Every workman raised his hat or cap as the balloon ascended, with the most obedient and respectful silence. Looking towards the hall, Mr Goodall saw Squire Dove at his open bedroom window waving both hands, while a voice in the lane was heard to cry out,—
“Stop, my good sir, where the dickens are you going to? I’ve brought the salve.”
“Thanks! Good morning, doctor; I’m due near Newhaven in less than twenty minutes, and could not possibly wait longer.”
“Depend upon it,” cried Lucy, “they’re gone to do something more than dry the balloon. I’ll give it to Tom for not letting me know what they are up to.”
“Tom knows no more than you or I do,” said Bennet. “I can vouch for that.”
Next came the doctor, struggling and limping along on his two sticks, while he flourished one of them in the air at Bennet, in denunciation of Mr Goodall’s sudden flight.
“This must have been a pre-arranged insult,” he said to the gamekeeper. “I had something important to tell him, and my opinions have changed entirely with respect to his affairs. He doesn’t know, perhaps, that I have been robbed?”
“He knows that the squire has, and Mr Goodall may be after the thieves, for all we know,” said the gamekeeper.
“That is just what I am doing, Bennet. Don’t you see my trap in the road? I’m going now to telegraph to Scotland Yard.”
“But for what we know, doctor, the aerial voyagers may be in pursuit of the fugitives?”