“It is all over, Sir Marmaduke, and you are a free man.  We have nothing to do now but to ride for it.”

And, before the knight had fairly recovered from his astonishment, he found himself riding south across the moor, with his son on one side of him, and Mr. Jervoise and Harry on the other.

“You have saved my life, Jervoise,” he said, holding out his hand to his friend.  “They had got me so firmly in their clutches, that I thought my chances were at an end.

“How are you, Charlie?  I am right glad to see you, safe and sound, for they had managed to include you in their pretended plot, and, for aught I knew, you had been all this time lying in a cell next mine in Lancaster Castle.

“But who are the good fellows who helped you?”

Mr. Jervoise briefly gave an account of the affair.

“They are only keeping up a sham pursuit of the soldiers, so as to send them well on their way.  I told them not to overtake them, as there was no occasion for any further bloodshed, when you were once out of their hands.  By tomorrow morning they will all be at work on their farms again, and, if they keep their own counsel, need not fear.”

Suddenly Sir Marmaduke reined in his horse.

“We are riding south,” he said.

“Certainly we are,” Mr. Jervoise said.  “Why not?  That is our only chance of safety.  They will, in the first place, suspect us of having doubled back to the hills, and will search every farmhouse and cottage.  Our only hope of escape is to ride either for Bristol, or one of the southern ports.”

“I must go back,” Sir Marmaduke said doggedly.  “I must kill that scoundrel John Dormay, before I do anything else.  It is he who has wound this precious skein, in order to entrap us, expecting, the scoundrel, to have my estates bestowed on him as a reward.”

“It were madness to ride back now, Sir Marmaduke.  It would cost you your life, and you would leave Charlie here fatherless, and with but little chance of ever regaining the estate.  You have but to wait for a time, and everything will right itself.  As soon as the king comes to his own, your estates will be restored, and then I would not seek to stay your hand, if you sought vengeance upon this cunning knave.”

“Besides, father,” Charlie put in, “much as he deserves any punishment you can give him, you would not kill cousin Celia’s husband and Ciceley’s father.  When the truth is all made known, his punishment will be bitter enough, for no honest man would offer him a hand, or sit down to a meal with him.

“Ciceley has been as a young sister to me, and her mother has ever been as kind as if she had been my aunt.  I would not see them grieved, even if that rogue came off scot free from punishment; but, at any rate, father, I pray you to let it pass at present.  This time we have happily got you out of the clutches of the Whigs, but, if you fell into them again, you may be sure they would never give us another chance.”