Other voices sounded in the road. Jock
rushed to the doorway, taking a pistol from his pocket. And Mrs Clowes,
all dithering like a jelly, heard shots. The horse started into a
gallop. The reins escaped from the hands of the mistress, but Jock
secured them, and lashed the horse to greater speed with the loose ends
of them.
"I've saved thee, missis!" he said later. "I give him a regular lifter
under the gob, same as I give Jabez, Sunday. But where's the sense of a
lone woman wandering about dark roads of a night wi' a pack of
childer?... Them childer 'ud ha' slept through th' battle o' Trafalgar,"
he added.
Mrs Clowes wept.
"Well may you say it!" she murmured. "And it's not the first time as
I've been set on!"
"Thou'rt nowt but a girl, for all thy flesh and thy grandchilder!" said
Jock. "Dry thy eyes, or I'll dry 'em for thee!"
She smiled in her weeping. It was an invitation to him to carry out his
threat.
And while he was drying her eyes for her, she asked:
"How far are ye going? Axe?"
"Ay! And beyond! Can I act, I ask ye? Can I fight, I ask ye? Can ye do
without me, I ask ye, you a lone woman? And yer soul, as is mine to
save?"
"But that business o' yours at Bursley?"
"Here's my bundle," he said, "and here's my best hat.
Pages:
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166