"Am I much hurt?" he inquired with a look of intense agony upon his brow.
"Bruised and stunned, I think, that is all. Ha, here they come;" and, as he suddenly stopped speaking, the sound of the replying horns could be distinctly heard, and within a few minutes, from different quarters, over walls and fences, the horsemen came riding in by ones and twos until at last there numbered a full dozen.
"Oh!" groaned De la Zouch, loudly, "it is painful, cannot you relieve me?"
"Where is Sir George Vernon?" inquired Sir Everard; "have none of you seen him of late?"
No one had, but they had all blown their horns, so he was sure to be in soon.
De la Zouch shuddered at the mention of the King of the Peak—he was hardly himself again as yet, but he was fast rallying, and by the time that the baron arrived he was quite ready to meet him.
"Heigho! found at last;" exclaimed the baron, as he made his way through the group. "But whom have we here; tush, where is my Doll?"
De la Zouch, for answer, began to play his game, and he only replied to the query with a deceitful and prolonged groan.
"Where's my Dorothy?" impatiently repeated the baron, disregarding the agonised look which met his gaze.
"There—miles on," gasped Sir Henry, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, and pointing along the road by which he had just travelled; and then, as if the effort had been too much for him, he fell back panting upon the turf.