Jim, the driver, came into the kitchen at that moment on his way to bed, and unravelled the mystery of the map by showing that it was possible for Robbie’s friends to go off the Carlisle road towards Gaskarth and Wythburn at the village of Askham.

Robbie was satisfied with this explanation, and did his best under the circumstances to rest content until nine o’clock with the harbor into which he had drifted.  He succeeded more completely, perhaps, in this endeavor than might be expected, when the peril of his friends and his allegiance to Liza Branthwaite is taken into account.

But when nine o’clock had come and gone, and still the coach stood in the yard of the inn, Robbie’s sense of duty overcame his appetite for what he would have called a “spoag.”  It was usual for the Carlisle coach to await the coach from Lancaster, and it was because the latter had not yet arrived at Kendal that the former was unable to depart from it.  Robbie’s impatience waxed considerably during the half-hour thence ensuing; but when ten o’clock had struck, and still no definite movement was made, his indignation became boisterous.

There were to be four inside passengers, all women; and cold as the night might prove, Robbie’s seat must be outside.  The protestations of all five passengers were at length too loud, and their importunity was too earnest, to admit of longer delay.  So the driver put in his horses and took his seat on the box.

This had scarcely been done when the horn of the Lancaster coach was heard in the distance, and some further waiting ensued.

“Let’s hope you’ll have no traffic out of, it when it does come,” said Robbie with a dash of spite.  A few minutes afterwards the late coach drove into the yard and discharged its travellers.

Two of these, who were going forward to Carlisle, climbed the ladder and took seats behind Robbie.  It was too dark to see who or what they were except that they were men, that they were wrapped in long cloaks, and wore caps that fitted close to their heads and cheeks, being tied over their beards and beneath their chins.

The much-maligned Jim now gave a smart whip to his horses, and in a moment more the coach was on the road.

The night was dark and bitterly cold, and once outside the town the glimmer of the lamps which the coach carried was all the light the passengers had for miles.

A slight headache from which Robbie had suffered at intervals since the ducking of his head in the river at Wythburn had now quite disappeared, but a curious numbness, added to a degree of stupefaction, began to take its place.  As the coach jogged along on its weary journey, not even the bracing surroundings of Robbie’s present elevated and exposed position had the effect of keeping him actively awake.  He dozed in short snatches and awoke with slight shudders, feeling alternately hot and cold.

In one of his intervals of wakefulness he heard fragments of a conversation which was being sustained by the strangers behind him.  Robbie had neither activity nor curiosity to waste on their talk, but he could not avoid listening.