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This was the news that filtered through to Lenfield, and Crosby waited for the great disaster which he knew must come. Feversham, with the King's forces, lay encamped on Sedgemoor, and with him were some of the very men who had fought with Monmouth at Bothwell Bridge.
"It will be some time before there will be safety for me at Lenfield," said Crosby. "And meanwhile a hare's no such bad fare, if the preparing and cooking of it does present some difficulties in a place like this," said Golding as he replenished his master's plate. Crosby had eaten little in the last twenty-four hours, and was silent for some time.
"It's wonderful how you schemed to get me out of Dorchester, Master Gilbert." "And it's marvellous how you manage to make this hut a home that one is glad to get back to, Golding." "Maybe we'll get back to Lenfield presently, Master Gilbert, and you'll then shudder at the thought of what you had to put up with here."
He hardly left his own land, and it was evident that Lenfield was surrounded. In the afternoon he returned home, unconscious that Monmouth had been taken during the morning, found in a ditch clad in a shepherd's dress, and was already on his way to Ringwood. "Monmouth is taken," whispered Golding as Crosby dismounted. "How do you know that? Who told you?" "A man who came two hours ago.
Lately he had had visions of a fair woman descending the low, broad stairs, smiling at him as she came; in fancy he had seen her flitting from room to room, filling them with laughter and sunshine. So much power had a length of white ribbon which had once belonged to such a woman. Crosby returned to Lenfield by many by-roads, more careful, even, than he had been when riding towards Bridgwater.
Harriet Payne had been at Lenfield long enough to understand the estimation in which her master, Gilbert Crosby, was held; he was not a man to lie deliberately, and she dared not face him, knowing the part she had played. She had played it because she loved this other man, but, dispassionately described as Crosby had told it, the offence she had committed seemed far greater than she had imagined.
I told Martin to find you if he could and warn you; that was all I bid him do." "And my coming has displeased you," said Crosby. "I will go on the instant if it be your will." "No, no; it is my will that you tell me the remainder of the story." "There is no more to tell." "You have not told me who the man was who helped you to escape from your manor at Lenfield," said Barbara.
Still, he went carefully, not seeking danger, and soon had reason to be convinced that Monmouth had fled in the direction of Lenfield. Men of the Somerset Militia were beating the country, and Crosby barely escaped falling in with them. When he returned to the Manor at nightfall Golding was full of news. Lord Grey of Wark had been taken that morning, but Monmouth was still at large.
There his dreams had fulfilment. Barbara flitted from room to room, as, in his visions, she had so often seemed to do; many a time he watched her slowly descending the broad stairs and held out his arms to her. Sometimes a shade of sorrow would rest upon her brow. "I was thinking of Martin," she said, when her husband questioned her. Martin had never come to Lenfield.
Fear took hold of him, and, hiding the blue riband and his George, he galloped away with Grey and Buyse, first towards the Bristol Channel, and then, turning, made towards Hampshire. He remembered that Gilbert Crosby had promised to find him a hiding-place, and if he could reach Lenfield he might be safe.
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