"It is done," thought Jacob; and he turned to bend his hasty steps
toward his own cottage, when he heard the galloping of a horse and
violent screams; a minute afterward James Southwold passed him with
the old lady tied behind him, kicking and struggling as hard as she
could. Jacob smiled as he thought that he had by his little stratagem
saved the old woman's life, for that Southwold imagined that she was
King Charles dressed up as an old woman was evident; and he then
returned as fast as he could to the cottage.
In half an hour Jacob had passed through the thick woods which were
between the mansion and his own cottage, occasionally looking back, as
the flames of the mansion rose higher and higher, throwing their light
far and wide. He knocked at the cottage-door; Smoker, a large dog
cross-bred between the fox and blood-hound, growled till Jacob spoke
to him, and then Edward opened the door.
"My sisters are in bed and fast asleep, Jacob," said Edward, "and
Humphrey has been nodding this half hour; had he not better go to bed
before we go back?"
"Come out, Master Edward," replied Jacob, "and look." Edward beheld
the flames and fierce light between the trees and was silent.
"I told you that it would be so, and you would all have been burned in
your beds, for they did not enter the house to see who was in it, but
fired it as soon as they had surrounded it.
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