Meantime, upon the turret roof I was enduring very tediously the flight of these anxious minutes. The spot we used to call the Crow's Nest is marked plain to the unaided eye by a gap in the woods that cover the low ridge of hills along which runs the road Exeter way from Holroyd Grange. This break in the line of trees did I watch, it may be, for no more than ten minutes; but if it be remembered that I knew not yet what was the end of the struggle in the hall, that a thousand accidents suggested by the active mind to the unwilling heart might delay or prevent Philip's keeping of his promise, and that even if his coming availed to restore Ned to the favor of His Highness, my brother must himself run great risk at his enemies' hands, it will be found little surprising that those minutes were to me tense, full, and slow-footed as so many hours. At length in the gap appeared something--a horse was it, or a cow? Certainly there was no man upon its back. But it stopped in the open space. For at least the fiftieth time I raised to my eye the old spy-glass Ned had given so many years ago to his little friend, and with its aid I could now see that it was indeed a horse, with a man that led it by the bridle, and seemed, I thought, to be gazing toward me. I laid down the glass, and in a passionate desire by some means to signify to him the need there was that he should with haste cover the three miles that lay between us of broken country, I seized the cords that held the flag aloft, and, loosing that which passes through the little pulley atop from the pin to which it was fast, I pulled first on the one and then on the other cord in such wise that I made the banner run down and up the mast again and again like a flag gone mad. And then once more through the glass I saw the man leap upon the back of his horse, wave his hat to my signal, and disappear behind the trees the way he had come. And I knew then that he would not be long; for he had gone the way to take the shortest track to Drayton, and Philip, though he had no love of horses, could, like all his family, ride when he pleased both fearlessly and well. I left the flag flying, and descended the winding stair with heart much lightened, to meet at its foot my father. "He is coming, sir," I cried. "Philip is coming! I have seen him."