Levi bent his head and looked under the low eaves of the smithy. “You ride a good horse,” he said. “A d—d good horse!” he repeated in a rising voice.
The man nodded.
Levi glanced over his shoulder. “Fetch it,” he said to one of his followers—and I knew that he meant the spade, not the horse. Then, “What are you doing here?” he asked the stranger.
It was on this that the first real hope awoke in me. The man’s calmness in face of this bunch of armed men—he had never removed his hands from his pockets or the cigar from his mouth—and a certain gleam in his eyes, that gave the lie to his mild manner—these two things impressed me. And his answer to Levi’s question.
“I’m just looking round,” he said gently.
For a moment I think that Levi was on the point of turning on his heel, and letting the man go his way. But his greed had been roused, I suppose, by a second look at the stranger’s horse; and “That’s no answer,” he said roughly. “What’s your errand here? Who are you? What are you doing? Come!” he continued more violently. “We want no strangers here and no spies! We’ve caught one already, and it’s as easy, s’help me, to find two halters as one!”
“And there are plenty of trees,” the man answered coolly, with his eyes on me. “No lack of them either! Spy is he. He might well be English by the look of him.”
“We’ll take care of him!” Levi retorted roughly. “Who are you? That is the point! You’re none of Shelby’s men, nor Campbell’s! Where do you live?”
“Well, I don’t live here.”
“Then—”