He found his pipe and a tobacco pouch, but his match box was absent. He hunted in the corners and crevices of his pockets for a match, but unsuccessfully, and he was about to give up the idea of a smoke, when he came upon the school and school-house. He stopped and looked at it absently; he had been so absorbed in gloomy reverie as he passed it on his way from White Place that he had not noticed it.
He stood by the little white gate in the close-cut hedge for a moment or two to see if any one was about of whom he could ask a light; then, as no one appeared, he pushed open the gate, walked up the narrow, weedless path, and knocked at the door.
A neat, a remarkably neat, little handmaid answered the knock, and in severe accents said:
"Round to the back-door, my man."
Yorke had his coat collar turned up, and his short pipe in his mouth, and the little maid had taken him for a tramp or a pedlar.
He smiled, and entering into the humor of the thing, obediently, not to say humbly, went round the house and presented himself at the back-door.
"Well, what is it?" asked the girl.
"Oh, I only want a light for my pipe," said Yorke. "Will you be good enough to give me one?"
She saw her mistake in a moment, and grew crimson.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, but we have so many tra—er—so many strange kind of people come knocking."