“The soldiers will all be at the Wye gate with the police, you little blockhead, if there are any at all.”
“Ah! you can’t tell.”
“Well, if they do come,” exclaimed he, with a laugh, “they’re not likely to catch me. If there’s a run for it, I fancy I know this country better than any young fool that ever put on a yeomanry uniform and thought himself a soldier. Since you know so much, Mary, I may as well tell you the whole job. I’m to set out for Abergavenny two days beforehand, but I shan’t go there, I shall go to the Dipping-Pool.”
“I’m glad of that,” she said simply, “for then I’ll see you.”
“And so,” he went on without heeding her, “if the yeomanry should get wind of it and come down to the gate, I shall have a good mare under me, and I’ll be into Abergavenny before the news of it gets even as far as Great Masterhouse. There’s a man there who will swear to my having been in his house two days.”
“But how do you know they’ll keep their mouths shut—them at the Dipping-Pool, I mean? There’s that Watkins, it’s anything for talk wi’ him.”
He struck his fist on his knee.
“I’ll break every bone in his sneaking body if he says a word now or after, and so I’ll tell him. He’s frightened out of his life of me as it is, and I’ll scare him still more.”
“Oh, Rhys, you’re a wild man,” she sighed, “and your look makes me cold when you talk like that. Listen now, you won’t hurt my father? He’s an old man, but he’s not one o’ those to stand by and see his gate destroyed without a word. I mind him well when he could use his hands wi’ the best.”