Our first difficulty, food and rest, had been overcome, and I was
bent on mastering the next. No amount of discussion gave us any key to the
one great mystery. When Brocton had captured Colonel Waynflete at Milford,
the obvious thing to do with him was to send him prisoner to the Duke at
Lichfield. Though the Colonel carried no papers which made his purpose
clear, Brocton knew well what the object of his journey was, and the
suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act put the Colonel in his power. Or, he
might have carried him before a justice of the peace, his friend Master
Dobson for choice, and had him committed to the town jail. The course
actually taken, that of sending him ahead, under guard, in the very van of
the royal army, was to us utterly inexplicable. His mad lust for Mistress
Margaret explained the separation of father and daughter. The thought did
occur to me, though I took great care not to hint at it, that he intended
to make away with the Colonel, and looked to finding tools among his
blackguardly dragoons and an opportunity when in actual conflict with the
Highlanders. I hesitated, however, to believe that Brocton was such a
villain as to commit an unnecessary murder.
Pages:
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135