because the fire was on Miss Du Plessis’ land.  Long was the journey, tired were the rowers and paddlers, and draggled was the crew, or rather draggled were the crews, that reached the Richards’ homestead.  The prisoner was awake by this time, had been so all along since he was deposited in the punt, and a paddle had splashed his face.  When walked ashore, he had made a dash for liberty, but Mr. Bangs had brought him up short.  “Yore in too great a herry, Merk Devis,” he had said; “we went you, my men, and we’ll hev you, dead or alive.”  So Mark Davis, since that was the name of Wilkinson’s dissipated farmer, had to fall into line and march to the Richards’ place.  There the party found Maguffin and the constable.

The colonel’s servant had been much closer to the conflagration, but, having seen no sign of any person there, nothing but a number of startled horses, and the fire having taken possession of the sides of the masked road, he had retired to the nearest house.  He at once enquired after the safety of Mr. Terry and the lawyer, and, finding that they and all the rest of the party were safe, rode back at his utmost speed to report.  The constable, rejoiced at seeing his prisoners again, was about to rearrest them, when Coristine and Sylvanus interposed, the latter threatening to thrash the pipe-clay out of the pensioner’s “old putrified jints” if he touched the boy.  The Crew meant petrified, but the insult was no less offensive to the corporal on account of the mistake.  As a private individual in the Squire’s kitchen, Mr. Rigby was disposed to peace and unwilling to engage in a contest with big-boned Sylvanus, but, as a constable on duty, he was prepared to face any number of law-breakers and to fight them to the death.  Drawing his baton, he advanced, and only the commands of his legal superior, Mr. Bangs, backed by the expostulations of the pseudo sergeant-major Terry, induced him to refrain from recapturing his former prisoners, and from adding to them the profane Pilgrim who had been guilty of interfering with an officer in the discharge of his duty.  Finally he was mollified by being put in possession of a really great criminal, Mark Davis, whom he at once searched and deprived of various articles, including a revolver, all the chambers of which were fortunately empty.  Then, producing his own revolver, the corporal gave it to his prisoner to smell, remarking that, if he tried any nonsense, he would have a taste of it that he would remember.  Mrs. Richards was busy reducing the inflammation of Mr. Bigglethorpe’s burns.  She insisted that he should go no farther that night, and the whole Richards family, which had greatly taken to the fisherman, combined to hold him an honoured prisoner.  Mr. Bigglethorpe consented to remain, and the Bridesdale contingent bade him and his hosts good night.  The constable went first with his prisoner, followed by Matilda Nagle, between the lawyer and the detective.  Monty came next, clinging to Sylvanus and Mr. Terry, while Timotheus and Rufus brought up the rear.  Mrs. Richards had furnished the woman and her boy with two shiny waterproofs, called by the young Richards gum coats, so that Coristine and Sylvanus got back their contributions to the wardrobe of the insane, but, save for the look of the thing, they would have been better without them, since they only added a clammy burden to thoroughly water-soaked bodies.