"You know all things, worthy dame, and I were a fool to keep a secret from you. What new commodity, honest mistress, shall I find with Rob? The port is alive with a rumour of the Olive Branch; I would be early with the Cripple. Ha, ha!" he added, with a fearful laugh, "thou seest I am stirring in my trade."
"Garret Weasel," said the beldam, "you may take it for a favour, past your deservings, that Rob will see thee alone at his hut even in day time: but it is as much as your life is worth to bring your huff-cap brawlers to St. Jerome's at midnight. It is not lawful ground for thee, much less for the hot-brained fools who bear you company. Who showed them the path to my cabin, that I must be driven out at this hour?"
"Worthy mistress, indeed I know not. I am ignorant of what you say!"
"They will call themselves friends to the Chapel: but we have no friends to the Chapel amongst living men. The Chapel belongs to the dead and the tormentors of the dead. So follow your cronies and command them back. I warn you to follow, and bring them back, as you would save them from harm. Ha! look you, it is come already!" she exclaimed, raising her torch in the air, as the flashes from the Haunted House illumined the horizon; "the seekers have roused our sentries, and there shall be angry buffets to the back of it!" At this moment the first shot was heard. "Friends, forsooth!" she shouted at the top of her voice: "friends, are ye? there is the token that ye are known to be false liars. Wo to the fool that plants his foot before the Chapel! Stand there, Garret Weasel: I must away; follow me but a step—raise thy head to look after my path, and I will strike thee blind and turn thee into a drivelling idiot for the rest of thy days. Remember——"
In uttering this threat the figure disappeared; Garret knew not how, as he strictly obeyed the parting injunction, and his horrors were greatly increased by the report of the several shots which now reached his ear from the direction of the Black House.
He had hardly recovered himself sufficiently to wander back to the fire, before Dauntrees, Arnold, and Pamesack arrived, evidently flurried by the scene through which they had passed, as well as by the rapidity of their retreat.
"Some wine, Garret! some wine, old master of the tap!" was Dauntrees' salutation; "and whilst we regale as briefly as we may, have thou our horses loose from the trees; we must mount and away. To the horses, Garret! We will help ourselves."
"I pray you, Master Captain," inquired the publican, having now regained his self-possession, "what speed at the Chapel? Oh, an we have all had a night of it! Sharp encounters all round, masters! I can tell you a tale, I warrant you."
"Stop not to prate now," interrupted Dauntrees, in a voice choked by the huge mouthful of the pasty he was devouring; "we shall discourse as we ride. That flask, Arnold, I must have another draught e'er we mount, and then, friends, to horse as quickly as you may; we may be followed; we may have ghost, devil, and man of flesh, all three, at our heels."
"I have had store of them, I can tell you—ghosts and devils without number," said Weasel, as he brought the horses forward.