The Parson drew a chair to the window, lit his pipe, and pulled out his pocket-Bible to choose a text for his next day's sermon. But he couldn't fix his thoughts. Try how he would, they kept harking back to his travels in the post-chaise, and his wife's story, and those unaccountable flags and splashes of whitewash. His pipe went out, and he was getting up to find a light for it, when just at that moment the garden-gate rattled, and, looking down the path towards the sound, his eyes fell on a square-cut, fierce-looking man in blue, standing there with a dirty bag in one hand and a sheaf of tools over his right shoulder.
The man caught sight of the Parson at the window, and set down his tools inside the gate—shovel and pick and biddicks.
"Good-mornin'! I may come inside, I suppose?" says he, in a gruff tone of voice. He came up the path and the Parson unlatched the window, which was one of the long sort reaching down to the ground.
"My name's Bligh," said the visitor, gruff as before. "You're the Parson, eh? Bit of an antiquarian, I'm given to understand? These things ought to be in your line, then, and I hope they are not broken: I carried them as careful as I could." He opened the bag and emptied it out upon the table—an old earthenware pot, a rusted iron ring, four or five burnt bones, and a handful or so of ashes. "Human, you see," said he, picking up one of the bones and holding it under the Parson's nose. "One of your ancient Romans, no doubt."
"Ancient Romans? Ancient Romans?" stammered Parson Polwhele. "Pray, Sir, where did you get these—these articles?"
"By digging for them, Sir; in a mound just outside that old Roman camp of yours."
"Roman camp? There's no Roman camp within thirty miles of us as the crow flies: and I doubt if there's one within fifty!"
"Shows how much you know about it. That's what I complain about in you parsons: never glimpse a thing that's under your noses. Now, I come along, making no pretence to be an antiquarian, and the first thing I see out on your headland yonder, is a Roman camp, with a great mound beside it——"
"No such thing, Sir!" the Parson couldn't help interrupting.
Bligh stared at him for a moment, like a man hurt in his feelings but keeping hold on his Christian compassion. "Look here," he said; "you mayn't know it, but I'm a bad man to contradict. This here Roman camp, as I was sayin'——"