"Keep quiet!" I said, sharply. "There's trouble abroad somewhere!"
"Oh, Mr. Cardigan," called Mount, softly, "Sir Timerson and a gang o' cudgels is coming up Pitt Street and Bully Bishop's with them!"
The girl turned her frightened face to me:
"They came for father to take Jack Mount; I ran out the back door, sir. Oh, hasten! hasten!" she wailed, looking at Mount and wringing her hands.
The big fellow stooped from his saddle and deliberately kissed her.
"Thank you, my dear," he said; "I'll come back for another before I die. Au large, Jimmy! Up with you, Mr. Cardigan!"
"Turn those horses! Take their heads!" whispered Rolfe. "There's one back way tew every mews, and half a dozen to this!"
The next moment I had wheeled the chaise-and-four back into the darkness and around a rambling row of sheds and stables, following Rolfe, then to the left, then a demi-tour to the right, which brought us up against a heavy stockade. But already Rolfe had set a creaking gate swinging loosely, and we bumped out into a field, hub-deep in buttercups.
"I'll keep the scratch-wigs amused," whispered Rolfe, as I climbed to the forward seat and picked up my rifle; and away we jolted across the star-lit pasture and out into a narrow, unlighted cattle lane, which we followed to the bars. These Shemuel let down, popping back into the chaise like a jack-o'-box, and Mount rode our horses out into the dark Boundary Road.
There was not a soul to be seen, not a light, not a sound but the hum of our turning wheels and the slapping trot of our horses.