The worthy money-lender smiled an uncomfortable and malignant smile at the banged door, and at once gave instructions to his manager to take proceedings. Sir Tancred explained the transaction to Tinker; warned him against laxness in matters of business; prepared for immediate flight; and they caught the midnight mail from Euston. By the time an indefatigable bailiff had ascertained next day that they had left London, they were eating their dinner, in a secure peace, at Ardrochan Lodge in Ardrochan forest, which Sir Tancred had borrowed for the while from his friend Lord Crosland.
Hildebrand Anne was used to long periods unenlivened by companions of his own age; and he began forthwith to make the best of the forest. Some days he stalked the red deer with his father; some days were devoted to his education, fencing, boxing, and gymnastics; and on the others he explored the forest on a shaggy pony. It was of a comfortable size, forty square miles or thereabouts, stretches of wild heath, broken by strips of wood, craggy hills, and swamps, full of streams, and abounding in many kinds of animals. It was an admirable place for Indians, outlaws, brigands, and robber barons, and Tinker practised all these professions in turn, with the liveliest satisfaction.
At first it was something of a tax on his imagination to be a whole band of these engaging persons himself; with one companion it would have been easy enough, but his imagination presently compassed the task. And when he found his way to the Deil's Den, a low stone tower on a hill some six miles from Ardrochan, his favourite occupation was that of robber baron. It would have been more proper to put the tower to its old use of a lair of a Highland cateran; but, to his shame, Tinker funked the dialect with which such a person must necessarily be cursed.
The Deil's Den had earned its name in earlier centuries from the bloody deeds of its first owners. No gillie would go within a mile of it, even in bright sunshine. Tinker's carelessness of its ghosts, a headless woman and a redheaded man with his throat cut, had won him the deepest respect of the village, or rather hamlet, of Ardrochan. Twice he had constrained himself to wait in the tower till dusk, in the hope that his fearful, but inquiring, spirit would be gratified by the sight of one or other of these psychic curiosities.
It was a two-storied building, and its stone seemed likely to last as long as the hills from which it had been quarried. In some thought that it might be used as a watch-tower by his keepers, Lord Crosland had repaired its inside, and fitted it with a stout door and two ladders, one running to the second story and another to the roof. From here the keen eyes of Hildebrand Anne, Baron of Ardrochan, scanned often the countryside, looking for travelling merchants or wandering knights; while his gallant steed Black Rudolph, whose coat was drab and dingy, waited saddled and bridled below, and Blazer the bloodhound sniffed about the burn hard by. Blazer had a weakness for rats quite uncommon in bloodhounds.
Tinker cherished but a faint hope that Fortune would ever send him a prisoner, even a braw, shock-headed lad, or sonsie, savage lassie of the country. But he did not do justice to that goddess's love of mischief. It was she who inspired into Mr. Robert Lambert the desire to shine in the Great World; and it was she who gave him the idea of taking for the season Lord Hardacre's house and forest of Tullispaith, in lieu of the cash which he would never get. Thither he invited certain spirited young clients, who had practically only the choice of being Mr. Lambert's guests at Tullispaith or King Edward's at Holloway. Thither he came, a week beforehand, to make ready for them.
At once he set about becoming an accomplished deer-stalker. For three days he rode, or tramped, about the forest of Tullispaith, in search of red deer which, in quite foolish estimate of their peril, insisted always on putting a hill between themselves and his rifle. On the fourth day he rested, for though his spirit was willing, his legs were weak. This inactivity irked him, for he knew the tireless energy of the English sportsman; and at noon Fortune inspired him with the most disastrous idea of all, the idea of taking a stroll by himself. He took his rifle and a packet of sandwiches, and set out. Now to the unpractised eye any one brae, or glen, or burn of bonnie Scotland is exactly like any other brae, or glen, or burn of that picturesque land. He had not gone two miles before he had lost his way.
He did not mind, for he was sure that he knew his direction. He was wrong; he may have been like his Oriental ancestors in some of his qualities, but he lacked their ingrained sense of orientation; and he was walking steadily away from the house of Tullispaith. He rested often and he looked often at his watch. He passed over the border of Tullispaith into the forest of Ardrochan, and wandered wearily on and on. The autumn sun was moving down the western sky at a disquieting speed, when at last he caught sight of the Dell's Den, and with a new energy hurried towards it.
At about the same time Hildebrand Anne, the robber baron of Ardrochan, caught sight of him, mounted Black Rudolph, and rode down to meet him, ready to drag or lure him to his stronghold. The angel face of Tinker had never looked more angelic to human being than it looked to the weary money-lender. He had never seen him before; therefore, he had no reason to suppose that that face was not the index to an angelic nature. Unfortunately, Tinker knew by sight most of his father's friends and enemies, and at the first glance he recognised the squat figure, the thick, square nose, and muddy complexion of Mr. Robert Lambert.
"My lad," said the money-lender, failing to perceive that he was addressing one of the worst kind of man in all romance, "I've lost my way. I want to get to the house of Tullispaith. Which is the road?"