The first speaker turned fiercely. "The animals must and shall be found. We cannot have our new cousin moping in a public hostel on her first visit to us. For shame, Caroline."
"Back with you," she turned to Alastair. "Bennet will give you a glass of ale, but see you do not dally over it."
The buttery ale was not such as to invite dalliance, and like the whole place smacked either of narrow means or narrow souls. Even the kitchen, of which he had a glimpse, was comfortless. To warm his blood Alastair trotted across the park, and as he ran with his head low almost butted into a horseman who was riding on one of the paths that converged on the back courtyard. He pulled himself up in time, warned by the rider's cry, and saw pass him a gentleman in a heavy fawn riding-coat, whose hat was pulled down over his brows and showed little of his face. Two sharp eyes flashed on him and then lifted, and a sharp nose, red with the weather, projected over the high coat collar.
Alastair stared after him and reached certain conclusions. That was the nose he had seen by the light of Edom's lantern the night he spent with Kyd at the inn. That was the back he had observed yesterday afternoon riding away from the Sleeping Deer. Thirdly and most important—and though his evidence was scanty he had no doubt on the matter—the gentleman was Sir John Norreys. My lady when she reached Brightwell would find her husband.
XI Night at the Same: Two Visitors
Four nights later Alastair was in his little bedroom at the Sleeping Deer, dressing by the light of two home-made candles. He had been taken to this inn by Midwinter because of the honesty of the landlord, who lived only for trout-fishing, and the facilities of the rambling old house for a discreet retirement. He was given an attic at the back where the dwelling part of the building merged in a disused watermill and granary. There was an entrance to it from the first floor, by way of a store cupboard; another from the kitchen regions, and still a third from the mill-house. Accordingly he was able to enter unobtrusively at any hour of the day or night, and had the further advantage that the mill-house road led directly to a covert of elders and so to the hillside. His meals, when he was at home to partake of them, were brought him by the landlord himself, who also would ascend to smoke his pipe of an evening, and discuss the habits of Derbyshire trout as compared with their northern kin.
Clad in his leather and frieze he had spent the days among the valleys and along the great road. The snow had not melted, but it was bound in the stricture of a mild frost, and all day a winter sun shone on the soft white curves of the hills. It was weather to kindle the blood and lift the heart, and Alastair found his journeys pleasant enough, though so far fruitless. He had haunted Brightwell like a cattle-lifting Macgregor looking down on a Lennox byre, and since few could teach him woodcraft in hilly places, he had easily evaded the race of keepers and foresters. Twice he had met the man whom he took to be Sir John Norreys. The first time he had watched him from cover, setting out on horseback by a track which ran from Brightwell to Dovedale—a man in a furious hurry, with a twitching bridle-hand and a nervous eye. The second time he met him full face on the high road, and seemed to be recognised. Sir John half pulled up, thought better of it, and rode on with one glance behind him. He had made certain inquiries in the neighbourhood and learned that the tall gentleman in the fawn coat was a newcomer and beyond doubt sojourned in Brightwell: but he had a notion that in that vast decaying pile a man might lodge unbeknown to the other dwellers. He was curious to discover if Sir John had yet greeted his lady.
Four days ago she had departed in her coach, fresh horsed from Brightwell, attended by Mr Johnson and Edom Lowrie. Since then he had seen no sign of the party. The old house had swallowed them up, and neither taking the air in the park nor riding on the highway had any one of them emerged to the outer world. The mystery of the place grew upon him, till he came to look on the bleak house lying in the sparkling amphitheatre of hill as the enchanted castle of a fairy tale. It held a princess and it held a secret—the secret, he was convinced, most vital to his Prince's cause. He need not scour the country; in that one dwelling he could read the riddle.
On this, the fourth night of his reconnaissance, he returned to the inn assured that the first part of his task was over. He must find some way of entering Brightwell and growing familiar with the household, and his head was busy with plans as he slipped into the mill-house in the early dark, and climbed the dusty wooden ladder to the loft which gave on his attic. In his bedroom stood the landlord.
"I heard ye come in by the mill," he said, "and I'm here because I've news ye may like to hear. There's a famous gentleman coming here to-night. Ye'll have heard o' General Oglethorpe, him that's been fighting in Ameriky? He's coming to his supper, no less. His regiment is lying down the vale, and an officer rides here this afternoon and says the General will be to sup sharp at seven o'clock. After that he's to meet a friend here and wants to be left quiet. He needs no bed, for he's riding back to his camp when he's done his business. Now, what d' ye make of that, sir?"