It was near half-past eleven when I came, riding very slowly, into the village street, looking this way and that so as to shew my face, but as if I were just looking about me. I noticed a couple of servants, in a very plain livery which I thought I had seen before, in the yard of the Mitre, but they paid no attention to me. So I passed up the street to the end, and no one spoke with me or shewed any sign. Now I knew that there was something forward, and that unless I fell in with it the arrangement would have failed; so I turned again and rode back, as if I were looking for an inn. Again no one spoke with me; so I rode, as if discontented, into the yard of the Mitre, and demanded of an ostler whether there was any food fit to eat there.
He looked at me in a kind of hesitation.
"Yes, sir," he said; "but—but the parlour is full. A party is there, from London."
Then I knew that I had been right to come; because at the same moment I remembered where I had seen those liveries before. They were those worn by the men who had come with Monmouth to Hare Street.
I said nothing to the ostler; but slipped off my horse, as he took the bridle, and went indoors. The fellow called out after me; but I made as if I did not hear. (I have found, more than once, that a little deafness is a very good thing.) There were voices I heard talking beyond a door at the end of the passage; I went up to this, and without knocking, lifted the latch and went in.
The room, that looked out, with one window only, into a small enclosed garden, was full of men. There were eight of them, as I counted presently; all round a table on which stood a couple of tall jugs and tankards. I raised my hand to my hat.
"I beg pardon, gentlemen. Is there room—"
"Why—it is Mr.—" I heard a voice say, suddenly stifled.
Beyond that, for a moment, there was silence. Then a man stood up suddenly, with a kind of eagerness.
"Mr. Mallock," he said, "Mr. Mallock! Do you not remember me?"