“Good-bye, ghostie!”
“Good-bye, sir! God bless you!”
Kissing and blessing were reward enough for my service,
and I rode on lighter at heart for them.
THE DOUBLE SIX
The time had not been wasted. I had had a stirring
experience and got a hint of dangers and uncertainties
ahead. Moreover, and on this I plumed myself
most, I had acquired a handsome hat. It was a
trifle roomy, but a wisp of paper tucked within the
inside rim would remedy that defect. The moon
was getting higher and brighter, and I pulled my new
treasure off again and again to admire it. It
had belonged to a rascal with an excellent taste in
hats. I was very content with it, and looked forward
eagerly to catching the glint in Margaret’s eyes
when she saw it. After all it behoved me to look
well in her presence, and I regretted that the rogue
had not shed his coat and breeches as well. No
doubt they were equally modish and becoming, and would
have set me up finely, though all the tailors in London
town couldn’t make me a match for Maclachlan.
A man has to be born to fine clothes, like a bird
to fine feathers, before he looks well in them.
The thought made me rueful. I jammed my hat on
fiercely, and slapped Sultan into a longer stride.
The man ahead of me was, out of question, the Government
spy, Weir. It was now a full day and more since
I had crammed my Virgil into his maw, and he had had
time to get into these parts. Thirty years before
there had been much feeling for the honest party hereabouts,
and among the gentry along the border of the shires
there would be some in whose hearts the old flame
still flickered. Indeed, my own errand proved
so much, and a noser-out like Weir would be well employed
in rooting up fragments of gossip over the bottle
and memories of beery confidences at market ordinaries—sunken
straws which showed the back-washes of opinion beneath
the placid surface flow of our rural life. I dug
my fingers into my thigh and imagined I was wringing
the rascal’s greasy neck, and the feeling did
me good.
I began to ride past scattered houses and then between
rows of cottages. Sultan was tiring a little,
but, being an experienced horse, pricked up at the
sight and cantered down the dead main street of the
town. The shadows of the houses on my left ended
in an irregular line on the cobbled causeway on my
right. Near the town end I came on an exception
to the black-and-white stillness of the houses—an
inn on my right ablaze with light and full of noise.
A merry liquorish company it held, some quarrelling,
some rowdily disputatious, and a few stentors trying
to drown the rest by roaring a tipsy catch. I
pulled Sultan towards the verge of the shadows to
see if I could make anything out, and he, supposing,
no doubt, that I was guiding him towards bait and
stable, made a half-turn towards the portico that
ran on pillars along the face of the inn. I checked
him at once, but, in that trice of time, a man leaped
from behind a pillar, laid one hand on the pommel
of my saddle, and raised the other in warning.
He was a little man, and in his eagerness he stood
on tiptoe and whispered, “Ride on, Master Wheatman!
One second may cost you dear!”
