"A man may go a steady pace by lantern-light. I've ridden many a mile so," said Jerningham.
"But how is a man to keep the right road, with none awake to tell him?"
"You must know the way to the highroad, for you came over it to-day; and you must know the highroad as far as to Canterbury, for you told me so when I directed you to this place. It will be daylight long before you come to Canterbury."
The captain shook his head again.
Jerningham felt that time was passing rapidly. "If you are for disobedience, you are no longer for my service," he said. "Take yourself from my house and my land forthwith."
Ravenshaw laughed; and stood motionless, which was what Jerningham wished, in case the captain was determined against an immediate start for Dover, for it would not do to have him free in the neighbourhood, perchance to learn of the treachery concerning the maid in time to give trouble. It had occurred to Jerningham that a threatening step on the captain's part, by affording excuse for a deed of blood, would lessen its horror and create in Meg, with less fear of retribution upon the house, less mood for turning accuser. So he resumed, with studied offensiveness of tone:
"Begone from my house, I bid you!" With which, he drew the captain's dagger as if he forgot it was not his own.
Jerningham's back was to the table; Ravenshaw faced him, three or four paces away; by the front door stood Meadows, with a long knife in his girdle; Goodcole, before the fireplace, was similarly armed. Meg and Jeremy, wondering spectators, were near the kitchen door. Ravenshaw noted all this in a single glance right and left; noted in the looks of the two men the habit of instant readiness to support their master.
"Pray, consider the hour," said Ravenshaw, feeling it was a time for temporising.
"'Tis for you to consider; I command," said Jerningham, taking the captain's sword from the table behind him.