“You’ve no ’casion to fret yourself,” replied his father. “I’ll cross t’ beck and get under t’ rock. We’re a bit ahead o’ his time, I reckon; but, anyway, I’ve a good stick i’ my hand. Now up wi’ you, lad, and think on o’ what I’ve tell’d you!”
Jagger was soon at the foot of the screes, and his father crossed the noisy stream and made his way to the densely-black shadows of the high cliff that overhung his head. The gloom of the ravine had no terrors for him, and he deliberately sought its darkest corner behind a projecting limb of the rock.
“It’ll be as snug a cubby-hole as a man need want,” he muttered, “and I can keep an eye both on Jagger and t’ field-path.”
Jagger was half-way up the screes by this time, and the shingle was giving away the secret of the ascent as it clattered down into the beck.
“He’s framing all right,” thought Maniwel, “but t’ job’s only just begun, and he’ll happen be there when t’other fellow comes. I’ll stand here and wait to see what turns up.”
He moved forward, and the same moment a hand was placed over his mouth, while a man’s low, firm voice said:
“Keep quite still! I shall do you no harm. My name is Harker and I’m a police officer!”
CHAPTER XXIX
IN WHICH THE TABLES ARE TURNED MORE THAN ONCE
INMAN parted company with the policeman at Tom Morton’s door; but his business with the man was concluded in five minutes and he then took a direction which would probably have astonished the constable, for instead of returning to Mawm by the high road, he went down to the river, and following its course upstream to the point where the Gordale beck joined it, made a bee-line for the ravine.