All the Cavaliers spoke rapidly and eagerly, flinging their phrases each on top of the other. Rufus summed up all in a single splendid sentence.
“The road lies plain to London.”
“Heaven be praised,” Brilliana ejaculated, and then, wonder treading on the heels of thankfulness, she questioned, “How came you here so timely?”
My Lord Fawley broke into a boisterous laugh which seemed to rattle among the rafters.
“Oh, Lord, the best jest in the world,” he bellowed. Bardon clapped a hand on lad Ingrow’s shoulder.
“Our Ingrow writes a clerky hand,” he asserted. Ingrow, stabbing at Bardon’s stout ribs with slender fingers, riposted:
“And our Bardon has a merry invention.”
Brilliana looked commands and entreaties at the row of jolly, laughing faces.
“Do not play the sphinx with me,” she pleaded. Rufus immediately made himself interpreter of the mirth.
“Why, between us we forged a letter from my lord high damnable traitor Essex to your enemy here, advising him of reinforcements, assuring him of the King’s defeat.”