“Certainly—if your people do not say no.”
Guillaumette climbed into the cart laboriously.
“Va là,” she said, “here goes a fine fat goose to market. You will not eat me, Monsieur!”
She sat jauntily, her arms crossed and her eyes upon the trooper who had helped her to her seat; but the great man in the cart did not notice her. He had thrust out a huge hand to grip Beatrix by the wrist; and now he began to address her as he would have addressed a child.
“Sit there and hold the rail. The road is rough, and the pony stumbles. Have you had your breakfast?—eh, yes. Well, that’s all right. You wouldn’t get any if you hadn’t.”
She turned to Brandon.
“You are not coming with us, after all, then.”
“Indeed, and we are—there goes the bugle.”
Richard Watts shrugged his tremendous shoulders.