Sherebiah issued forth and shouldered his way through the growing crowd. When Simmons caught sight of him, his jaw dropped and he turned to make away; but Sherebiah was at his heels in a twinkling, and soon he dragged him through the throng and into the inn. The man looked even more woebegone than when Harry had last seen him, and his drawn face betokened keen suffering. "Cotched again!" said Sherebiah. "Stand there afore Master Harry and speak your mind." "How come you here, Simmons?" asked Harry. The man explained that after the rout at the castle he had escaped with his master to the Elector’s camp and been with the army at the battle of Blenheim. He had ridden out of the fight with Aglionby, but being wounded had fallen from his horse and been callously left to his fate by the captain. Contriving to evade capture, he had wandered from village to village, and, reaching Weissembourg, had been sheltered there by a cottager until all his money was gone. Then he was turned out neck and crop, and was being hustled out of the village when Sherebiah intervened. His wound had not been properly treated, and he was in a sorry plight. Harry could not help pitying the poor wretch whose service had been so ill-requited by his master. Properly he was a prisoner of war—one of the 13,000 who had fallen into the hands of the victors. But he was a fellow-countryman after all, and possibly had been an honest fellow until he came under Aglionby’s sinister influence. Harry had not the heart to let him go to his fate. "Sherry, look to his arm," he said. "Let us see what sort of a leech Jacob Spinney made of you. Then give him some food and find him a lodging." Several days passed, and Harry, in the bustle of camp life, had almost forgotten the incident, when one morning Simmons presented himself and asked to be allowed to speak a word. His arm was nearly healed, and he looked a cleaner, trimmer fellow. "Ah, Simmons!" said Harry, "you’re better, I see. What have you got to say?" "First to thank you, sir, for your kindness, which I know I don’t deserve. Sherebiah Minshull has treated me well." "I’m glad of that. Now is there anything else I can do for you?" "I’ve been thinkin’, these few days, sir, and ponderin’ on my past life; and there’s a thing I believe you ought to know." "Well, speak up, man." "’Tis summat I heard pass between Cap’n Aglionby and the Frenchman, sir." "That’s enough: I’m not interested in the doings of your rascally employer." "But you are, sir, unless I be much mistaken. The matter concerns the French lady near Breda, and the young mistress—partickler the young mistress, sir." Harry was now all attention. "Speak on then, and use few words."