“Huh! we’d better go careful here, Bumbler—we’d better go careful,” said the portly man, doubtfully. “None of you know the boy?”
The men, who had crowded around, all shook their heads. “Like enough he’s no business with the papers,” Bumbler declared. “He’s no regular dispatch bearer, an’ mayhap those papers came from York.”
“They’re addressed to nobody,” grumbled the corporal.
“Open ’em and see what’s in ’em,” suggested Bumbler, his sharp eyes twinkling. He was still on his knees and holding Hadley on the ground.
There was just enough light now for the boy to see the faces of the men rather more distinctly than at first. The mist grew thinner as the dawn advanced, and there was a faint flush of pink in the east above the treetops.
While he lay there on the ground, wondering how he might escape, his ear caught the sudden rumble of carriage wheels coming swiftly along the pike.
In a few moments a heavy carriage drawn by four fine horses dashed into view. It was indeed a chariot, as the private traveling coaches of England were called at that day, and this vehicle was evidently of English manufacture. Besides the coachman there was a footman, or outrider, on a fifth horse and a darkey in livery sat up behind.
The corporal shouted hoarsely to the coachman, and the presentation of five muskets, Bumbler still holding on to Hadley, quickly brought the carriage to a halt. In answer to the challenge the door of the coach opened and a sharp voice demanded the cause of the disturbance.
“Travelers on this road must have the password, master,” the corporal said. “You are near the outposts of the army.”
The man in the coach at once leaped out and approached the scouting party. He was rather a tall man, dressed in semi-military manner, for he wore a sword at his side and a buff coat with satin facings of blue. His long, clean-shaven face was lean and ruddy, and his hair was rolled up all around the back in the fashion of the day. His nose was aquiline and his chin long and prominent—such a chin as physiognomists declare denotes determination and perseverance. When he removed his hat to let the cool morning air breathe upon his uncovered head, his brow was so high that it fairly startled the beholder. Hadley, from his station beside the road, was vastly interested in this odd-looking gentleman.