“Not at all, Mr. Bristow, not at all. Not requisite, I assure you,” said Sir Harry, hastily. “You alighted from the dog-cart,” resumed Tom. “Your son got down after you, and you gave him one of the side-lamps to hold while you did your best to mend the broken trace. As you got into the trap again, the church clock at Leyland chimed the quarter. ‘We shall be very late home, father,’ said your son. ‘Mamma will have given us up long ago.’ What you answered I did not hear, but next moment you were driving away again as hard as you could, as if to make up for lost time, And now, gentlemen, I hope you will agree with me that it was a sheer impossibility for the man who was a witness of this incident to have been at that very moment in Duxley gaol assisting a prisoner to escape.” “Mr. Bristow, not another word,” cried Sir Harry. “I regret exceedingly that you were ever called upon for any such explanation. Mr. Culpepper and I are going to have luncheon in five minutes. Will you do me the favour of joining us?” “This will be something to tell Jane when I get home,” said the squire with a chuckle. “I believe you are a prime favourite with my Jenny,” he added, turning to Tom. So Tom lunched at the White Bear with Sir Harry and the squire, and parted from them afterwards on the best of terms. But Mr. Drayton, although staggered by Tom’s statement, was by no means convinced in his own mind of the latter’s innocence. “Artful—very,” was his muttered comment as he left the room. “But hang me if I don’t think he’s been bamboozling Sir Harry all the way through.” And Mr. Drayton was not far wrong in his supposition. Tom _had_ put the clock at his lodgings half-an-hour back, and had purposely called his landlady’s particular attention to the time of his arrival at home, knowing well how such evidence would tell in his favour should worthy Mrs. Potts ever be called upon to give it. As for the incident of the broken trace, Tom had obtained his knowledge of that quite by accident. As he was taking a country ramble the day after the escape, a sudden thunder-shower drove him for shelter into a little roadside public-house. He sat down and called for some refreshment. While waiting for the rain to abate, his attention was attracted by the conversation of two labouring men who were sitting on the opposite side of the partition against which he was seated. One of the two men was recounting some incident to his companion, with all that particularity as to time and place, and the actual words overheard, which, not unfrequently, makes the narrations of uneducated persons so thoroughly vivid and life-like. The man, it appeared, was on his way home, and had stopped to rest awhile in the dark part of the road, when Sir Harry’s dog-cart drove up. Then came the sudden halt and the after-incidents, exactly as told by Tom at second-hand from the man.