“Mistress Parsons don’t like Dirk Hatfield to come here,” he volunteered, to Ethan and Dale. “But she daren’t order him away.”
“Why not?” asked Ethan for want of something better to say. The man opened his round eyes still wider and exclaimed in tones of wonder,
“What, drive off Dirk Hatfield! Why he’d kill us all in our beds. Don’t you know him, sirs? He’s a highwayman,” in a low voice of terror; “they say that once he stopped the Lord Mayor of London himself and made him deliver. Oh, he’s a daring rogue, indeed.”
Before they had time to comment upon this the landlady ushered Master Hatfield into the room. He was a large man with wide shoulders and deep chest, and he walked with the swagger of a bravo. At sight of Dale’s scarlet coat he started; but he recovered himself immediately, hitched one of his heavy pistols nearer to his hand, and took a seat at a table near the window.
“Now, Mistress Parsons,” said he, “I’ll have some food; and make all the speed you can, for I must hurry on.”
“Very well, sir,” said the landlady with a bow, “I’ll attend to it myself, sir.”
She bustled out of the room to the kitchen, and the highwayman spread his booted legs under the table, tucked his thumbs into his belt and regarded Ethan and Dale with careless indifference. But his attention was soon drawn from them to Danvers and Wheelock who still sat conversing upon the side porch near the window. Their tones had grown louder, and Ethan could plainly hear what passed between them, as could Dale and Master Dirk Hatfield.
“And how did you learn that Fochard had deceived you?” Wheelock was saying.
“He sent me word himself that he had the paper--that he had taken it from Siki. He had intended disposing of it himself, but at the last moment he grew afraid; the French might call it treason, you know, to give comfort to the enemy in the way of news. So he crossed the channel in a French vessel----”
“Why,” exclaimed Wheelock, “it was the British frigate Sea Horse he was in at Plymouth, was it not?”
“It was. The Sea Horse took the vessel in which he had crossed: but when the captain learned that Fochard had secret business with me he knew that for the time at least he was an important personage and so entered the river and sent for me.”