"I don’t think that, for ’tis whispered that the folks here do not deal with him any longer. I can’t think ’tis he, but I will run up my signal to warn Mr. Mildmay, if he can see it through the mist. Thank ’ee for the news. Perhaps you will tell Penwarden, and ask him to keep an eye lifting." Dick promised to do so, and returned home. Shortly before twelve, the time when Penwarden was usually moving about again, Dick walked up to the cottage to inform him of the strange vessel. He knocked at the door, but there was no answer. Thinking that the old man was lying later than usual after a tiring night’s duty, Dick felt loth to rouse him, and resolved to wait a while, walking up and down before the cottage, beating himself for warmth’s sake. Now and then he stopped to listen at the door, but there was no sound from within, nor indeed without, except the booming of the surf, the whistle of the wind impinging on the cliff edge, and the screams of gulls which had not yet flown inland to seek their winter sustenance in the neighbourhood of farms. The mist cleared off, and not a sign of the vessel was to be seen on the horizon. "Old Gammer Oliver is late, too," thought Dick. "Perhaps Joe told her not to come at her usual time." He took a book from his pocket, and read it, still walking up and down. But he soon tired of this; the hour for the midday meal at the Towers was drawing on; and he would have returned but for his promise to Mr. Polwhele. "I ought to have hammered hard on the door at once," he said to himself. "Tired as he must be, he would not mind being disturbed in this case." He shut up his book, slipped it into his pocket, and strode briskly towards the cottage, about thirty paces distant. No smoke was rising from the chimney; nothing was audible but the wind rustling the leaves of a laurel bush, and causing the bare tendrils of last year’s creeper to scratch against the wall. The sudden scream of a gull wheeling its flight above the roof made Dick start and look round uneasily. There was nothing living, on four feet or on two, in sight. He came to the door, and, hesitating no longer, rapped smartly upon it. Neither voice nor movement answered him. Again he knocked, with greater energy, calling the old man by name. The perfect silence when his knuckles ceased their tattoo alarmed him. Joe always locked the door when he left the cottage by day, and locked and bolted it when he retired at night. Still, it was a natural act to turn the handle, and Dick, when he did so, almost laughed, for the door opened, revealing the dark little passage, on one side of which was the bedroom, on the other the kitchen and sitting-room in one. Of course, the old fellow had gone out.