The lane was halfway between the toll-gate and Kellands Manor, and was soon reached. John turned Beau into it, and found it to be no more than a deeply rutted cart-track, separated on either side by a ditch and a bank from fields under cultivation. Between the ruts the ground was grass-grown, and sufficiently level to make it possible for John to let Beau break into a canter again. The big horse had a formidable stride, and he was impatient, trying to lengthen it more and still more. The pace, John knew, was not really very safe on an unknown track, which might, for anything he knew, contain bad pot-holes; it was too swift for him to be able to detect possible dangers ahead, in the chill white mist; and too swift for a solitary pedestrian, making his way towards the pike road, to do more than jump off the track almost into the ditch as he saw Beau looming ahead of him. He had plenty of time to do this, however, and John, perceiving him some thirty yards away, had the impression that if there had been a hedge he would have dived into it for cover. There was something in his aspect which was panic-stricken rather than merely startled; he looked round, as though seeking shelter, and, finding none, seemed almost to cower on the brink of the ditch. John had no time to wonder what there was to alarm anyone in the appearance of a horse and rider, however unexpectedly encountered, before he was abreast of the man. He had made Beau check his pace a little, and he turned his head, intending to shout an apology for having discommoded this early pedestrian, whom he supposed to be a farm labourer. Then he realized that the man was wearing a coat with a superfluity of shoulder-capes; had a glimpse of pale, blood-shot eyes glaring up at him out of a white face; and rode on, without uttering a word. The head had been ducked almost immediately, but he had recognized Henry Stornaway.

It was only for a moment that he saw him plainly, but the Captain was not slow-witted, and his powers of observation were acute. He noticed two things about Mr. Stornaway: the first, that in his face had been an expression of starting horror; the second, that he carried an unlit lantern. For the look of horror, no explanation presented itself: something more dreadful than dismay at having been seen had inspired it; the lantern seemed to indicate that he had set forth from the Manor in darkness. Yet even though the night had been overcast, it had not, John thought, been so dark as to have made a lantern necessary for a traveller on foot.

He rode on, keeping a sharp look-out for any house which might have been Stornaway’s objective. He saw nothing but two small cottages, and a cluster of farm buildings; beyond them, the country became more wooded, and the lane began to ascend sharply towards the tangled hills which loomed dimly through the mist. These were typical of the district: wild shapes tossed up in confusion, with crags of outcropping limestone, and deep gorges cut in their precipitous sides. The track wound steadily upwards through a pass; one or two sheep, straying across it, scurried away at the approach of a rider; but of human habitation there was no sign. The sharp, sweet tang of the moors came to John’s nostrils; the road became level again, dipped slightly, rose again, so that he knew he must have reached the summit, and was now wending his way across the undulations of the moor to whatever town or village the track served.

It began after a mile or two to descend again, and presently ran through a small village, huddled on the northern slope of the hill. John halted there, for the place was awake, and housewives were already shaking mats out of doors, and one or two men were to be seen on the single street, plodding off to work. Enquiries elicited the information that the road went to some town, of which John had never heard, seven miles to the north-west, serving on its way only one house of any size, which appeared, from the somewhat unintelligible description vouchsafed, to be situated only a couple of miles short of the town. It seemed extremely improbable that Henry Stornaway could have walked as far; and John, feeling that it was useless to go on, turned Beau, and rode back the way he had come.

By the time he reached the foot of the pass the mist had cleared appreciably, and he was able to see that besides the farmstead and the two cottages there were no houses within sight. The farm lay some two hundred yards back from the lane, and just as John was wondering whether it would serve any useful purpose if he were to ride up to it, on some pretext or another, he saw an immensely stout man in the garb of a farmer, leaning on an ash-plant, and surveying with a ruminative eye a small mixed herd of cows. He turned his head when he heard the sound of hooves. John pulled up, and, after a minute, the farmer began to walk ponderously towards the gate. As he drew nearer he was seen to have a large, ruddy, and cheerful countenance; and when he came within earshot he called out, in a deep, wheezy voice: “ ’Morning, sir! Anything I can do for you?”

He did not look to be at all the sort of man to be engaged on any nefarious enterprise, and within a very few moments John was satisfied that his farm had not been Henry Stornaway’s objective. He was of a chatty and an expansive disposition, only too pleased to enter into conversation with strangers, of whom he saw very few. He was one of the Squire’s tenants, and shook his head sadly over Sir Peter’s illness, saying that things would be very different when he died. It was an easy matter to get him to expatiate on this theme; and it soon became apparent that although he had a great regard for Miss Nell, he didn’t (as he put it) reckon much to Mr. Henry, whom he scarcely knew, and who didn’t (if the half of what he heard tell were true) take any interest in the estate. Yes, he had been told that Mr. Henry was staying at Kellands, and a fine London friend with him, but you wouldn’t catch Mr. Henry coming in to pass the time of day with his grandpa’s tenants, not he! No, he had never seen the London friend, and he didn’t know as he much wanted to, for he had seen another Londoner that week, and a regular leather-head he was! He was wishful to buy a property in the district, but from the silly questions he asked it was easy to see as he was a chap as would be nailed, sure as check! What was he like? He was a muffin-faced chap, a little on the squat, and precious wide in the boughs.

The Captain, recognizing, from this pungent description, Mr. Gabriel Stogumber, rode on his way, a frown knitting his brow. He failed to perceive what object Stogumber could have had in questioning the farmer; and he was still puzzling over this problem when he reached the tollhouse. He had been away from it for longer than he had intended, and he found Ben in a mood of considerable disquiet, flatteringly overjoyed to behold him again.

No one visited him from the Manor that day. He spent the morning in the expectation of seeing Nell; but she did not come; and by the time it became apparent that something had prevented her, Mrs. Skeffling had gone home, and there was no one in whose charge John could leave the gate, Ben having been engaged by Farmer Huggate for the whole day, to assist in taking livestock to market. Gatekeeping had never been more irksome, for there were certain questions John wished to ask either of Nell, or of Joseph, who, he supposed, must be even more familiar with the district. Thinking over his strange encounter with Henry Stornaway, and cudgelling his brains to hit upon some solution to account for his presence upon a lonely lane at such an unseasonable hour of the morning, there had flashed across his memory an echo of something Nell had talked of during their drive to Tideswell. If her idle words did indeed hold the key to the mystery, he was still far from understanding it, but it might well be within his power to discover it. Then he remembered the look of sick horror in Stornaway’s face, and he thought it might be wiser to address his questions to Joseph rather than to Nell.

But Joseph did not come, and a certain anxiety was added to the Captain’s impatience. When Ben returned from Tideswell, pleasantly weary, and full of all that he had seen and done in the town, John made an attempt to convince him that he had no longer anything to fear in being left for an hour to mind the pike after dark. But Ben, who, while he knew his large protector to be at hand, seemed almost to have forgotten his alarms, no sooner realized that he was in danger of being left alone than he became slightly tearful, and with the utmost urgency begged John not to leave him. It was useless to point out to him that his father’s visitor must by this time know that he would no longer find Brean at the toll-house; he merely said, in considerable agitation, that if John went out he himself would run away, and spend the night with Beau in Farmer Huggate’s big barn. It was plainly useless to argue with him, and the Captain, suppressing exasperation, promised not to leave the toll-house, and commanded him to stop whining.

As it happened, he was forced to realize that he could scarcely have done so, had Ben been never so willing. After the unaccustomed excitement of the day, the boy was so sleepy that he dropped off before he had finished his supper, and could not be roused. When picked up, and carried off to his truckle-bed, he did no more than stir, and murmur something unintelligible: it seemed unlikely that anything less than a coach-horn blown in his ear would waken him.

Scarcely an hour later, John had reason to be glad that he had not, after all, gone to Kellands, for he heard the owl’s hoot, twice repeated, which had previously heralded Jeremy Chirk’s arrival at the toll-house. He walked over to the back-door, and opened it. Chirk’s voice, lowered, but sufficiently penetrating, reached him. “Lend a hand here, Soldier!”

John stepped out into the untidy garden, looking towards the wicket-gate. He saw that Chirk, on his feet, was holding it open for Mollie to pass through; and that seated astride the mare was a thick figure which swayed perilously and seemed only to be held in the saddle by Chirk’s hand gripping him. “Now what?” he demanded, striding forward.

“Bear a bob, Soldier!” Chirk adjured him. “I’ve got a cove here as is as sick as a horse. Lift him down, will you? If I was to let go of him, he’d fall, and he’s had one ding on the canister already.”

“Good God, is it Brean?” John exclaimed, hoisting the burly figure out of the saddle.

“Lord love you, no! I dunno who it is. I found him trying to mill his way out of a row, couple o’ miles back—and a well-plucked ’un he seems to be! Else I wouldn’t have meddled. I doubt I’ll regret it yet: it don’t become a man of my calling to meddle in other folks’ business. But I don’t like to see a game fighter set on from behind, and that’s the truth!”

“Stable the mare!” said John briefly.

A few minutes later, Chirk entered the kitchen to find the victim of the late assault slumped in a chair, with the Captain, a somewhat grim look in his face, forcing brandy down his throat.

“Not hopped the twig, has he?” Chirk asked, shutting the door.

“Oh, no!”

“I didn’t think he had. He cast up his accounts, back there along the road, but he didn’t swoon off till a minute or two before I got him to the gate. Someone knifed him in the back.”

“I know that. Help me to strip off his coat!” John said, withdrawing his arm from behind the inert form, and showing his shirt-sleeve stained with blood. “He’s lost a good deal of blood, from the look of things, but I should say it’s not serious.”

Coat and waistcoat were expeditiously removed, and tossed aside. The Captain then ripped up the shirt, and disclosed a long gash down one shoulder, which was still sluggishly bleeding.

“Nothing but a cut. I’ve seen many worse,” said John, going over to the sink, and pouring some water from the pail that stood under it into a tin bowl.

“Ah!” said Chirk, with satisfaction. “I rather suspicioned I spoilt the cull’s aim! I saw the chive he had in his famble flash in the moonlight, so I loosed off one of my barking-irons over his head, because chives I don’t hold with! They showed their shapes quick then!—him and the other cove.”

“Who were they? Did you see their faces?”

“It would have queered me to do that, Soldier: they were muffled up to the eyes. Well, I was wearing a mask myself, but I don’t go winding scarves round my phiz!” He shifted the heavy body he was supporting so that John could more easily bathe the gash. “If they were foot-scamperers, I don’t know what they were doing on this road, nor what they hoped to prig, nor why they set on a chap like this, that wouldn’t have anything in his pockets worth the taking. Sticking a chive into a cove for the sake of a coach-wheel or two, and maybe a silver tatler, is nasty work, Soldier, and I don’t hold with it. Blubberheaded, too,” he added thoughtfully. “That’s the way to get snabbled, sure as a gun! I wonder who this cove is?”