“Sir Richard Warbeck,” Ned replied, with a forced utterance and a feigned voice, “no thanks are needed, I have simply done my duty. My name you cannot—must not—at the present know, for I have not made a name for fame as yet. When I have done so, however, you will hear of me at Darlington Hall.”
With a low bow to Sir Richard, Wildfire Ned galloped from the spot, in pursuit of the fleeing highwaymen.
“Lor’ a mercy me, master,” gasped the coachman, “didn’t thee know ’un? I do.”
“Ah! Sir Richard, it be Wildfire Ned,” said the footman. “He were disguised, but I could swear to it when I seed him ride.”
“There’s not another lad in all England as can straddle a saddle like Ned, Sir Richard,” the coachman remarked.
“What! am I blind?” Sir Richard said. “Could that brave lad have been no other than my own Ned? Am I dreaming? and yet all along through the fight my heart told me so. Brave boy!” he sighed.
And as he spoke true tears trickled down the old man’s cheeks, for he dearly loved Ned.
“Harness the horses quick,” he said. “If that be Ned, I must overtake him. Quick, I say, and harness the horses. Drive for your very lives. I must, I will, overtake the gallant youth!”