"You were here on this spot with your command, Captain de Raincy," trumpeted Colonel Laurence, "and yet you let the prison-breakers ride off! You ought to have attacked them, sir. You know you ought! It is as much as your coat is worth. The whole crew of them were there—the low fellow who shot the Duke where he drove into the infernal barricades—and the girl who ran away from London to send the fiery cross through the country. Damn it, sir, it makes me furious only to think of it. And yet, with a chance like that, you sat your horse and let them ride off!"
"I need not, I suppose," said Louis calmly, "point out to you that there were some hundreds of them, at least ten to one, and that most of them were known to me—though not, I believe, those who remained behind to fire the prison."
"Well," said Colonel Laurence bitterly, "whether known to you or not, you let them ride off unharmed after committing a capital crime. It is evident that you cannot be trusted in your own district. Your sympathies are not with law and order. Oh, I know something about the peculiar difficulties of officials in Galloway. There are certain acts—such as resistance to his Majesty's press, prison-breaking, and the whole business of smuggling which are here favoured by all, from the Lord Lieutenant to the herd on the hills. I cannot get a magistrate to issue a warrant without referring the matter to the Secretary of State. I cannot execute it without a battalion of regulars. As an instance in point you were in command of a company of dragoons. You saw this thing done. You knew those who did it, yet you did not lift a finger to stop them."
"We had only just arrived as they were riding off," said Louis. "I had no evidence that any offence against justice had been committed. I saw the prison on fire afterwards and I helped to put out that. Without my troopers it would have been wholly destroyed."
"No matter," said the irate Colonel, "we cannot have any such officer in the district—certainly not under my command. I mean that my orders shall be carried through at whatever risk. Now, I put it to you plainly, do you prefer to send in your papers or be publicly broken?"
"I shall not send in my papers," said Louis de Raincy, warmly, "and you cannot break me, publicly or otherwise!"
"And pray why not?"
Louis lifted his hand in the direction of Castle Raincy, an imposing pile of towers showing up dark on a hill to the west.
"That's why," he said, curtly. "I am the heir to a peerage, and my grandfather—well, I need not speak of him. Besides, I know the Duke of York, who is still commander-in-chief."
Laurence's temper got the better of him.