About eight o’clock that same evening, while Tonkin was still conversing with his intimates in the parlour of the Five Pilchards, a horseman rode up to the house occupied by Mr. Polwhele on the south cliff. His seat was not that of an accomplished equestrian, and his manner of dismounting would have given some anxiety to anyone who had a regard for him. The long cloak he wore, with the collar turned up almost to the eyes, incommoded his legs, and only by clutching at his patient steed’s mane did he avoid a fall. The house stood alone, and its solitary situation was a source of satisfaction to the traveller. A light within, and a full moon without, gave him a reasonable assurance that the riding-officer was at home. Accordingly he hitched the bridle to a hook placed for that purpose in the wall beside the door, and knocked. Mr. Polwhele was a bachelor, and it happened that the woman who was housekeeper, cook, and housemaid in one, had gone into the village, so that he opened the door himself. "Well?" he said, peering at the close-wrapped figure that stood on the threshold. "’Tis I, Maister Polwhele," said the man, at the same time turning down his collar. "Doubledick!" exclaimed the astonished officer. "Well, of all the——! You’d be safer in France, my man." "Iss, maybe; but I be come home, and I’d like a word with ’ee, Maister." "Well, there’s no warrant out for your arrest, so I suppose you——; yes, come in. I don’t understand this at all." Doubledick followed the riding-officer into the room where he had been reading. He carefully shut the door behind him, offered Mr. Polwhele a pinch of snuff, and took one himself, then sat down rather stiffly. Half an hour later he emerged from the house, remounted his horse, and rode away, not northward in the direction of his home, but eastward along a bridle path across the moor. In a quarter of an hour, however, he turned to the left, skirted the village, passing about midway between it and the church, and continued for some time in the same direction. Then once more he struck to the left and came by-and-by to the high-road, at a point between the Towers and the Dower House. He turned into the drive leading to the latter, but instead of reining up at the front entrance, he passed round the house to the back, and having again awkwardly dismounted, he rapped on the kitchen door. "Oh, ’tis you, Maister Doubledick," said Susan, when she opened to him. "Folks said you’d gone away." "So I had, my dear; but I be back-along, as you can see wi’ yer pretty eyes. Now tell me, be the Maister to home?" "Yes, he be in his room, rayther poorly." "And be he alone?" "Yes, but ’tis not for long, folks say. We’ll have a mistress afore long, and i hope she be likeable, that I do." "Well, now, that’s new news, to be sure. And who be the woman?" "She bean’t ’zackly a woman. ’Tis Sir Bevil’s darter, seemingly, and she be a maid younger nor I, they say."