“Yes, I wish heartily we were at home.” “We might as well wish for the queen’s diamonds.” And here it was both the girls started, for a very distinct tapping came at the window. They were still trembling when the tapping was renewed, and a weak old voice cried, “Cousin--cousin.” Perhaps Lady Henrietta never heard the old lord’s voice with less dislike than now. She opened the casement herself, and Tristam jumped in as lightly as possible. Joy! their imprisonment was at an end. But--but the lady Henrietta seemed a little sorry to go. Indeed, when she had stepped lightly through the window-case, she half hesitated, as though she would turn back; but the impetuous Nancy in a measure drove her forward, and the next moment she was galloping away from the farm on her horse’s back, kindly brought by his lordship; but--but her thoughts were at the farm. My Lord Tristam in making his hurried exit from the people’s place, overturned a table; and barely had he reached the ground through the window, when Lionel was up and preparing to enter the room where the spinning machines stood. He tapped at her door--no answer. Again he tapped--no answer. Then he called Plunket, who came stormily into the room, but when he heard that the servants made no answer, he was alarmed, for he felt friendly towards the troublesome Betsy, and he flung the room door open. Empty! Then--the window was open! He went to it; listened! and sure enough in the distance he, and Lionel too, heard the sound of horses’ feet, and at one and the same moment each felt a blank at his heart. Lionel fell upon a chair overwhelmed, like a youth deeply in love as he was, but stout farmer Plunket, boiling with rage, called out in a voice of thunder to his farm servants; and when these people came hurrying in, he promised a golden guinea to the two men who should catch the runaways, and he then set to work, to earn his own guinea by a search after Nancy; but he and the men did not dream of that fugitive being within the walls of “the castle,” and they passed the mighty building, and went on hunting, long after Martha, Betsy, and John were safely housed. CHAPTER IV. Plunket had a heart, and had perhaps been inclined to bestow it upon Nancy, for this kind of thing is catching; but the jade had flown, Plunket was not the man to go about filling the air with big sighs--he set to work, drinking beer, and plenty of it, and singing jolly songs. After all, farmer Plunket was wise. Now, on the other hand, Lionel actually went melancholy mad. Not three days after the catastrophe, Plunket was out in the woods humming away, when he came up against--Betsy; and in quite a grand hunting costume. She was as full of presence of mind as of sauciness. She stared at the man with lazy curiosity. In a dozen strong words he told her she was his servant, and the sheriff should decide it.