“Maitland, you asked me, this noon, about Lord Oakleigh; and I told you I knew nothing about him. Well, I can tell ye more now. Dan Corbett came in half an hour ago and told me he met the young lord over at Saybrook, at Seth Arnold’s inn, last evening.”
“He knows it was Lord Oakleigh?” interrogated the youth, much excited.
“Bless ye, yes! He knows Lord Oakleigh as well as he knows you or me.”
“Last evening?”
“Yes.”
“At what time?”
“It must have been somewhere between eight and ten o’clock.”
“Does he know what he was doing there, or anything about what he intended to do?”
“He could make out only this: His lordship was in a great flurry, with his right arm in a sling, Dan said; and seemed to be waiting for somebody—Dan thought his servant—who was to take him away from there; but where he was bound or what he was about, I couldn’t find out.”
Percy asked a few more questions, and then, having thanked the landlord for his kindness, he left the inn and made all possible haste to the castle. He was well armed, and he kept a sharp lookout around as he wended his way through the bit of woods he had to traverse, for he well knew that he had deadly enemies, and there was no telling where nor when they might strike. At the castle he found the earl, pacing to and fro, suffering intensely.