“You know whom it is we seek?” the officer said curtly.
The parson inclined his head.
“We must be assured of your house also. It is my desire to respect your cloth——”
The parson returned his steady look.
“I take that to mean that, on my word, you are willing to forego a search?”
“Yes.”
The parson lied like a layman, without a quiver. “I pass it you,” he said; and immediately the officer retired.
By half-past two the searching of Wadsworth was completed.
It was much that a chaise had got as far as Wadsworth; legs alone could clear the Scout. A man was despatched with a couple of horses to strike the Causeway lower down the valley and then to wait on the heights, and Cope descended from the chaise with the broken lamp-glass. At that, out stepped the parson from his house, and earnestly besought him to remain behind.
“Look!” he cried, pointing up the Scout, that seemed to crawl with ascending figures, “and not a man among them but bears you the worst will in the world! If not for your own safety, yet to save these from a deadly sin——”