"It seemed less trouble at the time," said Mary. "If I'd thought longer, no doubt I'd have told him the truth. You've got nothing to hide, have you?"

"Nothing much, except that black pony you saw by the brook belongs to him," said Jem carelessly. "He was dapple-grey last week, and worth a small fortune to the squire, who bred him himself. I'll make a few pounds with him at Launceston if I'm lucky. Come down and have a look at him."

They went out into the sun, Mary wiping her hands on her apron, and she stood for a few moments at the door of the cottage while Jem went off to the horses. The cottage was built on the slope of the hill above the Withy Brook, whose course wound away in the valley and was lost in the further hills. Behind the house stretched a wide and level plain, rising to great tors on either hand, and this grassland — like a grazing place for cattle — with no boundary as far as the eye could reach except the craggy menace of Kilmar, must be the strip of country known as Twelve Men's Moor.

Mary pictured Joss Merlyn running out of the doorway here as a child, his mat of hair falling over his eyes in a fringe, with the gaunt, lonely figure of his mother standing behind him, her arms folded, watching him with a question in her eyes. A world of sorrow and silence, anger and bitterness too, must have passed beneath the roof of this small cottage.

There was a shout and a clatter of hoofs, and Jem rode up to her round the corner of the house, astride the black pony. "This is the fellow I wanted you to have," he said, "but you're so close with your money. He'd carry you well, too; the squire bred him for his wife. Are you sure you won't change your mind?"

Mary shook her head and laughed. "You'd have me tie him up in the stable at Jamaica, I suppose," she said, "and when Mr. Bassat calls again he wouldn't be likely to recognise him, would he? Thanking you for your trouble, but I'd rather not risk it all the same. I've lied enough for your family, Jem Merlyn, for one lifetime." Jem pulled a long face and slid to the ground.

"You've refused the best bargain that you'll ever have offered to you," he said, "and I won't give you the chance again. He'll go to Launceston on Christmas Eve; the dealers there will swallow him up." He clapped his hands on the hindquarters of the pony. "Get on with you, then"; and the animal made a startled dash for the gap in the bank.

Jem broke off a piece of grass and began to chew it, glancing sideways at his companion. "What did Squire Bassat expect to see at Jamaica Inn?" he said.

Mary looked him straight in the eyes. "You ought to know that better than I do," she answered. Jem chewed his grass thoughtfully, spitting out little bits of it onto the ground.

"How much do you know?" he said suddenly, throwing the stalk away.

Mary shrugged her shoulders. "I didn't come here to answer questions," she said. "I had enough of that with Mr. Bassat."

"It was lucky for Joss the stuff had been shifted," said his brother quietly. "I told him last week he was sailing too close to the wind. It's only a matter of time before they catch him. And all he does in self-defence is to get drunk, the damned fool."

Mary said nothing. If Jem was trying to trap her by this exhibition of frankness he would be disappointed.

"You must have a good view from that little room over the porch," he said. "Do they wake you out of your beauty sleep?"

"How do you know that's my room?" Mary asked swiftly.

He looked taken aback at her question; she saw the surprise flash through his eyes. Then he laughed and picked another piece of grass from the bank.

"The window was wide open when I rode into the yard the other morning," he said, "and there was a little bit of blind blowing in the wind. I've never seen a window open at Jamaica Inn before."

The excuse was plausible, but hardly good enough for Mary. A horrible suspicion came into her mind. Could it have been Jem who had hidden in the empty guest room that Saturday night? Something went cold inside her.

"Why are you so silent about it all?" he continued. "Do you think I'm going to go to my brother and say, 'Here, that niece of yours, she lets her tongue run away with her'? Damn it, Mary, you're not blind or deaf; even a child would smell a rat if he lived a month at Jamaica Inn."

"What are you trying to make me tell you?" said Mary. "And what does it matter to you how much I know? All I think about is getting my aunt away from the place as soon as possible. I told you that when you came to the inn. It may take a little time to persuade her, and I'll have to be patient. As for your brother, he can drink himself to death for all I care. His life is his own, and so is his business. It's nothing to do with me."

Jem whistled and kicked a loose stone with his foot.

"So smuggling doesn't appal you after all?" he said. "You'd let my brother line every room at Jamaica with kegs of brandy and rum, and you'd say nothing, is that it? But supposing he meddled in other things — supposing it was a question of life, and death, and perhaps murder — what then?"

He turned round and faced her, and she could see that this time he was not playing with her; his careless, laughing manner was gone, and his eyes were grave, but she could not read what lay behind them.

"I don't know what you mean," said Mary.

He looked at her for a long time without speaking. It was as though he debated some problem in his mind and could only find solution in the expression of her face. All his resemblance to his brother vanished. He was harder, older suddenly, and of a different breed.

"Perhaps not," he said at length, "but you'll come to know, if you stay long enough. Why does your aunt look like a living ghost — can you tell me that? Ask her, next time the wind blows from the northwest."

And he began to whistle again softly, his hands in his pockets. Mary stared back at him in silence. He spoke in riddles, but whether it was to frighten her or not she could not say. Jem the horse stealer, with his careless, impecunious manner, she could understand and allow for, but this was a new departure. She was not sure whether she like it as well.

He laughed shortly and shrugged his shoulders. "There'll be trouble between Joss and myself one day, and it's he that'll be sorry for it, not I," he said. And with that cryptic remark he turned on his heel and went off onto the moor after the pony. Mary watched him thoughtfully, her arms tucked into her shawl. So her first instinct had been right, and there was something behind the smuggling, after all. The stranger in the bar that night had talked of murder, and now Jem himself had echoed his words. She was not a fool, then, nor was she hysterical, whatever she was considered by the vicar of Altarnun.

What part Jem Merlyn played in all this it was hard to say, but that he was concerned in it somewhere she did not doubt for a moment.

And if he was the man who crept so stealthily down the stairs behind her uncle — why, he must know well enough that she had left her room that night, and was in hiding somewhere, and had listened to them. Then he, above all men, must remember the rope on the beam, and guess that she had seen it after he and the landlord had gone out onto the moor. If Jem was the man, there would be reason enough for all his questions. "How much do you know?" he had asked her; but she had not told him.

The conversation had cast a shadow on her day. She wanted to be off now, and rid of him, and alone with her own thoughts. She began to walk slowly down the hill towards the Withy Brook. She had reached the gate at the bottom of the track when she heard his running footsteps behind her, and he flung himself first at the gate, looking like a half-bred gypsy with his growth of beard and his filthy breeches.

"Why are you going?" he said. "It's early yet; it won't be dark till after four. I'll walk back with you then as far as Rushyford Gate. What's the matter with you?" He took her chin in his hands and looked into her face. "I believe you're frightened of me," he said. "You think I've got barrels of brandy and rolls of tobacco in the little old bedrooms up above, and that I'm going to show them to you, and then cut your throat. That's it, isn't it? We're a desperate lot of fellows, we Merlyns, and Jem is the worst of the pack. Is that what you're thinking?"

She smiled back at him in spite of herself. "Something of the sort," she confessed, "but I'm not afraid of you; you needn't think that. I'd even like you if you didn't remind me so much of your brother."

"I can't help my face," he said, "and I'm much better looking than Joss, you must allow me that."

"Oh, you've conceit enough to make up for all the other qualities you lack," agreed Mary, "and I'll not deprive you of your handsome face. You may break as many hearts as you please. Now let me go; it's a long walk back to Jamaica Inn, and I don't fancy losing myself on the moors again."

"And when did you you lose yourself before?" he asked.

Mary frowned slightly. The words had escaped her. "The other afternoon I was out on the West Moor," she said, "and the fog came on early. I wandered some time before I found my way back."

"You're a fool to go walking," he said. "There's places between Jamaica and Rough Tor that would swallow a herd of cattle, to say nothing of a slip of a thing like you. It's no pastime for a woman anyhow. What did you do it for?"

"I wanted to stretch my legs. I'd been shut in the house for days."

"Well, Mary Yellan, next time you want to stretch your legs you can stretch them in this direction. If you come through the gate you can't go wrong, not if you leave the marsh on your left-hand side as you did today. Are you coming to Launceston with me on Christmas Eve?"

"What will you be doing over to Launceston, Jem Merlyn?"

"Only selling Mr. Bassat's black pony for him, my dear. You'd be best away from Jamaica Inn that day, if I know anything about my brother. He'll be just recovering from his brandy bed by then and looking for trouble. If they're used to you gallivanting over the moors they'll not say anything at your absence. I'll bring you home by midnight. Say you're coming, Mary."

"Supposing you are caught in Launceston with Mr. Bassat's pony? You would look like a fool then, wouldn't you? And so would I, if they clapped me into prison alongside of you."

"No one's going to catch me, not yet awhile, anyway. Take a risk, Mary; don't you like excitement, that you're so careful of your own skin? They must breed you soft down Helford way."

She rose like a fish to his bait.

"All right then, Jem Merlyn, you needn't think I'm afraid. I'd just as soon be in prison as live at Jamaica Inn anyway. How do we go to Launceston?"

"I'll take you there in the jingle, with Mr. Bassat's black pony behind us. Do you know your way to North Hill, across the moor?"

"No, I do not."

"You only have to follow your nose. Go a mile along the highroad, and you'll come to a gap in the hedge on the top of the hill, bearing to the right. You'll have Carey Tor ahead of you, and Hawk's Tor away on your right, and if you keep straight on you can't miss your way. I'll come half of the distance to meet you. We'll keep to the moor as much as we can. There'll be some travelling on the road Christmas Eve."

"What time shall I start, then?"

"We'll let the other folk make the pace and get there in the forenoon, and the streets will be thick enough for us by two o'clock. You can leave Jamaica at eleven, if you like."

"I'll make no promises. If you don't see me you can go on your way. You forget Aunt Patience may need me."

"That's right. Make your excuses."

"There's the gate over the stream," said Mary. "You don't have to come any further. I can find my own way. I go straight over the brow of that hill, don't I?"

"You can give the landlord my respects, if you like, and tell him I hope his temper has improved, and his tongue also. Ask him if he'd care for me to hang a bunch of mistletoe on the porch of Jamaica Inn! Mind the water. Do you want me to carry you through the gate? You'll wet your feet."

"If I went up to my waist it wouldn't hurt me. Good afternoon, Jem Merlyn." And Mary leapt boldly across the running brook, with one hand on the gate to guide her. Her petticoat dipped in the water, and she lifted it up out of the way. She heard Jem laugh from his bank on the other side, and she walked away up the hill without a backward glance or a wave of her hand.