“You are a woodman?”
Another nod.
“And poacher too, eh? No offense,” he added, coolly. “I only supposed so from the close way in which you keep your place locked up.”
“Suppose what you please,” retorted the woodman, if words so calmly spoken could be called a retort. “Yonder lies your road, you’d best be taking to it.”
“No hurry,” retorted the young man, thrusting his hands in his pockets and smiling at the ill-concealed impatience which struggled through the grave calm on the weather-beaten face. “Well, I’m coming. You’re not half such a bad sort, after all. What have you got inside there that you keep so close, eh? Some of the crown jewels or some of the Queen’s venison? Take my advice, old fellow—if you don’t want people to be curious, don’t show such anxiety to keep ’em out of your crib.”
The man, pacing on ahead, knit his brows as if struck by the idea.
“Curious folk don’t come this way, young sir,” he said, reluctantly.
“So I should think,” retorted the other. “Well, I’m not one of the curious, though you think I am. I don’t care a button what you’ve got there. Will you have a pipe? I’ve got some ’bacca.”
The man shook his head, and they walked on in silence for some minutes, the footpath winding in and out like a dimly-defined serpent. Presently it widened, and the woodman stopped short and pointed down the leafy lane.
“Follow this path,” he said, “until you come to a wood pile; take the path to the left of it, and it will bring you to Arkdale. Good-night, young sir.”