“False! No, sir. I’m too devilish artful to be played tricks with. No, sir; I played with her as a cat plays with a mouse, and led her on so far that she can’t draw back. She is to come and see me at my quarters in Rye next market day, and—” he paused a moment to give a fatuous chuckle—“if I don’t get out of her afore she goes back every damned thing I want to know, why, sir, then they may court-martial me for a d-d-d-damned blunderer, sir!” Tregenna did not attempt to betray further his doubts as to the woman’s good faith. But when they reached the angle where the road through the village was joined by the by-road up to the Parsonage, and he saw a woman’s figure which he thought he recognized at the door of one of the cottages, he dropped behind, and let the brigadier, who had the warrant, and the soldiers, go up to the Parsonage without him. As he had supposed, the woman who had attracted his attention proved indeed to be Ann Price, who now wore a long round cloak of full pleats, with a hood attached to it, and who appeared to be waiting for some one. It was so dark by this time that the poor oil-lamp over the door of the little thatched inn opposite made a small patch of light in the miry roadway; into this patch, while the woman still stood waiting, and Tregenna watched her, came, reeling from the inn-door, a tall, brawny, muscular man, in a rough fisherman’s dress, wearing on his head the long, knitted, tasseled cap of his kind. He had a couple of huge pistols stuck in his belt, which showed under the flaps of his loose, open coat; and his whole appearance betrayed the unmistakable fact that he was no peaceful seafarer, but an active participator in the contraband trade of the neighborhood. Crossing the road with an unsteady gait, and uttering the while a chuckling, coarse laugh, he made his way towards the woman, who, by a quick movement, avoided his close approach. “Why, Ann, my lass, what’s to do that thou’rt grown too nice to give a greeting to a friend, and thy cousin to boot? Is’t for yon knave Tom thou’rt grieving? Ods life, but he’s no fit match for thee; thou’lt never wed with a landsman, thou, when there’s a better man ready, eh, lass?” And with that he steadied himself, ran towards her, intercepted her as she would have gone through the alley between the cottages, and seized her roughly by the cloak. “Coom, lass, no airs with me!” he said, in an angry tone, as she tried, to wrench her cloak away from his grasp. “Thou canst keep thy coyness for the soldier-chaps.” “Have done, Ben!” cried Ann, imperiously, but in a low voice. “Dost want to have the soldiers after thee? They’re nigh enough!” “What care I for the fules in red? or thou either, cousin Ann? Come, now, one kiss, lass, and I’ll be gone.”