She looked at him half puzzled, smiling a little for the sheer sweetness of having her head resting upon his arm.
“We are free now, are we not, Richard?”
Jeffray pursed up his mouth grimly, and pointed to the broken door.
“I have spilled blood,” he said, “and kept a man from the charge of his own wife. The law takes knowledge of these things. Tell me, Bess, who was the man you fired at through the window?”
She drew closer to Jeffray as though afraid.
“I do not know,” she answered.
“Was it Dan?”
“I don’t know—I don’t know. Take me away,” and she clung to Jeffray like a frightened child.
Jeffray wrenched the two halves of the broken door apart and thrust back the wagon-pole, so that there was room for them to pass. He sheathed his sword, buckled on the belt with the powder-flask and hunting-knife, and, picking up the pistols, looked round for Bess. She had climbed the stairs, and Jeffray could hear her moving to and fro in the room above, while the clock on the kitchen mantle-shelf ticked on as though death and desire were of no account.
The redcoats were securing such prisoners as they had taken, while the revenue men gathered the pack-horses together and broke into the cottages and out-houses to ransack them to the very rafters. Jeffray watched them at work through the broken door. Soon he heard Bess descending the stairs. She had tidied her clothes and bound up her hair, and thrown an old cloak over her shoulders. He held the broken halves of the door apart from Bess, and followed her down the garden path. The dusk was fast falling, but there was enough light to show the blood-stains on the bricks. Bess shivered a little, drew up her petticoats and picked her way towards the gate. Jeffray swung it back for her, and they passed out into the open land that was still lit by the slanting sunlight.