To use a sporting phrase, Ponto immediately “stood;” he threw himself into an attitude that even Saul, as he departed, pronounced to be beautiful. His eye was keenly fixed upon Abel; the roots of his ears were elevated and brought forward; one of his fore-legs was held up, and curved so that the claws nearly touched his body; his tail no longer curled, but stood out straight on a level with his back; every muscle in his frame seemed, as it were, to be upon the alert; he appeared on the point of making a spring forward; but no statue ever stood more motionless on its pedestal, than Ponto did over the prostrate and terrified constable.
Braintree lost no time after he left the room which had been his temporary prison: he descended cautiously to the ground-floor, and versed as he had been in his boyhood, and for several years after time had written man upon his brow, in the topography of the old Hall, he easily found an outlet, and escaped without creating any alarm.
In a paddock adjoining the pleasure-grounds of the Hall, he caught a horse, which had been turned out on account of a sand-crack; twisted a hazel, from the hedge, into a halter and mouthpiece; leaped the fence; and, in less than half an hour, by dint of hard galloping across the country,—clearing every thing as though he was riding a steeple-chase,—Saul reached his own cottage. Meg and her daughter were still up, the wife weeping, and the child praying for Saul's safe deliverance. He beat at the door, and Meg clasped the girl to her breast and exclaimed, “Oh! what now?—what now? They're surely coming for thee, Peggy. They'll leave me to murder myself—childless!”
“Open the door, Meg—my own Meg!” said Saul, without; “'tis I, Meg;—thy poor Zaul.”
Braintree was soon by his own hearth, with his wife and daughter weeping and hanging round his neck.
“Well, and how is it, Saul?” inquired Meg, as soon as she could find utterance.
“Art discharged, father?” said Peggy.
“No, child,” replied Saul; “I be 'scaped! I shouldn't ha' zeen thee, wench, nor thy mother neither, but whoam laid in my road. I be zafe yet till day-light, if Ponto's as true as I've a' zeen un avore now. But I shouldn't zay if vor I be zure ov un.”
In reply to the inquiries of his wife, Said briefly related the result of his conversation with Martin, the manner of his escape from old Abel, and his intention to fly the country for ever, if he could. “Not,” added he, “that I think they could bring aught whoam to me, upon trial; though I didn't think zo, when I were tied up by a rope to a chimney-bar, in the Hall; but now it ztrikes I, there wouldn't be much danger ov my getting acquitted—and vor why?—It's clear the man were killed by one—not two. Now, if Bob's vound guilty, I must be turned out innocent; and guilty a' will be vound, or else I've blundered blessedly.”
“Heavens above us, Saul! what d'ye mean?” cried Meg. Braintree now frankly told his wife the circumstances relative to Robert's shoes; and concluded, with a forced smile, sighing deeply as he spoke,—“And zo, the young un be nicked for no-man's-land, wi'out a bit of a doubt;—that be certain, I reckon.”