arne? Ay, ay! yue'll
go up many a lane and by many a fuzzy 'ill, and acrass a bridge or
two, afore yue come up wi' 'en, Maister Rosewarne."

"Look sharp, Job!" said Rosewarne. "Carriage been through here
lately?"

"Ay, ay, Maister Rosewarne! 'tis a good half hour agone."

"A half hour, you idiot!" said Rosewarne, now in a thoroughly bad
temper. "You've been asleep and dreaming. Here, take your confounded
money!"

So he rode on again, not believing, of course, old Job's malicious
fabrication, but being rendered all the same a little uncomfortable by
it. Fortunately, the cob had not been out before that day.

More deep lanes, more high, open, windy spaces, more silent cottages,
more rough stones, and always the measured fall of the cob's feet and
the continued shining and throbbing of the stars overhead. At last,
far away ahead, on the top of a high incline, he caught sight of a
solitary point of ruddy fire, which presently disappeared. That, he
concluded, was the carriage he was pursuing going round a corner, and
showing only the one lamp as it turned into the lane. They were not so
far in front of him as he had supposed.

But how to overtake them? So soon as they heard the sound of his
horse would they dash onward at all risks, and have a race for it all
through the night? In that case George Rosewarne inwardly resolved
that they might go to Plymouth, or into the deep sea beyond, before he
would injure his favorite cob.

On the other hand, he could not bring them to a standstill by
threatening to shoot at his own daughters, even if he had had anything
with him that would look like a pistol. Should he have to rely, then,
on the moral terrors of a parent's authority? George Rosewarne was
inclined to laugh when he thought of his overawing in this fashion the
high spirit of his younger daughter.

By slow and sure degrees he gained on the fugitives, and as he could
now catch some sound of the rattling of the carriage-wheels, they must
also hear his horse's footfall. Were they trying to get away from him?
On the contrary, the carriage stopped altogether.

That was Harry Trelyon's decision. For some time back he had been
listening attentively. At length he said, "Don't you hear some one
riding back there?"

"Yes, I do," said Wenna, beginning to tremble.

"I suppose it is Mr. Roscorla coming after us," the young man said
coolly. "Now I think it would be a shame to drag the old gentleman
halfway down to Plymouth.