would have surrendered
all of them to be in the brewhouse of the Mountain Farm, even though he
were there to take his shirt off But the empty, impassable, awful night
stood between him and any refuge, and he must need stay where he was,
and sweat with terror under his sacks, through all the prodigious tracts
of time which lay between the evening and the morning. He was to have
been up and afoot for Liverpool before dawn, but tired nature chose the
time he had fixed for starting to send him to sleep, and when Master
Richard stole into the barn with intent to disperse the sacks and clear
away any sign of Joe's occupancy, he found him slumbering soundly, with
a tear-stained cheek resting on a dirty brown hand.

There had been the wildest sort of hubbub and disorder at the Mountain
Farm all night. Mrs. Mountain had wept and wrung her hands, and rocking
herself to and fro, had poured forth doleful prophecy. Samson, who had
begun with bluster, had fallen into anxiety, and had himself traced the
course of the brook for a full mile by lanthorn-light. The farm hands
had been sent abroad, and had tracked every road without result. Of
course the one place where nobody so much as thought of making inquiry
was the house of the hereditary foe, but pretty early, in the course of
the morning, the news of Joe Mountain's disappearance, and something
of the reasons for it, reached Perry Hall. Everybody at Perry Hall knew
already what a terrible personage Samson Mountain was, and his behaviour
on this occasion was the theme of scathing comment.

Master Richard was guilty at heart, but exultant. Being a boy of lively
imagination, he took to a secrecy so profound, and became so strikingly
stealthy, as to excite observation and remark. He was watched and
tracked to the barn, and then the discovery came about as a matter
of course. The Reddys made much of Joe--they had no quarrel with an
innocent persecuted child--but their kindness and commiseration were
simply darts to throw at Samson.

It was noon when Reddy put the trembling adventurer into his trap, and
with his own hands drove him home. The two enemies met and glowered at
each other.

'I've found your lad and brought him home,' said Reddy; 'though I doubt
it's a cruel kindness to him.'

Samson, with all the gall in his nature burning at his heart, lifted Joe
from the trap and set him on the ground in silence. Reddy, in silence,
turned his horse's head, touched him with the whip, an