In the morning, the Duke was touched to find that Mrs. Shottery had washed and ironed his shirt, and had even pressed out the creases in his olive-green coat. He said that he would not for the world have had her put herself to such trouble, but she would not listen to such foolishness, she said. Instead she showed him the scorch-marks on his drab riding-coat, mourning over the impossibility of eradicating them. Her husband eyed the Duke with respect, and said he reckoned he knew how the gentleman had come by the marks.

“What happened to the inn?” asked the Duke. “Is it quite burned down? Really, I never thought of that!”

“Well, it ain’t clean gone, but no one couldn’t live in it no more,” replied Mr. Shottery, with satisfaction. “And where that scoundrel Mimms has loped off to the lord alone knows! They say as he and the barman, and another cove went away in the cart, and so many bits and pieces piled up in it that it was a wonder the old nag could draw it. A good riddance to them all, is what I say!”

“If they don’t come back, which they likely will!” said his wife pessimistically.

“I think they will not,” said the Duke. “You may depend upon it that they are afraid that I shall lay information against them.”

“Which I trust and prays, sir, as you will!” said Mrs. Shottery, in minatory accents.

The Duke returned an evasive answer. He had certainly meant to do so, but a period of reflection had shown him the disadvantages of such proper action. His identity would have to be disclosed, and he was as little desirous of having it known that the Duke of Sale had been kidnapped as of advertising his presence in the district. He discovered, too, upon consideration, that having outwitted his enemies he felt himself to be quite in charity with them. His most pressing wish was to return to Hitchin, where his two protégés must by now be fancying themselves deserted.

He drove there in a gig, beside a shy man who had business in the town, and had agreed to carry the Duke along with him, The Shotterys bade him a fond farewell, and indignantly spurned his offer to pay them for his lodging. He said, colouring like a boy, that he thought he had given them a great deal of trouble, but they assured him that they grudged nothing to anyone who could smoke out a nest of thieves, as he had done.

The day was fine, and a night’s repose had restored the Duke to the enjoyment of his usual health. He was inclined to feel pleased with himself, and to think that for a greenhorn he had acquitted himself creditably. It seemed unlikely that Liversedge and his associates would dare to make any further attempt upon his life, or his liberty, and it was reasonable to suppose that he had come to an end of his adventures. Nothing now remained but to convey Tom and Belinda to Bath, and to hand Belinda over to Harriet while he himself searched for Mr. Mudgley.

He reckoned without his hosts. When the gig set him down at the Sun Inn, and he walked into this hostelry, he was met by popping eyes and gaping mouths, and informed by the landlord that no one had expected to see him again. The Duke raised his brows at this, for he did not relish the landlord’s tone, and said: “How is this? Since I have not paid my shot you must have been sure of my return.”

It was plain that the landlord had had no such certainty. He said feebly: “I’m downright glad to see your honour back, but the way things have been ever since you went off, sir, I wouldn’t be surprised at nothing, and that’s the truth!”

The Duke was conscious of a sinking at the pit of his stomach. “Has anything gone amiss?” he asked.

“Oh, no!” said the landlord sarcastically, his wrongs rising forcibly to his mind. “Oh, no, sir! I’ve only had the constables here, and my good name blown upon, for to have the constables nosing round an inn is enough to ruin it, and this posting-house which has given beds to the gentry and the nobility too, and never a breath of scandal the years I’ve owned it!”

The Duke now perceived that he had not yet come to the end of his adventures. He sighed, and said: “Well I suppose it is Master Tom! What mischief has he been engaged upon while I was away?”

The landlord’s bosom swelled. “If it’s your notion of mischief, sir, to be took up for a dangerous rogue, it ain’t mine! Robbery on the King’s highroad, that’s what the charge is! Firing at honest citizens—old Mr. Stalybridge, too, as is highly respected in the town! Hell be transported, if he ain’t hanged, and a good thing too, that’s what I say!”

The Duke was a good deal taken aback by this disclosure, but after a stunned moment he said: “Nonsense! He has no gun, and cannot possibly—”

“Begging your pardon, sir, he had a fine pistol, and it was God’s mercy he didn’t kill Mr. Stalybridge’s coachman with it, for the shot went so close to him it fair scorched his ear!”

“Good God!” ejaculated the Duke, suddenly bethinking him of his duelling-pistols.

“Ah, and well you may say so!” nodded the landlord. “And a great piece of black cloth hanging down over his face, with a couple of holes in it like a mask, enough to give anyone a turn! Locked up in prison he is now, the young varmint!”

“Did you say he missed his shot?” demanded the Duke.

The landlord reluctantly admitted that he had said this, and the Duke, wasting no more time with him, went up to his room to inspect his guns. As he had suspected, one was missing from the case. A quick inspection showed that Tom had taken the pistol which had never been loaded. The box containing powder and ball did not seem to have been tampered with, rather strangely. The Duke collected his fast dwindling capital from the locked drawer in his dressing-table, and sallied forth to see what could be done to extricate Tom from his predicament. Just as he was about to leave the inn he bethought him of his other protégée, and turned to ask the landlord where she was.

“She went away with Mr. Clitheroe,” replied the landlord simply.

The Duke took a moment to assimilate this piece of information. Nothing in Belinda’s artless prattle had led him to foresee the introduction of a Mr. Clitheroe into his life. A happy thought occurred to him; he said quickly: “Did Mr. Clitheroe quite lately marry a Miss Street?”

“Mr. Clitheroe ain’t married at all, nor likely to be,” answered the landlord. “He’s an old Quaker gentleman, as lives with his sister, Ickleford way.”

As it seemed to him most improbable that an old Quaker gentleman should have offered Belinda either a ring to put on her finger, or a purple silk dress, the Duke was now totally at a loss. The landlord, staring fixedly at a point above his head, added in an expressionless voice: “Mr. Clitheroe don’t nowise hold with town bucks seducing of innocent young females—by what he told me.”

The Duke allowed this aspersion upon his character to pass without remonstrance. It seemed reasonable to suppose that Belinda had fallen into safe hands; and a faint hope that one at least of his charges was provided for began to burgeon in his breast. He set forth to find the local Roundhouse.

It was one of Lord Lionel’s maxims that every man, however wealthy, should be able on all occasions to fend for himself; and to this end he had had his ward taught such useful things as how to shoe a horse, and how to clean his own guns. Unfortunately he had never foreseen that Gilly might one day stand in need of instruction on the right methods to employ in dealing with constables and magistrates. Apart from a vague notion that one applied for bail, the Duke had no idea of what he ought to do to procure Tom’s release; but although this would have seriously daunted him a week earlier his horizon had lately been so much broadened that he embarked on his task with a surprising amount of assurance.

This assurance stood him in good stead with the constable, whom he found in charge at the Roundhouse. The constable, an elderly man of comfortable proportions, treated him with an instinctive deference which was only slightly shaken by the disclosure that he was responsible for the young varmint locked up in No. 2 cell. He did indeed look reproachfully at the Duke, and say that it was a serious business which would end in Tom’s being committed for trial, but since he added there was never any knowing what devilment such pesky lads would engage in, the Duke was encouraged to hope that he knew enough about boys not to regard Tom’s exploit in too lurid a light.

He sat down on one of the benches, and laid his hat on the table. “Well, now,” he said, smiling up at the constable, “will you tell me just what happened? I have heard what sounds to me a pack of nonsense, from the landlord of the Sun. He is plainly a foolish fellow, and I should prefer to listen to a sensible man.”

“Now there,” said the constable, warming to him, “you are in the right of it, sir! You might truss up Mr. Moffat’s wit in an eggshell. Not but what this young varmint has gone for to commit a felony, no question. I’ll have to take him up to Mr. Oare’s place this morning, him being a magistrate, and Mr. Stalybridge laying a charge against him, as he is entitled to do.”

The Duke perceived that since Tom had not yet been haled before the magistrate his task must be to induce Mr. Stalybridge to withdraw the charge against him. He said: “Where did all this happen?”

“It were last night, just after dusk,” said the constable. “A matter of a mile outside the town on the road to Stevenage. There was Mr. Stalybridge, a-riding in his carriage, with his man sitting up beside the coachman, him having been on a visit, you see, when up jumps this young varmint of yours out of nowhere, on a horse which he hires from Jem Datchet—which I am bound to say he paid Jem for honest, else Jem would never have let him take the nag, him being one of them as lives in a gravel-pit, as the saying is. And he ups and shouts out, Stand and deliver! quite to the manner born, and looses off this pop of his, which fair scorches the ear off Mr. Stalybridge’s coachman, according to what he tells me. Well, not to wrap it up in clean linen, sir, Mr. Stalybridge was scared for his life, and he had out his purse, and his gold watch, and all manner of gewgaws for to hand over to the young varmint, when his man, which is not one as has more hair than wit, slips off of the box when no one ain’t heeding him, and has your young varmint off of Jem Datchet’s nag just as he’s about to take Mr. Stalybridge’s purse. I will say the lad is a proper fighter, for he put in a deal of cross-and-jostle work, but betwixt the lot of them they had him over-powered, and brought him in here, and give him over to me, as is proper. Ah, and he had both his daylights darkened, but Mr. Stalybridge’s man he had had his cork drawn, so that it was wunnerful to see how the claret did flow! And once he found himself under lock and key, would he open his mummer? Not he! Downright sullen, that’s what he be now, and won’t give his name, nor where he lives, nor nothing!”