“I—I think not, sir,” I said, hesitatingly. “We have talked about it.”
“And what a pity it is for a fortune to be lying there untouched?”
“Dean thought something of the kind, sir. I did not.”
“Ha!” he said, as he again fixed me with his eyes. “No, Mayne, you must not think of going away. You have not exhausted my stock of hospitality yet.”
Perhaps it was fancy, I said to myself, but it certainly seemed to me during the next few days, whenever I went out for a good long stroll with Esau, some one seemed to be watching us.
One day it was Grey who encountered us somewhere on the mountain-side; another day it was one of the men; and again, on another, Mr Raydon himself, whose presence was announced by the great dog, who came bounding up, to be followed in a few minutes by his master.
He did not stay long, but as soon as he was gone I found that my feelings were shared by Esau himself.
“I say,” he growled, “are they afraid we are going to lose ourselves?”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because whenever we come right away into the woods, they send that dog to scent us out.”