“Well, Waller, my boy, where have you been?”
The next minute the tired traveller was sitting back in the big armchair, his brow resting upon one hand, which shaded his face from the young speaker, who slowly, and without a moment’s hesitation, spoke out frankly and related all that has been told here.
“Well,” said the Squire, as his son ended his narrative, “I am a magistrate, my boy, and it would have been my duty if I had been here to give up that lad to those who sought him. I was not here, and you acted upon the promptings of your own breast. Well, my boy, I have had a long and slow journey down; I am very tired, and I was not prepared for such a business as this. It is late, and beyond your time for bed; quite mine, too. And so this young French Englishman whom you have sheltered is on his way with that fellow Wrigg to Loo Creek, where he is to join a lugger, and be set ashore at Cherbourg?”
“Yes, father. But you will not send the soldiers in chase of him now?”
“Not to-night, my boy,” was the reply, “for I am too worn out and weary for anything but bed. I will sleep upon it and see what I think is my duty on the subject to-morrow morning.”
“Ah,” thought Waller Froy, as he went slowly up, candle in hand, to the room from which his prisoner had so lately escaped; and his first act was to pick up the jacket Godfrey Boyne had thrown upon the floor.
“Why, I needn’t have minded,” said Waller to himself. “It’s my jacket that I lent him; and I feel so comfortable and easy now that dad knows all. There, I believe I can sleep better to-night than I have for a month.”
He descended to his bedroom, feeling rather sad, though, as he thought of his late companion’s journey through the darkness of the night.
Then, as he slowly undressed and laid his head upon the pillow, he had one more wandering thought:
“Will father do anything more about that poor fellow Boyne?”