“You have the best claim,” the major answered.  “What a train this is!  Ged, it’s as slow as the one which Jimmy Travers, of the Commissariat, travelled in in America.  They were staming along, according to Jimmy, when they saw a cow walking along the loine in front of them.  They all thought that they were going to run into her, but it was all right, for they never overtook her, and she soon walked clane out of sight.  Here we are at a station!  How far to Bedsworth, guard?”

“Next station, sir.”

“Thank the Lord!  It’s twinty to eight.  We are rather behind our time.  You always are if you are in a particular hurry.”

It was nearly eight o’clock by the time they reached their destination.  The station-master directed them to the Flying Bull, where they secured the very vehicle in which Kate and her guardian had been originally driven up.  By the time that the horse was put in it was close upon the half-hour.

“Drive as hard as you can go to the Proiory, me man,” said the major.

The sulky ostler made no remark, but a look of surprise passed over his phlegmatic countenance.  For years back so little had been heard of the old monastery that its very existence had been almost forgotten in Bedsworth.  Now whole troops of Londoners were coming down in succession, demanding to be driven there.  He pondered over the strange fact as he drove through the darkness, but the only conclusion to which his bucolic mind could come was that it was high time to raise the fare to that particular point.

It was a miserable night, stormy and wet and bitterly cold.  None of the five men had a thought to spare for the weather, however.  The two foreigners had been so infected by the suppressed excitement of their companions, or had so identified themselves with their comrades’ cause, that they were as eager as the others.

“Are we near?” the major asked.

“The gate is just at the end o’ the lane, sir.”

“Don’t pull up at the gate, but take us a little past it.”

“There ain’t no way in except the gate,” the driver remarked.

“Do what you’re ordered,” said the major sternly.  Once again the ostler’s face betrayed unbounded astonishment.  He slewed half-way round in his seat and took as good a look as was possible in the uncertain light at the faces of his passengers.  It had occurred to him that it was more than likely that he would have to swear to them at some future date in a police-court.  “I’d know that thick ‘un wi’ the red face,” he muttered to himself, “and him wi’ the yeller beard and the stick.”

They passed the stone pillars with the weather-beaten heraldic devices, and drove along by the high park wall.  When they had gone a hundred yards or so the major ordered the driver to pull up, and they all got down.  The increased fare was paid without remonstrance, and the ostler rattled away homewards, with the intention of pulling up at the county police-station and lodging information as to the suspicious visitors whom he had brought down.