“No, I suppose you haven’t.  Then what you must do is tear up your sheets and let yourself down into the garden.  Hacking will whistle three times if all’s clear, and then you must climb over into his garden and run as hard as you can to the corner of the road where I’ll be waiting for you in a cab.  I’ll go up to London with you and see you off from Waterloo, which is the station for Green Lanes where Father Dorward lives.  You take a ticket to Galton, and I expect he’ll meet you, or if he doesn’t, it’s only a seven mile walk.  I don’t know the way, but you can ask when you get to Galton.  Only if you could find your way without asking it would be better, because if you’re pursued and you’re seen asking the way you’ll be caught more easily.  Now I must rush off and borrow some money from Mr. Ogilvie.  No, perhaps it would rouse suspicions if I were absent from afternoon school.  My uncle would be sure to guess, and—­though I don’t think he would—­he might try to lock me up in my room.  But I say,” Mark suddenly exclaimed in indignation, “how on earth did you manage to come and talk to me out here?”

Cyril explained that he had only been locked in his bedroom last night when his father was so angry.  He had freedom to move about in the house and garden, and, he added to Mark’s annoyance, there would be no need for him to use rope ladders or sheets to escape.  If Mark would tell him what time to be at the corner of the road and would wait for him a little while in case his father saw him going out and prevented him, he would easily be able to escape.

“Then I needn’t have told Hacking,” said Mark.  “However, now I have told him, he must do something, or else he’s sure to let out what he knows.  I wish I knew where to get the money for the fare.”

“I’ve got a pound in my money box.”

“Have you?” said Mark, a little mortified, but at the same time relieved that he could keep Mr. Ogilvie from being involved.  “Well, that ought to be enough.  I’ve got enough to send a telegram to Dorward.  As soon as I get his answer I’ll send you word by Hacking.  Now don’t hang about in the garden all the afternoon or your people will begin to think something’s up.  If you could, it would be a good thing for you to be heard praying and groaning in your room.”

Cyril smiled his feeble smile, and Mark felt inclined to abandon him to his fate; but he decided on reflection that the importance of vindicating the claims of the Church to a persecuted son was more important than the foolishness and the feebleness of the son.

“Do you want me to do anything more?” Hacking asked.

Mark suggested that Hacking’s name and address should be given for Mr. Dorward’s answer, but this Hacking refused.

“If a telegram came to our house, everybody would want to read it.  Why can’t it be sent to you?”

Mark sighed for his fellow-conspirator’s stupidity.  To this useless clod he had presented a valuable bat.