'Let these points be observed by him, namely, to wit:
'1. Change your hosen when the occasion serves. You have two pairs in your saddle-bag, and can buy more, for the wool work is good in the West.
'2. A hare's foot suspended round the neck driveth away colic.
'3. Say the Lord's Prayer night and morning. Also read the scriptures, especially Job, the Psalms, and the Gospel according to St. Matthew.
'4. Daffy's elixir possesses extraordinary powers in purifying the blood and working off all phlegms, humours, vapours, or rheums. The dose is five drops. A small phial of it will be found in the barrel of your left pistol, with wadding around it lest it come to harm.
'5. Ten golden pieces are sewn into the hem of your under doublet. Touch them not, save as a last resource.
'6. Fight stoutly for the Lord, and yet I pray you, Micah, be not too forward in battle, but let others do their turn also.
Press not into the heart of the fray, and yet flinch not from the standard of the Protestant faith.
'And oh, Micah, my own bright boy, come back safe to your mother, or my very heart will break!
'And the deponent will ever pray.'
The sudden gush of tenderness in the last few lines made the tears spring to my eyes, and yet I could scarce forbear from smiling at the whole composition, for my dear mother had little time to cultivate the graces of style, and it was evidently her thought that in order to make her instructions binding it was needful to express them in some sort of legal form. I had little time to think over her advice, however, for I had scarce finished reading it before the voice of Decimus Saxon, and the clink of the horses' hoofs upon the cobble-stones of the yard, informed me that all was ready for our departure.
Chapter X.
Of our Perilous Adventure on the Plain
We were not half a mile from the town before the roll of kettledrums and the blare of bugles swelling up musically through the darkness announced the arrival of the regiment of horse which our friends at the inn had been expecting.
'It is as well, perhaps,' said Saxon, 'that we gave them the slip, for that young springald might have smelled a rat and played us some ill-turn. Have you chanced to see my silken kerchief?'
'Not I,' I answered.
'Nay, then, it must have fallen from my bosom during our ruffle. I can ill afford to leave it, for I travel light in such matters. Eight hundred men, quoth the major, and three thousand to follow. Should I meet this same Oglethorpe or Ogilvy when the little business is over, I shall read him a lesson on thinking less of chemistry and more of the need of preserving military precautions. It is well always to be courteous to strangers and to give them information, but it is well also that the information should be false.'
'As his may have been,' I suggested.
'Nay, nay, the words came too glibly from his tongue. So ho, Chloe, so ho! She is full of oats and would fain gallop, but it is so plaguy dark that we can scarce see where we are going.'
We had been trotting down the broad high-road shimmering vaguely white in the gloom, with the shadowy trees dancing past us on either side, scarce outlined against the dark background of cloud. We were now coming upon the eastern edge of the great plain, which extends forty miles one way and twenty the other, over the greater part of Wiltshire and past the boundaries of Somersetshire. The main road to the West skirts this wilderness, but we had agreed to follow a less important track, which would lead us to our goal, though in a more tedious manner. Its insignificance would, we hoped, prevent it from being guarded by the King's horse. We had come to the point where this byroad branches off from the main highway when we heard the clatter of horses' hoofs behind us.
'Here comes some one who is not afraid to gallop,' I remarked.
'Halt here in the shadow!' cried Saxon, in a short, quick whisper. 'Have your blade loose in the scabbard. He must have a set errand who rides so fast o' nights.'
Looking down the road we could make out through the darkness a shadowy blur which soon resolved itself into man and horse.