Fortunately he had two serving-men with him, each with a lantern.  They were now standing beside their master’s cob, some few yards down the road, which from this point leads in a straight course down to Sarre.

Not far from the entrance to the forge, Boatfield saw petty-constable Pyot in close converse with Master Hymn-of-Praise Busy, butler to Sir Marmaduke.  The man was talking with great volubility, and obvious excitement, and Pyot was apparently torn between his scorn for the narrator’s garrulousness, and his fear of losing something of what the talker had to say.

At sight of Boatfield, Pyot unceremoniously left Master Busy standing, open-mouthed, in the very midst of a voluble sentence, and approached the squire, doffing his cap respectfully as he did so.

“Will your Honor sign a warrant?” he asked.

“A warrant?  What warrant?” queried the worthy squire, who of a truth, was falling from puzzlement to such absolute bewilderment that he felt literally as if his head would burst with the weight of so much mystery and with the knowledge of such dire infamy.

“I think that the scoundrel is cleverer than we thought, your Honor,” continued the petty constable, “we must not allow him to escape.”

“I am quite bewildered,” murmured the squire.  “What is the warrant for?”

“For the apprehension of the man whom the folk about here called the Prince of Orleans.  I can set the watches on the go this very night, nay! they shall scour the countryside to some purpose—­the murderer cannot be very far, we know that he is dressed in the smith’s clothes, we’ll get him soon enough, but he may have friends....”

“Friends?”

“He may have been a real prince, your Honor,” said Pyot with a laugh, which contradicted his own suggestion.

“Aye! aye! ...  Mayhap!”

“He may have powerful friends ... or such as would resist the watches ... resist us, mayhap ... a warrant would be useful....”

“Aye! aye! you are right, constable,” said Boatfield, still a little bewildered, “do you come along to Sarre with me, I’ll give you a warrant this very night.  Have you a horse here?”

“Nay, your Honor,” rejoined the man, “an it please you, my going to Sarre would delay matters and the watches could not start their search this night.”

“Then what am I to do?” exclaimed the squire, somewhat impatient of the whole thing now, longing to get away, and to forget, beside his own comfortable fireside, all the harrowing excitement of this unforgettable day.

“Young Lambert is a bookworm, your Honor,” suggested Pyot, who was keen on the business, seeing that his zeal, if accompanied by success, would surely mean promotion; “there’ll be ink and paper in the cottage....  An your Honor would but write a few words and sign them, something I could show to a commanding officer, if perchance I needed the help of soldiery, or to the chief constable resident at Dover, for methinks some of us must push on that way ... your Honor must forgive ... we should be blamed—­punished, mayhap—­if we allowed such a scoundrel to remain unhung....”