In more than one of his marauds through the Forest of Dean, Lunsford along with him, he had paid visit to Hollymead House; only to find it untenanted, save by caretakers—the family still in the city of Gloucester. Many the curse hurled he, and his infamous underling, at that same city of Gloucester; where the Cavalier who had not cursed it?
Overjoyed, then, were the two by what had just reached their ears, the Prince interrogating in undertone,—
“You hear that, Lunsford?”
“I do, your Highness.”
“Gott sei dank! Just what we’ve been wishing and waiting for. We may now visit Hollymead, with fair hope of the sweet fraüleins being there to receive us. Then, mein Colonel, then—nous verrons!”
After delivering himself in this polyglot fashion, he caught hold of his goblet, and clinking it against that of Lunsford, said in a confidential whisper,—
“We drink to our success, Sir Thomas?”
There had been a third listener to the dialogue between Major Grenville and the nobleman, who also overheard the words spoken by Rupert to the new-made knight. But, instead of gladdening, the first gave him pain; which the last intensified to very bitterness. His name made known, the reason will be divined. For it was Reginald Trevor.