Walter had just finished relating his adventure of the preceding night.
“And this wonderful cavalier,” asked Dorothy, “who braved the bullying captain, and frightened the fierce footpads—did he favour you with his name, Master Wade?”
“Oh yes!” answered Walter, “he gave me that—Henry Holtspur.”
“Henry Holtspur! Henry Holtspur!” cried several in a breath, as if the name was not new to them, but had some peculiar signification.
“It’s the cavalier who rides the black horse,” explained one. “The ‘black horseman,’ the people called him. One lately come into this neighbourhood. Lives in the old house of Stone Dean. Nobody knows him.”
“And yet everybody appears to be talking of him! Mysterious individual! Some troubadour returned from the East?” suggested Winifred Wayland.
“Some trader from the West, more like,” remarked Dorothy Dayrell, with a sneer, “whence, I presume, he has imported his levelling sentiments, and a savage for his servant, too, ’tis said. Did you see aught of his Indian, Master Wade?”
“No,” said the youth, “and very little of himself: as our ride together was after night. But I have hopes of seeing more of him to-day. He promised to be here.”
“And is not?”
“I think not. I haven’t yet encountered him. ’Tis just possible he may be among the crowd over yonder; or somewhere through the camp. With your permission, ladies, I shall go in search of him.”