She was smiling, but there was a glitter of hot partisanship in her eyes, and she was ready to stand by her man and speak for him.
“This is not like you, John Falconer, to quibble and sneer!”
“Mistress, when our heads depend on the adventure, our wits are apt to fly out hot-temperedly. Nor am I pleased that we should owe yonder fellow a service.”
“Then men are less generous than women. Why, I owe life and more to that man; I have taken his vows from him, made of him a murderer in the eyes of the law. Before he saw me—before I blundered into his life—he was God’s man, with nothing to fear in the whole world. To-morrow he might hang, because the blood in him was generous.”
Falconer looked like an old dog who was trying to take his scolding without a blink of the eyes. He knew that Mellis was in the right, and that it was his own heart that grudged Martin her gratitude.
“Well, well, he will either hang or be knighted. Nor have we any leisure to stand arguing here. I could bring no men with me, for my place is watched.”
“Roger Bland is wise by now.”
“That’s the devil of it. We must get a garrison for Woodmere as soon as we may. Young Blount can call two or three score fellows together with good speed. You and I had better ride at once to Bloody Rood. Your face will count with young Nigel.”
She gave him a shrewd look.
“And trust Woodmere to Martin Valliant? He is not so poor a comrade, after all!”