But with all his smirking, Dolly Varden only laughed at him. To tell the truth, she was very fond of young Joe Willet, whose father kept the Maypole Inn, very near The Warren where her friend Emma Haredale lived. Joe was a good, brave fellow, and was head over ears in love with Dolly, but Dolly was a coquette, and never let him know how much she cared for him. Joe was not contented at home, for his father seemed to think him a child and did not treat him according to his years, so that but for leaving Dolly Varden he would long ago have run away to seek his fortune.
Both Joe and Dolly knew how Edward Chester loved Emma Haredale, and they used sometimes to carry notes from one to the other, since the hatred of Sir John for Emma's uncle often prevented the lovers from meeting.
Sir John found this out, and bribed a hostler at the Maypole Inn to spy for him and prevent, if he could, these letters passing. The hostler was an uncouth, drunken giant that people called Maypole Hugh, as strong as an ox, and cruel and cunning. Hugh watched carefully, and from time to time would go to Sir John's house in London and report what he had seen.
II
THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER AND WHO HE WAS
About this time residents in the neighborhood of The Warren and the Maypole Inn began to tell tales of a mysterious man who roamed about the country-side.
He was seen often and by many persons, always at night, skulking in the shadow or riding furiously on a horse. He was fierce and haggard and discourteous to travelers, wore a slouch hat which he never took off, and generally kept the lower part of his face muffled in a handkerchief. He always went alone. Some said he slept in church-yards, others that he never slept at all, and still others that he was a wicked man who had sold his soul to the Evil One.
One night he rested at the Maypole Inn, and a little while after he had gone, Varden the locksmith, Dolly's father, as he drove home, found Edward Chester lying in the road, having been wounded and robbed of his money. Barnaby Rudge had seen the attack and was bending over him. He had been too frightened to give aid, but from his description Varden knew the robber was the stranger who had stopped at the inn.
The honest locksmith took Edward into his chaise, drove him to Barnaby's house, which was near by, and left him in care of Mrs. Rudge, where a doctor soon dressed the wound, which was not serious.
Next day Mr. Varden came to see how the wounded man was. As he sat talking with Mrs. Rudge a tapping came at the window. She went to the door. The locksmith heard her cry out, and sprang forward to find standing there, to his astonishment, the robber of the night before. He grasped at him, but the woman threw herself before him, clasped his arm and besought him, for her life's sake, not to pursue the man.
The locksmith had known Barnaby's mother all his life, but so strange was her action now (especially since she refused to answer any question, begging him to ask her nothing) that he almost wondered if she herself could be in league with a crime-doer. Her apparent agony touched him, however, and, raising no alarm, he went home in great puzzle of mind.