Page 70 - A Jacobite Exile

"It is all over, Sir Marmaduke, and you are a free man. We have nothing to
do now but to ride for it."

And, before the knight had fairly recovered from his astonishment, he

found himself riding south across the moor, with his son on one side of
him, and Mr. Jervoise and Harry on the other.

"You have saved my life, Jervoise," he said, holding out his hand to his
friend. "They had got me so firmly in their clutches, that I thought my

chances were at an end.

"How are you, Charlie? I am right glad to see you, safe and sound, for they

had managed to include you in their pretended plot, and, for aught I knew,
you had been all this time lying in a cell next mine in Lancaster Castle.

"But who are the good fellows who helped you?"

Mr. Jervoise briefly gave an account of the affair.

"They are only keeping up a sham pursuit of the soldiers, so as to send
them well on their way. I told them not to overtake them, as there was no
occasion for any further bloodshed, when you were once out of their hands.

By tomorrow morning they will all be at work on their farms again, and, if
they keep their own counsel, need not fear."

Suddenly Sir Marmaduke reined in his horse.

"We are riding south," he said.

"Certainly we are," Mr. Jervoise said. "Why not? That is our only chance of
safety. They will, in the first place, suspect us of having doubled back to
the hills, and will search every farmhouse and cottage. Our only hope of

escape is to ride either for Bristol, or one of the southern ports."

"I must go back," Sir Marmaduke said doggedly. "I must kill that scoundrel
John Dormay, before I do anything else. It is he who has wound this