nasty man's suspicions, and therefore
gave a smack with her fern whip to Lord Keppel, impelling him to join,
like a loyal little horse, the pursuit of his Majesty's enemies. But no
sooner did she see all the men dispersed, and scouring the distance with
trustful ardor, than she turned her pony's head toward the sea again,
and rode back round the bend of the hollow. What would her mother say if
she lost the murrey skirt, which had cost six shillings at Bridlington
fair? And ten times that money might be lost much better than for her
father to discover how she lost it. For Master Stephen Anerley was
a straight-backed man, and took three weeks of training in the Land
Defense Yeomanry, at periods not more than a year apart, so that many
people called him "Captain" now; and the loss of his suppleness at knee
and elbow had turned his mind largely to politics, making him stiffly
patriotic, and especially hot against all free-traders putting bad
bargains to his wife, at the cost of the king and his revenue. If the
bargain were a good one, that was no concern of his.

Not that Mary, however, could believe, or would even have such a bad
mind as to imagine, that any one, after being helped by her, would be
mean enough to run off with her property. And now she came to think of
it, there was something high and noble, she might almost say something
downright honest, in the face of that poor persecuted man. And in spite
of all his panting, how brave he must have been, what a runner, and how
clever, to escape from all those cowardly coast-riders shooting right
and left at him! Such a man steal that paltry skirt that her mother
made such a fuss about! She was much more likely to find it in her
clothes-press filled with golden guineas.

Before she was as certain as she wished to be of this (by reason of
shrewd nativity), and while she believed that the fugitive must have
seized such a chance and made good his escape toward North Sea or
Flamborough, a quick shadow glanced across the long shafts of the sun,
and a bodily form sped after it. To the middle of the Dike leaped a
young man, smiling, and forth from the gully which had saved his life.
To look at him, nobody ever could have guessed how fast he had fled, and
how close he had lain hid. For he stood there as clean and spruce and
careless as even a sailor can be wished to be. Limber yet stalwart,
agile though substantial, and as quick as a dart while as strong as a
pike, he seemed cu