said Sir Harry, thoughtfully. "Are you sure that she
could hear distinctly?"

"One can hear in her room talk in our garden as well as if it was in the
room," replied John.

"Well! you are a good lad, well intentioned," said Sir Harry. "Here's
half-a-crown to pay your journey back. We will consider what is to be
done."

John had rather not have taken the half-crown, but he did not know how
to say so, so he pulled his forelock and accepted it.

Captain Carbonel came out of the coffee-room with him, and called to the
hostler to let him lie down and rest for a couple of hours, when the Red
Rover would change horses there, and then call him, and pay for his
journey back to Poppleby.

So John lay down on clean straw and slept, too much tired out to put
thoughts together, and unaware of the discussion among the gentlemen.
For Sir Harry Hartman was persuaded that it was Delafield that needed
protection, and was inclined to make little of John Hewlett's warning,
thinking that it rested on the authority of a sick nervous woman, and
that there was no distinct evidence but that of the young man who would
not speak out, and only went by hearsay.

Captain Carbonel, who was, of course, in an agony to get home and defend
his property, but was firmly bound by his notions of discipline, argued
that the lad was the son of the most disaffected man in the parish, and
that his silence was testimony to the likelihood that his father was
consulting with the ringleader. The invalid woman he knew to be
sensible and prudent, and most unlikely either to mistake what she
heard, or to send her nephew on such a night journey without urgent
cause, and he asked permission to go himself, if the troop were wanted
elsewhere, to defend his home. Finally, just as the debate was warming
between the officers, a farmer came in from Delafield, and assured them
that all was quiet there. So the horses were brought out, and there was
much jingling of equipments, and Johnnie awoke with a start of dismay.
He had never thought of such doings. He had only thought of Captain
Carbonel's riding home, never of bringing down what seemed to him a
whole army on his father.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

JACK SWING.

"Richard of England, thou hast slain Jack Straw,
But thou hast left unquenched the vital spark
That set Jack Straw on fire."
_Sir H. Taylor_.

Nobody knew who Jack Swing was. Most likely he really was more than one
person, or rather an