Mittachip shuddered and closed his eyes: he dared not peer into the dark scrub beside him, and drew his horse in as close to Sir Humphrey's as he could.
"If you're afraid, you lumbering old coward," added his Honour, "go back and leave me in peace. I'll arrange my own affairs as I think best."
But the prospect of returning to Brassington alone across this awful Heath sent Master Mittachip into a renewed agony of terror: though his noble patron seemed suddenly to have become uncanny in this inordinate lust for revenge, he preferred his Honour's company to his own, and therefore made a violent effort to silence his worst fears. The Moor just now was comparatively calm: the shouts of the hunters and the yelping of the hound had altogether ceased; perhaps they had lost the scent.
Another half-hour's silent ride brought them to the spur of the hill, along the top of which ran the Wirksworth Road, and as they left the steep declivity behind them, their ears were pleasantly tickled by the welcome and bucolic sound of the bleating of sheep.
"Your friend the shepherd seems to be at his post," quoth Sir Humphrey with a sigh of satisfaction.
They were close to the point where on the previous night Lady Patience's coach had come to a halt, and the next moment brought them in sight of the shepherd's hut, with the pen beyond it, vaguely discernible in the gloom.
Sir Humphrey gave the order to dismount. Master Mittachip, feeling more dead than alive, had perforce to obey. They tied their horses loosely to a clump of blackthorn by the roadside and then crept cautiously towards the hut.
It suited their purpose well that the night was a dark one. The moon was not yet high in the heavens, and was still half-veiled by a thin film of fleecy clouds, leaving the whole vista of the Moor wrapped in mysterious grey-blue semitones.
"You have brought the lanthorn," whispered Sir Humphrey, hurriedly.
"Y ... y ... y ... yes, your Honour," stammered Mittachip.