"H'm! the thieves can have gained but sorry booty from so impoverished a prey," remarked Jasper, with a derisive sneer. "Poor crazed creature, he was scarce worth the room he occupied aboard our ship! And, indeed, we should never have consented to bring him but that we were short-handed, and he so earnestly craved for his passage back to England, and so we gave him a berth out of mere compassionate charity."
"Haply, too, you had been acquainted with the man in former years?" suggested Gilbert.
Jasper glanced in quick apprehension at his nephew, as if questioning whether the lad spoke from knowledge or only at random.
"No, faith, no," he answered, with seeming indifference. "I have but known him during our late voyage."
Then Timothy Trollope—remembering how Philip had made inquiry of him concerning Hartop; remembering, too, how speedily the attack upon the old seafarer had followed upon his own meeting with Philip Oglander in the town—ventured to address the two visitors thus:
"I have been thinking," said he, looking from Jasper to Philip and back again to Jasper, "that 'tis passing strange you neither saw nor heard aught of this encounter. You set out from Plymouth at close upon five o'clock, or only a brief time before my master and I started for home. You could scarce have arrived at the manor-house very much in advance of us. 'Tis plain, therefore, that you were at no great distance from Beddington Dingle at the moment when this thing befell. And yet it seemeth that you knew naught of the matter until Master Gilbert was carried wounded into the dining-hall."
While Timothy spoke Jasper's fingers were idly playing with the fringe of Gilbert's counterpane. He glanced upward with a composure which at once dispelled all Timothy's doubts, and remarked with so much seeming candour that there was no gainsaying the truth of his statement:
"That same question hath already occurred to me," said he; "and, indeed, had we chanced to come by that same road I doubt not that we should certainly have passed your robbers by the way. Peradventure we might even have been near enough at hand to render you some timely aid in overcoming the rascals. But it so happened that we journeyed by the longer way of the main road instead of taking the short cut by the Beddington Lane."
"Would that you had indeed been near, uncle!" said Drusilla, as she sat at the foot of the bed, her two hands stretched out clasping the carved oak rail against which her back was resting. "For apart from yourself, who are, as it seemeth, a man of war, I am well assured that Cousin Philip is a master of fence. I saw his long rapier yesternight. 'Tis such a weapon as surely none but the skilfullest swordsman could handle."
"Ay, 'tis a pretty enough blade," returned Jasper carelessly; "but more for ornament, I do assure you, than for use, Mistress Drusilla. As for Philip, he is a sorry hand at such matters. In fencing, as in many other arts that I have wished him to exercise, he is in truth a very dullard and bungler."