Dick heard. He was lost! Quick as lightning terror woke the desire for escape at any cost. He slipped the horses' bridles over the gate-post, ran into the stables softly, passed through a door at the back, raced down a meadow, and hot, sick, with a wildly-beating heart, crouched under some bushes out of sight. He was sure the officers had recognized him, and that their chief had sent them to the Seven Thorns on purpose to arrest him, whereas their orders merely were to attach anyone at the inn, so that he might be questioned as to the Puritans' movements, which, it was supposed, were well known there. Dick lay still until he recovered his breath, and then ran away aimlessly across the fields till he was tired, pausing every now and then to listen for pursuit. He soon felt a lack--the lack of even the one piece of bread that would have been his breakfast at the inn. Being sure he was not followed, he lay down to rest under a budding chestnut-tree, and fell asleep. He woke fancying Master Tomlinson was whipping him, and found the rain beating his bare neck and legs. His only clothing consisted of a fragmentary shirt, and breeches that would have disgraced a scarecrow. Mistress Tomlinson had taken away the shoes and stockings she had lent him for the winter, saying, now spring had come, he had no need to wear out good woollen hose and leather shoes. A forlorn little object, with a cough that belied the good lady's opinion about warm clothing, he wandered over the country through the pouring rain. There was no road where he went, and he came to neither farm nor cottage. Cold and wet and hungry he had often been at the inn, and to-day he was neither struck nor scolded. There was no work to do, and if only there were some shelter to be found, he could lie down again and go to sleep. He thought very much of Giles as he wandered on. At the inn he had never had one moment for dreaming, but now he remembered all that had happened at Dent, and all that Giles and he had talked about. But thinking did not satisfy hunger. The thought of a piece of dry crust and an onion, or, may be, a piece of cold bacon, made his mouth water, and as his strength failed him he cried bitterly for food. He was more faint and tired and wretched than he had ever been, even on the worst day at the inn. In his ignorance of death, thinking it would come very quickly, worn out and broken spirited he lay down towards evening to wait for it.