hen Dick and Lawless were suffered to steal, by a back way, out of the
house where Lord Risingham held his garrison, the evening had already
come.

They paused in shelter of the garden wall to consult on their best
course. The danger was extreme. If one of Sir Daniel's men caught sight
of them and raised the view-hallo, they would be run down and butchered
instantly. And not only was the town of Shoreby a mere net of peril for
their lives, but to make for the open country was to run the risk of the
patrols.

A little way off, upon some open ground, they spied a windmill standing;
and, hard by that, a very large granary with open doors.

"How if we lay there until the night fall?" Dick proposed.

And Lawless having no better suggestion to offer, they made a straight
push for the granary at a run, and concealed themselves behind the door
among some straw. The daylight rapidly departed; and presently the moon
was silvering the frozen snow. Now or never was their opportunity to
gain the "Goat and Bagpipes" unobserved and change their tell-tale
garments. Yet even then it was advisable to go round by the outskirts,
and not run the gauntlet of the market-place, where, in the concourse of
people, they stood the more imminent peril to be recognised and slain.

This course was a long one. It took them not far from the house by the
beach, now lying dark and silent, and brought them forth at last by the
margin of the harbour. Many of the ships, as they could see by the clear
moonshine, had weighed anchor, and, profiting by the calm sky,
proceeded for more distant parts; answerably to this, the rude alehouses
along the beach (although, in defiance of the curfew law, they still
shone with fire and candle) were no longer thronged with customers, and
no longer echoed to the chorus of sea-songs.

Hastily, half-running, with their monkish raiment kilted to the knee,
they plunged through the deep snow and threaded the labyrinth of marine
lumber; and they were already more than half-way round the harbour when,
as they were passing close before an alehouse, the door suddenly opened
and let out a gush of light upon their fleeting figures.

Instantly they stopped, and made believe to be engaged in earnest
conversation.

Three men, one after another, came out of the alehouse, and the last
closed the door behind him. All three were unsteady upon their feet, as
if they had passed the day in deep potations, and they now stood
wavering in