Her game of false pretence was now nearly up. It had all been due to a fear which had suddenly come over her on seeing him again. Months had elapsed since they last met, and the rough Forester, erst in coarse common attire, his locks shaggy and unkempt, was now a man of military bearing, hair and whiskers neatly trimmed, in a well-fitting uniform resplendent with the glitter of gold. He was only a sergeant; but in her eyes no commanding officer of troop or regiment, not even the generalissimo of the army, could have looked either so grand or so handsome. But it was just that, with the thought of the long interval since they had last stood side by side, that now held her reticent. How knew she but that with such change outwardly, there might also have come change within his heart, and towards herself? A soldier too, now; one of a calling proverbial for gallantry as fickleness, living in a great city where, as she supposed, the eyes of many a syren would be turned luringly upon her grand Rob.
Had he yielded to their lures or resisted them? So she mentally and apprehensively interrogated. But only for a short while; the “Win, dear,” in his old voice, with its old affectionate tone, and his solicitude for her safety, told he was still true.
Doubting it no longer, she threw aside the reserve that was beginning to perplex him, at the same time flinging her arms round his neck, and in turn kissing him.
That was her grateful rejoinder, sufficiently gratifying to him who received it, and leading him to further expressions of endearment. Glad was he they had arrived safe; and as to their errand at Bristol, which she cared no longer to keep from him, he forbore further questioning.
“Ye can tell me about it when we ha’ more time to talk,” he said. “But where do you an’ Jack ’tend passin’ the night?”
“The old place us always stop at,—Bird-in-the-Bush Inn.”
“That be over Avon’s bridge?”
“Yes; just a street or two the other side.” Bristol was no strange place to her. She, Jerky and Jinkum had made many a cadge thither before.
“I’d go ’long wi’ ye to the Bird-in-the-Bush,” said the guard-sergeant, “but, as ye see, I’m on duty at this gate, and musn’t leave it for a minnit. If the captain was here—unlucky he isn’t just now—he’d let me off, I know—seein’ who it be.”
“Why for seein’ that, Rob?”