“Well, I’m not very sure—I don’t know this part of the country—but I should think about fifteen miles. You might manage to send a telegram to Miss Parrett,—in fact, I wouldn’t mind walking there myself, but of course I must stick by the car.”
“See!” she exclaimed, “there are chimneys in the hollow—red chimneys—among those trees.” And she was right.
As they descended the hill, in a cosy nook at the foot they discovered, hiding itself after the manner of old houses, an ancient dwelling with imposing chimney-stacks, and immense black out-buildings. Here Miss Susan volubly told her story to a respectable elderly woman, who, judging by her pail and hands, had evidently just been feeding the calves.
“I don’t know as how I can help you much,” she said; “this is Lord Lambourne’s property as you’ve got into somehow. Whatever brought you down off the high road, ma’am?”
“We were told to come this way by a boy on a bicycle. We asked him to direct us to a forge.”
“The young limb was just a-making game of you, he was! There ain’t a forge nearer than five miles, and my master took the horses in there this afternoon; he’s not back yet.”
“I suppose,” said Miss Susan, “that you have no way of sending me in to Ottinge—no cart or pony you could hire me?”
“I’m afraid not, ma’am. Where be Ottinge?”
Here was ignorance, or was it envy?
“Then I don’t know what I’m to do,” said Miss Susan helplessly. “My sister will be terribly anxious, and I’m sure the motor won’t be fit to travel for quite a long time. What do you think, Owen?”