d drove on thus with his prisoner to
the county-town. Arrived there, he lodged her in the police-station, and
then took immediate steps for the capture of Manston.

XX. THE EVENTS OF THREE HOURS

1. MARCH THE TWENTY-THIRD. MIDDAY

Thirty-six hours had elapsed since Manston's escape.

It was market-day at the county-town. The farmers outside and inside
the corn-exchange looked at their samples of wheat, and poured them
critically as usual from one palm to another, but they thought and spoke
of Manston. Grocers serving behind their counters, instead of using
their constant phrase, 'The next article, please?' substituted, 'Have
you heard if he's caught?' Dairymen and drovers standing beside the
sheep and cattle pens, spread their legs firmly, readjusted their hats,
thrust their hands into the lowest depths of their pockets, regarded the
animals with the utmost keenness of which the eye was capable, and said,
'Ay, ay, so's: they'll have him avore night.'

Later in the day Edward Springrove passed along the street hurriedly and
anxiously. 'Well, have you heard any more?' he said to an acquaintance
who accosted him.

'They tracked him in this way,' said the other young man. 'A vagrant
first told them that Manston had passed a rick at daybreak, under
which this man was lying. They followed the track he pointed out
and ultimately came to a stile. On the other side was a heap of
half-hardened mud, scraped from the road. On the surface of the heap,
where it had been smoothed by the shovel, was distinctly imprinted the
form of a man's hand, the buttons of his waistcoat, and his watch-chain,
showing that he had stumbled in hurrying over the stile, and fallen
there. The pattern of the chain proved the man to have been Manston.
They followed on till they reached a ford crossed by stepping-stones--on
the further bank were the same footmarks that had shown themselves
beside the stile. The whole of this course had been in the direction
of Budmouth. On they went, and the next clue was furnished them by a
shepherd. He said that wherever a clear space three or four yards wide
ran in a line through a flock of sheep lying about a ewe-lease, it was a
proof that somebody had passed there not more than half-an-hour earlier.
At twelve o'clock that day he had noticed such a feature in his flock.
Nothing more could be heard of him, and they got into Budmouth. The
steam-packet to the Channel Islands was to start at eleven last night,
a