"The noises? They matter not--they are nothing; you will not be further troubled, you need have no fear! Nevertheless," he said, stopping suddenly, and turning with his hands raised to face the household, "ye do well to fear, seeing that the day cometh when all shall fear, both great and small. Therefore I warn you to seek a sure refuge while it be time, and turn unto the Lord to-day; for those that be his saints dwell in safety, neither fear they any terror by night, and the pestilence that walketh in darkness shall not come nigh them." So saying, he walked out of the door. Half an hour later, the bright moon that lit up the open moorlands that bordered the sea showed two figures riding along the bridle-path that led from Hunstanton to Lynn. Audrey led the way, and guided her companion down lonely little bye-paths and sandy lanes that were seldom used, save by the few fishermen or broom-binders, who lived on the borders of the moorlands. It was one of those rare nights that sometimes come in an English February and carry with them the promise of May. The soft air brought wafts of fragrance from the balmy fir-woods and yellow gorse-blossoms, and the full moon shed a golden haze over the lonely heath. They rode in silence, the horses' hoofs scarcely making a sound on the sandy way. Mr. Rogers was still wrapt in dreams. Eager as he was to assist any one whom he considered was the victim of tyranny or cruelty, as soon as the immediate need of action ceased to press on him, he relapsed naturally into his habitual train of thought and returned to that visionary world that was far more real to him than the material one that lay around him. The spiritual powers of evil, and the human persecutors of the Fifth Monarchy men, rose marshalled before him in the one great host that followed the dragon, mustering for the final conflict of Armageddon; and to his vivid enthusiasm there could be but a little time to wait before that conflict must end in the crowning victory of the saints, and the establishment on earth of the visible kingdom of Christ--the last and greatest of the monarchies of the world. He rode on, his head raised, his light hair floating back from his ecstatic face, riding, as he ever hoped it might be, to join the host of angelic horsemen, who might appear to him at any moment. To Audrey, that night-ride seemed the strangest thing she had ever known. The silent, hazy landscape, the flood of golden moonlight, her own wild fears and resentments so suddenly stilled. It seemed to her as though the words she caught from time to time, half-chanted by her companion, were less strange and dreamlike than the events that were passing around her. Silently Audrey led the way. Mile after mile they rode, now threading a cautious way through the dark aisles of the fir-woods, and then making better time on the delicate turf that bordered the waste of sand-hills to seaward.