"This was the way of it being all right, sir! You see I knowed, when I heard you were going to ride to this old church, as you couldn't get the horses through this thicket, but would have to turn them loose, to find their way home. And I knowed how if any other eyes 'cept mine saw them, it would set people to axing questions. So I goes out to the road, and watches till I sees 'em coming; when I takes charge of 'em, and gets 'em into the stable quiet, and no one the wiser." "Well done, Joe! But tell me, my good man, are we missed yet? Has any one inquired for us?" "Plenty has axed arter you both, Marse! But as no one but me and Capping Pendulum knowed where you was gone, and as I locked your door, and took the key, most of the folks still think as how Miss Sybil has gone to bed, overcome by the ewents of the night, and as how you is a watching by her, and a taking care of her." "That also is well." "But, Marse, how is Miss Sybil, and where is she?" inquired the faithful servant, looking about himself. "She is very much prostrated by fatigue and excitement, and is now sleeping in the church." "Thanks be to the Divine Marster as she _can_ sleep," said Joe, reverently. "And now," he continued, as he replaced it on his head, "I will kindle a fire and make the coffee, and may be she may wake up by the time it is ready." "Kindle a fire out here, Joe! Will not the smoke be seen, and lead to our discovery?" inquired Lyon Berners, glancing at the slender column of smoke from the fire in the church, that he himself had kindled, and now for the first time struck with the sense of the danger of discovery to which it might have exposed Sybil. "Lord, Marse!" replied Joe, showing his teeth, "we are too far off from any human being for any eye to see our smoke. And even if it wasn't so, bless you, there are so many mists rising from the valley this morning, that one smoke more or less wouldn't be noticed." "That is true," admitted Mr. Berners. Meanwhile Joe busied himself with lighting a fire. When it was burning freely, he took the kettle and filled it from the little stream that flowed through the church-yard. "Now, Marse Lyon, in about ten minutes I will set you down to as good a breakfast, almost, as you could have got at home," said Joe, as he raised three cross-sticks over the fire, and hung the kettle over the blaze, gipsy fashion. While Joe was at work, Mr. Berners went into the church to look after Sybil. She was still sleeping the heavy sleep of utter mental and bodily prostration. For a few minutes he stood contemplating her with an expression of countenance full of love and pity, and then after adjusting the covering over her, and collecting together the brands of the expiring fire to light up again, he left the church. On going outside, he found that Joe had spread a cloth and arranged a rude sort of picnic breakfast upon the ground.