For when he said, "She is not here," two happenings
intervened to give us both other things to think of.
The first was the advent, at the far end of the oak-lined avenue, of a
troop of British light-horse, trotting leisurely; the second was the
swinging inward of the door of unwelcome, with old Anthony grinning and
bowing behind it.
Now when you have fairly surprised a fox in the open, he asks nothing
more than a hole to hide him in. There were the hunters coming up the
avenue; and here was our dodge-hole gaping before us. So, as hunted
things will, we took earth quickly; though, truly, 'twas an
ostrich-trick rather than a fox's, since we left the horses standing
without to advertise our presence to all and sundry.
It was Richard who first found the wit to realize the ostrich-play.
"The horses!--we may as well have left the town crier outside to ring
his bell and tell the redcoats we are here," he would say; and before I
knew what he would be at he had snatched the door open and was whistling
softly to the big gray.
Hearing his master's call, the gray pricked his ears and came
obediently, with the sorrel tagging at his heels. A moment later, when
the up-coming troop was hidden by a turn in the avenue, we had the pair
of them in the hall with the door shut and barred behind them.
"So far, so good," quoth Dick. Then to the old black, who had stood by,
saucer-eyed and speechless, the while: "Anthony, do you be as big a
numbskull as you were born to be, and hold these redcoat gentlemen in
palaver till we can win out at the back.
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