A week passed ere I had sufficient strength to be able to sit up. Under the careful nursing of Mistress Heatherington my bodily hurts were healed, though the mental anguish of that terrible night still gripped me in a relentless grasp. It was on a Tuesday morning when Sir George came to the cottage to enquire how I progressed, and to tell me that he was taking me to the courthouse at Midhurst on the following Monday morning, should I be well enough to bear the journey. "Lad," he exclaimed, "I would I could fathom this mystery! Thy father’s slayer is no mean reaver or cutpurse; yet, though we have him safe by the heels, manacled and leg-ironed, and threaten him with the thumbscrews, never a word can be wrung from him. Was there ever a feud ’twixt thy sire and him?" I told the knight of the event that took place at the sign of the "Flying Bull", and of the meeting with the villain in the moonlit lane. Sir George listened attentively, and, proud of being privileged to talk to so exalted a personage as the wealthiest man for miles around Rake, I let my tongue run wild for the space of nigh on an hour. When I had finished, Sir George, who had never ceased to stroke his beard and play a tattoo with his fingers on the table, remained silent for a few minutes; then suddenly he exclaimed: "Holwick! Captain Slingsby of Monk’s Regiment of Horse! ’Tis passing strange, yet----" His remarks were cut short by the thunder of a horse’s hoofs, and a man suddenly burst in through the door and exclaimed breathlessly: "Oh, Sir George! Sir George!" "Well, sirrah?" But the man could only stammer out: "Oh, Sir George!" This was more than the choleric old knight could stand. "Don’t stand there babbling like a drunken mummer at Martinmas fair!" he shouted, with a round oath. "Deliver thy message, dolt!" "Oh, Sir George! The murderer Joyce hath escaped!" With another furious outburst the knight rushed out of the room, mounted his horse, and, followed by his two servants and the messenger of ill-tidings, rode furiously down the road to Midhurst, the noise of the horses’ hoofs clattering on the frosty road testifying to the speed at which they were urged. News travels apace, and in less than an hour it was all over our village that Joyce had by some means obtained a file, cut through his fetters, and, after a murderous attack on his jailer, had broken out of Midhurst Jail, and was last seen making his way towards the bleak Sussex Downs. My father had already been laid to rest in the quiet little churchyard of Trotton, and on making an examination of the little house where we dwelt, his will was discovered. The reading of this will, though of little interest to me (on account, I now suppose, of my youth), was the occasion of an assembly of many of the friends of my father, the number surprising me; for, though highly respected, he was not one who was fond of associating with our neighbours.