The Scout shimmered in the heat, and spots of red straggled here and there among the bracken and birches and teazels. Besides these, many dark figures moved and clustered, Wadsworth men, Horwick men, men from Booth and Brotherton and Back o’ th’ Mooin. Down in the village the search-parties slowly ascended the street and began in the square and the houses that stood back; and Cope still gnawed at his finger in the yellow chaise, now and then striking the wood with his fist in his mortification. At two o’clock Captain Ritchie approached him. “When what is in progress is concluded, there only remains the Parsonage,” he announced. “Then search it, can’t ye?” cried Cope, with an oath. “What d’ye think you’re here for--to talk?” The officer drew himself up. “I would remind you, Mr. Cope, that you’re not addressing a trooper,” he said stiffly; and Cope spluttered and spat. “O--my--dear--God!... Is this a time for your airs and dignities? Will you make dainty with your seminary manners when--aaaah!” The left-hand lamp-glass of the yellow chaise was shattered by a bullet. The candle leaped out, cut in two. Echoes were following the report, and a puff of smoke drifted slowly along the edge of the Scout. Captain Ritchie sprang aside. “Fire as you are!” he ordered; “mind the others----”; and, save for a figure that was seen running far along the skyline, every man on the face of the Scout had dropped for cover. The muskets came up as if for birds; quick dropping shots rang out; and sharp cracks from the soldiers up the Scout seemed to answer them like echoes. “Draw this chaise to one side,” said Cope, biting at his finger again. Captain Ritchie strode up the lane to the parson’s house and knocked loudly at the door. The parson himself answered the knock. “You know whom it is we seek?” the officer said curtly. The parson inclined his head. “We must be assured of your house also. It is my desire to respect your cloth----” The parson returned his steady look. “I take that to mean that, on my word, you are willing to forego a search?” “Yes.” The parson lied like a layman, without a quiver. “I pass it you,” he said; and immediately the officer retired. By half-past two the searching of Wadsworth was completed. It was much that a chaise had got as far as Wadsworth; legs alone could clear the Scout. A man was despatched with a couple of horses to strike the Causeway lower down the valley and then to wait on the heights, and Cope descended from the chaise with the broken lamp-glass. At that, out stepped the parson from his house, and earnestly besought him to remain behind. “Look!” he cried, pointing up the Scout, that seemed to crawl with ascending figures, “and not a man among them but bears you the worst will in the world! If not for your own safety, yet to save these from a deadly sin----” Cope struck at the air with his hand.