The diversion seemed likely to save Terence, who, turning, sped swiftly along the furrows, favoured by sinking twilight.
'Run, masther, run!' Phil screamed. 'Please the Lord, he'll be safe yet.'
'Dead or alive!' howled Sirr, who clawed the ground with his fingers in his pain.
A man levelled his musket and fired. Terence turned like a top, dropped on his knees, then struggling up, moved on as swiftly as before. Another fired, but missed. The fugitive flew on, but not so fast. A mere youth outstripped him, and stooping down in front, tripped him by the feet. Both fell heavily. The bigger of the two being uppermost--his right arm swinging loose--made a desperate effort to throttle the boy with his left hand. It took several men, pressing his chest with heavy muskets, to tear his prey from him, and bind him in such a way as to prevent further resistance.
Terence and Phil were taken to the provost, whilst Sirr (vowing vengeance especially against the latter) was borne away to have the wounds dressed which disfigured his comely calves.
Madam Gillin sat at home in a perspiration, waiting for news. No news! That looked well. It was dawn before she sought her couch, determined to try and sleep. A hubbub aroused the three occupants of the Little House. What was it? eight o'clock! An enormous detachment of soldiers' wives, with kettles, equipage, and baggage, demanding hospitality, producing an official order to that effect. Free quarters; and for women, too--the dirty, drunken drabs! Madam Gillin clasped her fat hands in anguish. Then the stratagem must have been discovered. One had been taken--which? or both? Oh, Heaven! Would no one tell her?
A blowsy wife, more compassionate than the rest, said that all the world knew by this time that the meejor had won the big reward.
Madam Gillin tightened her lips, and said no more, while Jug whistled lamentations through her gums. 'It's the curse of Crummell on the farriers--breed, seed, and branch. If he'd gone alone he'd have been safe.' Which, in all probability, was true enough, though not because Phil chose to wield a firing-iron. But Madam Gillin would not listen to her nurse. Poor lad! To be taken without striking a blow--without even the threadbare satisfaction which belongs to a leader of forlorn hopes--of laying down life, perhaps, but at a heavy price. What an unjust world it is! Mrs. Gillin felt it more and more.