"Back, Captain, back!" shouted Mr. Smellie, pointing down the lane.
"I beg your pardon, sir"--the Captain reined up and addressed him
with cold, incisive politeness--"but may I suggest that you have
played the fool with us sufficiently for one night, and that my men's
tempers are short?"
"Havers!" exclaimed the indomitable Smellie, rising yet higher in his
stirrups and lifting a hand for silence. "I ask ye to listen to the
racket down yonder. The drum, now!" (Sure enough Captain Arbuthnot,
pricking his ears, heard the tunding of a drum far away in the woods
to the southward.) "Man, they've diddled us! While they put that
trick on us at Talland Cove, their haill womankind was rafting the
true cargo up the river. I've ridden down, I tell you, and the clue
of their game I hold in my two hands here from start to finish.
The brandy's yonder in Sir Felix's woods, and the men are lying
around it fou-drunk as the Israelites among the pots. Man, if ye
would turn to-night's laugh, turn your troop and follow, and ye shall
cull them like gowans!"
"It is throwing the haft after the hatchet," hesitated Captain
Arbuthnot, impressed against his will by the earnestness of the
appeal. "You have misled us once to-night, I must remind you; and I
give you fair warning that my troopers will not bear fooling twice."
With all his faults the Riding Officer did not lack courage.
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