Thus saying, Ned Hayward turned away, and walked towards the town, without once looking back to see whether his late prisoner was or was not about to hit him a blow on the head. Perhaps had he known what was passing in worthy Mr. Gimlet's mind, he might have taken some precaution; for certainly that gentleman was considerably moved; but if the good and the bad spirit had a struggle together in his breast, the good got the better at length, and he exclaimed, "No, hang it, I won't," and with a slow and thoughtful step he walked up the stream again, towards the path which led to the moor. Upon that path I shall leave him, and begging the reader to get upon any favourite horse he may have in the stable--hobby or not hobby--canter gaily back again to take up some friends that we have left far behind. CHAPTER VII. Introduces Miss Slingsby to the Reader. The reader may remember that we left a lady and her daughter, whom Ned Hayward afterwards discovered to be a Mrs. and Miss Clifford, standing at the door of Sir John Slingsby's house, in the heart of what was called Tarningham Park. All that Ned Hayward (or the reader either) knew of their history at the moment that he quitted them, after having assisted them to alight from their carriage, was as follows: that the elder lady had been sent for to see her elder brother in his last moments, he having been accused of having gout in the stomach, and that she and her daughter had been stopped on the king's highway by three personages, two of whom, at least, had pistols with them, that they had been rescued by Captain Hayward himself, and another gentleman, that on arriving at Tarningham House it did not look at all like the dwelling of a dying man, and that the answer of the butler to Mrs. Clifford's inquiries regarding her brother's health was, "Quite well, thank you Ma'am," delivered in the most commonplace tone in the world. At the precise point of time when this reply was made, Ned Hayward took his leave, remounted his horse, and rode back to Tarningham, and after he was gone Mrs. Clifford remained for at least thirty seconds somewhat bewildered with what seemed to her a very strange announcement. When she had done being bewildered, and seemed to have got a slight glimpse of the real state of the case, she turned an anxious glance to her daughter, to which Miss Clifford, who fully understood what it meant, replied at once, without requiring to have it put into words, "You had better go in, dear mamma," she said, "it will grieve poor Isabella if you do not, and besides, it might be risking a great deal to go back at night with nobody to protect us."