But he was still young enough to have a spice of bashfulness about him, and he did not want to seem too pushing or forward.

Again, it seemed to him that the anonymous letter conveyed, in some subtle fashion, a hint that it was to be regarded as sacred and secret, and Copplestone had a strong sense of honour.

He knew that Mrs.Wooler was femininely curious to hear all about that letter, but he took care not to mention it to her.

Instead he quietly consulted an ordnance map of the district which hung framed and glazed in the hall of the inn, and discovering that Hobkin's Hole was marked on it as being something or other a mile or two out of Scarhaven on the inland side, he set out in its direction next morning after breakfast, without a word to anyone as to where he was going.

And that he might not be entirely defenceless he carried Peter Chatfield's oaken staff with him--that would certainly serve to crack any ordinary skull, if need arose for measure of defence.
The road which Copplestone followed out of the village soon turned off into the heart of the moorlands that lay, rising and falling in irregular undulations, between the sea and the hills.