"There can be no doubt of him, for he was one of the prisoners that got away," said Captain Carbonel, in a repressive manner. "He has always been a mischievous fellow; but the remarkable thing is that it was his son who came to summon us this morning--John Hewlett, a very good, steady lad. By-the-by, has any one seen him? I sent him home by the Elchester coach. I wonder what has become of him." CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. MISJUDGED. "That weary deserts we may tread, A dreary labyrinth may thread, Through dark ways underground be led." _Archbishop Trench_. Poor Johnnie was not very happy at that moment. He had descended from the coach at Poppleby, and set out to walk to Downhill, wondering how he should be received at his cousin's workshop. Everything seemed strangely quiet as he crossed the fields, where he had wandered last night, but there were now and then far-off echoes of voices and shouts. He avoided the village of Downhill, and made his way towards the little street and common of Uphill, but not a creature could he see except Todd's donkey and a few geese. The workshop was shut up, no one was about either there or at the house. He considered a moment whether to try to see what was doing at Greenhow, or to go and tell his aunt how he had fared, and that he knew the captain must be at home by this time. He was glad he had decided on the latter, for the cottage door stood open, and Judith was sitting up in bed, her eyes wide open, and her breath panting with anxiety and terror. "Oh, Johnnie, my dear! There you are! Oh, they are all gone! The ladies, the dear ladies, and the little babies," she gasped, and fell back almost fainting. "The captain is there by this time, and the soldiers, never you fear," said John. "Here, you'd better take this," trying to drop out some of the cordial he knew she took in her attacks. "The soldiers! Your father--your poor father!" she gasped again, and she was so ill that John, dreadfully frightened, could only hold her up on one arm, and press the cordial to her lips with the other hand. It was an overdose, but that hardly mattered; and before very long, just as she was beginning to quiet down, there approached a fresh sound of screaming, and his mother burst into the house. "Oh, my poor man! My poor Dan!" she cried. "They have got him! The soldiers have got him!" and, as John was laying down his aunt to come and hear, she rushed up the stairs with, "And it is all your doing, you unnatural, good-for-nothing varmint! That was what you were after all night, you and your aunt, the adder that I have warmed at my bosom! Turning against your own poor father, to set them bloody-minded soldiers on him! And now he'll be taken and hanged, and I shall be a poor miserable widow woman all along of you!"