But it was only for a minute. Mrs. Tucker shook off with a courageous firmness the last remnant of nervousness that possessed her.
"Go, and the Lord go with you, Miss Patty," she said.
As she rode along through the quiet country lanes smelling sweet of the honeysuckle in the hedge and the wild dog-rose bursting into bloom, Patty's thoughts travelled fast and furiously, every whit as fast as Black Bess's hasty steps. Should she draw bridle at the village? No. She made up her mind quickly at that. In all probability the would-be thieves had made the village inn their headquarters for that day and night, and the pedlar—the man she wished most to avoid—would be the very person she would encounter. The village was small. Only one policeman patrolled the narrow-street, and that only occasionally, and how quickly would the news fly from mouth to mouth that a would-be robbery had been detected in time to save Colonel Bingham's valuable silver!
No, the pedlar would not be allowed to escape in that way if she could help it. Every step of the five miles to the town of Frampton would she ride, and draw help from there.
As she neared the village she walked her horse at a quiet pace, albeit her brain was throbbing, and her nerves all in a quiver to go faster. She nodded smilingly to the familiar faces as she met them in the street, although she felt very far from smiling, and everywhere she seemed to see the face of Timothy Smith. Then her heart gave a bound as she saw, leaning against the wicket-gate of the village inn, three men—two with the most villainous faces she had ever seen, and the third bore the face of the man that Fanny had described as the pedlar. She was not mistaken, then, when she thought they would make this their headquarters.
She drew bridle as she neared the inn. Her quick brain saw the necessity of it, if but to explain her presence there.
"Will you be so good as to ask the landlady to come out to me?" she asked, with a gracious smile—the smile that the villagers always said was "Miss Patty's own."
The pedlar lifted his cap with the same air that Fanny had so accurately described, and himself undertook to go upon the mission.
"Bless you, Miss Patty," exclaimed the buxom landlady as she came out, curtseying and smiling, followed in a leisurely manner by the pedlar, "where be you a-ridin' that Black Bess be so hot and foam-like about the mouth?"