When Rupert leaped the palings and flew away over the field, he was totally incapable of self-government for the time being. I do not say this in extenuation. I say that such a state of things is lamentable, and ought not to be. I only state that it was so. The most passionate temper ever born with man _may_ be kept under, where the right means are used--prayer, ever-watchful self-control, stern determination; but how few there are who find the means! Rupert Trevlyn did not. He had no clear perception of what he had done; he probably knew he had thrust the blazing torch into the rick; but he gave no thought whatever to consequences, whether the hay was undamaged or whether it burst forth into a flame. He flew over the field as one possessed; he flew over a succession of fields; the high-road intervened, and he was passing over it in his reckless career, when he was met by Farmer Apperley. Not, for a moment, did the farmer recognise Rupert. "Hey, lad! What in the name of fortune has taken you?" cried he, laying his hand upon him. His face distorted with passion, his eyes starting with fury, Rupert tore on. He shook the farmer's hand off him, and pressed on, leaping the low dwarf hedge opposite, and never speaking. Mr. Apperley began to doubt whether he had not been deceived by some strange apparition--such, for instance, as the Flying Dutchman. He ran to a stile, and stood there gazing after the mad figure, which seemed to be rustling about without purpose; now in one part of the field, now in another: and Mr. Apperley rubbed his eyes and tried to penetrate more clearly the obscurity of the night. "It _was_ Rupert Trevlyn--if I ever saw him," decided he, at length. "What can have put him into this state? Perhaps he's gone mad!" The farmer, in his consternation, stood he knew not how long: ten minutes possibly. It was not a busy night with him, and he would as soon linger as go on at once to Bluck the farrier--whither he was bound. Any time would do for his orders to Bluck. "I can't make it out a bit," soliloquised he, when at length he turned away. "I'm sure it was Rupert; but what could have put him into that state? Halloa! what's that?" A bright light in the direction of Trevlyn Hold had caught his eye. He stood and gazed at it in a second state of consternation equal to that in which he had just gazed after Rupert Trevlyn. "If I don't believe it's a fire!" ejaculated he. Was every one running about madly? The words were escaping Mr. Apperley's lips when a second figure, white, breathless as the other, came flying over the road in the selfsame track. This one wore a smock-frock, and the farmer recognised Jim Sanders. "Why, Jim, is it you? What's up?" "Don't stop me, sir," panted Jim. "Don't you see the blaze? It's Chattaway's rick-yard." "Mercy on me! Chattaway's rick-yard! What has done it? Have we got the incendiaries in the county again?"