Mrs. Dodd sighed—“She goes from one thing to another, but always returns to one idea; that he is a victim, not a traitor.”
“Well, tell her in one hour the money shall be in the house.”
“The money! What does she care?”
“Well, say we shall know all about Alfred by eleven o'clock.”
“My dear friend, be prudent,” said Mrs. Dodd. “I feel alarmed: you were speaking almost in a whisper when I came in.”
“Y' are very obsairvant: but dawnt be uneasy; we are three to one. Just go and comfort Miss Julee with my message.”
“Ah, that I will,” she said.
She was no sooner gone than they all stole out into the night, and a pitch dark night it was; but Green had a powerful dark lantern to use if necessary.
They waited, Green at the gate of Musgrove Cottage, the other two a little way up the road.
Ten o'clock struck. Some minutes passed without the expected signal from Green; and Edward and Sampson began to shiver. For it was very cold and dark, and in the next place they were honest men going to take the law into their own hands and the law sometimes calls that breaking the law. “Confound him!” muttered Sampson; “if he does not soon come I shall run away. It is bitterly cold.”