“Stay yet a minute,” exclaimed Alice; “we must not go too fast—this craves wary walking.”
“A feather,” said Albert; “all this work about a feather! Why, Doctor Rochecliffe, who can suck intelligence out of every trifle as a magpie would suck an egg, could make nothing of this.”
“Let us try what we can do without him then,” said Alice. Then addressing herself to the boy,—“So there are strangers at your master’s?”
“At Colonel Everard’s, madam, which is the same thing,” said Spitfire.
“And what manner of strangers,” said Alice; “guests, I suppose?”
“Ay, mistress,” said the boy, “a sort of guests that make themselves welcome wherever they come, if they meet not a welcome from their landlord—soldiers, madam.”
“The men that have long been lying at Woodstock,” said Albert.
“No, sir,” said Spitfire, “new comers, with gallant buff-coats and steel breastplates; and their commander—your honour and your ladyship never saw such a man—at least I am sure Bill Spitfire never did.”
“Was he tall or short?” said Albert, now much alarmed.
“Neither one nor other,” said the boy; “stout made, with slouching shoulders; a nose large, and a face one would not like to say No to. He had several officers with him, I saw him but for a moment, but I shall never forget him while I live.”