At length, as the gloom was deepening with the dusk, Dick descried, some distance to his left, two figures moving slowly along, one towards him on the high road, the other away from him, crossing a ploughed field towards a footpath that led from the road, some distance behind, across the moor. The sky was so lowering that Dick could not at first, even through his glass, identify the men. The receding figure dwindled, and was by-and-by lost to sight; the advancing one increased, and became recognisable by its crookedness as that of Pennycomequick, the cobbler. But he bore no bundle of leather. He passed the Towers in the direction of the village, and soon he too had vanished. Dick could not doubt that the other man was the farmer, Jimmy Nancarrow. The path into which he had struck led to his farm. Where had they come from? Not far along the high road, otherwise the farmer would have left it when he reached the path, and have gone the easiest and shortest way home; unless, indeed, he had remained with the cobbler for company’s sake. Dick smiled at this thought. Pennycomequick was the most crabbed and crossgrained man in the village; whereas Nancarrow was a hearty, jovial fellow, not the kind of man to walk an extra half-mile and tramp over a ploughed field for the pleasure of the cobbler’s society. It seemed more probable that the men had come to the road together from some adjacent spot, and that the farmer had left it at once. Cold and hungry after his hour of watching, Dick was about to descend into the house when he caught sight of Tonkin’s lugger beating up from northward against the south-west wind, and evidently making for the harbour. He gazed at her through his glass. Tonkin and three other men were aboard her. A large fishing-net was heaped on the deck. It was a strange coincidence that these movements on sea and land should have been contemporaneous. Dick went down the stairs to the living-room, then vacant, lay down in front of the fire, and ruminated on what he had seen, until the warmth sent him to sleep. When he awoke, his father was in the room. Dick considered whether he should speak about the clues which he believed he had discovered, and decided that, since nothing was as yet certain, he would keep silence until he had carried his investigation further. To search for the tracks of the two men, or to follow them up if found, would be impossible that evening; but this was to be his task as soon as there was clear daylight on the morrow. "Mr. Mildmay is going to the randy at the Dower House to-morrow, I hear," said the Squire. "Is he, sir?" replied Dick, surprised. "Yes; I heard it from Mr. Polwhele, who is going too." "Mr. Mildmay is almost a stranger, and ’tis rather a dull life for him between whiles; but Mr. Polwhele knew John Trevanion years ago, did he not, sir?"