Читать книгу A Queen of Nine Days онлайн

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When he heard this Sir Hubert whistled three times, and then waited, listening intently.

In the distance we heard a faint sound as of whistling in answer.

Then Sir Hubert came to my coach door and spoke to me.

'Mistress Margaret Brown,' he said, 'I am pleased to find that I can escort you as an outrider, as far as you are going. When my men come up with my horse, which they have recovered, we will ride by your coach. Then I think, even if that scoundrel, Sir Claudius, and his men encounter us again, we shall be equal to them.'

I was overjoyed at that, and I don't know what I answered, but he seemed quite satisfied, and presently his men came up with Sultan, whom they had captured, and he and they rode before and alongside our coach, to my extreme content and satisfaction.

Betsy chattered on about the escape she and the men had been able to make, whilst the rabble fought with Sir Hubert's men. She could not fight, having no weapon, and therefore, when they were brought to a standstill in the field and the fighting commenced, she slid off the horse on which she had been placed and ran away as fast as her feet could carry her; upon which John, who was her cousin, could not refrain from following, and Timothy and Joseph being dropped by the men who had taken them up and feeling too ill to fight, crept away into the shelter of a hedge, where the other two found them after all the combatants had gone. They could not discover me, and therefore returned to the high road, where presently they came upon the litter and horses, the latter feeding on the grass by the wayside. Then they drove up and down, hoping that I should find my way back to the road, and that the enemy would not again appear.