him to so retired a spot as Market Drayton? He could have no friends in
the neighborhood, or he would surely not have chosen for his lodging a
place of ill repute like the Four Alls. Yet he had seemed to have some
acquaintance with Grinsell the innkeeper. He did not answer to Desmond's
idea of an adventurer. He was not rough of tongue or boisterous in
manner; his accent, indeed, was refined; his speech somewhat studied,
and, to judge by his allusions and his Latin, he had some share of polite
learning. Desmond was puzzled to fit these apparent incongruities, and
looked forward with interest to further meetings with Marmaduke Diggle.

During the next few days they met more than once. It was always late in
the evening, always in quiet places, and Diggle was always alone.
Apparently he desired to make no acquaintances. The gossips of the
neighborhood seized upon the presence of a stranger at the Four Alls, but
they caught the barest glimpses of him; Grinsell was as a stone wall in
unresponsiveness to their inquiries; and the black boy, if perchance a
countryman met him on the road and questioned him, shook his head and
made meaningless noises in his throat, and the countryman would assure
his cronies that the boy was as dumb as a platter.

But whenever Desmond encountered the stranger, strolling by himself in
the fields or some quiet lane, Diggle always seemed pleased to see him,
and talked to him with the same ease and freedom, ever ready with a tag
from his school books. Desmond did not like his Latin, but he found
compensation in the traveler's tales of which Diggle had an inexhaustible
store--tales of shipwreck and mutiny, of wild animals and wild men, of
Dutch traders and Portuguese adventurers, of Indian nawabs and French
bucaneers. Above all was Desmond interested in stories of India: he heard
of the immense wealth of the Indian princes, the rivalries of the
English, French, and Dutch trading companies; the keen struggle between
France and England for the preponderating influence with the natives.
Desmond was eager to hear of Clive's doings; but he found Diggle, for an
Englishman who had been in India, strangely ignorant of Clive's career;
he seemed impatient of Clive's name, and was always more ready to talk of
his French rivals, Dupleix and Bussy. The boy was impressed by the
mystery, the color, the romance of the East; and after these talks with
Diggle he went home with his mind afire, and dreamed of eleph