“It’s a good deal talked of. They talk too much, these rioters,” replied Rhys with a short laugh, riding up closer to Fenton. “Never you mind, sir, how I know it, but know it I do. It’s to take place before long, and it’s to be the Wye gate, down by the river at Llangarth.”
“By Gad! is it? Well, we’ll come out as strong as we can and be a match for the whole crew. You are a yeomanry man, aren’t you?”
“No, I am not. Though I have often thought——”
“Ah, but you’ll come out, surely Mr. Walters!” interrupted Harry, cutting the sentence short, “a man like you, with the Lord knows how many horses and men!”
“I should dearly like it,” answered Rhys, “but I am going to Abergavenny very soon, and I cannot tell when I may have to be off. It’s an urgent matter. It may just fall out that I’m at Abergavenny when I most want to be here; and I can’t put it off either, or go till I’m sent for.”
“What a monstrous pity!” There was vexation in Harry’s voice. Besides his zeal for law and order as exemplified by fighting and pursuing, he was strongly attracted by this man and longed to see more of him.
They had come down the side of a straggling thorn hedge, and now, at its angle, they halted by a gate.
“Now,” said Rhys, “this lane will take you down into Crishowell. There’s no mist below, if I know anything, and you’ll see your way to Waterchurch easily. So here we will part.”
The boy held out his hand.