Many a time, after becoming her guest, did he regret having passed on, and beyond Gloucester, to seek an asylum in Bristol. But he was in Bristol now, he and his; and how to get out of it was not a mere question of inconvenience, but a matter of great difficulty, attended with danger. Though not so close to the door, after that 7th of March night, the wolves were still without, on the roads--ravening everywhere. CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. THE NIGHT OWL. The conspiracy having been nipped in the bud, and the conspirators in prison, Bristol again breathed freely. The approaches to it were once more open, the thwarted Royalists having withdrawn to a distance; so that Jerky Jack might have made the return trip to Gloucester with a despatch stuck in the band of his hat safe as it inside his wooden leg. But swifter messengers traversed that road now, cleared of the enemy at both ends, and on both sides of the river Severn. He who had effected this clearance was Sir William Waller, jocularly styled "William the Conqueror," from the succession of victories he had late achieved. Also was he known as the "Night Owl;" a sobriquet due to his habit of making nocturnal expeditions that oft took the Royalists by surprise. No Crophead he, but a Cavalier in the true sense; a very Paladin--withal a Christian gentleman. He had separated from slow-going Lord General, and made one of his bold dashes down to the shires bordering Wales; first relieving Gloucester, which was in a manner besieged by the Monmouthshire levies of Lord Herbert. The besiegers were not only brushed off, but the main body of them either killed or captured; only a scant residue escaping to their fastnesses beyond the Wye; whither the "Conqueror" followed, chastising them still further. Returning across the Forest of Dean, he outwitted the Royalist troops under Prince Maurice; and, once were setting face westward, raided through Herefordshire on to its chief city--which he captured, with a flock of foul birds that had been roosting there ever since its abandonment by the Parliamentarians under the silly Stamford. But the "Night Owl" himself was not the bird to remain long on perch anywhere; and, gathering up his captured game--a large bag, including some of Herefordshire's best blood, as the Scudamores, Conningsbys, and Pyes--he rounded back to Gloucester, and on to Bristol.