Dorothy stood for a moment on the stile at the old stone wall, and John, clasping her hand, said:—­

“You will perhaps see me sooner than you expect,” and then the cloud considerately floated over the moon again, and John hurried away up Bowling Green Hill.

Dorothy crossed the terrace garden, going toward the door since known as “Dorothy’s Postern.”  She had reached the top of the postern steps when she heard her father’s voice, beyond the north wall of the terrace garden well up toward Bowling Green Hill.  John, she knew, was at that moment climbing the hill.  Immediately following the sound of her father’s voice she heard another voice—­that of her father’s retainer, Sir John Guild.  Then came the word “Halt!” quickly followed by the report of a fusil, and the sharp clinking of swords upon the hillside.  She ran back to the wall, and saw the dimly outlined forms of four men.  One of them was John, who was retreating up the hill.  The others were following him.  Sir George and Sir John Guild had unexpectedly returned from Derby.  They had left their horses with the stable boys and were walking toward the kitchen door when Sir George noticed a man pass from behind the corner of the terrace garden wall and proceed up Bowling Green Hill.  The man of course was John.  Immediately Sir George and Guild, accompanied by a servant who was with them, started in pursuit of the intruder, and a moment afterward Dorothy heard her father’s voice and the discharge of the fusil.  She climbed to the top of the stile, filled with an agony of fear.  Sir George was fifteen or twenty yards in advance of his companion, and when John saw that his pursuers were attacking him singly, he turned and quickly ran back to meet the warlike King of the Peak.  By a few adroit turns with his sword John disarmed his antagonist, and rushing in upon him easily threw him to the ground by a wrestler’s trick.  Guild and the servant by that time were within six yards of Sir George and John.

“Stop!” cried Manners, “your master is on the ground at my feet.  My sword point is at his heart.  Make but one step toward me and Sir George Vernon will be a dead man.”

Guild and the servant halted instantly.

“What are your terms?” cried Guild, speaking with the haste which he well knew was necessary if he would save his master’s life.

“My terms are easy,” answered John.  “All I ask is that you allow me to depart in peace.  I am here on no harmful errand, and I demand that I may depart and that I be not followed nor spied upon by any one.”

“You may depart in peace,” said Guild.  “No one will follow you; no one will spy upon you.  To this I pledge my knightly word in the name of Christ my Saviour.”

John at once took his way unmolested up the hill and rode home with his heart full of fear lest his tryst with Dorothy had been discovered.

Guild and the servant assisted Sir George to rise, and the three started down the hill toward the stile where Dorothy was standing.  She was hidden from them, however, by the wall.  Jennie Faxton, who had been on guard while John and Dorothy were at the gate, at Dorothy’s suggestion stood on top of the stile where she could easily be seen by Sir George when he approached.