“What's old Hobson got out of it?” said Mr. Spike in my ear. “Nothin' but an old stone barn, where he can set all day nursin' a grouch and keepin' his daughter Anita—they do say he does—under lock and key for fear somebody's goin' to marry her for her money.”
Mr. Spike looked up at the ramparts defiantly, even as the Saxon churl must have gazed in an earlier, far sadder land.
“It's romantic,” I suggested.
“Yes, darn rheumatic,” agreed Mr. Spike.
“Is it open for visitors?” I asked innocently.
“Hobson?” cackled Spike. “He'd no more welcome a stranger to that place than he'd welcome—a ghost. He's a hol-ee terror, Hobson!”
Mr. Spike turned away to referee a pool game down in the barroom.
The fires of a December sunset flared behind Gauntmoor and cast the grim shadows of Medievalism over Mediocrity, which lay below. Presently the light faded, and I grew tired of gazing. Since Hobson would permit no tourists to inspect his castle, why was I here on this foolish trip? Already I was planning to wire Aunt Elizabeth a sarcastic reference to being marooned at Christmas with a castle on my hands, when a voice at my shoulder said suddenly:
“Mr. Hobson sends his compliments, sir, and wants to know would Mr. Pierrepont come up to Gauntmoor for the night?”