He had thrust the trooper aside and drawn the girl close to him. “Sure, you do not fear me, Lois?” he urged, for she stood with her hands to her face and her body braced tensely against the pressure of his arm. “I’m Hugh Gwyeth. You’ve not forgot—”
At that she uncovered her face and stared at him with so piteous a look of fright that Hugh hated himself and all who had had a share in that night’s work. “Be off with you.” He swung round upon the cross-eyed trooper with some of Allestree’s favorite oaths. “The gentlewoman is kin to me. Get you hence and be thankful I let you go with a whole skin.”
Then he looked again to Lois, and, noting now that she had no outer covering upon her shoulders, unstrapped his cloak from the front of his saddle and wrapped it about her, drawing the folds up to hide her face somewhat. He felt her hands clutch tremulously at his wrist, and her voice broke into a choking sob: “O, Hugh! In sober truth, ’tis you? You will take care of me?”
“To be sure I will,” he said, and, slipping Bayard’s bridle over one arm, put the other about the girl. “Just come with me now.”
They walked toward where the cottages were burning, slowly, for Lois staggered as she went, and Hugh, for all his brave speech, was dazed with the necessity of thinking what he was to do for her protection. Woodstead was no place to which to fetch a girl, nor was any other harbor open to him. He halted short in his perplexity, then turned to her with a sudden idea: “Look you here, Lois; would you wish me to convey you unto Newick, to Lieutenant Millington?”
“’Tis thither I was going,” she answered faintly.
“Well, you shall be safe there ere to-morrow noon,” he assured her. “Just a little time here, and be not afraid.”
Thereupon he faced across the street to the house with the sign-board, where he guessed might be wine and Captain Butler. Within were lights and men stamping to and fro, while without at the entrance door lingered others, among whom Hugh caught sight of Garrett, still sober, and seized on him. “I want your help,” he said brusquely; “I’ll pay you for it ere I die. Procure some sort of white flag, and find me out a pillion for this gentlewoman. Put it on my horse and be ready to ride with me when I bid.”