"Then you must try to get away so as not to be forced into setting up more sheep farms. If Master John had only done as you have he would have been alive now. Mind, I did not kill him, and I knew nothing about it till afterwards, but I know he would not have met with his death if so many of us had not been driven from our homes."
While he had been speaking he had cut all their bonds, but told them to keep quite still until the rest of the party were fast asleep, and then to follow him silently, without asking a question as to where they were going.
The women and children had mostly retired by this time to their several nooks and lairs, but the festivity of the few half-drunken rascals, who were still sprawling round the fire, had not ceased, and to the anxious watchers at the back of the cave it seemed as though these roysterers would never go to sleep.
Night had fallen long since, and it seemed as though morning would dawn before the last of them fell asleep. But their patience was rewarded at last with a chorus of snores that assured them they could move at last, and they followed their guide—not to the mouth of the cave, as they expected—but into what seemed the very wall of it at the first touch, which, however, gradually revealed itself as a narrow winding passage that was just large enough for them to creep through, and at last opened in the midst of some bushes on the brink of a pond.
"Hush!" whispered Rankin, when Miles would have thanked him, for to breathe the fresh, pure air after that noisome cave was something to be thankful for.
Silently they followed, as he led them by winding woodland paths, through the tangle of trees and briers, out into a wider and more frequented roadway.
"We are little more than an hour's walk from Oxford now," said Rankin, "and I think you would be able to find your way to the gates as soon as they are opened in the morning."
But Miles begged him to stay, and go with him to the town, and try to get some employment there.
If he could only have seen it, the man's face would have told him how grateful he was, even for the offer of such help as this, but he said, "I am afraid it is too late for me to get any work but farming."
"Nay, but come and see. I have friends in the town as well as in the colleges, and surely someone might find room for a pair of willing hands and strong arms. I have enough to keep you for a few days at an hostelry; and then—"