It had been a petty incident, but the ill taste of it lingered with him, and took all pleasure from the getting to horse once more. Even the sight of Lois’s half-smiling face, and her droll efforts to spare her stockinged foot, could not restore him to his old contented mood. He led her in silence to where Bayard stood, and there she halted suddenly with eyes upon the horse. “Why, ’tis indeed the same,” she cried. “’Tis Peregrine’s steed they said you—” “Stole?” Hugh asked sharply. “Ay, ’tis the same.” Then he lifted her to her place, and without a word more set forward. An hour later, in the full heat of the morning sun, they rode into a little hamlet, where the people stared at the Royalist red sashes, and shouted saucy comments on the strangers. Hugh made his way scowlingly to the village inn, and, helping Lois dismount, led her into the common room, where he called on the hostess to bring wine and white bread for the girl. “Are you going with these ruffians of your own will, sweetheart?” he heard the good woman whisper Lois. He was turning away impatiently, when, just at the door, he ran upon the tapster. “Draw two mugs of ale for my man and me,” he ordered curtly. “Will I, sir? Who’s to pay?” retorted the other. “An you pay, ’twill be the first of your color—” “Will you talk?” Hugh cried, with an oath; and struck the fellow so he staggered. “Fetch what I bid now,” he swore. Then he turned to go back into the common room; and there Lois sat, not eating, but gazing at him with blank, dismayed face. Without staying to drink his ale, Hugh went out and loitered at Bayard’s head, where he kicked up spiteful little spurts of dust and would not stroke the horse. When Lois hobbled out at last in a pair of over-large shoes, he helped her to mount; she did not speak, and he only looked sharply at her, but said nothing. As the roofs of the village sank behind the hill in their rear, however, he turned in the saddle and addressed her almost roughly, “So you are not pleased with me?” “Sure, Hugh, I must be pleased; you have used me so kindly—” “That’s a right woman’s trick to bungle at a plain ‘no,’” he said, with a curt laugh; then started, for tone and laugh sounded to him as an echo of Allestree, whom he had left drunk at Northrope. Putting spurs to Bayard, he pressed on at a reckless pace, so the dust rose thick and white, and turned his throat dry, and sifted in between his collar and his neck. He was hot and weary and wretchedly angry against all the world, especially against Lois Campion, why, he could not tell himself. In such a mood he cantered into the shadow of the first of a straggling line of cottages, where a sentinel in a yellow sash, springing to the middle of the road, bade him pull up. “Conduct me to Lieutenant Millington,” Hugh ordered, showing his safe-conduct; so in a few moments he was riding down the street at an easy pace, with a Roundhead corporal walking at his bridle.