“No; not to-night, thank you, Grange.  I have got to fill in this sketch a bit that I took this morning.”

“Then, good-night, Sir, for I sha’n’t return before daylight.”

But it was not till long after the keeper had taken his departure that Richard Yorke turned hand or eye to his unfinished drawing.  He sat staring straight before him with steadfast eyes and thoughtful face, for hours, murmuring to himself disjointed sentences; and ever and anon he started up and paced the little room with rapid strides.  “He shall see me, and know me, too,” muttered he, at last, between his clenched teeth, “though it should cost one of us our lives.  She shall not say I came down to this wilderness, like some hunted beast to covert, for nothing.”

CHAPTER III.

THE NIGHT-WATCH.

It was an easy thing enough, as Walter Grange had said, to make acquaintance with Carew of Crompton, and possible even to become his bosom friend at a short notice, for his friendships, all made in wine, at play, or in the hunting-field, were soon cemented; but then, if the introduction was effected in an unpropitious time or manner, it was like enough to end in affront or downright insult.  A gulf might be fixed just where you wanted a causeway, and of this—­though he had feigned to inquire about it so innocently of the honest park-keeper—­Richard Yorke was well aware.  He had, as has been hinted, come down to Crompton with the express view of throwing himself in the way of its eccentric master, and to do so opportunely, and he was content to bide his time.  Thus, though the autumn had far advanced, and the time had come for men of his craft to hasten from the dropping, dripping woods, no longer fair, to hive at home their sweet memorials of the summer time, Richard remained at Crompton, not willingly, indeed, nor even patiently, but with that sort of dogged resolve which is engendered, even in a restless spirit, by long watching.  He had stopped so long that he would not now give up his watch; the fortress, indeed, showed no more sign of breach than when he first sat down before it; but still he would not raise the siege.  This persistency excited no surprise in his house companion; Walter Grange was no gossip, nor curious about other men’s affairs; it was easy, even for him, to see that his tenant had a proud stomach, and he had set down his talk about desiring an introduction to Carew as merely another phrase for wishing for a good chance of disposing of his wares to best advantage in that market to which so many of such various callings thronged.  He did not think, as he had honestly confessed, that there was much chance of the Squire becoming a patron of the fine arts, but he wished the young fellow luck, and was glad, for more than one reason, that he staid on.

It was at least three months after his young lodger’s arrival that Walter burst into his sitting-room one afternoon, without his usual knock at the door, with the great news that he had just had word, by a safe hand, that a gang of poachers would be in the Home Park that very night, and that all the staff of keepers would be out in waiting for them.