The next moment six or seven men came quickly up.
"Here's a woman murdered!" cried one—"and the fellow that did it is off up the lane."
A few hasty exclamations of surprise and pity followed, and then another man exclaimed, in a hasty and impatient tone, "Take her up in your arms, Jim, and bring her along. Perhaps we may find this Messenger the boy talked of, and the murderer together; but let us make haste, or we shall lose both."
"Mind," said another, speaking almost at the same time, "don't knock the Messenger's brains out. We will just take and plant him in the marsh, tie his arms, and put him up to the arm-pits. The boys will find him there, when they come to drive back the cattle.—The lady don't seem quite dead, I think."
"Bring her along! bring her along!" cried another voice—"we shall miss all, if you are so slow;" and thus speaking, the leader of the party quickened his pace, while the others, having raised the lady from the ground, bore her onward towards the end of the lane.
CHAPTER XXIV.
We have said that Wilton Brown paused and gazed through the mist at the figure of a man advancing towards him, and to the reader it need not be told who the person was that thus came forward. To Wilton, however, the conviction was brought more slowly; for though he had heard the sound of a familiar voice, yet it seemed so improbable that voice should be the voice of Lord Sherbrooke, that the idea never struck him, till the figure became so distinct as not to leave a doubt.
"Good God, Sherbrooke!" he exclaimed, advancing towards him at length—"can it be you?"
"And I may well ask, Wilton, if it be you," said Lord Sherbrooke, in a tone so sharp and angry, so unlike his usual voice and manner of speaking, that Wilton drew back astonished, imagining that he had given his friend some unknown offence. But Lord Sherbrooke grasped his arm, exclaiming, "Hark! There they are! They are close upon us, Wilton! I have fallen in with a nest of Jacobites, I fancy, ready for an outbreak, and they are after me. Have you any arms?"
"Here are plenty of pistols, my lord," said the Messenger, who knew him.