‘As surely as I had your ring.’
‘Much in the same way,’ she said, with a little sharpness.
‘But I shall return one with the other. Trust me. Stand up; look me in the face. Do I bear tho appearance of a cheat, a thief, a robber? Am I base, villanous! No, I am nothing but a poor, foolish, prodigal lad, who has got into a scrape, but will get out of it again. You forgive me. Hark! I hear someone calling.’
‘It is Barbara. She is looking for me.’
‘Then I disappear.’ He put his hand to his lips, wafted her a kiss, whispered ‘When you look at the ring, remember poor—poor Martin,’ and he slipped away among the bushes.
[CHAPTER XXVIII.]
FATHER AND SON.
Barbara was mistaken. Jasper had gone to Buckfastleigh, gone openly to his father’s house, in the belief that his father was dying. He knocked at the blotched and scaled door under the dilapidated portico, but received no answer. He tried the door. It was locked and barred. Then he went round to the back, noting how untidy the garden was, how out of repair was the house; and in the yard of the kitchen he found the deaf housekeeper. His first question, shouted into her ear, naturally was an inquiry after his father. He learned to his surprise that the old man was not ill, but was then in the factory. Thinking that his question had been misunderstood, he entered the house, went into his father’s study, then up to his bedroom, and through the dirty window-panes saw the old man leaving the mill on his way back to the house.
What, then, had Watt meant by sending him to the old home on false tidings? The boy was indeed mischievous, but this was more than common mischief. He must have sent him on a fool’s errand for some purpose of his own. That the boy wanted to hear news of his father was possible, but not probable. The only other alternative Jasper could suggest to explain Watt’s conduct was the disquieting one that he wanted to be rid of Jasper from Morwell for some purpose of his own. What could that purpose be?