Mr. Bannister had heard of none of these doings, and they went to the door, all three of them, and stood on the footway, looking toward the Green. Squire Oxenham was there, sure enough, with a couple of troopers and the yeomen—all mounted, and one or two more gentlemen to watch the mounted men, who were keeping their horses moving, all save Squire Oxenham, the lawyer, and the red-faced man in the big black periwig.
“What be ut, Garge?”
Mr. Jennifer accosted a man in a leather apron who came swinging along the sidewalk.
“Devil a bit I knows. Some of these papistry gentry to be taken, I guess. Squire Oxenham’s keeping mum.”
Mr. Bannister pulled out a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles and took stock of the scene. He had hardly adjusted the spectacles when the two troopers came riding up the street, followed by the yeomen, Squire Oxenham, and the rest. A rabble of small boys followed at their heels, till the Squire made free with the whip he carried and drove the boys back like a lot of dogs. They swept past Mr. Bannister’s shop, Chris Jennifer running forward to hold the heads of his and John Gore’s horses. They saw the cavalcade go westward past the Watch Oak, the Squire’s gray horse and the red coats of the troopers standing out vividly from the duller tints of the rest.
Mr. Bannister folded up his spectacles and remarked that “the times were troubled, and that a king who gave all his days to women could not keep a kingdom clean.” And he looked severely at the row of heads protruding from the windows all down the street, and caught Miss Titsy’s beribboned cap bobbing back to escape his censure.
“The parcels yonder are for you, Mr. Jennifer.”
The farmer went in to survey the bales on the counter, while John Gore passed three doors down the street to a cobbler who sold gentlewomen’s shoes. He bought a pair of red leather slippers with silver buckles, and also some strong, stout shoes fit for the wet grass-lands in winter, for it was his desire that Barbara should bide at Furze Farm till he knew how matters fared in other quarters.
Christopher Jennifer was a genius at piling baggage about a horse, and they were soon on the homeward road, John Gore thinking not a little of the things he had seen in Battle Town, and wondering whither that cavalcade had ridden, and what their business might be. For when a man has a secret in his heart he is always jealous of the vaguest threat, and ready to imagine that his secret may be meddled with by all the law and the prophets. And John Gore had no wish for the tragedy of Thorn to be dragged into the light as yet. He thought of Barbara before all else, and of any peril that might threaten her new-found health and hope.
Son William was packed off to bed early that night, and Chris Jennifer went out into the wood-lodge to cut logs for the fire. In the parlor were the bales that John Gore had brought in from Battle, and Mrs. Winnie’s fingers itched to open them, but Barbara knew nothing.