This offer was still pending, when the footman, who had been to see after the health and comfort of his fellow-servant, came to inform the party, in a dolorous accent, of something which, in the confusion and darkness of the night, they had not yet learned,--namely, that the horses and coachman were gone! "Gone!" said the squire, "gone! Why, the villains can't (for my part, I never believe, though I have heard such wonders of, those sleight of hand) have bagged them!" Here a low groan was audible; and the footman, sympathetically guided to the spot whence it emanated, found the huge body of the coachman safely deposited, with its face downward, in the middle of the kennel.

After this worthy had been lifted to his legs, and had shaken himself into intelligence, it was found that when the robber had detained the horses, the coachman, who required very little to conquer his more bellicose faculties, had--he himself said, by a violent blow from the ruffian, though, perhaps, the cause lay nearer home--quitted the coach-box for the kennel, the horses grew frightened, and after plunging and rearing till he cared no longer to occupy himself with their arrest, the highwayman had very quietly cut the traces, and by the time present, it was not impossible that the horses were almost at the door of their stables at Bath.
The footman who had apprised the squire of this misfortune was, unlike most news-tellers, the first to offer consolation.

"There be an excellent public," quoth he, "about a half a mile on, where your honour could get horses; or, mayhap, if Miss Lucy, poor heart, be faint, you may like to stop for the night." Though a walk of half a mile in a dark night and under other circumstances would not have seemed a grateful proposition, yet at present, when the squire's imagination had only pictured to him the alternatives of passing the night in the carriage or of crawling on foot to Bath, it seemed but a very insignificant hardship; and tucking his daughter's arm under his own, while in a kind voice he told Clifford "to support her on the other side," the squire ordered the footman to lead the way with Clifford's horse, and the coachman to follow or be d---d, whichever he pleased.
In silence Clifford offered his arm to Lucy, and silently she accepted the courtesy.

The squire was the only talker; and the theme he chose was not ungrateful to Lucy, for it was the praise of her lover.

But Clifford scarcely listened, for a thousand thoughts and feelings contested within him; and the light touch of Lucy's hand upon his arm would alone have been sufficient to distract and confuse his attention.