as they had advanced.
CHAPTER XV.
MISS WHARTON’S MARRIAGE INTERRUPTED.
They were met by Miss Peyton, who acquainted them of the approaching marriage of her eldest niece and Colonel Wellmere, and invited them to be present. The gentlemen bowed; and the good aunt, with an inherent love of propriety, went on to add that the acquaintance was of an old date, and the attachment by no means a sudden thing; that the consent to this sudden union of Sarah and Wellmere, and especially at a time when the life of a member of the family was in imminent jeopardy,[93] was given from a conviction that the unsettled state of the country would probably prevent another opportunity to the lovers of meeting, and a secret dread on the part of Mr. Wharton that the death of his son might, by hastening his own, leave his remaining children without a protector.