Some days disappeared after Boddily’s departure without news from him. There came a letter to say he had explored the neighbourhoods of the Bullockshed, Tenterhook, Sheepshank, and Swagsides estates, where game abounded, and where Scammel was known to haunt; but he had disappeared from those places for some time. There was no trace of him. A week more, and Tom had been through Elvaston and Shipley woods, and on into the neighbourhood of the preserves of the Dukes of Devonshire and Rutland, on the borders of the Peak of Derbyshire, and no news of him of late. Then another like interval, and Tom had explored the vicinities of the Lords Vernon, Bagot, Anson, and Gower, in Staffordshire, and still no news. Then he was bending his course towards Leicestershire. Amongst poachers, where Scammel was a great leader but a few years ago, he was now missed, and many thought him dead; but Boddily found nowhere any news of his death. In the lodging-houses of tramps, who came across all sorts of people accustomed to ply their daily or nocturnal arts amongst the farms and villages, no news. Tom was puzzled, but not disheartened. The man, he felt, had stepped out of his ordinary haunts for concealment. No such persons as the Shalcrosses were, or had been, seen for a good while in all the regions of trampdom. Wherever they lay perdu, they were, he felt sure, together. During the time that Boddily was absent, Nathan Hopcraft had evidently grown more uneasy, and had gone over to Fair Manor one Sunday to inquire for him. Sylvanus Crook told him Thomas Boddily was away about his master’s business. He would tell him when he came back that he, Nathan Hopcraft, had inquired after him. But as Sylvanus was in the secret of Tom’s absence, to allay Nathan’s fears he went on to the house, and brought him out a large piece of cold roast-beef, wrapped in a newspaper, to take home with him—a most savoury offering to Hopcraft’s gigantic appetite.