"Nay! but they'll never get our Captain!" said the worthy dame, with a break in her gentle old voice, "and if the whole countryside was after him they'd never get him. Leastways so says my John."
"God grant he may speak truly," replied the young man, fervently; "'tis shame enough on me that a brave man should risk his life for me, whilst I have to stand idly behind a cupboard door."
The absence of definite news weighed heavily upon his spirits, and as the day wore on and neither John Stich nor Bathurst reappeared, his hopes very quickly began to give way to anxiety and then to despair. Philip always had a touch of morbid self-analysis in his nature: unlike Jack Bathurst, he was ever ready to bend the neck before untoward fate, heaping self-accusation on self-reproach, and thus allowing his spirit to bow to circumstance, rather than to attempt to defy it.
And throughout the whole of this day he sat, moody and silent, with the ever-recurring thought hammering in his brain,—
"I ought not to have allowed a stranger to risk his life for me. I should have given myself up. 'Twas unworthy a soldier and a gentleman."
By the time the shadows had lengthened on the Moor, and Jack o' Lantern covered with sweat had arrived riderless at the forge, Philip was formulating wild plans of going to Wirksworth and there surrendering himself to the local magistrate. He worked himself up into a fever of heroic self-sacrifice, and had just resolved only to wait until dawn to carry out his purpose, when John Stich appeared in the doorway of his smithy.
One look in the honest fellow's face told the young Earl of Stretton that most things in his world were amiss just now. A few eager questions, and as briefly as possible Stich told him exactly how matters stood: the letters stolen by Sir Humphrey Challoner, Bathurst's determination to re-capture them and the organized hunt proceeding this very night against him.
"Her ladyship and I both think, my lord, that this place is not safe for you just now," added John, finally, "and she begs you to come to her at Brassington as soon as you can. The road is safe enough," added the smith, with a heavy sigh, "no one'd notice us—they are all after the Captain, and God knows but perhaps they've got him by now."
Philip could say nothing, for his miserable self-reproaches had broken his spirit of obstinacy. His boyish heart was overflowing with sympathy for the kindly smith. How gladly now would he have given his own life to save that of his gallant rescuer!
Obediently he prepared to accede to his sister's wishes. He knew what agony she must have endured when the letters were filched from her; he guessed that she would wish to have him near her, and in any case he wanted to be on the spot, hoping that yet he could offer his own life in exchange for the one which was being so nobly risked for him.