XLV
The turret clock was striking seven when the coach swung out of the stable-yard, and, turning on the gravel-drive before the house, drew up with rattling harness before the porch. The luggage lay piled upon the roof, a loaded blunderbuss hanging in the straps before the back seat. Both the coachman and the serving-man beside him were armed. Peter Gladden, cloaked, and with a couple of pistols swinging in his tail-pockets, stood with his hand on the handle of the door.
Jeffray, his sword under his left arm, handed Bess down the steps to the coach. Dick Wilson followed them, striving not to look lugubrious, his blue eyes set staringly in his sun-tanned face. Bess tripped into the coach; Jeffray halted with one foot on the step, and held out his hand to his friend with a smile.
“Good-bye, Dick,” he said, “and God bless you.”
Wilson’s powerful fist closed upon Jeffray’s brown and sinewy fingers.
“God go with you, too, sir,” he retorted, a little thickly. “I’ll see to your business. The fellow in Lincoln’s Inn shall have your letter, and we’ll forward all news between us to France.”
Jeffray gave a last grip to the painter’s hand, and sprang into the coach.
“There is the letter to my bankers, Dick,” he said, when Gladden had closed the door, “deliver it in person. A portion of it concerns yourself.”
“Concerns me, sir?”
“Yes, Dick—good-bye—good-bye.”