"I cannot find my master," she said. "He will be in the gardens somewhere. Will you not come in and wait?" For a moment Rosmore hesitated, and then dismounted. He called to two or three men to come with him. "If you see him coming tell him we are within," he said to the others. "Now, my girl, we will see if we can find your master," and he caught her roughly by the arm. "Where is he hiding, eh?" "Hiding?" "Yes, pretty innocence; and unless you tell me quickly I shall have to bare these shoulders of yours and see what the taste of a whip can accomplish." At that moment there was a shout from the men without, and Rosmore rushed back to them. A horseman had suddenly ridden from the stables at the far end of the house. "Where's that scoundrel Rosmore?" he cried. "He would take Crosby of Lenfield, would he? Well, now is his chance; and in taking him he will capture an even more notorious person, whom, rumour says, he has long desired to meet." "Now I know!" Rosmore exclaimed as he flung himself into the saddle. "After him, and shout, all of you, to put the men in the woods on the alert." The horseman turned and galloped across the park in a slanting direction. "Don't ride too close, Rosmore," he shouted over his shoulder, "for I seldom miss the mark I aim at." He suddenly altered his course. It was deftly done, and served to gain him a few yards on his pursuers. "To the right and left to cut him off!" cried Rosmore. "We have him. The chase is over before it has well begun." Well might he say so, for the fugitive was galloping straight towards a stiff fence that few horses would face and few horsemen would hazard their necks over. He turned again and laughed, but rode straight on. The next moment, with inches to spare, the gallant animal had cleared the fence and dropped into the wood beyond. A cry of wonder came from the men who were following him, a curse from Lord Rosmore, for the rider was the highwayman Galloping Hermit, and wore the brown mask. CHAPTER IX "THE JOLLY FARMERS" For a few moments the very daring of the leap paralysed the hunters. The man had surely gone to his death, preferring an end of this sort to the one that most surely awaited him if he were captured. They had looked to see horse and rider crash downwards to destruction, or perchance fall backwards to be crushed and maimed past all healing; but when neither of these things happened a cry of astonishment, not unmingled with admiration, burst from a dozen throats. The shouting had brought men running from the other sides of the house; a few of them were in time to see the leap accomplished and to realise that Galloping Hermit had been in their midst; others saw only a straggling group of horsemen at fault, and looked in vain for the reason of the shouting. Lord Rosmore himself was too surprised to give orders as quickly as he might have done, and made up for the delay by swearing roundly at everybody about him.