He dropped back into the ditch, and waded, ankle deep in slime, to the other side. There he crawled out, and gaining the moor lay down awhile to breathe his lungs. But not for long. The dawn was creeping pale and ghostly across the solid earth, and a faint fresh breeze was stirring and driving the mist in wispy shrouds before it. If he lingered there he might yet be found by some party of Royalist soldiers, and that would be to undo all that he had done. He rose, and struck out across the peaty ground. None knew the moors better than did he, and had he been with Grey's horse that night, it is possible things had fared differently, for he had proved a surer guide than did Godfrey, the spy.
At first he thought of making for Bridgwater and Lupton House. By now Richard would be on his way thither with Ruth, and Wilding was in haste that she should be reassured that he had not fallen to the muskets of Wentworth's firing-party. But Bridgwater was far, and he began to realize, now that all excitement was past, that he was utterly exhausted. Next he thought of Scoresby Hall and his cousin Lord Gervase. But he was by no means sure that he might count upon a welcome. Gervase had shown no sympathy for Monmouth or his partisans, and whilst he would hardly go so far as to refuse Mr. Wilding shelter, still Wilding felt an aversion to seeking what might be grudged him. At last he bethought him of home. Zoyland Chase was near at hand; but he had not been there since his wedding-day, and in the mean time he knew that it had been used as a barrack for the militia, and had no doubt that it had been wrecked and plundered. Still, it must have walls and a roof, and that, for the time, was all he craved, that he might rest awhile and recuperate his wasted forces.
A half-hour later he dragged himself wearily up the avenue between the elms--looking white as snow in the pale July dawn--to the clearing in front of his house.
Desertion was stamped upon the face of it. Shattered windows and hanging shutters everywhere. How wantonly they had wrecked it! It might have been a church, and the militia a regiment of Cromwell's iconoclastic Puritans. The door was locked, but going round he found a window--one of the door--windows of his library hanging loose upon its hinges. He pushed it wide, and entered with a heavy heart. Instantly something stirred in a corner; a fierce growl was followed by a furious bark, and a lithe brown body leapt from the greater into the lesser shadows to attack the intruder. But at one word of his the hound checked suddenly, crouched an instant, then with a queer, throaty sound bounded forward in a wild delight that robbed it on the instant of its voice. It found it anon and leapt about him, barking furious joy in spite of all his vain endeavours to calm it. He grew afraid lest the dog should draw attention. He knew not who--if any--might be in possession of his house. The library, as he looked round, showed a scene of wreckage that excellently matched the exterior. Not a picture on the walls, not an arras, but had been rent to shreds. The great lustre that had hung from the centre of the ceiling was gone. Disorder reigned along the bookshelves, and yet there and elsewhere there was a certain orderliness, suggesting an attempt to straighten up the place after the ravagers had departed. It was these signs made him afraid the house might be tenanted by such as might prove his enemies.