“No!” said Lady Clavering, “a week won’t set me right again. I cannot describe the horror that seized me, when I saw Sir Henry following so closely on the heels of that desperado. ‘He will turn on him and kill him!’ I exclaimed, ‘Oh! that some good angel could warn him of his danger.’” “Well then, my dear, you had your wish: a good angel did warn me, and that was Tom Boddily.” “God reward him for it!” said Ann; “and I must reward him, too, somehow.” “That man,” said Mr. Degge, “has his wits about him if any man has. He is a treasure. I don’t covet my neighbour’s goods, but I do envy Mr. Heritage the possession of such a servant.” “Ay,” said Sir Henry, “look at the tact of Mrs. Heritage, who saw in a moment, in the poor, ragged haymaker, the trusty and clever fellow that he is.” “True!” said Mr. Degge, with a merry smile, “the spirit moved her, no doubt.” They were now at the Hall; and Mr. Degge, though pressed to stay dinner, took his horse and rode home. No doubt, he felt the strange desire there is in every mortal soul of spreading news. He wanted to tell them at home of this extraordinary occurrence. And he wanted to call at Woodburn Grange to tell it, for George Woodburn, though deeply interested in the examination of Scammel, had felt so excessively wearied with his long ride in Leicestershire and loss of sleep, that he had gone home. The men on the river continued their dragging till it was quite dark, but without any success. Already the news of this startling affair, the arrest and drowning of Scammel, had flown round the country, and to Castleborough, with a multitude of fabulous additions. CHAPTER V. THE SKY BRIGHTENS. In the morning at eleven o’clock Hopcraft was brought up in custody to Cotmanhaye Manor. He was brought in a covered cart belonging to Sir Henry Clavering to avoid observation, but the whole neighbourhood was astir. The events of yesterday were the topic of conversation throughout both Woodburn and Rockville. The village parliament, as it was called, at the Grey Goose in Woodburn, in the evening had been crowded, greatly to the profit of Tim Bentley, the landlord. The cleverness of Tom Boddily hunting up Scammel in the guise of a tramp had been loudly applauded. It was declared to be still grander than his taking the horse-thief asleep on the back of Miss Heritage’s stolen mare. He was unitedly voted “a long-headed chap.” The desperate affair of Scammel’s attempt to escape out of the justice-room at Cotmanhaye Manor; the chase of magistrate and men after him; his swim for it in the river, and his going down rather than be taken—all was declared out of the common way, and a subject to be talked of for the next hundred years. “He was a plucky fellow, was that Joe Scammel,” said Howell Crusoe; “if he had had an education, he might have turned out something remarkable.”