“Perdition take the woman!” growled De Brito in reply. “Give me a roaring fire and a cup of sack to keep out this cursed wet! Burn me! Women are as plentiful as blackberries; aye, and as cheap for the plucking.”
“But not such as this one!” cried the younger man with some heat. “’Tis five years ago, I swear, since I saw her first in London. But she was accounted then the toast of the Court by those most competent to judge in such matters; aye, even by King Charles himself—may the devil rest his soul! He deserved well of his people, seeing that he did his best to be a father to them.”
“So that, but for the accident of his death, we might have had a second Castlemaine,” I put in sneeringly. The mention of this woman, about whom the cornet had raved unceasingly since he had learned our destination, jarred upon my ears. He shook his head in dubious fashion.
“You do not know her,” he answered reflectively. “Proud as Lucifer, she is no woman to play the wanton, even to a king! Cold as proud, she is——”
“Pshaw, man! For shame! ’Tis my belief you think more of this paragon of virtue’s face than of the business that we have in hand.”
“Why not?” he cried quickly. “’Fore gad! Spies and Papists are common enough at present, but there is only one Lady Lettice Ingram, and—why, curse it, Cassilis, she is one of the loveliest women in England—the favourite toast of every tavern in town!”
“Such is fame!” I remarked caustically, and fell to scanning the house again. And I confess that the longer I gazed, the more difficult appeared my task.
For these were stirring times, and it behooved every man to keep a still tongue and a ready blade. All England was divided into two factions. The one still clinging to the restoration of the Stuart in the person of James II, the other content to follow the fortunes of Dutch William. Moreover, in every shire throughout the country were the spies and agents of the French king, working in secret to foment a rising among the Catholics. For Louis XIV. must have a finger in every European pie.
It was to arrest one of these agents—no less a person than the Marquis de Launay—that I had been sent hastily from Exeter, information coming to the authorities that he was in hiding at Cleeve Manor, an old Tudor mansion on the coast of Torbay belonging to the Ingram family, who were staunch upholders of the old religion, and the head of whom it was whispered was already with King James in Ireland, and high in his favour.
As I sat now, pondering upon the best way to carry out my orders, I saw at a glance that, standing as it did upon the edge of the cliff, to ride up to the front of the manor would be to render it an easy task for our quarry to escape by sea. Clearly, by some means we must gain the beach, in order to cut off any such method of escape from the rear. Accordingly, I told off the sergeant and a dozen men for this duty, with whom I purposed going myself, bidding the two cornets to lie hidden with the remainder of the troop until dark, and to then follow the road leading to the manor. Arrived there, Cornet Graham was to surround the front of the house, but to await an agreed signal between us ere he attempted to force an entrance. Meanwhile, De Brito and twenty troopers would ride on and overawe the village, a task which I knew would be both welcome and congenial to his temperament; nor was I wrong in so thinking. As I made an end of my instructions, he drew his thick and grizzled brows together in a sullen scowl that boded mischief.