‘I do not know this fellow,’ he muttered wrathfully: ‘the man’s very name is strange to me. But the twenty-fourth of March—that can be no mistake, no coincidence. That fatal date has burned itself too deeply into my brain for me to disregard or to forget it. Yes, I must go; I suppose that I must go.’
And with a heavy sigh, the master of that fair demesne and of many a broad acre beyond it felt in his pocket for the key that would open the postern before which he stood, unlocked the door, went out, and reclosed and fastened it behind him. Then, without further hesitation, he entered into a lane, the straggling branches of the hazels that grew on the high banks to left and right almost brushing against his person as he walked briskly on. So long as he had been within the limits of Carbery Chase, Sir Sykes had done his best to escape notice, keeping as often as he could tree and bush and rising ground between himself and the grand house of which he was absolute proprietor. But now he ceased to turn his head and look or listen for any sign that he was followed, and pushed on, assured that his clandestine exit from Carbery was unknown to any but himself. Sir Sykes, however, was very much mistaken. He was dogged by the very pursuer whom, perhaps, of all others he would have wished to keep in ignorance as to his conduct. Jasper, whose feline vigilance, once awakened, could not readily be lulled to sleep, had kept watch upon his father’s actions with a quiet patient steadiness which nothing but vengeance or the greed of gain could possibly have inspired. There is a certain sympathy, especially with crooked motives, which enables us to anticipate the stratagems of those with whom we have intercourse, and of this Jasper had his full share.
He was scarcely surprised when from his place of espial he saw his father quit the house and thread his way through the grounds after such a fashion as made it manifest that the baronet desired his excursion to remain a secret to those beneath his roof. That something abnormal should happen as a consequence of the letter which Sir Sykes had received, and the reading of which had so powerfully affected its recipient, the captain had considered as so probable, that he thought it worth his while to lie in wait for the surprisal of the secret. Of two probable hypotheses, Jasper, whose imagination was of a chastened and practical order, had chosen rather to fancy that some stranger would arrive, than that the baronet should himself go forth to meet that stranger. But when he saw his father’s tall figure vanish amidst the shadows of the dense evergreens and leafy lime-trees, he was not in the least astonished.
‘When it was a question of nobbling the Black Prince,’ he said meditatively, ‘I wouldn’t trust myself, nor would Gentleman Pratt, to talking it over anywhere but on Bletchley Downs with the vagabonds who hocussed the horse, and who would for a fiver have sold their own fathers.’
Some recollection that he, Jasper Denzil, late a captain in Her Majesty’s service, was at that moment engaged, so far as in him lay, in the questionable operation of ‘selling’ his own father, here caused a twinge to his callous heart. But we are seldom without some moral anodyne wherewith to lull to sleep that troublesome monitor, conscience; and Jasper had but need to remember his debts, his difficulties, and the fact that men at his club spoke of him as ‘Poor Denzil—played out, sir!’ to assuage the momentary pang which some as yet smouldering sense of honour occasioned to him.
The skill with which he followed Sir Sykes, keeping the object of his pursuit fully in view, yet never for an instant compromising himself by coming into the range of vision, should the baronet, as he often did, turn his head, would have done credit to a Comanche Indian on the war-path. It was by a subtle instinct, not by practice, that he availed himself of the shelter of tree and brake and hollow, until at length, himself unobserved, he made sure that Sir Sykes was heading towards the private door in the northern wall of the park. There was a side-gate kept continually unlocked on account of the right of way, some six hundred yards to the eastward, and from this the captain could issue without difficulty. As for the private door, Sir Sykes had a key to fit its lock; Jasper had none. The latter’s mind was instantly made up.
Idle sybarite though he was, the captain was fleet of foot, an accomplishment perhaps more common among languid men about town than healthy hardy dwellers in the country would readily imagine. He had made money once and again by the lightness of his heels, and they did him good service now, as, after a rapid rush across the elastic turf of the park and a quick traversing of the heathery surface of the rugged common-land beyond, he caught a glimpse of his father’s stately figure as it passed in between the tall hedges of the lane.
‘It’s lucky I can run a bit!’ gasped out Jasper as he paused for an instant to take breath, and then passing his cambric handkerchief across his brow, on which the heat-drops stood thickly, plunged into the dark lane between the steep banks of which the object of his pursuit had disappeared. And now his task was the easier, in that Sir Sykes, intent on what lay before him, and confident that his manner of leaving his home was unknown, never once turned his head to look back.
A ghastly sight it was—had human eye been there to note it—which the wan moon shewed, when at uncertain intervals her white light fell on the pale faces of these two men, father and son, so much and so little alike, who were wending their way thus along the deep Devonshire lane. In front was Sir Sykes, moody indeed and downcast, but a gentleman of a goodly presence; while behind him came with feline footfall his only son, as craftily eager in the chase as even a garrotter, our British Thug, could have been. Once beyond the lane, the baronet and his kindred spy had to traverse a tract of ragged and desolate common, where the horse-road dwindled to a track of cart-wheels in the peaty soil, and where Jasper felt that concealment would have been difficult, had the baronet but looked behind him.
But the rain, long threatened, came on, urged by the strength of the sobbing wind, and Captain Denzil congratulated himself on the friendly darkness that ensued. Nor was it long before Sir Sykes caught sight of the dead tree, on a knotted bough of which was the signboard of The Traveller’s Rest, the dilapidated roof and battered front of which could dimly be seen through the gloom of night.