"I thought there was a bit of a bustle, sir?" said the landlord, inquiringly, as he put the first dish upon the table.
"Oh dear, no," replied the colonel. "Did you mean about these men who have escaped?"
"I didn't know about what, colonel," answered the landlord, "but seeing Mr. Mowle waiting for you----"
"You thought it must be about them," added the officer; "but you are mistaken, my good friend. There is no bustle at all. The men will, doubtless, soon be taken, one after the other, by the constables. At all events, that is an affair with which I can have nothing to do."
The landlord immediately retreated, loaded with intelligence, and informed two men who were sipping rum-and-water in the tap-room, that Mowle had come to ask the colonel to help in apprehending "the Major" and others who had been rescued, and that the colonel would have nothing to do with it.
The men finished their grog much more rapidly than they had begun it, and then walked out of the house, probably to convey the tidings elsewhere. Now, the town of Hythe is composed, as every one knows, of one large and principal street nearly at the bottom of the hill, with several back streets--or perhaps lanes we might call them--running parallel to the first, and a great number of shorter ones running up and down the hill, and connecting the principal thoroughfare with those behind it. Many--nay, I might say most--of the houses in the main street had, at the time I speak of, a back as well as a front entrance. They might sometimes have even more than one; for there were trades carried on in Hythe, as the reader has been made aware, which occasionally required rapid and secret modes of exit. Nor was the house in which the young commander of dragoons resided without its conveniences in this respect; but it happened that Mowle, the officer, was well acquainted with all its different passages and contrivances; and consequently he took advantage, on his return at the end of an hour, of one of the small lanes, which led him by a back way into the inn. Then ascending a narrow staircase without disturbing anybody, he made his way to the room he sought, where he found the colonel of the regiment quietly writing some letters after his brief meal was over.
"Well, Mr. Mowle!" said the young officer, folding up, and sealing the note he had just concluded--"now, let me hear what you have discovered, and where you wish the troops to be."
"I am afraid, sir, we have lost time," answered Mowle; "for I can't tell at what time the landing will take place."
"Not before midnight," replied his companion; "there is no vessel in sight, and, with the wind at this quarter, they can't be very quick in their movements."
"Why, probably not before midnight, sir," answered Mowle; "but there are not above fifty of your men within ten miles round, and if you've to send for them to Folkestone and Ashford, and out almost to Staplehurst, they will have no time to make ready and march; and the fellows will be off into the Weald before we can catch them."