"Over your head, Dot!" cried Hugh. "So close to you as that!" And a terrible look came to his face,—one that revealed his secret to the purple-blue eyes watching him so keenly. "Oh—my God!"
The appearance of several men—soldiers—cut the words short, and restored Hugh's calmness, for, turning to them, he bade them take the man and guard him carefully.
"And I'll take this gun of yours," he said to him, "and see to it that you get the treatment you deserve for such a cowardly bit of work."
"Wait a bit, till I answers him," said Farmer Gilbert, now speaking for the first time, as he turned to face Hugh, and holding back, so as to arrest the steps of the men who were dragging him away. "I want to say, young sir, that if ye had n't sneaked up on me from aback, an' knocked my gun up, I'd hev done what I've been dodgin' 'round to do these five days past—an' that were to put a bullet through the head or d——d trait'rous heart o' that British spy in petticoats."
His face was ablaze with passion, and he shook his clenched fist at Dorothy, who stood looking at him as though he were a wild beast caught in the toiler's net.
Captain Southorn started forward; but Hugh motioned him back. Then realizing the full sense of the fellow's words, he sprang upon him with an oath such as no one had ever heard issue from his lips.
Falling upon the defenceless man, he shook him fiercely. Then he seemed to struggle for a proper control of himself, and asked chokingly, "Do you mean to tell me that it was her you were aiming at when I caught you?"
He pointed to Dorothy, who was now clinging to her husband; and even in that moment Hugh saw his arm steal about her protectingly.
He turned his eyes away, albeit the sight helped to calm his rage, as the bitter meaning of it swept over him.
"Aye—it was," the man answered doggedly, nodding his bushy head; "an' ye may roll me o'er the ground again, like a log that has no feelin', an' send me to prison atop it all, for tryin' to do my country a sarvice by riddin' it of a spy."