“So I have just heard,” replied the other. “But you must excuse me, Mr. Bancroft, if I decline to take your assurance on that point. My men will search the castle.”
“As you please, sir,” replied the steward. “But you may depend upon it they won’t find him. Won’t you please to alight, and come in?”
“Such is my intention,” replied the colonel, springing from his horse and giving the bridle to the trooper nearest to him. “Let a dozen men follow me,” he added. “The rest will take the horses to the stable-feed them-and then come to the house.”
“It shall be done, colonel,” said the trooper.
“Excuse me, colonel,” said Bancroft. “They’ll find the stable doors locked. My master has taken the keys with him.”
“Break open the doors,” cried Colonel Oxburgh.
“If they do, they’ll find no forage inside,” said Bancroft. “All the hay and corn has been removed.”
“Never was there such a rascal!” cried Colonel Oxburgh, furiously. “Well, do the best you can,” he added, to his followers. “Put up the horses, and then come to the house.”
“To prevent disappointment,” said Bancroft, with a malicious grin, “I had better mention beforehand that they will find no provisions.”
“No provisions!” exclaimed the colonel, while the troopers who were within hearing looked aghast.
“The larder’s empty, sir, I’m sorry to say,” pursued the steward; “and what’s worse, there’s not a bottle of wine in the cellar.”
Murmurs and threats arose from the men.
“If your master acts thus, he must take the consequences,” observed Colonel Oxburgh. “He deserves the bad character he has acquired.”
The steward did not like the tone in which the remark was made, and looked as if he would be glad to escape, but this being impossible, he asked Colonel Oxburgh into the house.
As he entered the hall with his men, Colonel Oxburgh stopped him, and said:
“A word with you, Mr. Bancroft. You say there are no provisions in the house-no food for the horses in the stables.”
“I do, colonel,” replied the other.
“I won’t dispute the truth of your statement, but I have some orders to give you, which you will be pleased to execute. While I search the house see that a plentiful repast is set out for me and my followers in the dining-room-”
“I cannot accomplish impossibilities, colonel,” interrupted the steward.
“I require good wine for myself and my men. No discussion. It must be done. Two of my party will attend upon you, and shoot you through the head if you attempt to escape. The rest will remain with me.”
Leaving the steward quite confounded by what he had heard, in charge of a couple of troopers, Colonel Oxburgh made a thorough search of the house, peering into every room, but he did not find the person he sought, and began to think Colonel Charteris had really fled.
On repairing to the dining-room he was agreeably surprised to find a cold collation laid out on a long table.
“Aha! Mr. Bancroft,” he exclaimed, “you have performed wonders, I see. Is this the work of magic?”
“It turned out on examination that the larder was better furnished than I imagined, colonel,” said the steward.
“I thought as much,” rejoined Colonel Oxburgh. “After all, we shall not fare badly.”
“Nor will the horses, colonel,” observed one of the gentlemen troopers coming up to him. “We have found plenty of fodder in the stable.”
The colonel laughed heartily.
“What do you say to this, sir?” he remarked to the steward.
“Simply, that I obeyed my master’s orders,” he rejoined.
“Your master is a miserable niggard,” said the colonel, signing to his followers to sit down, and taking the chair at the head of the table.
They were waited on by a couple of men servants, who had been discovered in the butler’s pantry, and were supplied with abundance of claret.
At the conclusion of the repast King James’s health was drunk by the whole party with loud cheers. Not only was the steward compelled to join in the toast, but to drink “Success to the insurgent army.”
When the moment of departure arrived, and the steward thought he was about to get rid of his unwelcome visitors, Colonel Oxburgh said to him:
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