“Disobeyed it; and marched our men in opposite direction—to Monmouth.”
“Ah, true! A pity you didn’t. It might have been the saving of the place.”
“No use lamenting the disaster now it’s done. Would that the taking of the town were all you and I, Trevor, have concern about! Unfortunately it isn’t. What madness leaving the girls at Hollymead—absolute insanity?”
“It was. I thought so at the time, as did Vaga.”
“Sabrina too; everybody but Powell himself. He couldn’t be convinced there was any danger; and I still hope there may not be. But who knows what the upshot now? I tremble to think of it.”
“It’s to be regretted, we didn’t more press him to come away with us.”
“Oh! that would have been of no use. I did urge it on him—far as I could becomingly. But he had one of his obstinate, pig-headed fits upon him that day, and would listen to no reason. It’s not pleasant having to speak so of him, whom we both look forward to as our future father-in-law; but when he’s in that frame of mind Heaven and earth wouldn’t move him. Nor the devil frighten him either. You remember how he braved Lunsford, and that precious cousin of yours, when they came to collect the King’s loan. True, he had us, and something besides, at his back. But without that he’d have defied them all the same; ay, had the whole Royalist army been there threatening him with instant death.”
“That I fully believe. Yet one cannot help admiring his independence of spirit—so much of manhood in it, and so rare!”
“Ay, true. But in that case too much recklessness. It has begot danger, and may bring disaster upon all of us—if it hasn’t already.”
The last words, spoken in a grave, almost despondent tone, fell unpleasantly on the ear of Eustace Trevor, already sufficiently apprehensive of the thing hinted at.