Now, before the inn was a small crowd gathered about a trap in which sat two men, one of whom Bellew recognised as the rednecked Corn-chandler Grimes, and the other, the rat-eyed Parsons.

The Corn-chandler was mopping violently at his face and neck down which ran, and to which clung, a foamy substance suspiciously like the froth of beer, and, as he mopped, his loud brassy voice shook and quavered with passion.

“I tell ye—­you shall get out o’ my cottage!” he was saying, “I say you shall quit my cottage at the end o’ the month,—­and when I says a thing, I means it,—­I say you shall get off of my property,—­you—­and that beggarly cobbler.  I say you shall be throwed out o’ my cottage,—­lock, stock, and barrel.  I say—­”

“I wouldn’t, Mr. Grimes,—­leastways, not if I was you,” another voice broke in, calm and deliberate.  “No, I wouldn’t go for to say another word, sir; because, if ye do say another word, I know a man as will drag you down out o’ that cart, sir,—­I know a man as will break your whip over your very own back, sir,—­I know a man as will then take and heave you into the horse-pond, sir,—­and that man is me—­Sergeant Appleby, late of the Nineteenth Hussars, sir.”

The Corn-chandler having removed most of the froth from his head and face, stared down at the straight, alert figure of the big Sergeant, hesitated, glanced at the Sergeant’s fist which, though solitary, was large, and powerful, scowled at the Sergeant from his polished boots to the crown of his well-brushed hat (which perched upon his close-cropped, grey hair at a ridiculous angle totally impossible to any but an ex-cavalry-man), muttered a furious oath, and snatching his whip, cut viciously at his horse, very much as if that animal had been the Sergeant himself, and, as the trap lurched forward, he shook his fist, and nodded his head.

“Out ye go,—­at the end o’ the month,—­mind that!” he snarled and so, rattled away down the road still mopping at his head and neck until he had fairly mopped himself out of sight.

“Well, Sergeant,” said Bellew extending his hand, “how are you!”

“Hearty, sir,—­hearty I thank you, though, at this precise moment, just a leetle put out, sir.  None the less I know a man as is happy to see you, Mr. Bellew, sir,—­and that’s me—­Sergeant Appleby, at your service, sir.  My cottage lies down the road yonder, an easy march—­if you will step that far?—­Speaking for my comrade and myself—­we shall be proud for you to take tea with us—­muffins sir—­shrimps, Mr. Bellew—­also a pikelet or two.—­Not a great feast—­but tolerable good rations, sir—­and plenty of ’em—­what do you say?”

“I say—­done, and thank you very much!”

So, without further parley, the Sergeant saluted divers of the little crowd, and, wheeling sharply, strode along beside Bellew, rather more stiff in the back, and fixed of eye than was his wont, and jingling his imaginary spurs rather more loudly than usual.