“Why,” said she, “you being mentioned to-night, in his presence, he made some kind of boast of not fearing you, and I, divining how soon you would be here, thought fit his freedom with your name should best be paid for at your hands, major.”
“Ay, major,” put in Peyton, “and I have stayed to receive payment!”
Colden thought for a short while. Then he said, “A moment, Elizabeth. Your pardon, Miss Williams,” and drew Elizabeth aside, and spoke to her in a low tone: “We have only to temporize with him. Two of my men have attended me from my quarters. I had a better horse, and rode ahead, in 245 my eagerness to see you. My two fellows will be here soon, and the business will be done.”
But such doing of the business did not suit Elizabeth’s purpose. “I wish to humiliate the man,” she answered Colden, inaudibly to the others; “to take down his upstart pride! ’Twould be no shame to him, to be made prisoner by numbers.”
“What, then?” asked Colden, dubiously.
“Bring down the coxcomb, before us women, in an even match!”
To prevent objections, she then abruptly went from Colden, and resumed her place at her aunt’s side.
Colden stood frowning, not half pleased at her hint. It occurred to him, as it did not to her, that the mere allegiance and favoring wishes of herself were not sufficient possessions to ensure victory in such a match as she meant. Elizabeth, accustomed to success, did not conceive it possible that the chosen agent of her own designs could fail. But the chosen agent had, in this case, wider powers of conception.
All this time, Captain Peyton had stood as motionless as a figure in a painting. He now interrupted Colden’s meditations with the gentle reminder:
“I am waiting for my payment, Major Colden.”