"Very well, then," he said, "you are a tyrant, Diana. Still, it shall be as you desire. But you know that you ought not to be here. You must return with me at once!"
"I will do no such thing," said the girl; "not a foot will I go back till such time as I see Frank well out of the hands of the Philistines. He has been bidding me to go back all the time, himself. But I know better. Also, I know you, my cousin Rashleigh, and my being here will give you a stronger motive to be speedy in performing your promise."
Rashleigh departed in great anger at her obstinacy, and Frank and Die together sought the den of the Justice, to which they were guided by a high voice chanting the fag-end of an old bottle-song:
"Oh, in Skipton-in-Craven Is never a haven But many a day foul weather, And he that would say A pretty girl nay I wish for his cravat a tether."
"Hey day," said Die Vernon, "the genial Justice must have dined already--I did not think it had been so late."
As Diana had supposed, the Justice had dined. But though both his clerk Jobson and Frank's accuser Morris were with him, he showed himself as pleased to see Diana as he was evidently disinclined for all further legal business.
"Ah, ha, Die Vernon," he cried, starting up with great alacrity, "the heath-bell of Cheviot and the blossom of the border, come to see how the old bachelor keeps house? Art welcome, girl, as the flowers in May!"
Miss Vernon told him that on this occasion she could not stay. She had had a long ride that morning, and she must return at once. But if he were a good kind Justice, he would immediately despatch young Frank's business and let them go.
This the "good Justice" was very willing to do, but Clerk Jobson, alert in his office, pressed that the law should have its course, while Frank himself demanded no better than that the mystery should be cleared up once and for all.
Whereupon the man who had been robbed repeated his statement. He had, it seemed, been first of all terrified by Frank's antics. And then on the open moor, when he had found himself stopped, and relieved of his portmanteau by two masked men, he had distinctly heard the name "Osbaldistone" applied by one of his assailants in speaking to the other. He furthermore certified that all the Osbaldistones had been Papists and Jacobites from the time of William the Conquerer. From which it was clear that Frank was the guilty man!