When they reached that door of the Manor House which opened into the park, Langford was about to take his leave, and proceed to the village to seek for a surgeon. Alice cast down her eyes as he proposed to do so; but Sir Walter grasped him by the hand, and led him gently in, saying, "In no house but mine, Captain Langford! Do you think, after having received such an injury in defending my daughter, that we would trust you to the attendance of an inn?"
Langford made but slight opposition. If there had been hesitation in his mind, and doubt at his heart, when he had gone forth that afternoon to wander by the side of the stream, both doubt and hesitation were by this time over; and, after a few common-places about giving trouble, he accepted Sir Walter's invitation, and became an inmate of one house with Alice Herbert.
[CHAPTER VI.]
We must now return for a short space of time to the spot beneath the park wall where we left one of the assailants of Alice Herbert stunned by a blow from the cudgel of John Graves. He lay there for some minutes perfectly motionless and perfectly alone. At length, however, the sound of a horse's feet, cantering lightly along the road was heard, and a goodly gentleman, dressed in a fair suit of black, and mounted on a dun fat-backed mare, made his appearance in the lane, and approached rapidly towards the spot where the discomfited wayfarer lay.
The good round face of the new comer was turned up towards the sky, calculating whether there was light enough left to admit of his reaching Uppington in safety, or whether he had not better pause, and sleep at the little neighbouring town; and the first thing that called his attention to the object in his path was his dun mare, who had never before shied at any object on earth, recoiling from the body of the robber so violently as to throw forward the good round stomach of the rider upon her neck and shoulders with a sonorous ejaculation of the breath.
"Ugh! Gad's my life! who have we here?" exclaimed Master Nicholas, the clerk of the collector at Uppington, whose saddle-bags were in truth the tempting object which had brought forth the gentlemen of the road, when they had been unseasonably diverted from their purpose by the appearance of Alice Herbert--"Gad's my life, who have we here?" and, dismounting from his mare, with charitable intent, he bent down over the stranger.
There were two or three particulars in the sight that now presented itself which made the heart of the collector's clerk beat rather more rapidly than was ordinary. In the first place the stranger had in his hand a drawn sword, in the next place a discharged pistol might be seen lying within a foot of his nose, the sand was stained with blood hard by, and in the countenance of the prostrate man, the collector's clerk, who was a great physiognomist, discovered at once all the lines and features of a robber. The good feelings of the Samaritan vanished from his bosom as soon as he had made this discovery, and, stealthily creeping away, as if afraid of waking a sleeping lion, the gentleman in black regained his mare's back, made her take a circuit round the little green, and, riding on as hard as he could to the country town we have described in the commencement of this book, sent out a posse of people to take charge of the body of the stunned or defunct robber.
Before this detachment reached the spot, however, the personage it sought was gone. Shortly after the clerk had passed, he had began to recover, and speedily regained his legs, looking about him with some degree of wonder and amazement at the situation in which he found himself. Whilst busy in recalling all that had passed, the sound of some one singing met his ear, and, in another minute the head and shoulders of John Graves appeared above the park paling. The half-witted man saw that the robber was upon his feet again, and without any hesitation, he proceed to clamber over the fence, and approach his former antagonist.
"I have come to apprehend thee!" cried the madman, laying his hand boldly upon the collar of the robber's vest. Strange to say, the freebooter not only suffered him so to take hold of him, but very probably might have even gone with him like a lamb to the slaughter, so much was he overpowered by surprise, and so little did he imagine that such an act would be performed without some power to support it, had not two or three horsemen at that moment come galloping down the lane as hard as they could ride. A single glance showed the captive of John Graves that there was an infinite accession of strength on his side. He accordingly twisted himself out of his mad antagonist's grasp in a moment, and prepared to lay violent hands upon him in return. Silly John, however, seemed by this time entirely to have forgotten his purpose of arresting the robber; and looking round him as the others came up, with an air of wonder, indeed, but not of alarm, he muttered, "More foxes! more foxes!"
The worthies by whom he was surrounded, in the meantime held a sharp consultation, of which he seemed to be the object; but at length one of them exclaimed, "Come along, come along! Bring him with you, and do what you like with him afterwards. If you stay disputing here, you will have the whole country upon you."