be azleep, Mounzeer," she said placidly, "fast azleep, I do believe."
"Asleep?" cried Martin-Roget roughly, "we'll soon see about waking him up."
He gave the man a violent kick with the toe of his boot. The man groaned, stretched himself, turned over and rubbed his eyes. The light of the swinging lanthorn showed him the wrathful face of his employer. He struggled to his feet very quickly after that.
"Stir yourself, man," cried Martin-Roget savagely, as he gripped the fellow by the shoulder and gave him a vigorous shaking. "Bring the horses along now, and don't keep me waiting, or there'll be trouble."
"All right, Mounzeer, all right," muttered the man placidly, as he shook himself free from the uncomfortable clutch on his shoulder and leisurely made his way out of the porch.
"Haven't you got a boy or a man who can give that lout a hand with those sacré horses?" queried Martin-Roget impatiently. "He hardly knows a horse's head from its tail."
"No, zir, I've no one to-night," replied the woman gently. "My man and my son they be gone down to Watchet to 'elp with the cargo and the pack-'orzes. They won't be 'ere neither till after midnight. But," she added more cheerfully, "I can straighten a saddle if you want it."
"That's all right then – but…"
He paused suddenly, for a loud cry of "Hallo! Well! I'm …" rang through the night from the direction of the rear of the house. The cry expressed both surprise and dismay.
"What the – is it?" called Martin-Roget loudly in response.
"The 'orzes!"
"What about them?"
To this there was no reply, and with a savage oath and calling to the woman to show him the way Martin-Roget ran out in the direction whence had come the cry of dismay. He fell straight into the arms of his guide, who promptly set up another cry, more dismal, more expressive of bewilderment than the first.
"They be gone," he shouted excitedly.
"Who have gone?" queried the Frenchman.
"The 'orzes!"
"The horses? What in – do you mean?"
"The 'orzes have gone, Mounzeer. There was no door to the ztables and they be gone."
"You're a fool," growled Martin-Roget, who of a truth had not taken in as yet the full significance of the man's jerky sentences. "Horses don't walk out of the stables like that. They can't have done if you tied them up properly."
"I didn't tie them up," protested the man. "I didn't know 'ow to tie the beastly nags up, and there was no one to 'elp me. I didn't think they'd walk out like that."
"Well! if they're gone you'll have to go and get them back somehow, that's all," said Martin-Roget, whose temper by now was beyond his control, and who was quite ready to give the lout a furious thrashing.
"Get them back, Mounzeer," wailed the man, "'ow can I? In the dark, too. Besides, if I did come nose to nose wi' 'em I shouldn't know 'ow to get 'em. Would you, Mounzeer?" he added with bland impertinence.
"I shall know how to lay you out, you satané idiot," growled Martin-Roget, "if I have to spend the night in this hole."
He strode on in the darkness in the direction where a little glimmer of light showed the entrance to a wide barn which obviously was used as a rough stabling. He stumbled through a yard and over a miscellaneous lot of rubbish. It was hardly possible to see one's hands before one's eyes in the darkness and the fog. The woman followed him, offering consolation in the shape of a seat in the coffee-room whereon to pass the night, for indeed she had no bed to spare, and the man from Chelwood brought up the rear – still ejaculating cries of astonishment rather than distress.
"You are that careless, man!" the woman admonished him placidly, "and I give you a lanthorn and all for to look after your 'orzes properly."
"But you didn't give me a 'and for to tie 'em up in their stalls, and give 'em their feed. Drat 'em! I 'ate 'orzes and all to do with 'em."
"Didn't you give 'em the feed I give you for 'em then?"
"No, I didn't. Think you I'd go into one o' them narrow stalls and get kicked for my pains."
"Then they was 'ungry, pore things," she concluded, "and went out after the 'ay what's just outside. I don't know 'ow you'll ever get 'em back in this fog."
There was indeed no doubt that the nags had made their way out of the stables, in that irresponsible fashion peculiar to animals, and that they had gone astray in the dark. There certainly was no sound in the night to denote their presence anywhere near.
"We'll get 'em all right in the morning," remarked the woman with her exasperating placidity.
"To-morrow morning!" exclaimed Martin-Roget in a passion of fury. "And what the d – l am I going to do in the meanwhile?"
The woman reiterated her offers of a seat by the fire in the coffee-room.
"The men won't mind ye, zir," she said, "heaps of 'em are Frenchies like yourself, and I'll tell 'em you ain't a spying on 'em."
"It's no more than five mile to Chelwood," said the man blandly, "and maybe you get a better shakedown there."
"A five-mile tramp," growled Martin-Roget, whose wrath seemed to have spent itself before the hopelessness of his situation, "in this fog and gloom, and knee-deep in mud… There'll be a sovereign for you, woman," he added curtly, "if you can give me a clean bed for the night."
The woman hesitated for a second or two.
"Well! a zovereign is tempting, zir," she said at last. "You shall 'ave my son's bed. I know 'e'd rather 'ave the zovereign if 'e was ever zo tired. This way, zir," she added, as she once more turned toward the house, "mind them 'urdles there."
"And where am I goin' to zleep?" called the man from Chelwood after the two retreating figures.
"I'll look after the man for you, zir," said the woman; "for a matter of a shillin' 'e can sleep in the coffee-room, and I'll give 'im 'is breakfast too."
"Not one farthing will I pay for the idiot," retorted Martin-Roget savagely. "Let him look after himself."
He had once more reached the porch. Without another word, and not heeding the protests and curses of the unfortunate man whom he had left standing shelterless in the middle of the yard, he pushed open the front door of the house and once more found himself in the passage outside the coffee-room.
But the woman had turned back a little before she followed her guest into the house, and she called out to the man in the darkness:
"You may zleep in any of them outhouses and welcome, and zure there'll be a bit o' porridge for ye in the mornin'!"
"Think ye I'll stop," came in a furious growl out of the gloom, "and conduct that d – d frogeater back to Chelwood? No fear. Five miles ain't nothin' to me, and 'e can keep the miserable shillin' 'e'd 'ave give me for my pains. Let 'im get 'is 'orzes back 'izelf and get to Chelwood as best 'e can. I'm off, and you can tell 'im zo from me. It'll make 'im sleep all the better, I reckon."
The woman was obviously not of a disposition that would ever argue a matter of this sort out. She had done her best, she
