“He’s queerer than the Captain or Johann too,” thought Billy, and with some reason. The man who approached was as unusual as were the old sailor and Johann Happs, with one variation. Those two, one liked at once; this person it was impossible not to detest the moment one laid eyes upon him.
He was small and pinched-looking, with greyish sandy hair and a sallow face. His eyes were light-coloured and shifty, seeming to have a rooted objection to looking straight at any one. He wore white shoes that were very shabby and checked clothes of a cut that was meant to be extremely fashionable—and was not. His straw hat was put on at a jaunty, youthful angle, but, when he took it off to greet Sally with a flourish, he betrayed the fact that he was growing bald and a little wrinkled.
“Very pretty woods you have here, very pretty,” he observed, holding out a hand which obstinate Miss Sally pretended not to notice.
“They aren’t our woods; they are Captain Saulsby’s,” she replied ungraciously. “His land begins back there.”
“Ah, very true, Miss Shute,” the man went on. “He’s rather a queer one, our friend the Captain, now isn’t he? He hardly seems to remember the place is his, I think. Doesn’t come here very often and look after his boundary fences and all that, does he?”
Even Billy could see that the man’s eagerness betrayed him and that he asked the last question a shade too anxiously. Sally observed it as plain as day and had no hesitation about saying so.
“If you want to find out all that so much, you had better ask Captain Saulsby himself,” she told him emphatically. “I really think he knows best about his own affairs.”
“You are right,” the other agreed instantly, “and I will ask him. But you see,”—here he dropped his voice to a very confidential tone—“the old Captain is a hard man to do business with, very hard. I am trying to buy this land of him, not for myself, you understand, but for a friend, a man who is a stranger in these parts, and immensely wealthy. He has taken a fancy to Appledore Island and wants to build a summer home here, and an elegant place it is to be; he has actually shown me the plans. It seems he has set his heart on buying the mill-creek property from the Captain, but, dear, dear, what an obstinate creature the old fellow is! We have offered him a good price and of course he is only holding out for more money; but he has tried my patience almost to its end. I am wondering if he has a clear title to all these acres he owns. You never heard your father say anything to that effect, did you, my dear?”
He bent forward and his hard little eyes fairly glittered as he put the question. Sally, however, as a source of information, was quite as disappointing as Captain Saulsby.
“Harvey Jarreth,” she announced firmly, “you are always going round asking questions about other people’s business, but I, for one, won’t answer them. And my father won’t either, and besides, he’s not at home.”