"At seven o'clock all must be ready," said Mr. Sharp, towards the close of a hurried conversation with Miss Patch, Grace Oglander being sent out of the way, according to established signal; "there is no time to lose, and no ladies' tricks of unpunctuality, if you please. We must have day-light for these horrid forest-roads, and time it so as to get into the London road about half-past eight. We must be in London by two in the morning; the horses, and all that will be forthcoming. Kit rides outside, and I follow on horse-back. Hannah, why do you hesitate?" "Because I cannot--I cannot go away, without having seen that Jesuit priest in the pig-net wallowing. It is such a grand providential work--the arm of the Lord has descended from heaven, and bound him in his own meshes. Luke, I beg you, I implore you--I can pack up everything in an hour--do not rob me of a sight like that." "Hannah, are you mad? You have never been allowed to go near that place, and you never shall!" "Well, you know best; but it does seem very cruel, after all the lack of grace I have borne with here, to miss the great Protestant work thus accomplished. But suppose that the child should refuse to come with us--we have no letters now, nor any other ministration." "We have no time now for such trumpery; we must carry things now with a much higher hand. Everything hangs upon the next few hours; and by this time to-morrow night all shall be safe: Kit and the girl gone for their honeymoon, and you sitting under the most furious dustman that ever thumped a cushion." "Oh, Luke, how can you speak as if you really had no reverence?" "Because there is no time for such stuff now. We have the strength, and we must use it. Just go and get ready. I must ride to meet my people. The girl, I suppose, is with Kit by this time. What a pair of nincompoops they will be!" "I am sure they will be a very pretty pair--so far as poor sinful exterior goes--and, what is of a thousand-fold more importance, their worldly means will be the means of grace to hundreds of our poor fellow-creatures, who, because their skin is of a different tint, and in their own opinion a finer one, are debarred----" "Now, Hannah, no time for that. Get ready. And mind that there must be no feminine weakness if circumstances should compel us to employ a little compulsion. Call to your mind that the Lord is with us; the sword of the Lord and of Gideon." Pleased with his knowledge of Holy Writ, he went to the place where his horse was tied, and there he found a man with a message for him, which he just stopped to hearken. "As loovin' as a pair o' toortle doves; he hath a-got her by the middle; as sweet as my missus were to me, afore us went to church togither!" Black George had been set to watch Kit and Gracie, during their private interview, lest any precaution should be overlooked.