Sir Humphrey Challoner had thought the matter well out, and knew that he ran two distinct risks in the matter of the letters. To one he had alluded just now when he spoke of the probability—remote perhaps—of the packet being accidentally unearthed by one of the scouring parties. Any man who found it would naturally at once take it to Squire West, in the hope of getting the reward promised by her ladyship for its recovery. The idea, therefore, of leaving the letters in their hiding-place for awhile did not commend itself to him. On the other hand, there was the more obvious risk of keeping them about his own person. Sir Humphrey thanked his stars that he had not done so the day before, and even now kept in his mind a certain superstitious belief that Beau Brocade—wounded, hunted and desperate—would make a final effort, which might prove successful, to wrench the letters from him on the Heath. CHAPTER XXVII JOCK MIGGS’S ERRAND Master Mittachip had tried to utter one or two feeble protests, but Sir Humphrey had interrupted him emphatically,— "The rascal may hope to win his pardon through the Gascoyne influence, by rendering her ladyship this service. Where’er he may be at this moment, I am quite sure that his eye is upon me and my doings." Mittachip shuddered and closed his eyes: he dared not peer into the dark scrub beside him, and drew his horse in as close to Sir Humphrey’s as he could. "If you’re afraid, you lumbering old coward," added his Honour, "go back and leave me in peace. I’ll arrange my own affairs as I think best." But the prospect of returning to Brassington alone across this awful Heath sent Master Mittachip into a renewed agony of terror: though his noble patron seemed suddenly to have become uncanny in this inordinate lust for revenge, he preferred his Honour’s company to his own, and therefore made a violent effort to silence his worst fears. The Moor just now was comparatively calm: the shouts of the hunters and the yelping of the hound had altogether ceased; perhaps they had lost the scent. Another half-hour’s silent ride brought them to the spur of the hill, along the top of which ran the Wirksworth Road, and as they left the steep declivity behind them, their ears were pleasantly tickled by the welcome and bucolic sound of the bleating of sheep. "Your friend the shepherd seems to be at his post," quoth Sir Humphrey with a sigh of satisfaction. They were close to the point where on the previous night Lady Patience’s coach had come to a halt, and the next moment brought them in sight of the shepherd’s hut, with the pen beyond it, vaguely discernible in the gloom. Sir Humphrey gave the order to dismount. Master Mittachip, feeling more dead than alive, had perforce to obey. They tied their horses loosely to a clump of blackthorn by the roadside and then crept cautiously towards the hut.