Neither he nor Lady Patience could conjecture what had become of the letters. Sir Humphrey Challoner, after his woeful adventure in Brassington, had condescended to accept Squire West’s hospitality for the nonce. Stich had spied him in the course of the morning, walking in the direction of the village in close conversation with his familiar, Master Mittachip, attorney-at-law. In spite of the momentary respite in his anxiety, the smith felt that there lay still the real danger to Beau Brocade and to Lord Stretton. Moreover, by now he longed to see his friend and to learn how he’d fared. Vaguely in his honest heart he feared that the young man had succumbed on the Heath to pain and fatigue, and mayhap had failed to reach the forge. When he saw the entire population of Brassington busy with Jock Miggs, and the soldiers intent on the news from the Duke of Cumberland’s advance guard, he determined to set out for the crossroads, in the hopes of finding the Captain at the forge. He had just crossed the green and turned into the narrow bridle-path which led straight to his smithy, when he spied a yokel, dressed in a long smock and wearing a broad-brimmed hat, coming slowly towards him. The man was leaning heavily on a thick knotted stick and seemed to be walking with obvious pain and fatigue. Some unexplainable instinct caused the smith to wait awhile until the yokel came a little nearer. This corner of the village was quite deserted; the laughter of the folk assembled round the Royal George could be heard only as a distant echo from across the green. The next moment the smith uttered a quickly-suppressed cry of astonishment as he recognised Bathurst’s face underneath the broad-brimmed hat. "Sh! ... sh ... sh!" whispered the young man hurriedly—"her ladyship? ... can I see her?" "Yes! yes!" replied John, whose honest eyes were resting anxiously on his friend’s pallid face, "but you, Captain? ... you?..." He did not like to formulate the question, and Bathurst interrupted him quickly. "I’ve rested awhile at the forge, John ... your mother was an angel ... and now I want to see her ladyship." John’s honest heart misgave him. His friend’s fresh young voice sounded hoarse and unnatural, there was a restless, feverish glitter in his eyes, and the slender, tapering hand which rested on the stick trembled visibly. "You ought to be in bed, Captain," he muttered gruffly, "and well nursed too; you are ill..." "I am sufficiently alive, friend, at any rate to serve Lady Patience to the end." "I’ll go tell her ladyship," said the smith, with a sigh. "Say a man from the village would wish to speak with her.... Don’t mention my name, John ... she’ll not know me, I think.... ’Tis best that she should not.... And I look a miserable object enough, don’t I?" he added with a feeble laugh. "Her ladyship would command you to rest if she knew..."