"Gold?" said he. "Gold an' notes? 'Tis you have a head on your shoulders, missus."
"Thank 'ee," said she. "There's twenty pound, if you'll count it. An' 'tis only a first instalment; for the lad shall have the rest in time, if I live to alter my will."
From the farmhouse Dr. Martyn walked boldly up to Stack's Folly with the bundle under his arm: and in twenty minutes had Dan'l rigged up in William Sleep's clothes. The day was turning bright and clear, and away over the waste land towards Zennor you could see for miles. Tis the desolatest land almost in all Cornwall, and by keeping to the furze-brakes and spying from one to the next, he steered his patient down for the coast and brought him safe to the cliffs over Cawse Ogo. There in a lew place in the middle of the bracken-fern they seated themselves, and the doctor pulled out his pocket spyglass and searched the coast to left and right. By and by he lowered the glass with a start, seemed to consider for a moment, and looked again.
"See here," said he, passing over the spyglass, "if you can keep comfortable I've a notion that a bathe would do me good."
Dan'l let him go. Ten minutes later, without help of the glass—his hand being too shaky to hold it steady—he saw the doctor in the water below him, swimming out to sea with a strong breast-stroke. Three hundred yards, maybe, he swam out in a straight line, appeared to float and tread water for a minute or two, and so made back for shore. In less than half an hour he was back again at Dan'l's side, and his face changed from its grey look to the picture of health.
"I want you to answer me a question if you can," said he. "Does your friend, Mr. Phoby Geen, wear a peewit's wing-feather in his hat?"
"He does, or did," answered Dan'l; "in one of his hats, at least. Did you meet the man down there?"
"No; and I've never set eyes on him in my life," said the doctor. "I just guessed." He laughed cheerful-like, enjoying Dan'l's wonder. "But this guess," he went on, "changes the campaign a little; and I'll have to ask you to lie here alone for some while longer—maybe an hour and more."
He nodded and walked off, cautious at first, but with great strides as soon as he struck into the cliff-path. When he came in sight of the Folly he spied a man's figure on the slope there among the furze, and the man was working up towards the Folly on the side of the hill hidden from William Sleep's farm.
"Lend me a gun," panted the doctor, running into the farmhouse. "A gun and a powder-horn, quick! And a lantern and wads, and a spare flint or two—never mind the shot-flask—" He told what he had seen. "I'll keep the fellow under my eye now, and all you have to do, Mr. Tummels, is to take out his boat after sunset and bring her down to Cawse Ogo."