Shady assured her that Dr. Cruden was with Sir Valary, and would remain till his return, for he wished to see Miss De la Mark, and had sent him in pursuit of her.
'Then,' said Marjory, 'Mr. Higgs, there is a stranger in the wood; he is drawing on my favourite seat—drawing the place, you see; and I wish—I should like you—to—just to say—if he would wish to draw any of the interior you can lead him through it.'
Shady stared. 'I invite a stranger to the Dew, madam!' he said slowly.
'No, no,' said Marjory emphatically; 'of course ha will not be intruded on my father nor on me; he greatly admires the place, and it seems unkind not to allow him to enjoy the pleasure fully. It is little we do in hospitality, Mr. Higgs; we may at least show this poor favour to strangers; and this is no ordinary person, but a man of birth and high taste, as you will see, I am sure.' An appeal on the score of hospitality could not be made to a more ready ear than that of Shadrach Higgs. How had he mourned in time past over the silent halls and untrodden doorways of Parker's Dew, when his large heart would have welcomed the whole world! But time and use had reconciled him to all; and now to introduce a visitor seemed as strange a work to him as it had once been to exclude one.
While he was gathering up his thoughts to make a suitable, respectful protest against the imprudence of doing what, if Sir Valary heard of it, might give him umbrage, Marjory had vanished. Shady looked after her disconsolately. Not having been able to resign his commission, he felt it imperative on him to fulfil it, and with troublous cogitations on the matter, and earnest hopes that the stranger would not fall in with the invitation, he scrambled on towards the place. While he was engaged in his contest with the bushes, he thought only of how best to escape them; but when he stood in the presence of the stranger, whom he immediately recognised, a feeling of vexation that he should appear in a style so inconsistent with the dignity of De la Mark mingled with it.
On seeing him, the stranger, who seemed to have been of Marjory's mind, and had thrown aside his sketch as unsuccessful, accosted him as an old friend. 'What! the librarian! I am fortunate indeed! Are you seeking your lady? She was here, but left a little ago.'
Shady, in as collected and proper a form as he could get up for the occasion, told him that he had met his young lady, and delivered her invitation.
The stranger started up at once. 'We will lose no time, Mr. Higgs; nothing would give me greater delight;' and immediately he began, in a manner which Shady well remembered, a series of questions as to every part of the dwelling, the order in which it was kept, and so on. While he endeavoured to answer these becomingly, an under-current of thought occupied Shady. Various schemes he devised and rejected for keeping the stranger out of sight and hearing of any of the household, without allowing him to discover that he was there by stealth. Under other circumstances he could have discoursed with delight on the wonders and glories of Parker's Dew—to him an untiring subject. Then again, the incongruities of ancient grandeur and present meanness forced themselves upon him, and an uneasy consciousness arose, of the effect they would have in diminishing the stranger's reverence for the noble house in whose honour his heart was bound up.
'Why, it is in ruins!' exclaimed the stranger, coming abruptly on one side of the quadrangle.
'That portion is,' said Shady; 'the exact reason I cannot tell, but there is a tradition'—