“I must be at the mill before daybreak to-morrow having something of importance to attend to, so I will sleep on the squab in the house-place, Mrs. Hulme, and if I am not in for breakfast, do not wait for me,” said he; and no one questioned him, although Mrs. Hulme and her husband were of joint opinion that “Jabez looked terribly put eawt,” and wondered what business he could have on hand of so much consequence. No one thought of locking country cottage doors. By nine o’clock all the inmates were in bed and asleep. Before ten Jabez, sad at heart, had quietly left the cottage for the mill, had saddled Peveril, and, though no great horseman, was speeding past the “White Hart” along the highway to Manchester, fast as the steady-going roadster would travel. The wind had risen, and the rain came down persistently; but heedless of discomfort or danger, with the one thought paramount in his mind—the preservation of his master’s daughter—he set his teeth and rode on with a feverish impatience, which at length communicated itself to Peveril, and quickened the beat of the sensible animal’s hoof; impatience which would have sent him flying over the toll-gates, had either he or his steed been equal to the exploit, and which could barely brook the delay of drowsy toll-keepers. Nevertheless as he turned from Piccadilly into Mosley Street, the muffled-up old watchman, catching the echoes of the Infirmary clock, bawled out, to mark his own vigilance, “Just one o’clock, an’ a dark rainy neet!” and the Ashton household had closed its eyelids, and its account with the day, at least a couple of hours. It is never pleasant to be the bearer of ill-tidings, so no wonder Jabez hesitated with the lion-headed knocker in his hand ere he sent its reverberations growling through the silent house. His hesitation must have influenced the knocker, for the lion had to roar again, and louder, before he heard the window above unclose, and saw Mr. Ashton’s night-capped head thrust out, to ask, in alarm, “Who’s there? What’s the matter?” Jabez stepped back to the kerbstone to let the dull rays of an oil lamp fall upon his face. “It is I, Jabez Clegg, sir; I have a matter of importance to communicate.” “Good heavens, Clegg, you! Surely the mill’s not been burned down?” “No, sir, all’s right at the factory. There’s no harm done anywhere at _present_. If you will please to come down, I hope there may be time to prevent that which is threatened.” “Just so, I’ll be down directly.” There were no lucifer-matches with which to procure instantaneous light, but during this brief colloquy, Mrs. Ashton had been groping on the tall chimney-piece for their precursors the Prometheans, and having found them, by dipping a small chemically prepared match into a tiny bottle of fluid, she obtained a light as soon as the window was closed and the draught shut out.