Under all the circumstances of the case, it will not, for an instant, be supposed that Dr. Rowel was set at liberty that night. For his own sake there was but one course to pursue, and that was, to detain him within the precincts of the castle, in order to ensure his safety, and on the morrow to convey him privately away at an hour too early for the public to be made aware of his departure. Afterwards the crowd outside, evincing no disposition to disperse, was driven away by the aid of the police. Some of them, however, disappointed in this, assembled again, almost as though by common consent, at some little distance outside the walls of the city, and nigh a convent of nuns, which stands by the side of the Leeds road. The cry here soon became “For Nabbfield!” The spirit of destruction had arisen amongst them, and the fierce threat of fire had succeeded that of blood. In the dead of night, under a black heaven that prevented almost anything being seen, a dense press of men moved rapidly but stealthily off along road, field, or farm, over river, fence, or garden, in a direction that offered the straightest line between York and Nabbfield. Scarcely a word was said, or an audible breath drawn, during this fearful march; though many were the heavy, pointed stakes drawn from the hedges in their path, many the rails and branches torn down, and converted silently into clubs, as they proceeded. The dire determination of mischief, mistaken for justice, which existed in more than a hundred breasts, seemed gathered into one fierce, dark power, hurrying headlong and irresistibly to its work of desolation, if not of death. Their outset had not been observed from the city; and none, save, perhaps, some late and solitary farm servant, peeping fearfully from her lighted window when the dog barked, and the tramp and crash were heard as they passed below, knew of them on their road; and even then a few minutes' wonder who they were, and what they were going to do, followed perhaps by a dream of farms on fire, or poaching conflicts in the woods, was all that ensued. But nobody followed them. Like a meteor that falls unseen when the world is asleep, that little band was only known to have been by the trail of destruction, the dint in the earth it left behind it. Once only in its course was it distinctly recognised. In the very heart, as it were, of deep and peaceful sleep, the Hall of Kiddal was startled by a great and prolonged shout beneath its walls--a huzza three times repeated from above a hundred tongues, in which the names of Woodruff, Lupton, and Colin were distinctly heard; and in the next moment all was again as still as though spirits had given birth to those sounds, and then fled upon the next blast that whistled by.