Page:Milady at Arms (1937).pdf/38



HY, he is but a lad!"

Master Todd halted in his anxious pacing up and down the kitchen as his wife uttered these words. "I know," he groaned. "I discovered that as soon as I had given him a look. Sally, here, thought I was going to murder him as he lay in the road; but I vow I was but gazing at the poor lad, horrified."

"Then ye did not mean to shoot him again!" Sally, replacing the flintlock in its rack upon the wall, turned to exclaim joyfully.

"Nay, lass!" Master Todd gazed at her reproachfully. "Hast e'er known me to wantonly destroy aught on earth?"

Sally shook her head. "Nay, sir," she answered faintly. But Master Todd, looking at her narrowly, saw the trembling of her lips.

"Yet ye do not understand how I could shoot him down from you stone wall, be that it?" he asked.

"I—I" Sally, flushing, shook her head and fell silent.