Truth to tell, the guard was nearly as weary of solitude as his prisoner. This walking up and down in the dusk from one pine-tree to another was not lively work, and besides, there was a compelling magnetism in Neville's voice that had charmed stronger men than the guard, Philpotts.
Slowly, and with a certain reluctance to yield characteristic of Englishmen, and quite independent of the value of the thing conceded, he drew the heavy bolt and entered.
The interior of the shed, for it was scarcely more, was dismal enough in the half light. The long tobacco leaves hanging from the beams suggested mourner's weeds, and waved ominously in the wind as the door was opened. Daylight still peeped in through the chinks. By its help Neville studied the heavy outlines of the guard's figure clad in a sad colored campaign coat lined with blue and surmounted by a montero cap which shaded a pock-marked face, a typical English face, square cut, obstinate, with persistence and loyalty writ large all over it.
"Pardon my not rising," said Neville, as if he were receiving a courtier. "The cold and dampness of this place have given me the rheum to such extent that each bone in my body hath its own particular pain. If I kneel my knees ache, if I sit my hips ache, if I bend my back aches."
"Marry," interrupted the jailer, with a coarse laugh; "'tis well you are to try hanging, which will rest them all."
"You have a very pretty wit, jailer, and so keen one would say it had been sharpened on an English whetstone. The French have no gift for such rapier thrusts."
"Oh, to Hell with the French!"
"Hell must be crammed full of foreigners. We English are always sending them there."
"No doubt you'll know soon."
"Very likely. If I do, I'll send you word—and by the way, so that I may not forget, what is your name?"