ur servant,
BARBARA MYDDELTON.

Having sanded and folded the paper Barbara awakened Jack.

"Jack!" she called, shaking him in his bed. "Jack, I have an errand for
you. Jump up quickly and dress, and then saddle Roger, and I will get
you some food, and then you must ride at a gallop to Framshott to Mr.
Fullarton's, and he will send back Philip with you, and Hugh and Vernon
and Rupert."

Having seen the little fellow off, Barbara set the servants to work on
a business that would keep them remote from the library, and then
visited her guest. She first knocked three times on the chimney--a sign
that had been agreed on. After a minute had passed he replied, and,
having made certain that no one could enter or see into the library,
Barbara removed the picture and waited.

The young man immediately sprang into the room.

"Good morrow, sir," said Barbara simply, with a curtsey.

"Good morrow, fair hostess and preserving angel," said the young man,
with a bow.

"We must come to business at once," said Barbara, and forthwith she
told him of her message to her brother. "Philip is very young," she
added, "but true as steel, and his head is older than his years."

"Good," said the stranger, and he unfolded his plans. That night he
must embark for France. He was expected by the master of the
_Antelope,_ a schooner lying all ready to weigh anchor at Portallan,
the harbour twelve miles distant. She would sail by the night tide,
with or without him. It was understood that, if he were not there, evil
had befallen him.

"Everything depends," he explained, "on my departure to-night. The
cause hangs upon it. A blight on my evil luck!" he cried. "Were Colonel
Myddelton at home, I should not be fleeing from my own country
empty-handed. I shall be writing to him most of this day, but a spoken
word is worth a volume of pen stuff."

It was arranged at length that as soon as the dusk came three of the
boys, with the stranger wearing the clothes of the fourth, should ride
out, ostensibly on the return to the schoolhouse.

Thus, no suspicion would be aroused, and, once in the road, it would be
simple to turn the horses' heads towards the sea and gain the harbour.

That settled, Barbara gave breakfast to her guest, and he returned to
his hidingplace for the rest of the weary day with a store of candles
and an armful of books and paper.

Two hours later the boys rode in, all excitement, and Barbara watched
them attack the loaded b