Here the door opened to admit both Tom and the waiter. While the latter laid the covers for dinner, Tom plunged into an animated account of his activities at the Fair, and displayed for the Duke’s admiration the Belcher handkerchief he had won in the sack race. He was with difficulty deterred from knotting this about his neck at once. The waiter set the dishes on the table, and withdrew, and the Duke was again able to touch upon the question of Belinda’s destination. He asked her if Mr. Mudgley lived near Bath. She replied, after her usual fashion: “Oh, yes!” but seemed unable to supply any more detailed information. Tom, surprised, demanded enlightenment, and upon being told that Belinda had forgotten Maggie Street’s married name, said disgustedly: “You are the most hen-witted girl! I daresay she don’t live at Hitchin at all, but at Ditchling, or—or Mitcham, or some such place!”

Belinda looked much struck, and said ingenuously: “Yes, she does!”

The Duke was in the act of conveying a portion of braised ham to his mouth, but he lowered his fork at this, and demanded, “Which?”

“The one Tom said,” replied Belinda brightly.

“My dear child, he said Ditchling or Mitcham! Surely—”

“Well, I am not quite sure,” Belinda confessed. “It was some place that sounded like those.”

The prospect of travelling about England to every place that sounded faintly like Hitchin was not one which the Duke found himself able to contemplate for as much as a minute. He said rather fatalistically: “Mr. Mudgley it must be!”

“Yes, but I dare not go back to Bath,” objected Belinda. “Because, you know, if Mrs. Pilling were to find, me she would very likely put me in prison for having broken my indentures.”

The Duke had no very clear idea of what the laws were governing apprentices, but it had occurred to him that in Bath he would find Lady Harriet. She might not be the bride of his choosing, but she was one of the friends of his childhood, and never in any childish exploit had she failed to lend him a helping hand whenever it had lain in her power to do so. That she might not feel much inclination to extend this hand to Belinda he did not consider. It seemed to him that since he had been forced into the position of Belinda’s protector, and could not find it in his heart to abandon her, he must find for her (failing Mr. Mudgley) a suitable chaperon. He could think of none more suitable than Harriet, and he began to feel that he had been a great simpleton not to have carried Belinda to Bath at the outset. Tom interrupted these meditations with a demand to know whether the proposed trip to Bath would preclude his being taken to London. If, he said, that were so, he thought he should be well-advised to leave the party, and to make his own way either to London, or to some likely seaport. As it was obvious that the merest hint of returning him to his parent would drive him into precipitate flight, the Duke refrained from making this suggestion, but assured him that although he must certainly write to Mr. Mamble from Bath, he should beg to be allowed the pleasure of his son’s company on a visit to the Metropolis. Tom seemed a little doubtful about this, but allowed himself to be overborne. Belinda reiterated her fear of Mrs. Pilling, and the Duke wondered whether his Harriet would also be able to deal with this awe-inspiring lady. He was just about to say that he would hire a post-chaise to take them all to Cheyney on the morrow, when it suddenly occurred to him that his arrival at any one of his houses, accompanied by Belinda, would give rise to more scandalous comment than he felt at all able to face. He decided to seek out the quietest inn in Bath, and to lose no time in calling upon Harriet, in Laura Place.

While he and his young friends were eating their dinners, Mr. Liversedge and Mr. Shifnal were taking counsel together. Mr. Shifnal’s suggestion that Mr. Liversedge should also hire a room at the Sun, and should smother the Duke in his bed at dead of night, was ill-received by his partner, who demanded to know how that could serve any good purpose. He said that even supposing that Mr. Shifnal were there to give his assistance it was hardly to be supposed that they could smuggle out of a busy inn an unconscious guest. Mr. Shifnal, a little damped, was still trying to think out an alternative scheme when the Duke’s party issued forth from the inn, and began walking in the direction of the Fairground. Protected by the tilt of the cart, the confederates watched them go, and could scarcely believe their good fortune.

“Sam,” said Mr. Shifnal, “if we can’t nabble that Dook while everyone’s watching the fireworks we don’t deserve no thirty thousand pounds!”

The Fair, when the Duke reached it again, was the scene of even denser crowds than it had been during the daylight hours. All the shopkeepers of Hitchin seemed to have thronged there, and although the open-air competitions were over, the various booths were packed with people, either staring at some monstrosity, or taking part in wrestling, boxing, or single-stick bouts. A large prize was offered to any sportsman able to knock out a professional bruiser with a broken nose and a cauliflower ear, and it was with difficulty that the Duke dissuaded Tom from instantly throwing his hat into the Ring. He took him instead to witness a stirring drama, entitled Monk and Murderer! or The Skeleton Spectre, which gave both him and Belinda the maximum amount of fearful enjoyment. Belinda was obliged to cling tightly to the Duke’s arm from the moment of the Mysterious Monk’s first appearance in Scene 2 (The Rocks of Calabria), to the Grand Combat with Shield and Battle-Axe in Scene 6, but upon being asked rather anxiously if she liked the piece, nodded her head very vigorously, and heaved a tremulous sigh.

When this stirring drama came to an end, the last daylight had faded, and the Fairground was lit by flares and cressets. The crowd was wending its way towards the open space where the fireworks were to be let off. The Duke, with Belinda still hanging on his arm, joined the general throng, and managed to secure good places for her and Tom on one of the forms set up in tiers round the field. He gave up his own place to a stout and panting dame, who sank thankfully down beside Belinda. With this bulwark on one side of his charge, and Tom on the other, the Duke thought that he might safely relax his vigilance, and retire from the crowd. He made his way between the forms to the back of the field, and was idly watching the struggles of determined citizens to push their way to the fore when a respectful voice said softly, yet with urgency, a little behind him: “My lord Duke!”

Instinctively he looked round. A neat man in a sober riding-dress, who had something of the look of a head-groom, touched his hat to him, and said: “I ask your Grace’s pardon for intruding, but I have a message for your Grace.”

Without giving himself time to consider that his cousin could not possibly have received the letter he had posted to him in Baldock that morning, the Duke leaped to the conclusion that the neat man must have come to him from Gideon. There was nothing at all alarming in Mr. Shifnal’s appearance: indeed, he ascribed much of his success to his respectable air. The depth of his bow was exactly as it should have been; his manner was a nice mixture of deference and the assurance of a trusted personal servant. He glanced deprecatingly at the persons within easy earshot, and moved suggestively in the direction of one of the tents that were dotted about the edge of the field. The Duke followed him. “Well?” he said. “What do you want with me?”

“I beg your Grace’s pardon,” Mr. Shifnal said again, “but I was told—by your Grace perhaps knows who—to deliver my message into your Grace’s private ear.”

The Duke was a little amused, but still unsuspicious. Gideon must be hard-pressed, he thought, to have sent to him. Possibly Lord Lionel had arrived in London, and was threatening to cut his son off with a shilling unless he divulged his cousin’s whereabouts. Mr. Shifnal was standing in the deep shadow cast by the now deserted tent; the first of the rockets went up in a glorious burst of stars; the Duke came up to Mr. Shifnal, and repeated: “Well, what do you want?”

He did not feel the blow that struck him down, for Mr. Liversedge, sliding out of the murk behind him, was leaving nothing to chance. The Duke dropped where he stood; and Mr. Liversedge, thrusting his cudgel out of sight under the tent-wall, instantly bent over him in an attitude of tender solicitude. A man, who had been staring up at the bursting rocket, glanced over his shoulder, and Mr. Liversedge at once called peremptorily to Mr. Shifnal: “You, sir! Would you have the goodness to assist me to carry my nephew to my carriage? He has fainted from this excessive heat and these crowds! My sister’s son: a very delicate young man! I told him how it would be, but these young sparks! They will never listen to older and wiser heads!”

The stranger watching the fireworks at once drew near, offering his aid. Mr. Liversedge thanked him profusely, and agreed that the poor young man did indeed look pale. “Sickly from birth!” he confided. “I have known him to swoon for as much as an hour on end! But I beg you will not put yourself to the trouble of coming with me! This gentleman will perhaps help me to my carriage: ah, I thank you, sir!”

Mr. Shifnal, who had picked up the Duke’s hat and malacca cane, here joined his confederate, and offered to take the poor gentleman’s legs. One or two people began to be interested in what was going on, but Mr. Liversedge was spared the trouble of repeating his story by the first gentleman, who very kindly retailed it for him. While he was doing this, Mr. Liversedge and Mr. Shifnal made haste to remove the Duke to where they had left Mr. Mimms’s cart, outside the field. A particularly fine display of pyrotechnics diverted the attention of those who had shown faint interest in the Duke’s swoon, and as he and his bearers had disappeared from view when they again had leisure to look round they troubled themselves no further in the matter.