"Will you tell me the news ?" Hogan pondered a moment.

Then: "I will relate the story from the very beginning," said he.

"Some four hours after your departure from Waltham) my men brought in the malignant we were hunting.

I dispatched my sergeant and the troop forthwith to London with the prisoner, keeping just two troopers with me.

An hour or so later a coach clattered into the yard, and out of it stepped a short, lean man in black, with a very evil face and a crooked eye, who bawled out that he was Joseph Ashburn of Castle Marleigh, a friend of the Lord General's, and that he must have horses on the instant to proceed upon his journey to London.