Page:Joan, the curate.djvu/119

Rh When General Hambledon and Tregenna came out of the house, where they had been shut up with the squire during the formal making out of the warrants, the lieutenant looked about in vain for Joan. Not only had she herself disappeared; but Parson Langney, who had been prominent, with his jolly face and jolly voice, among the red-coated groups on the lawn, trotting about on his nag, and as eager for the sport as anybody there, had taken his departure also.

Tregenna pondered on this fact, which was the more strange, since not one other of the assembled guests was missing. But it was not until he and the general, and the score of mounted troopers who accompanied them, had traversed the village, forded the river, ridden the two miles to Rede Hall, and come in sight of that ancient dwelling, that the mystery was solved.

From the gates of the farmhouse, just as the soldiers came into view, there issued Parson Langney on his nag, with his daughter Joan mounted on a pillion behind him.

The brigadier saw no significance in this; the parson was doing his rounds, that was all.