There was some consolation in this surmise, which was well founded.  When Rosewarne reached the toll-bar there was at least a light in the small house.  He struck on the door with the handle of his riding-whip, and called out, “Hi, hi!  Job!  Come out, you old fool!”

An old man with very bandy legs came hobbling out of the toll-house, and went to open the gate, talking and muttering to himself:  “Ay, ay! so yue be agwoin’ after the young uns, Maister Rosewarne?  Ay, ay! yue’ll go up many a lane and by many a fuzzy ’ill, and acrass a bridge or two, afore yue come up wi’ ’en, Maister Rosewarne.”

“Look sharp, Job!” said Rosewarne.  “Carriage been through here lately?”

“Ay, ay, Maister Rosewarne! ’tis a good half hour agone.”

“A half hour, you idiot!” said Rosewarne, now in a thoroughly bad temper.  “You’ve been asleep and dreaming.  Here, take your confounded money!”

So he rode on again, not believing, of course, old Job’s malicious fabrication, but being rendered all the same a little uncomfortable by it.  Fortunately, the cob had not been out before that day.

More deep lanes, more high, open, windy spaces, more silent cottages, more rough stones, and always the measured fall of the cob’s feet and the continued shining and throbbing of the stars overhead.  At last, far away ahead, on the top of a high incline, he caught sight of a solitary point of ruddy fire, which presently disappeared.  That, he concluded, was the carriage he was pursuing going round a corner, and showing only the one lamp as it turned into the lane.  They were not so far in front of him as he had supposed.

But how to overtake them?  So soon as they heard the sound of his horse would they dash onward at all risks, and have a race for it all through the night?  In that case George Rosewarne inwardly resolved that they might go to Plymouth, or into the deep sea beyond, before he would injure his favorite cob.

On the other hand, he could not bring them to a standstill by threatening to shoot at his own daughters, even if he had had anything with him that would look like a pistol.  Should he have to rely, then, on the moral terrors of a parent’s authority?  George Rosewarne was inclined to laugh when he thought of his overawing in this fashion the high spirit of his younger daughter.

By slow and sure degrees he gained on the fugitives, and as he could now catch some sound of the rattling of the carriage-wheels, they must also hear his horse’s footfall.  Were they trying to get away from him?  On the contrary, the carriage stopped altogether.

That was Harry Trelyon’s decision.  For some time back he had been listening attentively.  At length he said, “Don’t you hear some one riding back there?”

“Yes, I do,” said Wenna, beginning to tremble.

“I suppose it is Mr. Roscorla coming after us,” the young man said coolly.  “Now I think it would be a shame to drag the old gentleman halfway down to Plymouth.  He must have had a good spell already.  Shall I stop and persuade him to go back home to bed?”