The next minute Dick plunged in and disappeared in the darkness. On the farther side he dried himself down, according to Giles's direction, with a towel from the bundle, which he afterwards hid under a boulder, lest the Puritans should discover it and guess one of their birds had flown out of Dent. Then he dressed, dropped a pebble in the moat, and then, with a beating heart, very cold and very courageous, set off to find the field-path to Lumley. CHAPTER VII GILES'S MASTER Giles, left behind, pictured many adventures that might have befallen Dick in his two hours' walk in the dark, but he did not foresee--perhaps because he did not know the field-path to Lumley--what really befel. Clouds coming up about two o'clock hid the moon. In the darkness Dick missed the bridge that crossed the beck about a mile from the castle, and, having wandered some distance out of his way, found himself suddenly overshoes in a bog. He floundered out again and left a shoe behind--floundered in again to seek it--groped about, feeling the oozing mud over and round, but failed to discover it--finally, after much squelching and sucking of the mud, determined to leave it altogether. To walk in one shoe is not easy, to hop is most fatiguing. Dick hurled the left shoe into the swamp to keep the right one company, and set off to seek higher ground, his ardour undamped--that is, in comparison with his person. About an hour later it began to rain, first in light showers, then faster. Dick, coming into violent collision with a stone wall, crept under the lee of it to wait till the rain ceased, for in the darkness he was utterly lost. When the dawn began to grow gray he rose and looked about him. Just before him was a roofless barn, and beyond that the beck that he ought to have crossed higher up. Reflecting that he could not possibly be any wetter, Dick took off his stockings and waded in. The September morning was raw, and the water was cold. It was deep, too, and there were slippery stones at the bottom. Just as he sprang for the bank his foot slipped, and he fell back with a splash. Away floated his stockings unheeded, and when he emerged, wet, muddy, drabbled, bare-legged, scratched and bruised, he looked, in fact, an excellent companion for Giles in his rags. The King had his quarters in the manor-house at Lumley, and the Earl of Newcastle was in command of his army. Prince Rupert was there too, and very anxious to occupy the earl's place. A number of gentlemen were sitting at breakfast in their quarters--a small farm close to the manor--when a tall cavalry-officer came swaggering in, and, saluting, said with a laugh: "More news of Dent, so please you. Just being reported to my Lord of Newcastle, but I have the messenger here." "Bring him in," said the gentleman at the head of the table. The officer retired, and came back in a moment with a boy, bare-legged, and dirty, and torn. "Ho!" said the gentleman. "Who are you, my hedge-sparrow?"