"Brother, mount quickly," said Mildred, "we have business before us. Mr. Robinson, ride beside me; I have much to say to you."
Stephen Foster, after saluting the sergeant, and reminding Mildred of his engagement to meet his troop, took his leave of the party.
The rest repaired, with as much expedition as they were able to employ, to the Dove Cote, Horse Shoe detailing to the brother and sister, as they went along, a great many particulars of the late history of Butler.
When they reached the house, orders were given for the accommodation of the sergeant; and the most sedulous attention was shown to everything that regarded his comfort. Frequent conferences were held between Mildred and Henry, and the trusty emissary. The letters were reperused, and all the circumstances that belonged to Butler's means of liberation were anxiously discussed.
"How unlucky is it," said Mildred, "that my father should be absent at such a moment as this! Arthur's appeal to him would convince him how wicked was Tyrrel's charge against his honor. And yet, in my father's late mood, the appeal might have been ineffectual: he might have refused. Sergeant, we are in great difficulties, and I know not what to do. A letter, you say, has been written to Lord Cornwallis?"
"Yes, ma'am, and by a man who sharpened his pen with his sword."
"You heard nothing of the answer of his Lordship?"
"There was not time to hear."
"Cornwallis will be prejudiced by those around him, and he will refuse," said Mildred, with an air of deep solicitude.
"Not if he be the man I take him to be, young lady," replied Horse Shoe. "The world says he is above doing a cowardly thing; and it isn't natural for one brave man to wish harm against another, except in open war."