Duke's. "To be sure, I'll come. But first give me
leave to get some clothes and other things that I may need."

"There's no time to lose."

"Be easy now. I'll lose none. I tell ye again, ye'll go quickest by
going leisurely. Come in... take a chair..." He threw open the door of a
parlour.

Young Pitt waved aside the invitation.

"I'll wait here. Make haste, in God's name." Mr. Blood went off to dress
and to fetch a case of instruments.

Questions concerning the precise nature of Lord Gildoy's hurt could wait
until they were on their way. Whilst he pulled on his boots, he gave
Mrs. Barlow instructions for the day, which included the matter of a
dinner he was not destined to eat.

When at last he went forth again, Mrs. Barlow clucking after him like
a disgruntled fowl, he found young Pitt smothered in a crowd of scared,
half-dressed townsfolk--mostly women--who had come hastening for news
of how the battle had sped. The news he gave them was to be read in the
lamentations with which they disturbed the morning air.

At sight of the doctor, dressed and booted, the case of instruments
tucked under his arm, the messenger disengaged himself from those who
pressed about, shook off his weariness and the two tearful aunts that
clung most closely, and seizing the bridle of his horse, he climbed to
the saddle.

"Come along, sir," he cried. "Mount behind me."

Mr. Blood, without wasting words, did as he was bidden. Pitt touched
the horse with his spur. The little crowd gave way, and thus, upon
the crupper of that doubly-laden horse, clinging to the belt of his
companion, Peter Blood set out upon his Odyssey. For this Pitt, in whom
he beheld no more than the messenger of a wounded rebel gentleman, was
indeed the very messenger of Fate.

CHAPTER II. KIRKE'S DRAGOONS

Oglethorpe's farm stood a mile or so to the south of Bridgewater on the
right bank of the river. It was a straggling Tudor building showing grey
above the ivy that clothed its lower parts. Approaching it now, through
the fragrant orchards amid which it seemed to drowse in Arcadian peace
beside the waters of the Parrett, sparkling in the morning sunlight,
Mr. Blood might have had a difficulty in believing it part of a world
tormented by strife and bloodshed.

On the bridge, as they had been riding out of Bridgewater, they had met
a vanguard of fugitives from the field of battle, weary, broken men,
many of them wounded, all of them terror-stricken, stag