“Why, Bob, you don’t mean to say as how you are caught in a rat-trap?”

“Oh, you be d——­d!  I am, ain’t I?”

“Yes; but are you going to stop there, or coming out, eh?  You’ll catch cold.”

“I have sprained my ankle.”

“Well?”

“It ain’t well, I tell you; here have I a sprained foot, and my wind broken for a month at least.  Why were you not quicker?  If you had been sharper we should have had the gentleman, I’ll swear!”

“I tumbled down over the chair, and he got out of the window, and I come out of the door.”

“Well, I got entangled in the reins; but I got off after him, only his long legs carried him over everything.  I tell you what, Wilkinson, if I were to be born again, and intended to be a runner, I would bespeak a pair of long legs.”

“Why?”

“Because I should be able to get along better.  You have no idea of how he skimmed along the ground; it was quite beautiful, only it wasn’t good to follow it.”

“A regular sky scraper!”

“Yes, or something of that sort; he looked like a patent flying shadow.”

“Well, get up and lead the way; we’ll follow you.”

“I dare say you will—­when I lead the way back there; for as to going out yonder, it is quite out of the question.  I want supper to-night and breakfast to-morrow morning.”

“Well, what has that to do with it?”

“Just this much:  if you follow any farther, you’ll get into the woods, and there you’ll be, going round and round, like a squirrel in a cage, without being able to get out, and you will there get none of the good things included under the head of those meals.”

“I think so too,” said the third.

“Well, then, let’s go back; we needn’t run, though it might be as well to do so.”

“It would be anything but well.  I don’t gallop back, depend upon it.”

The three men now slowly returned from their useless chase, and re-trod the way they had passed once in such a hurry that they could hardly recognize it.

“What a dreadful bump I came against that pole standing there,” said one.

“Yes, and I came against a hedge-stake, that was placed so as the moon didn’t show any light on it.  It came into the pit of my stomach.  I never recollect such a pain in my life; for all the world like a hot coal being suddenly and forcibly intruded into your stomach.”

“Well, here’s the road.  I must go up to the house where I started him from.  I promised them some explanation.  I may as well go and give it to them at once.”

“Do as you will.  I will wait with the horse, else, perhaps, that Beauchamp will again return and steal him.”

The officer who had first entered the house now returned to the Bannerworths, saying,

“I promised you I would give you some explanation as to what you have witnessed.”

“Yes,” said Henry; “we have been awaiting your return with some anxiety and curiosity.  What is the meaning of all this?  I am, as we are all, in perfect ignorance of the meaning of what took place.”