decent-looking woman, that has the appearance of a farmer’s wife or daughter?” said Tregenna, somewhat dryly.

“Ay, that’s she. Name’s Ann Price, keepsh house for her brother, who’s a farmer living a little way inland yonder. Forget name of[68] place. Squire told me all about her. Fine woman, sir; doosed fine woman; sh’perior woman, too, monstrous sh’perior. She’s going to put me on the track of the beggars; took me up the hill, and showed me the way to one of their haunts, that she did, sir. Though in these parts one wouldn’t have thought she’d ha’ dared do it, sir; and she wouldn’t if I hadn’t known how to wheedle it out of her!”

[68]

“You don’t think, general, she was playing you false?”

“False! No, sir. I’m too devilish artful to be played tricks with. No, sir; I played with her as a cat plays with a mouse, and led her on so far that she can’t draw back. She is to come and see me at my quarters in Rye next market day, and—” he paused a moment to give a fatuous chuckle—“if I don’t get out of her afore she goes back every damned thing I want to know, why, sir, then they may court-martial me for a d-d-d-damned blunderer, sir!”

Tregenna did not attempt to betray further his doubts as to the woman’s good faith. But when they reached the angle where the road through the village was joined by the by-road[69] up to the Parsonage, and he saw a woman’s figure which he thought he recognized at the door of one of the cottages, he dropped behind, and let the brigadier, who had the warrant, and the soldiers, go up to the Parsonage without him.

[69]

As he had supposed, the woman who had attracted his attention proved indeed to be Ann Price, who now wore a long round cloak of full pleats, with a hood attached to it, and who appeared to be waiting for some one.

It was so dark by this time that the poor oil-lamp over the door of the little thatched inn opposite made a small patch of light in the miry roadway; into this patch, while the woman still stood waiting, and Tregenna watched her, came, reeling from the inn-door, a tall, brawny, muscular man, in a rough fisherman’s dress, wearing on his head the long, knitted, tasseled cap of his kind. He had a couple of huge pistols stuck in his belt, which showed under the flaps of his loose, open coat; and his whole appearance betrayed the unmistakable fact that he was no peaceful seafarer, but an active participator in the contraband trade of the neighborhood.

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