Meanwhile Tinker had ridden joyously home, and shown himself in such cheerful spirits during dinner that Sir Tancred had observed him with no little suspicion, wondering if it could really be that he had found opportunities of mischief even in a deer-forest. After dinner Tinker went into the kitchen, where he found Hamish Beg supping. He talked to him for a while, on matters of sport; then he said, "I say, you told me about the headless woman and the red-headed man with his throat cut, at the Deil's Den, but you never told me about the man in brown who shouts and waves from the top of the tower, and when you come to it, it's empty."
Hamish, the cook, and the two maids burst into a torrent of exclamations in their strange language. "Yes," said Tinker, "a man in brown who shouts and waves from the top of the tower, and when you come to it, no one's there."
He kept his story to this, and presently came back to his father, assured that the more loudly Mr. Lambert yelled, and the more wildly he waved, the further would any inhabitant of Ardrochan fly from the Deil's Den. He went to bed in a gloating joy, which kept him awake a while; and it was during those wakeful moments that a memory of "Monte Cristo" suggested that he should gain a practical advantage from what had so far been merely an act of abstract justice.
It was past eleven when Tinker came riding over the hills at the head of his merry, but imaginary men. Horribly hungry, but warmed by the sun to a quite passable malignity, the money-lender watched his coming from the top of the tower, pondering how to catch him and thrash him within an inch of his life. He did not know that far more active men than he had cherished vainly that arrogant ambition, but Tinker's cheerful and confident air afforded little encouragement to his purpose.
"Halt!" cried the robber baron, reining up his pony. "Hans and Jorgan, is your captive safe? Good. Bring him forth." He turned to his invisible band. "To your quarters, varlets! I would confer alone with the usurious"—he rolled the satisfying word finely off his tongue—"rogue."
Hand on hip he sat, and watched his merry figments dismount and lead away their horses.
He turned, and frowned splendidly on the prisoner. "What think ye of our hospitality, Lambert of London?" he said.
Mr. Lambert scowled; his emotion was too deep for words.
Suddenly Tinker dropped the robber baron, and became his frank and engaging self: "I'm sorry to be so late," he said with a charming air of apology, "but I had to send a message to Tullispaith to say that you would not be back till Saturday, or perhaps Monday."
"What!" screamed Mr. Lambert. "What do you mean?"