208 A JACOBITE EXILE

“T cannot tell you how glad I am to have you, Stanislas.
J am getting better, but I am so weak, that I took five hours
yesterday to get six miles. Now I have got you to talk to
I shall pick up strength faster than I have been doing, for
it has been very dull work having no one who could under-
stand me. ‘There is only one man here who understands a
word of Swedish.”

“We will soon get you round, sir, never fear. I have
brought with me four casks of wine. They were left at the
place where the cart stopped last night, but the captain has
sent off men already to bring them in. You will be all the
better for a suit of clean clothes.”

“That I shall; it is a month now since I had a change,
and my jerkin is all stained with blood. I want a wash
more than anything; for there was no water near the hut,
and the charcoal-burner used to bring in a small keg from
a spring he passed on his way to his work. ‘That was
enough for drinking, but not enough for washing—a matter
which never seemed to have entered into his head or that
of the Jew as being in the slightest degree necessary.”

“There is a well just outside,” Stanislas said. ‘I saw
them drawing water in buckets as we came in. I suppose
it was the well of this castle in the old time.”

“Twill go and have a wash, and change my clothes the
first thing,” Charlie said. “Mr. Ramsay’s letter will keep
till after that.” .

They went out to the well together.

“So you heard the story that I had killed Ben Soloman
before you left?”

“Yes; before your letter arrived Mr. Ramsay sent for
me, and told me a Jewish trader had just informed him that
news had come that Ben Soloman had been murdered, and
the deed had been done by the young Scotchman who had
been with him. Mr. Ramsay did not believe the story in
the slightest. He admitted that Ben Soloman might have