"I'll show you," said Birdwood. "I'll come round and put you in the way of managing him. Work? I reckon that boy would work any other mortal in Wychford to the bone. Work? Well, he can't hear nothing, and he can't say nothing, so what else can he do? And he does it. Good afternoon, Mr. Hazlenut."
And Birdwood retired, whistling very shrilly as he went down the path to the gate.
Two nights later Guy, with lighted lantern in his hand, set out to the Rectory. He did not venture to go by the orchard and the fields and so, crossing the narrow bridge over the stream, enter by way of the garden. Such an approach seemed too familiar for the present stage of his friendship, and he took the more formal route through an alley of medieval cottages that branched off Wychford High Street. Mysterious lattices blinked at him, and presently he felt the wind coming fresh in his face as he skirted the churchyard. The road continued past the back of a long row of almshouses, and when he saw the pillared gate of the Rectory drive, over which high trees were moaning darkly, Guy wondered if he were going to a large dinner-party. No word had been said of any one else's coming, but with Mrs. Grey's vagueness that portended nothing. He hoped that he would be the only guest, and, swinging his lantern with a pleased expectancy, he passed down the drive. Suddenly a figure materialized from the illumination he was casting and hailed him with a questioning "hullo?"
"Hullo," Guy responded.
"Oh, beg your pardon," exclaimed the other. "I thought it was Willsher."
"My name's Hazlewood," said Guy, a little stiffly.
"Mine's Brydone. We may as well hop in together."
Guy rather resented the implication of this birdlike intrusion in company with the doctor's son, a lanky youth whom he had often noticed slouching about Wychford in a cap ostensibly alive with artificial flies. Apparently Willsher must also be expected, against whom Guy had already conceived a violent prejudice dating from the time he called at his father's office to sign the agreement for the tenancy of Plashers Mead. It was of ill augury that the Greys should apparently be supposing that he would make a trio with Brydone and Willsher.
"Brought a lantern, eh?" said Brydone.
"Yes, this is a lantern," Guy answered, coldly.