Offended, I strode on beside him, and neither he nor I offered to speak again until Mount suddenly stopped in the middle of the King's Road and looked back.
"What's amiss?" I asked, forgetting my sulks.
"Oh, we are followed again," said Mount, wearily.
I stared about but could see nobody who appeared to be observing us. There were numbers of people on the King's Road, trudging through the dust as were we, and doubtless also bound for the races on Roanoke Plain. I saw no vehicles or horsemen: the quality in their chairs and coaches would go by the fashionable Boundary; the fox-hunting horsemen met at the "Buckeye Tavern," a resort for British officers and gentlemen; unpretentious folk must foot it by the shortest route, which was to pass the fortress by the King's Road.
"Are you sure we are followed?" I asked.
"Not quite," said Mount, simply. "I shall know anon. Trust me in this, lad, and take pains to do instantly what I do. Perhaps my life may pay for this day's pleasure."
"I will take care to imitate you," said I, anxiously. "You know how deeply in your debt I stand confessed."
"Good lad," he said, gravely; "I do not doubt you, friend Michael. As for any debt, your courtesy has long cancelled it."
The quaint compliment had a pretty savour, coming from one whose world was not my own.
We were now passing that angle of the fortified works through which the King's Road passes between two block-housen. The sentries, standing in the shadow of the stockade, watched us without visible interest, turning their idle heads to scan the next comer, and stare impudently if it were some petticoat.