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Reuben drank to the healths of the gentlemen by whom he was surrounded; he was very much at home in his own house, very cool and undismayed, having recovered from his surprise at finding an evening party being celebrated there. The highwaymen were too much excited to see anything remarkable in the effusion of Reuben Pemberthy’s greeting; these were lawless times, when farmers and highwaymen were often in accord, dealt in one another’s horses, and drove various bargains at odd seasons and in odd corners of the market-places; and Reuben Pemberthy was not unknown to them, though they had treated him with scant respect upon a lonely country road, and when they were impressed by the fact that he was riding homeward with well-lined pockets after a day’s huckstering. They cheered Mr. Pemberthy’s sentiments, all but the captain, who regarded him very critically, although bowing very low while his health was drunk.

“My cousin and my future bride, gentlemen will sing you another song; and I don’t mind following suit myself, just to show there is no ill feeling between us; and our worthy captain, he will oblige after me, I am sure. It may be a good many years before we meet again.”

“It may,” said the captain, laconically.

“I–I cannot sing any more, Reuben,” cried Sophie.

“Try, Sophie, for all our sakes; our home’s sake–the home they would strip, or burn to the ground, if they had only the chance.”

“Why do you wish to keep them here?” Sophie whispered back to him.

“I was released by a troop of soldiers who were coming in this direction,” he said, hurriedly. They have gone on toward Finchley in search of these robbers, but, failing to find them, they will return here as my guests till morning. That was their promise.”

“Oh!”

Sophie could not say more. Reuben had left her side, and was talking and laughing with Stango as though he loved him.

“Your sweetheart, then, this cock o’ the game?” said the captain to Sophie, as he approached her once more.

“Yes.”

“‘I had need wish you much joy, for I see but little toward it,’ as the poet says,” he remarked, bluntly. “He will not make you a good husband.”

“You cannot say that.”

“It’s a hard face that will look into yours, mistress, and when trouble comes, it will not look pleasantly. You are going to sing again? I am glad.”

“You promised to go away–long since.”

“I did. But the host has returned, and I distrust him. I am waiting now to see the end of it.”

“No–no–I hope not. Pray go, sir.”

“Is there danger?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. I am fond of danger, I have told you. It braces me up; it–why are you so pale?”

“You have been kind to me, and you have saved me from indignity. Pray take your men away at once.”

“They will not go, and I will not desert them.”

“For my sake–do!”

“A song! a song! No more love-making tonight, Captain. A song from the farmer’s pretty lass!” cried out the men.

And then Sophie began to sing again, this time a love-song, the song of a maiden waiting for her soldier boy to come back from the wars; a maiden waiting for him, listening for him, hearing the tramp of his regiment on the way toward her. She looked at Captain Guy as she sang, and with much entreaty in her gaze, and he looked back at her from under the cock of his hat, which he had pulled over his brows; then he wavered and stole out of the room. Kits was at the door, still with his mug of brandy in his hand. Guy seized him by the ear and took him out with him into the fresh air, where the white frost was and where the white moon was shining now.

“The soldiers are after us and know where we are, Kits. Pitch that stuff away.”

“Not if–“

“And get the horses ready–quick! I will be with you in a moment.”