"Hilloa, Bill! I say, Bill my boy!" he shouted from the chamber next to that in which his son slept. "Hilloa! Bill, come here directly."
Bill answered not, but sounds were heard in his room as of one stepping out of bed, and presently the noise of flint and steel announced that a light was being struck. In a few minutes the rather jaded-looking youth appeared at the bedstead of his parent.
"Bill, my dear boy," said Simon, in a more subdued voice, "did you see anybody pass last night after I came home? Try and recollect yourself; did you see two men on the road?"
"I did, father; just as I had locked the stable door, and was coming in for the night, I saw two men passing down the road. But why do you ask?"
"Did you speak to them—could you recognise them?" asked Simon, without stating his motive for the question.
"I wished them good night; and one of them gruffly bade me good night too; but I could not make out who they were, though one did for a moment strike me to be Desborough, and both were tallish sort of men."
"You're a lad of penetration, Bill; now saddle me Silvertail as fast as you can."
"Saddle Silvertail! Surely, father, you are not going out yet; it's not daylight."
"Saddle Silvertail, Bill," repeated the old man, with the air of one whose mandate was not to be questioned. "But where the devil are you going, sir?" he added, impatiently.
"Why to saddle Silvertail, to be sure," said the youth, who was just closing the door for that purpose.