It was close on ten o'clock when they came back to earth once more.
A peremptory knock at the door had roused them both from their dreams.
Bathurst rose to open, and there stood John Stich and Mistress Betty, both looking somewhat flurried and guilty, and both obviously brimming over with news.
"My lady! my lady!" cried Betty, excitedly, as soon as she caught her mistress's eye, "I have just spied Sir Humphrey Challoner at the window of the Royal George, just over the green yonder."
"Give me leave, Captain," added John Stich, who was busy rolling up his sleeves above his powerful arms, "give me leave, and I'll make the rogue disgorge those letters in a trice."
"You'd not succeed, honest friend," mused Bathurst, "and might get yourself in a devil of a hole to boot."
"Nay, Captain," asserted John, emphatically, "'tis no time now for the wearing of kid gloves. I was on the green a moment ago, and spied that ravenous scarecrow, Mittachip, conversing with the beadle outside the Court House, where Squire West is sitting."
"Well?"
"When the beadle had gone, Master Mittachip walked across the green and went straight to the Royal George. Be gy! what does that mean, Captain?"
"Oho!" laughed Jack, much amused at the smith's earnestness, "it means that Sir Humphrey Challoner intends to lay information against one Beau Brocade, the noted highwayman, and to see how nice he'll look with a rope round his neck and dangling six foot from the ground."