About three hours after midnight he awoke his people, had the horses put to the coach, sent for Anthony by one of the robbers,—a renegade London apprentice, Tom Cobble by name, whose face he liked for its bold frankness,—and rode forth with his company toward Barnesley. They passed through this town in the early morning of Friday. March 6th, the third day of the flight. Though Anne showed the utmost indifference to her surroundings. Hal closed her curtain, as he had done at Rotherham, until the open country was again reached.
Soon after this, Mistress Hazlehurst changed her place to the forward part of the coach, and her position so as to face the backward part. She could thus be seen by any one riding at the side of the coach's rear, and glancing obliquely through the opening. It was, at present, Anthony Underhill that benefited by this new arrangement.
Five miles after Barnesley, Master Marryott ordered a halt for breakfast. As before, food was brought to the prisoners. The stop gave Captain Rumney an opportunity of peering in through the coach doorway.
When, at nine o'clock, the journey was resumed. Rumney, without a word, took the place behind Marryott, formerly kept by Anthony.
"By your leave, sir," said the Puritan, forced by this usurpation to drop behind the coach, "that is where I ride."
"Tut, man!" replied Rumney, with an insolent pretence of carelessness; "what matters it?"
"It matters to me that I ride where I have been commanded to," said the Puritan, with quiet stubbornness, heading his horse to take the place from which he expected the other to fall out.
"And it matters to me that I ride where I please to," retorted Rumney, with a little less concealment of the ugliness within him.
Anthony frowned darkly, and looked at Marryott, who had turned half around on his horse at the dispute. Rumney regarded Hal narrowly through half shut eyes, in which defiance lurked, ready to burst forth on provocation. Hal read his man, choked down his feelings, considered that an open break was not yet to be afforded, and to make the matter in which he yielded seem a trifle, said, quietly:
"My commands were too narrow, Anthony. So that you ride behind me, one side of the road will do as well as another. The fault was mine, Captain Rumney."