“And what do you think of that!” said some to the doubter Dickory.

“I don’t believe a word of it!” said he; and not wishing on his own responsibility to tell what he knew of Mistress Kate Bonnet, he rowed up the river towards the Bonnet plantation to carry her message.  On his way, whom should he see, hurrying along the road by the river bank coming towards the town and looking hot and worried, but Mr. Martin Newcombe.  At the sight of the boat he stopped.

“Ho! young man,” he cried, “you are from the town; has anything fresh been heard about Major Bonnet and his daughter?”

Now here was the best and easiest opportunity of doing the third thing which Kate had asked him to do; but his heart did not bound to do it.  He sat and looked at the man on the river bank.

“Don’t you hear me?” cried Newcombe.  “Has anybody heard further from the Bonnets?”

Dickory still sat motionless, gazing at Newcombe.  He didn’t want to tell this man anything.  He didn’t want to have anything to do with him.  He hesitated, but he could not forget the third thing he had been asked to do, and who had asked him to do it.  Whatever happened, he must be loyal to her and her wishes, and so he said, with but little animation in his voice, “Major Bonnet’s daughter did not go with him.”

Instantly came a great cry from the shore.  “Where is she?  Where is she?  Come closer to land and tell me everything!”

This was too much!  Dickory did not like the tone of the man on shore, who had no right to command him in that fashion.

“I have no time to stop now,” said he; “I am carrying a message to Madam Bonnet.”

And so he paddled away, somewhat nearer the middle of the river.

Martin Newcombe was wild; he ran and he bounded on his way to the Bonnet house; he called and he shouted to Dickory, but apparently that young person was too far away to hear him.  When the canoe touched the shore, almost at the spot where the fair Kate had been fishing with a hook lying in the sun, Newcombe was already there.

“Tell me,” he cried, “tell me about Miss Kate Bonnet!  What has befallen her?  If she did not go with her father, where is she now?”

“I have come,” said Dickory sturdily, as he fastened his boat with the borrowed rope, “with a message for Madam Bonnet, and I cannot talk with anybody until I have delivered it.”

Madam Bonnet saw the two persons hurrying towards her house, and she came out in a fine fury to meet them.

“Have you heard from my runaway husband,” she cried, “and from his daughter?  I am ashamed to hear news of them, but I suppose I am in duty bound to listen.”

Dickory did not hesitate now to tell what he knew, or at least part of it.

“Your daughter—­” said he.

“She is not my daughter,” cried the lady; “thank Heaven I am spared that disgrace.  And from what hiding-place does she and her sire send me a message?”