Herbert saw that this was the favorable moment for escape, and, seizing his hat, dashed out of the house.  He ran across the fields as fast as his limbs could carry him, expecting that he would be pursued.  Before we follow him, we will describe the scene that took place after his flight.

“Let go my hair, Mrs. Bickford!” exclaimed Abner, tugging vainly to break from the housekeeper’s grasp.

“I dare not,” she said.  “I’m afraid you’ll murder me.”

“You are making a fool of yourself,” retorted Abner.  “What should I murder you for?  But I will, if you don’t let go!”

“Hello, who’s talking of murder?” demanded a rough voice.

The speaker was a neighbor, who chanced to be passing, and was led to enter by the uproar, which was plainly audible outside.

“Save me!” exclaimed Mrs. Bickford.  “He’s threatened to murder me.”

“Stop your nonsense, you old fool!” retorted Abner, vexed at the equivocal position in which he was placed.

“What’s all this row about?  Mr. Holden, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for attacking a defenseless woman.”

“I didn’t intend to,” said Abner, sullenly.  “She got in my way, and I stumbled over her; and then she seized me by the hair.”

“What were you going to do with that broom?” demanded the other, suspiciously.

“What was I going to do?  I was going to thrash that rascally boy of mine, and Mrs. Bickford knew it perfectly well.”

“What has he done?”

“He?  He’s spoiled a trade of mine by his lying, and I was going to flog him for it, when Mrs. Bickford got in my way.”

“Well, said the visitor, shrugging his shoulders, “I don’t want to interfere in your affairs.  I suppose that you’ve a right to flog the boy. but it strikes me that a broom handle is rather an ugly weapon.”

“It isn’t half heavy enough,” said Abner, savagely; “but where is the boy?  Did you see him?”

“Given leg-bail, I reckon, and I don’t wonder at it.”

“Run away?” ejaculated Abner, disappointed.  “Did you see where he went?”

“No, I didn’t, and if I had, I’m not sure that I would tell you.”

Abner would like to have thrashed the man who showed so little sympathy with his anger, but he felt that it would hardly be prudent.  He went to the door and looked out.  But there was no trace of Herbert to be discovered.

“He’ll get it when he does come back,” he said to himself.

The idea that Herbert might not come back at all never once occurred to him.  He resolved that the flogging should lose nothing by being deferred.

We must now return to Herbert, whom we left running across the fields.

His departure had been so sudden, that his prominent idea was to get out of the way of his employer’s violence.  He was at first under the impression that he was pursued, but when, after running perhaps a quarter of a mile, he ventured to look around, he saw, to his great relief, that there was no one on his track.  Being out of breath, he stopped, and, throwing himself down on the grass in the shadow of a stone wall, began to consider his plans for the future.