Then once more, womanlike, she clung to him, hating to part from him even for a few hours. "In the meanwhile you will be prudent, Philip," she pleaded tenderly. "Trust _nobody_ but John Stich. _Any_ man may prove an enemy," she added with earnest emphasis, "and if you were found before I could reach the King..." She tore herself away from him. Her eyes now were swimming in tears, and she meant to seem brave to the end. Stich was urging her to hurry. After all she would see Philip again before sunset, before she started on the long journey which would mean life and safety to him. Two minutes later, having parted from her brother, Lady Patience Gascoyne entered her coach at the cross-roads, where Mistress Betty had been waiting for her ladyship with as much patience as she could muster. By the time Sir Humphrey Challoner’s coach had reached the bottom of the decline on the Hartington Road, and begun the weary ascent up to the blacksmith’s forge, Lady Patience’s carriage was well out of sight beyond the bend that led eastward to Aldwark village. CHAPTER VI A SQUIRE OF HIGH DEGREE The Challoners claimed direct descent from that Sieur de Challonier who escorted Coeur de Lion to the crusade against Saladin. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that a De Challonier figures in the Domesday Book, as owning considerable property in the neighbourhood of the Peak. That they had been very influential and wealthy people at one time, there could be no doubt. There was a room at Old Hartington Manor where James I. had slept for seven nights, a gracious guest of Mr Ilbert Challoner, in the year 1612. The baronetcy then conferred upon the family dates from that same year, probably as an act of recognition to his host on the part of the royal guest. Since that memorable time, however, the Challoners have not made history. They took no part whatever in the great turmoil which, in the middle of the seventeenth century, shook the country to its very foundations, lighting the lurid torch of civil war, setting brother against brother, friend against friend, threatening a constitution and murdering a king. The Challoners had held aloof throughout all that time, intent on preserving their property and in amassing wealth. The later conflict between a Catholic King and his Protestant people touched them even less. Neither Pretender could boast of a Challoner for an adherent. They remained people of substance, even of importance, in their own county, but nothing more. Sir Humphrey Challoner was about this time not more than thirty-five years of age. Hale, hearty, boisterous, he might have been described as a typical example of an English squire of those days, but for a certain taint of parsimoniousness, of greed and love of money in his constitution, which had gained for him a not too enviable reputation in the Midlands.