"Nothing at all. I incline to think that we shall soon see him again. With Mr. Polwhele on the alert, and Mr. Mildmay also, let us hope, there can be neither run nor shipment, and the rascals will tire of keeping guard on the old man."
Again Dick was on the point of disclosing what he knew, but was restrained by the same feeling that suspicion must become certainty before any steps were taken.
Next morning, waking before it was light, he rose and dressed, roused Sam, and set off with him to investigate the neighbourhood of the spot where he had first seen Nancarrow and Pennycomequick. The air was crisp and clear, with the first nip of frost, giving promise of a fine morning. There had been rain in the night, but a thin film of ice covered the ruts and pools, and the boys might have been tracked in the darkness by the slight crackling under their feet as the icy layer gave way.
The night was yielding by the time they reached the high-road near the point where Nancarrow had left it. The farmer's tracks were easily discoverable in the ploughed field, for, having been filled up by rain, the prints of his large boots formed a series of white and regular patches in the frost-besprinkled ground. A covey of snipe rose into the air from the sedgy border of a pool at the side of the field, and Sam pointed out a fox with lowered brush slinking along after them beside a hedge of brambles.
"We have other foxes to run to earth—two-legged foxes," said Dick, who had told Sam on the way the occasion and the object of their expedition. Sam had a quick eye for the tracks of birds and beasts, but when they had traced the farmer's footprints back to the road, even he was at a loss. The rain had washed the hard surface of the highway, and obliterated the tracks of footfarers.
Finding their examination of the road likely to prove fruitless, they scrambled through the hedge on the left, and crossed into the rugged and uneven ground that lay between the road and Penwarden's cottage. There were no footprints on the path that ran past the cottage, nor on the coarse grass with which the earth was covered. Returning to the road, they walked for a quarter of a mile further, until they reached the footpath which, in the ordinary course of things, the farmer would have taken. They failed to light upon any more traces.
"I'll work backwards along the other side under the hedge," said Dick. "Nancarrow must have crossed the road. You go back to where we saw his footprints, and I'll keep pace with you. No; we'll change parts; I can easily find the prints; your eyes are quicker than mine to discover new ones."
"That's true," said Sam, gratified by this testimony to his powers. "Wend along, then, Maister Dick, and holla when you come to 'em."
In a few minutes Dick called to Sam to halt. The latter bent towards the road, and scrutinised its hard surface minutely, for several yards in each direction beyond the point opposite to that where Dick stood.
"Neither heel nor toe mark do I see," he said at length. "The road be washed clean."