He hurried away, and returned when Dick was half through his midday meal. Dick heard the boy clumping into the house, but did not go to him at once, being disinclined to enter into explanations with his parents at this stage. He left the table as soon as he could, and found Sam busy with dumpling and gravy in the kitchen.
"Well, Sam?" he said.
"Mistress commands me not to speak wi' my mouth full," mumbled the boy. "Now I can tell 'ee," he went on after a few moments. "Pennycomequick bean't to home. He be gone to Trura to buy leather."
"When will he be back?"
"'Them above alone knows,' says the woman when I axed her. 'He said four, but what Pennycomequick says, and what he do, be as far apart as from here to nowhere.' If that be all you want to know, Maister Dick, I'll continny work on this noble pudden."
Dick was satisfied. He returned to his room, and, about three o'clock, mounted to the roof of one of the towers from which the house took its name. With him he carried an excellent spy-glass which remained to the Squire from his seafaring days. From this lofty eyrie a view could be obtained for miles around. If the cobbler and the farmer were on guard together, it was likely that they would be relieved together, and they could hardly return, the one to the village, the other to his farm on the moor, without coming at some part of their journey within range of vision. Dick felt a momentary damping of the spirits when it occurred to him that Penwarden's place of concealment might be some nook below the cliffs. In that case the sentries would be changed by boat from the harbour, and he would see nothing of them. But even in that case the farmer must ascend the hill and cross the moor, and though he might be concealed at some portions of his road by trees and bushes, he must at length cross open country. Behind the parapet Dick could watch unseen, and he settled himself to wait in patience.
CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH
Doubledick on Duty
It was a chill, dreary afternoon. The sky weighed upon earth and sea like a canopy of lead. The wind moaned and sighed about the roof; the trees seemed to shiver in their nakedness. From over the cliff came the hollow murmur of the breakers. Northward Penwarden's cottage stood lonely and forlorn; eastward stretched the dark gloomy waste of moorland; southward the village huddled in its cleft as if for warmth, a few thin streamers of smoke flying inland on the wind. Nearer the Dower House a score of men were engaged in erecting sheds and machinery for Trevanion's miners, and the sound of their voices came in mournful cadence to Dick's ears.
For some time there was scarcely a movement on the face of the country. Presently a carrier's cart rumbled down the road, stopping at the Dower House. Through his spy-glass Dick saw Susan's bright face smiling as she spoke to the carrier, who conveyed into the house boxes, baskets, and packets of various shapes and sizes. Dick remembered that on the morrow Trevanion was entertaining a party of friends to celebrate the reopening of the mines. He was miserably conscious of the contrast between his cousin's lot and his own. Why, he asked himself, had Fate dealt so hardly with the Trevanions of the Towers? The cart moved on, no doubt to the Five Pilchards, where the carrier would refresh himself before starting on his return journey to Truro. The workmen shouldered their tools and tramped after it, and when they had disappeared the land was left in its former immobility.