And they rode on again in silence, Amyas in the meanwhile being not a little content (in spite of his late self-renunciation) to find that one of his rivals at least was going to raise the siege of the Rose garden for a few months, and withdraw his forces to the coast of Kerry.
As they went over Bursdon, Amyas pulled up suddenly.
"Did you not hear a horse's step on our left?""On our left--coming up from Welsford moor? Impossible at this time of night.It must have been a stag, or a sownder of wild swine: or may be only an old cow.""It was the ring of iron, friend.Let us stand and watch."Bursdon and Welsford were then, as now, a rolling range of dreary moors, unbroken by tor or tree, or anything save few and far between a world-old furze-bank which marked the common rights of some distant cattle farm, and crossed.then, not as now, by a decent road, but by a rough confused track-way, the remnant of an old Roman road from Clovelly dikes to Launceston.To the left it trended down towards a lower range of moors, which form the watershed of the heads of Torridge; and thither the two young men peered down over the expanse of bog and furze, which glittered for miles beneath the moon, one sheet of frosted silver, in the heavy autumn dew.
"If any of Eustace's party are trying to get home from Freshwater, they might save a couple of miles by coming across Welsford, instead of going by the main track, as we have done." So said Amyas, who though (luckily for him) no "genius," was cunning as a fox in all matters of tactic and practic, and would have in these days proved his right to be considered an intellectual person by being a thorough man of business.
"If any of his party are mad, they'll try it, and be stogged till the day of judgment.There are bogs in the bottom twenty feet deep.Plague on the fellow, whoever he is, he has dodged us! Look there!"It was too true.The unknown horseman had evidently dismounted below, and led his horse up on the other side of a long furze-dike;till coming to the point where it turned away again from his intended course, he appeared against the sky, in the act of leading his nag over a gap.
"Ride like the wind!" and both youths galloped across furze and heather at him; but ere they were within a hundred yards of him, he had leapt again on his horse, and was away far ahead.
"There is the dor to us, with a vengeance," cried Cary, putting in the spurs.
"It is but a lad; we shall never catch him.""I'll try, though; and do you lumber after as you can, old heavysides;" and Cary pushed forward.
Amyas lost sight of him for ten minutes, and then came up with him dismounted, and feeling disconsolately at his horse's knees.
"Look for my head.It lies somewhere about among the furze there;and oh! I am as full of needles as ever was a pin-cushion.""Are his knees broken?"
"I daren't look.No, I believe not.Come along, and make the best of a bad matter.The fellow is a mile ahead, and to the right, too.""He is going for Moorwinstow, then; but where is my cousin?""Behind us, I dare say.We shall nab him at least.""Cary, promise me that if we do, you will keep out of sight, and let me manage him.""My boy, I only want Evan Morgans and Morgan Evans.He is but the cat's paw, and we are after the cats themselves."And so they went on another dreary six miles, till the land trended downwards, showing dark glens and masses of woodland far below.
"Now, then, straight to Chapel, and stop the foxes' earth? Or through the King's Park to Stow, and get out Sir Richard's hounds, hue and cry, and queen's warrant in proper form?""Let us see Sir Richard first; and whatsoever he decides about my uncle, I will endure as a loyal subject must."So they rode through the King's Park, while Sir Richard's colts came whinnying and staring round the intruders, and down through a rich woodland lane five hundred feet into the valley, till they could hear the brawling of the little trout-stream, and beyond, the everlasting thunder of the ocean surf.
Down through warm woods, all fragrant with dying autumn flowers, leaving far above the keen Atlantic breeze, into one of those delicious Western combes, and so past the mill, and the little knot of flower-clad cottages.In the window of one of them a light was still burning.The two young men knew well whose window that was;and both hearts beat fast; for Rose Salterne slept, or rather seemed to wake, in that chamber.
"Folks are late in Combe to-night," said Amyas, as carelessly as he could.
Cary looked earnestly at the window, and then sharply enough at Amyas; but Amyas was busy settling his stirrup; and Cary rode on, unconscious that every fibre in his companion's huge frame was trembling like his own.
"Muggy and close down here," said Amyas, who, in reality, was quite faint with his own inward struggles.
"We shall be at Stow gate in five minutes," said Cary, looking back and down longingly as his horse climbed the opposite hill; but a turn of the zigzag road hid the cottage, and the next thought was, how to effect an entrance into Stow at three in the morning without being eaten by the ban-dogs, who were already howling and growling at the sound of the horse-hoofs.
However, they got safely in, after much knocking and calling, through the postern gate in the high west wall, into a mansion, the description whereof I must defer to the next chapter, seeing that the moon has already sunk into the Atlantic, and there is darkness over land and sea.
Sir Richard, in his long gown, was soon downstairs in the hall; the letter read, and the story told; but ere it was half finished--"Anthony, call up a groom, and let him bring me a horse round.
Gentlemen, if you will excuse me five minutes, I shall be at your service.""You will not go alone, Richard?" asked Lady Grenville, putting her beautiful face in its nightcoif out of an adjoining door.