“Good, Williams!” said Colden. “Place him on that chair, and leave him here with me. But stay in the hall on guard.”
“So Miss Elizabeth ordered us, sir,” said Williams, dryly, and, with Sam, conducted Peyton to the chair, on which he sat willingly.
“Of course she did,” replied Colden. “Was it not at my suggestion?”
Peyton looked sharply up at the major, who regarded him with the undisguised pleasure of hate about to be satisfied.
Williams handed the broken sword to Colden, saying, “This was the only weapon he had, sir. We grabbed him before he could use it. We ran out behind him from the roadside, and he couldn’t hear us for the snow.”
“Ay, or the pair of you couldn’t have taken me!” said Peyton, with hot scorn and defiant gameness.
Colden, with the piece of sword, motioned Williams to go from the room.
“Leave the door ajar a little,” he added, “so you can hear if I call.”
Peyton uttered a short laugh of derision at this piece of prudence. The steward and Sam withdrew to the hall, where Sam remained, while Williams went in search of Elizabeth for further orders. As soon as she had assured herself, by watching and listening, that Peyton was safe in the parlor, she had stolen quietly down-stairs to the dining-room, where she had met her aunt, with whom the steward now found her sitting. She told him to get the duck-gun, make sure it was loaded and primed, and to wait with Sam on the settle in the hall. She then requested her aunt to remain in the dining-room, silently returned to the hall, and took station by the door leading from the parlor,—the door which Williams, at Colden’s command, had left slightly ajar. Her original plan, she felt, might have to be altered by reason of Colden’s having obtruded his hand into the game, a possibility she had not, in roughly sketching that plan, taken into account. It was in order to have the guidance of circumstance, that she now put herself in the way of hearing, unseen, what might pass between the two men. Meanwhile, through the snow-storm, Colden’s two soldiers, who had indeed tarried at the tavern for the heating up of their interiors, were blasphemously urging their sleepy horses towards the manor-house.